All material on this site, except where otherwise explicitly stated, is copyright of the author known as Ann Somerville. All art, except where otherwise explicitly stated, is copyright of the artist known as Kiriko Moth

  Walk a lonesome road

Copyright © 2007 Ann Somerville

  Part 2

He’d have lingered at the pools, given his preference, because they’re both feeling more cheerful and comfortable from the warmth and being clean. But they’re already behind schedule and on a deadline, with, as Ren points out, the emphasis on ‘dead’ if they miss it, so after one more soak for Dek and bath for Ren, they head off. They’ve actually begun their descent, but the change is gradual, as is the impact of the thaw – barely noticeable at these altitudes. The main difference is the sun, which breaks through the clouds more than on the other side of the mountains. It’s more a bloody nuisance than anything else since it’s hanging too low in the sky to provide any real warmth, though more than enough to blind them in the mornings as they head east. The majesty of the gorgeous red and gold sunrise reflected on the gigantic snowfields soon wears thin when they have to squint their way along icy paths and hope like hell the urtibes with their woolly fringes can see where they’re going.

The going is just as hard downhill as up, and more dangerous – they spend more time on foot, easing down tricky paths which have been used for thousands of years, but have also seen many deaths. Two days after the hot pools, they meet another group of refugees who have a worsening story of the war to tell them. Worryingly, the insurgents are starting to strike west, into the territory through which Dek and Ren plan to travel – troops are being sent to strengthen the defence of key facilities and towns. Pindonis can normally travel through Febkeinzian without special papers, but Ren’s lack of ID is a worry. They’ll have to avoid contact with the military.

They give the refugees instructions and advice, and Dek does his damndest to convince the family not to even think about it until the snows melt, but he has no success. They’re Kundais like the others have been, the minority ethnic group which is being repressed both by the majority Thenas, and the other large minority, the Xirs. The Xirs are the ones behind the separatist insurgency. The Kundais are being squeezed, and see little option but to get out of Febkeinzian completely. It’s a poor country, and has been politically chaotic for decades, though full-out war has only broken out over the last three years. Previously, when Dek was stationed there, hostile activity was confined to random terrorist attacks and one attempted and quickly suppressed coup. The insurgents have a new leader, apparently, who’s given focus and a lethal unity to the disparate groups of rebels. Dek’s very glad he’s not stationed here any longer – it’s another Denebwei in the making, though this time, at least it’s not a Pindoni colony under threat.

“I’ll be so fucking glad to get off these mountains,” Ren says wearily as they set up camp four days after they leave the springs. They’ve come to a small alpine field, a rare flat area among the crags, and Dek’s called a halt early because Ren’s exhausted, and walking’s becoming not only agony but dangerous for him. Dek’s bad leg is also demanding a rest too, and they could do with setting some traps and doing some foraging, letting the animals do some free grazing, scraping for the shoots of grass that in a few weeks will cover this entire area. There’s a stream trickling down from under the snow – the thaw is taking hold. Now they’re below the tree line again, things should be easier.

“Four more days should see us out,” Dek says. “Make up some dough, I’ll build the fire.” They’re nearly right out of flour, down to what the poacher bequeathed them, and what’s left will make camp bread for tonight and that’s it. They’ve been hoarding nuts against this contingency, but it’s not the same, and Ren’s appetite has taken an odd turn, demanding stranger and stronger flavours than they have in their stores. It’s easier to add bitter herbs to bread than nuts, but Ren will have to manage at least until they get to the lowland and fresh supplies. Dek spends nearly as much time thinking about Ren’s digestion as he does about the path, and he doesn’t know how women do this. Neither does Ren, he admits.

Pulling out the camp stool and their mixing bowl, Ren gets to work, his big hands crumbing the flour and fat. While he’s preparing the dough, Dek fetches him the makings of the supper soup, ready to add to the boiling water they don’t yet have. He’ll have to leave Ren to it since they’re low on wood and he’ll need to fetch some. He could do with a couple of saplings for his traps, so he moves down slope a little, towards a denser stand of tall trees, growing straight here because they’re protected from the vicious winds that howl up the gorges further up the mountain.

The snow is lighter underfoot here, the canopy dense enough that he has to use the windup torch so he can see where he’s going. He finds what he’s looking for, and considers this a good place to set a couple of snares – already they’ve seen the scat and tracks of wekegs and nombas, forest foragers and though small, good enough eating to make it worth catching them. He cuts a sapling down and makes a see-saw snare on what looks like a wekeg run near a rocky outcrop, and with any luck, that will provide at least one meal for them the next day.

He’s just cutting down a second tree, when he hears a distinctive cough-grunt that makes all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Kildit. He’s only heard this sound twice before, but it’s not something a man forgets. Not when he knows what kildits can do.

They aren’t supposed to be active yet, but sometimes tjuwais come out of hibernation early if their body fat runs too low, and kildits are related, so maybe that’s what’s happened. If he’s right, it’ll be starving after its winter sleep, and mean with it. As he draws his pistol, his mind replays all the horror stories he’s heard about these mountain carnivores – how men disappear, and all that’s ever found is a foot, or maybe a chewed arm. How they’ll charge in a pack and can take down wild urtibes five times their size and weight, tearing out throats with a single bite, or ripping out leg arteries so the animal bleeds to death in minutes. He’s thinking of Ren a quarter-demidec away, oblivious and slow with tiredness. He can’t let him be surprised by a kildit.

He goes perfectly still and quiet, trying to see, hear, if it’s close. A few seconds later, he hears the cough again, but he can’t tell direction because of the trees. It’s close, that’s all he knows. He turns to move cautiously upslope – and finds the black-furred kildit two hundred midecs behind him, thin and mean, the mane erect and long teeth bared. It sees Dek at the same time Dek sees him, and begins its charge with an angry snarl. Dek can’t hope to outrun it – he pumps three shots into it before it’s on him, bearing him back and over the outcrop. The last thing he remembers is grabbing desperately for anything to break his fall, and thinking he’s probably not going to make it out of this one this time.

“Dek. Dek, wake up.”

He can’t move and his head’s killing him, a combination of a sharp pain behind his eyes and a generalised throb that makes him want to puke, except he knows if he does, it’ll hurt like fuck. He makes some kind of noise – he’s afraid it’s probably a whimper. That makes the annoying voice – Ren – start up again. “Dek? Come on, you’re scaring the hell out of me.”

“What....” It’s dark, but there’s a light off to the side. Trying to turn his head sets off all kinds of agony in his neck, down his shoulder and arm. “...happened?”

“You decide to dance over a cliff with a kildit. If I’d known you were that eager for company, I’d have offered myself.”

He mumbles at the man to shut up because he’s making Dek’s head ache, but Ren takes no notice. “Dek, I need you stay awake for me. I can’t lift you up on my own. You’ll need to help.”

He tries to sit up and discovers it’s not just his head that’s buggered. “You dislocated your shoulder when you fell,” Ren helpfully explains. “I’ve put it back in the socket – be thankful you were out for that – but you won’t get much use from it. Dek, I’ve got a rope tied off above us, and I can pull you up some of the way, but you’ll need to use your legs.”

“Help me up.”

“Easy.” Ren’s arms are under him, but sitting up is torment. “Try not to be sick. The world’s most useless advice, I know, but....”

Oh, now that’s really not good. Dek just wants to lie down again, but under Ren’s cheerful demeanour is a note of pure panic. Dek doesn’t remember anything after he started off looking for firewood, but Ren said.... “Kildit?” Why isn’t he mincemeat? Kildits are vicious bastards.

“Dead. Unfortunate for him, lucky for us. Dek – I need to get you up this slope.”

Dek’s vision is blurry, and it’s dark, but he can tell by the stillness of the air and the muffled sounds that they’re in the forest. “All right. Let me stand.”

That’s a lot easier said than done because he’s hurt his knee, and he can’t use both arms to support himself. Ren’s made a makeshift sling out of his own shirt, immobilising Dek’s surprisingly painful left shoulder. Dislocation. Fuck. When he’s on his feet and wavering, Ren ties a rope harness around him. “Right. What I’m going to do is try and haul you up. Now I wish I’d paid more attention on those rock climbing courses.”

Ren’s plan is simple, but needs brute strength to work. He’s got the rope looped around a tree above, and he’s going to climb up first, then pull Dek up after him, using the tree as a pulley. He’s got a makeshift harness around himself too. “Baby,” Dek mumbles, reaching over to touch Ren’s stomach.

Ren pats his hand away. “Don’t worry about it.” He cups Dek’s cheek and brings the light near his eyes – Dek winces and tries to jerk away. “I think it’s just concussion. The sooner you’re up top, the better. Normally I wouldn’t want you walking around, but we’re losing the light and I can’t guarantee our dead friend there doesn’t have brothers and sisters. Let me do the work, I just need your legs for stabilisation. Don’t exert yourself more than you have to,” he adds sharply. “I won’t be long. Just need to get up top.” He loops the strap of their second torch over Dek’s head. “You wait for me to pull you.”

Dek nods and Ren leaves him leaning against the rocks. Then Dek hears the scrabble of dirt and pebbles and Ren’s grunts of effort as he begins to pull himself up the cliff. Dek peers up, trying to hold the torch to help Ren. The wavering light isn’t much use to him because of his blurry vision, but he can tell he’s fallen about a hundred midecs – a trivial climb for a fit man, but not a pregnant one or an injured one. Ren’s moving slow, carefully, and Dek can’t help but worry what the exertion and the bite of the rope around his gut is doing to him. He can’t help but worry too about another kildit, and about his head injury. If only he’d been hurt when they’d got off the mountain – this is a disaster.

He loses track of time, maybe even loses consciousness. He hears Ren calling his name frantically, so he probably did. “Yeah?” he says.

“Don’t you fall asleep on me, damn you! Dek! Pay attention – look up at me.”

Blearily Dek obeys and repositions the torch which he’s dropped. Ren’s pale face is some distance above him. “Here.” Damn, he wants to puke. He sternly tells himself to hold it together, which works about as well as he might expect it to.

“Dek, I’m going to start hauling. Face the rocks. Let me do the work.”

Dek tries not to groan as the rope goes taut. Ren takes it slow as Dek starts to move forward and up. Despite Ren’s orders, he tries to pull a little himself, but it’s hopeless with one arm – he can’t grab anything worth a damn. Every jerk and jar, the harsh grip of the rope, makes his body throb and his head pound crazily.

Ren keeps stopping – getting his breath back, Dek guesses, and can’t be cranky, but those few seconds dangling in the air aren’t a lot of fun. Neither is it when he finally gets to the top and Ren has to drag him over the edge – there’s just no way to do that which doesn’t hurt like fury. He collapses next to Ren on the ground, heaving in air, and thinks he will definitely puke any second now. He also thinks he would just like to....

A slap on the cheek, and he’s shaken by his good shoulder. “Dek! Damn you! Don’t go to sleep!”

“‘m not,” he says indignantly.

“Of course not.” Ren sounds rough, his breath coming in gasps. “You think you can stand?”

“Got any choice?”

He hears Ren laugh rather breathily. “No. All right, up you get.”

Whoa. His knees buckle and Ren has to grab him. “Come on, Dek, you’re heavier than you look. Just...that’s it. Slow. Hold onto that tree while I get the rope.”

He clings to the tree for dear life, knowing the second he lets go, he’ll fall down. It seems to be hours before he senses Ren near him. “Let’s go home, Dek.”

“I wish,” he mutters.

“Me too. Come on, this is easier.”

Hardly, since they still have to walk up hill, and Dek’s legs seem to be made out of string. “Come on, Dek, you have to help me a little,” Ren cajoles him. “It’s not far. That’s it. One step at a time. Good.”

Dek collapses as they reach the camp and he sees the dim glow of their dying fire. “Need to get wood,” he rasps.

“Need to get you horizontal first.” Ren hauls him up. “Just a little further. Please, Dek.”

Ren gets him into the tent on top of the sleeping bag and furs. “Now you can rest. And now I can check you properly.”

“Fire,” Dek mutters, grabbing Ren’s arm. “Important. Animals.” If they don’t get a fire built so the smoke and smell deter wildlife, Ren will be at risk too.

“One minute. Just let me check you.” Ren flashes a light into his eyes, asks him how he feels, checks the arm. Everything hurts, it’s all sickeningly loud and bright. Finally Ren stops tormenting him and covers him up. “I’ll build the fire, and bake the bread since I’ve made the dough. You need to rest. I’ll bring you some painkillers as soon as the water’s boiled.”

Ren’s gone before Dek remembers he’s still got Ren’s shirt around him but he’s too befuddled to call him back. He still can’t remember how he came to be injured. He doesn’t know how the hell Ren found him, but he’s very grateful that Ren’s a soldier and not some useless city boy. Grateful that Ren’s not too far gone to help him.

He wakes later – how much later, he has no idea – because Ren’s tugging at his boots. “Fire’s built up, the bread’s cooked and stored because if I look at it I’ll puke and so will you, and I’ve got some painkillers and tea for you. I won’t ask how you’re feeling because I know you feel like crap, but you’ll feel a little better in the morning.”

“Thanks,” Dek whispers.

Ren helps him sit, and as Dek lies back against his bump, Ren feeds him pills and tea. Dek swallows them, grateful for the warm tea which seems to help his rising nausea. He reaches up to feel where he hit his head. Ren tugs his hand away. “Leave it alone. How’s the shoulder?”

“Lousy. You want your shirt?”

“Not for now. I’ll make you a better sling in the morning when I’ve got the light. The important thing is not to move it for a few days. I think we’re stuck here until then.”

Dek grasps his wrist. “Can’t. Supplies.”

“Dek, we have to. You need to rest your shoulder and your head at least for two days. We’ll manage. I can find food, and we’ve got at least ten days’ worth in the pack. You just concentrate on healing. By the way, I’d be very grateful if you didn’t scare the crap out of me like that again.”

“...try....” Dek mumbles, closing his eyes.

After a moment or two, Ren eases out and lays him down. “Get some sleep.”

“You all right?”

Ren doesn’t answer straight away and even through the concussion, Dek’s anxiety spikes. “I’m fine,” Ren says quickly, laying his hand gently on Dek’s head. “Calm down, it’s bad for you. “

“Baby?”

“Kicking away. Didn’t approve of the unscheduled exercise, or you scaring the crap out of me. Go to sleep.”

There’s something there, Dek thinks, but he’s in no shape at all to consider it. “You too,” he insists.

“Oh, I plan to.” He feels Ren shuffling about, hears the soft thud of boots being placed at the front of the tent, and then Ren comes back and slips under the blankets and sleeping bag. They’ve switched sides – Ren usually faces away, lying on his left because it’s most comfortable. Dek usually sleeps behind him, spooning up, but tonight he’s flat on his back, with Ren’s belly hard up against his side. Within seconds, he can distinctly detect something moving.

“Can feel it,” he whispers drowsily.

“Wish I couldn’t,” Ren says. “Go to sleep.”

Dek opens his mouth to argue, but then a delicious calm seeps through him, like he’s taken some of the good drugs they gave him all those years ago in the hospital. It must be Ren doing it, and he’d protest but he’s suddenly too relaxed and weary to open his mouth, so he stops resisting and lets it tug him under to where it’s silent and warm and free of pain.

Waking is hell, but Dek’s had concussion a few times, and been injured more than that, so he expects nothing else. He cautiously assesses his condition before he moves. Head’s still very painful, both from a headache and the actual bruising, but his vision is clear. He remembers the kildit now, and everything but actually falling over the outcrop – which he’s happy not to know about – so his brain cells are only about as shaken up as they normally are.

He tests his knee – mobile, so he probably just wrenched it. Could have done without sleeping in the brace, but Ren did well to even get him to the tent so he’s not complaining. Shoulder – ugh. Very sore, and the most serious problem. Having been around soldiers with dislocated shoulders in the field before, he knows he was lucky to be unconscious while someone who knew what he was doing put it back, but he also knows that it’ll be useless for days, if not weeks, to come. He turns his head carefully. Ren has his arm slung over Dek’s stomach, and is still asleep. He looks paler than usual, and he’s frowning as if he’s in pain. Dek’s suddenly worried that Ren’s done himself harm in the rescue. “Hey,” he whispers.

Ren’s eyes snap open, dart around looking for the noise, and then sees Dek. “How do you feel?” he asks, quickly moving his arm. There’s intense relief in his eyes, quickly hidden as he forces a smile.

That relief tells Dek just how close a call it had been. He makes himself grin in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. “Rough, but I’ll live. I need a piss. Help me up?”

Ren has to move slowly these days, but the way he’s moving now is even more clumsy than usual. He sees Dek’s anxious look. “I’m fine. Just stiff. The...it’s moving around. Kicking me in the bladder, in fact.” Dek winces. Sometimes Ren tells him way too much.

