The Land's Whisper (29 page)

With torturous effort, he sliced his pants
away from the wound with Brenol’s short blade and used the cloth to
secure several boughs in place. The splint was far from perfect,
but it made hobbling possible as long as he gripped the make-shift
cane and delicately dragged the limb without encumbering it in the
slightest. A feather’s worth of weight resting upon it sent him
shuddering.

And so he continued, faint with pain and
dizzy with desperation. He could have spit farther than he could
shuffle in three minutes, but he refused to quit, and his mind
coursed with adrenaline and purpose. Whenever his thoughts returned
to the barn and the moments with Fingers, he almost barked at
himself to focus. It was too great a darkness to relive at the
moment.

It took the better part of an hour to locate
the wiry man.

Crayton lay with his head in a shallow pool
of blood and his face the pallor of cream, lifeless and cooling.
Darse gingerly pushed the head to one side with his makeshift cane,
with as few movements as possible, and the death blow became
evident: a gash in the temple. While it had not killed him
immediately, Brenol’s rock had accomplished more than he had
intended. Darse sighed in relief. The dull pocket knife, and his
weak soul, were free for a few more minutes.

He rested, but in those moments, his heart
turned as brittle as a cracker. Somehow the stranger’s death, while
initially being a relief, now clung to him as ruthlessly as a
contagion: his toes were sticky and painted crimson-brown, his
vision was stamped with the skull wound, and his nostrils flared
with sickly onion reek. He faced away to return to the barn and
reeled.

To the mountain of flesh.

Will I regret it?

His mind somehow circled with this
thought—perhaps in order to escape the physical pain—but he knew it
was futile: he must do it. There was no safe haven, no protection,
and therefore no alternative under these immediate circumstances.
Tying the man up would never ensure their escape. Nothing would
stop the lunacy that diseased Fingers.

The monotony of pain and his preoccupied
mind brought him to the barn before he would have expected. His
heart pounded wildly, and his breath suspended in his throat at
what he saw.

Fingers was gone.

~

Brenol awoke and found himself in motion. A
grogginess weighed upon him, but he fought against it, working to
move mind and limbs. He blinked his eyes tightly and then strained
the lids open.

If only I could remember…

It all became too much, and he succumbed
again to sleep.

~

Brenol was jolted again to consciousness.
With newfound clarity and ease of thought, he slowly began to work
over where he was, like a babe who wakes in the night no longer
snuggled tightly in his mother’s arms.

Fingers.

His eyes snapped open and took in wooden
walls. He was inside of the loathed contraption—the cart—and
suddenly ossified in terror. His eyes darted to his dirty pack
beside him and to his leg, which stung with an aching throb where
the barb had buried into flesh.

The pace of the cart was bizarrely slow. It
slid forward a few digits, paused, and then began again. Each roll
brought the wheels singing out in a faint
treeak
. Brenol
quietly drew his hand down to extract the burr in his foot. He
wanted to be able to move easily and quickly if needed. Finally, he
maneuvered his body around to peer out a crack, filled with
trepidation.

He exhaled in extreme relief. It was Darse.
Darse!
Darse was pushing the cart! The man hobbled forward
on one foot, careful not to jostle his injured leg too much, then
leaned his body forward to utilize the weight of his own body as
pushing leverage, moving the cart only a hand span before beginning
the process anew.

Brenol pulled himself up to a sit. The
motion rocked the cart slightly, and Darse tottered in his efforts.
His breathing was heavy and rough, rattling like an unsecured
shutter in a gale.

“Bren?” he heaved.

The boy stood—with care, on the chance that
narcotics still lingered in his limbs—and surveyed his friend fully
over the cart’s edge. The smile dissolved from Brenol’s face. The
eyes—it had been real. They were still as yellow as a rotting
dandelion. And more—he was cadaveric: features drawn and gray, pant
leg cut off, splint bloody and awkwardly wound to left leg, white
bone protruding from blackened dried blood, sweat dripping from
face and chest, feet bare, utterly filthy.

But the eyes. The eyes were chilling.

“You ok?” Brenol whispered.

