Unbroken

by E M Kaplan

  The dirt surrounded them, embracing them and entombing them.

  Chapter 56

  “What do you think it is?” Deni asked. He and Zunee stood on a hill and looked down at the strange stone formation decorating the inside of the massive basin. Whatever it was, it was clear that someone or something had created it. The circular pattern was too precise, too deliberate to have occurred in nature or even by accident.

  “Let’s get closer,” she said. Her foot was already in motion when he held out an arm.

  “Are you sure?”

  She frowned. Since when had he ever been hesitant to follow her suggestions? His reluctance gave her pause. But then, they hadn’t come all this way to stop now.

  “I’ll protect you,” she chided.

  He gave a half-laugh. “That you will.”

  They slid down the side of the sandy hill toward the stones to get a better look. Up close, the stones were much bigger than they had appeared from a distance. The nearest one was smooth—no markings or carvings whatsoever. The next was the same, so they discontinued their walk around the perimeter.

  “Perhaps it was a theater of some kind,” Deni said. “Though without any seating.”

  “Maybe if you stand in the center and I stand on the outside, you say some words and I’ll see if your voice carries in any special manner.” Zunee had thought of a story her father told of a special Mask theater he’d once witnessed, in which a person standing in the center of the sunken room could whisper and every person in the room would still be able to hear the speaker as if he were standing next to him. Supposedly, this magical meeting hall was in the Mask settlement. Her father had claimed to have been there once in his youth, though no one believed him. After all, he was a great teller of stories.

  Deni gave her a look. She knew he was too proud to refuse—there were limits, after all, to how much he would put up with when she goaded him. But she wouldn’t allow anything to happen to him. Not while she still drew breath.

  “Go on now,” she said, waggling her fingers at him. “I am the wind.” She imitated her youngest sister’s imperious tone to a tee, and they both grinned.

  He trotted across the red sand to the center of the circle where another stone lay—the hub of the wheel, it seemed. When he reached the stone, he hesitated for a second before he stepped into the center of its smooth surface and turned to look back at her. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear a word he said. She shook her head until he shrugged and jogged back to her. When he drew close enough, he said, “Your turn.”

  She began to shake her head, to ridicule the idea that her standing on the stone would have any outcome different than his. “It won’t make any difference.”

  But he merely crossed his arms while a broad smile spread across his face, white teeth shining starkly against his skin. “Go on now, Mistress Wind,” he goaded, wiggling his fingers now at her.

  She sighed. Clearly this was not an argument worth bickering over—and more than likely, it would be a distant day in the future before she reached the end of his chiding. Her feet hit the dirt in even steps as she loped toward the interior of the stone wheel.

  “I am the wind,” she said under her breath, mocking herself. It served her right for mentioning it to him, even in jest. She knew he was watching her—she could almost feel his gaze boring holes between her shoulder blades—so she stepped right onto the stone without hesitation. At least she would claim that tiny victory in their constant one-upmanship. Standing in the center of the stone, she faced him. In a normal speaking voice, she told him, “I am the wind. Like the one blowing through your empty head right now.”

  No reaction from him.

  “I am the wind. Like how I run past your big, clumsy feet in every race.”

  Nothing.

  Giving up and bored by their lack of discovery, she turned in a circle to look at the other outlying stones—three other ones in each of the directions on a map, north, east, and west. Deni stood to the south.

  Taking a deep breath, she laughed. Once for the ridiculousness of her feelings. Again because it didn’t matter, as long as they remained friends for the rest of their lives. One more breath and she shouted, “I am the wind. All powerful, all mighty, guardian of the Great Mother’s desert.” She meant to scare him, to stir up a breeze enough to gust him right off his stone and onto his backside in the red dirt. For all the times he’d snuck up on her and made her lose her target when shooting…For all the times he’d followed her hare-brained schemes and left her to take the punishment alone, as deserving and as responsible as she was for them…For all the time he hadn’t acknowledged how much she cared for him…

  He must have heard her shout because he was laughing, too. Then she sent him a little wind to knock him back. Just a little. He gave a yelp of surprise, and she laughed harder when he toppled off the stone onto the ground.