Shoes need to be dragged on and they stagger out of the tent, Dek lurching drunkenly, and Ren struggling to hold him up. “You know this is the thing about all this I find the hardest,” Ren confides as he steps back to let Dek do his business. “I was always the tallest, strongest guy at school, the academy, and this whole thing’s made me so fucking feeble. I used to shinny up ropes for fun, you know. That nearly killed me last night. Not for real,” he adds hastily as Dek shoots him a worried glance.

“You’ll get that all back,” Dek says, though he’s not sure if that’s true. He has no idea what having a baby cut out of your belly does to a person’s fitness.

“I hope so. I just want....” He gives a short laugh. “I was going to say for things to go back to normal. Not much chance of that.”

Dek fumbles at his fly and fastens everything one-handed, then turns to face Ren. He wants so much, suddenly, to give this man his life back. To make it all better, to restore what he’s lost, because he did nothing to bring this on himself. He wasn’t feckless or foolish or careless or criminal – he was just the wrong person in the wrong place. He stares at Ren, not knowing what to say, not having the words or the ability to offer comfort, but he...wants to. And he doesn’t even know why he wants to. He reaches out as if using Ren’s arm for stability. “Let’s get off the mountain first, worry about the rest of it later,” he says, voice gruffer than he means it to be.

Ren’s thoughts are unreadable in his normally too expressive eyes. “Uh...give me a second. Need a piss too.”

Dek turns his head politely, and forces his unwanted sentiment down. It’s like those refugees, he thinks. He can only do what he can, and trying to be everything to anyone, is asking for disappointment for both parties. He can’t do more than he’s promised. Right now, he’s not sure he can even do that.

As Ren fashions a proper immobilising bandage for his arm and shoulder, and then makes up the fire to prepare breakfast, they argue about Ren’s insistence that Dek needs two, if not three days’ complete rest before they even think about moving. “We’re running low on stores. We need to get moving. Been concussed before,” Dek says curtly as Ren hands him some khevai and toasted camp bread. “I can manage.”

“The fact you’ve had a head injury before actually makes it more important that you rest, you idiot,” Ren snaps. “Damn it, I’m not going to try and deal with an intracranial bleed out here, and it’s a miracle you’ve not got a subdural haematoma, so you’re going to stay still and like it. It’s going to be hard enough you trying to ride with that arm, but if you’re dizzy with it....”

“I’m fine....”

Ren suddenly tosses his empty mug on the ground and walks off, his hands clenching at his side. Dek stares at him in perplexity. What did he say?

Ren’s grabbed one of the axes, and is now tackling a fallen branch on the far side of the camp in a way which is bound to blunt it. Dek struggles to his feet and wobbles over to him. “You should use the saw.”

Ren whirls. “I told you not to move around. Did you think I was joking? Dek – you start bleeding inside your fucking skull and there is nothing I can do about it. I’ll have to watch you die like I....” His nostrils flare. “Sit down. There.”

He jabs his fingers at a boulder and Dek hitches his arse onto it, before folding his arms. “What’s biting you all of a sudden?” Ren makes another couple of whacks at the wood. “And quit that. You’re wrecking it.”

Ren tosses the axe to the ground. “We need the wood,” he grinds out.

“We need the axe more. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Everything’s just bloody marvellous. I’m a five month pregnant man trying to climb down a mountain with a head-injured guy who nearly killed himself last night. Nothing there to be cranky about at all.”

“I’m not badly hurt. Accidents happen.”

“And if you’d been killed? If you’d hit your head just a little bit harder or you’d not broken your fall by grabbing onto that sapling?” Dek just looks at him. The ‘what if’ game is a pointless one. If it comes to that, what if Dek had never found Ren at all? “It’s not just you scared me nearly to death and made me relive some of my worst nightmares. It...you know what really bothers me?” Dek shakes his head – carefully, because being upright is making it throb. “It’s how the whole thing’s make me less than human. I shot a man without the slightest hesitation or conscience. Last night when I saw your body over the side of that outcrop, my first thought was what the hell would I do if you were dead? Not ‘poor Dek, I better help him.’ All I could think of was my own fear, my own future if I had to go on alone. That’s not who I am,” he says, raising a fist. “They’ve made me into this...self-absorbed, self-interested...brood barchin. I’m a doctor!” he yells at the landscape. “I’m the one that does the helping!”

Dek crooks his finger and points to the rock next to him. “Sit,” he orders, and Ren, perhaps taken by surprise, does what he’s told. Dek takes his wrist and holds it carefully. Ren stares up at him, eyes stark and wild in a much too pale, drawn face. “They changed you, didn’t break you.”

“I would have thought of your welfare first, once.”

“How long before you did?”

“A few seconds, I guess.”

“Did it make any difference?”

“No. But I should have thought of you first.”

“No, you shouldn’t. First rule in a rescue is...?”

Ren bites his lip. “Evaluate the scene....”

“...to protect yourself and others from injury or danger. Protect yourself, Ren. That’s what the books tell you, the army drills into you. You can’t help me if you’re injured. You can’t look after anyone if you are. A couple of times, I had a soldier assigned under me who didn’t have a proper care for his own safety. I always got rid of them.”

“It’s not the same....”

“Yes, it is,” Dek says as gently as he can manage. “You were scared about what would happen to you. Me too. First thing I thought when I came across you was ‘crap, I don’t want this’. Nearly left you there to die. You didn’t think of doing that, did you?”

“No. I thought you were going to die anyway...like the others. From the flyer crash.”

Dek just looks at him, rubs his thumb a little on the back of Ren’s arm. “They didn’t make you less than human. You’re not an animal.”

Ren rubs the heel of his other hand against his eye, grits his teeth hard. “I was...just so scared. Just didn’t know what I’d do if you were dead. I don’t know what I’ll do now if something else happens to you. I’m so sick of being in someone else’s hands.”

Hard, Dek thinks, for a doctor to be in this position. They play god all the time, control people’s lives and their health, take charge. “Boot’s on the other foot now,” he says. “I need you to help me. Don’t like it much. Got used to being on my own. But it’s what has to happen for now. You take care of me, then I’ll take care of you.”

“Until you can get rid of me,” Ren says, unsmiling.

“Until you don’t need taking care of,” Dek corrects. “Now – you want to help, you get the saw, cut that wood up right.”

“Only if you go and sit by the fire and stay warm,” Ren counters, and Dek nods, goes to get up, but Ren’s hand is on his arm. “You really think I’m not broken?”

“If you were broken, you’d never have made this far. I’m not going to lie and say everything’s fine, or that it won’t get harder before it gets easier, or that there’s not a good chance one of us will end up dead, or both. I know you’re scared and that’s natural. But you’re still you, in there,” he says, poking at Ren’s chest. “Hang onto that. I...forgot to. You lose that, you lose your mind.”

“You’re still you too,” Ren says, but Dek shakes his head.

“No. That guy died a long time ago. You’ve got more to live for, Ren. You’ve got to prove they didn’t defeat you.” He pats Ren’s hand. “Go get that saw.”

“Go sit down.”

“Deal.” He doesn’t know if talking about it helped. It never did with him, but Ren likes to talk, needs to connect with other people, and Dek’s all he’s got now. If it’s not enough, then Dek doesn’t know what to do.

In the end Dek doesn’t return to the fireside, but instead goes back to the tent because he’s really not feeling so good, and if it stops Ren worrying, he figures a day’s halt won’t make that much difference. He’s not happy about it but he’s not in a position to force it, and fighting with Ren over it will just make them both feel lousy. He dozes off, his sleep troubled by bad dreams. He wakes to find Ren sitting at his feet, one hand on his ankle. He tries to move and grunts as his shoulder protests. “You stay there,” Ren says. “You want another painkiller?”

Dek shakes his head a little. “Save them for something serious,” he says, and Ren laughs.

“You’re a hard arse, Dek, you really are.”

Ren leans back and rubs at his lower spine, his expression pained. “You all right?” Dek asks.

“Yeah. Just...glad to have a rest. Been busy, and my stamina’s not what it used to be. I’ve cut more wood, boiled water, cut forage for the animals, and checked that snare of yours....”

“Don’t you go into that wood again!” Dek snaps. Ren raises his eyebrows. “What if you get hurt?”

“How am I going to get food if I don’t set traps and go collecting? I found some edible fungi – they’ll be lunch.”

“Too dangerous. Don’t do it – we can manage until I’m fit.”

“We’re talking a while there, Dek. Probably not until we get to the lowland. I’m being careful – you already know I can use the gun,” he adds with a wry twist to his mouth. “I don’t see we’ve got much choice.”

Dek grits his teeth. Ren’s probably right, but he hates it. No point in going on about it though. “You need to take it easy.”

Ren smiles. “The most unnecessary advice in the world. Now, do you want anything?”

A time machine, Dek thinks, so he can avoid being pushed over a cliff by a rampaging carnivore. “No.”

“Then get some sleep, it’s good for you. I’ll be in and out to check on you.” And then Ren sits with him until Dek falls asleep again.

That’s how the rest of that day goes – Dek dozes off, and more often than not, he wakes to find Ren sitting there, watching him, always with one hand on him, on his arm or his leg. By the evening, Dek realises this isn’t for his benefit as much as it is for Ren – Ren needs the contact, the reassurance that Dek’s still alive. Dek allows it gladly as it makes him feel like he’s doing something, and Ren seems to get a comfort from it. It’s oddly comforting to Dek too, and he wonders exactly when he stopped minding Ren’s intrusions on his personal space so much.

By the next day, he’s feeling better and raring to go. Ren won’t hear of it. “Forty-eight hours minimum,” he insists, arms folded and his jaw set in a way Dek’s learned means no giving in.

“I can sit on Jesti. It’s not like I’ll be walking.”

“Nice try. Forty-eight hours. And horizontal too, or they don’t count.”

“Arsehole.”

“Thank you. Arseholes are both useful and enjoyable, so I’ll take that as a compliment.” Dek glares at him, but Ren just grins. It’s nice to see him smile again, even if it’s at his own stupid jokes.

So he takes it easy, though the enforced leisure chafes, especially as he can see how tiring Ren’s finding every extra movement. He’s worried about riding one-handed and he’s worried about supplies. They’re going to have to change plans when they get off the mountains. He’d been intending to avoid as many urban settlements as possible, hoping they would only need to restock a couple of times before they got onto a river transport. But they’ll need supplies sooner than that, and so they will have to make their way to a small town a hundred and fifty pardecs due east of their present position, instead of heading to Finmeilidze which is further south. At that point, if absolutely necessary, Ren could go on alone, though Dek doesn’t like the idea, and Ren won’t hear of it. Time enough to force the issue later – Dek’s learning which battles to fight with Ren and which aren’t worth the stress.

He’s well enough to sit by the fire for supper the second night, and even keeps the food down – more fungi with some nuts Ren found, some animal’s forgotten winter cache. Ren’s good at that too – he seems to be naturally adept at most things, except sewing. Cooking isn’t of much interest to him but that’s probably because he’s spent so much of this trip battling nausea, indigestion or constipation. Meals are more a battle to be won than something to be savoured. Dek’s surprised himself how much of that need to enjoy his food has survived all that’s happened to him. Lomare loved his cooking, and he’d used it in his wooing. Maybe Ren had never needed to woo anyone. In good health, he’d be a good looking man. Spectacular looking man. Women probably wouldn’t care if he couldn’t tie his shoe laces.

“What are you thinking about?” Ren asked.

“You tell me,” Dek says, sipping his khevai to hide his smirk. The need to tease Ren has survived their journey intact so far, and is a nice distraction from his bodily pains.

Right on cue, Ren rolls his eyes. “Empath, not telepath, you idiot. It was nice, whatever it was. Why don’t you share?”

“Just...thinking about Lomare, when we were courting.” Ren’s mouth turns down – figures it’s not something he wants to talk about after all. “You tell me something nice.”

“All my nice memories are tied to my family,” he says, poking the fire. “I miss them so much it feels like being choked sometimes.”

“Maybe....” Ren looks up, curious at what he’s going to say. “Maybe if you made a big enough stink. In the Weadenal, where you were safe. Tell people what happened to you. There might be enough outrage that you could go home.”

“Thought about it, and yeah, maybe that would work. But you’re forgetting how restricted our media is, and how ruthless these people are. They might just send someone to kill me – or take Meram hostage to force me to return. I can’t do that, Dek. He’s probably already copping it at school for being the son of a traitor. I can’t put him, the rest of them, in danger. Besides, who’d believe a convicted criminal?”

It sounds like paranoia and yet Ren’s walking proof that nothing he’s said is too outlandish for reality. “I could....” Dek shuts his mouth before he continues, because it sounds like boasting.

“What?”

“They’d believe me. I’m a hero. Got the medals to prove it. I could tell them. I’ve got no one they could threaten.”

Ren blinks at him, several times, eyes wide in shock. Dek sips his drink again, this time to hide his embarrassment. “You...do you...?” He stops, smiles quickly, then, to Dek’s surprise, puts his arms around Dek’s shoulders and squeezes. “You’re a good man, Dek, don’t let anyone tell you different.” He gets up and walks away from the campfire, over to the animals. Moments later, Dek sees him leaning against Jesti, his face apparently pressed against her neck.

Dek sets his mug down and hugs himself, still feeling the weight of Ren’s arm around him, the firmness. This is different than Ren’s careful touches on leg and arm, the accidental embraces at night at they tried to fit together in a too small, too cold space. Different, too, from the desperate clinging of a man fighting off nightmares and flashbacks. This is someone at ease around him – when had that happened? When had Dek’s stern warnings about being touched become like so much melted snow? Ren isn’t scared of him any more. That’s probably not very wise, but Dek doesn’t have it in his heart to rebuild that fear. Ren will be out of his life in a month. So what if there’s one less person on the planet who thinks he’s a dangerous lunatic?

He builds up the fire again since it’s their only deterrent against predators, then gets clumsily to his feet. Before he can take more than two steps, Ren’s there at his elbow. “You be careful, your balance is affected,” he says, conveniently ignoring the four or five parkigs of weight on his gut that are seriously affecting his bloody balance. He carefully helps Dek across the snow to the latrine, then to the tent. Dek would snap at him but Ren’s so genuine in his solicitousness, really trying to make this suck less for him, that it’d be like kicking a baby harwe.

“I can walk fine,” he says, keeping his tone mild as Ren takes his boots off for him.

“You could slip on the snow. If you hit your head again now, it could kill you. Doesn’t have to be hard.”

“I survived being blown up, being shot, being in a war zone for three fucking years. I’m hard to kill.”

“People die from organisms smaller than the naked eye can see all the time, Dek. Doesn’t have to be a big thing.”

Dek grips his chin, forces Ren to look at him. “I am not going to die. Knock it off.” He moves his hand, lays it on Ren’s swelling stomach. “You’re the one we’re supposed to be worried about. What?” he says, frowning at Ren’s grin.

“Um...you know, people do that to pregnant women all the time. Touch their bellies without permission.”

Dek snatches his hand away. “I was just making a point.”

“I know. I don’t mind. Dek – I can’t let you help me, but the fact you even...considered it.” He shakes his head as if in wonderment. “It’s the first time in four years I truly haven’t felt alone.”

“But I offered to help you with this trip.”

“Not the same. I was...a burden. Something you had to get rid of, and since you’re too nice a guy to outright shoot me or abandon me, you kind of had no choice – you being you, I mean. But you offering to...that was pure kindness.” He puts his hand out, and when Dek doesn’t flinch, he touches Dek’s chest, over his heart. “There is a core of goodness in you. You were hiding it for so long, but now I’ve seen it, it’s as obvious as sunlight. No one destroyed the man you are, and I’m glad I met you, whatever happens to me.”

Dek twists away from Ren’s touch. “Don’t talk crap. Anyone would have....”

“No, Dek,” Ren insists, his hand now on Dek’s shoulder, gently restraining. “No, they wouldn’t. The fear of ordinary men and women let what happened to me, happen. You’d never have stood by and watched.”

He pushes Ren’s hand away, and lies down, wriggling to try and get comfortable on the furs and sleeping pad. “You talk too much,” he mutters.

“Always did. Thank you.”

Dek doesn’t ask what for because Ren could probably spout this mushy stuff all night and it’s intensely embarrassing. He doesn’t want to be Ren’s hero, he doesn’t want to be on any damn pedestal. He opened his mouth without thinking. Didn’t take much bravery. Just took having his brains shaken loose by a rebel bomb six years ago in Denebwei.

Ren removes his boots and lies down beside him. “Tomorrow, we’re leaving,” Dek says firmly. “No arguments.”

“We’ll see,” Ren says, smiling at him. Insubordinate bastard.

They face an immediate problem as soon as Dek tries to mount Jesti – between his arm and his bum leg, he just can’t do it without a lot of awkward help from Ren, and since the path is tricky enough that he needs to get on and off pretty frequently, he reluctantly concludes he’ll have to walk, at least until they get off the mountain. Ren isn’t happy about him having to exert himself so soon after the concussion, but there’s really little option – their stores aren’t healthy enough for more delay, and it’ll be weeks before Dek’s arm is strong again.

