Chapter 2

  Buenos dias, mi hijo.

  Arturo’s eyes opened to a cast of checkered light from the canvas tent he had set up the night before. He thought of returning the Mother’s greeting today in his mind, and he wondered, not for the first time, if the ever-watching goddess heard his responses. After all, Arturo didn’t want to burden her with extra thoughts if every person across La Terra sent her their own greetings every time they awoke. That could get awfully annoying.

  An unfriendly, yet all-too-familiar pain greeted his hands, his feet, his face, his bones and muscle, and the little lights and shadows pecked at his eyes. He stretched his legs, and the rough fabric of his cot was a tearing grate to his skin. It recoiled away from every touch like it was rebelling at the concept of staying attached to him. Arturo very much hoped it would. That could make for a ruder awakening than even he was used to. He swung his legs off the cot and stood. Carefully. Always carefully.

  His shambling feet swept up loose dirt and dust from the arid plains he and his companion shepherded. Arturo bent down to his boots, dry and cracked and ready for new soles since last summer, and he pulled them deliberately towards himself. Inside, wraps of worn and soft wool were bundled up and waiting to grace his aching bones with their cushion. Arturo adopted wrapping his feet when he was quite young, along with many other little practices to make his pain a little more bearable. He needed tight fitting clothes to avoid unexpected brushes against his sensitive skin from the rough fabric his pueblo so loved to wrangle into submission. He had to keep his distance from the crowds when the vendedores came to show their wares because people didn’t care much about who they bumped into. And most painfully, he passed at first on the advances of his novia when she didn’t quite understand his condition yet, not that he really understood it either. Valeria had caught up eventually. Thanks to everything good in the world, she caught up. His knuckles seized and his hands shook and interrupted his thoughts.

  Arturo steeled himself and wrapped his feet in the wool. Thanks to the sheep and his job keeping them alive, he had plenty of access to the stuff for all his heightened comfort needs. He slipped on the boots over his swaddled feet and held his breath to tighten the straps and laces. No amount of padding saved him from this part. He yanked on the laces, and he whimpered. He did the same on the other side. The leather straps held everything together around his calves and ankles. Tightening them felt like getting hit with a hammer from every angle at the same time.

  The air of the tent was becoming too stuffy, so Arturo fumbled with the wooden toggles holding the tent’s flaps, cursed his uncooperative fingers, and stepped into the fresh air of the plains. The herd was a good three-day ride by wagon north of his pueblo. Sheep grazed on tall, hardy grass in a great circle of bleating and screeching several hundred paces across. Arturo took a deep breath. The air out here was hot too, but that was ok. He ducked his head back into the tent and came out with a thin woolen shirt, sun-bleached by his days tending his sheep. He tightened the shirt’s straps and clenched his jaw against the stabs in his chest. He was prepared for them. That didn’t make it hurt less.

  Arturo longed for a release from this. That wasn’t a typical feeling for him, the pain was part of his life, it was his life, and he didn’t seek a true respite. Sometimes people need to feel a little pain to know they’re alive. But this day’s longing was different because soon a respite is just what he would get. The best time of each year, yet also the hardest: the Pilgrimage to the Capital.

  Many people in the outlying pueblos of La Terra made the annual trips to the Capital to attend mass and worship the Parents. The Mother. And the Father. The Mother was a present touch in every person’s life, a brief joy in the morning, and a soothing solace to send her children to sleep. The Father was less so. He would send his children terrible visions of terrible violence, another annual tradition from the Capital. None of this compared to the blessing of simply being in the Capital, in the home of the Parents. There, by the Parents’ love, Arturo’s pain left him. There, Arturo could be normal.

  Getting to the city, however, was a battle of will against his own body and mind. Every bump of the wagon, every splinter of wood, every lick of heat from the campfires sent him to dark and hateful places. Arturo would fight with everything in himself to feel the wagon’s wood and the warming fires for what they were. Comfort. Simple. Then, as the wagons drew closer and closer to the Capital’s gates, the pain would flow out of him like a river, a flash flood in these dry plains.

  Arturo longed for it, yes, but he worried for his strength.

  A rustling of fabric and muted curses came from the tent pitched next to his own. It seemed Barto was awake and in a great hurry to be as unpleasant as he was every day. Arturo chuckled to himself and shook his head. He loved the old grouch for it.

  Barto’s gnarled roots of hands jammed through the fixed flaps of his tents and tried to pull them apart. The toggles held fast. “Pinche pendejo,” the old man cursed himself. The flaps fell slack and Barto stumbled into the light. “It’s hotter than the Father’s culo out here!”

  Arturo sighed and chided, “Buenos dias.”

  “Buenos dias,” Barto growled. “Take the waterskins down to the creek before the sun bakes the thing dry.” He tossed three leather sacks at Arturo’s feet.

