Thorn hung there, on Duun’s arm. Duun’s strong grip spun him, seized him by both arms and shook him, snapping his head back. “Fool! Where were you going?” He could not answer. The pain came on in waves. Duun shook at him again. It was Duun. It smelled of Duun. (Scent-blind. Scent-blind fool.)
“I had to hurt someone,” Duun said. It was anger. Duun shook at him. “You hear me, fool! I had to hurt someone for your sake.”
“I think-I think-” Shock came on him. His jaws passed his control, locked and chattered. And Duun took him to the ground. (“How many times did they get you? Gods. Gods. I see it…”) He stretched him out there on the forest slope and probed the arm, while here and elsewhere came and went for him.
“Why?” he asked Duun. “Why did they do it?” While his jaws spasmed and chattered and the pain came and went. “Duun, were they supposed to do that?”
“Shut up,” Duun said. And hurt him, whether by intent or accident. Thorn went out a moment, came back with Duun slapping gently at his face. “Can you move the fingers? I’ve got a gel on it. Move the fingers. Hear?”
Thorn tried. He thought they moved. He clenched his jaws, because Duun hauled him up against his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. The world went upside down as Duun’s shoulder came into his groin and heaved. Pain. The arm swung. Jolting pain as Duun moved. The world went black and red, phosphenes darting in his eyes, in the dark. Branches raked his back. There was instability as Duun climbed, so that he dared not move. But the pain, the pain…
There was a darkness. Duun swung him down and let him to his knees on the slope, holding onto him. Duun’s breath was in his face.
“You’ve got to walk,” Duun said. “Hear me? Hear me, Thorn? You’ve got to walk now.” Duun got an arm about him and pulled up on him. “Walk. Hear me?”
Thorn heard. He tried. He heard Duun’s gasping breaths, leaned on him, struggling for purchase on stone and earth and mold. “Climb,” Duun said. “Dammit, climb!”
Howls rose behind them in the woods. They lent Thorn strength. Duun’s curses did. Duun carried him a time, and flung him down in the leaves with a jolt that knocked the breath from him. And slapped him after. “Breathe, dammit, breathe.”
He tried. He gasped. And Duun lay down on him and panted. Their hearts jolted one against the other and the pain kept time with it.
Another climb. Duun had gotten him on his feet again. Thorn had no memory how. “The road’s not far,” Duun said. “They won’t come above it. Come on.”
And sitting then, sitting on a flat roadside stone where Duun set him, Duun holding him with one hand about his arms and the other against his chest. There was color in the world. It was dawn.
“Breathe. You’ve got to walk again.”
“Yes,” he said. He questioned nothing. Duun was Duun, source and force. Like the sun, the wind. He sat a moment and got up again, his heart hammering, his body swaying in the height of the world, with the treetops like black water whispering below them.
They walked. He and Duun. Duun’s hand in his belt; Duun dragged his sound arm about his ribs and held it by the wrist. Going was easier on the road. Thorn’s feet discovered pain, lacerations that small stones wore at. His mouth was dry as the silken dust. The wind was cold on his bare skin and Duun was warm.
Another rest. “Sit down,” Duun said. “Sit down.” And drew him against him and held him in his arms.
“Why did they shoot?” Thorn asked, because that answer eluded him. “Duun, why?”
“You scared them,” Duun said. “They thought you’d harm them.”
Scared them. Scared them. Thorn recalled the children. He shivered. Duun’s arms clenched him hard.
“Fool,” Duun said. He deserved it. He was ashamed.
He slept. He opened his eyes on the ceiling of the big room in the house with no memory how he had gotten from the road. He heard Duun coming and going. (Guard your sleep, minnow. Dared he sleep?)