The Limping Man (9 page)

‘You don’t know much. I reckon you’d die out here if you didn’t have your bird.’

‘Maybe. But I’ve got him. You haven’t.’

Hawk opened his eyes. He struggled for a moment, then gave up. He slept again.

‘Where do you come from? You talk like Hari,’ Ben said.

‘The burrows. Bawdhouse Burrow.’

‘Where the whores live. You do it for a groat, that’s what I heard.’

Hana hissed. She spat at him over the fire. He leaned back, grinning at her. ‘You’ll spoil the pigeon.’

‘If I had my knife . . .’

‘You’d do what?’ From somewhere his own knife jumped into his hand. Then, just as quickly, it vanished. ‘No chance, Hana. Now put the bird down and eat something. Try the eel.’

She ate. She would not speak to him. The eel was good.

So was the pigeon. She saved a piece for Hawk. After a while she said, ‘I’ve heard of Hari.’

‘He’s my father’s father. Have you heard of Pearl?’

‘Yes. They’re stories. The poison salt. My mam told me that one. They’re not true. Like the gool.’

‘They’re true. The gool’s true. Xantee killed it. My father’s sister.’

‘My mam told them like stories.’

‘Where’s your mam?’

‘The Limping Man killed her. He’s not a story.’

‘I want to see him,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve got my knife.’

‘You’re a fool,’ Hana said. ‘I’m going to sleep.’ She lay down beside Hawk.

After a while Ben said, ‘You’d better take my blanket.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Go on. I won’t try and get in with you.’

She made a sound of disgust. ‘I can sleep without one,’ she said.

‘So can I.’

Hawk woke in the night and struggled against his wrappings. She tried to soothe him but he snapped at her, cutting her hand. Ben squatted beside her. He tried feeding Hawk with scraps of pigeon. Hawk bit him too. They had no more sleep. Ben built up the fire and they sat close to it, keeping warm. The first light of dawn arrived. Tree trunks advanced out of the blackness. Lo slipped across the clearing and squatted beside them. He spoke a word to Hawk and the bird, exhausted from his struggle, slept.

Ben gave his father the food he had saved.

You need to sleep too, he said.

Lo shook his head. Bad things, my son.

‘Talk out loud,’ Hana said.

‘Fishermen at the river mouth. All dead.’

‘Humans?’

‘And Dwellers. Two families. Children too. Dead.’

‘With their thumbs cut off,’ Ben said.

Lo nodded. ‘The Limping Man’s sign was drawn in the sand.’

Hana watched them. The boy, Ben, was hard. He fingered his knife. He wanted revenge. Lo dropped tears in the ashes of the fire. He was riven with sadness and pity. After a while he said, ‘I talked with Blossom.’

‘I know Blossom,’ Hana said.

‘She told me there are bands of hunters everywhere. Most come from Saltport but some are from the city. There are bigger bands too – twenty or thirty men. They kill everything they find. They call it cleansing. Everyone different from them. And every human who doesn’t worship the Limping Man. They go before the army, scouring the land.’

‘Has the army started?’

‘Soon. It’s nearly ready. Ben, my son, Hana’ – he spoke her name with difficulty – ‘it will flow across the land like a tide. It will drown everything. Drown and kill. Our world will never recover.’

‘So if we kill this Limping Man what comes after him?’

‘Others. There will always be others, whatever their names.’

‘Not if the army doesn’t come.’

‘It will come.’

‘It won’t if we kill him.’

Ah, my son, Lo sighed.

Eat your food, Father. Then we’ll go south, Ben said.

‘Stop talking in your heads,’ Hana said. ‘And fix Hawk. That’s why you went.’

Lo wiped his eyes. He finished his food. Then he motioned Hana to free Hawk from the blanket.

‘Lie him on his back. Spread out his wing.’

Hana did as she was told. With his head limp and his claws curled against his breast, Hawk looked dead. She watched nervously as Lo took out his knife and knelt, one knee on either side of the extended wing. He shaved downy feathers on the underside, exposing torn skin and the ridge of the wing bone.

‘I have to cut him now to see the break.’

‘Will he feel it?’

‘He’s far away. He’s in the sky.’

He sliced along the bone and peeled back skin and flesh. The bone shone white. A jagged fracture ran across it, open at one end. Lo cleaned the bone carefully. He put away his knife and used his fingers. She was amazed at how delicately they worked, baring the bone all round, then squeezing the broken ends together until they fitted.

