Most of all, I didn’t want them to go.
***
Honovi spoke the words that I dreaded most.
“It’s time,” he said, as he leaned against the entrance to the cave, staring over a valley of endless trees. The wind had finally calmed and didn’t compete with our voices.
Honovi reached for the cord around his ponytail and yanked it tighter with both hands. His jaw hardened; his eyes drained till they were empty of any emotion. Over his shoulder, a few early Sky Wanderers twinkled as the clouds turned from wispy dark blues to purple.
Sinopa rose and stood next to him, anxious to leave. We were all jumpy with nervous energy but Sinopa looked like he could fly across the sky to Diego and the others if he wanted to.
I wanted to join them, especially since I was just as skillful with a dagger and a bow and arrow. Honovi had taught me well when we hunted deer and rabbits near our river. I felt so helpless being left in the cave. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem smart. But then I was hobbled.
“Take this,” Honovi said, pressing the smooth end of his dagger into my hand.
“But you’ll need it,” I said, refusing it. The wood was warm in my palm.
“No,” he insisted, pushing it toward me. The whites of his teeth glowed in the cave’s dim light. He smiled down at me but he was not boastful. “I plan to help myself to that shiny knife you spoke of in the thick one’s shoe. Before the sun rises again, that knife will be mine.”
“Honovi,” I said, reaching for his shoulder with my other hand. His determination frightened and awed me at the same time. I swallowed, hard, as I scammed his face, his eyes. “You must be careful. Please. Promise me.” My head spun with the realization that this could be the last time I’d see him, touch him. Hear his voice.
But Honovi only shrugged his shoulders, presumably for my benefit. That would be like him. “We’ll be back before the sun rises. Probably sooner.”
With my hand still resting on his shoulder, I looked at Sinopa. His cheeks were shiny in the muted light and his eyes sparkled with revenge. “You, too,” I said, my voice cracking. Sinopa worried me more. I hoped his need for revenge didn’t cloud his normally good judgment.
Honovi reached for my hand. It still rested on his shoulder. I turned to him and blinked. Slowly, he lowered his head and kissed my cheek. His lips, like his hands, were warm. He pulled back, smiled at me again, and then squeezed my hand.
Before I could say anything—before I could take my next breath—he and Sinopa leapt onto the ledge and scaled the tree branches that reached down to our hidden cave. I didn’t hear their footsteps or even the snap of a tree branch. They blended effortlessly into the silent darkness. The only thing I heard was the steady thumping of the heartbeat inside my chest.
I stood at the entrance and pressed my hand against my cheek, trying to hold Honovi’s warm kiss as long as I could.
In that moment, I begged Hunab Ku to return them safely. Most of all, I begged Hunab Ku to hold me back.
Sitting calmly inside the empty cave was impossible.
My foot throbbed less but my toes and ankle were still tender.
What if they didn’t find Diego and the others?
What if they got captured?
What will I do if they don’t return?
What if…
The questions raced until they finally collided in my mind. I collapsed, exhausted and trembling, into a corner.
But there was one question that left a knot in my stomach:
What if I never get to ask Honovi about his kiss?
He’d never kissed me before, not like that.
I looked outside the cave, watching the sky turn as black as a river bottom. The Sky Wanderers cast a silvery veil over the forest, painting a soft glow at the entrance to the cave.
Anxious, I rose and walked to the entrance. I stepped carefully onto the rock ledge and looked up at the trees that hid the cave from the clearing. I sucked back a breath when a branch snapped above me.
An owl hooted.
I exhaled with relief. An owl I could handle.
The owl was perched on a branch somewhere above me, oblivious to my anxiety.
With Honovi’s dagger clutched in my right hand, I dug it into the earth on the outside of the cave, feeling supremely useless. An endless cycle of unanswerable questions continued inside my head.
What if Honovi and Sinopa need my help? Certainly there is something I could do, injured or not. I could have served as a lookout, if nothing else.
And shouldn’t they have returned already?
Wouldn’t I have heard something? A scream? A yell? Anything?
I trembled from the possibilities, one worse than the next.
But then I remembered something far deadlier: Lobo.
My chest caved forward.
Lobo would attack Honovi and Sinopa, without question. All it would take would be a simple command from Diego’s lips to render a man helpless. And Honovi or Sinopa would most certainly defend themselves, if necessary, plunging their daggers into the animal’s charging body. My eyes squeezed shut, picturing more death. I couldn’t bare it. I couldn’t risk losing any of them.
But I could stop it. The wolf would listen to me, if I was there.
Before I changed my mind, I reached for a hanging branch and kept climbing. In a few heartbeats, I was crouched on top of the cave. The grasses in the clearing reached so high that they hid me like a blanket. With the dagger clutched in my right hand, I crept so close to the ground that the wet dirt wrinkled my nose. I listened for danger under the moon’s glow. I heard nothing except a soft whistling wind through the trees and coyotes in the distant marking their territories, nothing that I hadn’t heard before. Nothing that frightened me. Much.
