The Salt of Your Tears by M. Caspian

Author:M. Caspian [Caspian, M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-02-21T22:00:00+00:00

– FIN –

A Song in the Blood

“You’re never going to make it,” said the scorpion.

Its fat tail hung heavy over its back. It wielded spindly pincers the color of the Transvaal loam.

Corran lowered his head and rested it on his arm. Stinging sweat dripped from his eyes and soaked into the rough cotton of his uniform shirt.

The harsh sun burned into the back of his neck.

“I know,” said Corran.

It had been an accident at first. He’d been playing stone tag with Ihaka and Kamariea, sons of shearers from the Hays’ farm, and Jack from the bakery. The rules were simple. They collected pockets full of stones from the freezing waters of the Arrow. This took a while. There was always the chance you might turn over a lump of frosty quartz, and, below the glint of river water, find a fleck of gold staring back at you. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had just that very thing happen.

Once they had their pockets stuffed full of rocks — or their bare feet ached from the cold — they’d head up to the scrub on the other side of the river from the township. If you were ‘it’ you had to tag someone by hitting them with a rock. Waste your shots and you’d run out and have to scamper back down to the river bed to collect more, or search carefully through the silver spikes of the matagouri bushes looking for your errant ammunition. Both gave your opposition too much time to find good hiding places. Ihaka was the best, his aim unerring.

Ihaka was standing right next to Corran when Jack tagged him with a lump of greywacke, glittering with mica. Ihaka had a rock in his hand before Corran blinked. As he pulled his hand back to release it primal terror filled Corran’s heart. Suddenly this was more than four friends larking about on a sunny afternoon, it was the nerve memory of a time when creatures with teeth stalked the darkness. Corran squealed and dove straight into a thicket of matagouri.

The sharp spikes pierced Corran’s clothes. He ducked right. Ihaka’s rock whistled past his ear. Corran pushed deeper into the thicket, closing his eyes against the wall of thorns, his heart thudding. He wasn’t a boy, he was a prey animal. He pushed forward until the matagouri hemmed him in, puncturing him, penetrating him. Corran froze.

“Corran? You all right?”

Ihaka’s voice drifted over the pale gray of the thicket.

Corran tried to back up, the way he’d come, but the thick branches were impenetrable.

“No. I’m stuck.”

Corran’s kept his voice calm, but his nerves were singing. It wasn’t pain, nor terror. It was something he hadn’t dreamed of. The thorns of the matagouri ran him through, and he shivered. He tasted copper in his mouth. He wiggled experimentally. With each move the thorns bit at him, digging their staccato barbs into his flesh.

“Taihoa,” called Ihaka. “I’ll get dad’s hatchet.”

Wait here? Yeah, like he had an alternative?

Where the matagouri thrust into him his skin itched and burned.

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