Robinson Crusoe 2244 (19 page)

“Ow!” he cried. “What was that for?”

“Ow! Ow!” She seemed to take pleasure in mocking him. Then she grabbed the knife, pushed him aside, and carefully cut the pig’s abdomen before pulling out its entrails. When Robinson moved to throw them away, she spun the knife and hit him hard across the knuckles. He nearly screamed but held his tongue.

“Ow?” she mocked again.

She fingered the entrails and pointed to her bandages. “
Categute
.” She followed up by miming the action of drawing a bow and arrow. “Categute.”

“Seriously? That’s revolting.”

She stripped the fat away before cleaning out the fecal matter. Then she filled a pan with cold water and set it aside. She pointed to the carcass.

“Once,” she said.

Then the knife flew. She cut off the head in two quick strokes, sliced along the backbone, separating the shoulders from the ribs and the ribs from the loins. She wasted no energy while she worked. The meat was cut cleanly. When she was done, she pointed for most to go into the smoker but signaled that Robinson should cook the belly.

While he prepared dinner, she washed and redressed her wounds. Then she withdrew a natural whetstone to clean and sharpen the blade of her axe. Robinson had no idea where she’d gotten it, but even her circular strokes seemed effortless. After a few minutes, she stopped and glared at him. He quickly went back to work.

Supper that night was among the finest he’d ever had. Even Resi agreed, since he spent a turn afterward at the girl’s feet. Later, he came back with a raw shank bone to gnaw on until a light rain fell and his eyes grew heavy.

Robinson laid down on his bedroll and read from a book. Though he didn’t know why, he read aloud. The girl had moved on to sharpening her knife, but her strokes were slow and steady. Even from afar he could tell she was listening, though she didn’t understand the words. He had expected her to call out and silence him, but she didn’t. These were new lands to her, as were his customs, and she greeted them not with a blunt hammer, but with the silence of one searching for a deeper understanding.

After a quick breakfast of leftover pork and leeks, the girl bid Robinson gather his things and they headed out along the river to the north and west, away from the capitol and deeper inland where the buildings grew smaller and tracts of land blossomed. The morning was cold—winter was just around the corner—but there was still a bounty of vegetation for her to identify and him to collect.

As they moved farther west, paved roads fell to dirt ones, and then none at all. This was where she flourished. She pointed out the tracks of animals, striking Robinson’s legs with the stick when he didn’t recognize ones she had already named. She showed him the pattern of Resi’s gait and compared it to a group of similar prints, which he inferred was from a pack of wild dogs that were to be given a wide berth.

In the countryside, the girl singled out hidden rabbit warrens and a giant, shelled creature that floated in the water. It was too far away to catch, but she seemed to suggest it would make a tasty meal. Fallen trees and lodges also boasted beavers and muskrats, though she seemed less eager to hunt for them. And she refused to hunt anything they did not eat.

Occasionally, they stumbled upon the tracks of renders, but most looked several days old and rarely gave the girl pause.

As the territory grew more bucolic, the girl’s step seemed less hobbled, as if the land somehow imbued a power that revitalized not only her body but also her spirit. Again and again, Robinson found himself watching her as she moved fluidly across the terrain with an understanding of its dangers and an appreciation of its beauty. Implicit in this was its ability to sustain them so long as they never took it for granted.

Blood continued to soak the wound at her brow, though her shoulder and knee appeared to be on the mend. Even the boot seemed less cumbersome, yet it frustrated her greatly. The biggest surprise was her face. As the swelling receded, Robinson saw she wasn’t as unattractive as he’d previously believed. In fact, her face was quite comely in its own way. Even her strong nose, which had clearly been broken at some point, gave her appearance a character that belied a deeper femininity. And yet it was the eyes he couldn’t turn away from. They were a vivid green, deep as a forest and yet flecked with chips the color of the sun. Every time a hawk called or a cloud rumbled, she would look into the sky, and he would look into her. But these moments were always met with the inevitable whistle of wood and the familiarity of pain.

Even then, Robinson thought of Tessa. When the girl’s black tresses blew in the chilled wind, he felt his hands running through his betrayer’s flaxen curls. When in some unintentional moment he brushed against her bronze skin so laden with sweat and scars, he felt only the cool smoothness of perfumed flesh both pale and luminous. One smelled of earth, the other of sky. One broke his body, the other had broken his heart. Both wounds were transformative, leaving something stouter in their place.

On far away ridges, they saw deer grazing. Once, the girl picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it at a small herd. Even before it hit the ground, they were galloping away. She mimed the use of a bow and arrow when she saw fowl in the sky. Then she would point to the north, inferring they would be gone before the first snow fell.

When they crested a small hill, the girl immediately ducked down and waved him over. There, on the opposite side, was a score of bovine—large and hardy—chewing grass and cud without care. She spoke excitedly—this was what she had been searching for. Her head spun around and then she pointed to a small farmhouse on a ridge to the south. They backed away and set out for it.

Robinson wasn’t sure what she had planned at the farmhouse, but it was already past midday. Unless they were going to spend the night there, they had maybe a turn before they had to start back for the city. He also didn’t want to risk losing Resi, who was digging at a rabbit hole on the other side of the field.

As they crossed the vacant yard, Robinson suddenly felt an ill foreboding. The dilapidated structure looked sturdy enough, but something about its remoteness bothered him. He couldn’t say why. And then a curtain in the upstairs window moved.

“Did you see that?” he said, halting in his tracks.

She went still, her eyes scanning every part of the house. But then a gust of wind blew and the curtain swayed again. Her shoulders slackened and she smirked.