“How far can you walk a day?” Ren asks as he adjusts Dek’s sling and then eases the jacket over it.

“Far as I need to.” Ren gives him a look. “Five, seven pardecs. More if I rest. We can’t go much faster than that anyway.”

“No, but I think we should limit it to five hours walking with breaks. Will holding onto Jesti help?”

“A bit.” The problem is that his bum leg and his bad shoulder are on different sides, so he won’t get as much benefit as he could do from it.

“A stick!” Ren exclaims. “You need a walking stick.”

“We haven’t got time for that,” Dek growls, already out of patience with the whole being injured thing.

“We need to make time. It’ll give you a lot more....”

“No. I’ll hang onto Jesti. Now let’s get moving.”

The going is slow and treacherous, and he’s sure they’re barely making a demidec an hour. His knee is sore and the unnatural gait wrenches all his muscles and his back, and by the time they stop for the night, he makes a decision. “This comes off,” he says, tugging at the immobilising sling.

“You need it for....”

“Off. It’s making me walk wrong.”

Ren purses his lips disapprovingly. “Tomorrow. Leave it tonight. And you need to try and not use it for another day. Then I’ll start some exercises to build up strength. Another couple of days would be better.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Dek says, glancing at Ren’s stomach. “We’ve used up all our slack.”

“I guess. Take it easy just for tonight.”

He has little choice since he’s as tired as he’s been in years, and his head is throbbing painfully with every beat of his heart. Ren’s exhausted too. A lot of women work almost up to delivery, Dek knows, but they’re designed to carry a child, and Ren isn’t. Ren wasn’t in good shape before he started. Neither of them should be out here.

It snows that night and a thin bitter wind whistles through their camp, making Dek’s teeth ache and the urtibes squeal as they shuffle around to try and get away from it. In the tent, head buried under the blankets, Ren clings to him, shivering and miserable. Dek thinks longingly of his comfortable house and its generous heating, and of how much easier it would be for both of them to be sitting there tucked up and warm. But the pregnancy means they could never have had that option – at least Ren couldn’t. They’re committed now. Just got to get off the mountain. Things should be easier.

In the morning, Ren removes the sling, though he’s not happy, and Dek can feel why keeping it still a little longer would be sensible, because his shoulder hurts like hell as soon as his arm swings free. Ren makes a loop arrangement out of a bandage and sticks it around Dek’s neck. “Support it in that whenever we stop. Don’t use your arm for anything today, tomorrow too if you can. And take these.” He holds out a couple of the anti-inflammatory pills – there are hardly any left.

Dek shakes his head. “Keep them for....”

“Something more serious? This is serious. Dek – a dislocated shoulder can cause you problems for the rest of your life if you don’t look after it. I don’t want...I don’t want my legacy to you to be a permanent injury. Please – stop fighting me?”

Dek has no power to resist Ren’s big eyes, not staring at him out of a white, exhausted face. “All right. Might be easier today anyway.”

Ren’s expression relaxes as Dek takes the pills from him. “Let’s hope so.”

But it doesn’t get easier. The thaw’s working against them, and heavy afternoon rain forces them to make camp early. They huddle under a tarp and brush shelter Ren’s dragged together, and Dek hopes like hell the path isn’t going to be flooded because there’s only one way down from here.

The rain stops before nightfall, but the going the next day is muddy and dangerous – Ren falls heavily as they walk down a difficult patch, his feet suddenly going out from under him as he walks incautiously over slick stone. He lands on his back, the air out bashed out of him with a sickening grunt. Dek rushes to him and helps him sit, patting him all over. “The baby?”

Ren’s wheezing, can’t answer, but he holds up his hand. “Fine,” he gasps. “Gimme...sec.” After a minute or so, he gives Dek a wobbly smile. “That was lucky.”

“Lucky my arse.” They need those sticks, he realises, but they’ll have to wait until they get off this section – there’s nothing he can use to make them.

What should take them four days, takes twice that long, and they are down to almost nothing in their stores by the time they reach the plains. Dek’s on half-rations, despite Ren’s protests – Dek forces Ren to eat his proper allowance, because he has to keep the baby alive. The urtibes are struggling too, but at least they can now start to graze properly, after weeks of living on sparse forage Dek and Ren have cut for them. After the dangerous confines of the steep black rock mountains, their first sight of the open semi-desert plains of Febkeinzian is like the first clear breath after a lung infection. The country stretches wide and clear before them, flat and brown and alien. All they have to do is cross it, and Ren will be safe. Or so the theory goes, anyway.

The first night after they get past the foothills, they camp by a stream fed by snow melt. Dek finds some freshwater shellfish – barely enough for a snack but welcome all the same, and Ren tells him where to dig out the bitter root of a water plant that turns sweetish when grilled over a flame. They’re still a hundred pardecs – two days’ ride – from the nearest town, but the hardest part of their journey is over, and none too soon. They’re both sporting bruises, they’re ragged and dirty and bone-deep tired because they couldn’t rest long enough or well enough on the mountain, but they did it. Dek swears he’ll never travel that route again, not even in summer. How he’s going to get back to Pindone is a problem he’ll solve once Ren is safely on his way out of Febkeinzian. Dek’s only got a vague idea of how that will happen but he figures if he can get Ren on a boat to the Weadenal, that’ll be half the problem solved. He’ll need to find a captain who’s bribable, but that never used to be difficult in this country with its endemic poverty, and there’s always a way of covertly getting someone across national boundaries if you pay enough for it.

He’s worried about Ren though. By Ren’s calculations, he’s more than five and a half months along. The foetus will be growing faster now, and the drain on Ren’s body is increasing. He’s sleeping badly, finding it almost impossible to get comfortable at night, and his feet have swelled so much that the last few days of walking have been torture for him. He looks ill, and his cheerful chatter comes in infrequent intervals, as if he can only spare the energy for a few minutes a day. Dek has even tentatively suggested they try and find a doctor in the town, only to get a withering look from his companion. “Febkeinze doctors are about twenty years out of date in their practices and don’t get me started on what their facilities would be like. You’d be better off taking me to the local vet. At least animals have some value – the vets are better trained than the doctors, believe me. Even if we went somewhere with a hospital, I need major surgery. The chances of there being a surgeon on hand with anything like enough experience are almost nil.”

“It was just an idea,” Dek says, as he carefully stretches his injured arm. Ren’s got him on some strengthening exercises both for that and his leg. It’s been hard to find the time and energy for them, but Ren’s insistent. His shoulder is nothing like as good as it was, but Ren’s hopeful he’ll regain full strength in it. Dek wishes Ren’s medical situation was so easy to deal with.

Because water’s a problem in this region, they decide to follow the line of one of the mountain-fed creeks that flows into one of the Limodi tributaries. The grazing’s better for the animals along its edge, though there’s not much prey for Dek’s snares, and it’s too early for most edible plants to be available, so Dek’s still on short rations. At least he can ride. It’s not for very long, he tells himself. Ren’s guilty expression over each meal makes him more uncomfortable than mild hunger pangs do.

The main product of the region is energy, and here and there along the range of mountains, plumes of steam rise high into the frigid air from power stations. There are over a dozen dotted along the line of the mountain range, making use of the thermal energy from deep underneath the range and the water supplied from the mountain snow, recycling it back into the rivers to supply the rest of the region. Huge silver power lines and relaying towers bisect the landscape and the horizon, carrying the energy to where most of the population lives, which is not here.

The only people who live here are small holders scratching out a meagre existence on the arid plains. To keep the river systems healthy and the important fishing industry viable, the farms aren’t allowed to draw water for crop irrigation. So they mostly raise gekels, domesticated smaller relatives of the urtibes who can live on the sparse vegetation and visit the streams and waterholes as needed. It’s too early for the livestock to be out of their winter pens, so the landscape is empty, brown and apparently dead, enlivened only by the green edges to the streams and creeks that crisscross at infrequent intervals, and by the small, rainwater-tank-supported gardens close to the rundown farmhouses. It makes him homesick for the dense forests and lushness of his own secluded haven.

After the struggle of the mountain crossing, this flat terrain is frankly dull, but it gives them a chance to recover, and the prospect of fresh supplies cheers them both up. Being two foreigners in a country rent by war means they’ve had to concoct a cover story to explain their presence and unconventional travel method, and now they’re a lot closer to needing to use it, they spend a bit of time talking about the details. The cover’s flimsy, although they’ve done their best to collect ‘samples’ of rocks and plants to prop up the image of two amateur rock collecting botanists. It won’t stand up to any kind of informed questioning, but Dek is counting on the chaotic governance of this country to give them some wriggle room. It’s pretty insane, but so’s crossing that range in winter and they survived that, so he’s hopeful. Anyway, he’s crazy so it follows his plan’s crazy too. He doesn’t say any of that to Ren, of course.

They also talk about whether to leave Ren behind while Dek heads into the town, because Ren’s appearance is distinctive even without the belly, but if anything happens to him, Ren’ll be stuck, helpless. On balance, Dek thinks they should travel in together and Ren agrees. The man’s already proved himself useful in a fight, if it comes to that, which Dek really hopes it won’t because these people are not his enemies. He and Ren are planning to project dopey harmlessness. They’re about to find out how good their acting skills are.

The town, Heparnime – a long name for a mudscrape of a place – is dead as they ride in on their third day after reaching the lowlands. The dry desert wind which has been cutting through them and making their skin crack for two days, whistles along the gravel and packed dirt surface of what passes for a main street, kicking up unpleasant dust devils that toss grit into their eyes and make the urtibes’ ears flatten in annoyance. No one’s walking the road or driving veecles down it – the few houses have their shutters closed against the wind, and Dek doesn’t imagine it’s much of a town for recreational strolling. ‘Town’ is a bit of a misnomer – it’s just a shambolic collection of rundown mud brick and unpainted wood buildings, and the only one that looks halfway respectable is the general store, which is where Dek’s headed.

He knows from experience that the store is the hub of these little communities, and as he and Ren walk in, he sees this one is no different. There are a half a dozen men sitting around an ancient electric heater in the corner, drinking buga – a horrible, weakly alcoholic concoction that smells vaguely of vomit and which is practically the national beverage – from long, decorated glasses. The storekeeper’s sorting through screws and other metal fittings at the counter. The grimy windows let in very little light so there’s a single dusty bulb casting a thin glow over the shelves. It makes the people look sickly, and the stock seem run down and crappy, like a geriatric version of the central store in Osiwen.

Everyone turns and looks at them as Dek pulls off his woollen face protector and plasters on his best village idiot grin. “Hi. Come to buy some supplies.”

“Pindoni,” a man in the corner rumbles. He gets to his feet and doesn’t look too happy to see them. “Why are you here?”

Dek scratches his beard as Ren smiles disarmingly, picking up on the suspicion even though he doesn’t speak a word of the language. “Weeell – we got kind of lost. We were looking for seivk rock samples a ways north and my friend here says, hey, I’d like to collect some puipa plants. I says to him, it’s too early for puipa but he won’t take no for an answer, and so we went looking. I think we took a wrong turn – are we anywhere near Kulite?”

That makes another of the listeners chuckle. “Kulite? That’s some wrong turn.”

“Gentlemen, can I help you?” the storekeeper asks, shooting a glare at his customers.

Dek turns to him gratefully. “Yes. We’re out of stores so we could do with flour, beans, any fresh vegetables....”

The man shakes his head. “Vegetables? Got no fresh food, my friend. Supply’s been cut off for weeks now. You picked a bad time to come to Febkeinzian.”

Dek plays dumb. “Isn’t the war over? I thought the rebels came to an arrangement with the government.” The man in the corner chuckles again, taking a delight in the idiocy of the strangers.

“Nobody’s told the ones fighting in this region, if they have. You should get yourselves back home, if you know what’s good for you.”

Dek asks how they can do that, and the bad news is that the Limodi river isn’t going to work for them. “The rebels hold Jikl Bridge and the lock there – that’s where our supplies are being turned away. What’s getting through, we have to pay a ‘tax’ on. I can’t afford it.”

It seems the only alternative is to go further northeast and hope they can get on a rollo south. It’ll add time to their journey they can ill afford but they have no choice – they can’t get to Jurgizme Port by foot, not within the deadline imposed by Ren’s condition. Dek thanks the storekeeper, trades some of the uncured pelts they took off the dead poacher for a couple of bottles of syngas, and buys what food the man can spare. One of the idlers says he can sell Dek a salted quarter-gekel and Dek seizes on that, so the guy heads off to collect it. They’re invited to take their ease while they wait, and offered buga which Dek accepts, though mentally gritting his teeth. Ren takes one sniff and shakes his head, looking green at the very idea. “Sorry – he’s got a fragile stomach,” Dek explains.

“Maybe he should eat less,” one of the men says, pointing at Ren’s protruding gut.

“Yes, he’s on a diet. You should have seen him when we started,” Dek lies cheerfully, and though it sets Ren up for half an hour of less than good natured teasing and comments, it deflects attention from their real purpose, and establishes them both as fools. No one sees a fool as a threat, so that’s fine by him.

The man with the meat returns – he asks what’s an outrageous price by Febkeinze prices but a mere pittance to Dek, and they take their leave. It’s pretty obvious Ren’s anxious to put as many pardecs between them and Heparnime as he can before nightfall.

“Sorry about that,” Dek says after they’ve ridden a pardec in clenched jaw silence.

“Not your fault,” Ren says, teeth still grinding. “You don’t just know how ironic it is to be mocked for overeating when I’ve been so hungry for years. Smug bastards.”

“They’ve had their lean years too.”

They make camp five pardecs from the town, and while eating the first full meal he’s had in over a week, Dek breaks the bad news to Ren. “Won’t the rollo be a target for the rebels too?” Ren asks.

“Guess they tried and failed already. The situation’s not stable, you know that.”

“I’ve just got this feeling like we’re not going to get there in time. It’s nearly a month by boat to the Weadenal, and I still have to find someone to help me. It might make me a coward, but I’m terrified, Dek. I look at my stomach and think, this is going to kill me.”

Ren’s not a coward, and what he’s facing would scare anyone. “I’ll stick with you until you’re right,” Dek says. “Go with you to the Weadenal if I have to, help you find this Wechel. You won’t die. I won’t let you.”

Ren put his hand out and squeezes Dek’s wrist. “Thank you. But I...think Wechel may not be very friendly towards you. His group were primarily interested in saving us because we’re fellow paranormals.”

Dek cocks his head. “Thought they didn’t say anything about why they were rescuing you.”

“They didn’t. I just picked up bits and pieces.”

Dek frowns as Ren gets up, his hands under his belly like he’s trying to support it. “Back in a minute. I have to piss again.”

The man’s hiding something, and it’s like being kicked in the balls. After all this time together, what they’ve been through together, Ren’s lying to him? Could the whole story be a crock of shit? Ren’s ease with a gun, his readiness to kill like a pro...that doesn’t fit with him being a doctor, or even a soldier since he’s so long past his service. But there’s the pregnancy, and the scars, and Ren’s nightmares are too real to be based on a lie. Dek would swear that Ren’s fear, his gratitude, his kindness are all real too – but maybe he’s just a good actor. He is a good actor, Dek’s seen him at it. He’s seen him at it today, in the store. None of the men there had suspected he could kill without blinking, or that he was concealing such a bizarre secret. Dek’s worked with men who could carry off that kind of act with the ease Ren’s displayed – and none of them were just simple doctors. But then none of them had been imprisoned for four years or forcibly impregnated, and Dek has no idea how that changes a man. That uncertainty stops him pushing harder for the truth than he thinks he ought to.

Ren avoids his eyes when he gets back from the latrine, and doesn’t raise the issue. Dek waits and waits the rest of the afternoon as they do small chores and Ren avoids talking to him. Finally, much against his instincts, he confronts him as Ren’s cutting up vegetables for supper. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“About what?” Ren says, his eyes just a little too wide and innocent.

“About anything.”

“I’m not hiding anything, Dek.”

“Are you working for the Weadenisis?”

“No!”

“Then why did they rescue you?”

Ren grits his teeth and looks up. “I told you then, I’m telling you now. I know no more than they told me, and what I told you. They never explained, they never answered our questions. You want facts, ask them yourself when we meet up with them.” He gets up. “I’m tired. I’m going to lie down for an hour. Can you finish up?”

Dek only nods. Ren certainly isn’t telling him everything, but if he’ll lie straight-faced, there’s not much Dek can do to force the issue. This isn’t the place for a full-on confrontation either.

He doesn’t mention it again when Ren comes out of the tent to eat, and neither does Ren. The atmosphere between them is cooler though, and Ren presumably can sense Dek’s disapproval and suspicion. The fact he doesn’t comment on it only reinforces Dek’s feeling that he’s concealing the truth.

Ren’s sleep is plagued by nightmares, but he acts cheerful the next morning, and with a full stomach, Dek feels better able to deal with whatever surprise lies in store for him. He figures nothing will happen until they get to the coast. He’ll keep his eye on his companion and trust him no more than he has to, but they have to get to the port first, and that’s weeks away.

