Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  All I can do is stare, off-balance again.

  “I . . . I know it hasn’t been easy for you,” I start lamely. “And I know people like me are what’s put you here. But . . . Lark, for what it’s worth, I’m listening now. A lot of us are listening now. You’re right—there’s nothing anyone can do to change your past. But we might be able to change what tomorrow looks like. We’d like to try to put some of this right.”

  She stands from her rock throne and turns away, stalking to the rest of her clothes. She pulls on her boots, then buttons up her shirt and slides her arms through her vest. She picks up her longsword and broad-brimmed hat from the ground.

  “Lark,” I say again. “You go after slavers—you pick off their wagons one by one. But we can stamp out the root—we can stop the wagons altogether. You wouldn’t have to rescue kids anymore. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “No,” she says.

  “No?” I echo, stunned. “Why on earth not?”

  She knots her faded bandanna around her chin. “Because I don’t trust for one second that you’re going to do anything you just said. Take off your boots.”

  The whirring gears in my head grind to a stop. “What?”

  “Take off your boots, now.”

  My mind jumps back to Colm’s letter, how she robbed him of both pairs of boots. But mine aren’t tough Alcoran cowhide with a hobnailed sole—mine are soft Silverwood buckskin, with the chevron fringe that matches my father’s in his wedding portrait. I made sure to pack my sturdiest pair to change into after peeling off the raspberry silk in the stage.

  “I brought you two bags of supplies and the promise of enough money to buy fifty pairs of shoes,” I say, angry. “I’m not giving you my boots.”

  “I’m not asking you to give them to me. I’m taking them.” She buckles her longsword onto her hip. “Take them off.”

  I plant both feet in the dirt and stand facing her. There’s no give in her face, no soft edge of uncertainty or self-doubt. And she might be armed, but I am, too—the hilt of Iano’s knife presses into the small of my back. She can posture all she wants, but in the end, I’m determined to be the one walking out of here, leaving her holed away in this graveyard canyon.

  “You can’t win out here, you know.” I want to rattle her, jar some kind of uncertainty out of her. “Folk in both countries are closing in on you, and if I can find you, they will, too, eventually. You won’t be queen of the desert for much longer.”

  It’s a quick, efficient movement, and I react too slowly. Without unsheathing her sword more than a few inches, she lunges forward and drives the hilt into my sternum. The breath vanishes from my lungs, and the world tilts—first I double forward, only for her to hook my boot with her toe and give my shoulder a short push. I tip backward like a sawn tree and land hard on my ass in the dirt.

  “Rat,” she says.

  The dog leaps forward. I yelp and throw my arms up, bracing myself for two rows of teeth. But it doesn’t come—only a wave of growling and a wash of rancid dog breath. I gasp to find my lungs again—and now my feet are cold.

  She gives a short whistle, and the beast slinks away. When I look up, she’s tucking my boots under her arm.

  “You sleep here tonight,” she says to me. “Don’t leave this spot or you’ll get a quarrel somewhere important. Tomorrow morning I’ll tie you up tight and give you a ride to Snaketown. I’ll have to leave you a mile or so off the road, though—there’s a price on my head. I’m sure you understand.”

  I scramble to sit up in the dirt, still wheezing, my bare feet scraping on the rocks. “Dammit, Lark, you’re making a mistake—”

  “Dammit, Veran,” she says, turning away. “I’ve got everything I want from you.”

  She sets her hat on her head. “Come, Rat.”

  The coydog lopes to her side. Without another glance in my direction, she strides off through the sagebrush, leaving me with nothing but the coals of the fire and my own idiocy.

  I blew it.

  Not scouting, not fighting, not socializing. Diplomacy. Politics. The kind of thing Eloise could have done in her bathrobe and slippers. The kind of thing my father glides in and out of on a daily basis. The kind of thing I should be successful at, the one role I’ve ever been allowed, guided and hand-held and humored by the courts of five countries. Oh, let him try—he can’t do anything else.