When they reached the porch, the girl tested the boards carefully with the heel of her boot. The wood groaned, but it was in no danger of collapse. Still, she pulled the axe from her bag and used its toe to push the door open.

The house smelled of must, but not of renders. Most of the windows were unbroken. If they had to stay there, they’d be safe for the night. The girl knew it too. She was already entering the second room when the front door slammed. They turned and saw the man. He was dressed in dirty rags from head to toe and held a rusty, curved blade in his hand. When he opened his mouth, revealing a handful of blackened teeth, it was not to smile but to whistle.

That’s when five other men stepped from the shadows and surrounded them.

They stood silent and ready, all holding weapons. They had done this before. They had no intention of taking captives. The only questions were how long it would take and when it would begin.

The answers came quickly when the tallest one near the stairs made a sound with his tongue. But before the air left his mouth, the girl was in motion, drawing the knife from her belt and tossing it to Robinson. Unfortunately, his hands were shaking so badly, he failed to catch it and it clattered to the floor. When he bent to grab it, he felt the air above his head move with the whistle of something that sunk into the wall behind him.

For her part, the girl didn’t panic or hesitate. She took a single step back, twisted under the descending arc of the doorman’s blade, and cleaved off his jaw with a single swipe of her axe. He let out an inhuman wail as he tumbled forward, but she caught him under the arm and spun him just as a one-armed foe let a spiked ball connected to a chain fly. It landed with a wet, sick thud in the first man’s chest, ending his cries and his life. But before the flail could be drawn free, the girl pirouetted backward with unbelievable speed, her good leg whipping hard across the back of the dead man’s knees. As his torso pitched backward, the one-armed man was wrenched forward and in one motion, the girl lopped off his remaining hand at the wrist before flinging the axe into kitchen, where it struck the head of a man loading a bolt into a crossbow.

The man teetered there for what seemed like an eternity before he fell back with a sickening plop. Everyone in the room suddenly froze. It had taken less than three seconds, but half their party was dead or maimed—all at the hands of a skinny girl.

The most astonishing part was that she was barely breathing. When she glanced at Robinson, it appeared as if all the green had gone out of her eyes, replaced by something black. She didn’t look surprised or affected by the fact that the leader now had his hand wrapped around her companion’s mouth or his blade positioned at his throat.

Truth be told, Robinson didn’t understand why he was still alive. And then he heard the man whisper the word.

“Aserra.”

It was tinged with awe and reverence, but mostly fear. When the assailants in the kitchen heard it, both seemed to wither as if the air had been let out of them. Robinson looked at the girl and saw the brand on her arm was showing, but by then, the men knew what they were up against. He even thought that the one in the kitchen might run when he turned and looked at the back door. But that hesitation cost him.

The second half of the battle came as quickly as the first, but this time it was on the girl’s terms. One moment she was standing empty handed, the next she had a blade in it and was racing across the room. To his credit, the leader didn’t bother killing Robinson. He knew it would only cost him time. Instead, he pushed the teen out of the way so he and his companions could attack the girl simultaneously. When Robinson fell to the floor, he covered his head to avoid the scuffle and closed his eyes. The din that followed was pure horror: the clash of metal, grunts and shrieks, the spray of blood, and the rattle of the dying.

When he finally looked up, the girl stood alone, a single stitch of red lining her forearm. He must have gasped because she turned and pointed the blade at him, her eyes momentarily wild.

“It’s me,” he said, his hands in the air.

The girl looked through him before lowering the blade and turning away.

“Are they … all dead?” Robinson asked.

The girl didn’t answer. She was too busy examining their weapons. The leader’s blade was by far the best of them, but when she looked at it closely, she saw faults in the steel and eventually put it under her boot and broke it in half. The weapon she was most interested in was the crossbow, but it was in poor shape too. By the way the man had handled it and how it had misfired over Robinson’s head despite his being so close, it was obviously worthless. She destroyed it as well.

When Robinson stood up, his heart was still hammering in his chest and he gagged from the smell that had filled the room. And then he heard a whimper and saw the man with no hands sobbing softly, his new stump in the cradle of his old one. The girl crossed to him and he murmured a few words. It was unclear if they were pleas of mercy or something else, but when the girl went to retrieve her axe, Robinson quietly slipped out the door.

Outside, he closed his eyes, trying to forget everything he’d seen, but the void was quickly filling up with such memories and he knew if he was to survive with his sanity intact, he needed to accept that such events were a part of his new life. Only by learning from them might he avoid similar situations in the future. He also knew he had relied on others for far too long. The Old Man, the girl, and even Resi had at some point saved him.

It was time to start looking after himself.

Inside, he heard the girl opening closets and cupboards, but she didn’t find what she was looking for. She exited a short while later and made her way to a detached garage. Robinson followed her there only to see her dig out an old shovel and a pickaxe with half a handle.

They made it home just before sunset, but already the chill had seeped in. Robinson started a fire in the stove, but the smoke brought out the renders. He knew the barricade would hold them, but their incessant buzz was like a wooden sliver sunk deep beneath the skin. It grew worse and worse until finally he climbed onto the roof and flung several full cans of oil over the side. The beasts pulled back but didn’t fully retreat until morning.

The girl ate mechanically. Resi sat at her feet, having sensed something bad had happened. Robinson tried to think of something that would make her feel better but nothing came to mind. Only when she made for her bed did it hit him.

“Teach me,” he said.

She turned, her face wary but curious. Robinson pointed to the brand on her arm.