The Scourge (21 page)

“Peree? What are you doing?” I whisper.

“Making a bow. If the flesh-eaters might be at the water hole, then I’m going armed.”

I tuck the bedroll around me against the chill, and listen to him work. “Need help?”

“Untie a few feathers from my hair?”

I slide my fingers through his tousled hair and find the sleek feathers. He tells me how to attach them to the sticks he’s gathered, while he strings the bow. I do the best I can, but I have him check my work, afraid the arrows won’t fly straight if I make an error.

When he finishes, he slings the bow across his back. “I’m going out to practice. Want to come?”

We stumble through the predawn to a nearby clearing. I lean against a tree, shivering in the cold wind that snakes through the branches, while he sets up a target. There’s no sign of the sun, and the birds are silent. The air around us feels heavy and tense, as if it’s holding its breath.

“A storm is coming,” I mutter.

Peree notches the first arrow and releases it. It slices through the air, but skitters across the ground somewhere beyond the target. He adjusts the bow then shoots again, releasing each arrow in turn, making small modifications after every shot. The last few drive into the target. He retrieves the arrows, then stands in front of me and brushes a few wind-blown locks of hair back from my face.

“It’s time.”

Kora slips in next to us, holding my hand as usual. I introduce her to Peree as we follow the path from the village to the water hole. I wonder if I was wrong that this has to do with the Scourge. At home we would never bring children near the flesh-eaters. But nothing in Koolkuna is as I would expect.

We turn toward the water hole, and the roar of the waterfall grows. It’s hard to hear the sounds of the forest now. The
anuna
are gathered, and more come. Arika greets us quietly, then speaks to Kora. I hear Kadee and Nerang. People stand in small groups, passing around cups of water from the water hole. We drink, too.

“What’s going on?” Peree mutters. “Nerang didn’t say this was going to be a public apology.”

“It’s the offering,” Kora says.

“What offering?” I ask.

“To the
runa
.”

Peree whispers in my ear. “I don’t like this.”

I don’t either. Huddling closer to Peree, I pull Kora into me. I can’t hear the creatures between the waterfall and the wind. I feel horribly exposed.

The trees quiver and shudder, thrashed by the wind. No rain yet. Wirrim’s voice suddenly rises above the elements. I didn’t think he sounded strong enough to walk all the way here.

“When the
anuna
came to Koolkuna many years ago, we knew it to be our ancestral home. We did not know it would also provide the sanctuary we required, away from the sick ones. We hid in the trees, sending only the quick and the brave to the water hole to gather our life-sustaining water—”

A vicious crack of lightning interrupts him. I shield Kora as well as I can. Then I smell them.

The Scourge is near.

Peree drops his crutch and draws his bow tight. I clutch Kora. Wirrim speaks more urgently.

“When we came to Koolkuna, we were afraid of the
runa
. But quickly we realized they were changing. They were different.”

The flesh-eaters are close, in the trees around us. I hear them . . . but instead of moans and shrieks, I hear voices. Human voices. Pleading for food, for water. For someone to help them die.

“What’s happening?” I ask Peree.

He sounds haunted. “I don’t know.”

“You do know,” Nerang says. “See them. See them as they really are."

“But these creatures limp instead of sprint, their skin is cut and bleeding and bruised. Their hair is dirty and twisted. They look . . . ill. What happened to them?”

Nerang answers. “They are the same.
You
are different.”

“They can’t be the same. I’ve watched the Scourge tear people limb from limb,” Peree says. “I’ve seen them surge in packs over their prey. These things aren’t capable of that.”

“What you saw was an illusion. An illusion caused by a strong poison, poison in the water you drink and the meat you eat,” Wirrim explains.

“Poison? What are you talking about?” Peree says.

Wirrim’s voice is gentle, like he knows this is difficult. “When I was a child, a
lorinya
came to Koolkuna from the City, searching for lost loved ones. Before she moved on she told us many stories, and among them, how the
runa
came to be. In the days before the sick ones, the people of the world were at war. When neither words nor weapons satisfied their hate, they used poison.”

Thunder bursts. The creatures almost echo Wirrim, murmuring “war” and “hate.”

“She said the poison was created many years before the Fall. It was so dangerous it was locked away, but later it was found by others who thought they could control it. They destroyed their enemies, and our world, in the same damning blow. The poison spread, uncontrolled, through the air and water, settling in the ground and the crops. It killed many people and animals. And it had another devastating effect: It caused people to lose their minds, their understanding—they went mad. No longer able to care for themselves, they became like senseless wild animals, desperate in their hunger and fear. These people joined growing groups of the similarly afflicted, and they became the
runa
. The woman who told us these stories called it a ‘madness of many.’ They have roamed the earth since that time.

“Pockets of survivors like your people, those who do not die or go mad, are still vulnerable. Instead of seeing the
runa
as ill, you see grotesque, flesh-eating monsters—what you call the Scourge. You kill them, and you separate yourselves from them, in trees or caves, and so you avoid succumbing to the madness yourselves. But you live immersed in your fear, and the poisoned water feeds your illusions—sip by deadly sip.”

He’s saying we’re all
poisoned?
Eland accidentally hit me in the head once with a rock. This sensation is similar, like whatever force keeps me upright and centered just wandered away. I speak for the first time, struggling to be heard over the wind, and the pleas of the creatures.

“Why do they look and sound different to Peree and me now? What protects Koolkuna?”

“When the
anuna
arrived here,” Wirrim says, “we drank from the Myuna and we no longer suffered from the madness. We could see the
runa
for what they were—people in great need of help. The Myuna comes from the Dark Place deep beneath the earth. It is pure; the poison did not contaminate it. Now you have drunk from it for many days, and eaten only the meat of animals who drink from it. The poison no longer controls your minds.”

