Chapter 18

Thank you everyone for all your reviews. Special mention to Bralt for being the 100th reviewer. Hypothetical confetti is raining down on you.

Sirisa stormed through the trees. Her hair was in disarray and she smoothed it restlessly. The frown was not unusual. Neither was the moisture on her lashes; they'd all become used to her sporadic outbursts.

Will was breaking off branches for the raft. Halt was positioning them and beginning to tie them in place with the rope. He'd gotten the job without argument; they all assumed he'd have the best idea of how to make it. Lillian picked the shell off a macadamia and watched them.

They all paused in what they were doing when Sirisa thundered past the little work station. She snatched a handful of macadamia's from Lillian, hurled them to the ground and stomped on them. They crunched and she gathered them up, shoving them in her mouth with a glittering fury. Her movements were jerky and sudden, as if at any moment she'd corrupt into a fit of kicking trees and spitting at the ground.

"I was eating those," Lillian protested. "Oh you are so rude!"

Sirisa spat something in Oramine. She was still crunching nuts and she sprayed a few crumbs. They could see the saliva covered mash between her teeth. Her hands flicked at her sides and darted up to tidy her hair, though she only succeeded in making it worse.

Lillian huffed and gathered the remaining nuts to her chest. "Will, Halt, tell her she can't have them," she complained, much as a child might.

"Who found the damn things?" Sirisa challenged. She swallowed her mouthfull and tried to grab another. Lillian twisted them away.

"Jujoan," they both screeched at the same time. Somewhere along the way, the meaning of the word had been lost and they just used it because it offended the other.

"Good grief," Halt muttered under his breath. "They're worse than Alyss and Evanlyn used to be."

Will suppressed a fond smile at the mention of the girls. Memories like that were what encouraged him to keep trying to escape. Now, with the raft taking shape under his hands, they were closer than ever to home. Araluen was right in front of him. The proximity made him more forgiving towards the girls.

Antil emerged from the trees. His shoulders sagged when he saw Sirisa, something akin to a silent apology crossing his features. She snapped in Oramine. Will couldn't understand the word. He still picked up that it wasn't complimentary.

A red hue spread over Antil's cheeks. He joined Will in snapping off branches. The splitting cracks sliced through the air.

"What happened?" Halt asked. Both Sirisa and Antil avoided answering; the woman with a huff and the healer with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

"Do you want to help build the raft?" Will asked, addressing Sirisa. They didn't really need the help but it might do her good to keep herself busy.

"I'm not helping," she snarled. "Do it yourself."

"Then you can check the snares," Halt said evenly. She swung to him, bristling. Her whole body stiffened at the undertone of authority, yet there were very few people who would stand up to Halt when he had that gleam in his eye and Sirisa was not one of them. With her foul temper lapping around her, she headed out to check the snares.

The group brightened at her absence. Lillian moved over to where Halt was tying the branches in place and watched him for a while.

"Are you sure it will float and not just fall apart?" she asked.

Halt nodded. "It may not look sturdy, but it'll do the trick."

"Halt's good at tying knots," Will added further reassurance. "He has crafty fingers." He grinned, a chuckle escaping him. "That's why 'raft' is in 'craft'."

Lillian and Antil offered polite giggles. Halt didn't bother.

When they took a break from their project, Will sidled up to Lillian. He'd been prompted by Halt to do so, as he had taken the role of leader when Halt had been incapacitated and the older ranger wasn't about to usurp him.

"Look," he began. "You're a courier."

Lillian may have had a hint of where this was going because she stiffened, stilling like a river in the winter up north.

"Couriers are diplomats," Will continued. "And diplomats know how to get along with people. I'm sure if you try you can become friends with Sirisa. Just think of it as a training exercise."

"I've finished my training," Lillian said with no small amount of mortification at being lectured. Not that lecturing was Will's intent by any means; he was trying to help.

"I know, I know," Will soothed. "You're a brilliant courier," although not in the same league as Alyss, he thought. From now on, he would be appreciating his girlfriend's skill much more than he had in the past.

Lillian dropped her gaze to the ground. "No I'm not," she sighed. "I just memorise lines and facts. I have no real skill when it comes to people. It's funny, I'm highly regarded as one of the brightest new graduates in Caraway, but I can't do anything right on a real mission."

"But didn't you go on missions when you were training?" Will inquired, frowning.

"Yes. With my mentor. She always dealt with issues when they got tough and I learnt from her. At least, I pretended to learn. I may not have been doing as much learning as I'd thought."

Will put an arm around her shoulders. She was shaking and he flashed an encouraging smile. "You handled things fine when we first landed at Oramin."

"That was different. It was," she had to search for the words, "just like in the books. Orthodox."

