“Hmm.” I made a sad noise in my throat. “You still might,” I told him. “Will you tell me a bit about your dad?”
At first, he spoke about the old, converted farmhouse where he grew up; L-shaped, white and little, with a red roof and a red garage door.
“In the middle of bloody nowhere,” he said, “with Gunnar as the only neighbour within a five-mile radius. How I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” he scoffed, his voice a little gruff with sentiment.
He spoke of his father at length as a kind, sociable man who loved the company of animals and enjoyed occupying his time with any outdoor pursuit possible, from fishing, hiking and horse riding to planting trees.
“Planting trees?”
“Yes. He always went on about the deforestation of Iceland and wanted to do his part to fix it. He kept campaigning about those melting glaciers as well, not that anyone ever listened.”
Judging that we had left Jean-Luc and Albert waiting for too long already, we stood up after a short while and began dressing ourselves, picking up our damp clothes and flapping them in the air to clear them of sand. I did this slowly, reluctant to abandon our budding sense of closeness.
“Do you think we’ll survive this? We, as in people,” I asked with the sole purpose of stalling.
“We will,” Einar replied confidently, and my eyes lingered on his hands as he fastened his belt.
“You sound very sure ...”
“I am. Because of the cannibals’ biggest weakness. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head.
“They’re almost oblivious to pain, aren’t they? That’s what makes them so bloody dangerous in the short term. They can come after you fast, even if their legs are broken. But pain is useful because it prevents us from harming ourselves. It is because they seem to completely lack the ability to feel hurt that I think they will kill themselves faster than they will infect us.”
“That makes sense,” I allowed while pulling my hair from underneath the collar of my top. “We just need to defend ourselves long enough.”
“Perhaps. But in most situations, I prefer doing more than the bare minimum, and this will be no exception. And you’re going to help me with that.”
“How?”
He fixed me with an intimidating stare before taking a few steps closer, and my heart sped up with something close to alarm as I found myself craning my neck to look up at him.
“Why, however I tell you to. Won’t you, darling?”
15
LESSONS LEARNED
The arrow penetrated the head portion of a roughly human-shaped mannequin made of burlap sacks. The impact rustled with old leaves, dry grass, and paper with which the wraith-like apparatus was stuffed.
“An excellent shot, Albert, well done,” I told him with my best attempt at a smile, reciprocated by an equally insincere grin.
My praise had been drowned out by the loud cheers of Albert’s ten Hungarian pals whom he had met on the trail. Apparently, their common nationality was a reason enough to become inseparable friends. Despite the fact that Albert had arrived at Ascu with Einar, Finn, and Russell, he now spent more time with his compatriots. Through them, I learnt that ‘Albert’ was his surname that everyone, but the Hungarians, used to address him, owing to the fact that his given name was unpronounceable to the general population.
I hesitated, unsure whether I shouldn’t repeat my praise, but eventually moved on towards the next group and their target. Albert was easily one of my best pupils, and yet I took very little pleasure in his progress. If Einar wasn’t around, he habitually interrupted my lessons with thinly veiled criticism of my teaching plan. Some of his friends proved even more ofa disturbance, laughing at what I could only assume from the accompanying gestures to be lewd remarks about my figure.
The late August sun shone hard and mighty in the cloudless skies, and the air around me was fragrant with warm resin from the nearby copse. It wasn’t too hot this high up in the mountains, but I could still feel the already scorched top of my head burning from the exposure.
I had spent the better portion of the past six weeks teaching archery to thirty volunteers, which was a number much higher than I had anticipated. I had expected that hardly anyone would be eager to risk their lives outside the safe boundaries of the settlement. But clearly, I had underestimated what effect a prolonged confinement in one place could have on mostly young, fit men.
“You’re aiming for too long,” I told Einar as I passed him by. “You have a strong arm and so can mostly get away with it, but even you’ll get tired eventually if you keep doing this all day long.”
He nodded at me gracefully, his skin pink with mild sunburn. He was becoming a solid archer not only due to his immense strength but also because he took my instructions more to heart than most. I had worried about him not taking too kindly to our dynamic being subverted in my lessons, but he seemed to go out of his way to show me he welcomed my criticism as a chance to improve. He couldn’t attend every day, though, and I was secretly glad for it. Having him around objectively made things easier, as even Albert behaved reasonably well in his presence. However, I had become aware of an uncontrollable compulsion to follow him with my eyes any time he was near, as if my sight was bound to him by an invisible thread of attraction. He made it very hard to concentrate on my other trainees. I had known infatuation before, the sensation of the world around lighting up in the presence of a desired person and going grey in hisabsence. But I had never experienced such an obsession as with Einar. Without him near, my world didn’t just go colourless but rather ceased to exist altogether.
“You, on the other hand, aren’t aiming at all,” I pointed out as I stopped next to Finlay, trying to ignore the heat that had crept up my neck and face and had little to do with the weather. “Shooting fast will be important, yes, but you will gain no advantage if you can’t hit your target four out of five times. Remember, they’re practically oblivious to pain and don’t go into shock the way healthy people do. You need to shoot to kill, not just to cause injuries. The heart is good. Headshots are even better.”
“I’ll ne’er manage to hit them in the eye, lass,” Finlay objected.
