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I shove the na’at into my boot and take off my coat. Hand it to Doris.
“You’ve got the knives, cut this up into strips.”
She unhooks one of her butcher knives and starts slicing.
“Wait,” I say, and take a flask from an inside pocket.
“Where did you get that?” says Wanuri.
“It was in a pile of dead Hellion junk.”
I unscrew the top.
“What is it?”
“Aqua Regia.”
“You’re going to drink now?”
“No. Gisco is. Everything from here to camp is going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
She looks at him.
“What do you say? You want to drink his poison?”
I hold the flask out to him.
“It tastes like dragon piss, but it’s about two hundred proof. It will help with the pain.”
Gisco takes the flask and tries a taste. Then coughs and spits a fair amount of it on his shirt. I hold him upright while he sputters.
“This isn’t sipping whiskey. Just hold your breath and swallow as much as you can.”
He makes a face, but doesn’t hesitate as he upends the Aqua Regia, taking three long pulls. Coughing and gagging, he shoves the flask back at me.
“Feeling any better?”
He breathes in. Lets his head fall back. He gives a thumbs-up. I push the flask back into his hand.
“You hold on to this. You might need more in a minute.”
Doris has my coat shredded in no time. Wanuri uses the panabas to cut the tree trunk into smaller segments. When they’re done, I grab Gisco by the shoulders and he grabs on to my arms. Wanuri and Doris splint his leg as fast as they can, but the next few minutes are all screams and a lot of fumbling, punctuated by curses and more screaming. Gisco isn’t a big guy, but it’s all I can do to hold him.
Finally, it’s done. Gisco isn’t moving.
“Is he all right?” says Doris.
I lay him down flat on the hillside.
“He’s fine. He just fainted.”
We use the rest of my shredded coat as a rope to lower him down the hill. When we reach level ground, I offer to ride with Gisco back to camp.
“No,” Wanuri says. “He’s my responsibility.”
We maneuver him onto the back of her bike, and me and Doris use the rope to secure him against her back.
I say, “You got your balance with him on there?”
