Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  I get a sudden vision of him stranded out here, all his soft edges and determined buoyancy eventually sanded raw into sharp weariness. “No,” I say quickly. “But only because you’d make a lousy bandit.”

  “That’s true.” He adjusts his folded arms. “Ah well, you’d probably start international wars, just for kicks.”

  “I think I’d prefer to just lie around and eat jam biscuits,” I say.

  “Without dirt on them.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why jam biscuits?”

  “I once snitched a hot plate of them off a windowsill in Bitter Springs when we passed through with the rustlers. Rose and I stuffed our faces with them. They were the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten.”

  He turns his head so his ear is resting on his arms and his gaze is on me. There’s a funny look on his face, something quiet, like the sound of rain outside a window. A jam biscuit is probably one of the least glamorous things he’s ever eaten. To get away from that soft stare, I look back out toward Utzibor.

  “That’s the ring where Rose lost her leg,” I say, nodding to the clearing to the right of the compound. I’d finally filled him in on the rest of my campmates during the morning’s ride.

  He turns his head to look. “It must have been horrible.”

  “Yeah. It was. She passed out for most of it. I had to hold her still while they sawed it off. I still . . .” I trail off, fiddling with the edge of my bandanna. “I think about it a lot.”

  “Do you have nightmares?”

  “I dunno, sometimes, I guess.” I fidget with my hat. “But Rose has the worst of it, obviously. She lost her leg.”

  “Just because somebody’s suffering is worse doesn’t mean yours doesn’t hurt, too.”

  Oh, that’s ripe for a snark, something acidic about what a little philosopher he is, how wise and noble an oracle. But I can’t make the words come out. They hover just behind my bandanna, my gaze fixed on that place, that precise place, where we sat slumped in the dirt. It’s a wonder the ground isn’t still red there. Is her blood still mixed into the soil?

  I clear my throat. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “Me, too,” he says.

  We melt into silence again. Dob and his posse are edging along the riverbank, toward the outer edge of the compound.

  “Lark,” he says.

  “What?”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up in the Ferinno when you were sold in Moquoia?”

  “I wasn’t sold in Moquoia.”

  “You said Port Iskon.”

  “Yeah, that was what was on my papers.”

  “That’s not an Alcoran name,” he says. “At least—there’s no port town I’ve ever heard of by that name. Alcoro’s coastline is too rocky to support much more than Port Juaro and Port Annetaxian.”

  “And obviously if you’ve never heard of it, it must not exist.”

  “I’m serious, though. Iskon is the name the Moquoians call the redwood trees. It’s the name that the first color of the year comes from, iskonnsi.”

  “But my father’s name was Palto.”

  “Yeah, so . . . how did that happen? How did an Alcoran man sell you in a Moquoian port, only for you to wind up back out here?”

  I gaze out at the compound, unable to really process whether this is important, or whether it means anything at all. The more I think about it, the more it needles me—not that I started out in one place and ended up in another, but that I’ve had the wrong interpretation of one of the few known details about my life. It shouldn’t surprise me. Probably most of the other things are wrong—the cinnamon, the braids, the happiness.

  Just as I’m about to muse further, there’s a familiar whirring. The sky, now a deep blush, is speckled by a rising cloud of black bodies. They shoot from the dark gaps in the rocks like a flash flood. They swirl and swarm, growing thicker and louder, diving after invisible bugs midair. Veran picks his head up off his arms.

  “Whoa,” he says.

  The smell hits me, that wave of ammonia, bringing a familiar churn in my gut. But instead of the usual visions of a bloody bow saw separating Rose’s calf from her knee, I glance sideways. Veran’s lips are parted, his eyes darting here and there as the bats cloud. His hands twitch and then turn over, palms up. It seems an odd gesture with the way he’s lying, strangely solemn. Almost reverent.

  I look back up at the bats, now spiraling out of the Utzibor crevices with such force they create a kind of cyclone, like a dust devil kicked up in a wind. A cloud of them races over our heads, swooping for the bugs rising from the heads of the cottonwoods.

