“Then prove it or that’s all anyone will ever see.”
Storm clouds rumbled and flashed in the distance, casting a dreadful pallor across her face.
Michael looked away, tears trembling in the corners of his eyes. “I do know,” he said. “But I also know what I am. A dreg, like all the others.” He looked down at the sword. “It’s a waste of good steel to give me such a thing.”
Lasasha knelt down and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I will show you the way,” she said. “And so much more, Michael Carter. But you must trust me.”
Michael stared into her eyes. Against his better judgment, he felt safe beside her, warm. She could strip me of every ounce of pride and I still would want to be nowhere else.
She reached out and wiped the blood from his wrist.
Michael closed his eyes. Her touch felt wonderful, soothing. What is it that draws me to you?
When he looked up, her face was only inches away, her breath warm upon his face. “OK,” he said.
She moved closer, her lips touching his.
Michael kept still as their breath joined. In that moment nothing else mattered. Nothing but her.
“You’re a fool,” the voice said.
But for the first time in days, Michael didn’t listen.
29
Bored, Gorbin spat a wad of phlegm into the lapping acid. The bloody blob sizzled like a piece of frying bacon, popping and sputtering until it finally dissolved beneath the surface.
Disgusted, he turned back toward the town. “How much longer must I endure these fumes?”
Minwar sat silent beside him, his bloodshot eyes concealed beneath a hood. “The Scavengers are a deliberate breed,” he said, pulling on a stubby adreena stick. “If they are late, then there is cause for it.”
With that said, he leaned back and shut his eyes. He’d spent that morning up at the bazaar, haggling in the dust and smog for transportation to Tritan. In the end, he’d secured passage aboard an aging laxore whale for five thousand coinage. Well above what Gorbin had wished to spend. But it would have to do.
Gorbin frowned as he anxiously paced the dock. He was tired and hungry, the dead stump of an adreena stick hanging limp in the corner of his mouth. “I grow nauseous in this stink, yet here you find sleep,” he grumbled to his companion.
“You would do good to try the same,” Minwar said, his eyes still shut.
In the distance, a bone-white beach glowed beneath the morning sun. Thousands of dead jellyfins and croskils lay frying atop its bleached sands, their once translucent bodies now poached and buzzing with flies. Scattered amongst them, were the frail remains of several human skeletons, their terrified screams forever frozen in acid-washed white.
Sitting opposite Minwar, a portly Garfaxman named Lyotane belched while tipping a flask of steaming blood wine to his chubby, black lips. Like a pregnant sow, the mutant’s stomach bulged through his leather vest, but his face remained concealed beneath a tattered laptane mask. “Anonymity,” he’d once told Gorbin when asked about the mask. ‘“My most prized possession in all the Culver.”
Gorbin looked away from the lout in disgust. Since his exile from Tritan, he’d dealt with the lowest forms of life: thieves, con men, adreena addicts. And now I can add counterfeiters to the slate, he thought.
The Garfaxman sat silent, rolling a gold coin across his callused knuckles. Since arriving in Ix, the mutant had passed off more than a thousand such coins to some of the highest-ranking Circle officials in town. But as with all dregs, his thirst for wealth had caught up with him, and after getting caught passing off a quarter million coinage to a local official in exchange for an ounce of meridium, he was sentenced to three turns in the Boiler Fields.
Gorbin couldn’t help but betray a smile as he remembered his first meeting with the counterfeiter. It had been during a game of Skulls, five-man draw veiled in the shadow of some steaming alley. At first the game had gone smoothly enough; Gorbin feigned the loser as usual, putting on a most noteworthy performance. Hand after hand, he threw down and folded, riding the pot until it was nice and fat. But just when he was about to clench the hustle, the Garfaxman pulled up alongside him, and within the call, the mutant had drawn two double down rolls, wiping the pot clean.
Gorbin sighed. That one loss had set him back almost two turns. A tidy sum of time to be wasted along these stinking docks, he thought. But like all those born of greed and desperation, Lyotane had been easy to convert; just the mention of Gorbin’s true name had won both the Garfaxman’s talents and loyalty.
