Lovu

  “We’ll rest here,” Topal said as they came across a small stream that had cut a groove into the ground. Pulling out her waterskin, she downed the last few drops and knelt to refill it.

  Without one of his own, Lovu took a few handfuls of water to slake his thirst. While she shared hers, he knew it could only sustain two people for so long, so he was hesitant to ask for more while moving. Having an unlimited source before him made him realize just how desperate he had grown.

  Once he had his fill, he found a small rock downstream to sit on and took the chance to rest his legs. The burning from the morning had settled back into a numb ache, but he was steadily having more and more difficulty pushing through it. Worse yet, his feet were covered in burst blisters and the soft soles of his lounge shoes were barely holding on. Carefully pulling them off, he dipped his feet in the cool, flowing water for any amount of relief. Instead of soothing relaxation, the water made every inch of raw skin sting instead.

  “What the fuck are you wearing?” Topal asked as he hissed in pain.

  “I didn’t have time to change when the attack started,” he said, fully agreeing with the judgement in her tone.

  “That’s no good,” she said, picking up the tattered scraps of fabric. “You won’t last the week in those. Dunk your feet.”

  “But it hurts,” he said, only hearing how pathetic it sounded once the words left his mouth.

  “Suck it up,” she said before walking out of sight. Despite every fiber of his body resisting, he eased his feet into the water. A moment later, she returned with a handful of plants.

  “Are they done stinging?” she asked, kneeling down beside him.

  “Mostly.”

  “Pull them out.”

  He did as he was told as she dunked the leaves into the water and scrubbed them against each other until a pale blue paste appeared between them like lathered soap. Cupping as much of the paste as possible to avoid letting it flow away, she pulled it out and slapped it down on his foot in one quick movement.

  Pain dozens of times worse than the stinging from before ignited on his skin. He tried pulling away, but she held his ankle in place with one hand while she rubbed it into his skin with the other. His free foot lashed in reflex, but she dodged it with ease. Just as he was about to resort to more drastic measures, the pain rapidly receded. Before long, it even started to feel better.

  “Wow,” he said, looking down at his blue tinted foot. “What is that?”

  “Yaktop,” she said, already getting another wad of leaves ready for his other foot. “It relieves pain and stops wounds from rotting.”

  “That’s yaktop?” he asked with wide eyes as he recalled his Advocate training. “I learned about its uses as an anesthetic in the temple, but it was just a blue powder when I saw it before. I always thought it was a mineral of some sort. Not a plant.”

  “From what I heard, apothecaries are able to do something to pull the good stuff out of the leaves to make that powder,” she said. “They pay a lot for the leaves. A couple of years ago I worked as a navigator for foragers wanting to collect them and picked up some tricks. The raw paste is less effective than the powder, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

  “Good to know. Next time, just warn me about the pain.”

  “Why? So you can whine about it first?’

  “No…”

  After treating his other foot, she pulled the kohi pelt from last night off of the back of her pack. With her knife, she cut it down the middle and pulled out thin cords of leather to bind the pelt around his feet with the fur pressed against his skin. It was soft and plush, but he squirmed at the raw flesh facing outward. It had dried a bit since its previous owner passed, but there was still an uncomfortable squishiness to it.

  “There. That’s better,” Topal said, tossing his lounge shoes over her shoulder with a look of disgust before passing him some more food from her pack. “Now rest up.”

  Lovu nodded as he looked down at the bloody mess around his feet, but the silence brought back his concerns about insulting her. “You’re not… upset with me again, are you?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” she asked back, glaring down at him in confusion.

  “You just… seemed short earlier. Like you didn’t want to talk.”

  “Well, yeah,” she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If I’m talking to you, I’m not watching the forest. That’s how we get killed.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  That made complete sense on its own, but just raised another question in his mind. “Then why were you talking yesterday? Or now? Shouldn’t we be just as worried all the time?”

  “You think too much for how little you know,” she said with a sigh. “The wildlands are dangerous, but not all the time. Beasts are a problem but avoid people unless they’re desperate. Vit can attack, but they also avoid people who are camping so long as they make an offering like we did last night.”

  “Why do they care about that?”

  “Dunno, but it’s never failed me. I don’t know what vit are thinking, but I do know how they act.”

  “What about right now? You’re not planning on finding another kohi before we leave, are you?”

  “Nope. Streams and rivers are also safe. Usually,” she said matter-of-factly. Lovu’s face must have scrunched up, because before he could pose another question, she just shrugged. “Like I said, I know what works and what doesn’t, but don’t ask for a reason. I learned from other Scars that travel the wildlands and they learned it from others before them, but it’s all trial and error as far as I can tell.”