The sounds of the Scourge
have
changed. It’s as if I should have understood them all along, if I’d only been listening properly. Mesmerized, I take a step toward the creatures.

“Fennel,” Peree growls. “Don’t.”

“It’s okay,” Kora says, stepping with me.

I stop. Walking into the Scourge myself is one thing, but allowing a child to get any closer is another. I’m about to tell her she can’t go, when Wirrim speaks again.

“Bring the offering.”

Kora moves forward. I try to pull her back, but Arika touches my arm.

“Please don’t worry. She’s given the offering before.”

“What
is
the offering?” Peree hisses.

“Food for the
runa.
”

“Food? You
feed
them?” he asks.

“I’m going with Kora,” I say.

The sickening smell grows with each step. That hasn’t changed. The instinctive terror from being close to the creatures crashes through me, but Kora and the others don’t hesitate. They walk to the edge of the clearing and stop in front of them. Dishes rattle as they’re laid on the ground.

One of the
runa
speaks, its voice weak and feeble. “Thank you.”

I reach out to it, pity overcoming fear. My trembling hand meets cold flesh for only a moment. It feels human, yet lifeless at the same time. The flesh of a corpse.

“They don’t like to be touched,” Kora whispers, pulling me back.

The sick ones take up the food. And as they melt back into the trees, every truth my life was built on vanishes with them.

“Come to my home if you’d like. I’ll make you breakfast, and answer your questions.”

I wait for Peree to respond, but he doesn’t, and after a moment, she walks away. I touch his arm, and realize his bow is still aimed at the line of trees, as if he thinks the
runa
will turn and charge us at any moment. He releases the arrow. A moment later it strikes a tree.

“I can’t believe it. I wouldn’t have believed it, if I didn’t see them with my own eyes,” he whispers.

I can’t believe it either. I didn’t see them, but I heard, and felt them. And that was enough.

Kora waits on the path, joining us as we walk toward the village in silence. I’m surprised to hear people talking and laughing in normal voices, discussing their day—until I consider that what was earth-shattering to Peree and me is accepted from a very young age by everyone else here. Kora is proof of that.

“Do you want to go to your mother’s?” I ask him. I don’t know where else to go. Nothing feels real to me, like I’m waking from a nightmare, but only just.

“Don’t call her that,” he murmurs, sounding as dazed as I feel. “She doesn’t deserve it.”

“But that
is
her name,” Kora says.

“What do you mean?” he asks sharply.

“Mother is what Kadee means in our language.”

“Why would she be called that?”

“Mama said it was because her son was all Kadee talked about for so long, when she came to Koolkuna. Mama said she cried for weeks and weeks.”

Arika calls to Kora, and she runs off. Peree doesn’t speak again, but as we wander through the village, I realize he’s leading us to Kadee’s home. She welcomes us in right away. The gentle warmth of the fire is a relief after the penetrating chill of the wind, and the shock of what we learned.

“You have questions,” Kadee says, as she puts a pot of water on the fire to boil. I wait for Peree to say something, but he stays silent.

“The water hole,” I say, “at home. It’s been poisoned for years? So when we drink from it, it plays tricks with our minds? Is the Scourge even dangerous at all?”

“They can be. They aren’t the horrific creatures the poison creates in your imagination, but they are still hungry and desperate, like Wirrim said. They must feed themselves, as we all must. They eat animals—usually raw, which only makes them sicker—and they’ve been known to attack people, too, if they’re starving. It’s probably what led to the first reports that they consume human flesh.”

That explains the bite, the night I fell asleep in the forest. The creature must have been hungry enough to take a bite and see if I fought back, like a scavenger animal. Rose’s plea echoes through my head. Was she still human at that moment, not yet consumed completely by the madness?

“What happens to their minds?” I ask.

“Our knowledge isn’t complete, but they seem to retain their awareness only for a short time. They forget who they were or how to care for themselves. And as far as we can tell, they don’t live long. They become ill, weak from exposure to the elements, and they die. They seem to travel in groups to give them an advantage in hunting, and perhaps as some vestige of how they lived before they became
runa.
Their name is derived from two words—
boolkuruna
, which means ‘homesick,’ and
birruna
, ‘dangerous.’ The sick ones are both.”

She pours us each a cup of tea, and offers fresh bread and berries. I nibble a little, to settle my uneasy stomach. Peree remains mute.

I ask, “What really happens when someone is being consumed, then?”

“It’s difficult to understand, but the closer a vulnerable person—someone under the influence of the poisoned water—comes to one of the sick ones, the more likely they will slip into the madness and join the
runa
. It’s as if the sight, sound, and smell of the sick ones overwhelms their senses, and completes the illusion.”

An unexpected rage floods through me. “This is unbelievable! All these years, all these generations of people, all the fear and pain and devastation—because of some
poison
that makes us believe things that aren’t true? Nothing since the Fall has been
real
?”

“What is reality, Fennel?” Kadee asks gently. “It’s what we, as a group, believe to be true. If a group, aided by the powerful effect of a poison, believes it’s threatened by a mindless pack of monsters, then that
is
what’s real.

“Ever since I was a little girl,” she continues, “I only saw the sick ones, never the Scourge. The creatures have always looked and sounded to me as they did to you today. I was more frightened by the violent reactions they caused in others than I was of them. When I tried to tell my parents what I saw, they seemed wary, fearful. They told me not to speak of it. So I never did. But it didn’t change what I experienced. It didn’t change my reality.”

Peree grew still beside me as Kadee spoke.

“Why are you different?” I ask.

“Nerang says some people, very few, are unaffected by the poison. He doesn’t know why or how. I only know I never saw them as monsters, and the divide between what I saw, and what others believed to be true, only grew with the years. Peree, when you were young, the Council sentenced me to a night on the ground. Do you remember?”