Outlaw

Chapter Eighteen

MY FIRSTBORN SON was alive. And my second child was dead.

The jungle around that clearing screamed its empathy as I huddled in anguish. I can’t say that I grieved my forced miscarriage as much as I grieved Stephen’s life. He, like me, had been saved from the sea only to meet a much crueler fate.

In my despair I cursed God for delivering me and my son to that fate.

I cursed the Tulim valley, not because I hated the people, rather because I hated their law. Stephen’s life depended on the death of Wilam at my hand. My pain beside that tree wasn’t caused by the cramping of my gut, nor by the vines biting into my flesh.

It was caused by knowing that God was mocking me.

For an hour I lay in a heap, unable to think clearly. My first instinct was to run to the Warik and rescue Stephen myself. But I knew it would be a fool’s errand that would end only in more pain, perhaps pain to Stephen. Cutting off one of my son’s fingers would mean nothing to Kirutu.

Gradually, as my tears ran dry, the simple truth of my predicament settled into my consciousness. I slowly pushed myself to a sitting position and stared at the jungle, mind lost to any danger it might pose.

I could not trust Wilam to find grace for Stephen. His conscience was tied to the well-being of his people, and to that end he would do whatever was necessary to take power. Every bone in his body rejected the suggestion that Kirutu would bring any good to the Tulim valley.

I couldn’t let him know that Stephen was alive.

Neither could I tell him of my miscarriage. If he learned that Kirutu had savaged my womb, my status among them would be compromised. The trust I had earned might be lost, and my access to Wilam along with it.

I had to have access to Wilam. It was the only way to kill him.

My thoughts surprised me, but in that frame of mind I saw no other alternative. The only chance my son had for survival was through Wilam’s death. Even then I would be at Kirutu’s mercy, but I didn’t have time to think about that.

I had to get back to the Impirum village on my own, before the sun rose. For the sake of Stephen, I had to muster the strength and do what was needed.

I pushed myself to my feet and staggered up the path leading to the north, no longer caring what kind of dangers lay along the way. All I needed was to put one foot in front of the other.

For Stephen’s sake.

It was painful, but most of the aching was in my abdomen. I gathered moss to hide the bleeding. My legs were still strong, and months of walking on bare feet had toughened my soles.

The path led over low hills into steep crevasses before climbing again on switchbacks tangled with thick roots and mud, and I slipped often. But I knew the way.

My memories of Stephen’s cry pushed me forward. The image of his sweet face, dirty and hurt, dragged me forward. I was going away from him, but it was the only way to him.

The journey was long, but my sense of time was off and I found myself at the creek just west of the main village as the horizon began to gray.

I had to wash away the blood. I had to cover my abdomen in pigment to hide any bruising that would show. I needed more moss—they’d never leave me unsupervised again. I had to appear normal, even refreshed, not puffy-eyed and destitute, and as to this I felt hopeless. So I madly searched for an explanation that would allow me to avoid questioning.

The washing came easily. The pigment almost as easily, because I had applied red mud from that very creek to my face and belly on more than one occasion with the children.

The mud was on my belly when it occurred to me that there would be no way to hide my abduction. They would find the guards who had been posted outside my hut dead, unless they hadn’t been killed. It was unlikely but not out of the question that they had been a part of the plot.

My mind spun. I had to tell Wilam about the abduction. But I couldn’t tell him about my miscarriage. How I could avoid the subject, how I could succeed in hiding it, I didn’t know, but I would try.

I set out from the creek, intent on maintaining my poise.

I only made it halfway, to the edge of the large clearing just outside the village, before he came.

Wilam came.

I heard the sound of the warriors’ thundering feet before they emerged from the jungle. They came down the slope like a rushing wind in the dim morning light, five hundred of the Impirum’s most skilled warriors led by Wilam, whose blurred figure looked like a ghost to me. At first I thought they were Warik and that the warrior speeding toward me was Kirutu. But then I heard Wilam’s thundering cry.

Here was my savior, whom I must kill.

Wilam sprinted toward me, spear in hand, like a god bent upon rescue. His muscles were strung tightly, his jaw was taut, his eyes blazed. They’d found the guards dead and my hut empty, and in a fury Wilam had gathered his warriors and struck out to save me.

