Chapter Twenty-Seven
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Ike’s retchin’ assaulted us the moment we crossed the cabin’s threshold. Perhaps more insultin’ to Ike than us, but it was nonetheless unpleasant. The ogre completed his task, dropped back onto his bedroll, and wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. Lucas pushed aside the one-time kindlin’ box filled with broken straw we used to catch the vomit. Lucas’ shoulders sagged. His eyes were reddish—not from Ike’s circumstance, I guessed.
“Ya heard?”
The towheaded human nodded.
Ike leaned forward on an elbow. “Ought to be somethin’ we can do before—before it sickens everyone in the Range. Tis no fun, this.”
Compared to others we had treated, Ike oozed with energy. Key, maybe, was catchin’ it early, infusin’ ’em with power from the ethereal. Those settlers spread across the far mountains, unable to communicate their need, could be a disaster. Could we bring those who could withstand the ghoul least, like the little girl who perished, to the Hamlet until the danger passed? I suggested my thought to the others.
“Doesn’t the ghoul travel from one to another?” Delia asked.
“Seems.” Lucas nodded his head in thought. “So the more people in one place—”
“Could spread it the faster,” Delia finished for him.
“But gettin’ it and survivin’, be better than dyin’ with no help.” Ike hocked up phlegm, and leaned over and spit into the box. Delia wrinkled her nose.
“There are hundreds of stakes out there,” Ike said, ignorin’ the interruption. “We only know where a quarter of them are.”
“Not sure if the dragons would even accept the task of transportin’ them,” Lucas added.
The three of us glared at him. He blushed and shrugged a shoulder.
“Okay. Don’t know if I could convince Iza to assist. The others would probably help.”
“I thought bulls are the solitary sorts, the queens the social creatures?” I said.
Lucas grimaced at me, obviously none too keen to continue that thread of thought. “They’re ornery by nature. Wait until she nears a clutch. Ike and I won’t want to share her mountains, much less her lair.”
Ike laughed, a hoarse cackle that provoked a long, deep-chested cough. Delia rung the cloth in the basin and sopped at his forehead. She claimed his fever was nothin’ what it was, and encouraged him to try some broth. He answered her shortly, more interested in returnin’ to our greater plannin’.
“Iza’s still at the Hamlet?” Ike asked.
Lucas nodded.
“Have her negotiate with Braes and Bick for a place to accommodate all of the little ones, and the aged.”
Lucas and Delia turned and glared at Ike just as I did.
“Well—” he cleared his throat. “I guess the word negotiate isn’t quite right when we’re talkin’ about Iza. Arrange?”
“I’ll ask her not to threaten to snap them in two, or anythin’.” Lucas tried to keep a straight face, but his eyes gleamed and a corner of his lip twitched upward. “We got four dragon riders exposed. No one should be around them.”
“The dragons will just have to settle flyin’ strangers without us,” Ike said.
“Easy for ya to say, ya don’t fly a queen.”
Ike ignored that problem. “Findin’ room for everyone’s a perfect task for Bick. He’s great at bringin’ thin’s together. Makin’ thin’s work.”
I listened, wonderin’ if their assumption that the ghoul is done with me, and I could travel to the Hamlet safely, is reasonable. If the aura remains about those once stricken, why not me still? I considered voicin’ my concern, but—didn’t want them to think I was unwillin’ to aid in the effort.
The two friends continued to chatter, Ike with more energy than I felt the ogre could afford, but there would be no quietin’ him. I left them to their plannin’ and joined Delia at the table. She minced vegetables that she layered in the bottom of a bowl, spooned steamin’ veal broth over that, before slicin’ a hunk of hard bread to go with it.
I searched for somethin’ to break the silence between us, but her coldness over the girl’s death kept strikin’ possible topics in my head. Delia stepped away and thrust the food at Ike, and walked out the front door.
Did I want to follow her? Her mood could intimidate a surly dragon. She isn’t the soul I fantasized about. That wasn’t fair. One shouldn’t have to compete with some imagined persona placed on a pedestal. She cared enough to rush about without a lick of sleep to heal strangers. That spoke a load of praise. She didn’t care much for bein’ around others to begin with. It had to be difficult for her.
And, she’s cute, for a human. There I go again.
To remain friends for life—that’s my best hope. Our mutual kinship with the ethereal binds us in a way. Only option anyway, to be friends, considerin’. Odd Lucas had stopped lookin’ at her in that way, takin’ in the sway of her underneath her smock, the way her hips move when she walks, hair falls over her shoulder or across her face.
