Page 55 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ellie

I ’m disoriented when I wake, and it takes me a long time to work out that it’s not because of our cave shelter, nor the strange animal furs I’m sleeping on, nor the sounds of the river I can hear - a constant rush rather than the in and out sound of the ocean.

It’s because I’m awake, it’s morning and all last night I didn’t dream of Anghar once.

I sit up, turning to him. He’s moved a little in his sleep, no longer holding me, but curled around himself, as if in pain.

For a long moment, I hold my breath, not daring to breathe as I wait for something - a twitch, a sigh - that would indicate he’s still alive.

His tail flicks, and his torso rises just a little, falling moments later.

Breathing. Alive. My own held breath escapes me in a rush, relief flooding in to fill me in its place.

I brush my fingers over his temple, watch as the lines in his face smooth out, his muscles relaxing.

I wish I could do more for him, but I don’t know the first thing about how to treat a stab wound.

So I just keep touching him, exploring the angles of his face, learning him.

The more I touch him, the more his body unfurls, relaxing, until he’s sleeping soundly.

When I’m confident he won’t wake, I turn my attention to his injury, lifting his top and carefully peeling back the bandage.

It looks angry, the skin red and inflamed.

It hasn’t scabbed over at all, blood still leaking out of it.

The bandage looks filthy, but I lower it down, try to pull it a little tighter.

Hope the pressure does something. It’s one of those first aid things I’m aware of - keeping pressure on a wound - but I don’t exactly know what it does, why it’s important.

I leave him to rest, heading into the very back of the cave where the baskets of supplies are stacked.

I find one of the meal bar things that Anghar has been feeding me from his pack and take it out, nibbling on a corner to make sure it’s still edible before biting fully into it.

The flavour is so rich, so much texture in the different grains.

So unlike the reconstituted slop I used to eat back home.

Even if these bars are in all the various baskets, I won’t be unhappy with that.

I’m also glad it means we aren’t relying on the forest to feed us.

Anghar described himself as a hunter, but I doubt he’s fit to do any hunting right now.

Probably won’t be for several days. I don’t know who left these supplies here, but they’ve saved our lives.

If Anghar has to recuperate for a couple of weeks before we can make a move, I don’t think we’ll get close to going hungry.

Next, I rummage through Anghar’s pack, looking for the canteen.

A little water sloshes around in the bottom of it, and I drain it, my whole body feeling too dry, despite the dunking we had in the river.

The river water looks murky, muddy, and I’m not sure if it’s safe to drink, but I don’t know of any other sources, so I slip out of the cave, scanning the trees around me for any signs of other life.

There are bird noises all around me, the trees rustle, the forest a symphony of sounds, and I realise anyone could be out there and I wouldn’t know about it until they were on top of me.

Anghar and his kind have dark greenish-brown skin.

They blend perfectly with their surroundings.

I just have to hope the river has carried us far enough away from those tattooed assholes that they haven’t bothered coming looking for us.

I head down to the river, placing my feet as carefully as I can. The heavy, clumsy Mercenia boots don’t help. They’re boots for barging through things, not stealth. I think of how Anghar moves, whisper-like, and wish I had some of his footwear.

The riverbank here slopes down, a gentle incline rather than the drop off it was where we jumped in.

The water is a little slower, too, things that must have contributed to our being able to drag ourselves out yesterday, though I was so exhausted, I hardly noticed anything except the solid ground beneath me - rejoicing that I was no longer in danger of drowning.

I remember how I clung to Anghar in the water, his tail twined around my leg, anchoring me to him as he moved his arms through the water with strong strokes.

He must have been hurting, as exhausted as I was, but he kept going, kept pushing, until we reached this spot and were able to climb out.

The water running over the stones close to the shore is clearer than the deeper water, and I dip the canteen in, scooping some of it up.

I raise it to my mouth, taking a cautious sip.

It tastes fresh and cold and my body immediately clamours for more.

And maybe I should take it slower, but after surviving yesterday, I find I’m too battered to really care, so I fill the canteen again and drink until my stomach sloshes with water. Only then does my thirst start to ease.

I fill the canteen for Anghar, then head back to the cave.

I find him awake, propped up against the cave wall, removing his bandage.

When he peels it away from the wound, more blood weeps out, and I see the way he grimaces.

It sends a flicker of fear through me, my heart tightening.

I hold the canteen out to him, and he takes it, shooting me a look of such gratitude as he raises it to his lips and drinks.

I go to the supplies at the back of the cave, looking through for any clean material.

Everything we are wearing is caked in filth at this point, and no good for making a dressing.

I’ve only looked through a few baskets when I find a little pot made of clay, which puts a different, better idea in my mind.

Anghar watches me as I bring the pot back to our spot in the cave, a question mark in his eyes.

“If we can get the water boiling in this,” I say, “we can sanitise your bandage. Kill all the germs.”

A trick I learned working in the food sector, where boiling water was used to sanitise all the equipment.

I reach for the canteen, but Anghar grabs my wrist, stopping me. He’s gentle about it, fingers only exerting enough force to hold me in place. I look at him, wondering if he’s worried about wasting the water. Has he forgotten there’s a whole river outside?

He lets me go, then pushes himself away from the wall, squeezing fresh blood from his wound.

The bleeding is good in a way, I suppose, cleaning the wound of any grit and dirt that might have got in it.

But I don’t like the way his face is pale, the colour leeching from his skin over time.

I equally don’t like the sweat that’s beading on his temple.

Fever means infection, and infection is a fast path to being on death’s door.

There isn’t a person on the bottom tier who doesn’t fear infection.

Anghar reaches for a charred twig in what remains of the fire. Swiping a hand across the floor, he clears a patch of stone from dust and leaves, then uses the twig to draw - black lines of soot rubbing off the tip onto the ground.

