“Do you not have armor?”
He ignored the cuts like he didn’t notice them. He stared at the dead coyotes that would feed us for a week. “Didn’t think I needed it.”
I returned to the pack and found clean strips of linen, which I assumed they used as bandages. I walked back over to him and yanked up his sleeve, showing his hard forearm that was tight with muscle and veins. I pressed the linen to the cut and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. “Clean it in the river so it doesn’t make you sick.” I squeezed both of his wounds to stop the blood. Neither bite looked serious, but still painful.
He let me handle him, his eyes on the dark where the wolves had gone, indifferent to his injuries.
“Come on.” I guided him to the water. “Clean the wound.”
He kneeled down and dipped his arms into the water, washing away the sickness that could live in the mouths of those coyotes.
I turned to the first carcass and dragged it across the sand until I made it to the boat. The coyotes were small but substantial, and I strained to drop one into the boat.
Morco returned to the pack and tied the linens around his forearms before he grabbed several coyotes at once and threw them over his shoulder before he tossed them into the boat.
“You think we’ll be able to fit them all?”
“We have to. I won’t waste the meat.”
“Well, if the boat sinks…”
“We’ll make it. Can’t leave a carcass here anyway. It’ll attract others.”
“The other coyotes?”
“No. The other things down here.”
“What other things are down here?”
He grabbed a couple more bodies and tossed them into the boat. “Animals, creatures, goblins…all kinds of things.”
“Goblins?”
“Foul creatures with pointy ears and leathery skin.” He grabbed the last bodies that remained and stacked them up in the boat. He adjusted them so we each had a place to sit and row. “It’ll take longer to get across with the extra weight. Don’t push yourself if you’re tired.” He moved to the head of the boat then nodded for me to get inside.
I climbed in then took a seat to the rear.
He pushed the boat out into the water and gave it some momentum before he effortlessly jumped inside, his trousers dripping wet from the knee down. He sat down and started to row like he wasn’t exhausted from the adventure that had taken us away from the tribe for at least a day.
It must have been, because I was dead tired. Felt like I could fall asleep while rowing.
The torch was attached to the front of the boat for light, illuminating the water on all sides of us. Even in the dark, it seemed clear, and I wondered if you’d be able to see the bottom in the light of day, if that had been possible here.
“What did you find?” he asked mid-row.
I released the oars and opened the pack, trying not to stare at the dead dogs that would go into our stew. I felt the potato before I pulled it out, but my eyebrows immediately furrowed at the sight of it.
“Don’t tell me that isn’t it.”
I examined its midnight-black skin, brushed my fingers over the paper-like outer covering that felt like any other potato. I grabbed my sword and sliced off a piece of the vegetable to examine its interior, which was also black. “This is it. It just looks different from the ones above the surface.”
“How?”
“The ones at home are the color of earth, brown on the outside, yellow underneath the skin. But this is solid black, black on the outside, black on the inside. It seems the same in every other way.”
He released a quiet breath of relief.
I searched for the carrots next and discovered the same thing. “These are normally orange.” I snapped it in half just to hear the same crunch I was used to from when I fed the horses at the stable. “I wonder if the lack of sunlight has made it grow without color. I guess that makes sense.”