“Get down,” Darse said tersely and pushed
the cart’s lever to collapse the contraption. “Fingers got away.
Don’t know where…”

Brenol clambered out. He was surprised at
how awake and refreshed he was. The narcotics left little residue,
at least following this long a stretch. He clasped Darse’s arm and
guided the man down into the cart’s base. Darse whimpered and
shook, but did not speak. He lowered himself into a supine splay
and closed his eyes. Brenol could now see blood seeping from gashes
in the man’s feet. He cringed, then consciously edged away from the
cart’s lever, shuddering at the sharp snap resonating in his
memory.

Darse’s breathing slowed and became more
regular as he rested. “I had to get you out somehow…haven’t stopped
moving…even…even if I haven’t gotten far.”

Darse sighed, but his mind’s commands
continued to echo inside, as regular as his drumming pulse:
Move, move, move, move.
The cadence had pushed him through
twilight and the cold night. His leg had grown numb hours ago. It
had been only willpower, sheer willpower, pushing him forward to
escape an even greater hell.

“How long, Darsey?” Brenol asked. It was
astonishing Darse had even moved, let alone wheeled a cart through
the darkness. It was beyond the bounds of possibility.

“Hours. It’s morning now.” He blinked. It
was as much a revelation to himself as it was to Brenol.

Darse exhaled softly. He could feel collapse
approaching. “Help. Help me. You must push. Don’t stop ’til we’re
safe…”

Brenol tentatively raised the sides of the
cart once he was sure his friend was entirely secure. He heard one
last mumble, so he again lowered the sides to draw near to his
friend.

“…map,” Darse whispered, with eyes shut.
Brenol spied and grasped it from Darse’s pocket, and began the
arduous journey.

~

That day Brenol trod matrole after matrole,
sickened by the weight of Selet’s eye and his own crippling
loneliness. He was powerless to do anything but walk, advancing the
cart laden with his friend, his golden-eyed friend, and it was
nearly impossible to manage a path with the contraption. His feet
met stone, thorn, and bark and grew raw with stubs and slices.

As dusk approached, the sky glowed a rich
blue against the olive-black trees. They looked somber and proud:
dark soldier-giants saluting the day as she sped away to the west,
hands reaching out to grasp the last vestures of her glory.

His face glistened in perspiration, and the
nurest desire rent him anew.

Go back,
his blood burned.
To
Veronia. Go back.

Brenol slowed the cart, sat, and wept.

The waters are alive. They mete out life with each
trickle of movement.

-Genesifin

Brenol stumbled upon the outskirts of the
town of Tonkyon that night, tripping through black as thick as
pitch, and met a man named Gartoung, who took one look at Darse and
brought the two in—at least in a sense. He was a nomad, cautious
and silent, but munificent. He did not own a conventional house,
but was quick to offer what he did have: tent, clothing, medical
supplies, food, friendship.

Gartoung perceived much in the few words and
explanations Brenol had given. While their mysterious benefactor
spoke many things that first night, only one thing truly resonated
with the boy: “You need not fear that evil man here. I will know if
he comes.”

Brenol clutched tight to the proffered
relief with a surprising and immediate trust in the man. He watched
with wide eyes as Gartoung cared for his friend, clearly
appreciating the gravity of Darse’s condition.

Gartoung was slender and tall, with black
hair and olive skin, and a creature of rhythm. He swept his tall
figure through the trees with precise steps and clean stride,
tending to Darse and bringing the boy meals. It was almost like
watching a dance, and Brenol allowed the man’s motions to lull him.
Anything was better than hashing though the pernicious nightmare
that had been—and still could be—hot on their heels.

Darse did not awaken until the second full
day. Brenol found his friend resting on his elbows, with the tarp
bed clean and flat beneath him. The man’s face was tight as he
breathed in his new consciousness and surveyed his
surroundings.

Brenol dipped his head under the tent wall
that had been swept up and knotted to a nearby bough. He sat beside
Darse and fiddled with his fingers. The boy’s shoulders slumped, as
though he carried a yoke of solid rock. He eyed Darse, nervous and
careworn. “Are you ok?” he asked finally.

