196 - An octopus to flush out of hiding

I tried to think of those people I knew who’d woken up after a head-blow. I tried not to think of those who had not. Nyera had lost her blood-father that way, against the Enchians. He lay senseless for three days before he finally died, despite all the Haians could do, despite those he loved speaking to him, and praying, and feeling just as I felt now.

“Vaimoy, she’ll be all right. Narianty ta saho zalo msah,” Sijurai said gently, stroking the back of my head. I took a deep breath. Had the Oracle foreseen this? Just then Niku’s breath caught slightly, and a tremor went through her. “I love you,” I said. “You are close; come back, love.”

A little later her eyes opened, but they were all white, rolled back. She started to thrash , not fighting in stun-dreams, but mindlessly. I just held her head between my hands, and others kept her from smashing her limbs into the deck. “Careful of your arm, Vaimoy!” someone said, as if my kyashin arm mattered.

“Come back to us, love,” I said, as the thrashing eased. “We won, you’ll be well, all is well. Vriah needs you.” Her eyes rolled down, then closed for a time, and she took another deep breath. “Someone speak to her in her mother tongue, too,” I said. Sijurai did. Her eyes blinked, and when I looked into them I knew they were seeing, or trying to. I leaned over her so the sun wouldn’t hurt them.

“Niku,” I said. “Narianty… ta salo zaho tsah.”

“Che… where…? I’m dreaming.”

“Whackweed, love,” I said, holding the vial over her lips.

“No, don’ wan’…” Her mouth was open, though, so I didn’t give her the choice. She didn’t seem to notice. “Sshhevenga?”

“You’ll be all right, love. Just rest.” I leaned down and kissed her between the eyebrows. “You can’t see straight, I know. Don’t worry, you will.”

“Who’re you?” Kyash... people lose parts of their lives when they take head-blows... but that much? “Where’s Chevenga? I want.... mi omores... mi toto, Vriah?”

“It’s me, love. I’m right here with you. Vriah’s back on the island. We are going there.” I caressed her face, in the hope she’d know my touch. Another convulsion shook her, making her eyes roll up momentarily; then she snapped in Arkan, “I’m thirsty—Eo, get me something to fikken drink!” I didn’t trust her not to choke on it, so I took the skin someone offered and trickled just a few drops on her lips, which she desperately licked. Delirium, I reminded myself, is better than full unconsciousness.

With more whackweed and more truth, she became clearer, but couldn’t bring her memories further forward than the morning before. She kept saying, “I have to propose to him.” How many times I’d wished my telling of my secret to people undone, and now it had happened, to the one person I hadn’t wished that with. I reminded myself that memories come back with healing. Then her eyes began closing and she started saying “Let me sleep,” and I had to keep her awake by insisting she hear my after-battle report, and so forth.

Baska turned the ship south to Ibresi, not Strangers’ Island, after all. “We have good Haians there, as good as yours,” Sijurai told me. “And we can’t take all these wings, not to mention the prisoners, to Strangers’ Island.”

“Prisoners?” I’d thought we had just one.

“Yeolis,” he said. “They are family now… we can’t kill them.” Someone had realized just as a Niah was drawing back his axe to kill a Yeoli slave bound to the oars; then they’d had to relay out to all the windboarders, “Rescue, don’t kill, any Yeolis you find!” There were about twenty-nine now with us on the ship. I tried not to think how many had died of breathing smoke or gone down bound to oars or been speared before the order was given.

“They know about the wing,” I said. “I imagine… you want to keep them prisoners. For now. No, no, love, stay awake, stay with us.”

“We… haven’t decided, except that we can’t kill them. The Speakers will have to talk about it.” I hoped they’d let me be part of that discussion.

“Wait… Haians? On Ibresi?” Everyone flew utterly openly, there.

“You’re the first foreigner to try it, omores,” Niku said. “But not to know.” I gathered it was the first thing she’d been able to make sense of, in all this. “They make it part of their confidentiality oath,” Sijurai added. Service on Niah-lur-ana, it turns out, is highly-prized on Haiu Menshir, because it is so close and pleasant. And those Haians have kept the secret.

Niku stayed stuck in yesterday as we cut through the sea to Ibresi, and we decided to wait before we set her fully straight. Will the Haian be able to tell what she will get back? Perhaps she might even need to be taken to Haiu Menshir. What does this do to the alliance? Or our marriage—what if she must be there for years? I told myself not to worry about anything until it happened. Breicia came over, and stood looking down at us with a look on her face as if she’d bitten a lemon. Well, love, I thought, at least when she asks you ‘What were you thinking?’ you’ll be able to honestly say you have no idea. No such luck for me.

We beached in the lagoon of Ibresi, and carried her and the other A-niah wounded fast into the infirmary that is nearby. The Haian she was given to examined her, asking me how long she’d been out and so forth, then gave her remedies from several vials, which relaxed her and brought her clearer again. One of the Niah healer’s apprentices started sponge-bathing the blood and shark-stuff off her.

“A few days, likely,” the Haian told me when I asked her how long it would take for Niku to regain full memory. “Though there’s a chance it could be never. She must be on the waking regimen for three nights, and then do nothing strenuous for a month or until she has no more spells of dizziness, whichever is longer.” So much for our plans to join the army together. Of course I had a few things to do before I got there myself anyway.

