He’d been hit. He knew the sensation; it had happened before. Always a surprise—he fell to the side, against the gondola’s slanting bulwark. In the dark and with the confusion of the starving children coming aboard, Wilson managed to conceal what had happened. But once they’d cast off their ballast and set course for an overnight berth above the Lomami, Yoka hunted him down. Wilson was staunching the bleeding as best he could with his coat balled up and held tight against his armpit. The lamp Yoka carried showed it soaked in red.
The apprentice touched Wilson’s arm carefully, with his flesh hand. “Does it hurt?” he asked.
“No. Worse. It’s numb. But I think the bullet’s in there. Still.”
Yoka replaced Wilson’s coat with his own and made him lie flat. He used something—a belt?—to hold the pad in place. “There are healers on Mbuza.”
Wilson knew that. “I will go to them when we reach Kibombo.” If he didn’t die before then.
“Perhaps.” Yoka’s face disappeared from Wilson’s narrowing field of vision for a moment. “I must prop you up to help you swallow.”
“Swallow what?” It was a hollowed out horn Yoka lifted to his lips—though he wasn’t sure this was the same one containing the soporific drug they’d given the prisoner. The taste of what he drank from it was both bitter and sweet, like licorice and quinine.
“Now you will sleep. And dream. And very likely, you will live,” Yoka seemed to be saying. His meaning floated free of the words. “If you do, you should promise yourself.”
Promise himself. Wilson wanted to open his mouth. He had questions. Or at least one. Promise himself. Promise himself what?
Then he was walking up an endless mountain. Or down? Sometimes he thought one, sometimes the other. Whichever, it was hard work. Why shouldn’t he stop? But he smelled—something. The scent of fire—he wanted to find who it belonged to. It wasn’t out of control, a forest burning up. How did he know that?
Rough stones gave way to soft soil, plants clinging to the ground, mounting up the walls of a rude shelter, an open-sided shed. Here was the fire. A forge. The smith working it wore a mask like a dog’s head. He was making—Wilson couldn’t see exactly what. Shining shapes stood upright in pails to the forge’s right side. They resembled giant versions of the symbols used by Bah-Sangah priests. On the left loomed a pile too dark to discern more than vaguely. Hoping to see better, Wilson went just a little nearer, but not near enough to get caught.
The mask’s muzzle turned sharply toward him. A powerful arm reached too far and a huge hand wrapped itself around his neck. It pulled him closer, choking him.
From behind the mask came a man’s voice. “What are you doing here? Stealing secrets? Or are you dying and you come to me for your life?”
Of course he was dying. Loss of gravy. Loss of blood. He said nothing, but the smith seemed to hear his thoughts.
“If I give you your life back you will owe it to me. Acceptable?”
The big hand loosened and Wilson nodded. Yes. Its grip tightened again and drew him in next to the fire. It draped him over the anvil. He shrank, or the anvil grew until it held all of him.
Turning his head, Wilson saw the smith take a shining symbol from one of the buckets and bring it toward the anvil. He rolled his eyes up to follow its progress, then lost sight of it. Then cried out as it burnt his scalp.
“Silence!” commanded the smith. Two hard blows on his skull stunned him into compliance. Another scalding hot symbol was slipped under his neck. The smith’s hammer smashed into Wilson’s throat, driving his tender skin down against the letter of fire. Scarcely had he recovered, breathing somehow, when a large new letter was laid on his chest, and hammered home with three mighty swings. Smaller symbols were burned and bashed into the palms of his hands. Radiating pain and heat, Wilson wondered if this was how Christ felt when he was being crucified. Then he scolded himself for his blasphemy—but without speaking, for the smith had bade him to make no noise.
If life was suffering, it belonged to him yet. Under the next letter his left knee smoked. The dog mask spit on it. The hammer hit. It must surely have broken his bones, Wilson thought. But after the final symbol was affixed and the smith told him to stand up, he found he could.
“Do you have a weapon?”
“I can get one,” Wilson said.
“Remember whose you are now.”
“But I don’t know your—”
“Ask Yoka my name.”
He awoke. He presumed he did; he must have been sleeping. Dawn again, and the airship was moving, clouds and the pale curve of last night’s moon passing behind Kalala’s red-and-purple envelope and coming swiftly back into sight. He could feel both arms. He clenched his fingers and released them. That hurt. Cautiously he sat up. His senses swam, but not unbearably. He shrugged his shoulders. Some pain, and an annoying restriction—Yoka’s makeshift bandage. He eased off the sash and the pad it had held in place tumbled to the deck. It was stained and dry.
Dry.
It ought to have been wet. It ought to have stuck to his skin.
Slowly, Wilson lifted his arm and examined the wound. The healing wound. Where the bullet must have entered, his flesh had started to pucker into a raw, raised scar a little darker than the rest of his armpit. With the hand of his unhurt arm he probed his shoulder and as much of his back as he could reach.
Nothing marked an exit.
Yoka approached, carrying a clean shirt, seeming unsurprised by Wilson’s convalescence.
He took the shirt. “What happened?” he asked, then almost gagged coughing; his throat was tight, rough, swollen.
“That’s not to be talked about. Not here. Besides, the drums say we’ll soon be busy. You won’t have time to wonder about all that.”
Wilson was stiff; he needed Yoka’s help putting on the shirt. Its warmth was good. His head ached. His arms and legs throbbed and trembled. He leaned against the nearest woven panel and forced himself to his feet.
They’d brought few provisions. Wilson’s chief want was water, but he knew he’d need more than that to get through the coming battle. As they passed over Malela en route to Lutshi, he was eating his second plantain. The thirty fighters had been deposited at Ombwe an hour earlier, as planned. King Mwenda had split his troops, leading and chasing Leopold’s men into the swamp. The majority of the king’s fighters were to the north of the invader’s army; in order to reinforce the southern contingent. Mbuza, Boadicea, Brigid, and aMileng had been ferrying Oo-Gandahns all morning. Kalala was to join them for this final trip of four.
The small airships could only transport 50 adult fighters. The rescued children had proved unwilling to leave Kalala with the fighters from Kamina. The countryside was strange to them. They had endured enough. Strategically speaking, Wilson admitted to himself, it had probably been a poor choice to add their rescue to the day’s mission. But the spy had cried with joy when reunited with his newly-freed son.
In the end, only space for thirty-three fighters was needed. Most Oo-Gandahns had already been taken to their battle positions, and many of those left seemed to prefer flying in the other dirigibles. Perhaps it was the dispirited attitude of Kalala’s passengers, which was of course due to the children’s exhaustion, malnourishment, and sores. It was nearly an hour after Brigid’s departure that they, the last to leave, finally took to the air.
Ignoring his own weakness, Wilson did his best to help tend to the unfortunates. He’d learned a little Swahili, but only a few of them understood it; he had a hard time remembering which and telling them apart.