  I crumple onto my side, fling my arm over my face, and groan into the darkness.

  Lark

  I storm up the slope toward camp, fuming.

  The gall of that man, the sheer nerve of him tracking me here to bribe and extort and assume he could buy my cooperation. How dare he walk right in and act like I belong to him. I should have given him the point end of my sword, not the hilt, but the last thing I need is a posse of crossbows combing the river for their lost dandy. The stagecoach driver could estimate the place she dropped him off. Three Lines isn’t safe anymore. I grind my teeth behind my bandanna, slapping sagebrush out of the way. Rat pants along beside me.

  I round the boulder at the edge of camp to find everyone huddled around Sedge’s blanket. My steps slow until I’ve come to a full stop just over Saiph’s shoulder. Sedge is in the process of organizing the contents of the dandy’s pack, in order by size and variety, bless him. The new knife gleams sharp and clean by his knee; the cookpot is bubbling on the fire. Lila is slowly stirring the contents of a packet into the boiling water, releasing a sharp, herby smell. Andras is eagerly chewing a fistful of jerky. Little Whit and Moll are huddled together under one of the quilted blankets, each picking steadily from palms full of plump fruit leathers. I look past them to Rose’s mat—she’s tucked under the other quilt, her stump peeking out from the edge, wrapped in a fresh bandage.

  My legs are suddenly watery, my body crushed with weariness. I listen to the eager smacking of the little ones’ lips, gulping down the food they so badly need, bent over their prizes like crows on carrion.

  Blazing sun, fire, and dust.

  “Saiph,” I say.

  He turns and looks up at me, his eyes bright and his cheeks bulging with jerky.

  “Lark!” he exclaims. “Look!”

  “I know. Listen, we’re going to need to take watches tonight. You’re up first. I’ll come get you in a few hours, and Sedge will relieve me. Make sure that noble doesn’t leave the seep, okay?”

  He swallows forcefully and reaches for a jar of pickles to take with him. “When does he get us out of here? How will he take us all—will he send more horses?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I guess we could sort of share horses and walk some—or is he sending a stage?”

  Andras’s eyes widen. “Are we riding in a stage?”

  I look between them. I look at Whit and Moll, absorbed in their fruits. I look at Rose, unconscious. Reluctantly, I look at Lila, who’s eyeing me accusingly.

  Before I can turn to him, Sedge’s hands still on the saddlebags.

  Slowly, resignedly, he starts dividing his piles—a little for now.

  More for later.

  “We’ll . . . we’ll sort all that out tomorrow,” I say to Saiph and Andras. “For now, Saiph, go on—take Rose’s crossbow up on the big boulder by the seep. If the dandy tries to leave, fire somewhere close enough to rattle him, and then come get me.”

  Saiph grabs another handful of jerky and gets up, dragging the crossbow with him as an afterthought. He traipses off through the brush, licking his fingers.

  Slowly, I lower down to his vacated spot. I take off my hat and rub my forehead—on top of it all, I had to cut my wash short, and I can feel the grime and dried sweat along my hairline.

  “We have to move camp,” I say. Sedge looks up from the packs. Lila’s spoon stops stirring.

  “Whatever for?” she asks.

  “Because they’ve tracked us down.” I’d thought that much was obvious. “They’ve rooted us out. We have to find someplace new. Maybe closer to Pasul, if we can find a draw with a reliable
water source.”

  Sedge is noticeably avoiding my eyes. Lila’s not—she’s staring hard. A droplet of water jumps from the pot and hisses in the flames. She begins to stir again.

  “I take it the negotiations didn’t go well?” she asks.

  “There were no negotiations,” I say. “He wants me to run off and find some court lady in the desert.”

  “For how much?”

  “What does it matter, Lila? We can’t eat money, and we can’t pop in and out of Pasul for supplies every other week—they’ll have all our faces on the outlaw boards within a month.” She’s giving me that reproachful look, so I untuck the soft leather boots from under my arm and toss them in front of her.

  “Here. These will probably fit you, and they’re good and soft.”

