I stuck around the Glen longer than I should’ve, and the sun was dipping below the horizon by the time I’d reached the hillside leading up to the top of the escarpment. There was enough light to get most of the way up, but I needed the candlestone at the end. The stone hung from my neck, wrapped in cloth so only a small beam shone on the ground ahead of me.
The woods at the top were eerily quiet, and every rustle and crackle had me wondering if a predator was nearby. The uekisheile had noticed the tension, and sprouted around my face to help sniff for any qi that might threaten us.
The two of us found an old hollow cedar to hide in for about an hour while I rested. My preference was to keep going, but my eight-year-old body was exhausted from everything that had happened since the bishkawi invaded the Glen.
The rest was welcome, but by the time we got back to the path leading down to the cave, night had fully descended. It didn’t help that the path was easy to miss, and we’d had to double back for it.
My heart sank when I saw the cave’s entrance was dark, and I hurried down. Don’t the kids know how to use a firestarter? Have they been trapped inside Meliune’s Blessing this whole time?
I rounded the corner and found the cave empty. Farther in, light glimmered against the limestone walls. The children had moved the chliapp lion’s body deeper into the cave and started a campfire out of view of the entrance. It occurred to me that if they’d started the fire where I’d told them to, the entrance would’ve been lit up like a beacon for miles around.
I shook my head, grateful that the kids had more sense than I did. The uekisheile’s tufts tickled when they mimicked the movement. With a wry grin, I asked them to hide again.
Game-play-game?
Patience-patience-patience, I said to them. We’d play once the kids were settled for the night.
I found Billisha and Aluali guarding the small fire. The children were as blank-faced as before, but each had their ax ready. Billisha faced the cave’s interior, while Aluali watched the entrance.
With a shudder, Aluali let go of Meliune’s Blessing long enough to say, “Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete.”
Billisha turned around, her ax still at the ready. “Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete.”
They’d said the same words before, back when they were still in chains. That was also when Billisha had offered to cut her arm to show me her blood. Now, the children watched me carefully, expectant.
“Biluu kuse pappashi zhileete,” I said.
Only then, once I’d proven I wasn’t a little plant horror disguised as a boy, did they sag with relief. Billisha ran at me and grabbed my shoulders to swing me around and check for injuries, while Aluali went to the fire to get me a bowl of porridge.
“Friend safe?” Billisha used the signed version of Diaksh, but spoke along with the gestures. “Where friend?”
“Friend safe. Friend—” I did my best to repeat the words so that I could learn them. I didn’t have a sign for ‘trapped,’ though, so I improvised one.
Billisha frowned. “Person trapped friend?”
I took note of the new word and shook my head. “Not person. Bishkawi.”
“Bishkawi! How they trap friend?”
Well, now wasn’t that an interesting challenge for pantomime? I pointed to the cave around us, and then to the room’s exit. Then I mimed closing a door and holding my shoulder against it. Billisha seemed to understand the meaning.
“Today,” I signed, “I see bishkawi. Tomorrow, I hunt them.”
The children glanced worriedly at each other. She said a word that sounded a lot like an affirmative, “Okay,” but her tone was resigned, unhappy with my decision.
Aluali handed me a wooden bowl. The porridge was made from corn, onions, beans, and salted venison. One bite, and I could almost feel my body sucking in the salt. It was so good—the children watched as I devoured what was in my bowl and poured myself a second and third helping.
Only once I started to slow did Billisha wave her hand to get my attention. She gestured to herself. “Billisha.” Then to Aluali. “Aluali.”
“Eight,” I said, gesturing to myself.
The children quirked their heads. “Eaate?” The word was clearly unfamiliar.
I counted aloud on my fingers. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight.”
The children frowned and muttered to each other. Shrugging ensued, and more discussion.
I polished off a fourth bowl of porridge and leaned back with a sigh. Finally full, I realized just how bone tired I was. According to my Status clock, it was almost eleven.
I had a half-formed plan in my mind to poison the bishkawi food supply, but for the plan to work I’d have to be in and out of their camp well before dawn. That’d give me only a couple of hours of rest. Reluctantly, I shelved the plan. I’d either wait until the following night, or come up with something better in the meantime.
