Hope of Earth (23 page)

“The pain,” she gasped. “I can’t stand.”

Otzi winced. Sam knew why; things were already very bad for them, and would be worse if she could not walk.

“We must find the injury,” Otzi said, his voice carefully controlled. Sam knew that the man did not want to further alarm his daughter, who already had more than enough misery. But they had to move out. “Where is the pain?”

She considered. “My back. My legs. I don’t know.”

Sam turned his back. “You must check,” he told Otzi.

“Yes.” There was the sound of clothing being moved. “I see nothing.”

“I don’t feel it now,” she said. “Maybe I can get up after all.” But then she cried out with pain. “Oh! I can’t!”

“But there is nothing,” Otzi said.

“There is pain,” she retorted.

“Sam, you have the look of a warrior about you,” Otzi said, carefully not implying that Sam had any affinity with the raiders. “Do you know of internal injuries?”

“Some,” Sam admitted. “But only on men.” He did not turn around. Instead he went to pick up the remnant of the amber necklace; it wouldn’t be good to leave it here for the raiders. He knew Snow wouldn’t take it back, so he tucked it in a pouch.

“Let him look,” Snow said. “There must be something. I have no modesty left.” Even in her distress, she was politely pretending that Sam had never seen her body. He was her ad hoc brother, having only familial interest in her. On occasion, at need, a brother would view a sister’s body, but never speak of it.

But she was unfortunately correct again: the protocols had been savaged, and had become pointless. She had to get moving soon, or the raiders would catch them and kill them all. Sam turned to look at her. She was lying on her stomach now, stretched out.

He kneeled beside her. “I must put my hands on you,” he said cautiously. “I mean no harm.”

“Yes. Touch me.”

He felt her upper legs, which were firm and well fleshed. There was nothing wrong with them. He struggled to maintain a brotherly perspective, but it was impossible. He felt her back and hips through the clothing. They were in good order too. She was a supremely shapely figure of a young woman, and his body responded regardless of his mind. “I find no injury.”

“I’ll turn over,” she said. She started to—then stopped, with another exclamation of pain.

“In the belly, maybe,” Otzi said. He looked nervously down the path toward the village.

Sam put his hands carefully on her and turned her over. She winced but did not cry out again. He felt her abdomen, but it seemed firm, and she expressed no pain. “Unless there is an injury that does not show—”

“Find it!” she said. “Take off my skirt. Find it.” Her voice was rising with incipient hysteria.

Sam looked helplessly at Otzi, but the man only shrugged, glancing again toward the village. So Sam carefully worked her skirt off, laying bare her upper thighs and belly. Her genital region was in order, not betraying its recent violation. There was no apparent injury. He turned her over. Her bottom was well formed arid uninjured. “Maybe when the raider—inside—” he suggested hesitantly.

“No. That hurts, but not the same way. This is farther back. And down my right leg.”

He felt down her back. “Tell me when you feel the pain.” He put gentle pressure on her back and hips, but got no reaction. He pressed her firm buttocks, and all around her right thigh, with no result other than his own quickening, guilty interest. Wona would not let him touch her this way. Actually, Wona seldom let him touch her at all, recently. That kept coming back to him.

“It doesn’t hurt while I’m still,” she said. “And your touch is very gentle.”

“I have sisters,” he said, embarrassed. “They are not tough like men. They are—soft.” Like her. But he had never touched a sister this way. “I find no injury. Your body is—perfect.” He felt an embarrassing flush forming.

“We don’t have time to delay. We must find out what this is,” she said. “I will try again to get up. You watch, and see if you can see where the pain is.”

She tried to turn over, but felt the pain immediately. “It hurts when you move yourself!” Otzi said. He was collecting his scattered equipment. He didn’t have his bow, because he had not expected to hunt, but he did have his knife and axe. “Not when someone else moves you.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I realize that now. It hurts only with my own motion.”

“Ah, then,” Sam said. “I have had that. Once when I fell and banged my back. A bruise—something inside makes it hurt. It is bad for a few days, then it passes, and is as if it never was. When you were thrown on the ground—”

“Yes,” she said. “That must be it. I felt no shock at the time, but I landed hard. So it won’t last.” She was visibly relieved.

Sam helped her turn back onto her back and put her skirt back on, concealing his masculine reaction to the sight of her inner thighs and buttocks as he lifted her legs for her. In everything but the face she was a most compelling woman. That, too, kept coming back to him.

“You can’t walk?” Otzi asked, his hope fading.

“Oh, Father, I would if I could,” she said. “But the pain is so bad—it just shoots through me the moment I try.”

“The raiders—” he said. “I hear them coming. We must go.”

“You must go now,” she agreed. “Leave me here.” She glanced significantly down the path. “But lend me your knife first.” She meant to kill herself before the raiders reached her.

“I can’t do that!”

“I—maybe I can help,” Sam said. “I think I could carry her to that cave we shared. It’s not far. Then she could rest until she can walk, while we forage for her.”

“But you have your own journey to make,” Otzi protested.“And the weather is threatening. You have been delayed too long already. You don’t want to get caught here.”

“I have nothing to take back,” Sam said. “My cloths, and the knives I was to trade for, are in the village. I have no supplies for the journey.” He bent to take hold of Snow.

Otzi nodded. “There are supplies in the cave. Take them, and welcome.”

Sam stood, holding the girl in his arms. “But you will need them yourself!”

“No. I have other business.” He stepped out along the path, going toward the village.

“Father!” Snow protested.

“The raiders are almost here,” Otzi said. “You can’t escape them, carrying her. I will decoy them. Carry her to the cave, and I will see that they never find you.”

“Father!” Snow cried again, despairingly. “You are injured!”