  “They’re amazing,” Veran says, hushed.

  I never thought of them as more than a timepiece, and a rank one at that. But the more I watch them bank and dance, like a current of water suspended in the air, the more I agree with him.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He follows a trail of bats as they break off toward the sinking sun, and then his gaze drifts back down toward the compound. He squints in the dying light.

  “What are they doing?” he asks.

  Dirtwater Dob and his group have left their horses standing in the river. Now on foot, they’re creeping toward the outer edge of the compound, where the mules and donkey are tethered.

  “They’re probably waiting for dark, and then they’ll steal the mules,” I say.

  “That one there is messing with something.”

  At first it’s hard to make out—the sky is so vivid that the little flash in Dob’s hands could just be a reflection of sunset. But then the flare grows. It smokes.

  “What the blazes . . .”

  “Is he setting a fire?” Veran pushes himself onto his forearms. “Why?”

  We both scramble to our feet. Rat starts upright, ears perked.

  One of Dob’s group peels off toward the mules. Dob himself takes a few running steps and hurls his flaming bundle at the splinter-dry brush roof of the compound.

  Veran jumps forward and then back immediately. His fingers flex. “What—what do we do?”

  “Wait a minute, let me think . . .”

  “We have to get Tamsin out!”

  “We don’t even know if she’s really in there!” I snatch his arm to keep him from rushing down the slope. “And we can’t just run in with Dob attacking—we’re going to end up in the crossfire.”

  “But . . . but . . .”

  A tongue of flame shoots up from the roof, and then it runs sideways, licking through the brush. There’s a shout from inside. Dob and his companions are running for the door at the far end of the compound, weapons ready in their hands. In the sky, the bats veer from the burning roof, spiraling away across the flats.

  Veran shakes my arm. “Lark!”

  “They set the fire on one end to cause a distraction,” I say. “They’re going to ransack the place and leave it to burn.”

  “It’s going to spread! We have to get Tamsin out!”

  “But if we rush in while they’re fighting—”

  There’s another shout and then a smash of crockery. Part of the roof caves, sending up sparks and a glut of black smoke. It’s burning fast.

  Faster than they expected, probably.

  “Dammit.” I pull up my bandanna. “All right. Cover your mouth. Keep your head down. Rat, stay. You stay.”

  We break from the cover of the trees and race down the hill. Off to our left, the fourth bandit is dragging the mules and the donkey back toward the river, hollering to keep them moving.

  “What’s our plan?” Veran gasps as he keeps pace with me.

  “By the Light, I don’t know.” I’m only just realizing he has absolutely nothing in his hands, no weapon, nothing to defend himself with. But then the bandit with the mules shouts, his face turned toward us. We’ve been spotted—it’s too late to send Veran back.

  “You try to find Tamsin,” I say, sliding my buckler from my forearm to my fist. “Look in the outside windows. There’s a grain storage down at
the far end—”

  “The end that’s burning?”

  I don’t have time to answer. As we reach the door, it flies open, and out races Dirtwater Dob in a plume of smoke, his arms full of foodstuffs and loot from inside. The distance is too short for Veran and me to dive for cover or veer away—all we can do is skid to a stop. Dob does the same, his eyes creased with outrage over his colorless bandanna.

  “What the—”

  There’s a roar from inside, and through the door barrels the one-eyed traveler like a bull out of a pen. Her patch is off, baring a milky blind eye, and her shoulder and sleeve are soaked with blood. Dob wheels from me, dropping his armful of loot unceremoniously onto the ground, and grabs for his mattock. With a mighty swing that’s as much luck as aim—the one-eyed traveler doesn’t slow down a single click, her sword leveled for his neck—his mattock skips over the top of her attack and catches the side of her face.

  Oh, thundering rock, it’s horrible, blood and mass and teeth flying. I crouch with my sword and buckler up as if it’ll shield us both from the sight of the traveler spinning in place, the side of her head smashed like a pumpkin. She drops to the ground in a heap, surrounded by a neat perimeter of red. Dob spares himself a single moment of shock, staring at the work of his mattock as if he never expected a piece of heavy-duty timbering equipment to wreak such damage to a human face. Veran’s breath is ragged behind me.

