11. Boar

Chapter 11

Boar

M ariel was up before Erran, though she hadn’t really slept much at all with their last conversation repeating over and over in her head.

His patience. His resignation. There was no anger but certainly disappointment, and that she could understand because she was disappointed in herself too. He’d put aside their differences and recognized the necessity of working together, the great equalizer of circumstance that had made them peers. Friends, even. But she’d met his attempts with erratic mood swings and maddening half-truths.

She didn’t know how to apologize, at least not yet, but there was something she could do. He couldn’t know about it until she was done—another lie, but for a good purpose.

Mariel tiptoed around the cabin as best she could with a twisted ankle, collecting the spear, her daggers, and the satchel, in case she found anything new to forage. Her crutch she tucked under her arm but didn’t use yet, wary the thumps would rouse him. She checked once more to be sure he was asleep, and snuck out.

They’d identified a few trouble spots during their exploring and had avoided them.

That morning, she was headed directly into one.

Erran might not think they could take down one of those monstrous boars, but the shed, cabin, and well told her differently. Men did come to the island, often enough to build an infrastructure capable of supporting their hunting. She’d seen the old carcasses hanging in the shed by the coast. They weren’t small.

Her bow would have made the task far easier, but people had been hunting boars with spears forever.

She had not, but if she let inexperience hold her back, Obsidian Sky never would have become what it had been.

Past tense. No matter what happened, their days as outlaws were behind them, at least as a collective group. Maybe the end had been imminent for longer than she’d realized. Alessia had been losing interest for a while. She enjoyed her honest work as a blacksmith and dipped out of their group celebrations earlier and earlier. Remy had grown more reticent, perhaps a side effect of getting older, but he’d also expressed repeatedly that he wanted Augustine out. He was afraid she’d be hung by the Rutlands if discovered, and Mariel wasn’t sure he was wrong. Magnur... Well, Magnur was down for anything. He never questioned the work or what it required. He would follow Mariel until she told him not to.

And Destin. Sweet Destin. He should never have been a part of any of it. Everything they’d done was a reminder of what they’d lost, a perpetual loop of pain and sorrow tempered only by the brief rushes of successful conquests. But every one sent him descending further into melancholy. Maybe putting their heists in the past was exactly the thing he needed to finally move forward.

Mariel hobbled along, drawing closer to where they’d seen the densest concentration of the boar-like creatures. Someone had told her once that boars were communal when younger, choosing to live in packs and only becoming solitary when they reached their old age. She guessed that meant the trouble spot was probably a young pack.

Her belly rumbled at the promise of the feast awaiting them. She grinned, imagining Erran’s face when she presented her peace offering. The shock, followed by admiration and, hopefully, reconciliation.

As she neared the spot, she heard the snuffling, snorting sounds they’d come to fear. Deception was a lot harder with a crutch, but there was enough natural forest noise to muffle her search for a spot that would give her both a clear shot and a safe vantage point.

It took her a while before she accepted there wasn’t one, at least not on the ground.

Mariel scanned the trees, and her eyes landed on one that had a good system of branches. She used to love climbing as a lass, hearing her father’s proud voice encouraging her as she went higher and higher. She’d scaled a couple in their heists too, but never with a sprained ankle.

She peered upward, sucking her teeth. All she had to do was climb high enough to keep the boars from being able to reach up and gore or bite her.

Mariel set the spear in a valley of branches, found a good solid place to pull, and, with her good leg, pushed to hoist herself up.

Panting, she gave herself a quick break before inching herself farther in. She strained, nestling the spear on a higher branch, and climbed higher.

The ground seemed farther than she’d expected when standing beneath the tree, but it was certainly high enough to protect her. Only problem was she couldn’t see much from the center of the tree, where she had the most protection and stability. She’d need to slide outward on a supportive branch to get a clearer view.

The one she was on seemed like it would do the trick. She gave it a couple of hard bounces to test but stopped when the leaves rustled.

Mariel tucked the spear tight to her armpit and carefully, quietly, pulled herself along the branch until she had a clear view of the ground. Two boars were grazing on the same bush. They hadn’t noticed her yet. She saw no others, but they could have been nearby.

The tricky part would be finding a way to sit, balance, and throw the spear, but she only had to wound a boar. Once it no longer posed a threat, she would give it a clean death, a dagger across the throat.

Once the first one was hit, the second would realize the danger and run. But if she missed... If she missed, they’d all come for her. There’d be nowhere to run and no safe way to descend.

She inched slowly down the branch, the spear pressed between her palm and the branch itself. The morning was already hot. Sweat peppered her face... the back of her neck. Wiping it wasn’t an option, or she’d lose her tenuous balance.