My memory of that morning is still thin. I remember Wilam’s hot, heavy breath as he pulled me close. I remember his arms, already wet with sweat, holding me. I remember a sea of bodies swarming around us. I remember Wilam’s voice demanding to know if I was safe.

I’d had no idea how I would react when I saw him, but I only nodded and clung to his neck and wept.

They had already come to a conclusion.

“He’s taken the son!” a warrior cried. “Kirutu has taken Wilam’s son!”

Wilam stood and silenced the outcry with a raised hand. I had never seen a look of such rage as the one that settled in his eyes as they swept down my body. His chest rose and fell like a bellows fueling a hot fire.

“Tell me he did not succeed.”

Every fiber in my body screamed for me to tell him why Kirutu had taken me, knowing the knowledge would send him and his warriors into the Warik village to raze it to the ground. He would be too filled with rage to consider sparing the innocent, much less Kirutu.

Or he would follow the law and do as Kirutu had said he would do. I could not sentence my son to death.

Tears flooded my eyes. “Please, Wilam, please take me home. I’m safe, just take me home.”

I saw the darkness in his eyes and I wondered what power lay behind them.

“Tell me!” he said.

“He did not,” I said. “I still bear your child.”

“He tried.”

“Yes. But my muscles are strong.”

“You bled?”

“No. Only a little.”

Telling him any less would make him wonder why Kirutu had let me go before seeing blood.

“How can you be sure?”

“I did not lose our son!” I cried, filled with a deep denial that shook me. “I know!”

Wilam stared, unmoving, considering the meaning of my words, undoubtedly judging their truth.

I put my hand on his neck and brushed his cheek with my thumb. “They took me in the night and beat me, but I did not lose our son. He means to draw your rage. I covered myself in mud to hide my shame for having disgraced you by being taken so easily. Forgive me, my husband. I beg you…”

For several long seconds he stood in silence. Then his spear slipped from his fingers and he sank to his knees. Tears filled his eyes and his mouth opened in a cry. The silence was quickly swallowed by a terrifying wail as he bowed his head to the ground and dug at the earth with his fingers. I had been too preoccupied with my own anguish to consider the full extent of his own.

Kirutu had taken his most prized possession and sent it back bruised. My value to him might be judged only by what I could produce for him, but it was value, and having it I couldn’t dismiss it.

Wilam stood, reached for me, took my face in both hands, and buried his head in my neck.

“Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my wife,” he cried.

His words cut to my heart.

“I have let that beast hurt you. Forgive me, forgive me…”

Seeing such a powerful man so undone by his failure to save me filled me with a new and dreadful pain. I knew that I couldn’t kill him easily if at all.

The circle of warriors had taken to one knee, watching their fearless leader express the appropriate outrage. They knew already—this would mean war.

With a sudden grunt Wilam seized his spear, leaped to his feet, and swung the spear at the tree to our right, shattering its fire-hardened shaft. He sprang to the nearest warrior, seized his bow, and beat the tree in a rage.

Surrounded by his splintered weapons, he faced his warriors, eyes fiery. Silence gripped the clearing.

When Wilam spoke, his voice was low and certain. “For this, Kirutu will give his one life,” he said. “His spirit is full of darkness. We will send his body to join it.”

Immediately a familiar chant spread through the warriors as their dark, steely gazes turned down the valley toward the Warik. “Whoa, whoa, whoa…”

It wasn’t a show of bravado, only simple resolution to defend honor without consideration for danger or consequence. I could only imagine the kind of bloodshed a battle with so many warriors would bring.

I couldn’t let that happen. My son was down there.

“No!” I cried.

Wilam turned to me, glaring. “No man may do this and survive. Any threat against my seed is a threat against my rule!”

“My husband, I beg…”

“Silence!” he thundered. The vitriol in his tone set me back. A new kind of resolve had steeled his mind. In another context I might have been honored.

Knowing what I knew, I felt only fear.

He turned to his army. “We meet them in the Tegalo valley in three days’ time. They wear the black grease but we are stronger and our numbers are greater.” He paused, stalking before me, fists clenched, muscles strung like cords.

“Last night Isaka passed from this life. I, the rightful ruler of all Tulim, will burn his body when we have burned Kirutu’s. Send word. In three days’ time we take what is ours.”

Then he swept his arms under my knees and my back and lifted me as if I were but a leaf. The sea of warriors parted for him as he struck out for the village.