  There’s shouting—a quick glance over my shoulder shows the fourth bandit racing up from the river where he’s left the mules. From the doorway staggers another, clutching a bundle of jarred goods and rubbing smoke from his eyes.

  “Damnation, Dob, Berta’s down! And I can’t get that last door open—” He stops, seeing the mangled traveler and Dob and me and Veran and the fourth bandit racing up behind. Dob shakes himself out of his pause and swings on us, his mattock head flinging red droplets.

  He lunges. “I’m just about sick of you!”

  I catch the swing on my buckler—blazes, it’s heavier than any longsword, and not built to deflect like a regular blade. Instead of glancing off the rounded edge, the pickax head simply punches through the mirrored surface. Pain races through my knuckles from the impact. Gritting my teeth, I swing for his open side, but his companion jumps in with his bundle of jars, throwing the lot at my head. I duck as jars and lids smack off my forehead before shattering around my feet. The smell of pickles swirls together with the scent of blood and smoke and ammonia. My sword connects with something soft, but it’s a glancing blow, giving way into open air.

  A flare goes up from the roof just behind Dob, sending a thick column of smoke billowing out the door. It buys me a half second—Dob pauses to paw at his tearing eyes. I use that moment to whirl around to look for Veran—I have to get him out of here. But as I turn a complete circle, I realize he’s not behind me like I thought he was. I spin back to Dob just in time to raise my buckler again for another swing from the mattock—I dodge—and then I see Veran. Dob’s companion is on the ground, clutching his forehead, which is covered with glass splinters and bits of pickled okra, and the fringe of Veran’s boots is disappearing into the smoking doorway.

  “Veran!” I arc my sword and catch Dob’s next lunge on his mattock handle, biting deep into the wood. A follow-through with my buckler is hindered by the giant, unwieldy pickax head—the best I can manage is a heavy kick to his kneecap. He hops away, but by now I hear the approaching footsteps of the fourth behind me. I pivot at the last second and deflect a familiar scythe as it cuts through the air. I catch it under the head and slice the curved blade off its handle. This time the follow-through is clear, and I ram my buckler into the face of the bandit with the missing tooth.

  It’s the last clean hit I land before Dob jumps back in. A tangle of snarling arms and legs, we topple to the ground, me sandwiched between their two ripe bodies like a sardine in a tin. A box to my ears leaves my head ringing. I plunge my elbow backward and connect with a nose. Warm blood spurts over my shoulder. There’s a crash of falling timber, and then we’re swamped in smoke, turning the fight into a blind grapple in the dirt. My cheek scrapes raw on the ground. Sand fills my mouth.

  Blazes.

  This is not how I’d wanted to die.

  Or rather, this is not where I’d wanted to die.

  Fighting, okay.

  But not here.

  And honestly, not right now.

  I throw all my weight to one side. Whoever’s on top of me tumbles off, giving me just enough time to use my momentum to arc my sword through the air. It flies downward, and this time, it bites deep, the blade stopping only when it strikes bone. A scream spouts toward the sky.

  My shoulder throbs. My brain fixes on the blank need for survival. I grit my teeth and set my feet under me, my sword still wedged in bone.

  Not going to die today.

  Tamsin

  I open my eyes. The bats are flying, swooping, squeaking. But that’s not what roused me. I frown, the world blurring around the edges. There’s some other sound, something else that prodded me out of the haze my body and mind are sinking into.

  Loud sounds. Loud voices.

  Shouting.

  I pick my head just slightly off my mat, my muscles protesting. I can’t keep it up for very long—I lower my ear again to the ground, my limbs hollow. There’s a clang that sounds like two pots clashing together. I wonder if Poia has finally snapped. I wonder if she’s laying waste to the kitchen, shattering Beskin’s obsessive ordering of the crockery.

  Then somebody screams.

  Not shouts, as if angry.

