Summer Read online

  “Which ones are they?”

  “The big man in front, and the younger one just to the right of him.”

  “Okay, you might want to keep hiking up the hill. You’ll be farther away if this goes badly.”

  Valri didn’t want to go, it seemed treasonous to desert their rescuers. Yet she desperately did want to go. If her rescuers went down, she badly wanted to be far enough away that she might have some chance of hiding. She turned and looked up the barren slope—it seemed an impossibly far hike to any trees or brush where she might successfully hide. Quen and Karteri had already taken a few steps further up the slope, but had stopped to wait for her. Woday plucked at her elbow and said, “He wants us to try to get to safety.”

  Valri looked behind her and judged the closing distance between the two groups of hunters, then turned forward, “No. We can’t get to safety before the fight’s over. We should stay here and do what we can to help.”

  “Okay,” Woday said, setting down his own pack and pulling off his heavy spear.

  “But, what can we do?” Karteri asked plaintively.

  Quen bent down and picked up a heavy rock. She said, “Hit one of those assholes on the back of the head when he’s busy with one of our guys.”

  Good idea, Valri thought, looking around for her own heavy rock. Once she’d found one, she stood up to watch. Interestingly, she noticed that Woday was the only one who’d pulled the heavy spear off of his pack. He doesn’t look like much of a fighter, but apparently he’s the only one with any common sense, she thought sadly.

  The rest of the men had spread out into a line across the path. Valri’s eyes widened, Gia was up front with the rest of the men, hugging Pell. There go any chances I might have had with Pell, she thought. No one could compete with Gia’s beauty.

  Gia stepped away from Pell but didn’t come back to join the women. Instead, she seemed to be taking a position in the men’s line. Why isn’t Woday going forward to join the rest of the men? she wondered with consternation.

  Pell lifted one of his little spears over his shoulder and slashed forward. That’s crazy! Valri thought, Even I know the sea people are too far away for spear throwing, Valri thought, then followed the little spear as it flew much further than she’d ever have believed and buried itself in the ground just in front of Radan.

  Pell called out, “Stop there. We don’t want to hurt you.”

  They did stop. Valri could see the sea people glancing at one another as if they were dismayed by how far the little spear had flown as well. Radan bellowed, “You’ve got our slaves!”

  “No one should have slaves. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

  “We’re the sea people. It’s our birthright to have slaves. We’re angry, but if you leave our slaves behind, plus the woman you brought with you, we’ll let you go. Otherwise, we’ll kill every last one of you and take the women anyway.”

  Pell shook his head. Without even sounding angry, he called out again, “No one has a birthright to slaves. That’s an abomination. Those of you who are willing to give up slaving, turn and go home. Those of you who come closer will die.”

  Valri was just thinking that Pell hadn’t impressed her as such a braggart when, waving his troop on, Radan began trotting forward. Urdan and the truly aggressive young men of the sea people, the ones she hated the most, gave a shout and started forward as well. The others also started forward, though more slowly. Valri’s stomach fell and the rock trembled in her hands.

  Then Pell, the six men in the line beside him, and Gia, all slashed their arms forward.

  Radan and Urdan stumbled.

  Several of the other young men in the front line of the gathering charge staggered.

  One fell.

  Then another.

  Radan was still on his feet, but he’d dropped his own spear and was tugging ineffectually at the shaft of one of the slender spears where it protruded from his chest.

  Valri felt like the sunlight had gotten weird. Her eyes focused tightly on Urdan who, oddly enough, had stopped to look at a bunch of feathers he’d attached to his right nipple.

  Then she remembered that the back ends of the little spears were decorated with feathers.

  Lightheaded again, Valri knelt, then put a hand down and slowly settled on to her buttocks. As the rest of the attackers turned and started to run, she thought to herself, Maybe I’m not going to be a slave anymore.

  Distantly, Valri did a count. There were five of the sea people’s hunters strewn about the path like broken sticks. That fit, since she counted eleven fleeing back toward their village.

  Gia and Pell were talking to one another. Several of the other men were making comments, some heated. Then Gia and Pell started walking toward the fallen sea people. Valri looked up at Woday and she asked with some distaste, “Are they going to administer deathblows?”

  Woday looked surprised, “I don’t think so. They’re probably going to do what they can for those who’re injured.” His lips twisted as if dismayed, “Maybe that’ll be a deathblow for some of them, I don’t know.”

  Startled by the thought that they might try to help those who’d just been threatening them, Valri stared after Gia and Pell. Gia’s a pretty famous healer, Valri thought, but I’ve never heard of her trying to treat spear wounds.

  Woday had gotten up. He started walking down toward the injured men, so Valri got up and followed him. The rest of the men gathered their packs and moved down the hill as well, though something about the way they were keeping an eye out made her think they were just there for protection.

  Valri got down to where the men were lying. She saw with some satisfaction that, in addition to Radan and Urdan, whom she despised, the other three injured men were among the most brutal and aggressive of the young men who’d raped her in the past. They’d been merciless.

  None of them had ever given her any food either.

