I brushed a lock of her white hair away from her cheek and grabbed a piece of torn, clean cloth—the last of it from when we’d bandaged Nillima—from my travel sack.
His head tilted down. “The east has been growing…inhospitable. For many years now. So close to the Ghertun, we have faced many losses. We seek a new home for our people. I was tasked with finding one.”
Surprise made my brows lower. “The Dothikkar has heard no reports of this.”
“We have tried, Vorakkar, many times to seek an audience with him. He turned us away.”
That I could believe and it only made my frustration with the Dothikkar deepen. He was a selfish male who was not made to be a leader. His father had been one. The last true Dothikkar. But his son only cared about the gold lining his pockets, the fine brew filling his goblet, and his precious walled city.
“If the hordes ride against us at our new home, that is the chance we will take. But our people have suffered and we seek a new life. A better life.”
“Yet you tell me your plans. Knowing I am duty-bound to report this to the Dothikkar.”
His head inclined.
I barked out a sharp laugh. “Luckily for you, I care not for my duty to the Dothikkar. Find your home, Killup, but make certain it is well hidden. The Dothikkar has never set foot on the plains and I doubt he ever will…but some Vorakkar are still loyal to him.”
The Killup rarely showed emotion but I knew this leader was surprised by my flippant, treasonous words.
“Go north,” I told him, blotting away the blood from underneath Vienne’s nose. Her features were slack, her eyes twitching beneath her lids. “Killup prefer the cold, do you not? Not many hordes venture there, especially after the cold season.”
“You…” the Killup trailed off. “You are not what I envisioned a Vorakkar to be.”
So, he had never met one.
“You were eager enough to have me killed,” I growled softly, casting my gaze back at him once the kalles’ face was clean.
“A mistake,” he said. He pulled something from a pocket in his vest. “Our blades are soaked in enuwip. It is why your cuts have not clotted.”
I stilled, my brows lowering, before I looked down at my chest. The deepest gash had, in fact, not begun to clot and still bled freely, leaking a waterfall of blood down my flesh. The smaller cuts along my arms were in a similar state.
“Enuwip?” I repeated, my mind working. The Dakkari had nothing like this.
“A plant we grow in the eastlands. One from our home planet that we managed to root here.”
He approached. In his hand was a round disk of hammered, silver metal. He opened the top of the disk, like a chest lid, and inside was a blue balm, smooth and glossy.
“This will negate its effects,” the Killup said, handing it to me. I stroked the pad of my fingers across the balm. It came away like a thick cream, like uudun, and I swiped it across my wound. Immediately, the bleeding began to slow. Dakkari healed quickly. It should have clotted mere moments after I’d been cut. I hadn’t even realized the wounds hadn’t because of the kalles.
I realized the implications right then. That the Killup could’ve left, that my wound might never have stopped bleeding…and then what?
“I kill your jrikkia…and you decide to help me?” I growled, my gaze flashing up to his. I was still crouched at Vienne’s side. She hadn’t stirred at all, though her chest rose in a steady rhythm.
“You are not what I expected,” he repeated, as if it was his answer. “To be truthful, I did not know if the enuwip would work on a Dakkari. We have only ever used it on Ghertun that have breached our land.”
My nostrils flared, my mood brightening until I almost grinned at the Killup.
“It works on the Ghertun?” I rasped.
He inclined his head. “It works in a different way, however. It stuns them from first contact. Paralyzes them as they bleed.”
That made me grin. “How intriguing.”
The Killup blinked slowly, tilting his head, studying me as I waded through the mess that was my mind.
I stood. The Killup was almost as tall as me, but his build was more suited for stealth than sheer strength.
“I think I have a solution to your problem, Killup, and mine. One that would ensure the Dothikkar’s blessing for your new home, so that you will not have to hide