Biting my bottom lip to hold in a sob, I nod. “Of course.”
Kol squats at my feet and lets me look at the gash on the top of his head. Blood cakes his hair into clumps, but using water from my own waterskin, I rinse it away, careful not to let any drip onto his bare skin. It takes almost all the water I have before I can see the cut in his scalp. “It’s not bad,” I say. I let out a deep breath, relieved to see that this injury shouldn’t need any special care. “The cut’s a bit jagged but not long—maybe the length of my thumb. And not deep.”
“Thank you,” Kol says, but the words fracture and become a groan as he straightens to his feet. His left knee buckles, and he clutches my arm and holds on to keep from falling.
Looking down at his leg, I notice blood running from the hem of his pant leg and over his boot. Dirt mixes with it, forming a sticky dark mud. “Let me look at your leg,” I say, but Kol steps away.
“It’s fine.”
“Kol—”
“There’s no time right now. When we get back to camp I’ll look at it—I’ll let Urar look at it—but there’s not enough time to worry about that now.”
I want to argue, but I don’t. He’s right. Especially about Urar. Kol needs a healer, and the sooner we return to camp, the better. Kol and Pek need to get back into parkas. The cold air stirs and I notice Kol is trembling. Seeri and Pek stand huddled together, her arms around him for warmth.
“Can I help carry him?” my brother asks. He stands away from us, closer to the body. His voice sounds strange, like I’d almost forgotten he was here. Chev usually doesn’t stay quiet for so long, but I can tell by the look on his face that he isn’t sure what to say.
“No, but thank you,” Kol says. “Pek and I can manage.”
The two brothers lift their father’s body in the makeshift sling, and Kol nods for us to follow. Like this, they lead us out of the foothills. We walk in single file, Kol and Pek carrying their father’s body at the head of the line. Arem’s legs hang down, but his head is wrapped in the hood of Kol’s parka. The laces are pulled tight and wound around Kol’s hand in such a way that his father’s head is supported by the sling.
I think of Kol attending to this detail, tying the laces beneath his father’s chin, and my throat closes so tight, I can’t swallow.
We reach the Manu camp after the sun has fully set and the sky is the blue-black of a summer night. Most of the clan is still awake, shadows huddled in the meeting place with Mala, but while we are still too far away to be clearly seen, she hurries to Kol and Pek’s side. It’s too dark to see her face, but I know when I hear the cry come from her throat that she knows what Kol and Pek carry. She knows her husband is dead.
The body is placed in the center of the meeting place, and everyone from Kol’s clan crowds around. The fire burning in the central hearth had nearly gone out, but Urar adds kindling to help it grow. Kol’s uncle carries wood out from the kitchen—this fire will burn throughout the night. Pek emerges from his family’s hut wrapped in a clean parka and heads right to Seeri’s side. Chev joins Lees and Roon among the mourners. I find myself alone, listening and watching from the edge of things. I hear Pek, Chev, Seeri—their voices overlap as questions swirl through the crowd. It’s only when he touches my hand that I realize Kol is not with them.
“I don’t want to bother Urar,” Kol says. My hand burns where he touches me, though his fingers are cold. He hasn’t pulled on a parka yet, and I notice the hairs on his neck standing up in the cold light from the fire. His breath mists the air. Through the din of voices, the healer’s voice stands out. He’s offering a chanted prayer over the body. Kol’s icy fingers wrap around my hand and tug me toward him. “There’s not much light, but could you come look at my knee? If you could clean the wound—”
“Yes,” I say.
He drops his eyes, and I feel like there’s something else he wants to say, but he doesn’t. He pushes through the bear hide that drapes across the doorway to his hut, pulling me in behind him.
FOUR
He’s right. There’s not much light. An open vent in the wall that faces the fire lets in a shimmer of gold that dances across the hides that form the ceiling. In the center of the room, a wick of moss burns in a shallow stone lamp filled with seal oil.
The light from the flame explores Kol’s skin, illuminating first the lines of his stomach, then the curve of his upper arms. “Are you warm enough?” I ask, all at once aware of my eyes tracing the light’s path across his body.
“I will be,” he says, reaching for a parka that hangs from a notch in the central post. Immediately I recognize it.
“That’s the one I made for you.”
“From the cat you killed when you saved me.”
“Kol . . .” Shame burns in my cheeks. How many times have I let myself feel superior because I killed the cat that threatened Kol? As if I’d shown him some great courtesy. “Anyone would have done that,” I say. “You would have done it for me.”
“I would have,” he answers. “I wish I had.”
Outside, a drumbeat starts. A chorus of voices takes up a low, dark melody. The whole Manu clan is singing a song of mourning. “You should be out there—”
“I know. I will be,” Kol says, sliding his arms into the sleeves and wrapping the cat’s warm fur around him. He drops onto a pile of pelts that make up one of the beds. “But I need your help first. I need to get the pieces out—”
His voice cuts off, replaced by a sharp inhale of breath as he tugs his ruined left pant leg up over his knee, revealing wide gashes pocked and wedged with fragments of broken rock. Clotted blood—not dry but thick and moist—covers everything like a layer of red algae.
“This . . . this . . . You need your healer. This is too much for me.”
“It’s all right. I’ll ask Urar to look at it in the morning. But right now, I just need someone to clean it.”
He exhales a long sigh, rolling back onto the bed. His eyes squeeze shut as he sucks in breath through his teeth, then lets it roll out as a groan. “I can’t interrupt Urar right now,” he says, his voice tight with pain. “And I can’t let my mother see this. She’s been through too much. My father . . .”
That’s all he gets out before his voice breaks.
“Kol,” I say. “I’ll clean this. Of course I will.”
I get up, searching in the dark for the tools I’ll need. I find a waterskin on a hook by the door. Kol tells me to look in his pack for a soft, thin piece of well-worked hide to use to wipe away the blood. I work slowly, and as I do, Kol’s body relaxes. His limbs stretch, uncoiling, tension dissolving. His eyes close.
“It’s not over yet,” I say, easing my knife from my belt. “I need to pick the small pieces out with this.”
“I’ve been through worse before. When Urar and Ela cleaned the wounds from that saber-toothed cat. Remember?”
“I could never forget that,” I say. I leave out that I thought he would die that day.