The city of Ulum stretched along the valley like a narrow ribbon for miles to the east and west below us. To the south beyond, jagged white teeth of the Terbulin mountains forbade us from Carthia but for a single narrow pass.
Geraln rested on a stone in the shade of a pine tree with drifts of dirty snow all about us, letting out white puffs of breath as he spoke. "How… high… are we?"
I answered. "I know that Ulum is about twelve-thousand feet, so we're probably about thirteen where we stand?"
Davod stood leaning his hand against the same tree; he couldn't speak through gaping at the view below us. Geraln shook his head and pushed his words through labored breaths. "What kind of… lunatic… would build… a city up here?"
Davod bobbed his head back and forth. "What kind of lunatic would bring an army up here to attack it?"
Geraln raised a finger. "Good point!"
That made me laugh. "Remember, we have to go over that pass over there," I pointed. "Just looking at it from here, that's got to be at least sixteen-thousand feet. This is nothing. I say we rest the night in Ulum and set out in the morning."
Davod protested. "It's not even noon. It looks like we can make it through the city in an hour; we should make it a good ways before nightfall."
"Geraln needs time to get acclimated. We're also going to need supplies. Dariana said it would take about five days to breach the pass, and seeing it now for myself I believe her. It looks like the road is well-maintained, but we're still going to need fuel pods, some extra food…"
"Why don't we just hunt for meat like we been doing?"
"Won't be anything up there. Once we go beyond the treeline, we'll be lucky to find so much as a hare."
Davod reached into his purse, pulled out a few coins, and looked them over. "If I give you thirty-five kren, will that be enough?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "Sure."
Geraln sat still with his eyes closed, rubbing the sides of his nose up to his eyes and back while Davod counted out the coins and handed them to me.
"Come on," I said. "It should be a lot warmer down there."
So we set out. The road hugged the side of a steep, rocky incline—packed dirt amid rocks and snowdrift at both sides mixed with craggy pines and small wildflowers with tiny purple blooms that filled the cold air with a sweetness like honey. As we descended, the forest grew sparse and our view gave way to the imposing buildings of the city, with a few small shacks built into the steep sides of the cliff, worn with years of moss and half-torn apart while a plump old woman looked up from a wash basin and said nothing as we passed.
The chill air took on a warm undertone as the bright sunlight dominated the sky without so much as a hint of cloud and made the whole valley rather comfortable. The road took a sharp drop into some more shacks, before the outskirts surrendered to giant towers crowded together amid busy cobbled streets with throngs of people pushing their way through.
The narrow street descended further, and sounds of all kinds filled our ears. From the calling of merchants, creaking of wheels, blurs of conversations all dissolved into a mass of sound. Water splashed on stone. Drops hit my face from a woman three stories up tossing out the wash, and some man behind us shouting curses at her only for her to accuse his mother of something horrid before disappearing into her window. We muscled through another crowd of people gathered around a shop where the scent of fresh sour bread conquered all within its grasp.
"Gods, that smells good!" Geraln exclaimed.
Davod smiled. "Yeah, but look at that line. Let's get settled and come back."
"Definitely," I echoed.
Another block down, the fresh bread surrendered to the odiferous call of shit piled onto a cart driven by an old Saeni man with yellow-green hair and light-green eyes like Dariana's. All around, people held their noses; some looked around and shared a laugh together while others couldn't mask their disgust. A Herali woman with a round face shook her head in contempt and mumbled. "That should have been done hours ago!"
Most of the people we saw were Herali like the three of us with the same olive-green skin, emerald-green eyes, and long, straight, dark-green hair. We also saw a handful of Goloagi who, like Talys, had skin a slight shade lighter and hair in loose curls. Their men mostly wore their hair in a mass of curls while the women would let it cascade down their backs in waves, all of them dressed in the kind of finery that precluded any useful labor. Before us, a couple looked us up and down as they walked by and went into an open double-doorway. The woman was a young Herali, probably the same age as Guenevieve, while the man was Goloagi and much older. His curly hair had turned mostly gray, but his clothes were made of fine silk threads and his polished brown shoes reflected the morning sun. They walked by a Saeni doorman who stood at attention in a pressed uniform of whites and reds, with years written on his face and streaks of gray in his yellow-green hair. He bowed low as they entered.
