Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

Beside her, Bryant kept further pressure on still more of the stab wounds littering Allambee’s torso. The grimness in the Selkie marshals’ eyes communicated all that he dared not say.

Chidi read the message in all the same. He’s not gonna make it, she imagined Bryant saying.

When Chidi continued looking to Bryant for some measure of hope, the Selkie marshal glanced away and pretended to study the skillful, sewing work that Marisa Bourgeois threaded in Allambee’s skin, stitching what wounds she could.

Chidi’s gaze too canvassed the wounded warrior. There are too many wounds, she knew, pushing the thought away, even as the truth lay before her. Far too many . . .

Allambee’s hair still glistened with beads of Salt, his forehead soaked in feverish sweat, his eyes closed to the world as his body trembled in its continued clinging to life.

“Keep fighting, Allambee,” Chidi whispered, hoping he might hear and hold to her words. “We’re going to help you. Just keep fighting.”

To their credit, neither Bryant or Marisa spoke against Chidi’s hopeful claims.

With a sigh, Marisa stitched her last of the smaller wounds and then placed the needle in a makeshift, bloodied tray beside her.

“Well?” Chidi asked of her, even as her mind told her that she would not like any answer given from Marisa Bourgeois. A seed of gnawing doubt within her warned that Marisa had foreseen their circumstance and let it occur anyway.

“He is not long for this world,” said Marisa quietly. “He has lost too much blood.”

“Give him some of mine, then.” Chidi offered up her arm in show for Marisa to pierce with the needle’s end and begin a transfusion between them.

Marisa grimaced as she glanced away, turning toward Bryant instead.

“What?” Chidi demanded of the famed runner. “Why are you looking to him for? Bryant’s not in pain. He’s not offering up his blood. Take some of mine!”

Bryant reached over to her, his voice barely above a whisper. “Chidi . . .”

“Don’t,” she replied, shaking as she did.

Bryant nodded, but refused to break his stare of her. “We don’t have the tools, Chidi. The supplies we need to fix him up. Not all the way out here.”

“Call someone, then,” she wept. “You’re a marshal. Go radio someone to fly in and save him.”

“It don’t work like in the movies, Chidi,” he replied. “Sometimes you can’t call in the cavalry on account of there is none.”

“You’re not trying,” she said. “You haven’t tried to call anyone.”

Bryant looked away from her, out across the empty Salt. “It won’t matter, sweetheart,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “We’re too far from anywhere . . . and Marisa is right. He’s lost too much blood.”

“Then give him some of mine,” Chidi repeated, insistent as she raised her arm further toward Marisa Bourgeois.

The famed, elusive runner did not budge from her former stance.

“Take it,” Chidi shouted at her. “Take my blood and give it to him.”

Bryant called her down with more soft words. “We don’t even know if you’re blood types match. If you’re not a match, it could kill him.”

Chidi glared at him. “If he’s going to die anyway, then what’s the harm in trying?”

Bryant’s expression wilted under her stare. “All right, partner.” He nodded at Marisa. “Do it, Bourgeois.”

Marisa did not budge.

“Do it,” Bryant said to her again, his voice carrying a firmer command. “Or I will.”

Marisa ignored him. “Brave boy,” she said, reaching for Allambee’s brow, stroking the sweat beads away. “The wise ones say there is no greater love than one who would lay down their life for another.” She looked up to Chidi with warmth and pity too. “He loves you deeply. As do we all of us here.”

“You’re not the ones bleeding out,” said Chidi through gritted teeth.

“No,” said Marisa. “But if death were to come for me, I should welcome such a noble sacrifice as the one your friend here offered up to save you.”

“And I would let you trade places with him,” said Chidi, new tears brimming in her eyes. “I would trade places with him now, if I could.” She glanced at Bryant as if he might have some answer for her, some word of reproach for her to fly against, or else a comforting word to provide some semblance of a reason for all that had befallen them. Instead, she found tears in the eyes of Bryant also. Chidi broke, then. “I’m tired of seeing everyone I care about die . . ..”

Marisa nodded. “And yet for all that you have lost, all that you will still lose, I tell you now that it will be your pain to drive you to save so many more, Chidi Etienne,” said Marisa. “All the tragedy you have endured, all the pain witnessed and experienced . . . all to make you who you are, so that when your moment arrives—”

“Stop,” Chidi spoke up, her body and voice both shaking. “Stop talking to me. This is your fault.”

Marisa sat back as if Chidi had slapped her, questions plain upon her face.

“You brought us out here,” Chidi condemned her. “You said that Allambee had to come with us. That he had a purpose for being here. The same as Girard had a purpose too.”

Chidi did not dare to look toward the cabin’s quarters, not wishing to see the former coyote guide’s corpse still impaled by one of the Orc spears, his body still pinned against the same captain’s chair he had steered from.

Marisa snorted. “You weep for Girard too?” She challenged Chidi. “He being one of those who profited on the backs of Selkie slavery, the same as any owner did? One who might even have sold us all, if the price were right.” Marisa frowned. “Aye, our Selkie boat captain had a purpose in life, Chidi. One that lined his own pockets, and prayed only that he one day might have what he imagined as a glorious, final last stand - a captain, lost at