Dreamsnake

Someone grabbed the crossbow bolt and jerked it loose, wrenching it through muscle. The scrape of wood on bone wrung a gasp from her. The cool smooth metal point slid from the wound.

“Kill her now,” the crazy said. The words came fast with excitement. “Kill her and leave her here as a warning.”

Snake’s heart pumped hot blood down her shoulder. She staggered, caught herself, and fell to her knees. The force hit the small of her back, vibrating with the pain, and she tried but failed to cringe away from it, like poor little Grass writhing with a severed spine.

Melissa stood before her, her scarred face and red hair uncovered as she tried clumsily, blinded with tears, whispering comfort as she would to a horse, to wind her headcloth over the wound.

So much blood from such a small arrow, Snake thought.

She fainted.

The coldness roused Snake first. Even as she regained consciousness, Snake was surprised to be aware at all. The hatred in North’s voice when he recognized her profession had left her no hope. Her shoulder ached fiercely, but without the stabbing, thought-destroying pain. She flexed her right hand. It was weak, but it moved.

She struggled up, shivering, blinking, her vision blurred.

“Melissa?” she whispered.

Nearby, North laughed. “Not being a healer yet, she hasn’t been hurt.”

Cold air flowed around her. Snake shook her head and drew her sleeve across her eyes. Her sight cleared abruptly. The effort of sitting up made her break out in a sweat that the air turned icy. North sat before her, smiling, flanked by his people, who closed the human circle around her. The blood on her shirt, except immediately over the wound, was brown: she had been unconscious for some time.

“Where is she?”

“She’s safe,” North said. “She can stay with us. You needn’t worry, she’ll be happy here.”

“She didn’t want to come in the first place. This isn’t the kind of happiness she wants. Let her go home.”

“As I said before, I have nothing against her.”

“What is it you have against healers?”

North gazed at her steadily for a long time. “I should think that would be obvious.”

“I’m sorry,” Snake said. “We could probably give you some ability to form melanin, but we aren’t magicians.” The frigid air flowed from a cave behind her, billowing around her, raising goose bumps on her arms. Her boots were gone; the cold stone sucked heat from the bare soles of her feet. But it also numbed the ache in her shoulder. Then she shivered violently and pain struck with even more ferocity than before. She gasped and closed her eyes for a moment, then sat very still in her own inner darkness, breathing deeply and shutting away her perception of the wound. It was bleeding again, in back where it would be hard to reach. She hoped Melissa was somewhere warmer, and she wondered where the dreamsnakes were, for they needed warmth to survive. Snake opened her eyes.

“And your height—” she said.

North laughed bitterly. “Of all the things I’ve said about healers, I never said they didn’t have nerve!”

“What?” Snake asked, confused. She was lightheaded from loss of blood, and in the middle of replying to North. “We might have helped if we’d seen you early. You must have been grown before anyone took you to a healer—”

North’s pale face turned scarlet with fury. “Shut up!” He leaped to his feet and dragged Snake up. She hugged her right arm to her side.

“Do you think I want to hear that? Do you think I want to keep hearing that I could have been ordinary?” He pushed her toward the cave. She stumbled into the wind but he dragged her up again. “Healers! Where were you when I needed you? I’ll let you see how I feel—”

“North, please, North!” Snake’s crazy sidled out of the crowd of North’s emaciated followers, whom Snake now only perceived as vague shapes. “She helped me, North, I’ll take her place.” He plucked at North’s sleeve, moaning and pleading. North pushed him away and he fell and lay still.

“Your brain’s addled,” North said. “Or you think mine is.”

The interior of the cave glittered in the dim light of smoking torches, its walls flawed jewels of ice. Above the torches sooty stone showed in large round patches. Melt-water trickled into pools of slush that spread across the floor and ran together in a rivulet. Water dripped everywhere with a cold sound of crystal clarity. Every step Snake took jarred her shoulder again, and she no longer had the strength to force the sensation away. The air was heavy with the smell of burning pitch. Gradually she became aware of a low hum of machinery, felt rather than heard. It crept through her body, into her bones.