Davod gawked more than I'd ever seen—I don't think he managed to blink once. Rather, he looked up at the tops of the buildings where stone gargoyles depicting the totem spirits graced every corner, at least five or six stories up atop buildings of stonework that boasted a largesse from ages past. He turned to look down alleyways where teams of Saeni women sat together at washbasins or hanging laundry on strings stretched across the narrow gap between towering buildings, or carrying large bundles of burlap sacks over their shoulders. Out on the street, the masses of people would sometimes congeal into a muddle of dark-haired, fine-dressed citydwellers who mostly ignored the three travelers in their midst.
"This place is crazy!" Davod exclaimed. "The people look so weird."
Geraln answered him. "They probably think you look weird."
Davod didn't answer. Four Herali girls dressed in fine silk walked by. They looked the three of us up and down, then two of them made eye contact with me before looking away and giggling. Two Saeni girls dressed in woolen frocks and aprons were stocking a store nearby. One of them pointed us out to the other, and they both craned their necks to blush at us as we passed only for a stern, older Herali woman to scold them back to work.
Ahead of us, the narrow street opened up to a plaza centered by a round circle of carved stone about two feet high with rough-hewn rock that led up to the centerpiece, a brown carved stone Falcon with His wings spread wide enough to rest in the shade and His head swooped down low enough to set one's canteen beneath a stream of fresh water pouring out from His beak. Around the circle, at the head of each street was a totem about twenty feet high with all sorts of animal spirits, some of which I didn't recognize.
There was a crowd of people waiting to fill buckets, jars, flasks, and canteens, so we sat down to rest.
"Gods," Davod couldn't stop looking in every direction. Something distracted him long enough for something else to distract him, which held his attention long enough for him to get distracted by something else. "Have you ever seen a place like this?"
"Kyoen is like this," I said. "A little different because it's on the coast, but crowded just the same. It's much bigger, though."
Geraln added his own. "Heralia City, too. When we left the Duke's manse it was high noon; we'd barely made it out of the city by nightfall."
Davod shook his head in disbelief. "I need to get out of Gath more."
Geraln and I sat down beside the street while Davod took our canteens and got in line to fill them. While we waited, Geraln tapped my arm. "Dibs on righty!"
Crouched at the foot of one of the totems on the opposite side of the plaza beside a metal drain were three girls who couldn't have been more than sixteen. They were Saeni, with light-green eyes and skin a shade darker than ours. Two of them boasted the same light yellow-green hair while the one on the left had a hint of bronze given to tight curls. The one in the middle closed her eyes and seemed out of it, as though she were half asleep while the other two hovered, locking her in an embrace.
Righty, as he'd called her, had soft cheeks and high eyebrows with large, doe eyes. And, though she was dressed in rough rags of dirty, torn cotton, there was no hiding her bosom.
"Something's not right," I said.
"What do you mean?"
As we came up close it was even more apparent. The girl in the middle had a pale color to her skin that didn't look natural, and her forehead was covered in droplets of sweat. The girl on the left, the one with the curly bronze hair, looked up at us with deep sadness in her eyes. Dried tears and dirt had crusted over her wide, flat cheeks, and she seemed weak and defeated.
"Are you alright?" I said.
Lefty and Righty glanced at one another. Righty spoke to her friend, "Sewi do'ow-a' ne?"
Lefty replied. "Shama kazato-de."
It didn't sound like the trifle amount of Saeni Dariana had taught me, but of course there were a hundred different languages spoken throughout the desert of Saen. So, Lefty looked up at me and settled on the Imperial language. "You are speaking the Goloagi?"
