“Andrius!” they shouted, but he was far ahead of them now. “Andrius! Where is he?”
“This way!” he cried. The grass whipped against his legs as he ran, and more than once he choked on pollen. He couldn’t hear the man any longer, only what was right in front of him. Birds scattered as he sprinted.
Reaching the edge of the wood, Andrius stopped.
The man was right there in front of him, only a few body lengths away, but he was on the other side of the barrier.
“Andrius!” he heard his instructor call amidst the clamor of children. They were still hundreds of steps back. “Where are you?”
“Over here!” Andrius shouted. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Follow the sound of my voice!” He waved in a grand motion, then turned back to the barrier and the strange man on the other side of it.
His skin was burned and his clothes were dusty. He had collapsed facedown, which was not a good sign. Andrius hoped desperately that the man could breathe. He wanted to help him.
A crazy thought came into Andrius’s mind, but he dismissed it quickly.
“Andrius?”
“I’m just over here,” he called to his instructor and his classmates as they parted the grass and tapped around with their canes.
Andrius had forgotten his cane. Again.
“He’s on the other side,” Andrius said simply.
“How did he get out there?”
“Is he a hunter?”
“Of course he’s a hunter, stupid.”
“Children, please!” The instructor was thinking.
“I don’t think he’s a hunter,” Andrius mumbled, self-conscious again.
Viktoras hit the boy standing next to him.
“Of course he isn’t a hunter if he’s on the other side of the barricade. Stupid.”
“He has a big pack,” Andrius said, noting the large hump that covered most of the stranger.
“What do you think is in it, Andrius?” Milda asked, stepping forward and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Can you hear what’s inside?”
Andrius frowned and took a step away. Milda tattled on him yesterday.
“I don’t know. Food probably. And clothes.”
The instructor was still thinking while the children gaped.
“I think he needs help,” Andrius offered.
“I know, Andrius, hush. Now let’s think . . . How far away would you say he is?”
Andrius considered.
“Three feet?”
“Too far to reach, then?”
The children nodded. The instructor tapped his lip.
“Problem-solving time, children. How are we to help this man?”
“Send someone for rope!” Berena’s crystalline soprano rose above the chorus of mostly useless suggestions.
“Mm, I think we can do better than that, but perhaps. Someone needs to be informed, at any rate. Viktoras, can you find your way back? Get some rope and tell the Regent of Brick what’s happened.”
Viktoras hesitated and kicked at the dirt.
“There’s no path.”
“The wind was in our face the whole way here. Put it at your back and move. It isn’t too far.”
Still he hesitated. “I’m scared, Teacher.”
With a sigh, the instructor asked for a volunteer to join Viktoras. A small boy named Paulius offered, and the two of them set out on their mission.
“Any other ideas?” the instructor asked.
Andrius couldn’t take his eyes off of the man. A fly was buzzing around his head, then landed in his hair. The stranger still did not move.
“Teacher,” Andrius said softly. “Do you think I might, I mean, since he is in trouble and all, just this one time . . . I mean, it wouldn’t be hard. It’s only a couple of big logs, and I wouldn’t even need to climb, really. Could I—”
The instructor was horrified. The children were silent.
“Andrius,” the instructor began gravely. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that you would cross the barrier, are you?”
Shame filled Andrius, but he turned back to the helpless man again. The fly was crawling on his ear now.
“But . . . but he’s only right there. He could be dying.”
“And he could not. But if you pass this barrier, he’ll still be dying and you could die too! Andrius, we are forbidden from the Regions of Death for a reason! I’m surprised at you.”
A few birds tweeted nearby and insects clicked from their hiding places in the grass. Andrius hung his head, and all of the people there with him stood in helpless quiet, until finally Berena spoke up again.
“We could use a cane.”
The instructor drew back the corners of his mouth thoughtfully.
“Hmm. That could work. Andrius, do you think we can reach his straps with a cane? His pack does have straps, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, teacher.” Andrius nodded vigorously as he borrowed Milda’s cane and jumped up on the lowest tie that made up the barrier fence. It was about two feet above the dirt. The man should fit under it easily. They might have to get him on his side to accommodate for the pack.
“Andrius, here,” the instructor said. “Use my cane; it’s longer. Guide it into the straps and I will pull him in.”
Andrius traded canes, and then he gently prodded the unconscious man. The fly buzzed away, but the man was still motionless. Andrius leaned over the barrier as far as he could and attempted to work the cane under the straps, trying to brace it somewhere.
“Did he do it?” one of the kids asked from the back of the small crowd.
“Not yet,” the instructor patiently replied.
Andrius leaned over so far that he was balancing his torso on top of the barrier now. The cane kept slipping out, but an idea occurred to him. There was a little loop on the top of the pack. Andrius fitted the far end through, then dipped over just a little more and put the near end through the middle of the barrier. It seemed like it might work. They didn’t have to move him far.
“Here you go, teacher,” he said proudly. “Like a lever. Keep the far end up and pull him in.”
The instructor took the cane wordlessly and began the laborious task.
It was rough going as the stranger was full grown and wearing a heavy pack. The cane slipped out of its hold several times and Andrius had to reposition it, but finally the instructor got the man close enough to the barricade that he could reach through and get a hand on his clothes. He and the children heaved him through to their side, to rescue, civilization, and life.
The instructor, who was not as strong as he liked to fancy himself, sat down in a heap after the man was through. Everyone who had helped was breathing heavily.
Andrius cautiously approached the man and pushed him onto one side.
He studied the man’s face.
He was a young man, of marrying age no doubt, but perhaps he did not yet have many children. A bandana was tied around his forehead, soaked with sweat. His eyes were closed.
Andrius leaned in close. He was breathing.
“If I,” the instructor began, pausing every few words for breath, “take him by the . . . arms. Can three of four . . . of you . . . carry him by . . . the legs?”
Andrius turned to the unconscious man again and patted his chest.
“You’re going to be okay. We’ll help you.”