Gorbin thumbed one of Lyotane’s false coins. There was no questioning the man’s talent. But, in the end, he was still a simpleton, a peasant, and it sickened Gorbin to have to rely on him.
“Better to be off this foul nest before those storms arrive,” Lyotane grumbled, gesturing toward the red elemental clouds hovering in the west.
Above them, the morning sky loomed white and featureless. Heat waves rippled off the cracked roadways and rooftops, while in the harbor dozens of abandoned skiffs lay steaming as their tattered sails flapped atop rotting masts.
“You paid the Laxore wrangler in full?” Gorbin asked Minwar.
Minwar sighed. “My pockets are as bare as that stinking sea. You can check if you wish.”
“And what of the breathing gear?”
“To be provided upon departure,” Minwar said. “But at an additional cost, of course.”
“Of course.” Gorbin lit another adreena stick. The flame sputtered against the fetid weed, as black smoke coiled around his fingers and stung his exhausted eyes. “Very well then. Let us bake until those blind bastards arrive.”
For the next three calls the trio sat in silence. Gorbin burned through five more adreena sticks, the steady high barely sustaining him through the endless boredom. Someday this will be nothing but a bad memory, he promised himself. A tale to tell my children long after the coup is complete.
The coup. The word churned his stomach. Would the city follow behind him? Would they adhere to the law of rightful succession, no matter the circumstances?
They must! I will bring them more power than they could ever dream of.
“You hear that?” Minwar asked.
Gorbin sat up. Somewhere in the deep desert, a strange hiss resonated on the winds.
“Sounds like a sand storm,” Lyotane commented.
Minwar leaned forward in his chair and checked his suit collar. “And a mighty one at that.”
Gorbin staggered to his feet, his ear cocked to the wind. Warning bells rang out across town, followed by the frantic clatter of beggars and whores racing for cover. Even the merchants fled indoors, abandoning their horses and wares to the whims of the storm.
Gorbin swallowed nervously. Never had he seen the streets clear so fast. Must be a monster, he thought.
A thousand footfalls beyond the city’s rotting crown, a great, green cloud stretched across the horizon. Gorbin’s heart raced; no matter how many times he experienced a sand storm, the hissing din still sent chills down his spine.
“A monster indeed,” he mumbled, shielding his eyes as the first sand particles stung his exposed flesh.
Minwar nodded. “Several hundred leagues wide, by my guess.”
Beneath the storm, a line of shadows materialized.
“By the gods!” Lyotane said. “Will you look at that!”
Within the swirling madness, a vast caravan trudged forward, three massive shadows towering behind it.
“Felltowers!” Minwar said, shocked.
The gigantic beasts moved slow and smooth, completely at ease even as the storm pounded their fur-draped backs.
Awestruck, Gorbin stepped out into the street. The beasts were unlike anything he had ever seen. A hybrid of arkned centipede and lavasha krill, they appeared alien by nature: thousands of legs propelled them beneath great locks of tangled, ropy hair, and their long, gapping jaws sagged liked that of stiffened, elderly corpses.
Gorbin stubbed out his
adreena stick and thrust his hand deep into his pockets. A king’s ransom for a kingdom, he told himself as he rolled the counterfeit coins between his gloved fingers. Let’s just hope Lyotane’s craft is enough to suffice.
A guttural horn sounded within the caravan.
“They’re ready,” Minwar said.
Gorbin nodded. “Come then. I paid the local traders handsomely to be first at the lines.”
Dozens of figures slowly emerged from the ruins, their greedy eyes probing the distant caravan. It will only take one of these fools to spot something of worth, Gorbin thought as he pushed past some of the rabble. And then the frenzy begins.
They hurried through the windswept ruins, ignoring pockets of blind beggars and lepers watching from the shadows.
Soon the entire city would be swallowed, Gorbin thought as sand and razor-sharp ice particles hissed against his mask. And then death would begin her harvest.
“Be sure to keep your masks on!” he shouted to the others. To his left, a pack of dogs lay stripped of flesh, white foam coiling from their dead, gaping mouths. Cyanide and acid! Gorbin thought, horrified. What devil would concoct such a thing?