They have enough food for eight days if they’re careful. They’ll cross the Limodi before then, and go through one more town, though it may have even fewer supplies than Heparnime could provide. The nearest rollo station is two weeks further on from the river crossing, and then it’s a three day trip to the coast. The unknown factor is rebel incursion. They’ve seen no action, no sign of fighting, and the storekeeper said there’s been no trouble this far north – yet. But the insurgency is active and having too many successes for comfort. They can’t afford to be complacent.

They ride together as they have been doing, but Ren seems to accept that things have changed. He makes little attempt to chat, and the easy companionship is now reduced to grunts and brief discussion of what needs to be done, what plans are to be made for the next day and so on. Some of that’s Ren’s condition – he’s having a bad time of it and it’s getting worse. Each afternoon as he climbs off Wuzi, he almost collapses from exhaustion, and can only sit, his huge belly obscene between bent knees, watching Dek set up camp. Firewood is near impossible to get here, so they have to make do with the syngas which is fine for cooking, but doesn’t give them the comfort of a proper campfire. The nights are still shitting cold, though it gets hot enough at midday for them to have to remove their outer gear. In the tent Ren still presses hard against Dek, seeking his warmth, but there’s a coolness between them that no body heat can breach. Dek quietly mourns the loss of the friendship he’d barely begun to accept, but at the same time, it’s all he should expect from his shitty luck. He hardens his heart and prepares to be betrayed, even as he continues to do all he can to keep his companion healthy and safe. He’s given his word, after all.

They’re able to buy more supplies at the next town, though at an outrageous price, and with more suspicion. Still no soldiers, but Dek’s dreading their first encounter since the increased rebel activity is bound to make the soldiers more wary. Surprisingly, there’s only a bored civilian guard at the river crossing and he listens to Dek’s story of moronic adventuring with only one ear. He’s more curious about Ren, and Dek confides in him that in fact his companion’s very ill and this is his last chance to visit Febkeinzian. The guard becomes sympathetic, says he hopes they get home safely and allows them across, to Dek’s intense relief. Ren doesn’t ask what they discussed. Perhaps the subject of false stories is a bit too close to home, Dek thinks sardonically.

After they cross the river, they start to see worrying signs of the war – people heading in the other direction, all their belongings piled on gekels or urtibes, and in one case, an elderly veecle Dek thinks won’t make another five pardecs. It’s a trickle of refugees, not a flood – people who are lucky enough to have relatives elsewhere in the country and who are getting out before the real trouble starts. No one’s interested in why two Pindonis are headed the wrong way into a war zone, and no one gives them any trouble. Like Dek and Ren, they all just want to get where they’re going as quickly as they can.

There’s a little town – barely three buildings, according to Dek’s map – on their route, but their supplies are good after the last stop, and he’d been thinking of bypassing it until Ren comes down with a vomiting bug that knocks him flat for three days and leaves him unable to face the hard, bland rations that’s all they have in their packs. Neither of them have eaten fresh fruit or vegetables since they came off the mountain – ironically there was more edible greenery there than there’s been on the plains – and Dek thinks it’s worth seeing if they can buy any at the store here.

The place gives him bad vibes from the start. It’s deserted – not in the way Heparnime had been, where it was obvious the residents were just holed up in the warm, but in the way that a town looks when everyone’s gone for good. Dek draws his pistol and holds it at the ready as he tries the door of the small general store. “Locked,” he says. Ren shrugs. They’ll manage, he’s saying, which is true.

Dek would like to get out of here but there’s a barn behind the store, and the only thing they could really do with is some grain. If the occupants have fled, they probably only took what they could carry, and it might be worth seeing if there are any sacks Dek and Ren can take. Dek doesn’t like to steal from people this poor, or at all, but if they’ve really left for good, then the supplies will go to waste. He can leave money to salve his conscience.

“I’ll go look,” he says to Ren. “Keep your gun in your hand, fire it if you hear or see anything.”

“You sure you don’t want back up?”

Dek looks him over. “You can’t run fast enough. Stay here, look after the animals.”

Ren nods, Dek waits until he draws his weapon and then walks down the side of the store towards the small, rundown barn. It’s possible it’s used as a veecle shelter, but he’ll know that in....

A gunshot from Ren’s position, and he whirls, weapon at the ready, only to hear a clipped, “Drop it, put your hands up.”

Dek obeys. He’s facing a bearded man of about his own age, wearing a ragged uniform and pointing an elderly Pindoni-made Rassel automatic at him. The uniform’s Febkeinze military issue with the insignias cut off, all except a kazmi’s double bars on the pocket and a red lightning bolt crudely stitched on the sleeve. Rebel army. Now he wishes like fuck they’d given this shitting town a miss. “Hi – I was just looking for the owner.” He takes care to make his Pindoni accent particularly thick.

“He’s not here.”

“Fine, then I’ll be on my way.”

The man snorts. “I don’t think so, my friend.” He taps his ear – he’s got a communicator, and unlike the gun, it’s new. “Have you got the other one?”

Damn it. Ren. “Look, we’re just passing through....”

“Shut up.”

Dek hears footsteps and the jingle of urtibes harness, and then sees Ren walking towards them, his hands raised. Behind him another man in rebel uniform is holding Ren’s own gun on him, and leading their animals by the reins. Ren gives him a queasy little smile as he’s shoved alongside Dek.

“Good work,” the man holding Dek says. Some kind of officer, Dek guesses, from his demeanour – the kazmi bars might be his own, might be those of a man he killed for the uniform. He bends to pick up Dek’s dropped pistol. “You two are coming with us.”

They’re searched with frightening competency – Dek was hoping they might be amateurs, but everything about them says they’re far from being that – and their knives and wire saws are taken off them. The animals are led off to the barn – when the doors open, Dek hears other urtibes or gekels inside, though he can’t tell how many, and it doesn’t give him any more information about how many soldiers there might be. He’s given little time to think about it as they’re ordered to get moving. If he was alone and in his prime, he’d probably be able to take them both down, guns or not, but his leg is prone to failure at crucial moments, and then there’s Ren to consider. So he lets himself be prodded at gunpoint and forced around the back of the store, because it’s only worth fighting if he can get them both out.

They’re shoved in through the double doors behind the store, and Dek realises their luck’s run out completely – inside there are at least twenty rebel soldiers holed up, and there’s no way Dek and Ren will be allowed to just walk out now they’ve seen them. The escape routes are the doors and the high windows which may as well be on the moon for all the use they are to them, even if they had their weapons and Ren was capable of running faster than a pardec an hour which he isn’t. They’re screwed.

As he’s still frantically assessing their non-existent options, his legs are suddenly kicked out from under him, as are Ren’s. Ren falls heavily on his front and can only partially prevent himself landing on his stomach. Dek instinctively tries to help him, covering Ren with his own body, resisting attempts to pull him off Ren. “Leave him alone, he’s sick,” he snaps.

He’s shoved back with a boot at his weak shoulder, and then the leader’s gun is in his face. “I give the orders here. Who are you and why are you in Febkeinzian?”

Dek’s distracted by Ren’s attempts to sit up – he sees a soldier raising his boot to kick him and he yells. “Don’t! You could kill him!”

The leader glances at his soldier and shakes his head. The man drops his foot, but then Dek’s smashed across the mouth and knocked backwards. “That’s your last warning. Answer the question or he dies.” The leader points his gun at Ren who looks craven and cowardly and utterly non-threatening. Acting again, Dek thinks, and wishes Ren just wasn’t this good at it.

“We’re rock collectors. You can check our packs. We got lost and ended up down here. We were trying to get to Kulite, but now we just want to get to the coast and go home.”

The leader narrows his eyes, then nods. “Names?”

“Dekan and Rensire. That’s Rensire.”

“Well, Dekan, you and your friend are the prisoners of the Febkeinze Liberationists.”

“What are you going to do to us?”

The man smiles. “Shoot you if you don’t stop asking questions. On your feet.”

Dek has to help Ren, though he’s not sure if Ren’s still acting – he’s looking damn pale, but he was before they ran into these people. He’s breathing fast – not acting, Dek decides. Just terrified. He wishes he could offer reassurance, but he can’t afford to piss these people off.

They’re stripped of their outer gear and forced through a side door into the adjoining building, which seems to be the storekeeper’s home. Dek wonders what happened to the man and his family, and if they were ‘liberated’ or simply fled ahead of the fighting. There are more lounging soldiers in the kitchen, all heavily armed with a motley collection of knives apparently chosen for how impressive they look when used to pick teeth, and rifles, automatics and pistols of varying vintages but all unfortunately completely operational. The only commonalities are the insignia-free uniforms and the red flash on the sleeve – some of the men are undoubtedly deserters, but others look to Dek more like ordinary thugs. The leader, he’s military, no doubt about it, but Dek suspects it’s been a long time since he took orders from someone officially in charge.

All this he assesses as they’re shoved through the kitchen and into the front room. The sickly smell of faeces smacks them in the face, and the source is obvious – a wounded man on a table, a cushion under his head and a blood-soaked field dressing over his torn gut the only comforts that seems to have been given him. Ren starts as he sees the guy, before glancing quickly at Dek. A mistake, because the leader’s no fool. “You know him? You know about the fighting?” he says, jamming his gun in Ren’s side, and making him cry out in pain.

“No. He’s a doctor,” Dek says quickly. “Please don’t hurt him – he doesn’t speak Febkeinze. He’s just concerned at seeing someone injured.”

“A doctor? Then he can save Gimon’s life, and maybe we won’t have to kill you,” the leader says, smiling and baring grotty teeth. “Tell him!”

“Ren – can you help him?”

“I don’t know until I look.”

Dek relays the answer. The leader drags Ren over to the injured man. “Save him, and you live. He dies, you die.”

Dek doesn’t say all that. “Can you do it?” he asks. Ren’s already lifting the field bandages and wincing.

“He needs surgery – even in a hospital, I doubt he’d make it.”

Not what Bad Teeth needs to hear. “Can you at least try?” Dek asks.

Ren looks at him helplessly. “Have they got any instruments? Alcohol? Any drugs? I’m not a miracle worker.”

Impatient with their conversation, the leader grabs Ren’s arm. “I said, help him!”

Ren turns to him. “You want me to help him? Then help me,” he snaps, and there’s no fear in his voice, just anger. Dek starts to quickly translate on the fly. “He’s got a lacerated bowel – that’s what you can smell. The chances of him surviving this are very slim – and nonexistent if you don’t give me something to work with, some space and some fucking hygiene.”

The man snarls as Dek translates. “Don’t talk to me like that, you piece of shit.”

“Fine – let him die. You’re going to kill us anyway.” Ren folds his arms, and Dek holds his breath.

The man narrows his eyes angrily, and brings his gun up. “You think pointing that at me will change the facts?” Ren says, his lip curling in disgust.

Dek’s sure they’re about to die. There’s a long, dangerous moment while Ren and the rebel exchange equally determined and poisonous glares, then the man barks an order for two of his men to come to him from the kitchen. “Find out what he needs,” he says, shoving one of the newcomers at Ren, then he walks off.

Dek gets a list of Ren’s requirements, and the soldier goes off to find them. Three more men saunter in and take up position on the ratty chairs, their posture very clearly saying the prisoners aren’t a threat, but the soldiers will be if anyone tries any funny business. Dek pretends to ignore them, even as he’s noting potential escape routes and strategies, and the fact that the soldier nearest to him has his holster unbuckled, which might give Dek an opening if he can grab the handgun.

Ren, in doctor mode and not military, turns back to the injured man, checking his vitals. “Can you save him?” Dek asks, quietly because he doesn’t know if any of the guards speak Pindoni. It’s unlikely, but not impossible.

“Not a hope in hell,” Ren says, giving him a grim look. “He’s going to shoot us. But he’s going to shoot us anyway. Any chance you can take any of them?”

“One, two, maybe. Not all of them. Not without a gun.”

Ren nods, strangely calm. “Then that’s that.” He smiles, though it looks painful. “Dek, thank you for all you’ve done. I know you think I’ve...lied, or done something, not sure what. But it’s been an honour to know you. I wish you felt the same, but anyway...I’m still so glad I met you.”

Dek feels his throat closing up. “We’re not there yet.”

“No. But soon, and I wanted to say it. Help me talk to this guy, will you?”

The man’s barely conscious, but in agony nonetheless. He answers Ren’s quiet questions in grunts and monosyllables – Ren doesn’t waste a lot of time asking how he feels, because it’s bloody obvious, and instead offers reassurance that would sound almost sounds credible if the smell of shit wasn’t so thick in the air. There’s nothing Ren can do for the pain except put cold cloths on the man’s forehead. He’s asked for drugs, painkillers, kumozine, anything they’ve got, but Dek will be surprised if they have anything – these guys will have prioritised weapons and food, not medicines. And he’s right – the best the rebels can offer is Dek and Ren’s own medical kit, a few dressings, some knives, kitchen scissors, thread and a bottle of hooch. “It’s no good,” Ren says, surveying the pitiful collection at the other side of the room, out of the patient’s sight and hearing. “It’d be kinder to stick a knife in his heart and get it over with.”

One of the watching soldiers correctly interprets Ren’s expression and his tone, and shouts a name that Dek realises is the leader’s. The man comes in. “Why aren’t you working?” he says to Ren, raising his gun again.

“Because I’m not a fucking vivisectionist, that’s why!” Ren hisses, keeping his voice low but losing none of the emotion. “Trying to operate on an unanaesthetised man with no proper equipment is tantamount to torture, and the end result’s the same – he’s going to die. All I can do is not try and make him die in more pain than he’s in.”

As Dek finishes translating, the leader puts his gun to Ren’s temple. “Do it or you’ll die.”

“Then shoot me.” Ren’s fists are clenched, but Dek knows that look. He means every word. Dek doesn’t know whether he should admire him or smack him.

The leader knows people, it seems, because he immediately swings the gun to point at Dek’s gut. “Do it or he dies. In agony, while you watch.”

Dek refuses to translate, but Ren understands anyway. “I can’t save him. I can’t – no surgeon on the planet could with these tools.”

“Fine. Then your friend will die alongside him.”

Ren looks at Dek. “What do you want me to do?”

The heroic way would be to jump the guy and force a hail of bullets to bring this farce to a swift and merciful end. “You want me to start a firefight?”

Ren bites his lip. Suicide or suicide. What a choice. “You decide. At least I’m not going to die in prison. That’s more than I expected.”

Dek nods, his heart clenched at the flat acceptance in Ren’s voice. “If he fails, kill us clean,” he says to the leader. “At least do that.”

The man nods, for a moment looking almost sympathetic. “You have my word.”

“Ren? Do what you can.”

Ren tilts his chin, and then calmly asks for the knives, scissors and thread to be boiled up. Nothing gives away that he’s operating under a death sentence, from the rock steady hands to the even, unhurried way he gives orders, more reassurance to the injured man. He asks for soap and hot water to be brought in and he washes his hands in the bucket with care and attention, as if he really thinks it’ll make a difference if his hands are clean when he operates. The leader watches all the preparations in silence, and when, after the boiled up collection of implements are brought in, Ren motions him and Dek to step back, the rebel agrees without hesitation. Dek wonders why the man’s persisting when he must know it’s hopeless – perhaps for the same reason Ren is. Where there’s life, there’s hope, and a miracle might come, who knows.

But it doesn’t. Two of the wounded man’s friend’s hold him down at feet and shoulders, though he’s barely conscious. Ren begins to carefully cut off his clothes and the filthy dressing – the smell of bowel becomes overpowering, and one of the lounging soldiers puts his hand over his mouth and makes a run for it. The leader doesn’t even twitch. Dek wonders who this ‘Gimon’ is to him, but he’s unsurprised at the lack of obvious emotion. He’s not going to reveal a weakness to his enemies, even if his enemies are helpless prisoners.

Ren pours some of the hooch on a cloth, then wipes the skin around the wound, making the patient whimper. He glances at the rebel leader. “You should let him go.”

Dek translates – the man’s expression doesn’t change. “Get on with it.”

Ren grits his teeth, picks up one of the smaller knives, and cuts into the wound. The patient rears up and screams behind a muffling hand – Ren hesitates and the leader growls. “Shut up,” Ren snaps, his eyes stark. “I won’t work faster with threats.”

The man’s eyes narrow. “He won’t,” Dek says. “He’s a stubborn arsehole.”

“Tell him he’s a dead arsehole if he doesn’t hurry.”

“He’s going as fast as he can.”

The man looks about to make another threat, but then he shuts his mouth. Ren’s been paying him no mind anyway. The screaming has muted to moans, and Ren continues, his hands now inside the man’s guts. Dek forces himself to watch, but he can’t help wincing in sympathy for both of them.

Less than a minute later, Ren throws the knife aside and yells at the soldiers to get the hell away. He starts doing chest compressions on the patient, telling Dek to get over and start breathing support.

