Dinethi

The next morning I slipped away at dawn, not bothering with farewells. I didn’t know where I was going, I just walked the road west, and each day, I let the sun judge me guilty. Occasional memories surfaced, but I drowned them as quick as they came. All but one. Her face stayed with me. Her butchering. Each time I imagined that her final moments were wondering where I was, why I hadn’t come to save her, I gripped the shovel tighter.

I wandered down the road to Escutcheon. I didn’t break for rest, nor find water. I didn’t eat or cover my head in the heat of mid-summer. I simply walked. By two days, my throat had long been dry enough to sand wood, my eyelids stretched taut over bloodshot, lifeless bulbs. Harvi’s lips flashed in my head, my blurred vision couldn’t save me from her. The way her mouth formed the last syllable of my name. Ro. Pouted, plump, scraped by the workings of insects, hardened with rigor. She had called to me, and I did not save her. I didn’t even come.

Each step was harder. Heavier. I followed the fluttering wings of the luna moths to where my grave had hopefully already been dug. I’d hoped so, because I lacked the strength to dig another hole. Hers was enough. The fluttering of the moths became thunderous, like giant bat’s wings hovering just beyond sight. I don’t know when I realized that I wanted to die, but as I collapsed in the dirt of the road, I felt a small breath of relief escape my lungs.

A few carts passed by me, a couple of traveling artists, with their easels lashed across their backs, but no one stopped. No one lifted me from the edge of the plunge. I was grateful. Mercy comes in many forms, even cruel ones, and I had never been so glad for an indifferent world. My eyes closed and I embraced the lingering memories of her fingers in my hair. Saw her smile just behind the divide. She was dancing, poorly, off tune. That is how I knew it could not be the trickery of some light demon, no, it was my Harvi, reveling in the beyond, waiting for me.

And then he came.

A man as thick as an ox by half and deep, olive skin. His hands were rough like mine. I felt him yank me upright and ask for my name. I don’t know that I could have answered, but I chose not to all the same. Icy blue eyes faded back into the darker parts of me and I knew I had been taken from her.

Water poured into my mouth next, warm, from a skin that had been sat on most likely. It tasted of a murky stream but I choked it down, my body betraying me with its needs. Then I was thrown, maybe tossed, into the back of his wagon. My shovel clattered next to me. A thin, pale woman peered over me, roughly tugging at my skin, searching me for imperfections.

“‘E’s fine, Dae,” she stated finally, in a thick accent. “Prolly just needs a bit a somethin’ ta eat an proper rest.”

The oxen man grunted and sat at the helm of the carriage. Every so often, the woman would hobble back with more filth-water, gripping my chin tight to open my mouth. I’d choke it down and feel the blisters on my feet and hands filling with it. At first I resisted, but I didn’t have the will, not when her bony fingers dug deeper with each jerk. When I had been sufficiently cared for in her eyes, she left me alone to rest. Sleep came before the sun had even set.

I woke to a thick dawn and the smell of cheap pipe weed, the kind my grandfather smoked. With panicked movements I sat upright, taking in my surroundings. I gripped my shovel tight and pulled it close, some of the dirt from Harvi’s grave still clinging to it. Up front of the carriage, the thin woman turned around and smiled brightly. Suddenly, she looked less like a hollowed out specter and more like the full-faced bride of twice my age. Not that anyone would know it from a distance, she was striking, and warm, and without years of joy cracking through her skin, I would have thought her a maiden.

“‘Ey there, dinethi.” She beamed to me, “‘Till among us ‘ten?”

Dinethi? I did not know the word, but I knew it carried the harsh lilt of a southern people. Muur?

The ox man grunted in something resembling satisfaction, but didn’t turn his broad back to witness me himself.

“Dinethi?” She nods to my shovel.

The oxen man shook his head and patted her leg.

“Digger.”

“Ah, degger.” She echoed, a little off, looking back to my shovel and then me.
“Degger?”

I keep my voice to myself, still lost and angry that they had pulled me from the bliss of death.

“Can pay ya, if’n ya ready ta work? Lost…well, lost a few a ou’ own on ta road.” She said, accent breaking harshly against her pain, clashing with the words she craved to use in her own tongue. “Please?”

I turned my head out the back of the carriage, behind us sprawled a sizable convoy of perhaps eleven full wagons. Armed soldiers lined the sides, close. A merchant group, perhaps. The off-kilter pitter-pat of bare feet on wood drew my attention back to her. She had come into the back of the carriage and sat in front of me, legs folded over each other.

“Food. Pay. Degger fo’ us?” Her eyes were wide, gray, and beneath the sheen of tears that had collected over them, I saw a hollowness. An empty place. It entangled with mine for a moment and I felt as if we knew everything about each other that we needed to know. Harvi’s voice lingered in my ears as I took in her sorrow.

I nodded weakly and placed my shovel back on my shoulder.

Another beaming smile chased the hollow away and she threw her arms around me, squeezing tight, hard enough to release a cracking sound from my neck. She darted backward at the sound, throwing her hands up. “Teekni, Degger.”

“She says Sorry.” A booming voice from the man in front almost seemed to rattle the space, like he was acknowledging my complete acceptance of her apology.

“It’s fine.” I said, hoarse.

“Cara’dina” She pointed to herself and then to me.

I hesitated for a moment, “Jaro.”

“Jaro ta Degger,” she said confidently.

I nodded again, soft, unsure if that was the right word.