“I guess you'll get one,” Jacob said.
9 – SURROUNDED
The leader of the attacking Udanudaga tribe stood forth, brandishing a ceremonial knife in one hand, and a string of small skulls in the other, with cogs for eyes. His long, dark hair was tied up, so that it almost looked like a tree was growing upon his head, the loose locks flowing down like leaves. His face was painted white, and his eyes were dark, as if it were just his own skull that sat there.
He shook the fetish of skulls menacingly at them. Brooklyn backed away, but the others stood strong. The leader chanted something, and the surrounding horde chanted the same verse in chorus. He chanted again, a different line this time, something in their native tongue, but the tribesmen were silent now. He chanted a third time, that first line again, and the crowd erupted once more. Drums sounded now, and it was clear that these were not the drums of dance, but war.
The tribesmen charged, yelling madly, waving their weapons in a frenzy. Rommond and Taberah fired off several shots, killing many of the attackers, but there were many more of them, and they were soon forced to turn to hand-to-hand combat. He always said that a soldier must still be a soldier in the battlefield of inches. And for that, Rommond did not just have a saying; he had a sword.
He slashed them with the edge of the blade and lashed them with the flat, wounding as many of them as possible in a single strike. Taberah bashed them with the butt of her rifle, striking them in the face, whacking them in the knees, and crushing them in places that hurt a lot more.
Brooklyn did not fight, and he never fired a shot, not because these were his people (his own had little love for the Udanudaga), but because his people fought not just for peace, but with peace. He could make weapons—he just could not fire them. The part that could, the machine part, the Regime part, he resisted, though it was difficult to resist. He kept close to the Silver Ghost, trying to commune with the spirits, but found them scattered, whispering among themselves about the wrath of the Great Mother.
Jacob tried to protect Whistler, ushering him behind him and pushing the boy back towards the warwagon, where no one could snatch him from behind. Two tribesmen approached carefully, raising their spears. Jacob was already out of bullets, and he did not think he could parry blows with his pistol. He had never considered himself much of a fighter, but he was quick on his feet. The problem was that he could not just dodge and duck—he had to be a shield as well.
The first spear flew forth, and Jacob edged out of the way, dragging Whistler along with him. The tip of the spear struck the warwagon, dinting the hull, for these were the diamond-tipped weapons of a tribe known for slaying metal. The second spear came in at the other side, and Jacob forced Whistler back the other way, where the first tribesman was still pulling out the tip of his spear.
Jacob saw his opportunity, and made himself into a weapon as well as a shield. He lunged at the first attacker, knocking him to the ground, and turning his spear on the second, where the diamond pierced flesh just as good as metal. As the second attacker fell, collapsing on Whistler, who cowered beneath the bloodied body, Jacob tried to wrestle the spear from the other tribesmen on the ground, failing to loosen the man's iron grip. So the smuggler kept one hand on the spear, to keep it in place, even as the tribesman tried to pull it from him, and used his other hand to fire punches, which were better than bullets, because they never ran out.
The horde hounded whoever the spirit-talker pointed at, and first he pointed at Taberah, but she beat them back, and she taunted them with her amulet, which beat back their will. Then the spirit-talker turned to Rommond, identifying him as the biggest physical threat, knowing that when a leader falls, the led fall with him.
While the tribesmen gathered around the general, and he swiped in a circle to keep them at bay, dripping sweat and blood, heaving and panting, one of the Udanudaga seized Brooklyn and threw him to the ground.
“Ootan!” the tribesman growled, before sitting on top of him, holding the mechanic down. “You live with outsiders.” He gripped Brooklyn's short hair tightly, almost ripping it from him. “You cut your hair.” He then tore a piece from Brooklyn's blanket, holding it up. “Why wear this when you not honour your traditions?”
Brooklyn answered none of his attacker's questions. He did not fight or resist, though part of him wanted to. He kept that one tradition of peace, and knew that he might die for it.
