Although I hit Abe with everything I had and my hand is stinging, he’s pulling himself to his feet, massaging his jaw, one eye closed and the other one all bugged out and angry as chill.
“I’ll leave,” I say. “I’ll find another way to pay the Hole back.” Even as I say it I wish there was another way, wish I could take back those two punches thrown only out of frustration and anger and sorrow about my sister. Not because Abe called me Daisy, a stupid lowbrow insult. That was just removing the lid covering what’s been boiling up in me for days.
Abe laughs again and it sounds slightly maniacal. Okay, a lot maniacal, which I suspect is the only way a laugh can sound when it comes right after taking a haymaker uppercut to the jaw.
“That’s not the way things work around here,” he laughs. He cracks his jaw, sighing, like it was out of place and is now as good as new. “You’ll take your punishment and then we’ll get on with the job. Other than that, your only other option is a shallow grave.”
I’ll pass, thanks. “Whatever,” I say, secretly thankful for whatever’s coming. Whatever it is, it’ll be better than losing the best—and only—job I’ve ever had.
Brock moves forward, his arms out like I might bite him. “I gotta ’old you,” he explains. I don’t want crazy-eyes holding me, but I don’t have much of a choice, do I? So I relax and let him pull my arms behind my back, clamping them tight so I can’t defend myself.
“Now wait just one minute,” Buff says, struggling against Tower’s iron grip.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I earned this one.”
Abe saunters up, cracking his knuckles, impressing me further at how well he took my best punch. He’s not a big guy, but not small either, and clearly there’s a toughness in him that’s beyond flesh and bone.
I lick my lips, waiting for the first blow to come.
When it does it’s like a wooden plank to the gut, taking every last bit of breath out of me. But that’s not the end of it. Oh nay, not by a mile. While I wheeze and try to get my breath back, Abe lays into me like an avalanche, pummeling my stomach, chest, and finally my face. No stranger to a good beating, I take every punch with dignity, never crying out, but wishing that each shot will be the last. There’s blood running down my lips and I can feel things swelling all over, but still he continues the barrage.
The only strange thing about it alclass="underline" Abe seems to start taking a little bit off his punches near the end. It’s not like him—at least not like I’d expect. I’d expect him to beat on me full force from start to finish.
When he’s finally done, I’m hanging limp from Brock’s hold, all fight sapped out of me. Through watery, puffy eyes, I can see Buff’s red face, his taut muscles, the last remnants of his fight to break free from Hightower to help me. In a weird way, I’m glad he didn’t. I got what I deserved, and now I can hold my head high again.
I spit out a clump of blood. This morning I had black eyes; tomorrow I’ll have black eyes on black eyes on swollen lips.
The price of a temper.
“We’re even,” Abe says, not looking at me, as if he might be trying to convince himself. He glances at the castle guards, who are laughing and watching. “You’ll take a regular load plus the extra cargo.”
~~~
With the moonlight guiding us, we make it down the mountain in record time. Or at least most of us do. Nebo’s five or six minutes back, trying not to kill himself on one of the many dark, protruding boulders that we zigzag around.
Although Abe’s beating left me hurting every place from the waist up, the exercise feels good, and the cold’s left me numb. I’ll pay for it tomorrow, but tonight I’m okay. Even the hefty load I’m carrying didn’t bother me too much. I’ve got three bear skins, four sizeable jugs of melted snow water that are starting to freeze, and the “extra cargo”, which basically looks like some big bags of some kind of herb. I want to ask about it, but at this point a question might get me killed.
My muscles start locking up during the hike to the border, but I bite back my grunts and soldier on, determined to bear it like a man. I don’t know why, but I want Abe’s respect now more than ever.
As the cloudbanks roll away overhead, the brilliant night sky looms above, full of more stars than I even knew existed. It’s like the whole sky is stars. And the moon is a pale globe, bigger than I’ve ever seen it, fuller than full. An owl hoots softly somewhere in the forest, as if asking us our names.
We don’t offer them.
The sound of axes tearing into wood clucks through the forest. There are jackers working this late? I wonder to myself. And this far down the mountain—all the way at the border? It doesn’t make sense. There are trees aplenny around the Districts, and more are constantly being planted. We could never harvest them all. Then who?
Abe sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles. The chopping stops and his whistle is returned. Clearly someone’s expecting us.
We trod on, breaking out from the trees and stepping onto the hard-packed dirt that runs right up to the trees. Further on into the flatlands the landscape is powdery, what the Heaters call sand. I wonder what it’d feel like to walk on it, but I know now’s not the time to find out. We have a job to do.
Out of the tangle of the forest, we walk faster, skirting the edge of our two countries. Ahead of us a group of Heaters emerge from the shadows, lugging axes and picks and shovels. The choppers. Not Icer lumberjacks after all, which makes more sense. But are the Heaters allowed to harvest ice country trees?
Abe doesn’t seem bothered at all, just strides right up, dumps his cargo on the ground in front of them. “It’s all here,” he says. “Extra cargo, too, this time.”
The rest of us catch up and unload everything we’re carrying, save for our sliders. I straighten up, feeling instant relief in my back and bones, hoping there’s no pick up tonight. Hiking back up the mountain will be hard enough without tugmeat strapped to our backs.
With coppery eyes and more black hair than a Yag, a short, barrel-chested man steps forward, hand extended as if ceremonially accepting the trade items. “Thank ye,” he says, his voice scratchier than a gnarled thicket. “Load up, you tugs!” he bellows.
The Heaters behind him move forward and grab the packs and sling them over their backs, staggering under the weight. These men don’t look like the two muscly border guards I saw before. They’re tanned and lean, yah, but their leanness is over the border to skinny. The rags they wear around their midsections are tattered and dirty, like they’ve been wearing them for weeks, maybe months. Scars crisscross their backs, arms, and chests in a pattern that matches the leather, multi-tasseled whip hanging from the bushy-bearded spokesman’s belt.
To me, they look like prisoners.
Chapter Ten
We transfer goods to the fire country prisoners three more times that winter, always at night, always to different locations. The day trips are pretty stock standard, trading ice country goods for fire country goods, but the night trips always include the strange bags of mystery herbs.
“Do you think those herbs are some kind of drug?” I ask Buff as we walk through the Blue District. We’ve given up on the Red District. If someone took my sister there, she’s well hidden, because we’ve scoped out every last shivhole in that shivvy District.
“Can’t be,” Buff says. We’ve talked about the herbs a dozen times, but always end up chasing ourselves in a circle. “The only drug I’ve ever heard of is ice powder. If there was some herb floating around, we’d know about it.”
“Maybe it’s the king’s secret stash,” I say.
“It’s possible,” Buff says. “You mean, kind of like a leader to leader exchange thing.”
“Yah, with the fire country guy—what’s his name?—uh, Roan.” It’s the only explanation I can come up with. Other than that, the herb is just an herb, and why would it require all the night work, secrecy, and smuggling in by Heater prisoners?