"Well then," Will said and didn't finish the sentence because he just didn't know what to say next. He wasn't like Halt; the right words to make everyone feel better didn't just come to his tongue. "Just try to get along with her," he said after a pause.

"Alright. I'll try," Lillian conceded.

…..

Sirisa knelt under the shade of a tree. She picked up the parcel wrapped in banana leaves, turning it over in her hands. It felt cold. It shouldn't have felt cold, she thought, because it should have been warmed by Ruch's palm but nothing ever would be again.

She came close to hurling it across the clearing. She couldn't do it. It had been his pride and joy in his last days. Sirisa was sure, if he had returned to Oramin, he would have hung it on his wall and showed it off to everyone he could.

Carefully, she peeled off the leaves. The sheen of black obsidian seemed to her lustless. It was jagged and imperfect. And it hurt to grip it in her hand. It was so very wrong. Only one calloused hand was supposed to touch that handle. Still, Sirisa didn't think he would have wanted it to go to waste.

She gave it a few experimental swings. It was unfamiliar in her hand, not like her spear had become. Yet she couldn't put it down. She didn't want one of the others getting to it first. The sword was hers and only hers; Ruch would have wanted her to have it.

"Isn't that Ruch's sword?" Lillian stood uncertainly at the edge of the camp.

Sirisa jumped. "So what if it is?" she challenged. It was unusual for the blonde girl to speak to her, usually Lillian sat in sullen silence when none of the others were around. For none of them were around; Will and Halt were working on the raft and Antil- well, she didn't want to think about Antil.

"No I- I think he'd have wanted you to have it," Lillian said. She even attempted a tiny smile.

Sirisa snorted. "No doubt he would have," she said scornfully, ignoring a persistant voice inside of her that worried she was no more than a petty theif.

They kept a wary distance between them, much like two cats eying each other across the garden.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Lillian murmured. "I know he was special to you. It- I tried. I mean, I never wanted for- I liked Ruch I-"

"You were there," Sirisa said in a low voice. "Why did it have to be you with him?"

Lillian blinked, her face burning, insistant tears blurring her vision.

"If it had been one of the others, it would have been different," Sirisa stated bluntly. She glanced over at Lillian's distraught features, the kind of delicate features that should be drinking tea and reading rather than traipsing around the wild.

"There's no guarantee of that," Lillian choked out. Her fists trembled at her sides, the responsibity a blanket wrapped too tightly around her so that she couldn't breath.

"No," Sirisa agreed. "No gurantee. Besides, no one expects an ignorant foreigner jujoan like you to know what to do."

Lillian flinched. "It was your fault we were in this situation in the first place!" she accused.

"Oh quiet you," Sirisa snapped right back at her. "Don't you get it? I forgive you. You're a useless foreigner who can't cope and I forgive you for not knowing what to do."

"E-eh?"

"Because," Sirisa continued, "I suppose you tried. Anyway, Ruch wouldn't want his memory to be tarnished with bickering."

"Uh?"

"You aren't quick witted, are you?" Sirisa spat with her usual venom. She swished the sword around, deciding she could get used to it.

It was dumb luck what happened next. They weren't rangers; they wouldn't have heard anything. But Lillian was alarmed when Sirisa started swinging the sword around. She jumped and jerked back from the razer edge. Sirisa laughed disdainfully at her; Lillian glanced away in embarrassment and it was this movement that brought her eye to eye with the tribesperson in the bushes.

Lillian blinked. She processed what she saw. It took a moment.

Then she let out an ear splitting scream. "Sirisa!" she screeched. "Sirisa, Sirisa!" The Oramin reached for her, grabbing her arm.

"What is it?" she asked urgently. The tribesperson had already disappeared, melting away into the bushes.

"T-there was a face. A person. Dark skinned with red tattoes," Lillian stammered. "He was looking at me; at us."

Sirisa's grip tightened on her arm. They exchanged a look of muted terror.

"I don't see him," Sirisa muttered.

"He's gone now," Lillian told her.

"Why would he just leave?" Sirisa frowned.

"I don't know," Lillian warbled. "We should find Will and Halt." She made to move but Sirisa held her back.

"Maybe he was a scout," she suggested. "He might be on his way back to their campsite to tell all of them we're here."

"Then we should definitely tell Will." Lillian tried to pull her arm free. Sirisa shook her head.

"We might not have time. By the time we get to them, the tribespeople could be marching towards us. I bet they move fast in the forest."

"Well, what would you have us do?" Lillian squeaked. "I hope you aren't going to start like Antil. All 'we have no hope'."

"Of course not," Sirisa snapped. "I think we should follow the scout and stop him before he reaches his people." The tip of the obsidian sword sliced through the air. Her eyes were alight with a kind of madness.

"No. No no no no no!" Lillian insisted.