  “Can you say please? Barto, you’re an old man, hasn’t your mama? taught you any manners by now?” Arturo snickered and bent to pick up the sacks. He would do pretty much anything the old man asked of him, but he always got in a few licks to get Barto riled up. Arturo’s pants bit into his stomach and he convulsed, nearly collapsing from the pain. Barto moved to help, worried look on his face despite his grumpy demeaner. “Please don't,” Arturo gasped at him, “I’m fine. You know how it is.” He straightened his back and breathed out.

  “That doesn’t make it better, pendejo.” And there grumpy was.

  Arturo patted Barto’s squat shoulders and said, “I’ll get the water. Watch to the east. I think I noticed some of the sheep stirring more than normal.” Barto grunted in response, and Arturo turned to the west with the waterskins in hand. The sun beat at his back without mercy, and it would continue for many hours to come. He watched how far his shadow stretched and judged it must be the seventh or eighth hour of the day. Arturo wasn’t an expert astronomer. That was for the pompous monks in the Monastery.

  Tall grass swayed in a light, dry breeze to scratch at the wool of Arturo’s pants. The crotch and seat of the garment were starting to come undone. Valeria could sew them back together when Arturo returned to the pueblo in less than a week’s time. His novia loved to help him with the little struggles of daily life, and he loved her for it. He loved her for a lot of things. She was beautiful, of course, and of course, that was a much too simple description of her. It wasn’t just that beauty, that thick hair that seemed to find its way into every nook and corner of his home and between his fingers. It was the life in her eyes, and it was the ringing of festival bells in her laugh, in her chuckle. The grass scratched at Arturo’s pants, and his joints felt swollen to bursting in his knees and knuckles, but it was the calm of her whispers in his ear to drive his feet.

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  A rather lazy excuse for a river, much more of a creek, crept through the grass several hundred paces from the shepherds’ camp, far enough from the bleating of the sheep to allow Arturo to listen to the natural buzz of the plains. Insects of all sorts, though mostly grasshoppers, jumped and jigged and jolted through the air over the water. The soft dirt nearest the creek - Arturo would not call this a river, he didn’t care what the maps said - was bubbling with the movements of worms and other creepy, crawling forms of life. One of the plentiful grasshoppers landed on his shoulder after a particularly impressive leap from a stalk of its namesake. Arturo yelped and shivered at the feeling of tiny tapping legs running on his skin. Just because he worked out here his whole life, well his whole adult life, didn’t mean he had to love all of it. These critters were much more enjoyable dried out with chile? and limo?n. The edible ones at least.

  Arturo lowered the first waterskin into the shallow water. Its warmth drifted over his worn-out hands and soothed their shaking, sending ripples out from where they met the surface. It would be warm in his mouth, and it would taste unpleasant, and Arturo would be happy and grateful all the same to have such an easy source of water to drink from. It meant less walking for him, so he’d need less in the first place. Arturo thought it best to keep an eye on the horizon for good things to come rather than the dirt at his feet.

  Larger ripples danced now across the creek from upstream.

  The hair on the back of Arturo’s neck stood on end, and his heart began beating like death drums in his ears. That pulse was painful. The tension in his muscles was more so. Something was watching him.

  A crunch under a foot, a hoof, a paw, and Arturo swung around and dove to the ground. His chest thundered with the impact, each rib threatening to pop out and make a run for it on their own. Arturo’s vision darkened with the sudden crescendo in his pain. He’d gotten used to a certain, constant level, so big jumps from that were difficult to handle. He was very, exceedingly careful about his movements to avoid this. Arturo fought the dark and stood to fight.

  One small sheep meandered from the tall grass and sucked at the stilling creek. Arturo let out a breath he hadn’t realized was lodged in his throat. Sheep all around him for as far as he could see, and he was worried about something prowling around in there? These observant little cretons would be screaming and running in every direction. The shepherds had problems with foxes sneaking about for the lamb in the herd, but nothing ever seriously dangerous. Not since last season anyway.

  Arturo took his careful steps over to the young sheep and gave the timid creature a grin. He’d been told it was very disarming, had worked on Valeria. The sheep jumped and turned to run back into the protection of the grass. A red, wet streak tore through its coat on the shank that now faced him. Arturo cooed at it and drew some of the spare wool fabric tucked in his waistband to carry the waterskins. The sheep bleated as he cleaned and wrapped the wound. “What happened here…” he lowered his head and lifted the animal’s leg, “…nin?o?” It stared at him with wide eyes. What had happened indeed? Come to think of it, how had the sheep caused those ripples upstream if it had been behind him?

  He cursed and turned towards the creek again as a low growl filled the clearing around the river. A puma squatted on its hindlegs, fangs bared, right paw stained with a touch of blood. “Ay, mierda,” Arturo hissed, he turned and ran. The puma followed.