“You are traitor!” the tribesman shouted, grabbing a rock and bashing Brooklyn in the face. “You conspire with walled-ones!” Another bash, another bruise. “You work with land-foulers!” Another ripple of pain, another cry. “With sky-darkeners!” It seemed then that the next strike might end the pain, and darken the sky for Brooklyn one last time. The rock struck once more, breaking through the skin, revealing the iron plating across part of Brooklyn's head, the part of him that was no longer human. The tribesman paused and backed away, before pointing a shaking finger at him and screaming, “The machine spirits have made you one of their own!”
Then something came over Brooklyn, and he felt suddenly very different. The memories of his people were replaced by different ones, and he felt like he was standing once again in the central plaza of Blackout, aiming the gatling gun strapped to his arm. He stood up and grabbed the Udanudaga by the throat with his metal hand, pushing him back against the warwagon. The tribesman struggled, but each kick just tightened the iron noose a little more, until he no longer had to worry about the fouling of the land or the darkening of the sky.
Brooklyn dropped the body, and he felt suddenly himself again, only a darker self, a self full of guilt and anguish. He had his old memories again, but now he had a new one: killing another person, killing them with his bear hands. But this metal gauntlet was not his hand. That metal plating in his head was not his skull. He was a mix of borrowed pieces, broken pieces. They fitted together, but they did not make him whole.
The tribesmen came from all directions, more than Rommond could fight in. While he blocked one attack, and broke another, two more came from behind. While he was parrying high, they beat him low. In time he was brought to his knees, and when he tried to get up, they knocked him down again. They threw themselves on top of him, bashing him with their hands. For a moment it seemed that he was overwhelmed, and his own cries were drowned out by theirs. Then they erupted off him, and he let out a roar like a volcano.
But they returned, tiring him, crowding in so that he did not have the space to use his sword. They piled on top of him again, crushing him beneath their weight, and though he struggled, he could not erupt again.
Yet through the gaps between the limbs, he saw the spirit-talker, with his eternal pointing. Rommond fumbled for his revolver, knowing he had just a single bullet left, the bullet he kept for their leader. He did not have a clear shot, but he did not need one. He fired towards the tip of a spear planted upside down in the sand. It bounced off, striking the warwagon, before bounding back towards the spirit-talker.
“No!” Brooklyn shouted, as he heard the familiar ricochet that Rommond was known for.
But it was too late. The bullet struck the spirit-talker, and he fell upon the ground. The fetish fell from his hand, and the skulls rolled across the sand, the cogs falling from their eyes.
Brooklyn shook his head. “The machine spirits are very angry.”
The engine of the Silver Ghost ignited, and it almost sounded like an angered cry. It revved with rage, and the wheels span with hate. Rommond could hear it coming even underneath the soundproofing of the tribesmen's bodies, and he felt it too as one of the front wheels ran over them, crushing them. It was just metal. It did not have a heart. So, it did not care who it killed.
The tribesmen took the brunt of the impact. Several of them rolled off, clutching their arms, legs, or torsos, screaming out. And they screamed more as the Silver Ghost came by again. Others ran, abandoning their attack on Rommond, but the warwagon pinpointed the gene
ral with its lanterns, and it would not abandon the fight.
“Brooklyn, do something!” Rommond cried.
“I can't!” Brooklyn shouted back. “I call, but they do not listen. You do not listen. That link is gone, Rommond. It is gone!”
Rommond rolled out of the way of the next drive by, but he knew he could not do this for long. The Silver Ghost was built for speed. It had no guns, but now its wheels were its weapons, and its maker was about to be unmade.
Then Taberah stepped in front of Rommond, as the spinning wheels kicked up sand, and he was about to push her out of the way before that fateful hit, but the Silver Ghost halted mere inches from her, mere inches from the amulet she pressed towards it. The spirits fled again, and Taberah and Brooklyn helped the general to his feet.