"We're both fluent," Geraln's voice came from behind me.
"What happened?" I said.
"She was being hurt."
I knelt and tried to get a closer look. "May I see?"
With that, the girl on the left looked at her friend, stroked her hair, then turned back to me. "You are being the doctor?"
Geraln answered for me. "My man Caleb here apprenticed under the best doctor in the world at the church where he grew up. I'm Geraln. What are your names?"
"I am naming Oasis." She pointed to Righty, "she is naming Sage." Then she turned to her other friend, the one in the middle. "She is naming Dune. Dune, pa-ish sha-as 'sto ko'ane vu-ude."
Dune's eyes opened for a brief moment, long enough for her to blink a few times, only to lock them closed once more.
"Pa-ish!" she nudged her a second time.
"It's alright," I said and reached out. She'd clutched her right arm close to her body, but her whole hand was limp. Tucked beneath her shirt sleeve was a bandage loosely wrapped that had been white once upon a time but had now crusted over with dried blood and dirt, and a loose end dangling out. Oasis made some room for me as I leaned in close to examine her. There was a faint stench of rot, and there was way too much fluidity in her elbow—the bone was broken.
"How did this happen?" Geraln asked.
His face was directed at Sage, but it was Oasis, Lefty, who answered. "We were hiking from the Saen. We were wanting to see the Heralia because we never were seeing here. She was falling."
"We need to get her to a proper doctor," I said.
Oasis closed her eyes and shook her head. "We were trying it. Three doctor were telling go away at us."
That shook me. "Why?"
She looked away.
"I'm sorry, nevermind. What about the Daenma church?"
Oasis sucked her teeth at that last word. "The church were saying we will praying for you and good luck."
I wrestled with my thoughts. I couldn't grasp what these girls had been through, and I wanted to do whatever I could to make up for it. Geraln rested his hand on my shoulder and spoke. "Right now, we need to get her someplace safe. You stay here with them and let Davod know what's going on while I find a room."
"We'll need lots of sunlight if you can," I said.
With that, his eyes explored Sage one last time before he walked off. With him gone and Davod standing in line to get some fresh water, my mind had a minute to take in all that had happened to these girls, and a rage welled up in my gut. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Why would all three doctors turn them away? Was it money? The Baron of Gath gave the church something for every person who couldn't pay. It wasn't much, but Ulum was the seat of a county, not a barony. Surely they could have afforded it.
"What's going on?" Davod's voice cut through my thoughts.
"This girl's named Dune," I said. "She's hurt real bad. She needs a doctor, but they're telling me three different doctors here refused to see her. It's fucking bullshit. It's not fair. She should have got care several days ago and now because of that most likely she's going to have to lose her arm. It's not right. I feel like I want to talk to these fucking doctors and tell them something… I don't know… something."
Davod held up his hand. "Can't take you anywhere, can I?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. There's a pub right over there, I'm told they got an amber that'll set you up right and a barmaid that'll finish you off if you're nice enough."
"You're serious? Dune needs help!"
"That's nice. When you're done playing hero, you know where to find me."
With that he gave me my and Geraln's canteens and walked off. I wanted to take a minute to grapple with how calloused my best friend could be sometimes, but there wasn't time.
The water from the fountain might as well have been ice for how cold it was, which made it perfect. I took a rag from my pack and poured a little into it, then brought it up to Dune's forehead. Her skin was hot, and as soon as I touched her with it she winced and opened her eyes as though awakened from a dream. With her good hand, she reached up to block me, but couldn't quite find my arm.
"Wha?" she slurred.
Oasis grabbed my hand. "What you are doing?"
"Her fever is bad. Very bad. It could kill her at this point. A little cold water, wipe across her head, her neck. It's not much, but anything we can do to cool her down, try and get it under control would be a good thing."
Oasis nodded, took the rag from me, and started wiping Dune's neck and forehead. Dune reached up, tried to knock her hand out of the way and slurred out, "duok'oh!"