His father came to mind.
Gorbin laughed at the thought. The bastard had concocted enough machines of war to fill hell three times over. But father lacks imagination, Gorbin thought. And it took a particular imagination to conjure such a storm.
“They’re everywhere!” Minwar shouted, pointing at the ground.
Gorbin ignored him as he sidestepped dozens of dead cats and dogs scattered at his feet.
“The sands kill quick here,” Lyotane grumbled.
Minwar adjusted his breathing nozzle. “It’s not the sands, fool. Cyanide gas rides the winds.”
To their right, tucked in a normally bustling side street, dozens of carts stood abandoned, dying horses still lashed to their yokes. I will not miss this place, Gorbin thought as the terrified beasts reared against their bonds.
When they finally reached the edge of the ruins, all three men ground to a halt.
Amazing, Gorbin thought. For as far as the eye could see, the desert lay covered in an inch-thick layer of ice.
“By the gods!” Minwar breathed. “Is that what I think it is?”
Lyotane stood beside him, fumbling with his mask. “Couldn’t you have gotten ones of better make, Min?”
“Just shut your mouth and pray your coinage fools the buyers,” Minwar said.
Mumbling some form of insult in Garfax, Lyotane tipped a bottle against the outer end of his breathing nozzle and downed a great, sand-ridden gulp. “You needn’t worry, Min,” he gasped between sips. “My craft is the finest in the land.”
“We shall see.”
Gorbin shifted uncomfortably as a brood of smaller shadows broke from the caravan. Ochoarachs, he thought, his stomach tightening. Or as they were known in the Culver: Krill. Since the end of the war, the Blind Scavengers had trained and used them to sniff out all forms of danger lurking beneath the Culver sands. Rumor even had it that once bonded to their blind masters, the beasts served as guides and protectors for life.
But to strangers they are as deadly as sand vipers, Gorbin thought.
“I wish these blind bastards would get a move on,” Lyotane mumbled. “My teeth are floating.”
“You would do best to hold it in,” Minwar said. “These storms can strip you of your manhood just the same as a cook peeling a potato.”
Lyotane laughed, but his hand drifted over his groin.
The Ixian storm bells clanged three more times, luring the caravan toward the western edge of the city. As they approached, two enormous krill broke from the pack, their ivory fangs glimmering like rattling blades.
Gorbin tensed as the largest spider brushed past his leg. “Keep still,” he whispered to the others. “They’re trained to kill if they sense danger.”
The beast circled him like a hungry scorp, its many eyes scouring his laptane-ensconced flesh.
“Damn things are ugly as sin,” Lyotane mumbled, as one gently nipped at his suit.
“Perhaps,” Minwar whispered. “But without them the Scavengers would be nothing but blind beggars trolling the lines.”
Gorbin felt his muscles relax as the beast finished its inspection. One bite and it would have been a quick and agonizing death. For in a single, microscopic krill gland there was enough venom to kill an entire army.
Another horn sounded amongst the caravan, a throaty call that sent the arachnids scuttling back to their unseen masters.
Gorbin turned to his comrades. “Remember. . . you’re here to watch my back, nothing more. Just be silent and let me do the talking.”
Minwar bowed, a forced smile creasing his pallid face. “As you wish.”
Lyotane made no reply; he was too busy trying not to piss himself.
A figure broke from the caravan, a frail, emaciated form limping towards them. As it drew closer, Gorbin noticed two milky white eyes staring at him from beneath a weatherworn laptane mask.
The scavenger halted several footfalls away. “What is your business?”
Gorbin swallowed. “We’ve come to take our weight in trade.”
The man sniffed the air, his blind eyes skipping over each of them in turn. “What price say you, gob?”
Gorbin’s face crinkled into a smile. “That depends on your haul. Your man has told me you hold a Karna-bara?”
The scavenger nodded. “Our last chieftain forfeit his life for the mere touch of its walls.”
Gorbin’s heart lurched. By the gods, he thought. Then the rumors are true.