  When he shouted back at her, she laughed still more—until he stood and lifted his arms, circling them, waving them.

  Had their childish antics affected the stones after all? She whirled around to look, but the other three stones were still in place.

  To the north, however, the hills had begun to darken. As she thought about her sisters on the shore of the river, her heart beat faster. Need arose within her, and she reached again for the wind, finding it within her grasp. She squinted and swept out with her mind, flying on the back of the wind to see what caused the shadow. Nothing in the sky. She swooped down to look at the hills.

  They looked like insects at first. Undulating in waves. Closer still, she saw each dot, each body. Then she saw their bodies, their faces. Hideous beast-men swarmed across the desert slopes. Horns protruding from their foreheads. Flared nostrils covered with coarse hairs like the beasts of burden that had sometimes come through her father’s camp. Thick skin the color of a dead man, no blood running through his veins. Oversized hands wielding rough tools and weapons, the dull edges of which were stained with the blood of the victims before them. Coming directly for them. She shouted Deni’s name, but he was already on his feet, running toward her.

  She stood on the balls of her feet, poised to run, to take flight.

  Flight? Shaking her head, she reminded herself then. No, she would not run nor flee. With that, she inhaled, drawing in the air that surrounded her, and turned to face the attack.

  I am the wind

  .

  Chapter 57

  “Dovay preserve us, what’s going to happen to them?”

  Jaine watched as Marget, ever the proper and practical one, grabbed her skirts in one hand so she could run unimpeded through the burned ruins of Navio. The chain of the Mask medallion jangled as it bounced around her neck. She took hold of Marget’s other hand and pulled her to make her keep up. Charl, the lunkhead, followed behind them. They’d just watched their companions tumble into the largest sinkhole that Jaine had ever seen. Chances were, the others were all dead by now, chopped up by trogs’ axes.

  “Dunno,” Jaine said—uncharacteristically terse, she knew. “But they’re not here now, and we are. So let’s move ourselves out of harm’s way before we’re all done for.”

  Feet pounding the dirt lanes of Navio, she pulled them south toward the forest, thanking her good sense of direction. No buildings to mark her way, she still did all right, even in these country bumpkin back alleys. What she wouldn’t give to have her poor velocycle back though. What a loss. Smashed to bits somewhere at the bottom of the river. Or washed out into the Great Sea, God only knew how many leagues to the south.

  “I don’t even remember riding it,” Charl commented, sounding disgruntled. They had to climb over a fallen wall, but Charl stepped over it with three long strides, which both impressed and annoyed Jaine. Extra length in her legs would have gotten her out of many a scrape in the city…although the added bulk would have made hiding difficult. How many times had she hidden in a nasty, stinking rubbish bin from an irate shop owner? Enough to know that it worked in a pinch… “I would
have handled it well. You should have let me steer it.”

  Jaine snorted. “Half the time, you were unconscious. The rest, you were out of your bloody mind.” Charl had spoken a dozen words this entire journey. If the oversized ape thought his silent and broody act was going to keep him alive, he was severely mistaken. Quiet and mysterious worked in stories, but not in real life. But now that he was speaking more, she wasn’t impressed much. He seemed to be good at posturing, but who was bloody leading the three of them to safety now?

  “Wait. We shouldn’t go too far,” Marget protested, tugging her hand back, as Jaine led them to the tree line. “What if the others come back up? We should try to stay together.”

  Jaine didn’t let go of her hand. The little housemaid’s loyalty was commendable, but Jaine was more interested in surviving. And she’d take the two northerners with her. No need to have their deaths on her conscience. If she had any sense, she should run off and leave them to fend for themselves. They’d end up getting her killed before long—not a single survival instinct between the two of them. However, she couldn’t abandon them, for whatever reason. She’d just as soon kick a puppy. She shook her head at her stupidity, but she’d save that bit of soul searching for another day.

