“Put down your spears and help,” Calina said to the boys. “Can’t you see he can barely stand?” Then she called to Engressi, a female of Uban, who had gone with the warriors. “Get four of the others. Bring vines and skins, thick branches to use as poles, and one of the nets used for fishing. Tell Geel to heat more water and prepare food.”
While Engressi ran to and fro, carrying out her directions, Calina nodded to Keene and pointed back the way he had indicated. He turned and began leading the way, Calina and Yobu beside him, the boys following, and a small crowd building up behind.
Keene led them down along the creek, across the head of the ravine, and from there over the rise to descend to the inlet from the lake. Keene’s companion was among the rocks a short distance above the water, propped among packs and oddments that they had carried, and covered by padded blankets. Keene conveyed that he was called Charlie. He was feverish with sickness and reacted dully to the arrival of the newcomers, as if hardly aware of their presence. There was no sign of an aircraft or other kind of vehicle by which they might have gotten to that place. Since it was near the water, Yobu could only conclude that they had floated there somehow.
Calina and Engressi used stone blades to cut the rags from Charlie’s leg and examined his wound. It looked as if it had been pierced by a thorn of the fangleaf bush, which also grew in the swamplands that Rakki had come from, and which his warriors used to tip their arrows. A preparation of certain leaves would draw the poison and ease the swelling, Calina said. But he was at the time of decision already, and whether or not the measure would succeed, only time would tell. They bound the wound while others constructed a litter from the net that they had brought, tied between two poles that could be carried on shoulders. Then, with followers collecting the packs and other things that were there, the party returned to the settlement.
They took Charlie to Geel’s hut, where the women were already heating water for cooking. Calina began crushing leaves, while others cleaned and bathed the wound. But Keene, after taking a few morsels of food and rinsing the worst of the grime from his face, refused to rest and be still. Through signs and gestures, he asked where Rakki and the warriors who had left with him were going and why. Yobu didn’t feel it was his place to disclose anything, and pretended not to understand. Keene became more agitated, demanding again to know where Rakki had gone. Yobu grew more obstinate. Calina kept herself to organizing what the women were doing and stayed out of it.
And then Keene noticed two small children, a boy and a girl, playing near the doorway of the hut while their mothers were busy inside. They were using a sharp, bright object to dig stones out of the ground. Keene called to them, and they looked up. He held out an open hand, indicating that he wanted to see what it was. They were unsure and looked to Yobu for guidance. “Let the Sky Man see it,” he told them. The boy, who was holding it, gave it to Keene. It was a piece of twisted metal, apparently torn from something. Keene examined it, turning it over in his hands. Evidently, it was something important. He looked up, asking again by signs where it had come from. Yobu didn’t know. Keene gestured toward the outside, pointing up at the ridge above Joburg.
Suddenly, Yobu realized what Keene was trying to say. The small plane that Enka had shot an arrow at had crashed up there. Jorff had said it was damaged and would be collected soon, and Rakki had strictly forbidden any interfering with it in the meantime. The children must have taken a piece that had been broken off.
“Is it from the Metal Bird that died up there?” Yobu asked them. “Is that where you found it?”
“Yes,” the boy answered. “Where the Sky Warrior and his woman go when they . . .” He looked flustered. The girl with him erupted into a fit of giggling, “Rub bodies.”