The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste & Maaza Mengiste

Author:Maaza Mengiste & Maaza Mengiste
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

HIRUT IS TENDING TO ONE OF THE INJURED WHEN THE CAMP FALLS silent. She turns. Seifu, Aklilu, and Hailu stagger up the hill bearing their awful burden. Marta walks beside Seifu, pressing Tariku’s hand against her stomach. They are all bowed by grief and tiredness. And when Kidane and Aster rush toward them, insisting they relieve the parents of this task, Hirut sets down the basket, ready to help, trying to steel herself against fatigue. She has been working without break to tend to the wounded in Hailu’s absence. She has spent two sleepless nights cleaning and wrapping bandages and mixing powders. She has witnessed the final breaths of those too frightened to let go of her hand. She has held those who could not bear the agony of their ailment. All of it has stripped her clean of emotion, pushed her deep into a pit of debilitating fatigue. But none of this has prepared her for an inconsolable mother pressing a dead hand against her womb.

Farther away, a bomb rattles against the horizon, breaking into the looming night. As the group carries Tariku past her to Seifu and Marta’s cave, Hirut turns back to the wound she is dressing. She must finish this before she joins them. She tries to shake free of a wave of dizziness. As she applies a fresh bandage, she swallows air to hold off the gnawing hunger. Her exhaustion is stupefying, but she works mechanically, numbly. When she is done, she stumbles to the mourners and wraps an arm around Marta’s shoulder. She murmurs a short prayer for Tariku, then releases Marta back into Seifu’s embrace before picking her way toward her bed to collapse into sleep then start her work again.

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