‘Now, Ben –

’ ‘No, me,’ Hana said.

‘Now, girl. Feel in my pouch. There’s some weed.’

She found the pouch by the fire. The weed was like a scrap of brown cloth and scarcely covered her palm when she smoothed it out.

‘Tear it,’ Lo said. ‘Half of it.’

She tore it in half.

‘I’ll hold the bone together. Wrap it round the broken part. Good. Make it smooth. That’s enough.’

She withdrew her fingers and watched while he fitted flesh round the weed-wrapped bone.

‘The other piece.’

She laid it over the torn flesh, then watched as Lo fitted the flap of skin in place.

‘In my pouch again. Some yellow berries.’

She gave them to him – a bunch of berries shaped like water drops. He squeezed juice from their pointed ends on to the wound, then on the edges of the hole the bolt had made.

‘That will heal it. The weed will knit the bone.’

‘Will you take it out then?’

‘It melts away.’

‘How long?’

‘Two days. Three. He’ll feel it. He’ll hurt when he flies.’

‘But he’ll fly?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that how the people fixed your leg?’ Ben asked.

‘They were too late with the weed. That’s why I limp. This bird will limp. He has a hole in his wing. I couldn’t fix that.’

‘He’ll fly,’ Hana breathed.

Lo nodded. He turned Hawk over, folded his wings and helped Hana wrap him in the blanket. ‘Now I’ll sleep. Then we’ll travel.’

‘Where?’ Ben said.

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘South,’ Ben said. ‘To the Limping Man.’

‘And you, girl? Hana?’

‘South too,’ she said. ‘Before he kills everything.’

‘All right, south,’ Lo said. ‘I’ll sleep till midday. So will Hawk. Then we’ll go.’

He lay down by the dying fire and slept at once.

‘Hawk would be dead if he hadn’t come,’ Hana said.

‘So would you if I hadn’t,’ Ben said.

He did not like the way Lo had let her help, or the way he used ‘Hana’ more quickly than he had managed ‘Ben’. He wanted to say, You keep your Hawk, I’ll keep my father.

He put new wood on the fire to make its warmth reach Lo. Then he went upstream to a deep pool, slipped off his trousers and shirt and dived in. When he surfaced he saw Hana wading into a pool further down. They swam, taking no notice of each other.

SIX

They kept away from the coastal hills, where bounty hunters used the trails, and crossed by a mountain pass into the forests north of Belong. It took three days. Ben carried a load of firewood on his back, but still the cold slowed them and the footing in the pass slid them into icy pools. Hana had most trouble. She would not let Lo or Ben carry Hawk.

The bird fought to free himself even though moving made him utter his harsh scream, which Hana joined her voice to, giving him company in his pain. She tried to see what he saw but nothing came, although sometimes her own ghost moved behind her eyes. She began to feel they would never be friends again. When they stopped to rest she offered him pieces of the mountain birds Ben snared. After refusing for two days, he ate, snapping at Hana’s fingers as she fed him.

Late on the third day they broke out of the pass. The distant sea was golden in the evening sun, with threads of silver running through it. A haze lay over the forests and the plains. Belong was far south. Saltport was west, hidden by the huge collapsing bulk of the mountain range.

‘Where do we go?’ Ben said.

Lo pointed to the coast. ‘Danatok’s shelter. Blossom will wait there.’

Ben grunted and Hana turned away. Neither wanted to see Blossom again.

‘If anyone can face the Limping Man, she can,’ Lo said. ‘Hubert might be there too. The pair of them . . .’

‘Hubert’s in the north,’ Ben said.

‘He’ll come. He runs where others walk.’

Ben shrugged, only half believing. He squatted to make a fire and caught Hawk’s eyes watching him. He did not like the bird any better than the twins. ‘He might be ready to fly,’ he said to Hana.

Lo nodded. ‘The bone should be healed. Try him.’

Hana was frightened his damaged wing would not hold him. She imagined it snapping in mid-flight and Hawk tumbling like a wounded pigeon into the forest. He watched her with his cruel eyes and clacked his beak when she came near.

‘Hawk, you’re my brother,’ she whispered, kneeling by him so the others would not hear. ‘If you want to go, go. But come back to me if you can.’

She began to unwrap the blanket.

‘Take him to the edge of the hill where he can drop down,’ Lo said.