  Her gaze falls on them, but she’s not the one to move first. Like a shadow come suddenly to life, the quilt drops and Moll reaches forward. Her fingers close on the fringe.

  “Pa,” she says, dragging one toward her.

  Every head swivels to face her.

  Lila stops stirring again. “Did she just—”

  Andras claps his hands. “Oh, Moll said something!”

  I roll forward onto my hands and knees, my heart pounding. I peer into her little round face, her lips stained pink from the cherries.

  “Moll—what did you say?”

  She hugs the boot to her chest.

  “Do you like the boot?”

  “Pa’s boot,” she says. “Pa’s dancing boot. Pa and Ma dancing the daisy chain.”

  “Are you . . . do you mean this looks like your papa’s boot?”

  “Pa comes back from sivver hole, take off sivver boot, and put on the dancing boot, and dance the daisy chain.”

  “What kind of boot? A what?”

  “Sivver boot.” She pets the line of shiny silver beads stitched along the fringe.

  “Silver boot,” Lila says. “Is that a silver boot?”

  “Dancing boot,” Moll says to the shoe, cradling it.

  Silver—silver boot. My head is too full of buzzing new thoughts. “Wait, that’s—the noble came from there. The Silver Mountains.”

  “Sivverwood,” Moll says, rubbing her nose on the leather.

  Lila turns back to me. “That man’s from the Silverwood Mountains?”

  I sit back on my heels, goggling at Moll cuddling the boot and chatting like she’s always done it. I hadn’t paid attention to where the dandy came from. I assumed the name he dropped was a place in Moquoia or Alcoro, but now I realize I’m wrong.

  “That’s that country,” I begin, my thoughts muddling like shifting clouds. “It’s—where? Next to Cyprien?”

  “It’s beyond Cyprien,” Lila says. She brushes a patch of dirt by the fire ring and scratches the handle of her spoon into the ground. “Across the big river. Look, here’s the Ferinno.” She draws an X. “Then the rest of Alcoro, and that mountain range, and then Cyprien.” She draws a straggly line. “And then the river, and then the Silverwood, with Lumen Lake and the hill country on either side.”

  I stare at her marks in the dirt, fixing on the scratch representing Cyprien, aware of Andras staring hard at her makeshift map. I look past it at the little patch of the Silverwood Mountains.

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  “It’s basic geography, Lark. And I’ve told you, I think I have family in Lumen Lake. Every chance I’ve gotten, I’ve studied the route to get there.”

  I look at Moll again. She’s rocking and humming a tune to herself.

  “Moll—is this where you’re from? The Silverwood Mountains?”

  “Mine house.”

  “What about your house?”

  “Mines, Lark,” Lila says. “There are silver mines in the Silverwood. Her father goes into the silver hole—he’s a miner. She lives near one of the silver mines.”

  I stare at the little girl, overwhelmed and suddenly recognizing the copper skin that I thought had been like Pickle’s but in reality is darker and richer, recognizing the high round cheeks and bright green eyes—more vivid than the noble’s, but I remember their shade from inside the stagecoach. I remember because I’ve never seen eyes that color before, the color the sage turns after a flush of rain.

  Damn, damn, damn, damn.

  Lila clears her throat and taps the edge of the shiny pot with her spoon. “Here, tin cups, everybody.” She ladles out the fragrant tea and hands a cup to Whit and Moll and Andras. “Careful now, they’re very hot. Here, Sedge, and you, Lark. And now—can I have a word?”

  She jerks her head over to Rose’s mat, and slowly I get up and follow Sedge from the campfire, the hot tin cup burning my fingers—but I’m too numb to care.

  Lila settles down at Rose’s head and brushes her forehead.

  “I gave her some of the fever drops,” she says. “We’ll see if they help.”

  Sedge takes Rose’s hand and strokes it. Lila looks up at me—looks at me hard.

  “It’s decision-making time,” she says firmly.

  “I have made decisions,” I shoot back. “I’m not leaving you all here alone to run off on some politician’s errand—not with Rose like this.”