Almost there, she thought with a triumphant inner cheer. She’d always been an excellent shot. Bow, spear, crossbow. Erran had done a good job carving the weapon, using a heavier wood that would catch good air and wouldn’t easily splinter. I can do this.

The branch bowed, sending leaves shimmering to the ground. One boar stopped eating for a moment, snorted twice, and resumed.

Now that she could get a good look at them, she was stunned at their size. And these were the younger ones?

Mariel arched her back as she pushed upward, attempting to swing her legs down so she was straddling the branch, but as she did, the spear slipped from her hand and went crashing to the forest floor. Both boars abandoned their grazing and started toward the fallen spear.

“Cursed hell,” she hissed, wincing from her terrible, terrible error. There’d be no easy way to return for it, because of where it had fallen, without being spotted by the very beasts she was trying to both avoid and kill.

Erran could make another spear, but that wasn’t the point. She couldn’t return empty-handed. Her gesture had to say all she could not.

Think. Think! There were thinner branches, some longer than others. One seemed long enough to reach the ground, but even if she could graze the spear, she had nothing to hook it. Unless she also used the leaves to make a sling of sorts, but even then, the boars had been spooked and?—

A loud crack broke the silence. She’d only just registered what it was before she went crashing to the ground.

The force of landing knocked the air out of her. She’d landed on her bad ankle, and the pain was absolutely blinding. Her crutch was still propped at the base of the tree, and she wasn’t even sure she could crawl far enough.

Low snorts drew closer. She looked up, still gripping the fallen branch, and found both boars staring right at her. One bared his lower tusks, revealing sharp orange teeth. A viscous wad of drool plopped onto the fallen leaves. Its breath smelled like years-rotted cabbage.

Mariel stopped breathing and went as still as she could. There was no chance of outrunning them, even if her ankle wasn’t useless. With certain bears, one could sometimes play dead, but she had no idea if it worked on boars. She guessed not, by the way they were sizing her up.

A sharp whistle pierced the air. One of the boars squealed, whinnying in pain as it started galloping away. It made it as far as the bush it had been munching on before buckling to the ground.

The other boar darted into the brush, its hooves shaking the earth in its hasty departure.

Mariel, stunned and delirious with pain, watched Erran stand over the dying boar with his sword. He knelt and dragged it across the beast’s neck, just as Mariel had planned to do, and waited for it to bleed out before coming to her.

“Where... the spear...” She couldn’t get any more words out.

“I made three. You didn’t notice?” He knelt and gently peeled her away from the branch. “Are you hurt? Where?”

“Just... my ankle. What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering, he scooped her into his arms. He knelt to grab the spear she’d dropped, and then her crutch.

“We have to get out of here. There’ll be more,” he said and took off.

“No, the boar. Erran?—”

Mariel bolted awake. She’d passed out from the pain. “Erran...”

“Just hold on.”

“The boar. The meat.”

“I know, Mariel.” He raced through the forest like she weighed nothing.

“I wanted to... wanted to surprise you.” Her head lolled toward his chest. She was losing her battle with consciousness again.

“You surprised me all right,” he quipped, but she heard a softening in his tone.

He kicked the cabin door open and carried her to the cot. She was hardly settled before he’d dragged over a chair and the first aid basket. “You’re bleeding.”

“No, it’s my ankle.” Mariel swooned in her delirium. “Just my...”

Erran tore a cloth with his teeth. He poured antiseptic on her arm, and she screamed. “Arm’s fine, is it?” he asked, working to dress the wound she hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes swept her body. “I need your trousers off.”

“Huh?”

“There’s blood on them. It means you’re wounded... just...” He unbuckled her pants and tugged before she could protest.

But one look down confirmed what he’d said. “Oh Guardians. That’s a deep...”

She awoke again, this time to Erran stitching her thigh.

“What are you sorry for?” he asked as he tied the bandage.

“Last night.” She licked her cracked lips. “And today.”

“I’m going to re-wrap your ankle. Some of the bandage must have caught on the branch, because half of it's missing.” He rooted around in the basket for the thicker roll. When he hunched over, she saw the sweat blooming across the back of his shirt... the harsh breaths lifting his shoulders, strained from tension.

“It was going to be a peace offering,” she said. Her eyes closed in longer intervals, but she resisted the call to pass out again.

“I told you it was a bad idea. That we were outmatched.”

“And I didn’t listen. I know. But you killed one, Erran. We’ll... We’ll eat for weeks on that meat.”

“I only killed it because...” He sat up and wiped his forearm across his brow. His jaw tensed, flexing with his breaths. “Because I was too terrified to stop to think about whether it was a good idea.”

