Red by Ted Dekker Page A

odd.” He sighed, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. “Time to get back into the ring. I’m almost tempted to ask you to rub my shoulders down. Fourteenth round and I’m dead on my feet.”
    â€œNot funny. You have everything you need?”
    He tapped his head. “I’ve read the material a dozen times. Let’s hope I can remember it. Let’s hope I can find what I need.”
    â€œElyon’s strength,” she said.
    He cracked one eye and looked at her. “Elyon’s strength.”

7
    â€œWAKE UP.”
    His cheek stung. A hand slapped it again several times.
    Thomas pushed himself up. “I am awake! Give me a moment!”
    Mikil stepped back.
    Thomas’s mind spun. After so long, transitions of his dreams felt surreal.
    He looked at his second in command. Mikil. She could probably walk into any bar in New York and clear the place. She wore battle moccasins, a kind of boot with hardened-leather soles but cured squirrel hide around the ankles and halfway up the calf. A bone-handled knife was strapped to her lean, well-muscled leg. She wore thigh guards for battle and a short hardened-leather skirt that would stop most blows. Her torso was covered in the traditional leather armor, but her arms were free to swing and block. Her hair ordinarily fell to her shoulders, but she’d tied it back today for battle. She’d strapped a red feather to her left elbow, a gift from Jamous, who was courting her. A long scar ran from the dangling feather up to her shoulder, the work of a Scab moments before she’d sent him screaming into hell during the Winter Campaign.
    Mikil’s eyes had begun to turn gray. The report of skirmishes at the Natalga Gap had come during the night—she’d left the village without her customary swim in the lake. The Forest Guard Oath required all soldiers to bathe at least once every three days. Any longer and they would risk becoming like the Desert Dwellers themselves. The sickness affected not only the eyes and the skin, but the mind as well. The Guard had to either carry large amounts of water with them on campaigns or draw the battle lines close to home. It was the single greatest limiting factor a tactician could be handed.
    Thomas had once been stranded for four days in the desert without a horse. He had two canteens, and he’d used one for a spit bath on the second day. But by the end of the third day, the onset of the disease was so painful that he could hardly walk. His skin had turned gray and flaked, and a foul odor seeped from his pores. He was still a day’s walk from the nearest forest.
    In a fit of panic he’d stripped naked, flung himself on the sand, and begged the blistering sun to burn the flesh from his bones. For the first time he knew what it meant to be a Desert Dweller. It was indeed hell on earth.
    On the morning of the fourth day, he began to see the world differently. His craving for fresh water diminished. The sand felt better underfoot. He began to think that living life in this new gray skin might not be impossible after all. He wrote the thoughts off to hallucination and expected to die of thirst by day’s end.
    A group of straying Horde found him and mistook him for one of their own. He drank their stale water and donned a hooded cloak and demanded a horse. He could still remember the woman who’d given him hers as if he’d met her yesterday.
    â€œAre you married?” she asked him.
    Thomas stood there, scalp burning under the hood, and stared at the Desert Dweller, taken aback by her question. If he said yes, she might ask who was his wife, which might cause problems.
    â€œNo.”
    She stepped up to him and searched his face. Her eyes were a dull gray, nearly white. Her cheeks were ashen.
    She drew back her hood and exposed her bleached hair. In that moment Thomas knew that this woman was propositioning him. But more, he knew that she was beautiful. He wasn’t