They both know it’s hopeless, but Ren forces them to continue until pure fatigue means he simply can’t keep the compressions going any longer. Dek could drag one of the soldiers in to take over, but there’s no point. “Stop,” Dek says, pushing Ren back. He resists, but then he nods and steps away, his bloodied hands shaking.

Dek straightens up. “He’s dead,” he says to the leader. “He tried. We both did. You saw.”

The leader’s expression is unreadable. Ren, ignoring them both, takes one of the kitchen cloths that have been provided for him to wipe his hands, and lays it respectfully and with gentle precision over the dead man’s face. Then, to Dek’s surprise, he makes a gesture over the body, and mutters something that sounds like ‘Travel joyfully’. He straightens and turns to face Dek. “I guess that’s it,” he says, a pained smile on his lips. Dek doesn’t know what to say. It’s over, but it shouldn’t have been this way.

The leader tells them to step away from the body, his pistol pointed at them. “Remember your promise,” Dek says, reaching for Ren’s left hand.

“I will.” And there’s almost regret in his eyes, except Dek doesn’t believe the man couldn’t just let them go.

But as the leader raises his gun, takes careful aim, and Dek braces himself for a shot he probably won’t feel, they get that miracle after all. The window shatters, showering them with glass, and before they can take the least cover, a hail of bullets smashes into the room, through the cheap walls, the door, like they’re made of cardboard, spewing wood splinters and dust and broken brick like shrapnel through the tiny space. The soldiers throw themselves behind the furniture and start to return fire. Dek doesn’t even have to think as he yanks Ren down hard, diving under the table and not carrying which side hits the floor, only that Ren is down. He throws himself over Ren, and covers his head with his arm, while a hellacious firefight goes on over the top of them. What the fuck is going on, he wonders. More rebels? Civilians? Or the army? He thinks about making a run for it while the rebels are occupied, but now there’s gunfire at the rear as well, and the soldiers in the kitchen are responding. Fuck – blocked both ways. The only direction where there isn’t fighting is straight up and unfortunately Dek’s left his wings in his other pants.

A minute later, the shattered door is kicked in by determined boots, and there are sharp commands for everyone to stay still and that anyone reaching for a weapon will be shot. One of the rebels tries his luck anyway, and is dealt with as promised. More heavy boots thud in the kitchen area, and there’s another couple of rounds fired, a man screams and is cut off with another shot. Dek doesn’t dare look up to see what’s going on, but he can guess, based on his own experiences. It’s the Febkeinze army, he’s sure of it.

The rebel soldiers are hauled out of the house, then it’s their turn. “Sit up,” he’s ordered, a none too gentle kick to his hip reinforcing the words. Dek helps Ren crawl out from under the table and sit, before he looks up and sees a young thin-faced officer with stone cold eyes staring down at him.

He’s holding a Febkeinze-issue automatic pistol on them, and Dek’s sure there are still bullets in the clip. He doesn’t want to give the man any excuse to use them. “We’re Pindoni,” he says quickly. “Utag Dekan hon Cerimwe and Arwe Rensire hon Parmin. He’s a doctor.”

The officer frowns. “Utag?”

“Retired,” Dek assures him.

“I’m Kazmi Harno, Febkeinze Military Service. What are you doing here?”

Dek very carefully makes no move to get to his feet. “We were captured a short while ago by these rebels. We’re just exploring the north of your country. Rock hounds,” he says and it sounds ridiculous even to him.

Harno isn’t impressed either. “Are you injured?” he asks Ren, seeing the blood on his hands and his shirt.

“He doesn’t speak Febkeinze, Kazmi. He’s not hurt – he was forced to operate on that man.” Dek points at the corpse on the table – now just one of several in the room.

Harno’s eyes narrow. “‘Forced’? Get up.” Dek helps Ren stand – he’s favouring one side and has to lean heavily on Dek. “I thought you said he wasn’t injured.”

“He’s not. He’s sick.”

Harno’s suspicious, and not inclined to be generous in his assessment. “As far as I can see, he, and possibly you, are involved in giving aid and comfort to enemies of Febkeinzian. I’m placing you under arrest. My reteri can deal with you.”

Dek nods – only to be expected. “Please – we have three urtibes and our packs. Any chance they can be brought along?”

The officer gives the orders, and Dek tells them they have cold weather clothing as well. Their urtibes they’ll have to leave, but they’re told that any pack animals in the barn will be transported separately, and Dek’s assured that theirs will be looked after. It’s the most he can expect, and he thanks the kazmi for that. Ren’s given a chance to wash the blood off in the kitchen and they’re allowed to dress in their outdoor gear, before their hands are tied behind them. They’re taken outside – just in time to see the aftermath of the execution of several of the rebel soldiers in front of the store. Ren stops, his eyes wide and horrified as he stares at the bound and blindfolded bodies lying in the dirt, the soldiers bringing their rifles to rest position while a junior officer checks the prisoners are dead.

Kazmi Harno turns to Dek, his brown eyes colder than snow on basalt. “These men killed ten of my soldiers in a raid this morning. If I find you’ve been working for them, you can expect the same. Move.”

Dek tells Ren to keep walking. “They’re in a war,” he says quietly as they are herded towards a troop transport.

“Yes, I know. I just...thought they’d be taken prisoner. Like us.”

“Rules of engagement, most likely. I’d have done the same thing.” There’s a slight tilt of the officer’s head as Dek says this. Harno speaks Pindoni, Dek realises. Or at least he understands it. They need to be careful.

They’re seated next to each other in the transport, hands still bound. It’s obviously awkward and uncomfortable for Ren, and Dek suddenly wonders if he’s been injured in the falls they’ve taken. If the baby’s been hurt, or even killed, Ren’s in trouble. “Are you all right?” he whispers.

Ren give him a brief, wry smile. “Been better. This is a mess.”

“Yes,” Dek admits. “If we could find someone who speaks Pindoni,” he says, turning his head briefly in the direction of the kazmi who’s sitting across from them, but for the moment, not looking their way, “it would help.”

“Yes, it would,” Ren says, and gives Dek an infinitesimal nod. Dek hopes he got the message.

They’re driven about five pardecs to a dusty base camp set up in the middle of bugger all so far as Dek can see – he can only assume it must have some strategic importance but what it’s defending, he can’t tell. It’s a large camp with dozens of Pindoni-made brown felt tents laid out in neat rows, and there’s at least one pre-fab rigid structure which means it’s intended for long-term use. Going by the number of tents, and the presence of a reteri, he estimates at least five hundred men are stationed here, and that it probably supports two, if not more, outposts. It’s possible that its location is a compromise to enable men to be shunted quickly between distant positions, or perhaps it’s simply because the rebels have so recently established bases here. The Febkeinze method is to set up these large military camps on a semi-permanent basis through the country even in peace time, but this one may have been moved here within the last month or so – they have that mobility down to a fine art.

A camp this size means a lot of men and supplies need shifting around. They’re driven up to where a large pool of battered brown transports and two-wheels – the rugged trail versions made in Pindone – are parked. Some transports are being refuelled, others are being repaired – one’s in pieces while a couple of mournful mechanics stand and stare at the corpse. Bright sparks fly and metal screeches over in the far corner as bodywork is rewelded. There are also several dozen pack animals – barchins and gekels – in a metal-fenced corral behind the transport pool. A number of the animals are injured, and now Dek looks more closely, he can see that a few of the soldiers working on the veecles are sporting bandages, and there’s bullet and explosive damage to several transports. There’s an air of tension – no one’s slouching around, taking it easy. Men walk fast, urgently, and their voices are clipped and lacking in smiles. He knows the signs. The camp’s been under fire, and recently. They’ve lost people – too many people. No wonder Kazmi Harno’s looking so tense.

They’re helped down from the transport, and then they’re hustled to a tent deep within the compound – some kind of storeroom, it looks like, as there are crates and bins stacked neatly in the corner. Their hands are untied, and then they’re told to strip to their underwear – it’s cold and the little gas-powered heater that’s brought in and set in the corner isn’t enough to warm the space properly, but Dek doesn’t argue and neither does Ren. The two young soldiers assigned to guard them, stare at Ren’s belly, and after some hasty whispering, one runs off. The other one tells them to sit on the ground, pointing his gun at them rather nervously, and Dek’s flattered that half-naked and battered, they apparently still look dangerous.

Though the felt and canvas floor doesn’t offer much protection from the underlying chill – the Pindoni army uses rubber matting, but the Febkeinze are traditionalists about such things, it seems – they’re in no position to demand chairs. Ren feels the cold worse than Dek and leans against him for what warmth he can. “Well, we’re still not dead,” he says in a breathy laugh.

“Yeah. Who’d have thought it?”

The other soldier returns with Kazmi Harno. “What’s wrong with him?” Harno asks, pointing at Ren.

In his underwear, the incongruence of his bulging belly is even more marked, with his skinny legs and wasted physique. It makes the lie much more believable, and it comes easily off Dek’s tongue now. “He has a tumour. Inoperable. He’s dying.”

Ren murmurs, “What are you telling them?”

In Pindoni, Dek says, “About your tumour. That you’re dying.”

“I don’t want people to know about that,” Ren says with just the right amount of sad defiant bravery. Damn, he’s good.

“I’m sorry but they have to.”

“I’m conducting an interrogation here,” Harno snaps.

“Sorry,” Dek says in Febkeinze. “He’s had a bad day.”

“Are you two lovers?”

“Friends,” Dek says, because the Febkeinze don’t like homosexual relationships and besides, it’s true that they’re not lovers. After what Ren said when he thought they were about to be killed, Dek’s prepared to rethink the friendship side of it, but not now.

Harno points at Ren’s tattooed hand. “What does that mark mean?”

“He’s a paranormal – a Gifted one,” Dek amends, using the Febkeinze term. “Our government does that to all their kind.”

“But you are not.”

“No. Just a friend.”

Harno glares. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” Dek says, rather indignant because he wasn’t.

“Not about this, his illness.” Harno smiles rather nastily. “I am also a paranormal, Utag Dekan.”

“You’re an empath? So’s he.”

Harno blinks in surprise. “Ah. Well that’s interesting but less important than what you were doing with our enemy. Get up, my reteri wants to see you. I advise you not to lie to him – he’s had a very bad day and so have I. We lost a lot of men this morning.”

Dek bows his head. “I know the feeling. I’m sorry.”

“Move,” Harno says.

They’re allowed to pull on their boots, trousers and undershirts, though nothing else, then they’re hustled out and along through the camp. Dek hopes like hell they’re going to be given back their clothes soon because that brief exposure to the frigid, desiccating wind off the plains is enough to freeze his balls off. The soldiers aren’t trying to be unkind, they’re just busy and harried and Dek and Ren are just bloody nuisances. The fact that no one spares them more than a cursory glance tells Dek the people here have got more than enough on their minds to give a damn about two inadequately clothed foreigners.

They’re not taken far and the relief from the wind is instantaneous. They’re ushered into a field office that’s serving as someone’s bedroom too, from the look of it – there’s a neat cot bed in the corner, and a locker with a field pack and helmet set tidily at the end of it. At least it’s warmer in here, but they’re not offered a seat by the officer who stays seated as they’re brought up in front of him. The soldiers remain on guard inside the room, which is only to be expected, if not a little ridiculous. Harno stays too, standing beside his commander’s desk.

The reteri’s a tall, greying man with stooped shoulders, and permanent frown lines on his brown face. He looks tired, but that’s no surprise. “I am Reteri Guei,” he says, fixing them with a baleful eye. “Which one of you is Utag Dekan?”

“That’s me, Reteri. I’m retired,” he emphasises, because he doesn’t want to be shot as a spy. “I’m here as a civilian.”

The reteri makes an impatient noise. “Yes, I understand that. Why were you in the rebel camp?”

“We didn’t know it was,” Dek said. “We were looking for supplies, and were captured when we tried to go into the store.”

“Kazmi Harno says you were helping the rebels.”

“No, we weren’t. They forced Ren to operate on one of their dying men by threatening me. It wasn’t our choice.”

“Hmmm. Strange coincidence that they need a doctor and one appears as if by magic. What are you doing in this country?”

Dek repeats their cover story and the reteri snorts. “Rock hounds? I’ve seen your samples, Utag, and they’re nothing more than what you’ve clearly hastily picked up at the side of the path. You’re no more rock hounds than I’m a doctor, which I wish I was because those bastards killed ours this morning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Keep your platitudes and tell me the truth. Why are you in Febkeinzian?”

“I told you....”

“And you lied.” The reteri turns to Ren. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks – in perfect, if accented Pindoni.

Ren starts a little. “I’ve got a stomach tumour. It’s inoperable. I just wanted to travel through Febkeinzian one more time, see the geology, then go to my family in the Weadenal.”

He sounds utterly plausible, and they’d probably have got away with it if it wasn’t for Harno shaking his head. “Shame,” the reteri says, throwing his pen down, and looking at Dek. “I have many Pindoni friends.”

“I was stationed here for a long time, Reteri. I’m no enemy to your country.”

“And yet you’re wandering around a war zone, lying to the official military presence, aiding and comforting our enemies...I’m sorry, Utag, but I’ll have to return you to your country and report your activities. The Pindonis, like us, take a dim view of their citizens spying, especially on their allies.”

Dek opens his mouth to protest, but is interrupted by shouting and the sounds of running feet near the reteri’s tent. Both the officers get up and quickly walk out, leaving Dek and Ren under guard.

“What’s going on?” Ren asks as soon as they are relatively alone.

“He doesn’t buy it.”

“I know that. I mean out there.”

“How the hell do I know? He’s going to send us back to Pindone.”

“You, you mean. Me – I won’t get that far,” Ren says with a sad smile. “Don’t worry – I won’t involve you in it.”

“Ren....”

“No, Dek. It’s over. We gave it our absolute best shot, but it’s done. I was ready to die back in that house. I won’t be taken back to Pindone, and I won’t let you suffer for my actions.”

“Ren, you can’t....”

But before he can finish, the reteri’s rushed into the tent and grabbed Ren by the arm. “We have wounded,” he snaps. “Will you help us?”

“Yes,” Ren says without any hesitation.

“Then come. You too.”

They’re led off at a run and Dek’s thinking this is the second weirdest day of his life, but there’s no time to sit and be amazed because they’re suddenly in the compound and surrounded by dozens of injured and dying men. Some are on stretchers, others being carried by friends, several walking, holding bloodied bandages against head and arm wounds, and more are being brought in all the time. The stench of blood and explosives is thick and nauseating in the freezing dry air, the cries of dying men and their friends bellowing desperately for help familiar in an utterly unwelcome way. Dek swallows hard. Hold it together, Dekan. Hold it together.

They come to a brief halt to allow yet more wounded to pass them. “What happened?” he asks Harno.

“Bomb at an outpost.”

“Fuck,” Dek says with such feeling that Harno looks at him in surprise. “Tell you later.” Not Denebwei. Not Altiri. Hold it together, Dekan.

Harno frowns a little as if concerned, touches his arm briefly. “I’m all right,” Dek says.

Harno nods, then they follow Guei and Ren into the field hospital – it’s the rigid structure Dek had noted earlier. The place is in chaos – men are just being dumped on the wooden floor because there’s so many more where they came from and the urgent need is to get them out of the cold wind and desert dust. The stench in here is much worse – blood and bowels and piss and faintly, some harsh disinfectant, though who’s applying it, he’s not sure. There are some soldiers with the Febkeinze medic symbol trying to tend to the wounded, but it’s like trying to hold back a flood with a blade of grass, and for every man being helped by a medic, a dozen more are being left to whimper and pray and beg for something, anything to stop the pain.

Ren comes to a halt, making the same rapid assessment as Dek has. “Get me some scrubs,” Ren says. “How many medics do you have?” he asks Guei. “Any that speak Pindoni?”

“Six medics. Two speak Pindoni.”

“Bring those two here. Dek, I need an interpreter. You too,” he says, pointing at Harno, “or someone else, and we’ll need more help in here to move stretchers. I want to carry out triage, stat. Clear that area there and I want the walking wounded over there.” He points at the far end of the hospital. “Hurry up, will you!”

The two officers snap into action, and Ren’s requests – orders – are filled without any argument. Dek’s pressed into service as a medic as well as a translator, and Ren’s team, so quickly thrown together, start to work as one, moving between injured soldiers with an efficiency Dek’s silently astonished at.

Somewhere along the way he’s given scrubs too. One of the medics is set to dealing with the walking wounded, and two soldiers are seconded to help him. Ren carries out a brutally swift triage on the stretcher cases, and Harno tags the patients to his dictation. Then in the small operating area in the corner of the hospital, Ren gets going on the most urgent injuries, using one of the Pindoni speaking medics as his assistant, while Dek and the others continue giving what care they can to those waiting to be operated on, or who are dying. The fact Dek’s a foreign prisoner in a hostile camp slips his mind after the first five minutes.

