Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [233]
Iosef said somewhat cheerful. "Half done," Ravi translated.
We finished the job when Iosef's men returned from their excursions, using straight, sturdy branches to brace the leg from hip to ankle and lashing them in place with a long length of linen bandage salvaged from my pack.
"Done," Ravi said.
"Gods and goddesses, I could use a jug of uisghe" Urist said weakly.
Thus began our first day of being shipwrecked. We moved Urist farther up the rocky beach and set him beside poor Kirill, who still hadn't awoken. Two men set about building a makeshift shelter, and three others set out in search of fresh water, our most urgent need. The rest of us spent the day swimming back and forth to the wrecked ship, diving into the sunken hold and swimming in blind darkness, grasping whatever we could and hauling it out. The ship shuddered and quivered as we clambered over it, but it sank no further, held up by the rocks that breached its hull.
In the end, our tally looked a bit less hopeless. We'd salvaged a few parcels of hard biscuits wrapped in watertight oilskin and a pair of undamaged waterskins, and one of Iosef's men had found a spring-fed pond in the forest. A flint striker to kindle fire—that had been in my pack, a gift I'd received long ago in Jebe-Barkal. An axe, an adze, and other tools for repairing the ship, which proved useful for building a shelter. Several lengths of rope. Sodden blankets. One of the powerful hunting bows Urist and I had brought, though its string was likely spoiled by the saltwater and we hadn't found the quiver.
At least there was food and water. Iosef doled out a rock-hard biscuit apiece. I broke off chunks and held them in my mouth, waiting for the waterskin to be passed so I could soften them with a mouthful of water. I was too tired to chew.
I have never, ever in my life been as exhausted as I was by the end of the day. If there was any hidden blessing, it was that I was beyond caring what had become of our mission, at least in that moment. All I wanted to do was lay my head down and sleep. If Kushiel had appeared on that island in all his terrible glory and offered me Berlik's head on a flaming platter, I wouldn't have had the strength to take it.
Our shelter was a simple affair, a lean-to such as hunters might build to spend the night in the woods, built on a larger scale. We lashed layers of untrimmed green pine branches atop it to keep out the drizzle and spread pine mast over the stony soil, then packed ourselves beneath it, laying down in our damp clothing and sleeping the sleep of the dead.
At least I didn't dream.
Morning dawned bright and clear, but it brought two unpleasant revelations. Kirill had died in the night without ever waking. His belly was hard and distended, and I thought he must have been bleeding inside. On the heels of that discovery, we found a second body washed ashore; Pavel, the sailor who'd gone missing.
The ground was too hard to dig a proper grave; it had been difficult enough to sink poles for the shelter. Iosef shared out biscuits for our breakfast, and then we set about building a cairn some distance from our campsite.
It was hard work, but none of us begrudged it. It could have been any one of us lying in their places. With everyone save Urist lending a hand, we made short work of it, burying them under a vast mound of stone. When we had finished, we all gathered around and Iosef gave an invocation in Rus. I paid close attention and caught a few words I understood; death and peace and Yeshua.
It surprised me, a little. I hadn't thought of them as Yeshuites, except for Ravi. Of a surety, none of them were Habiru. I asked him about it later.
"Yes, of course," he said. "Didn't