Chapter 5: The Second Spear
That her old life was over, and she could never go back, was not something Yîgeke could realize all at once. It hit her like a sandstorm, coaxing tears from her eyes and forcing her to her knees as the weight of it pounded down on her. Then one of her friends would take her hand and guide her through the storm, and she would think she was past it, that the truth of it had worked its way into her like sand through an open wound, where it would become forever after part of her, grinding and grating against her heart.
Then there would be a few minutes of rushing blindly through the wilderness outside the city, heedless of where she was going. Somewhere nearby were their pursuers, those Ortheri whose duty was chasing down runaway slaves. Kargöz had considered it fortunate that he and Yîgeke had reached the other four without being spotted by such Ortheri; but there'd never been any chance to get all six of them out of the city without being seen. They hadn't even been out of sight of the towers when the alarm horn had been winded.
Since then Yîgeke had run without thought; the grinding of sand against her heart drowned out everything else. Qemik might guide her behind a thorn-bush, or Oyana might choose a path by the light of the blood-stained moon, or Kargöz might whisper to her from around a stony outcropping, and off she would go, trusting them, and too heart-sick to make any other choice. And once they'd found a moment of relative safety, a chance to catch their breath, sand would swirl and come crashing down on her once more, the full weight of realization pressing her to the dusty ground.
If she had had to do this alone, she could not have made it this far. In fact, she would never have run. She would have stepped into the noose and been done with it. Or if she had run, after but a few moments she would turn around and throw herself into the hands of the slave-chasers, take her punishment, and hope she might get to return to her old life to wait for someone more brave and more capable to lead her to freedom. Or she would curl up under a rock and wait to die of thirst, which is what she wished to do now.
Her five friends were both a blessing and a burden. They kept her going, and gave her direction, towards what she could not even begin to ask herself, but at least away from danger. They made decisions so she would not have to. But if the ending of her old life was too much to bear, how much more so that five others, people for whom she cared, had given up theirs, willingly, to protect her. This was too large an idea to imagine, let alone accept. She had vague memories of a huddled, panicked council in a narrow alleyway, Kargöz retelling the tale of the four cowled men, speculations that all of them would be the next to meet axes in the dark. Hurried speeches about the Spears, about hope, about destiny. Embraces that were meant to be comforting, and kind words about friendship and loyalty that she probably should have been, should be, grateful for, if she had enough life in her to light the spark of gratitude.
But her heart was heavy with the grinding sand of loss. Behind her, a life, terrible and fragile but in its way reassuringly predictable, that was lost forever. Before her, a yawning emptiness of uncertainty. And hanging in the moment between, a slowly swaying noose. The line and loop of rope somehow looked like a spear and circle, folds and grain in hide, a portent of doom. She knew it was supposed to be hope, but she felt it choking her.
The first sign that they'd come far was mud on her foot. Thick, clinging muck, greedy, grasping. She looked up and found her friends standing in an uneven line, all eyes ahead. Above them, the moon was heavy with crimson effulgence, swollen and bloated like a wound, angry and hot. Its ruddy light washed over the damp-slicked hillocks of the bog, making it seem as if blood had been spilled over every mound of damp earth, as if some great battle had been lost here and the moisture was life itself, life lost from wounds and sinking into the greedy embrace of senseless soil.
But it was just the bog, and a moon tinged from a duststorm, and five silhouettes staring at a small island of dirt, surrounded by a brackish pool. And at the slender tree rising from that mound, straining for the moon above it. She thought she could see it growing taller before her eyes, but was she simply sinking into the mud and thus fooled by a shifting perspective? Several large-billed birds lazily glided around the Second Spear, then settled to the ground beside it, unperturbed by the weight of prophecy. They paid no heed as Yîgeke dropped to her knees in the mud and wept.