It’s a kind of grotesque production line – men being readied to be shoved onto Ren’s operating table, then removed once repaired. Dek’s too busy to keep an eye on Ren continuously, but every few minutes, he looks over to where the man is working, a tall figure among a sea of much shorter Febkeinze. He occasionally hears Ren’s urgent calls for this or that, sees the patients being taken away once he’s done with them – some with cloths over their faces despite Ren’s best efforts, but more being borne to the recovery tent behind the hospital proper. There’s always another injured man to take the empty place on the table, and more are coming in every few minutes.

Ren’s physical limitations are a problem, and he has to rest after each operation, drinking some sweetened tea, or taking a moment or two to piss. But he’s intent and focussed, his pale face above the mask showing both his recently ill condition and his determination to save as many lives as he can. Kazmi Harno works with them the rest of that day and through the night, as translator, as medic, organising men, equipment and supplies, making things happen when they need to.

It’s dawn before the last injured man is operated on, and his wounds dressed. Ren strips off mask, gloves and apron, tosses them at a basket in the corner, then staggers over to the sink to wash his hands and arms. As he finishes, he plucks distractedly at his blood-spattered scrubs, his previous alertness suddenly gone. Dek’s already on the move when he sees him crumpling but isn’t in time to catch him – it’s Harno, who’s been watching Ren just as closely, who does that.

“Help me,” Harno orders Dek, and together they get Ren over to a hastily dragged in cot. He’s out – his pulse is fast, and his face is covered in cold sweat. Dek stares at him helplessly, wondering how sick he is, and who will treat him since he’s their only doctor.

Harno calls over a medic who does a quick assessment. “I think he’s just tired. I’ll watch him, call you if there’s any change.”

“I’ll watch him,” Dek says, but Harno shakes his head.

“No – you come with me.” Dek lifts his head, prepared to argue. “My friend, you look like a gekel dropping. I’m offering food, clean clothes and rest. Arwe Ren will be cared for like one of our own, I promise.”

Dek is so tired that it takes him several seconds to process the statement. “Thank you,” he says finally.

Food and clothing is his most pressing desire, and after he’s given a set of fatigues to change into, probably from a dead man’s kit though Dek’s too polite to ask, he’s taken to a crowded canteen. Several soldiers recognise him from the hospital and smile at him, but most are exhausted, same as Dek, and intent only on their food. Harno, tired as he is, is determined to look after him, and guides him over to the food. He’s given generous helpings of flat bread and a thick, spicy stew that brings back some bittersweet memories of his life in Febkeinzian with Lomare. The warmth in his belly goes some way toward waking him up, but he’s got very little left in him now.

Harno watches him eat. “I don’t understand you,” he says finally. “You’re lying to us about your real reasons for being in Febkeinzian, and yet you act with honour towards us. The Febkeinze aren’t your enemy – why not tell us the truth?”

Dek looks at Harno’s honest, tired face, and knows he’s a good man, a decent officer. They wouldn’t want Ren’s death on their souls, and if Ren’s going to force them to shoot him, then Dek has nothing left to lose. But still he hesitates. The Febkeinze are allies now, but they haven’t always been, they might not be in the future. What’s been done to Ren is revolting...but it’s still a Pindoni military secret.

Harno watches him trying to make up his mind. “I sense you scruple not for yourself but for someone else.”

“Something else. My country.” And also...maybe the secret isn’t what he thinks it is. Why couldn’t Ren have been honest with him from the start? “I don’t even know if what I know, is actually real.”

Harno tilts his head, calculating. “You have only a small part of the story?”

“Yes. I don’t know the implications of telling you. Not just for us....”

“My friend, at some point you have to trust someone else. Arwe Ren is dying, you said. If that’s true in any sense, if there’s a way of preventing that, maybe that’s something you have to try.”

And that’s what it comes down to, in the end. Politics, secret research, even Ren’s lies, aren’t as important as the fact that if Dek does nothing, Ren will surely die from a bullet or a pregnancy that should never have been. And that, Dek can’t allow. Too many deaths have scarred him. He won’t let Ren die if he can stop it. “If I tell you the truth, as much of the truth as I know, will you promise to listen?”

Harno pauses, considering. “Will you tell my reteri?”

“If you want. But you have to be there so he knows that I’m not lying.”

“As you wish.”

Dek pushes his bowl away. “Let’s get it over with.” Ren is going to kill him when he wakes up, but Dek’s out of options if he wants to save Ren’s life.

The reteri’s had no more sleep than Dek or Harno, but he receives them with courtesy, and offers Dek a seat. “Utag, your friend did wonderful work for us. I’ll make that clear in my report. Thank you, thank you both.”

“Nothing more than either of us would do for any fellow soldier,” Dek says. “He was in the army for five years too.”

“Ah. Then it makes your behaviour before even more perplexing.”

Harno clears his throat. “Sir, he has something to tell you.”

Guei waves his hand and leans back in his chair, his eyes drooping a little in raw fatigue. “You have my complete attention, Utag.”

So Dek tells them everything, precisely and in military, linear fashion, using terms they’ll understand and no description that’s more than pure fact. He tells them how he found Ren, what Ren told him, and what’s been done to the man. The reteri sits up very straight when Dek explains about the pregnancy, but Harno only nods, confirming that Dek isn’t lying, and Guei doesn’t say anything until Dek finishes. “You believe he can be helped in the Weadenal? Why not here?”

“Two reasons,” Dek says, too tired to be diplomatic. “One, you might take him back to Pindone, and two, he says it’s unlikely any but your biggest hospitals could even cope. That’s if they’d believe his story in the first place. Reteri, he can’t go back to Pindone. He would rather die – literally. If you return him, you’re sending him to his death, and not even a quick, merciful one. Kazmi, you’ve seen his body.”

“He’s really pregnant?” Harno asks. Dek nods. “By all the blessed spirits.”

“And if we don’t get him somewhere that can handle the operation, he’ll die in agony. Please...as an officer and a gentleman, I’m asking you, just let us go. We’re leaving your country anyway. You know we weren’t helping those rebels.” He points at the bruises on his own face. “He wasn’t going to help them until they threatened me.”

“You are both lucky in your friends, Utag,” Guei said. He glances at his subordinate, who nods. “Very well. I’m going to break every regulation and let you go, but I need a favour before I do that,” he says, raising his hand as Dek starts to speak. “I would be very grateful if you two would consent to remain three more days until the replacement doctor comes. I understand his condition is urgent, but I can put you on a boat to Jurgizme Port, give you proper credentials and you’ll be there in a week’s time. You should be able to get to the Weadenal from there without difficulty.”

Dek barely dares to hope. “I thought the river was blocked by the rebels.”

“Not anymore,” Harno says with a feral smile. “That’s why they’ve shifted operations east. We’re taking losses, but not as many as they are.”

“Glad to hear it,” Dek says, and means it. If there are institutional problems in this country – and there are – he knows a war won’t solve them. “We’ll stay. Thank you for the help.” He’s half afraid this is some kind of trick except both men are too tired for that kind of nonsense.

“Only what you – and he – have earned. Besides – what’s been done to him isn’t how a pious nation treats its people,” Guei says, shaking his head. “Now, Utag Dekan, go rest and trust us to look after your friend.”

“Just want to see him first,” Dek says, even though his body is demanding a cot and about twelve hours’ sleep.

“As you wish. We’ll speak again.”

Ren’s right where Dek and Harno left him, still in his dirty scrubs though someone’s covered him with a couple of blankets. Dek touches his face – it feels more normal now. Probably just tiredness after all. “It’s going to be all right,” he whispers. “You don’t have to die now.”

He straightens up and see Harno watching him. “The love between friends is a beautiful thing,” the man says, and Dek can’t tell if he’s being ironic.

“I barely know him.”

“Even so. This way.”

Dek glances back. Yes. A friend. Whatever secret Ren is carrying, they’ve been through too much to call him anything else now.

He sleeps until well after noon, waking from a nightmare, and confused as to why the tent looks all wrong and too big. Then he remembers. He sits up, groaning a little at the ache in his back and his leg, which he was standing on for far too long yesterday and which didn’t appreciate the rough handling he received. His pack and clothes are neatly set in the corner of Kazmi Harno’s tent, which is where a cot has been set up for him. He changes out of the borrowed fatigues and into his own clothes, then goes looking for Ren. There’s a soldier outside the tent, not set to guard him exactly, just to make sure he’s all right. He tells Dek that his friend is in the recovery tent, and how to get there.

The recovery tent is full, but more orderly than the scene in the hospital the night before, long rows of neat cots and bandaged patients, with medics and other soldiers attending to them. The stink of blood and other bodily fluids is there and inescapable, but the clean sharpness of disinfection is stronger, a sign that order has been imposed on the previous chaos and that these men are lucky to be alive and safe. It’s more primitive than Dek’s used to from the Pindoni army, and he’s seen how antiquated their supplies and equipment are, but at least the patients have a chance of survival they wouldn’t have had without Ren and the medics and the dedication of their fellow soldiers.

Ren’s sitting at a soldier’s bedside, holding his hand and talking in a low voice, though Dek doesn’t know if the man can understand him. He’s still in scrubs, clean ones this time, with a battle jacket over the top, unfastened – they don’t make fatigues for pregnant soldiers in Febkeinzian because women aren’t allowed to serve, but even the Pindonis wouldn’t have uniforms to fit Ren’s peculiar shape. He looks beyond exhausted, and Dek feels a flash of anger at whoever’s asked him to go back to work before he’s rested. Ren, apparently sensing him, looks up and over, then smiles. Dek walks over, preparing to order him off his feet and to chew him out for being a moron. “Hey,” Ren says. “What’s wrong?”

“Why aren’t you resting?”

Ren’s smile slips. “Not here. Go outside, I’ll come to you.”

Dek thinks about standing his ground, but they’re in a room full of sick and injured men and there are soldiers attending to them who won’t appreciate a scene any more than Dek would have done back in the day, so he turns on his heel and stalks out. The compound is quiet, especially compared to the last time he’d seen it. It’s another dry day – the sun is fierce, but out of its rays, it’s still bitterly cold. At least the wind’s dropped temporarily. Dek doesn’t miss Febkeinze weather at all.

Ren is another ten minutes, and Dek’s on the verge of going in search of him when he appears. “Sorry – got caught up.” Someone’s lent him a heavier coat, but he looks pinched and cold as he huddles into it.

“You should be in bed,” Dek snaps. “You look like shit.”

“Yes, I feel like shit, but there’s no point in lying down if I can’t sleep and I can’t get comfortable. I’ve eaten, and I’ll rest later, but they need me. We lost another two people this morning.”

“And they’d have lost more if not for you. You can’t save them all.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Dek. I’ve been a doctor for a very long time. I’ve seen a lot of people die. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. And why are you such a grouch this morning?”

Because I’m worried about you, Dek thinks but doesn’t say. “Reteri Guei’s agreed to help us get to Jurgizme Port, but he’s asked if you can hold on a few days until their replacement doctor comes. The river’s clear again. We can be there before the end of next week.”

“Really? That’s.... It’s not a trick, is it?” Ren frowns, and Dek doesn’t blame him for his suspicion.

“No, it’s not. He’s grateful for what you’ve done and...I told him the truth about you.” Now if you would only tell me the truth, he thinks, but he doesn’t want that discussion here.

Ren’s eyes go wide. “Why?”

“Because it was that or let you kill yourself. They’re sympathetic, Ren. They won’t hand you back to the Pindonis. They can’t do more than help us get to the coast, but that’s a lot of help right there.”

“They know...about the....”

“Yes, they do. Which is why I think they shouldn’t be asking you to work.”

Ren folds his arms. “No one ‘asked’ me. I chose. They need me. This is what I want to do. What I trained to do. It makes up for so many things. Please don’t give me a hard time.”

Looking at it from that perspective, maybe it’ll do more good for Ren than harm. “All right. But I want to work with you. You need a translator.”

“Yes, I do, and you’re a great medic,” Ren says. The praise warms Dek oddly since he’s never seen himself as being one for the caring professions. “But you look like crap too, so you better look after yourself. Have you eaten? Then go do that and come back when you’re ready. Dek...is it going to work, do you think?”

After yesterday, Dek’s beginning to think some deity’s definitely watching over them, though which of several he could choose from, he doesn’t know. “Yes,” he said with all the certainty he can muster. “You’re going to make it.” Ren’s smile is one of the best things he’s seen in nearly a month. “But you take it easy – you took some hits yesterday. Is it all right?” he asks, gesturing discreetly at Ren’s belly.

“I think so. I’d be feeling more symptoms if it wasn’t. I’m bruised and sore, but you stopped me getting hurt any worse. I’ll be careful, I swear.”

“Better be. Right – go back in the warm, I’ll find you.”

Ren snaps off a salute. “Yes, sir!” he says, then grins, daring Dek to complain.

Dek just pulls a face and waves the silly sod away. What a goof.

They work hard for their hosts, but are repaid in kindness and care, and Dek has no complaints. Ren works his arse off, but there’s a spirit to his movements, to his expression, that’s been missing for weeks. When he’s not actually working with patients, he’s training the medics in modern clinical practices, and Dek wonders what the hell their country was thinking to throw such a talented, dedicated physician away just for some stupid experiments that led exactly nowhere.

Harno and Guei are grateful and offer as much help as they can, explaining to Dek how to get to the coast without delay, which inns were cheap and decent, and providing both an official request for safe conduct and bona fides, which will ease many difficulties. They even offer to take the animals off his hands, but Dek won’t hear of it, though it’ll make things a little more awkward. His urtibes have more than earned the right to go home.

When the new doctor arrives with the other replacement personnel, Ren consents for his medical condition to be revealed to him, so long as Reteri Guei impresses on him the need for absolute confidentiality, which the reteri readily agrees to. Dek paces and frets while the doctor spends over two hours talking privately with Ren, though surely some of that is discussing the patients. He pounces when Ren finally emerges. “Well?”

“I’m fine,” Ren says with a tired smile. “The baby’s fine too, so far as he can tell – the heartbeat’s good, and the position doesn’t suck too much. He tested my blood sugar and it’s normal, so I don’t have gestational diabetes, fortunately. And he says I need to get it out of me as soon as I can, which I already knew. He took it extremely well, considering. Army doctors don’t see a lot of pregnancies anyway, let alone a pregnant man.”

“No,” Dek agrees, although their unit’s field hospital always seemed to be dealing with the births of local women or their sick children. “And he understands the need to keep it quiet?”

“Oh yes,” Ren says, his expression becoming solemn. “He gave me a full check up. He’s pretty horrified at the things they did to me, and he doesn’t even know about the non-physical stuff. The Feb-gaili religion is very big on the integrity and sanctity of the body, on modesty and that kind of thing. He said what I’ve been through is an abomination under their laws.”

“It is under ours too,” Dek growls. It’s wrong that they can’t expose the travesty of justice that Ren’s case represents, but Ren’s right – it’s too risky for his family. They can only hope one day the truth will come out, though it might not be until after their deaths.

They stay one more day, just to allow Ren to rest and finish up his tasks. Then Harno arranges for them and the animals to be taken by transport to Jikl Bridge – a trip which would take them six days by urtibes, will take them a mere three hours this way. Reteri Guei thanks them, wishes them luck and reassures Ren that no one will learn of them from him or any of his people. Kazmi Harno supervises the loading of the animals and their belongings into the transport trailer, then comes to them as they’re ready to go. He gives Dek the formal Febkeinze salute, and Dek returns it with the Pindoni equivalent. “It’s been an honour, Kazmi.”

“And I also am honoured, Utag.” Harno offers Ren his hand. “Arwe Ren, you have blessed us. We’ll pray for you and the health of your child.”

“Thank you, Kazmi Harno. You’ve blessed me too, more than you know.” He squeezes the man’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome. Now, good luck and may the spirits watch over you.”

Ren says farewell, and then Dek helps him up into the transport. Harno watches as it begins to move away. Dek hopes he and his people have good fortune against their enemy, because they’ll surely need it.

Harno’s timed their departure so they won’t have a long wait for the ferry, and has already booked their passage. All Dek and Ren have to do is board – the animals are put below with the rest of the stock, while the human passengers go to their cabin. It’s tiny with only minimal furnishing, but pure luxury compared with what most of the passengers have to endure – Reteri Guei pulled some strings for them, and Dek sends more silent thanks the man’s way for that thoughtfulness.

Naturally it’s bunk beds and Dek’s bad leg doesn’t appreciate the climb particularly so he says he’ll camp on the floor instead. Ren doesn’t argue, which is a sign of just how uncomfortable sleeping has become for him. He gets onto his bunk immediately, lying back with a soft groan. “My back may never recover.”

“Do you think you will? If they operate?”

“Eventually. If I survive. Do you mind if I get some sleep? I’m whacked.”

Dek leaves him to it, and goes to check on the animals. Then, with nothing more to do, he stands at the rails and watches the flat boring countryside slide slowly by. The wind’s even colder than on land, but it’s clean and doesn’t smell of blood or illness, and after the past few days, Dek needs that. There’s smoke in the distance – cooking fire or military firefight, he can’t tell. It’s a big land but too impoverished for stability. He wonders why such an essentially decent people as the Febkeinze have been cursed to spend their lives in a ruinous war that ultimately will leave all of them poorer than before.

