Pebbles came skittering down.
The slope was very high and very steep, layered with raindark sand. Leaves gray and dead and crunching. White sky. The sorry venous shape of empty treebranches cold and shaking.
His legs were tired and heavy and slow and his lungs aflame and the veins of his neck standing out like noodles.
He was sweating. It was cold and he could see his breath coming and he was sweating.
But he was doing it.
When he reached the top of the hill Lightning was already there, already waiting.
Do you need a minute? she asked.
He placed his hands on his knees and breathed the words I'm sorry.
She made a sound like a sigh but with decidedly more character.
We've been walking all day, he sputtered.
And? We'll be walking all night.
Now it was his turn to sigh.
Stay here, she said, turning abruptly. Get your breath back. There's a stream up ahead. I'll refill our waters.
Okay.
She split without another word, disappearing over the next hill, her silent kneehigh boots leaving almost no impression in the sand.
He found a tree with a nice wide trunk to it and slumped down between the cloven roots as if in surrender. He breathed. Then he slipped off his right shoe and smacked it sidelong against his palm, freeing the stubborn stone that had been lodged in there for the better part of an hour. It came rattling out into his palm, a tiny black pebble. He closed his hand around it and wound up and chucked it as far as he could. Then he pulled his shoe back on and laced it up tight.
He tipped his head back and closed his eyelids, breathing through his nose. He thought: We're just not strong enough. We're just not strong enough.
Energetic, yes. Good for short bursts. Climbing trees. Sprinting the drainage trenches under Palumpolum. But nothing like this. This was a death march.
Suddenly his ears perked up. He'd heard something dragging heavily through the leaves behind him. Belabored footsteps, like those of a wounded animal. He slid to his knees and flattened himself against the tree, peering hesitantly around the enormous gray trunk.
There was something big down there, limping up the slope and through the brush, headed straight for him.
He ducked back behind the tree, hyperventilating, eyes flitting from side to side in panic.
He could run and hide. He could call for help. He could sit there coiled into a ball and pray it didnt notice him, whatever it was. He slapped one hand to his forehead.
Behind him the slow and sickly dragging continued, getting closer.
We have to do something, he thought. We have to do something.
His legs were frozen, knees locked.
We have to do something, Hope.
Instead he just stood there watching in petrified silence as the wounded creature lumbered on past, an immense birdlike thing packing one fork-toed foot and whimpering miserably, trailing behind it a long crooked ellipsis of blood.
Suddenly the thing began to totter. Then it flopped onto its side with a low groan and lay gasping in the sand not ten feet from him.
He fell to one knee, clutching his chest as if to stop his heart from bursting through. Slowly he let out the breath he'd been holding onto, watched it lilt away into the fog like cigarette smoke.
What now, Hope?
He could see the thing breathing, its great feathery sides heaving in and out, in and out.
Slowly he unbuttoned the pack strapped to his left pantleg and removed the switchblade Lightning had entrusted to him. He opened it.
The giant bird began to cough and thrash at the ground. It could not see him from where it lay.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to move, each step louder than the one before it, dry twigs snapping under the floors of his shoes. He knelt beside the still-struggling creature, gripping the knife with both hands so that the tip of the blade faced downward. He tented his arms, steadying the blade over the creature's throat.
He caught a glimpse of its face, of the round and yellow and terrified eye staring back up at him.
He screamed like a wolf and in one sudden whipping motion forced the knife home. Blood fizzed from the broken artery, soaking his gloves. He held on. The bird screeched and kicked its ruined foot. Then it slowed and trembled and tensed and finally stopped.
His fingers relinquished their grip. He fell back into the sand, breathing, feeling dizzy. He listened to the wind and to the crinkle of the leaves and to the blood pounding in his temples. He was shaking.
After a while he managed to pull himself to his knees, then to his feet. Stripping off his wet gloves he swung himself around and staggered away, leaving the knife.
He trudged up and over the next hill and through a sinkhole filled with gravel and from beyond the sharp skeletal trees on the embankment opposite he could hear the sound of running water. He was out of breath by the time he reached the treeline.
Down in the valley below a shallow creek trickled along the copper gravel shore. Lightning stood hunched and naked in the kneehigh water, dragging wet fingers through her long pink-red hair. Slowly she turned and gazed up at him. She saw that he was very tired and very afraid.
She breathed. Then she wet her hair again and climbed out dripping onto the pebbly shore.