"Oh think about it," Sirisa said, warming to her idea. "If we run all the way to where they're building the raft and the tribesperson runs and tells his tribe, and they all send out a party to kill us, then we won't know where that party is and they'll be hunting us. We won't be able to return to camp because they know where that is and could be watching us."

"You are just like Antil!" Lillian cried.

"But," Sirisa continued, drawing out the word. "If we follow him now, we can stop him before he tells the others and avoid ourselves the trouble. So let's go, jujoan!" She charged off into the forest, her spear in one hand, Ruch's sword in the other, and a glitter of madness in the air around her. Lillian jogged after her.

"Stop Sirisa," she said. "You'll be killed."

"Oh, who cares," Sirisa tossed over her shoulder. "This place is hardly worth living in."

"But we're about to go home when the raft is finished," Lillian tried.

"Home? I don't have a home. Or a family. I don't think I exist at all," Sirisa laughed, the most bizarre giggle Lillian had ever heard and ever would hear in her life. "I'm just an illusion created by the trees and I'll fade into the soil as if I was never here. Don't tell me it's not true," she added when she heard a breath behind her. "We both know it is. Just like Ruch had vanished forever."

She broke down and started crying. Her sobs echoed between the rough bark of trees. She didn't slow her step, nor bothered to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Lillian faltered, wavering between going back.

Sirisa was wrong, Lillian thought to herself. Ruch hadn't vanished. He was still there in the obsidian sword and he was still there in the rich earthy air. If not for him, she would have turned back. But his presence unnerved her, the suffocating blame that she had not taken the right actions to save his life- so how could she abandon Sirisa now?

The tribesman must have heard them snivelling from a mile away. They didn't catch even a glimpse of him until they spotted two more with him. The girls hid in the shadows and peered around the thick trunk of a tree. At least, Sirisa did, Lillian kept her face pressed against the calloused bark and wished she was someplace else.

The tribespeople were grunting. One of them waved and pointed in the general direction of the camp. That one must have been the scout, although Sirisa hadn't seen him and Lillian refused to look.

One of the tribesmen spotted them. His back stiffened and he readied his spear. Sirisa touched the courier's shoulder, drawing her back from the trunk.

"Maybe you were right," she admitted. "We should have told the rangers. Go now, you go tell them."

Lillian's gaze slid past her to where the tribesmen were starting to approach around the tree. Her hands fluttered at her sides. Her knees buckled; she couldn't find the strength to run, nor stand and she sank to the ground.

"Get up, jujoan," Sirisa snapped, prodding her lightly with the spear. "Get up; I'll hold them off."

Lillian couldn't get up. She crawled out of the way, into what might have once been a riverbed; now moss and rocks. She blocked her ears with her fingers. It wasn't enough to shut out the screams and grunts of pain and the sound of obsidian biting flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut. It did nothing to block out the images of blood and mangled bodies in her head. She drew her knees to her chin and that gave her no comfort either.

It didn't take long for a deadly silence to sweep over the forest. Lillian heard a shuddering groan, a few birds and nothing else. She dared to open her eyes and regretted it. The courier rolled onto her front and vomited. Then she staggered to her feet and ran on trembling legs, yelling 'Will! Will! Will!'

It all happened in a haze. She registered warm hands on her shoulders and voices asking her what had happened. She hadn't been able to speak, just waved her hand and garbled a few disjointed sounds.

Will's arm was around her and her face was on his shoulder. She wouldn't look. She refused to look. He let her go to check the pulse. Halt gathered up the obsidian sword and the two spears- Lillian had left hers at the scene. He also took the spears from the three tribesmen. They dragged her body back to the camp. Again, the forest was lit up with a funeral pyre. Again, the obsidian blade was wrapped in leaves and left untouched.

Lillian wouldn't eat anything even though her stomach growled. She stayed away from the fire because it didn't seem right to be warming her hands over it in the circumstances. Vaguelly, she registered Will and Halt talking.

"So I should do nothing?" Will was saying.

"The tribespeople are as much a part of the wild as the tigers and the birds," Halt replied. "You didn't want to kill all of the snakes in the jungle after what happened to Ruch. In any event, revenge is a bad motive."

"But they killed our ally!" Will argued. "I can't sit around and let that happen without fighting back."

"Will," Halt said. "You're letting the wild draw you in." That was how it worked;; it wrapped tendrils around you when you were close to escape, trying to give you a reason to stay, making you forget that you could walk away.

It laughed. All around them, the jungle throbbed with laughter. They were all sure of it. It was alive; they were standing in the belly of a dragon and it wanted to digest them.

That evening, Lillian didn't bother about blisters or cuts and helped them to finish the raft. There was no sense of victory when it was finished. Only a weary hope: please let this take us across the river and out of the wild.