Naji screamed my name.
The sound of it chilled me to the bone, despite the heat from the sun and the battle. I froze in the middle of the melee, sword halfway to some guy's gut, and it took the pop of a pistol a few feet away to get me moving.
He sounded like he was dying.
I pushed off through the crowd, ducking low into the smoke. Naji was sprawled out on the ground, white as death, face all wrenched up in agony. I crouched next to him, pistol drawn. The smoke swirled around us, cloaking us, which was a relief even if it set me to coughing.
"I can't…" He gasped, pulling in a long breath. "Help…" Blood bubbled up out of his lips.
"Ain't enough time for you to say what you've got to say," I told him and immediately set to looking for the wound. "Where's the other guy? Keep it short."
"Dead."
"That's something." He was bleeding from his chest, from underneath his otherwise untouched armor. A magic-wound. Shit.
A figure pushed through the smoke, sword glinting. I fired off the pistol before he could get close to us. The figure dropped to the sand.
I knew we couldn't stay here, Naji and me. All the magic he'd been using had drained him dry, and me trying to stave off an entire ship's worth of crew just sent him spiraling into more pain.
Think like a pirate, I told myself. Think like Papa.
Ain't no shame in running from a losing battle, he told me once. Better that than dead.
"You have to get up," I said to Naji, tugging on him as I did. "You have to get up and get on that horse."
He nodded and pushed himself up about halfway.
The smoke had begun to clear, webbing out, revealing patches of white sky. Revealing more Hariri crew.
"Hurry!" I said. "I got to fight 'em off and if that hurts you–"
He wasn't standing. He'd dipped his fingers into the blood in his chest and was drawing a symbol in the sand.
"Get on the horse, Naji!"
"Protection," he croaked, and then he started muttering, and his eyes glowed sickly and pale, and the crew was descending on us, and I knew I had to fight. So I jumped to my feet and dove in, ignoring the pain in my body and the ache in the back of my throat that meant I needed water. And most of all I ignored the groans from Naji, cause I knew I was hurting him, but what choice did I have?
And then he said my name again. And he was on the horse.
I knew it was stupid, me right in the middle of battle like that, but I could've wept, seeing Naji slumped over that horse's back. I raced over and scrambled up to join him, wedging myself in front of Naji so I could take the horse's reins. Naji snaked his arms around my waist, pressed his head into my shoulder, and I dug my feet in the horse's side.
The horse galloped over the sand. Every part of my body hurt. Naji's breath was hot and moist against the back of my neck, even through the fabric of his mask, and it reassured me, it let me know he was still alive.
I rode the horse out of the smoke and craned my neck back up at the sky. The sun was nestled over in the western corner. Naji moaned something. I twisted the reins, sent the horse running off to the southeast.
Naji moaned into my neck for about five or ten minutes, and when he stopped I realized no one was following us. I halted the horse and turned him around. The desert was empty save for us. The cloud of black smoke stretched out over the horizon, a long ways a way.
"Can't… hold this… Get to the river." Naji's voice was right in my ear.
I didn't know if he meant he couldn't hold the protection spell or if he couldn't hold on to his life, but I wasn't taking no chances. I set the horse to running again.
"How far are we?" I asked, shouting into the wind and the sand.
Naji groaned and buried his face into my shoulder. Even through his armor I could tell that his body was hotter than normal.
I rode the horse as hard as I could without having it collapse beneath us. Every time I slowed it down my hands shook and I made myself aware of Naji's breath, waiting for it to stop. But it never did.
The sun set. The protection spell held on. And so did Naji.
And then the landscape started to change. I didn't notice at first, in the gray twilight, but the shrubbery got more and more plentiful – it didn't look so much like a desert no more. The moon came out, full and heavy and fat in the sky, casting enough light to see. Naji's breath was thin, weak. The horse panted and trembled.
I smelled water.
Fresh, clean, sweet water. Then I heard it, babbling like voices, and I couldn't help it, I started to cry. I thought maybe I were imagining it, just cause I wanted it so bad.
"Canyon," Naji said. His voice made me jump. "Stop."
I slowed the horse down. The land dropped off not far from us, and I figured the river was down in the canyon, carving its way through the desert to the sea.
"How are we gonna get down?" I asked.
Naji didn't say anything, only gasped and choked and pressed up against me.
"Stay here," I said, and I climbed off the horse. Naji slumped forward, his head lolling. I crept through the shrubbery till I came to the edge of the canyon. Then I crouched down on my knees and leaned over.
The river was a line of starlight flowing through the darkness. The drop wasn't too far, but I couldn't risk jumping, not knowing the water's depth. And I had to concern myself with Naji and the horse, both of whom needed water. Fortunately the sides of the canyons sloped down pretty gently, and I figured the horse could probably climb down, assuming we did it slow.
I knew I couldn't wait till morning.
Naji was still slumped over the horse's back. His hands were dark with blood, and his blood soaked the back of my dress. I nudged him, and every second he didn't move, my chest got tighter. Then he rolled his head toward me.