  Screams. As if hurt.

  I pick my head up again, forcing my trembling arms to hold my weight. I squint up at the little barred window in the door. Standing up to look out seems beyond me—though I doubt I could see anything in the gloom anyway.

  As if in response, the dark window flares. A flicker of orange plays against the metal bars—a deeper orange than sunset dequasi, the sky hues I’ve been studying and naming and whispering to the emptiness. An urksi orange, the deep mellow color of contentment.

  Contentment. I lay my head back down, my gaze still on the little window. It’s a beautiful color. Very close to mine, the noble title I gave myself as I walked into Tolukum court three years ago with a new dulcimer. Tamsin Moropai in-Ochre.

  Perhaps this is the fadeaway. Perhaps this is the final dissolution. A melting into the opohko of the Light, a consciousness sliding from flesh into fractured color.

  The screaming outside is a little weird, though. I wouldn’t have expected there to be screaming.

  The orange burns brighter, becoming yellow-gold. A waft of darkness curls past the bars, like the clouds of bats teeming outside.

  Smoke.

  It’s Beskin screaming, I’m sure of it now. It’s high and long, and then it cuts off abruptly. There’s a crash of falling dishware—now it really does sound like the kitchen is being destroyed. More shouting, harried words in Eastern. Perhaps if my head were clearer I could make them out, but my Eastern has never been as fluent as Iano’s, and I doubt I’ve studied the nature of the commands and invective hurtling up and down the hallway. The smoke grows thicker—it’s sliding in between the bars and the gap under the door. My carved letters of HIRES dance and haze.

  A shadow appears in the little window. The knob on the door rattles violently.

  “Locked!”

  I understand that word, though not the ones that come after it, the hurried jabbering. The knob rattles harder, followed by a few blows of what sounds like a pickax against the door.

  The air is growing warm, and it’s only just starting to occur to me that I might want to be alarmed. Something is on fire. Something happened to Beskin. I don’t especially care about Beskin’s well-being, but if something—someone—has hurt her, then what will happen to me?

  It seems a silly thought. Just a moment ago I thought I was finally sliding into death.

  The door shudders under the repeated blows, b
ut it doesn’t give way. Whoever is hammering at it stops and tries to peer through the bars again. But now the light outside is bright as morning, and the smoke is thick, and I doubt they can see anything inside my lightless cell.

  “Help,” I say.

  But the weak, ill-formed word is lost to a crash—not the fall of crockery, but of timber. The little gap between the rafters and the wall flickers red.

  The door shudders a few more times, and then there’s an impatient shout outside. A fragment of burning material falls behind the shadowy figure at the door. He curses and disappears. Without his head blocking the window, the air is glittery bright.

  I cough on the thickening air. Pain shoots through my head, momentarily blinding me. I crawl forward, my head hanging off my shoulders. My limbs quake, my vision spins. My fingers bump wood and travel upward, up to the blank patch where the doorknob was removed. I curl my fingers, trying to grasp something, but there’s nothing to hold, nothing to shake. I press feebly on the wood, hoping it might give way after the beating from outside, but nothing yields. I curve forward against the door.

  Timber crashes again. Ash and sparks trickle down from the ceiling. Smoke pours in, burning my lungs. I cough again. I had hoped to die placid and easy on my mat—now I’ll be found arched and blackened against the doorframe. The letters I worked so hard on—earned so much pain from—won’t be found after all. I slump down, my cheek pressed to the cool earth. I should crawl to the little window to the outside, give the bats my final moments of lucidity, but I realize I’ve used all my strength.

  I thought the bats would save me. Thought for sure Iano would see the strange flourish in my signature and follow it like an X on a treasure map. Bats mark the spot.

  I don’t blame him, or the bats. It was too much to hope for.

  Heat shimmers through the door. I cough again and close my eyes.

  My brain numbs. It whispers. It murmurs, quick and urgent. It fumbles, metal scraping metal. It turns. It clicks.

  It creaks.

  Something nudges my body, something dense and hard. A slice of light beams across my eyes. I slit them open.