The Rift - Howard Chris - Страница 34

“It isn’t me that wants you there. It’s them.”

I spotted Crow in the corner, leaning on the wall.

“You in on this, too?” I asked him.

“We just been talking to them,” Crow said.

“Sure you were. Without me.”

“What’s going on?” Alpha stumbled up, all bleary-eyed as she got to her feet.

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one’s telling me a damn thing.”

Folk were bunched around the mud pit and had started to line up along the rocky steps and ledges. Reminded me of the party for the North Lights, the whole tribe crowded inside the crater, except last night, everything was music and dancing, and now the place was silent and still.

The five of us stood huddled together, half blending in on account of our shaggy fur clothes, and half sticking out like the sorest of thumbs. I mean, every eye in the place was upon us, everyone wanting to see what was about to go down.

I was mighty curious myself.

The Elder entered from one of the side tunnels. She was flanked by the twin sisters, and all the Kalliq got clear out of their way.

It weren’t just those three women that got folk moving, it was what the Healer held in her hands—the seven saplings, bundled and wrapped with thin copper wire. And the clump of Pop’s remains at the base of them was all plastered in mud, shrunken to the size of a child now, deformed and fibrous and tiny.

I found the Healer’s eyes, and she smiled at me, her gaze soft and warm as a sunbeam. Them saplings were really looking like trees now, I thought. Young trees, still little, but nearly three feet high.

When the three women were stood before us, the Elder began speaking, slowly clicking and tutting in her strange native tongue.

“Earth is living,” the Speaker translated. “Living thing, like a mammoth. Like human or tree. It breathes and suffers, shivers and screams.”

The Elder stooped to the rocks and pounded the stone with her gnarled old fist.

“It has been shorn and beaten.” The old woman smoothed the stone with her wrinkled palm as the Speaker continued. “Yet still, it breathes. And so the Wheel turns.”

The Healer stepped forward and carefully placed the bundle of skinny trees at my feet.

“The Elder wishes you speed on this journey,” said the Speaker, as the old crone straightened up her crumpled body and looked me straight in the eyes. “She asks the Lamplight to shine on your quest.”

“Quest?” I said. “Hell, I’m all done questing.”

I’d thought the place couldn’t get more quiet.

Crow started to say something, but I cut him right off.

“The way south is blocked,” I said, spinning around to face him. “You all said so.”

“But there’s another way.” Kade stepped in front of the others, like he was shielding them from me. He pointed at the Elder and the twins. “Your ladies here told me all about it last night.”

“And where was I?”

Kade glanced at Alpha, then winked at me. “You were busy, bro.”

I turned to look at her. “That’s what it was all about? Keep me busy so Kade could talk you a way out of here?”

Alpha pushed past Kade and walloped me, smack in the mouth. “How can you say that?”

“You all tricked me.” I wiped a little blood off my lip.

“No, we didn’t,” she said.

“Come on,” Zee whined. “Banyan. It’s time to go home.”

“Home?” My voice echoed back at me, but I yelled even louder. “I ain’t got nowhere to go back to. And neither do you.”

Crow shook his head. “Other people need those trees, man. Just as much as you do.”

“Don’t tell me what people need.” I glared at him. “You’d all be dead if it weren’t for me.”

“Easy, bro,” said Kade.

“Shut up, you stumped junky bastard.” I turned to him. “I’m sick and tired of you getting your digs in. And I don’t give a damn if you think you’re better than me.”

“Don’t call me that,” he whispered, his eyes turning to tight little holes.

“We all just damaged goods? That it, Banyan?” bellowed Crow. “And now you got yourself a new family?”

“Family? That’s a joke. Hell, I’m the one made sure this lot didn’t leave your ass in the snow.”

“That ain’t true,” snapped Alpha. “You know that ain’t true.”

“And maybe we should have left you,” I told Crow. “You were the one wanting to quit, after all.”

“Pull yourself together,” Alpha said.

I wanted to tell her about that piece of bark on her belly. The disease that would spread in the spring. But I couldn’t say it. I had to keep her from knowing. I had to keep her safe, and to do that, I had to keep her right here.

“I’m tired,” I said. “So tired. Killing and dying and nothing but trouble.”

Kade’s disdain flashed in his eyes, and he turned to the others. “Then let him stay here, if that’s what he wants.”

I took a step towards him. “And what? You think I’m gonna let you take the trees?”

“Not all of them. Hasn’t your big brain worked it out yet?” He nodded at the Elder. “We’re leaving one with them. Trading them. A mammoth for a tree.”

My feet froze solid on the stone. “You got no right.”

“And what gives you all the rights?”

I glanced behind me at the Healer. Then I turned to Alpha, took her hands in mine.

“But you gotta stay here,” I pleaded. “You have to stay here with me.”

“No, bud. Please don’t.”

“I need you.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ll die,” I said, then I stared at Crow. “You will, too. You gotta stay here with me now.”

“What is this?” said Kade. “Come on, leave them alone.”

“I promise.” I turned back to Alpha. “You’ll not make it.”

Kade tried to push past me, reaching for the trees, but I shoved my shoulder into his chest, driving him backwards.

“Why won’t you stay?” My eyes begged Alpha’s.

“Why won’t you leave?”

“I love you. You know that.”

“Then come with me,” she said.

“No.” I punched Kade in the gut, getting him away from me. “You have to trust me, Alpha. You have to let me take care of you.”

For a long moment, her eyes dug inside mine, like she was sorting through each thought in my head.

“All right, bud,” she said. “If that’s what it takes.”

They all looked as surprised as I was. Even Kade was taken aback. And I just stood there, breathing hard, my face flushed, with Alpha stood right beside me, taking my hand in hers.

But what about my sister? I’d said I’d keep her safe. Get trees growing around her. And what about Crow?

I stared up at him, but he shook his head at me, and then looked away.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “Guess I be seeing you in the next one.”

“You think you can walk out of here? You should stay, and you know it. They can heal you.”

“I don’t need to walk out of here,” he said, making a sad smile. “We get a mammoth, no?”

“That’s right.” Kade straightened himself up, his eyes like poison. “And let’s get on with it, shall we?”

I glanced at Zee, but she wouldn’t look at me. She just shuffled closer to Crow, leaning against those tree-legs of his as he reached down and put his hand on her shoulder.

So that was it. They were leaving. They were going to keep on without me, and keep on with Kade. Hell, I wasn’t the one who’d found a new family—they were the ones replacing me, and they’d probably never look back.

“We trade?” said the Speaker, and I spun around to face her.

“There’s a way for them to go?” Screw them, I thought. Screw both of them for selling me out to some junky. “They can head south?”

“We show you.” She nodded. “After we trade.”

I stared down at the clump of trees on the warm rocks before me. Then I glanced at the Elder’s huge eyes, the map of lines on her face.

“Kalliq will trade you one mammoth.” The Speaker held up a single finger and pointed across the mud pit at a half-dozen of the critters. They were lined up in a corner, their purple fur bright in the shadows. Then the Speaker held up her other hand and pointed at me. “You will trade us one tree.”