The children had gone quiet. I looked up to find them both watching me.
“Eight,” Billisha said. She raised her hands and counted aloud on her fingers. “Hawda, diilka, daawsi, shootha, giash, akra, sablu, dupre, hewei, pilak.”
“Huh. Then, with my powers, does that make me Super Dupre?”
The dad joke was lost on the kids. They just looked confused, and Billisha started to count again.
“No, no. I got it,” I said. “Hawda, diilka, daawsi, shootha, giash—um—akra, sabu, dupre, hawa, pika.”
Billisha shook her head. “Sablu, dupre, hewei, pilak.”
“Oh, right. Sablu, dupre, hewei, pilak.”
“De! De!” Billisha smiled. She pointed to the fire. “Di—”
“Dilwei,” I said.
She looked confused by me knowing the word for ‘fire’ already, but she’d used it when asking about cremating the slavers’ bodies. I gently reminded her. “Boscun, Kaad.”
The enthusiasm that’d been on her face drained away. Honestly, the men’s deaths were a drag on me as well, but I hated seeing the children shrink into themselves. Ideally, they’d have psychological counseling and therapy to help them heal, but there was only me here. And I couldn’t even talk to them. Not yet, anyway.
I waved a hand to get her attention and took off my shoe. Then I pointed at my foot and waited for her to tell me the word.
Billisha bit her lower lip, trapped by whatever was going through her head. It was Aluali who responded. He tugged on her shirt and said, “Itbu.”
She looked back at him, nodded, and said, “Itbu.” She pointed to my foot and repeated the word.
Aluali began to sing, the kind of song you’d use to teach a small child. It started with: “Itbu sadt. Itbu dellei. Itbu sadt. Dolanei kei.” And it kept going from there.
After the first couple of words, Billisha sang along with him. Then she turned to me—there were still shadows in her eyes—in both their eyes—but the song didn’t stop. She pointed to the different parts of the body as she sang.
When the song came to an end, they started it again from the beginning. I got to memorizing.
The next day, I didn’t wake up until almost noon. Before going to sleep, the children had insisted on trading watches during the night, but then never woke me for mine. They looked smug about it too, really pleased with themselves.
While eating a bowl of leftover porridge, I looked over the chliapp lion’s carcass. In addition to the watches, the children had apparently tag-teamed in taking it apart. There were sections where they’d clearly struggled, but otherwise the skeleton was picked clean; the meat was stored in the coldest part of the cave. There was new wood stacked against the wall too. What busy little beavers they were. Billisha noticed me admiring their handiwork and puffed up, proud.
“Good,” I said in Diaksh.
She snickered. “Yes. Good.”
I was sure both children were still haunted by their experiences—how could they not be—but feeling useful was bound to help, as would the sense of control over their own lives. To that end, I gave them the task of making sinew from the chliapp lion’s tendons. In the jumble of recent events, I’d forgotten to prepare some, and I’d need it for new arrows.
While the children huddled and discussed the work, I checked in with the uekisheile. I needn’t have worried about them though—they were still singing the song from last night.
Foot-knee-hip. Tail-spine-heart. Shoulder-elbow-hand. Head-circle. Head-up. Foot circle. Foot-down. Spin-spin-spin.
While the children had sung the previous night, the uekisheile had sprouted tufts on the backs of my ears to investigate the interesting qi vibrations. Later, when I lay down to sleep, they’d asked me about it, and it took an hour to explain the concept of language—of using sound and symbols to communicate. And then, of course, they had to sing the song too. Heaven forbid anyone should feel left out.
The uekisheile couldn’t see the parts of the body, but they could recognize the qi structures within each. All I needed to do was point to them and associate them with the right vibrations. It was about three in the morning when I’d finally been able to doze off last night.
With everyone busy, I left the cave to search for materials.
The new bishkawi scouts above the Glen were too well hidden for me to spot from the top of the escarpment, even with my eyes enchanted. I assumed they were there though—maybe even the one with Hidden Strength. She’d been the bait for their trap before. Well, I’d have my own traps soon enough.