The ship’s a Pindoni cast off, powered by syngas turbines, and about twenty years past its retirement date, but the placid river presents few challenges even to an elderly boat. It isn’t full by any means, but after an hour, they pass a ferry going the other way and it’s overflowing – people getting away from the war, he guesses. Guei assured him that the port city is safe and stable as it gets in Febkeinzian, which isn’t very, but Dek can handle it.

Visible on the right side of the vessel is the range which forms the border between Febkeinzian and Pindone, the one they spent weeks crossing at such huge risk. Snow still thickly encrusts the peaks to about half way down the mountains. On the other side – not all that far, in fact – is his home. He hopes it’s all in one piece, and wonders how he’ll feel when he’s back there and Ren’s gone. The prospect had been a pleasure just a few weeks ago, but now he has no idea how he’ll feel. His emotions have swung all over the place and are still changing. He used to have such a peaceful existence, he thinks with a sigh.

Ren’s still a complete enigma to him. He’s vulnerable, strong. Brave, terrified. Callous, caring. Honest...but still hiding something. Dek needs to get to the bottom of that before they arrive on the coast. He doesn’t like nasty surprises, or surprises of any kind, really.

He wanders the boat and watches the scenery for a couple of hours, buys a snack from one of the wandering food hawkers that get on and off the ferry from small boats which moor up alongside the bigger one and then detach, a bit like cleaner fish, but then the long hard days they’ve just been through start to hit and he thinks a nap would be good for him too. He wishes he’d brought a book or two, but it was weight he couldn’t justify. Ren’s chatter had been giving him something to do, but he doesn’t do that much any more. Dek’s surprised how much he misses it, for all it drove him nuts sometimes.

Ren’s just stirring. “Time izzit?” he asks drowsily, propping himself up on an elbow.

“Two. I got you some food, or I can make you some tea.” The only amenities the cabin offers besides the beds are a tiny washbasin and a tap which produces boiling water on demand – this country runs on its local tea much as Pindone runs on khevai, and a true Febkeinze would rather have that, or buga, than food, given a choice. Dek’s rather glad to be offered hot water and not the noxious hooch instead. He can still taste the stuff he forced down weeks ago.

Ren sits up and ruffles his coppery hair – still only a quarter of a midec long, but it softens his face and makes him look less starved. “Tea. Food later.”

Dek breaks out their camping pot and shakes the leaves, adds the water. The herby aroma fills the rather stuffy air in the cabin, giving it a warm, homely smell. Ren sips from his mug with an expression of pleasure. “This stuff’s great,” he says with a sigh.

“This?” Dek peers into his own mug. “It’s all right. Nothing on decent khevai.”

“Hmm, maybe it’s my tastes changing. Food all tastes different from before.”

“It is different from before,” Dek points out and Ren pulls a face at him. “I need to ask you something. I need you to tell me the truth.”

Ren’s expression closes up immediately. “You keep going on about this, but I haven’t lied to you once. Not since that first day, and you know why I did that.”

“Then why won’t you tell me about the people who got you out of prison?”

Ren swings his legs out of the bunk, pulls the blankets over his knees. He won’t look at Dek. “I know no more than I’ve told you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t see why it matters. I’m the one taking the risk by going to the Weadenal – your part in this will be over by then.”

Which is true, but Dek refuses to be deflected. “It matters because I need to know you’re not a spy or a criminal that I’m handing over to a foreign state to my country’s harm.”

“Fuck you!” Ren’s green eyes blaze with fury as he stares thin-lipped at Dek. “Your country’s harm? Why should I give a shit about that when my country’s done this to me!” He jabs his finger towards his stomach. “Pindone destroyed my life, my family, my sister – why should I care what you think?”

“Then why should I help you?”

“Don’t.” He gets slowly to his feet and looks for his boots. “I’ll see if there’s a berth down below. You can do what you like.”

Dek makes a grab for him, catches his wrist. “You’ve got no money. What about food?”

“I’ll manage. Get your fucking hand off me, I don’t need to feel your nasty suspicion!”

Dek won’t let go – he increases his grip on Ren’s wrist to the point of pain and forces him back. Ren could break the hold but he risks hurting himself or the baby. Dek’s counting on him not being that self-destructive yet. “Sit down.”

“Let me go, you bastard!”

“Calm down, Ren. I can make you obey, but I’d have to hurt you.”

Ren bares his gritted teeth. “Thought you were done beating me up.”

“You only have to sit down.”

With a gasp, Ren obeys, and as Dek lets his wrist go, he clutches it to his chest. “You shit. That hurt.”

Dek refuses to be deflected. “Yes, it was meant to. You’re not leaving until you tell me the truth. If I have to, I’ll report your presence as an illegal alien.”

Ren’s mouth hangs open in shock. “Y-you’d...after all we’ve...no. No, Dek, please...just shoot me. I swear, I’m not a spy...I’ve done nothing wrong...please, don’t send me back....”

Dek would be moved but there’s that horrible niggling knowledge that Ren’s a very good actor and he knows Dek’s soft spots, so Dek hardens his heart and his expression. “I’ve only ever had your word for it. Now tell me what you know about Wechel hon Gezi and the Weadenisis, or I’ll do what I said. I’ve trusted you to now, but no more if you keep lying.”

“Why do you assume I’m lying?”

“This...this drama. Your reaction. You’re overplaying it.”

“You think...I’m faking? Fuck, Dek, I’d hate to be you,” Ren sneers. “Look at my shitting belly and tell me I’m faking that.”

“I know you’re not faking that,” Dek says, narrowing his eyes at Ren. “But you know more than you’re telling me, and I need to know why you’re not telling me. I’ve earned the right to know.”

Ren’s head jerks up. “This is about accounts now?”

“No. It’s about honour. And...friendship.”

Ren holds up his bruised wrist. “Friends don’t do this kind of thing.”

“Friends don’t lie about the important stuff. Why won’t you trust me?”

“I do! I just...Dek.” He sighs and looks around as if searching for help. “Will you at least stop looming over me?”

Dek retreats and sits on the one chair. It’s near the door – Ren will have to go through him to get out. “All right, talk.”

“And could you please...stop projecting that...hostility? You make me sick to my stomach.”

“I can’t help it if I’m not real happy with you.”

“Yes, you can,” Ren says with a sulky twist to his mouth. “Look – I don’t know more than I’ve told you. All I have is guesswork, and the reason I’ve not been sharing that with you is that I’m worried about dragging you even deeper into this mess than I have.” Dek raises an eyebrow at this, and Ren laughs wryly. “Yes, perhaps that’s moot now. But I was also worried about pissing you off since you have this rather strong propensity to think with your fists and I’m sort of totally dependent on you. Do you know what that’s like? To have your life completely at someone else’s mercy? Look at us – even now, you’re threatening to turn me in. How can I trust you at all?”

Dek hesitates. Perhaps he’d gone too far with that threat. “I won’t do that.”

“How do I know? How do I know you won’t drag that out again next time I don’t jump when you click your fingers?”

He has a point. “I guess you don’t.”

“So we’re at an impasse. If you force me to tell you stuff under threat, how can you trust it any more than what I volunteer? And if I can’t trust you not to break your word, why should I tell you a damn thing?”

“I don’t know,” Dek says quietly, staring at the floor.

“You really suck at this, don’t you?” Dek nods, utterly miserable. He’s screwed up the friendship and he still doesn’t know what Ren’s not telling him. He’s failed on every count. “Will you believe me if I try and answer your questions?”

“I’ll...try to. I want to. Ren...you’re a good actor. You’ve fooled people...I’ve seen you.”

Ren nods slowly. “So you assume I’ll do that to you. Well, I guess that’s a reasonable assumption. I can’t prove any of my story right here, without access at least to a viewcom and links to the Pindoni systems. If you think I’m a liar, then nothing I say will convince you.”

“Try?” Dek pleads. “I hate this...I hate not trusting you. I just want to be able to trust you again. And we have to find Wechel hon Gezi, so I need to know how to do that.”

Ren gives him a wry look. “You can’t. He died a hundred years ago. It’s like the Children of Marra doing things in Marra’s name. He’s a figurehead.”

“So why the fuck didn’t you tell me that!” Dek yells. “You are jerking me around!”

“No, I’m fucking not. Will you shut up and let me speak?” Dek nods, his lips pursed angrily. “Man, you’re a hard arse,” Ren says, shaking his head. “I didn’t tell you because no one explicitly told me what I guessed, which is that the people who rescued me are followers of Wechel’s teachings. He was a Spiritist and a telekinetic who became convinced that the only true human beings were paranormals, and developed this elaborate system of beliefs about this conviction. To tell the truth, he’s a bit of a swear word in Spiritist circles, because he caused a schism all those years ago and he’s never been forgiven. I hadn’t heard his name mentioned by anyone in over ten years until the day I was rescued.”

“So where do the Weadenisis fit into that?”

“Well, that’s where the guesswork comes in. I really didn’t know a damn thing about what Jinase was up to, but after we were rescued, I found out some of my fellow prisoners were part of the network that she’d been with. They didn’t know anything about the Weadenisis either, but one of them said that he’d heard a rumour that a lot of the paranormals they sent out of the country were ending up in the Weadenal, and that once they were there, they just dropped out of sight completely. I thought the most likely explanation was that since Wechel hon Gezi was known to have spent his last years in the Weadenal, though no one’s sure of his exact fate, then he might have set up his religion down there, and his followers were carrying out some kind of rescue plan for paranormals. I don’t know if rescuing us was their first incursion into Pindone or what – like I said, they weren’t telling us much about anything.”

Dek shakes his head. “So why not tell me this?”

“Because it’s all guessing, and if they could lock me up on such a flimsy excuse, they could do the same to you. If you genuinely didn’t know about the Weadenisi connection, we could always claim I forced you to help me. The other thing about Wechel hon Gezi is that he had a pathological hatred of non-paranormals. His followers might be the same. I didn’t want you colliding with them. I still don’t.”

“And that’s it? The big secret?” Ren nods warily. “You’re an idiot.”

Ren grins in relief. “Looks like. I didn’t think it was that big a deal, and it doesn’t help much. We’re still going to have to find someone willing to smuggle me into the Weadenal, and I’m only guessing about the nature of the people behind the rescue. I have no idea how to contact them. I was planning to just go to one of the hospitals and throw myself on their mercy – the Weadenal has a completely different attitude to my kind. They don’t tattoo us for a start. At this point, I don’t have a lot of choices.”

“So let me come with you.”

“I can’t. You’re already done so much, and up to now, you can still ease back into Pindone with no one being the wiser. If you turn up in a modern country with modern tracking, with a convicted traitor at your side, someone will notice. Someone will have to notice. I won’t have that on my conscience.”

“Don’t like it,” Dek says.

“Me neither. I don’t have many choices. I don’t have any choices but this.”

“We’ll see,” Dek mutters. They’ve got a few days. Maybe they’ll think of another plan.

“So do you believe me? No more violence?”

“It’s too crappy a story not to be true,” Dek says, and Ren laughs. “You better not be lying. I can’t help you if you do.”

“It’s the truth. I swear.”

“Fine. Now you eat, drink that tea, get some more rest. I’ll...uh...strap up your wrist. Didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says. A lousy apology, he knows. It was a lousy thing to do.

“You did, but you had a reason. Don’t ever do that again, Dek,” Ren says, his voice becoming serious. “I’m not as helpless as I look, and I will fight back next time.”

“Won’t be a need,” Dek vows. Please, never let there be a need again.

He takes exquisite care over putting the liniment and support bandages on Ren’s wrist, though Ren tries to claim it’s not actually injured. It might not be, but Dek doesn’t know a better way to show his regret in a way that means anything. He gives the man his food, makes him more tea, then flees the scene of his crime. It’s not anything he’s not done before in an interrogation, but he had no business interrogating Ren and now he looks back on it, he knows he’s been a fool and a thug. Why should Ren not have been wary of him? Hadn’t Dek just proved his point?

He heads up to the deck again, and leans on the railings, resting his head on his arms, as disconnected and unhappy as he’s been in months. Years. Ren’s going to be out of his life in a few days, and now Dek’s put this between them. This ugly, unforgivable thing. He’s never been good with people, or at making friends – the army was a substitute for having to do that. He could always guarantee someone’s attention, someone’s company. Ironic that after Lomare died, that side of it got a little easier, because he could bond with other widowed, divorced or jilted officers over their shared misery. Of course all that stopped after Altiri and he went crazy. He hadn’t missed other people after that. Now he thinks he might, but he’s just proved that he’s still unfit for human company.

He finds a seat without difficulty. Everyone else with a mikig of sense is inside, sitting around the generous heat providing by the ferry’s gas engines. No one ever accused him of having any sense. Besides, there’s something pure about the desert skies which mesmerises him. Skies this blue are rare in north Pindone – it’s far too wet. His thoughts drift to unhappy places as he stares blindly up into the endless indigo.

“Nope, can’t see it. What are you looking at?”

He turns. Ren’s walking carefully – well, waddling’s a more accurate term – towards him. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“The passenger had other ideas. Every time I went flat, it started kicking me in the bladder. I pity whoever ends up with the little bastard.” He heaves himself onto the bench seat. “Besides, after the transport and the cabin, I just wanted some fresh air. It’s a bit cramped in there.”

“It’s too cold for you out here.”

“I’ve survived this far, a brisk breeze isn’t going to kill me,” Ren says cheerfully. His gloves hide the support bandage but Dek knows it’s there. He turns away and stares out over the landscape. “I should have told you. It was my mistake. I’m not surprised you were suspicious.”

Dek turns to him. Ren’s expression is serious now. “Why didn’t you?”

“Stupidity and fear. When I told you about the rescue I was trying very hard to be scrupulously honest, and there was so much to tell you, I forgot I never explained I knew who Wechel hon Gezi was. The next time it came up, I was terrified you weren’t going to help me at all, and I needed directions at least. When you brought it up again a few weeks ago, I started to tell you but you got so hostile, and I wasn’t feeling very strong at that point. I thought about explaining but there never seemed to be a right time. I assumed you’d think I’d been hiding something for a reason, and that my explanation was a lie.”

“I did.”

“Yes, and I made it worse. I’m sorry,” he says, deliberately taking Dek’s wrist in his hand and holding it tight. “You’ve taken such an enormous risk for me, and you don’t have any proof, like you said, of who I am or my background.”

Dek allows the touch, but he doesn’t know what to say. He fucked up badly. Why doesn’t Ren hate him?

“I forgot how bad you are with people, how your training, your history, affects your reactions, and yet I expected you to make those allowances for me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to me,” Dek growls, his voice scratchy with emotion.

“But I owe you an apology, as you apologised to me. I accepted it, I forgive you. Can you forgive me?”

Dek stares into Ren’s weird eyes, the only beautiful thing left in his face after the ravages of imprisonment and pregnancy, and thinks, if there was time, he might even find his redemption there. But all he does is put his free hand over Ren’s and pats it carefully. “We’re done with this. No more crap.”

“And I still talk too much, right?” Dek can’t help but smile a little at Ren’s wide grin. Ren forgives him when the rest of the world would not, has not. Cast him aside as broken and useless. But he’s not useless or too broken to be concerned with in this man’s eyes.

“You hungry?” Dek asks, even though he’d left some pastries of dubious quality with Ren back in the room.

“Yes, I believe I am. Eating for two, don’t you know.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

“That’s why I did,” Ren says, his grin growing wider. “Just to make you happy.”

“Nitwit.”

“Always. Come on, show me where we buy the mystery meat parcels.”

After weeks and weeks of near constant stress, exertion and danger, it feels very odd to have nothing better to do than to check on the animals from time to time, stroll on the deck, buy weird tasting but not unpleasant food, and sleep. There’s fresh fruit and vegetables to be had which Ren seizes on with glee, saying it’s about time his poor colon had a chance to fight back. “Take that, you little brat,” he says, biting into a crisp gero fruit, bought at ridiculous cost from a vendor selling goods brought up from the coast. Never has Dek spent money with more pleasure.

The rest is good for Ren, if all too brief, and it still astonishes Dek when he thinks of how far they’ve come with him in this condition, what he’s endured – what they’ve both endured. There’s still the problem of what to do in the port, but he’s got a few ideas about that, and Kazmi Harno gave him some highly unofficial and off the record tips about the people smuggling going on from Jurgizme Port. That certain bars were the place to enquire if you need discreet passage out of Febkeinzian was an open secret. Harno said the army periodically went through and tried to clean the place up, but with the war, the forces were stretched too tight. “Carry your gun, and don’t wave your money around,” Harno advised. “There’s very little law in that part of the city.”

Dek had thanked him and assured him he could handle himself. But Ren’s another issue – Dek will have to handle this mission solo. Ren’s fast with a gun but moves too slow now to be much use in a fight. Ren accepts that, and knows also that he’s too distinctive in appearance to show himself freely where there might be Pindoni agents around.