  “Let’s not think about stopping until we can no longer hear the grunts of those creatures at the very least.”

  Marget cast a horrified look over her shoulder and then shut her mouth.

  When, at last, they had tramped through the forest beyond Navio and all the way to the south, where they cut out of the woods and met the Uptdon River, Jaine slowed their pace. She stood, pondering the water, her hands on her hips.

  “What, are we stopping now?” Charl asked. She rolled her eyes to herself and struggled hard not to throw his words back at him in a mocking tone.

  In point of fact, she had no plan. She had a vague notion that traveling south along the Uptdon—or whatever they wanted to call it now that it flowed the opposite direction—they’d meet others fleeing from the trogs in Navio. Where there were people, Jaine could always find what she needed, whether it be food, coin, or, if she were desperate, help. As always, she’d rather not rely on anyone for anything. But times of unavoidable need called for extreme measures.

  She walked a few paces farther down the water’s edge to get away from Charl and Marget. The other girl had started batting her eyelashes at the oaf again, enough to make Jaine want to gag. Plus, thinking was easier for Jaine when she wasn’t around other people. Quiet was her second choice for deep thought. Her first was under pressure of being chased—she grinned to herself at that thought and the memories it stirred up. Sprinting down the alleys of Tooran with a pocketful of stolen treasure. Those were good days.

  Nights on the streets were pretty ugly though. She sobered at the thought of them. If it weren’t for her adoptive father, Vern, and his generosity, offered without strings attached or demands to be met, she would have been dead already. He’d always called her his street urchin, his foundling, his rogue.

  She grinned again, the seed of a scheme taking root in her mind. And as usual, she acted on it before it had a chance to germinate.

  “Catch,” she called out to Charl, pitching his agamite ring at him.

  The blond blockhead had quick reflexes, she’d give him that much. He caught it before it would have bounced off that same handsome head. In fascination, she watched his lids droop and his eyes roll back in something akin to erotic or herbal pleasure—while she wasn’t personally acquainted with the sensation, she’d witnessed enough back alley, clandestine encounters as to be familiar with it.

  Marget gave a feminine shriek of alarm, looking cute as a bunny. “What have you done?” She ran up to Jaine, and only by the grace of her strict northern upbringing seemed to refrain from hitting her on the arm.

  Ouch. Never mind. There it was.

  Charl fell to his knees on the riverbank as a wave of ecstasy overtook him. Beside him, the water began to churn and swirl, lapping up on the bank as if reaching toward him. The frustrated whack of Marget’s hand on Jaine’s arm turned into an anxious grasp.

  “What’s he going to do? We don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s not in control. He’s not going to stir up the river again, is he?”

  Jaine had been known to lose control of her thoughts as they flowed from her mouth now and again, so she didn’t hold it against Marget. Besides, it was easier to set expectations of people when everything they said came right out of their mouths like water through a sieve. However, the girl might need a bit of goading.

  Putting an alarmed expression on her face, Jaine clutched Marget’s arm in return. “Oh my God, what have I done?” She was careful to say only that and to keep her voice low—not overly dramatic. Though she maintained her gaze on Charl, her attention focused on Marget next to her.

  Now the girl, piqued, had tucked in her chin and took the bait. What would she do? Jaine was fascinated by the whole situation, her pulse pounding with the excitement. She was never more alive than when she felt the threat of injury—or even death.

  “Charl,” Marget demanded, stomping over to the him where he was still on his knees, swaying in rhythm with the current beside him. “Get ahold of yourself.”

  Jaine hadn’t known what to expect, but she’d been hoping for some grand entertainment on a sweeping scale. Subsequently, she was not disappointed when Charl grabbed Marget by her waist and pulled her into a lovers’ clinch, kissing her.