“What say you, gob? An offer of gold or trade?”
Gorbin ran a hand over the pouch bulging beneath his suit. It was all he had now: false coinage mixed with whatever meager winnings he’d won the night before. A pitiful show for a prince.
“I offer three thousand gold,” Gorbin said.
The scavenger raised his hand, signaling a comrade forward.
Lyotane and Minwar stirred restlessly behind him.
“How much longer must we stand here?” Lyotane muttered.
Gorbin glanced at the Garfaxman. “As long as it takes! Now be silent!”
The two scavengers whispered to one another in desert speak, as the others looked on impatiently. When they were through, the gimped man turned his blind eyes toward Gorbin.
“Ten thousand coinage,” he said. “Gold of Circle mint. That is our price.”
Gorbin’s heart stopped. Ten thousand! Armies had been purchased for less. But there can be no bartering with these blind bastards, he reminded himself. Scavenger prices were firm and lasted only as long as a face-to-face meeting. After that, the deal was permanently retracted.
“That is our price, gob. Take it or move on.”
Gorbin sighed. He had already spent a small fortune bribing his way to the front of the bidding lines. His secret reserves in both his waist pouches and socks were gone, and whatever else remained was tucked neatly in his breeches. And I’m not about to drop my draws for these blind louts, he thought. He would have to throw more of Lyotane’s coins into the mix. A risky move, but there’s little choice in it now.
“Very well,” he grumbled. “Ten thousand it is.” Gorbin reached into his pocket and withdrew a sack full of coins. After taking five hundred coinage for himself, he tossed the balance to the blind man.
Lyotane shifted uncomfortably as the Scavenger began tracing each coin’s surface. “It’s all there,” he reassured him.
The man lifted his mask and pressed the coin between his blackened teeth.
“True Culver tender,” Lyotane went on.
The man stared at him with his gray, desert-blind eyes as he rubbed a coin suspiciously between his thumbs.
He suspects! Gorbin thought, his heart lurching into his throat.
But to his sudden relief, the scavenger tucked the coinage into the pouch and shuffled back toward the caravan.
Lyotane breathed a nervous sigh.
Gorbin felt sweat trickling down his back. He was broke and busted, his only friends a counterfeiter and a cast-out. An exiled beggar staring into the abyss, he thought. May the gods favor me now.
A loud groan rose up from the caravan. Moments later, two felltowers lumbered forward dragging a wagon with an enormous black block atop it.
“By the gods,” Minwar breathed.
The Karna-bara stood at least twenty footfalls tall, dwarfing both felltowers, and its surface was black as night, with patches of dull frost scattered across its four visible faces.
“It seems your coins passed the test,” Minwar whispered to Lyotane.
Gorbin smiled. This is my day, he thought. They can’t turn me away now. Not with a prize such as this. His eyes widened in awe as the chamber swelled before him. It was the largest he had ever seen, every inch plated in black steel and polished to a high sheen. Within its sackcloth-black gloss, flecks of meridium glittered gold like distant stars.
My god, you are a masterpiece, he thought. Not even his grandfather, Master Engineer Yaro III, could have designed its equal. And he had been lead designer in the city’s enormous workshop, forging countless Karna-baras for some of the most powerful families in the world. And still none ever compared to this.
The felltowers swayed from side to side, white foam dripping from their stubby, piggish nostrils. Like the krill, they, too, had adapted to the desert’s climate; their great, humped backs contained enough fat and water to sustain them for months, and their dense, ropey fur collected what little moisture was in air, transferring into their dense flesh.
The winds peeled back the beasts’ matted locks, thrusting a moldy stink into Gorbin’s nostrils. Yet another reason I am to be done with this land, he thought.
The chamber’s sackcloth-black steel sparkled as the wagon shifted atop the sands. Here and there, cracks revealed themselves in the frosted skin, spider-web like patterns branching in every direction.
Gorbin approached it and held out his hand.
“I would not do that,” one of the Scavengers warned. “It kills on touch. Most likely an ice trap embedded within.”
Sand and Scrap Page 32