The man pushed his body up to a full seat,
crinkling the material beneath him. He ignored the boy’s question.
“How long have I been asleep?” he asked, examining his leg. It was
wrapped, but yes, he could see—and feel—that the bone had been set
and was healing. He lifted the linens to peek in curiously. The
skin had begun to close at the site. He released the fabric and
twisted his fingers in an awkward wring; the itch in his marrow was
close to unbearable. “Has it really been that long?”

Brenol shook his head in negation. “No, no,
no. Only a couple days. And I missed the whole thing, honestly.
Went to the river,” he pointed north,
“
Cela
,
to wash,
and when I got back Gar had you all bandaged up and fixed. He
doesn’t seem to understand when I ask him what kind of medicine he
uses.” The boy finally remembered to breathe. “You’re healing so
fast.”

Darse gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Yeah. I think it’s different here.”

Brenol’s head cocked slightly. “How so?”

He smoothed the folds on his shirt with open
hand. “This terrisdan, I mean.”

The boy waited, his veins prickling with the
startling sensation of Selet’s eye narrowing upon him.

“On Alatrice, different places are more
favorable for different things—crops, ranching, hunting, raising
animals, building cities. It’s no different here. Perhaps this’s
also a place more conducive to healing. Not just making,” his voice
paused and threatened to crack, “the unseen visible.”

Brenol leaned forward, his spine tightly
clenched. He peered at the broken man, swallowed, and tried again.
“Hey Darse. Are you ok?”

Darse’s yellow eyes lifted and met Brenol’s.
He held the gaze for a moment and his gold irises were shiny and
unsettling. He lowered his stare, resting it upon a mess of tree
roots. “Not really, Bren. But I imagine I’ll get over it.”

“Wh-what… I mean, well… what happened?”

Darse closed his eyes tightly and pressed
his lips together until they were hidden but for a thin line.
Logically, he knew it would help to simply talk about it, like
draining poison from a wound, but the thought of saying the words
out loud was nauseating. To speak would mean it had truly
happened.

“Not yet,” he whispered. He turned his back
to Brenol and waited for the youth to scramble up and trail away
with soft steps.

~

Every day was the same, or so it seemed to
Brenol. The boy churned with fury, fear, numbness, and relief. The
inner roil was too much for him to draw into sense, and he was left
pacing and irritable. Darse healed with an incredible speed, at
least physically, but grew even more staunchly resistant to
speaking of his deeper, hidden injuries.

It appeared they would remain there forever,
and Brenol feared his own heart would surrender to the sweating
desire to return to Veronia that continued to hound him. He felt
weak and alone.

And Fingers? What do I do about him?
Brenol brooded. A growing guilt gnawed at him over leaving the
villain free to roam and harm others at will.

I could ask Gartoung,
he thought, but
still did nothing. Irrationally, he hoped that if he simply ignored
the situation, he would never have to face Fingers, or the
crippling fear of him, again.

Brenol bit his nails to the quick and
waited.

~

It was Gartoung who finally broke Darse’s
silence. Brenol stood beside the makeshift tent—flaps knotted up
again to allow in light and air—but it was Gartoung who did the
talking. The tall man pressed his lips together, and his dark
velvet eyes examined Darse with a gentle intensity. Gartoung was
far from handsome, but his face and person were utterly
arresting.

“It is time, Darse Grey-Oak,” he said, voice
as smooth as oil. Darse started slightly at the full use of his
name but drew his gaze back to the earth.

“You must speak of it. You will never
recover unless you speak. Speak.” His soft drawl was compelling,
but Darse sat grim and quiet.

Gartoung waited patiently, saying nothing.
The entire forest was silent in wait. When Darse actually spoke,
Brenol jumped, for his mind had trailed off long ago.

“My memories.”

“Yes?” Gartoung asked.

“He stole my memories.” It was barely a
whisper, but the words were unmistakable. Darse raised his golden
eyes to the dark man as a child would to a parent: beseeching,
hungry for comfort and validation. His face was tawny and ill.

“Tell me.”

“He…he cut them right out.”

“No, Darse.
Tell
me.” Gartoung’s
honeyed voice was thick and slow.