The full weight of the morning hit Mariel like a wave. She’d nearly died. He’d saved her for a second time, but not before deciding that endangering his own life was an acceptable risk. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Erran flicked his hand and returned to wrapping, but he kept messing up and starting over. Finally, he flopped back in his chair, brimming with annoyance. “Be serious. You wanted to surprise me? To apologize?” He pushed to his feet, sending the chair toppling. “Next time just say the words, Mariel.”

“I didn’t...” Didn’t know how. Didn’t want to. Didn’t have the words. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t.

“Think? No. You didn’t think. You didn’t think about what might happen to you out there, what might go wrong. What it would do to me if... if you’d died out there.” He grunted in frustration, his hands laced over his head as he paced to the other end of the cabin.

Mariel’s heart missed a beat. “No,” she admitted, swallowing. “And I’m sorry for that too.”

“Are you?” he asked, still facing away.

“Yes, Erran. I am sorry. For... everything. For lying to you. For marrying you when I could hardly stand to look at you. For putting you through far more than you deserved out here when all you’ve done is try to make peace.” She tried to push up onto her elbows, but stars danced in her eyes, and she went sprawling back onto the cot. “I’ve always been better at doing . And I thought providing for us would show you what I couldn’t find the words to say.”

He didn’t speak for a full minute. “You just said them well enough.”

Mariel’s visceral response was to demand to know why he’d even followed her to begin with, but her instincts had gotten her into enough trouble, creating a rift that wasn’t necessary and had only hurt them both, in a time when they needed to be united. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

He turned around. “I never wanted to fight with you, Mariel.”

A flash of her old self came out. “Nay, but you didn’t want to marry me either.”

“You think me a lovesick fool who can’t see past his heartache? That I miss her so much, I could never...” He pressed his mouth tight, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to marry you. The first day I met you, you had this... this obstinate look about you, and I knew we’d butt heads. I knew.” His head kept shaking with his unsaid thoughts.

“I married you...” Was she really going to say it? Could she? She swallowed her pride and tried. “Because I needed to get close to your father.”

“Aye, I gathered that.” His chin dimpled. “So you could steal from him.”

“Nay. So I could take back what was never his.”

Fire flashed in his eyes, but he didn’t put voice to it. He sank onto another chair and hung his head between his legs. “I want to... rage at you. Call you all sorts of awful... but I’m just relieved you’re finally speaking truth in your words. These past months finally make sense.”

“I don’t know if you care or if it even matters now, but the most maddening thing for me was discovering you weren’t a bad person after all.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I thought you were spoiled and entitled, but you absolutely stunned me with what a good man you are. I couldn’t understand how you could be a Rutland and also be so honorable, and I decided not to see those things. To see only what I needed to see to keep going. I think I’ve been doing it with everything in my life for so long that I no longer know right from wrong, good from bad.” She wiped her face. “I can’t apologize for Obsidian Sky. I won’t. But I’m sorry you were put in the middle of something that has nothing to do with you.”

“I don’t know why,” he said quietly. “But I believe you.”

She laughed through her tears. “I’d assure you of my honesty, but it would mean little, wouldn’t it?”

“You asked me last night if I hated you...” When he glanced up, she was shocked to see he was crying too. “I’ll ask you the same thing now.”

Mariel bit her inner lip and shook her head. The tears were spilling so much, her vision blurred. “Nay. I don’t hate you, Erran.”

He stood and made a slow path toward her, then dropped onto the edge of the cot. “Let’s start over, Mariel. Let’s forget... forget who we were out there and be who we wish to be here. Forget my father. Forget your extracurricular activities.” His mouth twitched. “Forget all of it. I just want...”

“What?” Her voice creaked.

Erran pulled one of her hands into his and held it there. “To know you. To really know you.”

She wanted to ask why, but that was her defenses kicking in, protecting her. The truth was she wanted to know him too, and she could think of no better place than the little world they’d stumbled upon and made their own. “Aye. I’d like that.”

He blinked hard and sniffled once. “Right. You’re fading. And I have a boar to dress.”

“Can you haul him back yourself?”

Erran shot her a look as if to say, really ?

Mariel mimed sewing her lips shut.

He laughed.

She laughed with him.

“I’m sorry as well.” He released her hand and stood. She felt a pang of grief at him leaving her side. “I shouldn’t have dismissed your idea about the boar. I was being stubborn. And if you hadn’t... gone out there and made yourself bait?—”

Mariel gave himself a playful smack. “My idea wasn’t a bad one, all right? The branch did me wrong.”

“The branch. Right.”

“I had a clear shot!”

“Were you planning on making a cannonball of leaves, or...”

“If I wasn’t laid up on this cot...”

“You’d what?”

“Come closer and find out.”

“Save your threats for when I return.” He grinned down at her. “Rest up, outlaw. Tonight, we feast.”