  “Fascinating…” he said, fading into thought.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully. As the sun started to dip, Topal announced that she’d keep an eye out for a suitable campsite and pulled out her bow. Before they found somewhere to bed down, something rustled in the distance and Lovu ducked like he had grown used to. Topal, on the other hand, drew her bow and loosed an arrow without hesitation. Whatever it hit let out a harsh whining chirp and began to groan.

  “And there’s dinner,” Topal said, disappearing into the brush. Lovu followed shortly after, arriving just in time to watch Topal plunge her knife into a large, scaly creature’s side. The groaning stopped as it went still.

  Thud, clatter, tear, crunch.

  The sounds echoed in his mind as he watched another life snuff out and fought to remain present. Holding the bloodied lizard by the tail, Topal stood up and slung it over her shoulder before continuing her search for a campsite.

  Even though Lovu knew and understood the necessity of killing the creature, his mind still instinctively recoiled. He looked from the scars peeking out under Topal’s scarf to the blank expression in her eyes and wanted to curse her for her indifference, even if he knew that was unreasonable. All of this was necessary for them to survive, so instead he bit his tongue and said a quick prayer of thanks for the poor creature’s sacrifice.

  When Topal finally found a suitable location, she went through the same routine as before and he couldn’t help but watch, his eyes locked on the knife she used to clean the beast. Then his eyes wandered to the bow on her back and the sword on her hip.

  “Have you trained with that sword?” he asked casually, careful to keep any accusations out of his tone. Topal didn’t look up, but her hands paused for a moment.

  “I have.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “A couple of older Scars,” she said with grit in her voice, almost like a growl. A clear sign that he was edging a little too close to a sore subject.

  “I’m not trying to stir up trouble!” he said quickly, putting his hands up in surrender. “I’m just curious. The only people I’ve met who use them are Honors trained in Yol’s temple. I know you probably have your reasons for wielding it despite Fam’e’s teachings, so I just want to understand.”

  Fam’e emphasizes the importance of peace and respect for life above all else as a foundational tenet of her path. The First Advocate Hikim acknowledged the necessity of weapons for the sake of protection in his writings, but was also very clear that they should only be used as a last resort when all other peaceful alternatives failed. That was why only those who had studied her scripture and learned how to discern when those situations arose were legally allowed to wield them. The power to end a life that easily required a level of restraint and self-control that most people simply didn’t have.

  “What’s the easiest way to make you understand…” Topal sighed. “I didn’t tell the full truth when I said the two things you need to watch out for in the wildlands are vit and beasts. There’s a third one – other people. They’re rarer than the rest out here, but by far the deadliest. Vit have their quirks and beasts will fight for their own survival, but people are unpredictable, ruthless, and cruel.”

  “I don’t think we are cruel by nature, but I see your point. Still, that is exactly why-”

  “Why we should leave it to the Honors to protect us?” Topal said, taking the words right out of his mouth. All he could do was sheepishly nod. “Another one of your empty ideals. You think that so long as only one group of ‘trusted’ people have access to weapons, that will protect the rest of us. That only matters while they actually have our best interests at heart, but Honors are human too, no matter how much ‘training’ they might have. They’re still unpredictable, ruthless, and cruel.”

  “That is why Yol is so selective – to make sure that all those who earn the title are only the best humanity has to offer,” Lovu said, Akil’s face rushing to mind.

  “Yol isn’t doing any selection though, humans using his name are. And that puts us right back at the original problem – the cruel won’t hire people that want to oppose them. And if the only people trusted with weapons are all cruel, then nothing some goddess says will keep normal people safe.”

  “Fine, agree to disagree,” Lovu said, running into the exact same problem as the night before. “I have no doubt you have had enough negative experiences to justify your caution, but no Honor I have ever met has wished for anything but peace. I am less familiar with Yol’s temple than Fam’e’s, so I am unable to attest to their selection methods, especially for the Honors that serve the outer city. Perhaps that is where the difference in our experience comes from.”

  “Or,” Topal said, her knife aggressively tearing through the neck as she decapitated the mostly cleaned corpse, “the difference is that your family are rich and powerful. They treat you better than the rest of us because they’re scared of the consequences. You remember the older Scars I mentioned, the ones who taught me how to fight?”

  Lovu nodded.

  “One of them helped kill a vit and went to the merchants’ quarter to trade some of the pieces she had scavenged from it. It was a shop on the outskirts that used to trade with Scars. An Honor was inside and killed her as soon as she walked in. He said she had attacked him, that he did it in self-defense. Nobody questioned it because he was an Honor and she was a Scar, but she was unarmed and I know she would never pick a fight there…”

  “I… I’m sorry that happened to your friend,” he said, struggling to find anything to say.

  “Save your pity,” she said, as she finished cooking their meal. “It won’t change anything.”

  That night, they ate in awkward silence and went to sleep without another word.