“So I can’t fight them,” Otzi agreed. “Not without my bow. I’ll make a new one. Until then, I’ll lead them astray. They won’t catch me; I know the terrain as they don’t.”

Sam nodded. “Come find us when it is safe.”

“I shall. Now go!”

Without further word, or protest from Snow, Sam started walking up the slope toward the region of the cave.

He heard Otzi hoot. It wasn’t for them; it was for the raiders, whose heavy tread Sam could now hear. There was the sound of running. They had spied Otzi, who had of course shown himself to them. The decoy was being pursued. “He’s walking slow,” Snow murmured. “He was hurt too. Worse than he wants to show.”

“But he can avoid them,” Sam said, hoping it was so.

“Yes. It will just be more difficult.”

Sam carried her at as swift a pace as he could manage without making undue noise. The girl was light in his arms at first, but became heavier as time passed. He could walk at only half the speed he had when unencumbered. When the stress on his arms started to become painful, he knew that caution was better than valor. “I am tiring. I must set you down for a time, to rest.”

“Yes, of course. You are amazingly strong.”

Sam found himself blushing. He squatted, and set her carefully on the ground. He was able to put her against the trunk of a tree so that she could sit up comfortably. Then he turned away, stretching and flexing his arms, getting them limber again. There was no sound from the direction of the village; Otzi must be causing the raiders to save then-breath for the pursuit.

“I must clean your cloth and return it to you,” Snow said. “My nose has stopped.”

“At the cave,” he said.

She smiled, fleetingly. The effort was pitiful, considering her ruined face, but he appreciated it. She was still hurting, physically and mentally, he knew, but she didn’t complain at all.

That was all. When his muscles had recovered, Sam picked her up again and carried her onward. At her suggestion, he detoured enough to splash through a mountain stream. They both drank deeply of its chill water, then he splashed some distance up it, so that the raiders’ dogs would lose any scent.

“The dogs,” he said. “If they send them after your father—”

“He will club them off the mountain,” she said confidently. “He can handle wolves with just his staff; dogs are easier. After they lose a few dogs, they’ll stop.”

The cave turned out to be farther than he had thought. Snow did not weigh a great deal more than his load of cloths had, but she wasn’t balanced on his back, and so distances seemed to be twice what they had been. It was evening by the time they reached it, and he needed Snow’s help to find it, because it was more cunningly hidden than he remembered. That was good, because the raiders had little chance of locating it.

Sam did not dare start a fire, for the smoke would give them away. But the cave was protected from the wind, and he gathered leaves and straw to make a comfortable bed for Snow. He helped her wipe her face again; her nose was swollen and sore, but that was part of the healing process. Then he had to carry her out so she could urinate—another bemusing experience for him, because she needed to be held upright so she would not soil herself. She was surely embarrassed by the procedure, but did not show it. His respect for her nature grew.

Then, as they chewed on the dried meat stored in the cave, they talked in a way they had not in the village. Sam told her of his family, with one sister his age, one Snow’s age, and one younger.

“And what of your wife?” she inquired alertly.

“She is a beautiful woman.”

“Doesn’t it bother her to have you away so long?”

“No.”

She wisely changed the subject. In due course she slept. He made sure she was well covered, then curled up beside her to sleep himself. It had been a most wearing day.

On the following day Snow began to walk, gritting her teeth against the shooting pains, because now she knew there was no actual injury there. Sam held her up so she could not fall, his hands on her waist so she could use her hands to hold a staff to help brace her. That worked reasonably well, though her jerkiness as the pain took her caused her body to shift under his hands embarrassingly. “I’m glad you’re my brother,” she murmured.

When she rested, he traveled to the stream to fetch water for her, and to look for any traces of the enemy. There were none; Otzi was evidently doing an excellent job of leading them astray.

In three days the pains were fading, and Snow declared herself ready to travel. She still winced as she walked, but it was clear that she could handle it. However, they had nowhere to go, because they did not dare approach the village until they were sure the raiders were gone, and they didn’t know where Otzi was. So they waited, eating the last of the meat, and foraging for tubers.

On the fourth evening Snow broached an awkward subject. “You have been kind to me, Sam, and I would repay you in some way, now that the pain is fading.” She lifted the hem of her skirt, “I can cover my face so that my ugliness does not disgust you, and—”

“I’m married,” Sam reminded her quickly.

“Yes, of course. But there would be no need to tell your wife.”

“I made you an oath of brotherhood.”

“And you have more than honored it. I release you from it. It is not as if I have any virtue to preserve.”

“For you, it can be so,” Sam said cautiously. “Only your father and I know what happened, and neither of us would tell. No one need know—”

“I know.”

That ended that aspect. She was firm on that subject. Her bitter honesty might cost her a marriage, but she would not cheat. “Yet I also know I am married,” Sam said.

She nodded. “I thought you would say that. You are true to your wife, though I think she is not true to you. It makes you a good man.”

Sam stared at her. “She—how could you know such a thing?”

She made a bitter laugh. “I know the nature of lovely women, having so longed to be one. She finds you dull. She is a fool.”

Sam did not know what to say. He suspected she was right. But what could he do?

After a time he responded to another aspect. “You are not an ugly woman. Wona is.”

She laughed. “Thank you, Sam. I understand what you mean.”

That made Sam think of something. “I have two daggers. Not as nice as the ones I was to trade for, but good enough. You must take one, until your father conies here. So that if we should be surprised—”

“What have I left to defend?”

This provoked him into a statement he hadn’t intended to make. “Your life! You are still a nice young woman, with a very nice body.”

“Oh, now you are interested in my body?”

“I was always interested in—” He caught himself. “No!