Chapter 28

  Arturo woke and struggled with the pain racking his body, forcing his vision red, and making his limbs, fingers, and toes shake. It was a handshake with memories of waking at the dawn to clear skies on open grasslands, unable to unclench his jaw in those times as he used to wrestle the pain and tame it. It had hurt him, but it taught him to hurt. Sometimes, people needed a little hurting to remember they were alive. Arturo figured he’d had enough hurting for the past couple of days. That pain reminded him of his friends’ death more than it evidenced the blood pumping through his veins. He was alive enough, he was sure.

  He felt at his nose, one of the points of physical pain since they fled the Capital, and the skin felt healthy and taut, the bone nice and straight.

  Wait.

  His nose was broken, the skin split, and it had given him a roaring headache the day before. He felt at his nose again. Nothing. A normal nose. He hadn’t even thought of his chest since he’d been training in the Monastery. He yanked up his robes and saw perfectly healthy skin. Not even a scar. “Aquiles! Aquiles! Wake up, hermano.”

  “I’m awake.”

  Arturo scrambled over and saw Aquiles leaning against one of the trees in their campsite. The opening was surrounded by a thicket of bramble, so it was a good spot for them to sleep, hidden from the road. “How’s your head? Any problems?”

  “My head is fine. I don’t feel anything wrong with it…” Aquiles’ words stretched out as he spoke. “My welt is gone.”

  “Si?. And look at my nose.”

  “Pinche mierda!” Aquiles touched the unbroken skin on Arturo’s nose.

  “I was torn up by a wildcat before I traveled to the Capital, and that injury is completely gone as well. By all the Parents’ good graces, I should still be bedridden if not dead.”

  Aquiles closed his eyes and put his forehead to the bark of the tree, “You just now mentioned this?”

  “Hey, between everything going on, this isn’t a huge priority. It's not like I regrew a finger.”

  The other man turned from the tree and looked down at Arturo’s hands.

  “We’re not testing out if I can!”

  “Arturo, Storms don’t heal any more quickly than any other children of the Parents.”

  Arturo widened his eyes with excitement. The healing had scared him at first, but now that he’d come to terms with his blessing, it was a great benefit. “Maybe we do.”

  His brother returned his smile, a smile that was downright unsettling when it was forced, but maybe some of their father’s charisma did find its way into the other man. Arturo was sucked empty both grieving the loss and a swelling of his childhood still alive today. “That could prove helpful,” Aquiles said, then glanced down at Arturo’s hands again.

  “Let’s not go around seeing what we can survive now though. I don’t want to be killed because you decided to go off and bleed to death by accident.”

  “Just one pinky, hermano. You’re not a swordsman. You can afford to lose a little bit of one.”

  “No!”

  Aquiles pouted, “Fine. Let’s get going for the day.”

  The dog reappeared as they mounted the horse to move. It strolled off down the road, tail wagging in the air behind it. “Where does that thing come from,” Arturo asked.

  He didn’t expect an answer from Aquiles, but the man spoke, “From the jaguar’s culo. Who knows?”

  Arturo laughed out loud. It was good to hear his brother joke around a little bit, even if he was still sour doing it. His brother was human after all. “Better than any of my theories,” then shouting toward the dog, “Where do you come from, chico?”

  The dog jumped and spun in a circle, paws tapping the ground and tongue lolling.

  Arturo smile, “Do you like it when we call you Chico?”

  More jumping and barking.

  “Chico it is,” Arturo lowered his head and said in a baby-voice, “Hola, Chico!”

  Aquiles shook his head at it and sighed, and Arturo harrumphed in response at the grump Then, the horse carried them on.

  Hills sagged into mounds and mounds slumped to flat earth, the vegetation and open space becoming more familiar and comfortable to Arturo, if not for his newfound family sitting behind him on the run from a force that wanted him dead. Green grasslands lush with life and living, flowing streams, and bleating sheep, at least in his memories, expanded before them. A pit opened in Arturo’s stomach at the site of it.

