Don’t give up.
Nock another pointer, shoot again—an archer cries out in pain. A leg shot. Another well placed pointer could finish him off.
’Fore I can shoot again, however, Skye is there, swinging her blade like a scythe, cutting down the surprised archers ’fore they have a chance to run. In training she’s magnificent, full of speed and grace while kicking the blaze out of someone. She’s every bit as magnificent now, but her every move is surrounded by darkness and violence, soaked in blood and anguished cries. ’Fore any of the archers have a chance to throw down their bows and draw the blades at their belts, they’re all dead.
There’re as many Wilde warriors as Hunters in the Canyon now, fighting hand to hand. An ill-aimed pointer could kill our own, so we lay down our bows, watch the action, safely removed from the carnage. Although we’re winning, it’s not without significant loss. I cringe as a well-muscled Hunter gut-slashes a Wilde, discarding her in a bloody heap.
Something snaps in me, like ’fore. Like when the Killers attacked the Hunters. Like when the Glassies attacked the village. A force beyond my own takes over, draws my knife, pushes me outta the cave. “Where are you going?” the lead archer shouts.
I shrug and climb down, my knife clamped firmly between my teeth.
~~~
The world swarms, red and black and beyond real. From up above, away from it all, shooting a pointer, trying to kill, felt so easy, a simple act of releasing the tension in a bowstring. Down here, in the thick, to take a life is to lose your soul.
And yet Skye seems to relish it, slashing, hacking, taking a skin-splitting, blood-spilling Hunter’s blade across her arm, growling like an animal, half-laughing as if she enjoys the pain, stabbing back, killing another.
Two warriors are struck down by a fearfully large Hunter. I hafta help them ’fore the Hunters finish them off. Moved by the surge of hot blood in my veins, I charge the brute, jam my knife into his back, so close to the dead I can taste it on my tongue. Blood spills over my hand and arm, but he doesn’t go down, doesn’t die like he’s s’posed to. He whirls on me, nearly wrenching my shoulder out of its socket as I hang onto the knife, which is still stuck in his back. Bucking like a cornered tug bull, he wrangles me off, slings me to the ground. Stomps on my chest with a sledgehammer boot. Every last bit of air is expelled from my lungs as stars flash across my vision. His blade glints as it catches the shimmering glow of the fire. A drop of sweat drips from his chin onto my cheek.
This is what I deserve for bringing this scorch upon the Wildes. This is why the unseen force moved me to leave the safety of the cave. To die. To die for my mistakes. His blade flashes down.
The ring of metal on metal shrills in my ear as another blade crosses the Hunter’s. Surprised, he’s thrown back. Skye stands over me.
“It’s burnin’ over,” she growls. “Retreat while you have the chance.”
Through her legs I see the ogre-like Hunter scan the area ’round him, and then, sensing the truth of Sky’s words, he lowers his head and runs.
I gasp, suck at the air, come up empty. Fire licks at my chest, splinters of glass pierce my skin. Not really, but that’s how it feels.
“Breathe, Sie,” Skye says, kneeling over me. I close my eyes, disappear to a place where Hunters and Wildes don’t exist.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Twenty-six dead Wildes. We dig holes and bury them instead of lighting them on fire, ignoring yet another Heater tradition. Their blood’s on my hands. Brione says it’s an honest mistake, but I think she only says that outta respect for Skye. Wilde says my father is the only one to blame, and I can tell that she means it. But I know she’s wrong. Crya glares at me every time she sees me. She don’t say anything, just stares, which feels worse.
No one else knows it was me that brought this on us. ’Cept Lye, and she’s gone away again to spy, so that we’re ready for when they come back. Which they will. My father doesn’t like to lose. And next time it’ll be with lots more Hunters, maybe all of them, and they won’t be so easily trapped. They’ll be ready.
Yeah, my father got away. Skye said he saw her but she’s not sure if he recognized her. By the time I scampered into the middle of things he’d already disappeared, the first to retreat when things went sour. Typical.
Hawk wasn’t among the dead Hunters either, so I guess he slipped away too. I’m glad for it. If his life was good enough for Circ to save, then there must be something in him worth keeping ’round.
We buried the dead Hunters. Among the lot of us, we were able to identify most of the dead. Skye says she killed eight of them, more’n anyone else by double. The few that were injured we bandaged up and sent packing into the desert. They get to live if they can make it back to the tribe.
There’s talk of moving our camp now that the Heaters know where it is, but no one has any ideas as to where. It’s unlikely we’ll find another spot as perfect. In the end, it’s Wilde’s decision, so things sorta go back to normal while we wait for her to tell us what to do. We train every day, cultivate the prickler fields, eat, sleep. But no one’s heart is in it. Everyone lost a friend, a sister.
Lara survived, although, to her joy, she received several nasty-looking wounds that’ll most certainly leave “beautifully jagged scars,” as she says.
Char died, as did two of t’others from my Call. I still cry every night for them. I should be the one in the ground, not them. They deserved better.
The only thing that keeps me going is knowing my father’ll be back. I don’t care if he brings a hundred, or even a thousand, Hunters. I’ll get to him one way or another, kill him with the knife my mother gave me. Avenge all the lives he’s so ruthlessly taken.
He coulda saved my mother’s life.
That statement alone keeps me going.
For the first coupla quarter full moons, everyone’s kinda jittery, as if the Heaters might show up at any time, even though we all know the scouts’ll let us know in advance. But things settle down as soon as Wilde makes the announcement that we’re not leaving. Leaving now would mean abandoning much of the food we’ve been growing all spring. And doing so just ’fore the fiery heat of the summer sun burns everything away’ll mean our certain death anyway. So, no, we’ll not flee. We’ll stand, fight, defend what’s ours.
Her decision suits me just fine.
Another half a full moon passes without word from any of the scouts. The pricklers are full grown. The fields of scrubgrass are thick and high. I train harder’n ever in the mornings, and help to harvest the food in the afternoons. My body is lean and dark and sprouting muscles in places I never knew I had. I’m still the skinniest Wilde, but not by much anymore.
I’m strong. I’m determined. Like Skye, I’ve changed.
~~~
The first scout appears just as summer does. You can always tell when spring moves to summer ’cause the rains stop. We finished the harvest just in time, too, ’fore the sun goddess’s eye could take everything as recompense for the gift of life.
The scout’s not Lye, but she looks like her. Small, dark-eyed, and weary. She goes straight into the leaders’ tent. This time they don’t request my presence. My sister does, however, go with them. She seems to be included in everything, as if she’s an unofficial leader.
I wanna stay close, to wait for Skye to come out so I can ask her what’s going on, but Lara pulls me away for training. We’re back in the same group now, ’cause it’s conditioning and agility. Running, jumping, that sorta thing. Although I’m ahead of most of t’others in speed, I’m behind in coordination thanks to my two left feet.
My body is fully engaged in running through the boulder slalom course they’ve set up for us, but my mind is elsewhere, back at the leaders’ tent, trying to figure out what the scorch is going on. What’s the scout found out? If it was another Heater attack, wouldn’t it’ve been Lye returning to deliver the news? Where has this road-weary scout been spying?