Nyasha wondered if Heaven laughed at the vain practices of Calea Lisan, too. She smiled at the thought and turned to see how the Jalseian woman was faring. At the sight, though, her smile slid away. Calea was lagging badly, and misery was etched across her face, which was both pale with effort and already reddened by the sun. A grimace contorted her face each time she leaned her weight on the prosthetic leg.
Bron had slowed his stride to match Calea, and he eyed her with a look Nyasha knew. He wanted to offer to take Calea’s pack, which was already the lightest of the three of them. He knew his help would be rejected, so he was silent. But he was just as miserable as Calea. They were both such silly people, sometimes Nyasha didn’t know what she would do with them.
Well, Nyasha didn’t care what Calea thought of her, so she could do what she wanted. She glanced at the sky, waiting for them to catch up, as she’d outpaced them. It was still mid-afternoon, nowhere near time to stop for the night yet if they truly wanted to reach Thyrion in anything like the time she and her papa used to make.
When the Jalseians caught up with her, Nyasha reached over and took Calea’s pack without asking permission. “We’re going too slow,” she said bluntly, when the silly woman dared open her mouth in protest. She handed the bundle to Bron, who held it under his left arm without apparent effort.
Nyasha turned back to Calea. “Now, lean on my shoulder. Don’t fuss, my lady! We don’t have time to dither. I know a place up ahead where we can shelter, but it would be wise to reach it before nightfall.”
Calea’s cheeks flushed even brighter, but she handed her crutch to Bron and deigned to lean on Nyasha instead. Nyasha passed an arm around her torso and bore her up. It was more weight than she was used to, but she could handle it.
After a couple of hours, though, Nyasha had to admit defeat. She traded duties with Bron, letting him support Calea while she carried the pack. Calea accepted being passed from person to person with ill grace but could not spare the breath to voice her discontent. They stopped for a meal, wordlessly rushed by Nyasha as she continually looked at the sun and distant mountains, worrying about how far they still had to go. They moved on, Nyasha again propping up Calea.
It wasn’t fast enough. As sunset began to shade the mountains in deeper hues of orange and gold bisected with cavernous black shadows, Calea had faded much further. Nyasha, sweating and determined, dragged her along, but she could not see the place where she and her father used to stop. They hadn’t reached it, and they wouldn’t make it by full dark.
Nyasha paused, pulling in big lungfuls of air to refresh herself. Calea sagged against her, panting too hard to spare breath for complaint or question, which was something of a mercy. Nyasha looked to Bron.
“We need to find shelter.” She knew her eyes were big and pleading, her voice young and almost breathless. She was beginning to be frightened.
But she trusted Bron. He might be a Jalseian, same as Calea, he might never have spent a night in the wilderness in his life, but he was smart and strong. And he cared deeply about Calea, and about Nyasha too, she was sure of it. He would protect them or die in the attempt. If Nyasha couldn’t have her own papa, she couldn’t imagine a better alternative.
He looked back in her eyes, accepting the charge. Nyasha felt something pass between them, almost like static electricity jumping from one person to another. She gave her trust, and he took it and vowed to be trustworthy, all without a word.
Almost instantly, another light sparked in Bron’s eyes, and he stood up straighter, looking about with purpose and certainty. “I think…” he began, hesitantly at first. “Yes, I think we should… Yes, this way. Follow me. We will find shelter.”
The confidence in his voice invited no question, and Nyasha hitched Calea up a little higher against herself and followed him. Bron led them off the path at an angle around the rise of a rocky, scrub-covered hill. They followed the line of the hill for several minutes, then came around it into a slight dip between two or three hillsides. Nyasha heard the trickling of water, then saw the green.
A natural spring bubbled out of the side of one of the hills that surrounded this tiny valley, little bigger than one of the houses in Nyasha’s old neighborhood. Several azazel trees grew around the spring, thrusting their thin, gnarled roots into the rock and spreading a thin cover of leaves overhead. There was even a rock-ring circling wood ash and scorch marks, the remnants of fires from previous travelers.
It was a perfect place to shelter for the night.
“How about that.” Calea sighed, raising her head from Nyasha’s shoulder. “You did something right, you great lump.”
Bron smiled.
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