  I hope they all die, Valri thought, unhappy to be thinking it, but unable to find charity in her heart for a single one of the five men.

  Radan, Urdan, and one of the men who had an abdominal wound were dead within a few hundred heartbeats. Of the two men who remained alive, one had a spear in his abdomen. The other had a spear through his thigh. With Yadin’s help, Pell extracted the spears. Gia applied poultices she prepared from materials in the backpack she’d been carrying. Then the wounds were bound up, though Valri could tell from the grim expressions on Gia’s and Pell’s faces that they didn’t think the man with the gut wound had any chance.

  To Valri’s amazement there followed a discussion of whether they should help the two men get back to their village! She contributed a strong opinion that anyone who tried to take them back to the village would likely be attacked. If the whole group walked them back to the village, everyone in the village would probably flee. In neither case would they get the men back to their families.

  They finally settled for helping the men down the hill and into the shade of some of the bigger trees at the bottom.

  Then they started their way back up the hill.

  When they reached the top of the bluff without pursuit, Valri finally felt freedom settle tentatively over her.

  She just couldn’t adjust to how easily the fight had been won.

  ***

  The entire group traveled at a pace that three former slaves could maintain. She wondered that they were all willing to go so slow, but felt grateful. She still worried that someone from the sea people might be trying to catch up to them.

  Gia plied the three former slaves with sticks of what she called spirit meat. It was dry and tough but had an interesting smoky flavor. And it was meat, something the slaves had so rarely been allowed to eat. Gia seemed to be able to tell that they’d been starved. “The swelling of your feet and ankles, and the distention of your stomachs. Those are all typical of someone who’s been starved, especially when they haven’t had any meat,” she said. “We’ll have you eat many times each day and feed you some meat with every me
al for a while. But you shouldn’t have too much food at any one time though, it’d probably make you throw up.”

  Every night, Woday put the odd basket he was carrying into the river. Amazingly, every morning, when he pulled it up, it had fish in it. So they started each day eating fish. Most mornings Yadin, Manute or Pell would go out hunting and return to the fire carrying small animals. Those would be carried with them over the day, then roasted or put in a stew for the evening meal. As they walked, the women gathered greens and root vegetables which contributed to any stews. When they found berries, everyone stopped to enjoy some of those as well.

  Although Valri could hardly believe men would stoop to it, Pell, Yadin, and Manute also helped gather as they traveled.

  Around the fire the first night, Pell said, “I’m a little bit dismayed by how easily we killed the sea people.”

  Someone said, “Better them than us!”

  Another opined, “They deserved it.”

  Pell shrugged, “But aren’t you a little bit afraid of a weapon that makes it so easy to kill others?” He looked around the group. Valri thought many of them also looked somewhat apprehensive about it. “If we teach everyone else how to make spear throwers, someday we might face a group that’s also armed with spear throwers. In such a fight a lot of people would die on either side.” His gaze went around the group once again, stopping at each person’s eyes. “I’m wondering if we should try to keep the spear throwers to ourselves, or perhaps abandon them completely.”

  Yadin slowly shook his head, “I’ve thought the same, but,” he shrugged, “too many people already know. The falls people have seen us practicing, and the lower river people have already learned how to use them from Sandro. Even if you asked them to abandon spear throwers as well, someone would keep using them.”

  Pell sighed, looking unhappy. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  As they approached the encampment of the lower river people on the second afternoon, Valri found herself walking beside an unhappy looking Quen. Knowing that Quen had been a member of the lower river people, she said, “You aren’t excited to get back home?”

  Quen chewed her lip as she looked off into the distance. “Zema’s part of the lower river tribe. Well, Hargis is too, but he arrived after I’d been captured.”

  “So?”

  “So, I asked Zema why they didn’t come after me when I was captured.”

  “And?”

  “And, he says when I disappeared, he told them I’d probably been captured by one of the sea peoples’ raiding parties. Even before that, he was always trying to get the men to form a war party and go after the sea people. He told us horrible stories about what it was like to be one of their slaves. Despite all his efforts, he could never get more than a couple of men to agree to go. Never enough to give them any chance of winning. When I disappeared, he says he put on his biggest push yet for them to come after me, but, they wouldn’t, even then.” A tear trickled down her cheek, “Your people came from…” her voice broke, “your people came from so much farther away… and when they understood what might have happened, they came to free any slaves, not just their own.” She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist, “I don’t know if I can live with my people anymore.” She searched Valri’s eyes, “Do you think your tribe would take me in?”

  “Oh…” Valri said, her mind in turmoil as she tried to think of the ramifications. As she understood it, the Cold Springs tribe would already be gaining herself, Karteri, Hargis, and probably Canna. Woday and his mate Gurix might stay at River Falls which would mean only a gain of two people, but that wasn’t for sure. Certainly, there were bound to be people in Cold Springs who’s object to getting a bunch of new tribe members in mid to late summer. People who hadn’t contributed to the tribe yet, but who’d be there during the long, cold, hungry winter—eating food that would have kept the others from getting so hungry. She craned her neck to look ahead without seeing Gia. She turned and found Gia right behind her.