“Now your turn, worichiah,” the Haian said to me, using the polite Niah term for foreigner. I’d forgotten the arrow again. “No, not with you sitting. On that bed, there. We’ll push it and hers together afterward.” Of course I caught it for refusing painkiller—I wanted my head clear—and then again for having made the wound worse by using the muscle with the arrowhead in it, as she was digging it out. From a distance I heard a baby squalling, whose voice I recognized as she was carried closer. She silenced as she latched on, but it seemed an anxious, desperate silence. Sponging would take too long; ignoring the Haian’s protests, I went for a swim in the harbour, where others were washing, too. Salt stung the newly-stitched wound and a few other scrapes I hadn’t known I had.

“So you were with us?” Niku said, when I came back. She knew we’d fought now, and the outcome. “I know why.” Her brow darkened. “You talked some commander into taking you to the fight. Which idiot was that? I’ll have their hide.” Baska and Sijurai both snorted quietly, but neither said anything.

“It wasn’t her fault,” I said. “It was mine, for being so persuasive.” She clicked her tongue, the Niah sign of disapproval. “Perhaps we should talk about this when your memory of what happened comes back, love. It will make much more sense then. But we are going to have to part ways.”

Her hand tightened on mine. “Just when I’ve got you back, pehali.” Nothing for that but my arms around her, and kisses.

It was past the dinner hour, now, when I’d said I’d be back with my people; they’d be worried for me. Of course, the Haian wanted me to stay lying down for the rest of the day. Breicia came and took the report of the Haian, who gave it in Niah, first about Niku, I could tell, then about me, cutting off mid-word when I got up. Breicia’s eyes fixed on mine like a raptor’s. I wanted to speak to her out of Niku’s earshot. “Don’t blame her,” I said, once we were outside, with Sijurai coming to interpret. “I talked her into it.”

What she wanted was my report, so I gave it, in all the detail I should. I had to tell myself, her closed eyes meant undivided attention. She kept one hand closed, as if holding something in it.

Sijurai translated her answer. “I am beginning to understand how good you are as a warrior, Vaimoy Sala, given the carnage that followed you on the deck. I can see why Niku was willing to take risks getting you there. And… Wahunai, after all. It’s a miracle you didn’t end up in the sea—either that, or one day you will be a crack pilot, crazy as her. I’m not sure which at the moment.”

I laughed. “My ambition is the latter.”

“My commendation, then,” she answered, “for all you did. Your new people thank you.”

“You are a thousand times welcome.”

She gave the expansive Niah shrug, then opened her hand. A pin made of a shark’s tooth edged with red ochre lay on her palm. “Any Niah who has fought a real action for Niah territory and defense is entitled to wear one.” Niah wristlets, I thought. I bowed as A-niah bow, and pinned it on the thong that held my crystal.

“You should know: the Arkans are still after you. We haven’t questioned the Aitzas yet—that’s next—but you are specifically mentioned in the written orders.”

I let out a hissing breath. I don’t know why I pretended to myself I wasn’t sure. “How did they know I was here?”

“I have an octopus to flush out of hiding on Stranger’s Island, obviously.” A spy, I saw she meant. Tentacles reaching out; an apt analogy.

“I hadn’t been meaning to stay long. I’m waiting for a cormarenc, as Niku might have told you.” And we will leave by night, and come into every port we come into at night, too, I decided, right then and there. “Now, I will have to part ways with her for a little. I’m inuring myself to it.” Not well, when I thought about it. I wanted to run back into the infirmary and attach myself like a limpet to Niku’s bed right now.

Breicia stroked my shoulder, startling in someone so gruff. “She’ll be all right, don’t worry. We’ve got scouts looking out for your cormarenc. Looks like I’m sending some to Ro, too, to see just how severely they stripped themselves down to try to take us.”

“Thank you,” I said. “How severely they stripped themselves down? What are you thinking, if you don’t mind me asking?” If there’s anyone who knows that glint in a general’s eye, it’s another general.

Sijurai and Baska both did a bit of a jump at what she said, before he translated it. “If his land rejins are as depleted as his ship crews and ships—I am seriously considering going outside our traditional territory.”

“You mean taking it? You want to expand? Once you take something, you have to keep it. From those who want it back. The risk of empire.” Ask the Arkans in Yeola-e a year from now, I thought, if there are any left.

“It’s the defense of the islands I am considering. All major attacks on us have been launched from Ro. Almost invariably. I don’t want to own the port; I just want to root out the toothed eel nesting there that threatens to bite my children.”

“You mean to liberate it from Arko and give it back to its own; do that and the Roians will be with you, and grateful afterwards. If it’s so stripped down, they might be plotting already; if I were them I would. I wonder…” I saw the flash behind my eyes, and heard a breath of the singing wind. “Breicia, you have entrusted me with far more than this... so I will tell you. The person bringing the cormarenc is our privateer admiral, Krena Salhalil. You are bringing the secret out soon… why not work together with our privateers now? What would you be able to do, if you carried wings on ships?”

The glint in her eyes turned to fire, as from a spark.

--