  Even better, Marget drew back her small fist and punched him in the jaw. Jaine hadn’t expected such a mild hit to lay the man out, but Marget was wearing her Mask medallion now. The course of her elbow drawing back made an arc of fire. Then it repainted the air as her fist struck the blow.

  Charl landed on his back, his feet tucked under him. This time, for a first, he held on to his consciousness. With a groan, he pushed himself up to a seated position. However, instead of apologizing or—perhaps more expected—protesting her thwarting of his affection, he smiled. With a flick of his fingers in the air, he gathered a spray of water from the river and misted it over all of them.

  Marget sputtered and narrowed her eyes.

  But he wasn’t done yet. Jaine couldn’t contain the grin of delight that split her face as he began to swirl his finger. The water next to him began to churn in the same motion. An eddy, maybe five hands across, formed. Jaine felt her gaze moving back and forth between Charl’s swirling hand, the waters, and Marget’s narrowed eyes. With great deliberation, Charl raised his arm, fingers still winding in a circular motion, and next to him, the rotating river water rose in a funnel as tall as the man himself.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Marget said through gritted teeth. Hands in fists clamped by her sides, she stood off with him.

  “You think I’m a simpleton, don’t you? Just the same as everyone else back home? Well you’re wrong. You’re all wrong.” He smiled again and cocked his hand back, poised to fling the water funnel at her. One flick and…

  Marget raised her hand and met his water with a blast of fire so bright Jaine had to squint. Heat raced across her face as the flames flew between the two. The fire hit the water mid-air and erupted into a plume of hot steam. Jaine crouched to avoid getting burned.

  Charl laughed and flung another spout of water, this one larger. He lunged, taking a step in Marget’s direction. She shrieked with impotent anger as the water drenched her, but it rose off her body in another cloud of steam. Her skirts dried and crackled, flames licking up from hems. The small twigs and scrub of grass underfoot ignited where she stepped as she charged at Charl, not backing down in the slightest.

  Jaine laughed as the attacks and blocks escalated, the water reaching higher and the fire burning hotter and brighter. Marget and Charl advanced on either other until they were just about nose to nose, taunting and intent on knocking the other down.

  Fire hit water, the steamy mist burning bright as a mirror to Jaine. She covered her eyes, her face and clothes damp wi
th the hot humidity in the air. Sweat ran down her temple, followed the line of her cheekbone, and dripped into her mouth.

  The roar of the churning water fought with the blast of the flames, growing louder until she wanted to cover her ears as well as her eyes. Still crouching low, she covered her head with her arms as the roar grew, so loud it shook the ground, her knees, her chest, and up into her skull so her teeth rattled.

  She opened her mouth to scream as the pain hit her ears, making her mash her hands as hard as she could against them. The pressure increased.

  Then a roar blasted her back onto the hot, muddy ground.

  Silence. Even to her deadened ears.

  Opening her eyes, she looked. Up and up. She blinked, seeking to clear the mist from her eyes. But the spray was not obscuring her vision. A creature loomed over her, maybe the height of five men. Squinting again, she found she couldn’t locate where it began or ended. Blurred edges wavered before her eyes. It stooped before her, craning its watery neck downward so that it could examine her with eyes that looking disturbingly like Marget’s most suspicious expression, a squint that could tell whether Jaine meant to pocket a few coins and trinkets that didn’t belong to her.

  As she lay trembling and stunned on the wet ground, a watery, gigantic hand scooped her up.

  Chapter 58

  When Mel awoke underground in the dark, her eyes were closed. At least, she thought they were. Without sight, it was hard to tell in the dark without bringing a hand up to touch her face. But when she tried to lift her arm, she was unable to move her limbs. Had she suffered some kind of paroxysm or paralysis? The trogs had attacked and…What was that sound?

  Concentrating now, she heard Treyna’s voice. The woman was humming a soft, soothing, and tuneless series of low notes that she repeated over and over.