The bowlegged boy’s ax lies at my feet right where I dropped it. I pick it up, and Chev seems to know what I intend to do. He props himself up and steadies the length of bone against the ground while bracing the end that pierces his body with two bright red fists.
Three swings of the ax and the shaft splinters. Three more and it breaks. Chev sits up, a short piece of bone, maybe the length of a hand, protruding from the spot below his left shoulder. Maybe it’s relief—maybe it’s fear—but a bit of color returns to his face.
“We need to go,” I say, and tucking a hand under each of his arms, I pull him to his feet.
I’m amazed by how well Chev is able to move. He holds the broken stub of the spear in place with one hand while he leans on my shoulder with the other. He has an uneasy energy—his unblinking eyes never leave the path.
Freezing rain stings my face until we move under cover of the trees. This stretch of forest unnerves me—sound, light, air—everything changes. I shoot frequent glances over my shoulder, afraid that in these unfamiliar conditions, someone might surprise me from behind before I hear them.
I have no idea what we will encounter on the trail. Have Chev’s people all been massacred? Have Lo’s?
More than anything, I think of you. Like ghostly fruit, newly sprouted leaves hang from tree limbs fully encased in ice, and I think of what you said about winter returning. I had told you that winter would not triumph, but summer would return tomorrow. As ice crunches like gravel under my feet, I hope that time does not turn me into a liar.
Everything is strangely still. I had expected the sounds of mayhem—screams and shouts and crashing through the trees. But for most of our journey we hear only our own boots on the ground. Once, I pick out a distant clamor like someone running, but my ears are not accustomed to the tricks trees play with sound and I can’t tell which way the steps are traveling. Before I can decipher it, the sound has faded.
The weather confuses my memories of your camp, but I begin to think we’re almost to the huts. I hear a voice from up ahead—someone calling out. The trail bends left and I briefly catch sight of the canopy that shades your meeting place through an opening in the trees. The path winds farther left, and I lose sight of it again, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen it, and just knowing we are close makes travel easier.
We follow the trail as it bends back to the right, back toward your camp, and my feet become just a bit lighter. The tight bands around my chest loosen just enough to allow me to draw a real breath. The sleet even seems to slow. But then Chev and I round a blind turn, and we both abruptly stop.
A figure draped in pelts stands in the middle of the path.
My eyes sweep his frame, my hands clenched on the two spears I carry—yours and mine—but then I realize that he is just a boy, a boy no older than Roon. Blood soaks into a scrap of hide he holds against one eye. It forms a red trickle down his sleeve, dripping into a crimson puddle, bright against the bits of ice at his feet.
“Nix.” Chev breathes the name like a gasp. The boy does not respond, but stares past us, his one open eye filled with shock and fear. Chev’s hand drops from my shoulder and he calls out the name again. “Nix!” The cry takes almost all his strength, but whatever is left in him, he uses it to propel himself toward the boy, falling to the ground in front of him. The boy moans, startling as if he’s just awoken. He throws his arms around Chev, dropping the bloody compress to the ground.
Noise floats down from farther up the path—the sound of boots pounding on the ground—and I panic. Whoever hurt this boy could be just beyond my view. I have to be ready. I position myself beside Chev and the boy and raise my spear, ready to defend them.
I see him first between the trees—a young man running toward us, alone. He comes into full view a distance away, but not so great a distance that I couldn’t land the strike.
He sees us—sees the raised spear—and lifts his own hands, both empty, over his head. His eyes and face are red and streaked with blood and tears. “I’m not a threat,” he calls. “It’s only me.”
He is too far away, too blood-smeared for us to recognize his face, but Chev and I both recognize his voice.
Before your brother can get to his feet the man is on the ground beside him, wrapping him in an embrace.
Up close, his face is unmistakable—this is Yano, the man Chev loves.
The sweetness of their reunion is cut short when Yano’s eyes take in the broken spear and the hole in Chev’s parka, blood forming a crust so thick it almost appears to be a separate dead thing pinned to his chest. Yano helps him stand and Chev groans—a sound so full of frustrated, impatient pain that even Chev’s strength can’t hold it down any longer.
“Will he . . . Can you—”