She carried him to a place where the land collapsed into a shingle slide. Keeping clear of his beak, she unwrapped him. His legs fought, tangling in the cloth, and his undamaged wing rose like an arm. It flapped strongly, throwing him off balance and threatening to tumble him down the slide. Hana cried out. She grabbed at him.

‘Leave him,’ Lo said.

Hawk stretched his wounded wing and gave a screech of pain. He leaped into the air, but his left wing was stronger than his right and for a moment he slid on his breast. Then both his wings took air and he was free, with his drawn-up claws scraping the rocks. Down, down he went, no more than a man’s height from the ground, until, with a tiny flap, he eased away from the shingle face. Still he seemed to fall, rushing towards the line of scrub at the winter snowline. Another small flap, both wings, and he made a clumsy lurch over the wall of brush, and settled into his glide again. They watched as he crossed the line of the forest, his back like a glowing spark in the evening sun – watched until the spark went out and Hawk was gone.

Hana turned away from Lo and Ben. She walked until she was hidden, not wanting them to see her tears.

‘Hawk, you’ll come back. I know you will.’

She sat by herself until the sky was dark. The land before her was like a pit. She did not want to go down into it. But Hawk had gone there and she must follow if she ever wanted to see him again.

In the morning they slid down the shingle, went through scrub into the forest and set off for the coast. They did not expect to meet hunters; the land had been scoured. Hana watched for Hawk but knew he had hidden himself somewhere. He would rest and heal his wound and learn to fly again. When that was done, would he remember her? She would watch for him, always watch – a hawk who limped as he flew. But here in the forest there was little point. Even if he came she would not see him through the tree cover.

Near the coast they were cautious again. Here were trails men might use on their way to Saltport. Lo ‘spoke’ with Blossom. The Stone Creek boat was making slow progress against a wind too strong for her to control. She had gone ashore on the north side of the three hills and spied on the town. There were boats at the wharves. She would have to take hers far out to sea to avoid being seen. And there were many men. Lo and Ben and Hana would need to be alert.

The poisoned hill still wore its scar. Blossom was pleased to leave it behind.

‘Ask if she’s seen Hawk,’ Hana said; and heard Blossom’s reply, a sound like running water, in her head: There are many hawks. Your friend will come again when he’s ready.

Thank you, Hana said, not knowing if Blossom would hear.

They reached the coast next day. Hana recognised a headland where she had taken shellfish. And these were the skies where she had first seen Hawk. She tried to stop her eyes from searching. When he was ready, Blossom had said. It would not be soon. She concentrated on watching Lo and Ben. They knew the forest better than her. It amazed her the way Lo understood everything and was aware – a leaf falling, an insect buzzing, a fangcat prowling – and how he could speak with living things and hear their silent reply. And Ben, the one-handed boy, how quick he was, how deadly. She watched him hold his knife between his feet and sharpen the blade on a stone he carried. She saw it leap into his hand like a live thing when a fangcat snarled at them from a branch. Lo put out his arm, preventing Ben’s throw. He ‘spoke’ to the cat and sent it slinking away.

Hana felt safe with them. At times she forgot the danger from the Limping Man.

They waited for Blossom in trees in the curve of a bay. She sailed in silently, appearing from the black night like a ghost. Ben and Lo dragged her dinghy deep into the trees. They scrubbed out the keel-marks on the beach. At dawn they started for Danatok’s shelter, more than a day’s travel south. They kept clear of forest tracks and the bare tops of hills. Twice Blossom stopped them and they hid while bands
of men went by.

They skirted round places where killing had been done. The forest seemed no different but Hana began to sense what Blossom sensed – fair places, sunny places, that had become dark with the evil done there.

She began to be afraid for Danatok. Blossom grew anxious too. There was only silence when she tried to ‘speak’ with him.

‘He can’t “speak” any more,’ Hana said. ‘He can only croak like a frog.’

‘I’d hear a croak,’ Blossom said.

At midday they came to places Hana recognised – the pool where she had seen her face, the swamp where she had cut flax to weave her net. She went in front of Blossom, finding the path. Danatok, she whispered, remembering how he had heard her creeping in the trees on the night she had found his fire. The clearing opened up. She gave a cry. It was trampled flat. Danatok’s shelter, and hers beside it, were torn to pieces. And here, on the ground, was the hood from his cloak, charred in the ashes of a fire. Blood smeared the stone Danatok had used as a seat.