  Grass didn’t just scratch at him now as he ran, the thick stalks battered his legs and snagged the skin on his forearms. For once, the pain in his feet wasn’t a problem, running with the adrenaline of a puma right behind him. The cat struggled through the vegetation, a little out of its normal hunting grounds, but a capable hunter, nonetheless. Arturo cut to the left, hoping the grass would obscure the shorter animal’s view of him. And it had! Then, the cat turned and followed. It wouldn’t be that simple.

  Breath wheezed in his lungs and fire burned in his legs. Arturo hadn’t needed to move like this since his futbo?l matches when he was a kid. Too bad he played keeper. Barto would be laughing up a storm to see him struggling now.

  “Barto!”

  Was the man alright? Arturo risked a glance back. The puma was right on him. Its unbloodied paw raked out and scored a clean slash down the back of his pant leg. He screamed as a renewed fury burst through his adrenaline and he went to the ground. The puma overshot him, claws catching in the thick grass. Blood began to soak Arturo’s foot wraps and snaked its way into his boot sole. The scratch throbbed, and his joints scolded him for all this effort.

  “Ay, you big ugly cat! Leave that sad boy alone!” Barto yelled, unseen to Arturo. Thank the Parents.

  The twang of a bow string and the snick of a flying arrow burying itself in flesh were almost enough to get Arturo out of the dirt and jumping with glee. The puma’s face emerged from the grass ahead of him, an arrow buried in its shoulder, yet very much alive. That, at least, got Arturo out of the dirt. He would do the jumping another time.

  An arrow whistled by him, and Arturo ducked back down as the puma yowled and leapt through the air where his head had been. “You nearly shot me, pinche viejo!” Arturo screamed into the air at Barto. No response. He stood again, his aching a thunderstorm in every inch of his body, and he limped as fast as he could towards the tents. Barto was hobbling towards the tents as well, the puma now chasing him after its missed attempt on Arturo. The tents were only a hundred paces away now, a little towards his right. He needed his own bow.

  The cat noticed Arturo up and moving again and seemed to come to a dilemma. Old and tender, or young and injured. It seemed to like its current feebler choice and continued after Barto.

  The old man reached his tent on the right as Arturo got halfway to his own on the left. Barto bolted inside, and the puma made its way into the flattened grass that made up their camp. It came to a halt, confused at how the lucky archer disappeared. Not too smart then. A great roar erupted from Barto’s tent as Arturo reached the clearing.

  The sound was out of a story book, the rush of wind of a Greatstorm’s fury, the crack of the Father’s voice. A long, metal wire affixed to stretched sheep hide on a wooden drum, to be more accurate. Barto emerged from the tent, hands stretched into the air, shaking the Storm-box. “Get! Get! Gato! Get!” He yelled at the puma. The big cat’s ears flattened, it hissed and turned to run. Then, the young and injured option shuffled into its view.

  “Ay, mierda.”

  The puma leapt for him.

  Arturo’s breath caught, and the world seemed to freeze. Barto’s wild Storm-box filled Arturo’s head with an overwhelming tumult. His ears rang, and the puma hung in the air. The slice in his leg went suddenly cold, his hands clenching into fists all on their own. An instant, a breath, a year, and the puma hit him.

  That moment vanished. Claws scored across his chest and ripped open his shirt and skin. Blood filled his vision. He felt each puncture, pull, and tear of those living knives in his body. Arturo stopped feeling the pain, just the sensation of his muscles coming undone and his bones breaking under the mauling. The puma went to bite his neck, and his right hand, still clenched in a fist, came up to meet the cat’s open maw.

  The puma just… disappeared.

  It really was odd for it to leave like that. It had him caught, a perfect meal. Weak and ready for eating. Some animals were rather skittish. Maybe his blood smelled weird. He sniffed, no, smelled normal. What was a normal blood smell? The dirt smelled odd out here. Arturo had always noticed that. Why did his hand hurt so much? His mind was all unstrung wool and fuzz. “Que lata,” he murmured and looked at his balled-up fist.

  Funny. Another peculiar thing, his hand was painted all red, quite a dark red. Not quite the shade in El Mercado Rojo. He couldn’t wait for the food and drink there. Arturo shook his head and squinted his eyes. He heaved himself to his feet. His ears were ringing. He looked at his hand again. Red, warm, pain, much too warm to be painted. He looked at the tents. Wow! Painted just the same. He looked down at this chest…

  His shirt and skin hung off his body like rags.

  The sound returned to his ears. Someone was screaming. It was just Barto. Oh, no, Arturo was screaming too. The puma’s head rested near the newly painted tent flap. It might be screaming too if it was still attached to the rest of its body.

  Pain drew Arturo’s attention back to his red hand. It really hurt. He looked back over himself, at Barto, at the decapitated puma. Where had its body gone? Strings of intestine and viscera hung off Barto. What?

  Arturo’s hand spasmed and drove him back to the ground. He gasped for breath, and a serenity took him in darkness.

  Buenas noches, mi hijo.