eye.
“If you want to stay alive, forget about them. And in no case return to the village of swamps.”
Toby's face twisted in fear.
“What? What's there?!”
Nikto didn’t answered this question.
“Go out on the tract,” he waved his hand, “this way. And go back to town.”
“What should I do there?!”
“Start a new life. Go to Tol and tell him everything. Say that I asked for you.”
“As if he will believe me!”
“Tol will believe. Return to the “Upper” to the Academy and finish your studies. Find yourself a good girl and forget everything that came before. Forget Arel!”
Toby chuckled bitterly.
“It's easy to say,” he involuntarily ran his fingers over the disfigured mouth. He rose from the slab, looked at Nikto without fear:
“Is it easy for you to forget what's on your face?”
They looked at each other. Nikto bowed to him. Almost face to face. Letting him see himself, his scars, his tattoos on the cheeks.
“This is not about me,” finally said Nikto calmly. “But…” he hesitated, “I'm trying. I'm trying, Toby.”
He flinched when Nikto called him by name.
“You need a family,” Nikto pulled away from him, stepping back and letting him get up.
Toby chuckled bitterly, brushing dust and moss off his clothes.
“And where would you advise me to look for a family? Maybe at the market on a market day?” And he laughed sadly.
“If only so. Good luck!” Nikto turned away from him, leaving.
“And… and to you…” Toby, who had become very serious again, barely uttered.
Nikto approached Karina:
“Let's go,” he said simply.
Karina got up.
“You know,” she said a little later, as they left the woodland cemetery and almost reached the Royal Route. “This is some kind of nightmare, Nik! And the feeling that we were like the heroes of some adventure novel never left me all the time. A very bad novel, I would say!”
Chapter four
Encampment
“Let's stop here,” said Nikto, heavily sinking into the grass.
“Yes. Okay,” agreed Karina. She herself liked this cozy forest clearing, surrounded by bushes on all sides. “Here is a small lake, we can wash ourselves.»
“Yes,” Nikto said, and in his voice she felt the fatigue. He sat down on the grass, as usual stretching out his lame leg, and his healthy leg slightly bent at the knee, and, slightly lowering his head, stared blankly in front of him at one point. She saw that he was not at all looking at the clover leaves that grew in abundance there, but was looking at the grass as a background that helped to delve into his thoughts. His eyes were blank, and he stared ahead unseeingly. And Karina, looking at him and remembering what happened to them today, once again thought that his sweet and so soft appearance with delicate neat features, devoid of any brutality and rigidity, didn’t at all fit with his actions, with the way he behaved – tough and fearless.
“How can you be so soft on the outside and so strong on the inside!” She thought. “This body doesn't suit him at all. All the same, the men of the “upper white race” are too cute, however, this is not surprising, because they are absolutely peaceful people, not at all like “black” or “red” ones.”
She said:
“You fought so hard now, one against all! Was it very difficult for you?”
“Yes, this was a fucking disaster,” he said, still looking in front of him, in a voice devoid of any intonations, so simple and everyday.
And Karina froze, stunned by such an unexpected response. With his answers, he periodically confused her, she remembered the first time she came to his chamber, all trembling with excitement, expecting that he would start presenting to her now, well, or utter some kind of condemning speech, and he said something in style of “Ask this old asshole to dilute not with water.” And no pathos, did he take it over from Prince Arel or was it he himself? And now she was expecting from him some obviously different words, something heroic: “I didn’t give a fuck!” or “All this is nonsense, you see! Who are they before me! I would have dealt with them with one left!”. And he sits here, so tortured, tired, and admits that he was in trouble.
“What?” And Karina laughed.
He looked at her in surprise and smiled too.
And without knowing why, she suddenly reached out and stroked his face, on the unscarred cheek, where there was a black tattoo on the cheekbone. She stroked with tenderness, on his blackened cheekbone, on the ornate letters of the unclean, some with “tails” reaching up to the very eye, others, on the contrary, with “tails” downward in an arc descended from the cheekbone to the cheek. Both of his tattoos on his cheekbones were exactly the same and arranged symmetrically, but she didn’t dare to pat him like that gently and on the scarred half of her face, he already raised his eyes at her, full of surprise, and somehow confusedly said:
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Still, she noticed that mischievous sparks flashed in his gaze, and he stopped staring blankly at the clover.
“I'm trying to cheer you up,” she smiled. “Everything will be all right?”
“Yes,” he nodded, “the arm is completely numb.”
Helping himself with his left hand, Nikto pulled off his jacket; everything was soaked in blood through and through.
“You lost a lot of blood. Arel will find a doctor, I think.”
“Not. I will cope myself now,” he reached for the bag, taking out a bottle with “sama”, which Ver brought them to the swamp.
“Will you be able to?” Asked Karina, a little scared.
He didn’t answer, still using his left hand – his right one hung like a whip. He unscrewed the lid and moistened a cloth with the medicine.
“You are good at acting with the left hand, I have noticed,” said Karina, carefully observing his actions.
“They often fastened me on the right arm, so I had to learn,” he said, “don’t worry and… you better not look.”
“I'm afraid.”
“Don't be afraid,” he said, and applied the medicine to the wound.
And as soon as Nikto applied a cloth that was abundantly moistened with “sama” to the forearm hit by the arrow, his face was contorted with pain. He was literally