  “Aquiles, Chico has taken us down several turns in the road that could have been a coincidence at first, but now I’m worried he is guiding us to my pueblo.”

  “The Ministry might already be there waiting in ambush as a precaution. We can’t risk that.”

  Arturo leaned in waiting for the rest of what should have been attached to that statement. “Nor the innocent people there we would put in danger with our presence…”

  “Of course. I shouldn’t have even had to say it.”

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  “We can turn into the country or find another pueblo to go to where we wouldn’t be expected. Maybe the coast? There are merchants that travel these roads loaded with anything you could imagine.”

  “We don’t have money.”

  “Well, if you’d let me finish… I can trap animals and dry their hides for trade. They love that stuff.”

  Aquiles nodded in return, perhaps a bit cowed, and they followed the dog until the next fork in the road. Arturo felt his brother pull the reins right as Chico continued down the left path, one of the forks someone would take to go back home. They moved down the road for a couple of minutes before a rustling in the grass to the side of the road startled the horse. The dog bounded from the grass to block the road. Chico crouched low and growled, a nasty snarl unlike the playful growls he had sounded in the past.

  “I don’t think it likes us going this way.”

  “It’s a he.” Arturo tried shooing it away, “No! Get! Bad dog!”

  Chico prowled forward, head lowered and its growling broken by sharp barks to corral them back the direction they’d come. The horse took nervous steps backward against Aquiles’ prodding and tossed its head. “Much more of this and it’s going to buck us,” Aquiles warned.

  “Just kick the horse forward! Don’t let it knock us off.”

  “Great idea, Arturo. I was going to let it throw us to the ground.”

  Arturo flung out his hands at the dog, “Vete! Fuera de aqui!” But Chico just snarled at him and backed the horse down the road.

  “I knew these animals would turn on us. They’re unnatural,” Aquiles chided.

  “Callete?. They’ve been friendly until now. We’re not going the way he wants us to go.”

  “It’s a dog, pendejo!”

  The man could be an obstacle in any conversation if he wanted. “These things are clearly more than just the animals they appear to be, Aquiles.”

  “All the more reason not to trust them.” The horse spun in place and jostled the brothers. Arturo held tightly to its mane.

  “After the words they spoke to us, you don’t want to trust them?” Arturo directed his voice at the dog then, “But, we can’t go that way, Chico! It could be dangerous for the people there!”

  The dog snapped at the horse’s legs in response. “It doesn’t seem to care whether we endanger people or not. I don’t trust it.” Aquiles sounded unsure. He really talked a lot of game for being as scared as Arturo was about everything. Why couldn’t he be more honest about it?

  But Arturo had an idea. “He goes off at night. We can just sneak out then and be on our way.”

  “Si?, and then that jaguar will just raise the sun and eat us.”

  Arturo pursed his lips. “Just go around it, come on.” He pushed at the horse’s head, and Aquiles cursed at him and the horse from behind. He had another idea. “Let's just get off and guide the horse past.”

  “Ok, you get off first. Test out that healing theory like I wanted.”

  Arturo looked back at Chico, the name feeling a little inaccurate now, drool dripping from his snout and skin pulled back from its teeth. The scrappy hair looked more like the aftermath of a fight than an endearing mop now. “Maybe not.” He sighed, “Can we have anything go our way?”

  Something snapped in the distance, and Chico spun, perking his ears. That sounded like a chirrion, which meant one of the merchants was coming with his wagon of goods. Arturo leaned back and forth trying to see the coming merchant from the direction they wanted to go. Aquiles followed Arturo’s gaze, “What was that?”

  “A whip. I think one of the merchants I was talking about is coming this way already.” There was something missing. “Where’d the perro go?”

  They looked around the road, into the grass, and Aquiles even looked up and checked the sky. It had just vanished. “Look at that, something went our way,” Aquiles laughed.