Slowly, I stood and pulled my shoulders back. I sucked back the night air until it burned my throat and nostrils. The cold energized me.
Then, limping, I began the walk back to Diego and his men. I had to reach Honovi and Sinopa. I had to find Lobo.
And I’d be careful. I promised myself that I’d be careful.
Honovi would be angry when he saw me; Sinopa would be filled with too much revenge to care. I was a little of both. But I had as much right to revenge as Sinopa. At least keeping Lobo from the battle could help them.
I kept walking, favoring my uninjured foot, until I heard the unmistakable sound of water rushing over rocks. It sounded louder at night, even angry, without the wind. But its smell was unmistakable. I whistled, softly, scanning the darkness for Lobo. He’d be easy to spot. His eyes glowed yellow in the night.
But I found nothing, only more darkness.
As I approached the stream, I crouched below the grasses and crawled on my elbows and knees across the clearing. I hid behind trees when the grasses turned to dirt and rocks, Honovi’s dagger safe inside my hand. Again, I whistled, barely noticeable, just soft enough for Lobo’s ears.
But then I heard voices. Loud and angry, the words were muffled and competed with the roar of the water.
My heart raced faster.
I peered behind another tree wide enough to hide me completely. I thought about climbing it for a better look but worried about the noise. A cold sweat bead trickled down the side of my forehead as I squinted toward the voices. Then I ran behind another tree. There I had my first, clear look.
I swallowed, hard.
The embers from Diego’s fire cast a soft glow over the forest, an odd contrast to the fighting and screaming.
My heartbeat quickened.
When I crept around the tree, the one closest to Diego’s deerskin sacks, I found Sinopa. He was thrusting his dagger in Jorge’s neck.
I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming till I tasted my own blood.
Jorge began to choke and sputter. Slowly, he dropped to his knees, thrashing and moaning, Sinopa’s dagger still embedded in his throat.
A gasp escaped my lips.
Sinopa’s expression was as crazed as I’d ever seen. He wasn’t a boy anymore; he was some kind of an animal, fierce and unstoppable, with blood and death clinging to his face.
Blood, Jorge’s blood, splattered and dripped all over his cheeks and chest in an angry spray. I’d never seen so much. The smell nauseated me. It mixed strangely with the sharp smell of life around it, as if the two competed for the same space. I swallowed back the bile building inside my throat.
As Sinopa dug his dagger even deeper into Jorge’s neck, Jorge’s eyes remained wide and unblinking as he collapsed to the ground, struggling for his last breaths. He clung first to Sinopa’s waist and then to his legs as his body slid to the ground. His hands were covered in his own blood. He held a knife but it dropped to the ground, bloody and useless.
Sinopa didn’t remove his dagger until Jorge gasped his last breath. I could hear his ragged wheezing from my spot behind the tree before his breathing grew mercifully silent. But the crazed look did not drain from Sinopa’s eyes. His eyes only grew brighter.
I’d never seen a man struggle for his last breath before. I’d never seen anyone die. And Jorge’s breathing may have stopped but his eyes stayed open, as if he wanted to memorize his final moments, waiting for his heart to take its last beat.
I turned away—had to turn away—to search for Honovi. He was missing. Where was he?
My eyes frantically scanned the forest, colors blurring. The ground began to spin beneath my feet. Shadows from the dwindling campfire bounced against the trees, in confusing shapes.
My voice cracked. “Lobo?” I said. “Honovi?”
But then I turned abruptly toward Sinopa. “For Chenoa!” His voice thundered. With arms stretched upwards, he threw back his head. His voice hung among the trees, silencing all else. Jorge’s blood still dripped from the dagger clenched in his hand. I feared Sinopa had carved out Jorge’s heart, just as he promised.
Focused on Sinopa, I didn’t see Alfonso dart out of the darkness, screaming, until he almost landed on top of Sinopa. But before he could wrap his hands around Sinopa’s neck, one arrow, then another, shot through the air with a high-pitched
whooshing
sound. I knew that sound well.
Both arrows landed squarely in Alfonso’s chest.
Honovi.
But where was he?
As Alfonso passed under the tree near Sinopa, Honovi leapt off a branch and pounced on Alfonso’s back. He’d been hidden in a tree. He wrapped his hands around Alfonso’s thick neck. Stunned, but still moving, Alfonso flailed his arms. But Honovi clung to him like a bobcat. Alfonso could not shake Honovi from his back.
Blood reddened Alfonso’s deerskin where the two arrows pierced his skin. He growled at Honovi, screaming and cursing, but Honovi would not release his grip. They kept circling until Alfonso’s arms finally stopped flailing.
Alfonso was almost twice Honovi’s size but not nearly as fast. Honovi squeezed Alfonso’s neck until his face turned a sickly greyish blue. Finally, he, too, dropped to his knees, struggling for breath, choking.