On my shopping list were:
- Flint
- Straight branches for arrows
- Stout branches for stakes
- Pine pitch
- Chishiaxpe poison
- Breakfast for the uekisheile
They weren’t exactly hungry, but if the uekisheile could store qi long term, then I’d make it happen. Otherwise, things might get complicated if they needed to eat while people were around.
My plan was to feed them any qi left over in Boscun and Kaad’s bodies, just like they’d done with the chliapp lion. Alas, when I got there, hardly anything was left of the corpses. The internal organs were gone, and the bones were broken for the marrow inside. Even the flesh of their faces had been torn away and eaten. The uekisheile found some remnant qi in their skeletons, but that was all.
“I’m sorry, little buddy. I’ll do better next time.”
I checked to make sure the gear I’d hidden was still there, but didn’t linger. Just because their eye sockets were empty didn’t mean that Boscun and Kaad weren’t watching me. I felt a faint, hard-to-describe pressure. Maybe it was my imagination, but I didn’t think so. It reminded me of the atmosphere inside my grandmother’s workshop.
Yeah, I got out of the area quickly and focused on solid, tangible things, like cutting and stripping branches. With proper tools, the work was easy. It took only an hour to fill my backpack. On my way back to the cave, I stopped by the blueberry bush to fill a pouch with berries for the kids.
The smell of grilling meat welcomed me. Aluali watched over a series of thin lion strips sprinkled with salt. They charred nicely, and were utterly delicious. The fat practically melted in my mouth.
The kids loved the blueberries for dessert. They explained that in Diaksh they were called piliashte, but I knew that from the Status camera. It was nice to learn the correct pronunciation, though. Pretty soon, I’d be able to guess my way through the other words I was learning through the camera.
After lunch, I checked on the drying sinew, and didn’t notice any mistakes. I asked Billisha and Aluali if they were willing to sharpen the stakes for me. There wasn’t anything else for them to do, so they readily agreed.
I headed out to collect the flint, pine pitch, and more chishiaxpe poison.
The boundaries of the chishiaxpe’s territory seemed to have shifted. Some were in different trees than before, and I had to familiarize myself with the new layout. Once I knew where all the vines were, though, I got to work picking off the stragglers.
I kept one eye on my prey, one eye on the trees, one eye behind me, and one eye downstream. Kind of. It was a lot to keep track of, but the uekisheile helped. They were able to sense qi up to twenty yards away, depending on the number of tufts exposed to the air.
Once my bottle was full of poison, I moved downstream, just close enough for enchanted eyes to spot a familiar, smallish-sized bishkawi ambling around the area above Ikfael’s waterfall. If this was anything like last time, the rest of the bishkawi were hidden in the trees around her.
I was tempted—sorely tempted—to sneak into the Glen then and there to poison what was left of their food. What stopped me was the alpha—I had no clue as to his whereabouts.
Yeah, no. Let’s go back to the cave, have some dinner, and make some arrows. Then later, once I’m properly ready, I’ll come back to take care of the bishkawi.
Dinner was more corn porridge, and the entertainment afterward was making arrows while singing vocabulary songs. Even the uekisheile joined in, if surreptitiously. They bounced along with the rhythms and mimicked the sounds’ vibrations.
Each song was paired with a dance. For example, when the children sang about corn, their gestures were reminiscent of picking cobs from a stalk and placing them in a basket on their back. When they sang about mowing hay in the summer, they bent over and scythed the air. I enjoyed the performance, especially once the arrows were done and put away and I could devote my full attention to it.
In a few hours, I would leave the cave with the intent to kill. The children and I both knew it, but they sang anyway and pulled me into dancing along with them. We were strangely protected, warmed by the fire and surrounded by a pocket of stone. There were horrors outside, and tragedy too, but the singing and dancing kept them at bay, at least for a little while.
I’d forgotten how strong children were—how they could play for hours. I stopped dancing in order to conserve my strength for the raid later, but Billisha and Aluali kept going and going, like they were possessed. Like if they kept dancing, they’d never have to remember what had happened to them and their families.
Our little cave burned with the light of their spirit that night. Eventually, though, when darkness fully descended on the valley outside, I rose.
It was time.