  Bouncing canvas and rattling trinkets made their way around the bend of the road. Two old horses, fat with good care and gray hairs in their manes, pulled the merchant’s wagon painted a deep green of the forest. On the bench in the front sat a shriveled old man, wispy hair sticking in all directions, and a corded rope, thicker at one end, loosely gripped in his hand. “Espera, espera,” the merchant lisped. He gave a weak tug on his reins, and his horses snorted as they stopped. They both reached to the side of the road and began munching on the grass. “Hola, nino?s. Where ya headed?”

  Arturo heard Aquiles gulp in a dry throat. His brother dipped his head to the side, hiding his face so the merchant wouldn’t notice the brothers had the same one. Arturo took the lead, “We just came from the Capital. Traded some wool. We’re heading back home.”

  “Oh, how’s the mood in the Capital for tradin’?”

  Panicking, he replied, “It was on fire!” Aquiles jerked a little at that.

  “Magnifica. I’m headin’ that way now.” The words were gummy and warbled in the man’s toothless mouth. He gestured towards his wagon. “Are you looking for anything else?”

  Arturo smiled and waved his hands. “We can’t afford to spend any of our earned money, sen?or. Lo siento.” The Father damned old man came too early. By the morning, Arturo could have had some hides for trading.

  “I’ll trade with ya if ya have anything.” The merchant held a casual smile, but behind that unassuming mask, Arturo knew a predator with years of experience would get what it wanted from him.

  “We only have some sausages and cheese from the Monastery,” Arturo spoke truthfully.

  “Really?” The old voice was frail, but excited; and that mask of a predator slipped. “Those are my favorite!” But they were so bland… Whatever, Arturo could get whatever they wanted now.

  “What are you willing to trade, sen?or?”

  “Well, I got some sugarcane and spices, dried fruits, some leather and fabric, a little comal, and some trinkets like little sundials and the like.”

  Aquiles spoke with a fake low voice without showing his face, “Where were the sundials made?”

  The merchant cocked an eyebrow and leaned from his perch trying to catch a glimpse of Aquiles. “A little pueblo, not a day’s ride back the way I came. They’ll be accurate if ya don’t stray much further south or north.”

  Why in all of La Terra would Aquiles need a sundial? “Do you really want that, amigo,” Arturo whispered to Aquiles. The merchant watched them converse with an expecting face.

  “I miss the one from the Monastery,” Aquiles hissed back. “Please, I just want this one thing. We can afford to give the sausages up. You said you could catch food.”

  “Fine.” The man was hurting at the losses too. Arturo cleared his throat and spoke back to the merchant, “Can we get one of the sundials? And some of that leather. How many sausages?”

  The merchant tapped at his temple. “Hmmm. Fifteen sausages.”

  “Fifteen!? We don’t have that much. That’s enough food to last you a week!”

  “Alright, I’ll do ten, but ya need to toss in a fistful of that queso.”

  Arturo rolled his eyes. “Fine.” That leather could be used to make a great trap. They’d make their food back easily.

  “And throw in the sack ya have ‘em stored in.”

  Arturos scoffed. “Now that’s-”

  “It's real good quality leather.” The merchant snuck a portion of it out and stroked the smooth, brown exterior.

  “Fine.”

  “Gracias, mucho gusto!”

  They traded their belongings, and the merchant nodded his head as he began to move past, Chico still nowhere in sight. The merchant shouted over his shoulder, “Oh, by the way! Don’t go back down that other fork. Pueblo there got strewn about and set ablaze. Ministry men said they were blasphemin’ against the Parents! Can ya believe that? Out here in the countryside?”

  Arturo’s world spun about him. The only pueblo in that direction was his home. Through a trembling throat he croaked out, “Tha- thanks for the warning. Safe travels.”

  “Safe travels to you too, nin?os! Be careful out there! The Ministry was warnin’ about demons in the night!”

  Arturo put on a fake smile and nodded his head. “Adios.”

  Arturo looked behind at Aquiles, jaw clenched and eyes blazing. Aquiles nodded back, his rage clear on his face too, and Arturo could now see how his own face looked like angry, a new discovery, terrifying as he remembered that explosion of his pain moving mountains. In that moment, he knew.

  The Ministry would get their demons.