Then, standing over Alfonso, Honovi lifted his dagger over his head. With one swift move, he sliced it across Alfonso’s neck. Alfonso moaned and his eyes bulged. Blood gushed from his mouth like red honey as he struggled for his final breaths.
But Honovi only dug the dagger even deeper.
And it all happened so fast.
The blood, the moaning, the screaming, their faces and deerskins covered in death, fire-red and angry.
I had never seen men die. And now I had seen two.
Two men?
My breathing stopped long enough for me to regain focus.
But there were three. And a wolf.
I spun in an anxious circle, squinting behind me into the darkness.
Diego.
He had to be somewhere. Where did he go? Was he watching us? Waiting?
Only a coward would leave his friends and I wasn’t certain whether they were truly friends but I suspected that Diego was no coward.
Numb from inhaling so much anger and death, so much blood, I stepped from behind my hiding spot, my arms stiffly at my sides. I walked carefully toward Honovi, clutching my dagger.
His eyes were wide and clouded with so much rage that I wasn’t sure if he saw my approach. I wanted to help. I wanted to protect them from Lobo.
“Where’s Diego?” I said. “Where’s the wolf?”
I had to breathe through my mouth to mask the stifling smells. I didn’t swallow for fear that I would vomit.
To reach Honovi and Sinopa, I had to pass Diego’s fire. It was still warm, orange embers growing softer in the center. I presumed they must have attacked as they slept. Jorge’s flute lay next to the fire but I dared not touch it. It would be bad luck to touch the belongings of the dead, as if we needed more misery.
I walked within three arm lengths of Honovi before some of the triumph faded from his eyes. His shoulders still shook from the fight. But for a moment, in the shadow of the dwindling fire, I saw relief. He looked like the old Honovi, the one I’d known my whole life.
But then he lifted his hand, still covered with Alfonso’s blood. “Aiyana,” he said sadly. His eyes blazed again. “You shouldn’t be here. Go back.” It was an order, not a request.
I shook my head slowly, first staring back at him and then letting my eyes drift down to the blood that soaked his deerskins and hands like a new layer of skin. Alfonso lay at his feet, his eyes open but empty. His chest, mercifully, no longer heaved with life.
“Please, Aiyana,” he pleaded louder when I continued to walk to him. His eyes darted all around us. “Go back. It’s not safe here.”
Safe
. I doubted such a place existed anymore.
“I wanted to protect you from Lobo,” I said. “The wolf.”
Honovi shook his head. “There is no wolf, Aiyana. He’s fled.”
I swallowed, hard. “There is a wolf. Lobo must be with Diego.”
“Sinopa will find him.” His nostrils flared. “We watched him run, the coward!” Honovi spat. “He left his friends to fight!”
“But Sinopa must not kill Lobo,” I insisted. “He must be careful.”
“Sinopa will do what has to be done, Aiyana.”
I spun around, searching for Sinopa. But he disappeared. “Then we must warn Sinopa—”
“No!” Honovi said, his eyes filled with rage again. “We must leave this place. Quickly. Sinopa will find Diego.”
Without another word, Honovi knelt over Alfonso and removed the arrows from his bleeding chest. They did not remove easily. My stomach clutched as he wiped bloody arrowheads against the knees of his pants, the only part of his body not drenched in blood. After he returned the arrows to his quiver, he spat at Alfonso’s feet and reached for the dagger in my shaking hand.
Still numb, I handed him the dagger and watched as he tucked it inside his belt.
Then I turned away from Alfonso and Jorge. I could not stomach the sight of lifeless bodies for another heartbeat. Their empty, bloodied faces would remain with me forever. I should have gloated in their deaths but I couldn’t.
“Diego,” I mumbled. “The map…” I looked at all of the deerskin sacks strewn about the fire. The small one was missing.
Honovi stopped over Alfonso. “Sinopa will find him,” he said again. “And the map.”
I wrapped my arms across my chest, my body chilled. Jorge’s face finally tilted into the dirt and for that I was grateful. Blood pooled all around him, soaking the dirt and grass in a red circle.
“Come,” Honovi said. He wiped his hand clean on the front of his pants and then wrapped his hand around my arm. His skin was hot with battle. “Let’s leave this place and never return. We’re finished here. Sinopa will know where to find us.”
“But, Diego?” I said numbly, looking up at Honovi. “Will he come after us?”
“Sinopa will track him,” he said simply. “And then he will kill him. Just like the others. We owe him that, Aiyana.”
Honovi’s words pulled at my skin, even more than the air. They were devoid of any emotion.
Silently, we walked back to the cave, through the forest and across the clearing, arms entwined like we were afraid the other could disappear.
Our lives had changed so much in the last handful of suns. We both had changed. The World Beyond was different, evil and unforgiving. It was like nothing we imagined.
And no matter how much I hope it hadn’t, our lives were changed forever.