I’ll likely always be intrigued by those aspects of her—personality. Despite bein’ so un-ogre-ish.
Lucas is a bright sort. If he wanted, he could keep a couple dramas to one side of his brain, leave a special spot for somethin’ as sweet as Delia. Sweet? Odd word for the human woman. She has a tongue like a serpent when she disagrees with ya. It’s her general countenance.
Not that I’m a bull experienced in such matters, but females appear to be a fickle sort. Fail once to act as though they don’t fill the sky and oceans with bliss and their indifference could sear ya like a hot brandin’ iron.
Best go look for her. Seemed to be in the kind of mood, not best to be left alone.
I strode out to the porch. She was nowhere in sight. I tilted my head and sniffed at the breeze. The aroma of the woman was absent, so I strolled with the current of scents. Followed the creek for several minutes until I figgered I’d guessed the wrong direction. The air was stagnant away from the clearin’. If she’d passed this way, I should be able to scent her out. Little escapes an ogre’s snout. I stopped to turn around when the rustle of a stone racin’ across the ground caught my ear.
It came again, and again, givin’ me a direction. The gray dress she donned today faded into the shadows so I was only thirty feet from her when I finally picked her out of the trees. She stood, flingin’ stones one-at-a-time at a tree. Tree must have terribly insulted her. Maybe.
I watched for a few moments. Doesn’t do everythin’ well. Throws worse than an ogreling hen.
She bent down and searched for more stones. The narrow waist disappeared. I studied the broader cascade that presented itself.
A skinny form, if compared to a proper ogre hen.
Her face peered around her hem, and she quickly stood. She cleared her throat as she threw down the pebbles she had collected, and brushed sand and whatever from her hands. A bit more light through the trees, I might have seen the embarrassment I sensed, on her face. I walked toward her.
“Warmed up nicely, didn’t it?”
Quiet. As I stepped beside her she turned away, as though somethin’ caught her attention to the right. She couldn’t hide the tear that tracked down her cheek, or her red eyes. I found I couldn’t swallow, with her strong emotion fillin’ the air. The more I tried, the more desperate it felt. I cleared my throat and tried it again. Success. I took shallow, short breaths.
“There was nothin’ we could do,” I said after a long moment.
“I brought it to the valley.”
“Hardly yar fault. A ghoul found ya, nearly killed ya.”
“But if I’d—” A gasp cut off her words.
My throat constricted again. I had no idea what to say. “I’m the one who traipsed into the Hamlet, still with a raw throat, a drippin’ nose.”
“I—hadn’t spoken to a soul in years. He helped me back to my cabin after—” She stopped and breathed in heavily. Gasped once or twice.
Should I put my arm around her shoulder? To console her? Stay quiet?
“I wrenched my ankle and fell, like a fool, lookin’ at the birds instead of where I was goin’. I would have eventually limped home, but it would—it wouldn’t have been an enjoyable task. He stayed close for a week and hunted for me. Provided for me.”
She stopped again. An agonizin’ delay. I prayed for her just to get through it. Couldn’t imagine what the fuss was about, compared to the death of the little girl, earlier.
“Carried water from the creek,” she continued finally. “The last two years he’s stopped by, time and again, when he’s been near, huntin’. We couldn’t say much to each other. Mostly gestured. Shared a meal or two, then he would be gone again.
Couldn’t say much?
“His name is Faeylin. A nervous sort. But he was kind to me. He visited just days before the fire.”
An unusual name for a human. “So ya think ya got it from him? He no doubt spread the ghoul to the Hamlet then. See. There was nothin’ ya could do. Ya only accepted the kindness of another. Nothin’ more.”
She struggled with another rush of tears.
“When we tried to help the lass. I had a—” She waved her hand in the air.
“A pre-sight?” I offered.
She nodded. “He was killed. Faeylin.” She bent forward in tears. It took several minutes before she reclaimed a sense of calm. “It must be the comin’ difficulties with the Northerners. Faeylin will be attacked— Lucas and Ike aren’t gonna be able to stop a war, or at least a battle.”
“The Northerners have raised a fuss before to make a point, and later backed down. It might not be what ya think.”
“But Lucas—said—the humans from the north would blame them for the ghoul.”
Them. The truth slapped me aside the head. I’m a golden dunce. A goblin! Her benefactor and friend—a goblin? The same one—I killed.
The sickenin’ image of the bull’s head I busted open like a melon flashed through my mind.
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