They arrive in the late afternoon, six days after leaving the army cam. The first thing Dek buys is a map of the city from a street stall, before they set off to the quarter where suitable inns had been suggested. The city’s full of military transports and narrow-eyed, unsmiling soldiers, coming out of the field, going back into it, uniforms clean but ragged, like their souls. The civilians seem curiously unaffected but then they’ve been living with violence for a long time, and at least the residents of this town know they’re just a boat ride away from freedom if they need it. Dek’s never been here before, but it had a reputation of being a lively, dangerous place where almost anything could be bought for a price, including life or death. The war’s unlikely to have changed that much.

They’re stopped by a suspicious kazmi on account of their foreign appearance, but Reteri Guei’s bona fides are accepted and they’re waved on their way with a warning to stay out of trouble. The first inn is full, the second has rooms, and decent stables, which is Dek’s other requirement. He hands over a sum to the skinny stable boy for feed and grooming, and impresses on him that these three animals are very precious to him. The boy coos over Jesti’s thick mountain pelt and tickles Wuzi under the chin the way he loves, and Dek’s confident that the urtibes will be happy here for a few days.

There’s no point in delaying. He settles Ren in their bare, dingy room with food, fruit juice and tea, and tells him to keep his handgun and the rifle at hand at all times. “If someone comes and doesn’t identify themselves, don’t open the door. If you don’t trust them, don’t open the door.” Ren gives him a pitying look for that. “And if they come in against your will, shoot ‘em. We’ll have to deal with the consequences afterwards.”

“You realise you’re scaring the hell out of me again?”

Dek’s serious. “Yes. Be scared. Stay alive.”

“You too,” Ren says quietly. Dek nods and leaves, hoping Ren will be safe and still there when he returns.

The inn is, by intent, a good pardec from the area Harno suggested they might make useful contacts, and Dek thinks about taking Jesti before deciding against risking her. Urtibes aren’t speedy creatures, though their stamina is legendary – he won’t be making any swift escapes on her hairy back, for sure. Instead he walks, his hand discreetly over the butt of his gun the entire time, and tries not to flinch as people brush past him. He hasn’t been in a city since the aftermath of the ambush, and this place reminds him unpleasantly of Denebwei. He’s desperately hoping not to suffer a flashback, not that he has any control over them – they’ve been mostly absent on the trip here, whether because of Ren or because he had something to focus on, he doesn’t know. But this is precisely the kind of remembered environment – crowded, poor, dangerous – he was fleeing when he bought his house. “Hold it together,” he mutters as he walks into the first bar.

He attracts a lot of curiosity as he walks in. He’s seen a few Pindonis around the city, but this cramped, smelly bar is locals only. He’s surprised – and relieved – to find this tiny place actually sells temlido. He orders a glass, manages not to blanch at the price, and then takes it over to a table. It’s not long before someone takes the bait. A big man with broken teeth and a belt knife that looks more a like a sword, lumbers over and sits down without waiting for an invitation. “You should be drinking buga,” he rumbles. “A man’s drink.”

“I prefer this,” Dek says, not rising to the bait.

“That stuff’s for girls.” Dek just shrugs. “Pindoni. Name?”

“Wechel hon Gezi,” Dek says. There’s not a flicker of recognition in the man’s eyes. “Just passing through.”

He makes himself sound dull and slightly stupid, and the man gets bored. Half an hour later, someone else approaches and Dek tries the same gambit, with no better luck. After three hours, he decides to move on, ambling out like the idler he’s pretending to be, keeping an eye out for anyone following what they might see as easy pickings, but no one does.

The second bar is busier because it’s later in the day and those with jobs and money are eager to spend it. He has to nurse his drink for nearly an hour before anyone comes near him. When they do, he gives his alias readily and with a jolt, sees an instant reaction, quickly suppressed, in the man’s eyes. “Wechel hon Gezi? An unusual name, my friend. Your own?”

“What do you think?” Dek says, smiling at his companion. He’s a thin, brown-skinned man, clean-shaven which is unusual in this city, and dressed in a clean, old-fashioned suit.

The stranger bares perfect white teeth. “I think you’re a careful man, and wise too. Why do you come to this place? The Pindoni bars are in Stretia, on the other side of the city.”

“Because I was told I could find what I was looking for here.”

“Which would be?”

“Transport. For someone who needs a particularly quiet boat trip across the Northern sea...say as far as Ursiq?”

“Hmmm. That’s a very long trip, my friend. You would need a lot of funds to cover your living expenses while on the water.”

Dek sits back in his chair, smiles lazily. “Not a problem. Also not for me. I have a talented friend who could do with a holiday.”

The man’s eyes flicker as Dek says ‘talented’, but to Dek’s surprise, he shakes his head. “Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for, my friend, but I cannot help you. I think you might have better luck at the Oseri.”

That’s next on Dek’s list. “Thanks for the tip.”

“No problem. Perhaps I can help you next time you visit our lovely city.”

Dek arches an eyebrow at the ‘lovely’. “Sure. Next time.”

The Oseri is a little further away than he’s happy with, conscious of how far he already is from the inn, but with a tip that definite, he can’t avoid going there. He keeps an eye out again, and when he hears footsteps behind him in the dimly lit street, he puts a hand on his gun.

“Wechel hon Gezi?”

He waits until the footsteps stop, moves on a little way before he turns, and makes it obvious he’s carrying. “Yeah. Who wants to know?”

He’s facing another guy in a suit – a much better suit, though still old-fashioned. He doesn’t look Febkeinze with his light colouring, but his accent sounds authentic. “My name isn’t important at this time, nor is your real one. Tell me about the person who needs to travel to Ursiq.”

“Can you help me? Him?”

“It depends on how ‘talented’ he is.”

“Very. Twice as talented as most, in fact.”

The man hisses in a breath in shock. “Is he someone with a tattoo?”

“Yeah. That’s the Pindoni way, you know that. Can you help?”

“I need to meet him. Can you arrange this?”

“Yeah,” Dek says cautiously. “Name a place and time, be there alone. I’ll be supervising.”

“As you wish.”

He pulls out a slim notebook and scribbles out the information. He goes to hand Dek the note and is about to touch his arm, but Dek moves back. “Uh uh. You’re probably talented too. You keep your hands to yourself and put the paper on that ledge. If I see you touching my friend when you meet, I’ll shoot you, do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.” He smiles in a knowing way as Dek retrieves the slip of paper.

“Now, can you make this happen or are you just some middleman, because I’m kind of in a hurry.”

“If your friend checks out, this can happen very quickly. He should bring what he needs for his journey with him.” He steps closer – Dek brings his gun out and holds it between them. The man doesn’t seem bothered by the explicit threat. “Do not mention this matter to anyone. Go home, and do not approach anyone else. You’re endangering him by asking around.”

“And how do I know you’re for real?”

“You don’t. But I know who the real Wechel hon Gezi was, and if your friend knows of him, then he will know what the Dual Soul is. Ask him. Be on time.” The man turns and disappears into the shadows of an alley leading onto the little street.

Dek slips the paper into his pocket and holsters his gun, though he keeps his hand over the butt. Is this real? Have they made contact so soon?

His hands are shaking slightly. He’s out of practice with this stuff. He just hopes it’s been worth it.

Dek’s glad to see Ren’s cautious about letting him in, even with the coded knock and his identification – he finds himself facing a pistol as the door swings open, though Ren quickly holsters it. “You found someone?” he says, eyes going wide and dark under the dim bare bulb that’s their only illumination. “So soon?”

“Apparently.” Dek sits down on of the two battered wooden chairs the room offers and tugs off his boots. His leg is killing him. Ren drags over another chair and without asking, props Dek’s bad leg up on his knee and begins to massage it, strong, capable fingers digging into aching, tight muscles. For a moment, Dek’s too astonished to say anything, but then he remembers what he needs to ask. “He gave me a verification code. Who or what is the ‘Dual Soul’?” Marra’s balls, what Ren’s doing feels good.

“What? The Dual Soul, did you say?” Dek nods, watching Ren’s face. “Uh...that’s me.”

“What?”

Ren winces as if embarrassed. “It’s more of Wechel hon Gezi’s nuttiness. Apparently my twin talents only crop up in a single individual in any one lifetime – or so he thought, no one’s proved it – and it was one of the things he decided was proof that the human spirits were tied to paranormal talents. The Spiritists believe that too – that talents follow the spirit, though they don’t go as far as he did to say that those without a talent have no spirit, no soul.”

“And?” Dek asks. He hates this kind of mystical crap.

“And...that’s it, really. I’m like the walking validation of their beliefs or something. I only know about it because a couple of times people have mentioned it to me in a sarcastic way – like ‘Ren thinks he’s special because he’s the Dual Soul’ kind of thing. Teasing. Most of the Spiritists think it’s rot. The fact I’m an empath’s more important to them, though I don’t really care for that much either. Dek – it means these people really are followers of Wechel hon Gezi. Are they going to help us?” He keeps up the careful massage of Dek’s calf and Dek almost groans with pleasure.

“You, at least.” He pulls out the piece of paper. “You’re supposed to meet up tomorrow. I don’t like you going along with some religious nuts, though.”

Ren shrugs. “If the only choice is between religious nuts who worship me for my talents, and scientific psychos who want to cut me up for my sperm, you think there’s any chance of me going with the psychos?”

“I could keep asking around....”

Ren gently squeezes his ankle. “These are the people we were looking for, Dek. No one else is going to help, and I’m running out of time. I don’t think they’ll hurt me. You...I’m not so sure about.”

Neither is Dek. “They said to be ready to leave after you meet.”

“So soon?” Ren looks shocked. “I...uh....”

“You said yourself, we’re running out of time.” Ren’s still stricken, and Dek doesn’t understand why. “We can find another way.”

“Uh, no. No, we have to...I have to...I just thought we’d have more time to...you know, say goodbye and stuff. I thought we’d have a week at least.”

“Better this way,” Dek says, though he knows what Ren means. “You better sort out what you want to take. You have the money you’re carrying....”

“Dek, no, you need it!”

He leans forward and puts his hand on Ren’s wrist, stares into eyes that are strangely overbright. “No. For your future. I want you to have it. I wish it was more.”

“Dek....” Ren scrubs at his eyes with his free hand. “Fuck it. Sorry.” He looks up and smiles in a painful, forced way. “Thanks. I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

“No accounts between friends,” Dek says. He swings his leg awkwardly off Ren’s knee and stands up slowly. “Let’s sort out the packs. Did you eat? I’ll make some tea.”

He doesn’t want to talk about it, Ren leaving. Doesn’t want protestations of gratitude or friendship. Doesn’t want this to hurt so fucking much, or to be so worried about what’s going to happen to Ren. He hadn’t wanted any of this, when he agreed to bring Ren here. He tries to focus on the practical, but it’s impossible to avoid the subject completely. Even things like whether Ren should keep the clothes Dek made for him, the new boots, keep forcing them to confront the reality. He pretends he can’t see how upset Ren is, or that he’s not upset himself. Now more than ever he needs to lock down, or he won’t get through this at all.

They’re supposed to rendezvous not long after dawn, before the streets get busy, near the city administration building. Dek tells Ren he needs his rest and orders him to bed, but it’s for Dek’s benefit more than Ren’s because he just wants this over and done with. Everything hurts worse for thinking about it, in his experience.

The room is supplied with twin beds – Dek takes the one near the door out of ingrained habit. When Ren’s lying down, Dek turns off the light and pads back to his own bed, pulls the thin covers over him. His brain is working overtime, and he can’t stop fretting. He doesn’t trust these people. What if it’s a trick? What if all the paranormals they thought went to the Weadenal before disappearing, were just being tipped over the side of a ship out in mid-ocean? He can’t...he doesn’t want...fuck, if that happens to Ren....

“Dek?” The whisper’s quiet, but it’s still loud as gunshot in the silence.

“Go to sleep.”

“Can’t.” He hears Ren moving around, getting out of bed. Soft footsteps in the dark across the wooden floors, and then there’s a weight at the end of the bed. “I know it’s a lot to ask...but can I sleep with you tonight? Just...one more time. I feel so cold, and I’m scared.”

He can hear tears in Ren’s voice and it nearly breaks him. “Get in,” he says gruffly. For weeks and weeks they’ve slept like this, and to tell the truth, he’s cold and scared too.

The bed’s not nearly wide enough for this, but Ren presses close, face to face, his belly like having a third person in bed with him. He searches for and finds Dek’s hand, squeezes it tight. He doesn’t say anything, which isn’t like him at all, but it’s as if he is speaking, using his touch to tell Dek all that’s in his heart. “Go to sleep,” Dek says as kindly as he can.

Ren moves in, leans his forehead against Dek’s. “You’ve blessed me, Dekan hon Cerimwe.”

“Shhh.” You’ve blessed me too, Dek thinks. But you might have cursed me as well. He won’t know until Ren’s gone. He’ll just have to deal with it when it happens.

They ride Jesti and Wuzi out into the freezing pre-dawn, Ren’s pack on Dek’s animal. Ren looks pale and far from well. He couldn’t eat breakfast, and he slept badly. So did Dek as a result, but he’d not thought of putting Ren out of his bed. They’d clung together in silence all night, heavy emotion unexpressed, words of farewell unsaid and unwanted. Dek can still feel the press of Ren’s belly against him, the small movements of the baby within him kicking, demanding to be freed. Strange he’s got used to the whole idea now. It seems almost normal that a man could be pregnant, and yet it’s still an abomination, a crime. The whole situation’s the result of a crime against a decent man.

They ride through the quiet streets unchallenged. A few people are about their business but it’s still a little too dark for the city to be awake. The streets of this ancient town are stone, and the padded feet of the animals thud-scuff quietly against the chilly road. Ren looks as if Dek’s taking him to his execution. Dek wishes he didn’t feel as if he was.

They come up on the wide town square, and start to cross it. Dek sees a man – a stranger – walking with intent towards them, but before he can draw his gun, he finds himself frozen in place. He can’t even speak. Ren, too, is in this hold, panic in his eyes. Telekinetic, Dek realises helplessly. This, he can’t protect Ren from.

The man, who’s tall and heavyset, a cool expression on rugged features, has caught up with them. Now Dek sees his original contact has emerged and is walking towards them too. “You won’t be harmed,” the TK says. “This is to protect you as much as us.”

Dek’s contact is at Ren’s side now, his hand clamped firmly on Ren’s thigh as he stares intently up at Ren. Every fibre of Dek’s body is screaming with the need to get free, stop them doing this to Ren, but he can barely breathe, let alone struggle.

Suddenly Ren moves, but only to get off Wuzi with the help of the strangers. His face is slack – he’s under their control. Dek’s contact still has his hand on him.

But then Ren shakes himself and his expression becomes more normal. The telepath comes to Dek and touches his leg. He wishes to say farewell. Make a scene and you won’t leave this square alive.

You’re really going to help him?

He’ll be safe and cared for, as will his child. He’s no longer your concern.

Like hell. The man gives him a creepy smile and then Dek finds he can move, if slowly – there’s still some kind of restraint on him. The TK takes Ren’s pack off Jesti and hoists it easily onto his own back. The two men step away and Dek is allowed to dismount and go to Ren, who takes his hands in his. “It’s all right. They’re for real, and the ones behind the break out. I’ll be safe.” He’s smiling, but his eyes are brimming with tears.

“Ren....” Dek doesn’t know what to say. He’s no good at this. “This is it, then.”

“Yeah, it really is.” Ren leans forward and presses his lips against Dek’s cheek, warm and sweet against Dek’s cold skin. “Be well, Dek. Be at peace.”

“Good luck,” Dek chokes out.

Ren squeezes his hands, and then looks past his shoulder. “We’re done,” he says in a thick voice.

The TK comes forward and takes Ren by the arm. “This way.” And then off they walk across the square. Dek turns away. He doesn’t want to watch Ren leaving.

He finds the telepath looking at him, and before he can fully form the realisation that this man isn’t done with him, a hand is clamped on his arm. This is for your own good. We must remove your memory of this business for his protection and yours.

No! Dek screams in his mind, but he can neither move nor stop the man, only feel the grief at losing something precious and irreplaceable and....

He gets up on Jesti, takes Wuzi’s reins in hand. Next time he takes it into his head to come to Febkeinzian for fur trading, he’s going to wait until spring. The place is too shitting cold and grimy. At least he got a good price for his pelts. Time to head back home. Been away too long.

Why’s that guy looking at him like that? He snarls in warning, and the man holds up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Sorry, my friend, I was admiring your urtibes.”

The guy’s in a suit – Dek would bet he’s never ridden an urtibes in his life. “They’re not for sale. Move along, Jesti,” he says, clicking his tongue. Yeah, maybe he won’t do this again. Bit too crazy even for him.

Previous part Homepage Books in print Next part books in print darshian tales pindone files other fantasy nonfantasy contact blog