  Gia was frowning. She said, “Before we talk about whether you should join our tribe Quen, you should know that our willingness to fight to free slaves we didn’t even know wasn’t as straightforward as you might think.” Her eyes dropped to the trail as if she couldn’t face Quen’s. “In fact, I should admit that I was the one who brought up the question of whether we should risk our lives for strangers we didn’t know.” She sighed, “I’d like to think that, now that I know what they were doing to you, I wouldn’t have any hesitation in trying to free strangers as well. But,” her eyes rose to look ahead where Valri knew they would be focused on Pell’s strong back, “at the time I didn’t know how much advantage the spear throwers would give us. I kept wondering how I would feel afterward—if we successfully rescued someone we didn’t know, or even like, but,” her voice broke and a tear welled over to run down her cheek, “Pell died in the effort.”

  Quen stepped back to put an arm around Gia even as they continued walking. “I understand,” she said, her eyes once again in the distance. “This had a happy ending, but… it could have gone very, very badly.” She lifted her eyes looking ahead to where Pell was walking. A corner of her mouth lifted a little, “I’d be sad if Pell died and I hardly know him.” She sighed, “Still, my tribe knew I’d almost certainly been captured by those monsters. Yet no one even came to see…”

  Gia said, “Maybe they were afraid of what they’d find out…” She took a deep breath and put an arm over Quen’s shoulders as they walked. “But, if you decide you don’t want to live with your tribe, I’m pretty sure we can find a place for you with us at Cold Springs. What are your skills?”

  “Well,” Quen said with a bitter chuckle, “I’ve thoroughly learned how to be a slave. Before that, I was a potter.”

  Gia tugged Quen’s shoulders tighter against her, “We don’t need any slave skills at Cold Springs, but it so happens we really do need a potter.”

  Epilogue

  When they left the lower river encampment, Quen came with them. It seemed to have been a heartrending decision for her. Valri had to admit she didn’t know what she would have done if she’d learned that her people didn’t care enough to come after her. After considering things from the tribe’s viewpoint, it seemed remarkable to Valri that people actually had come after them at great risk to their own lives. She thought that perhaps her own judgment of family and friends wouldn’t have been as harsh as Quen’s. However, thinking about such a heart rending decision gave her a much greater appreciation for what Gia and Manute had done for her.

  Learning that her family and many of her friends had died in the flood that washed her down the river to slavery had broken Valri’s heart. Somehow, she’d been blithely assuming that everyone, or at least most of the members of her tribe, had won free to safety. Spending much of a year as a slave now seemed much less horrible in comparison to the drowning that had been the fate of so many others.

  Though flashbacks to the awful misery of her time with the sea people kept reminding her that it had been no sunny day.

  ***

  They stopped at River Falls where Valri learned of Gia’s kidnapping at the hands of a man called Indo. Ramay, the leader there, told them everyone in the camp had been happier since Indo’s death.

  While Woday was gone, Gurix, his promised, had gotten along well with his mother and other members of the River Falls tribe. She’d been teaching them some of the new ideas from Cold Springs and some of those new ideas had already made the River Falls people quite happy. Gurix decided she’d like staying at River Falls, so when the group continued their trek up the river the next day, she and Woday remained behind.

  As they made their way out of the camp, the falls people were gathering around Woday so he could explain the odd basket he’d been carrying.

  He called it a fish trap.

  ***

  Their progress toward the trading area at River Fork was slow in order to keep from exhausting the three malnourished former slaves. It seemed that
each day they were able to walk a little faster. Valri felt euphoric, eating plenty of good greens, berries, early root vegetables and actually getting meat every day. She ate more and more and mostly attributed her improving strength to that.

  When they reached the large tributary of the main river that created the fork the River Fork trading area was named after, Valri quailed at the depth of the water they were expected to wade across. Even if it were much smaller than the flooding river, it brought back bad memories of the night she’d lost everything. Gia seemed to quickly recognize the problem for what it was. She spoke to Pell and he put down his carrying pack. Stepping over to her with a gentle smile on his face, he said, “Would it be okay if I carried you like I did back when we first met?”

  Now that she knew Pell and Gia were mated, Valri felt a sudden shy reticence. She glanced at Gia who gave her an encouraging nod. Looking up at the handsome Pell, she thanked him.

  She’d expected to climb onto his back like they had when they first hiked toward the hill that took them up away from the sea. However Pell swept her up in his arms. He was already wading into the river when he glanced down and saw her startled eyes. “Isn’t this okay?”

  “I, um, expected to ride on your back…”

  “We could do that if you like, but your legs would dangle down into the water. This way I think I can keep you almost dry.”

  She hoped that Gia couldn’t hear her thoughts as she agreed to ride in his arms.

  Pell waited on the far side with her until some of the other men got there. Valri had been expecting that one of the other men would carry Pell’s pack for him but, as everyone waded across holding their packs above their heads to keep them dry, she saw the issue with that. Pell was so tall he’d managed to carry Valri across almost dry except for a brief moment when her butt dipped into the water.