Dasen screamed. His eyes flew open and searched wildly for the creatures that had been on top of him a moment before. His heart pounded. His breaths were ragged pants.
There was no creature.
It was a dream, he repeated to himself then let out a sigh of relief and put his hand over his chest to calm his thundering heart.
Teth’s hand over his mouth sent his heart racing as soon as it has slowed. “What happened?” she whispered from above him. She crouched next to him, her head a few inches from his and upside down. She glanced at him then searched the branches hanging around them. “Are you alright? Did something happen?” She seemed to realize only then that he could not answer while her hand was covering his mouth.
“It was just a dream,” Dasen explained when her hand came away. “I dreamed that the creatures had caught me. That they . . .”
“By the Order!” Teth whispered with the force of a scream. “You realize we’re trying to hide, don’t you? You realize that part of hiding is being quiet?” She turned her baleful eyes from him to the branches around them. Her face was streaked grey with mud, hair matted with pine needles and twigs, lips chapped, one cheek marked by a long scrape, clothes torn, stained, and caked with the remnant salt of her sweat. She smelled, musk and tin. Her laced shirt and canvas pants hid every scrap of femininity remaining in her wiry, hard form. But her eyes were bright. A few freckles peaked out from under the dirt. And she was still alive. It was not much, but for now, that was enough. Dasen tried to suppress a smile as he accepted Teth’s barely audible rant. “. . . if there are any around, it’ll only be a few minutes before your dreams come true. You might as well track them down and introduce yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Teth,” Dasen tried to be sincere, but even the derision seemed welcome after last night. “It was a dream. I can’t control what I do in my sleep.”
“Well, perhaps you should try.” Teth sighed and made an effort to calm herself. “It doesn’t matter now. If they were out there, they’d be on us by now.” Another sigh. “I think we lost them for now, but they could always pick up our trail, and we’ve already been stopped too long.” She searched the branches again then reached down and helped him to sit.
Dasen suppressed a groan as he came up. He felt like he had been run over by a team of draft horses. Every corner of his body ached with a stiffness well beyond what he had felt after the first day. His head throbbed. His tongue was dry and swollen. His stomach stabbed at him between rumbles. Spikes of pain shot through his neck and back. His eyelids drooped and yawns racked his body. He almost wished the creatures had captured him. Surely nothing they could have done would be worse than this.
Last night had been the longest, most grueling experience of his life, far outpacing even the day of their joining. Just getting to and crossing the bridge had been almost more than he could handle, and the night had not ended there. They had continued running, hiding, crawling throughout the night, driven by the flying creatures that remained swooping overhead and the possibility that the others would somehow find a way across the gorge. They had abandoned what remained of the pack, but that had been little consolation. To avoid the creatures, they had left the trail, fighting their way instead through the thickest, most overgrown sections of forest that Teth could find. At times they had literally squirmed like worms through the pitch-black branches of wild plum bushes. They had crawled against a stream that would not have reached above their knees so that they could remain hidden beneath the undercut bank. They had run up hills so steep they had to use their hands as much as their feet then slid on their bottoms down the other side. When, finally, he had collapsed in exhaustion and even Teth had crumpled down beside him, panting, they had found this spruce, pulled themselves under it, and fallen instantly asleep.
With another groan, Dasen leaned back against the trunk of the tree. The first branches started a few inches above his head then reached out more than six feet to where they brushed the ground with their stubby needles. He could not see even a shimmer of the outside world through the layers of greenish-grey; he could not imagine what Teth was searching for so intently. Finally, with obvious effort, she lay on her belly and, with much grunting, crawled to the edge of the tree. She lay there for a long time, head moving slowly back and forth, long knife clutched in her hand, until she rolled to her back and repeated the process. Satisfied, she pulled herself cautiously from under the tree and stood, moaning all the way up.
“I think we’re safe for now,” she called in hushed tones a moment later. “I can’t see any signs of pursuit, and the sky is clear, but we should keep moving. If they still want us, it’s only a matter of time before they get across the river and pick up our trail. I did what I could last night, but it was too dark and we were too desperate not to leave a pretty obvious set of signs.”
“Ugh” was the only response Dasen could manage. His eyes had drifted shut, and he had to pull himself back out of sleep.
“Come on, Dasen,” Teth seethed a moment later. “I don’t feel any better than you, but we need to get moving.”
“Okay,” Dasen roused himself again, shook his head, and slowly, painfully bent onto his hands and knees. Every corner of his body protested, but he forced himself to crawl out from under the protection of the branches. When he was clear, he flopped onto his back and covered his eyes. The sun felt impossibly bright after the gloom of the tree’s umbra, its rays like spikes being driven into his head. “Am I remembering wrong? Did we actually drink a barrel of bad wine last night before running through the forest? On top of everything else, I feel hung over like you can’t believe.”
“It’s the plant you were chewing. The loggers used to chew it to keep their strength up, but your father banned it on his crews because this is what happens when you stop.”
“Thanks for warning me. By the Order, I think my head is going to burst.”
“We didn’t really have any choice. If I hadn’t given you those leaves, you’d have never made it to the bridge, much less beyond it. Come on, I’ll help you up. Some water will help. And maybe I can find a grove of higg trees as we walk.” Teth held a hand out. Dasen removed an arm from over his eyes and peeked up at the glowing outline of his wife. With a moan, he accepted her hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet. When he was there, his stomach revolted. He bent and heaved onto the ground, but his stomach was too empty to produce anything beyond bile. He spit onto the dirt and felt the acid eating at his bone-dry tongue.
A hand clasped the side of his cheek and ran up through his hair to the back of his head. Teth brought her own head to his so that their foreheads met. She used her hand to hold his hard against hers. For some reason, it eased the throbbing behind his eyes. He opened his eyes and looked directly into hers only a few inches away. He wondered if she was going to kiss him again, but she just pressed her forehead against his and stared into his eyes.
“You did good last night,” she whispered. “It would have been easy to give up, but you didn’t. You kept going. I know this is hard, and it’s not going to get any easier, but you showed last night that you can do it.” With that she released his head and moved her hand down his face to his shoulder, arm, and finally chest. But her head remained against his until its angle shifted, her eyes drifted closed, her lips drew to his, and she gently kissed him.
Little more than a brushing of their lips, the kiss was enough to take Dasen’s breath away and send blood flowing to all the wrong places, but it also seemed to dampen his miseries. When Teth used the hand on his chest to push herself slowly away, Dasen’s eyes drifted open and he released a trembling breath.
“Are you ready?” Teth asked with a look back over her shoulder. Dasen nodded and somehow fell in behind her.