“ Djenti fressin, ” he says, his voice low, resonating with some deep part of me and making my pulse quicken.

He appears to be drawing some sort of plant. He swipes the stick across the floor three times, creating wavy lines that I think are meant to represent the river. The plant is next to it, and inside the lines of it, he draws little circles. He taps a finger to those circles, then points to the pot.

“You want me to find these and put them in the pot?” I say.

“ Mh’shave cor velask, linasha, ” he replied.

I recognise the last word, his strange name for me.

It seems a strange detour to go berry picking while he’s bleeding all over the cave floor, but this is his homeworld, his forest. I trust he knows the most important thing to do in this sort of situation, so berries it is. I grab the pot, then head out of the cave, back down to the river.

I’m worried it will be difficult to identify which berries out of many that Anghar means, but it turns out it’s the reverse that’s the problem.

I can’t see any bushes that look like they have fruit on them.

There are tall trees just about everywhere, plenty of weird looking mushrooms growing out of fallen branches and rotten trunks, and vines.

Vines everywhere. But bushes aren’t exactly growing up out of all the spaces between the roots.

I head down the river in the direction of the water, keeping my awareness about me, my hand on the knife Anghar gave me.

About five minutes from the cave, I finally spot a bush and the bounty of red berries it carries. Picking as many as I can find, I fill the little pot, then hurry back to the cave, presenting it to Anghar. He plucks one out of the top, holding it up to me.

“ Djenti fressin, ” he says again, and I gather this must be what it’s called.

“Djenti fressin,” I repeat, and he grins at me before setting the berry back in the pot and placing the pot over the fire he’s built back up while I’ve been gone.

I watch as he mashes the berries up with a stick, stirring them round until the juices start to bubble in the heat.

I watch as the juices thicken into a jam-like consistency.

Then he takes the pot off the flames, setting it to one side.

He turns back to me, raising a hand and tracing his fingers along the jagged cuts on my face.

One from the angry bird from the beach, the other from the lashes of that big cat-like creature.

I’d almost forgotten about them. My skin feels a little tight where Anghar touches it, but otherwise they don’t hurt so much anymore.

I’ll have a couple of ugly scars, I think, but that’s okay.

I’m a food sector worker. I’m used to looking ridiculous.

But nothing about the way Anghar looks at me makes me feel ridiculous.

His gaze burns into my skin. It’s not even like he’s looking at me with lust right now, just concern, a little bit of anger, as if he’s mad at the forest for the injuries it’s inflicted on me.

There’s a promise in his eyes, a promise that he’ll never let anything happen to me ever again.

I don’t know how he can communicate so much with just a look.

It’s like I know somehow exactly what he’s thinking.

My heart beats a little faster.

Anghar reaches for the pot, pulling out the stick. A lump of the goo is caught on the end of it and he blows on it before testing the temperature with a finger. Satisfied, he scoops the goo into his hand. Then reaches out and daubs it onto my face.

Immediately, the cuts begin to sting, like a thousand tiny needles jabbing into me over and over.

I hiss, pulling away from him, going to swipe the horrible stuff away, but he catches my hand again.

Firmer this time. He doesn’t let me wipe the gunk off.

I glare at him, furious that I let myself feel a little warm towards him, and this is how he repays me.

But Anghar just chuckles as he forces me to endure the pain.

After a moment, it starts to subside, the intensity of the stinging reducing, until it’s little more than an itch, and then gone completely.

Anghar tilts his head to the side. Then, with a gentle thumb, he brushes the goo from my brow.

The tightness in my skin has gone, and I start to wonder if the berry juice reduces inflammation, or has numbing qualities.

I probe my temple with my fingers, looking for the jagged edges of the cut…

And find nothing. The skin is smooth, as if I never cut myself at all.

I look at Anghar. He’s smiling now, a look of satisfaction in his expression.

He has a cut on his cheek - a tiny little nick that probably only just drew blood.

I dip my finger into the berry goo in the pot, the heat of it burning me a little, then reach for him.

He goes very still as I run my fingers along his cheek, spreading the goo over the cut.

Only his tail twitches, flicking back and forth as if itching to reach out and twine around my leg again.

I watch as he winces a little, the pain of the berry juice biting in to him. When the muscles in his face relax again, I swipe the goo away, revealing unblemished, unbroken skin.

The berry goo heals. Far faster than any medicine I’ve ever had access to back home. I run my fingers over my temple again, feeling the absence of my cut, my eyes lingering on the spot on Anghar’s face where moments ago there was a wound and now there’s nothing.

Anghar pulls another scoop of the goo out with the stick, letting it cool off.

His eyes go to the injury on the other side of my face, the cuts on my neck and the long slice that goes down to my chest. I shake my head, pointing at his own injury.

He glances down at it, then back up at me, as if actually warring with himself over which is more important. As if there’s any contest.

I reach for his shoulder, pushing him back down into the furs.

He goes without protest, lying himself out flat, pulling up his t-shirt to reveal his injury.

And a large number of chiselled abs that do strange things to my stomach.

My cheeks heat, and I force my eyes onto the weeping wound in his side, the jagged tear in his flesh, the redness of his skin that isn’t all blood.

I take the stick from his hand, test the temperature of the goo, then dab some of it on to the very edge of his cut.

He sucks in a breath, his face going tight with pain.

I almost want to pour all the goo straight on to his open wound, but I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it or not.

It would be agony, for starters. I don’t know if he could take it without screaming and letting the whole forest know exactly where we are.

So I dip the stick back into the goo, scooping another lump out. I hold it over the wound and look to him.

“More?” I say.

His eyes are focused and determined when he looks at me.

“More,” he says.