  “You would be refusing even if Rose was perfectly healthy,” Lila accuses. “And you know good and well what she’d say to your decisions. She’d say you’re making the wrong ones.”

  “I’m trying to keep us all safe, Lila. What happens if I’m gone and the folk from town come pouring up Three Lines?”

  “If folk from town—” Sedge begins, and then stops.

  I whirl on him. “If folk from town what, Sedge?”

  “If they come looking,” he says again, looking uncomfortable but resolved, “they’ll come looking for you, Lark, not us.”

  “You’re escaped slaves.”

  “But you have a price on your head,” Lila says. “We’re not worth rooting out, but you are. And if you’re here in the canyon, they’re more likely to arrest us all. But if they find a bunch of kids and a few invalids . . .”

  “You go back into the wagons.”

  “Are you listening to anyone, Lark? Folk are trying to stop the wagons. I don’t pretend there’s not the possibility that something might go wrong, but here you are being handed the best opportunity to get us all somewhere safe, and you’re turning it down flat. What kind of money is he offering? I’m willing to bet it could buy us each a set of new clothes and a safe, legal ride on a stage out of the desert.”

  “I’m willing to bet that stage would dump you on a street corner in Snaketown, or Teso’s Ford, and you’d be no better off than you are now, only you’d be alone.”

  “I’d be a little closer to home,” she says.

  “This is home.”

  “No, it’s not, Lark.” Her brown eyes glitter with the light from the campfire. “This is the heart of the issue for you, isn’t it? You’ve come to think that this dead piece of desert is the only thing in the world left for you. It’s not. Do the thing this fellow’s asking, take the money, and then build something new for yourself. Or are you too afraid to step off the little hierarchy you’ve built, where you’re the queen of us all?”

  I stare at her, her lips twisted up together. “Well, damn, Lila, nobody’s making you stay here. If that’s how you feel, you’re free to go anywhere you like.”

  “No, I’m not, because I have no money, and because I wouldn’t make it past the caprocks.” She points angrily at her abdomen. “You know I’ve been bleeding for eight days now? Not a trickle, heavy. Clots. For eight days. I’ve ruined the spare saddle blanket sleeping with it between my legs.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because what the gall are you supposed to do about it? Nothing. And if I’m angry, it’s because you refuse to accept that one of us is going to die next, and probably soon. If not Rose—”

  “Stop it.”

  “—and not little Whit, then it’ll be me, Lark,” she finishes sharply. “And if you had your way, y
ou’d let it happen.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Prove me wrong,” she hurls back.

  The silence rings between us. Over my shoulder, Moll is still humming.

  I turn to Sedge. “I suppose you feel the same?”

  He looks down at Rose, still holding her hand. “We need help, and it seems like we’re being offered the best help we’re going to get.” He meets my gaze again. “Lila and I can take care of the little ones for a while. Especially with the supplies the noble brought. We’ll be okay.”

  We’re not going to be okay. There is no okay. We’re all screwed, we’re all dead already.

  You can’t win out here. You won’t be queen of the desert for much longer.

  I drag my hat off my head and rub my forehead again. For the first time, I think back to what the dandy asked me to do.

  A Moquoian woman, being held in the desert. South of here, near the abandoned mines, within a few days’ ride of Pasul.

  A waterstained letter. Written on rough sawgrass parchment. A blocky hand spelling words I can’t sound out, with a scrabbled name at the bottom, complete with that letter that doesn’t look like a letter. An M with flares on the sides, like wings.

  A lot like wings, actually. Not feathered wings—leathery wings.

  My brow furrows. I’m hit with the sudden memory of a cloaked figure and the reek of bat droppings.

  Oh.

  Oh, damn.

  I know exactly where she is.

  Veran

  Something flumps into the dirt near my head, sending a cloud of dust into my face. I cough, surfacing from the last threads of an unpleasant sleep. Slitting open my eyes, I see one of my boots lying in the dust.