"Nagewa 'asate-eba'a pa-ish!" Oasis replied.
"What did she say?"
Oasis kept at it and didn't meet my eyes. "She is being stubborn."
The next order of business was to put her arm in a splint. The bone was broken, and I didn't want to risk damaging it further when we moved her. I didn't know how long Geraln would be, but I wanted to be ready as soon as he came back. I didn't like the position we were in. The totem under which they sat didn't offer much in terms of anything—it didn't even look like a comfortable pole to lean up against. But, the rock rising from the street was perfect.
"Can we move her?" I said.
Oasis and Sage looked at me.
I stood. "We're going to move her to some place more comfortable as soon as my friend comes back. Any little bump could damage her arm further, so I need to put it in a splint. To do that, we need to sit her over here on the street and lay her arm across that wall."
Oasis looked at Sage, and they nodded. I took hold of Dune's shoulder and forearm so as to steady it as much as possible, while Oasis slapped her friend awake, and Sage began to tug at her good arm. Dune was lucid enough to ooze over to where I'd asked her to be, and I gently, slowly, allowed her arm to rest on the rocks, being careful to mind the angle. "I need her a little lower."
Oasis nodded and spoke to Dune. "Shabu-ukune."
Then she and Sage helped her along. I watched as the inches waned until she was in the perfect position. "Stop right there."
Oasis kept wiping cold water over Dune's head until my canteen had emptied. Without a thought, I handed her Geraln's, and she continued. She then spoke to Sage. "Sakou ba-a zhad'ao basi."
Sage nodded, took up my empty canteen, and got in line to fill it.
With Dune's arm in a good position, I took a moment to get a better idea of what was going on. When I picked at the bandage, I noticed it had become fused to a mass of clot, slime, and dirt. Leaning in close, I could smell the sour of rot that had begun to claim it. Exactly how far it had gone I'd have to remove the bandage to tell, and that wasn't something I wanted to do out on the street. Even so, I already had a good idea of what needed to happen. "I think we're going to have to cut off her arm."
As from nowhere, Dune summoned the strength of a thousand warriors to shoot one word at me. In Herali, no less. "No!"
Oasis looked at me with eyes wide but said nothing. Rather, she kept wiping cold water on her friend's skin.
"Maybe," I tried to defuse the situation.
"Maybe?" Oasis replied.
"No!" Dune shouted.
"Maybe," I repeated.
"No!" Dune insisted.
Oasis turned to her and spoke. "Du-uwa koyisi shi'a-a pa-ish."
"Vuh!" Dune persisted.
Someone shouted from beside the fountain. "Out of the goddamn way!" Sage took several steps back and lowered her face. Another voice added, "fucking sand-rats!"
I shook that off and returned my attention to Dune. "OK, well… either way we need to put your arm in a splint."
As I rummaged through my pack for some tent spikes and rope, Dune slurred out "no will cutting arm," before closing her eyes and dropping her head back into Oasis's lap.
I worked the rope beneath her, up at her shoulder with another line around her elbow, then put two spikes below, one on each side, with two above, and tied them all together. As I tightened the rope, Dune groaned out.
"She is hurting," Oasis said.
"She can still feel pain here—that's a good sign."
"Is being too tight," Oasis reached her fingers to work beneath the knot.
I grabbed her wrist. "It needs to be tight. We don't want the arm to move. It's temporary, only until we can get her to a better location where I can take this bandage off."
Oasis nodded and looked back at her friend with a deep sadness. All around us the people of Ulum went about their business. Across the street, a pack of Saeni men wearing rough overalls smudged with years of dirt urged a bison to pull a cart loaded with heavy, hewn stones. Three stories up, a young Herali woman stood at a balcony with the door open behind her wearing nothing but a white bed sheet while the wind teased her hair. In a shop on the other side, an older Saeni woman swept and wiped down tables while a Herali woman was busy drinking tea.