Mickey Reichert - Flight of the Renshai

Chymmerlee laughed, though Subikahn had not intended his words as a joke. "Why don't you let me do the gathering. My tastes run a bit grander than just not getting sick."

Subikahn smiled sheepishly. "All right. I'll restart the fire." He headed toward Saviar while Chymmerlee disappeared into the woods, his waterskin in her hand.

Subikahn stirred the ashes, finding an occasional enduring ember. He tossed on a handful of kindling, watching one tenacious cinder blacken a threadlike fork of a larger branch. Gradually, a thin line of smoke emerged, then a spark rose into a tremulous fire. Subikahn rearranged the kindling to take advantage of the flames before turning his attention to his brother.

Saviar's face looked more familiar than it had in days, his sturdy jaw and classically handsome features restored from the pall of pain and concern that had enwrapped them for the last several days. He placed his fingers against Saviar's neck, rewarded by a strong, steady beat. Chymmerlee had not disturbed the plastered layer of clothing, but had simply laid a single cloak over him. The leg was rebandaged. The red lines dragging out from the wound had not wholly disappeared, but they looked less swollen, less prominent, and extended only to his upper thigh and mid-calf.

"Saviar," Subikahn said in a loud whisper. When he got no response, he spoke louder and added a sturdy shake. "Saviar!"

Saviar responded only with a grunt.The tip of his tongue appeared briefly between his lips, then disappeared back into his mouth.

"Saviar, wake up!"

Saviar only snuggled deeper into the cloak. His lids did not even flutter.

"Wake up! Wake up!" Subikahn screamed into Saviar's face. He shook his brother so hard he worried to further injure him.

Again, Saviar grunted and moved a bit, but he did not open his eyes or attempt speech.

Subikahn threw himself to the ground beside his brother. What good did it do to drag Saviar from Hel's grip, only to leave him alive but senseless? The gratitude he had felt only moments earlier turned to resentment. He knew he should not judge until he had all the facts from Chymmerlee, but he suddenly worried that she would never return. The possibility that she did work for Hel, that she had saddled the brothers with the worst possible fate for all eternity crept into his mind and refused banishment. Terror merged with rage and hatred, a sense of utter failure, and it boiled into a mixture nearly beyond his control. It was all Subikahn could do to keep himself from chasing after Chymmerlee. Perhaps, that too, was what she wanted. While he ran after the messenger, Hel could safely swoop in and claim her prize.

By the time Chymmerlee returned, skirt loaded with strange roots, stems, and a single coney, Subikahn was pacing angrily. The waterskin slung over her arm left a wet patch on the side of her shift.

Subikahn had promised himself to prod gingerly but found himself rounding on the woman, helpless to stop himself from shouting. "What have you done to him! What have you done!"

Chymmerlee's features knotted in concern. She dumped her load unceremoniously and ran to Saviar. "What's happened?"

"He won't wake up!" A teary jerk in Subikahn's voice slaughtered the righteous anger. "I can't wake him." He choked, no longer able to hide behind rage. "What's wrong with him?"

Kneeling at Saviar's side, Chymmerlee rocked backward. "Subikahn, I told you I was only going to stabilize him. I can stop more poison from getting to his organs, but he needs to handle what's already there himself."

Subikahn did not understand. "Poison? I didn't-" He broke off, ashamed to tell Chymmerlee where Saviar's wound had come from.

"The kind of poison I'm talking about comes from festering wounds. If it gets bad enough, it travels through the body and damages organs: heart, brain, kidneys, everything."

Subikahn did not know what to say.

"That's why people with infected wounds die."

Subikahn had never thought of it that way. He understood how a festered limb might require amputation, but he never quite appreciated how it led otherwise strong warriors to fade away. "How can he 'handle' it if he's unconscious?"

Apparently satisfied with Saviar's condition, Chymmerlee returned to sort the foodstuffs. "That's the best way to handle it. If you take the strain of regular work off the body, you give it time to heal itself."

Subikahn shook his head. "But how can he heal without food and water?"

"He can't," Chymmerlee admitted, looking up from her sorting. "We'll have to get those things into him without him having to… ingest them."

Subikahn stared.The words made no sense to him. "How can you take food and water without… ingesting?"

"We'll manage." Chymmerlee offered three lumpy, brown tubers. "Bury those in the ashes."

Subikahn accepted the tubers, though they looked more like rocks than food. "Are these any good?"

"A delicacy," Chymmerlee assured. "Any chance you can skin the coney?" Though she had carried it over, she clearly did not wish to touch it again.

Subikahn felt certain he could figure it out. "Sure. Don't you want to?"

Chymmerlee made a noise of revulsion, and her features matched it perfectly. "This may sound stupid after I just cleaned a festering wound, but I don't like seeing blood."

It did sound stupid, but Subikahn was too polite to say so. He had spent enough time in the Eastlands to know most women were nothing like those of the Renshai. They suffered a squeamishness that would have left Renshai women rolling their eyes and snorting. He took the coney, and his utility knife, and set to work removing fur and skin from the meat.

While he worked, Chymmerlee piled round black berries in front of him, along with an assortment of weeds in red and light green. She set aside a couple of fat, semirigid stems, then went right to eating her berries, shoving them into her mouth in unladylike handfuls.

Subikahn pretended not to notice, even when Chymmerlee questioned him with a partially chewed mouthful still in place. "So, Subikahn, did I rightly hear you call Saviar your twin?"

Accustomed to disbelief, Subikahn nodded, braced for the inevitable questions. He continued his work on the coney, the skin yielding easily to the sharpness of the blade. A line of blood twined across his hands, and he checked to make certain it came from the carcass. A blade that well-honed sometimes cut without pain. "We're actual twins, yes. Born to the same woman, the same pregnancy."

"Would it be correct to guess that one of you resembles your parents while the other doesn't?" Chymmerlee seemed about to make a stunning revelation, so Subikahn's response had to catch her off guard.

"Actually…" Subikahn paused, scraping cautiously around the rabbit's legs. "… we both look very much like our fathers."

That comment elicited the usual blank stare.

Subikahn studied the food in front of him. He pinched a berry with his least filthy hand. It felt mostly firm, slightly yielding, the type of berries that might crunch before they gave up a sweet load of juice. He tossed it into his mouth. It broke open with a bit of noise, less a crunch than a squeak, releasing a spicy, nutty flavor he could not place. "Yes, it's possible, and it happened. Thrust into life-or-death situations, Mama slept with two good friends in close proximity. We were the results."

"Oh." The word emerged thoughtfully.

Subikahn got the idea her consideration had less to do with the oddity of two-fathered twins and more to do with the pronouncement she had intended to make. "What were you thinking? Before I told you about the two fathers, I mean."

"Well," Chymmerlee said softly. "I've been thinking about your ability to see magic. It requires Outworld or mage blood to do that."

Subikahn only nodded as he finished the skinning. He worried that admitting a sword had done the seeing for him would lose him Chymmerlee's assistance. Right now, with Saviar comatose, he needed her desperately. "Me? I have Outworld or mage blood?"