Chapter Seventeen
Paas
Something cold and wet was pressed to the side of her head. Bit by bit, she managed to open her eyes. The strange woman was kneeling beside her, with her spear propped point up between them. Despite the encroaching darkness, she could discern the stranger’s blue eyes intently studying her.
“How’d you get so banged up? Who are you at war with?”
“Nobody. I fought a coon.”
The blue eyes flashed and opened wide with disbelief. “You survived a coon attack? Were you bitten?” She glanced over her body, looking for marks, but it was difficult to tell, between the caked mud and bloodstains and dim light.
“I don’t feel like I’ve been bitten,” she admitted. “The pain’s mostly in my head and left arm.”
“That’s good. Coons sometimes carry the water disease.” The woman pat