“Brooklyn, you know I love you,” Rommond said, “but you better get your act together with these spirits. You're our best ambassador there. We can't fight a war in two different worlds.”
“Before this war is over,” Taberah said, “we might have to.”
Dawn broke, and the sun painted over the pigment of the night with its own dull shade of red. The sky looked as if blood had been spilt in the heavens as well as the earth, and while one eye of the gods closed, another brighter eye opened to watch the carnage.
The tribesmen were without a leader, but they were not without the will to fight. Though they were reduced in number, and many were tired and injured, they still outnumbered the others, and no sacred amulets would scare them away. They gathered around again, surrounding them, hounding them back towards the warwagon, as if they were offering them as sacrifice to it.
“Stay behind me, kid,” Jacob said, ushering Whistler back once more.
The tribesmen closed in, and it did not seem like any amount of ammunition was enough for them. As it stood, the Resistance team had none.
“These are Udanudaga,” Brooklyn said, as they drew closer, pointing a spear to his throat. “Slavers of udanu, of machine spirits. In league with Anganda.”
“What does that mean?” Jacob asked, as another spear came dangerously close to his face.
“They do not take prisoners.”
Taberah glared at her attackers. “Good.”
Jacob gulped harshly. This was not how he expected to go out. He thought it was more likely that he would go down trying to breach the Iron Wall, the foundations of which he had helped to build as one of his many punishments for the crimes of his father. The image of the tracks flashed in his mind, where his childhood died. It was only fitting that his adult life die there too. But here? In the Wild North? I'll soon be forgotten, he thought. Just another grain of sand.
But the grains of sand that they all stood upon, that held them up, that cushioned their feet, were something more when they came together, when the wind took them in its invisible hands and tossed them to and fro, and turned them about, until they seemed alive, until it appeared as though there were other spirits working, speaking in the language of the weather.
As the Udanudaga closed in, pulling back their spears for the final strike, and as Jacob braced for that fateful moment, and still tried to block those blows from hitting Whistler behind, dust devils seemed to spring up in the canyon to their right, and the whirling sands advanced towards them all—and mixed with the sound of the whirling, was the sound of stampeding hooves.
10 – THE DUST RIDERS
The dust devils advanced at an incredible pace, taking all by surprise. Some of the Udanudaga fled at the sight of them, while others turned their spears in the direction of the charging pillars of dust, as if spear could hold back sand.
Jacob was about to seize the spear of one of the tribesmen, but Rommond held him back just in time as the whirling sand spirits sped by, crashing into the few Udanudaga who dared to face them. The wind was ferocious, even to those not directly in the dust devils' path, and the sand attacked all eyes, forcing Jacob to turn away and hold up his coat to shield his face, and his own body to shield Whistler.
Everything became suddenly very dim, as if dawn had been caught unaware, and was strangled by the persistence of the night. The sand kicked up so high that it partially blotted out the sun, at least to any who stood close enough to the spinning pillars. The haze was thick, making it hard to see much in front of their faces, and the stinging grit made any attempts to see even more difficult.
The sound was also ferocious, roaring in one ear and howling in the other. Jacob could hear people shouting, but the cries were muted. He only knew that they were shouts because he could hear them at all.
He stumbled with Whistler, pushing him back, trying to get closer to the Silver Ghost, to get some shelter, but neither of them could see where they were going, and the sand about their feet seemed to mount, as if the dust devils were feeding the dunes.
As they scrambled away, Jacob heard other noises like the neigh of horses, and he thought he was hearing things, until he saw what looked like the vague silhouette of horse-riders vanishing in and out of the sand twisters, and then he hoped he was seeing things.
At last they felt their way to the warwagon and hauled themselves inside, shaking the sand from them, rubbing their eyes and blinking furiously to dislodge the grit. They coughed up dust, until their lungs ached and their throats were raw.
“What was that?” Whistler asked mid-cough.
Jacob searched his coat for his cannister. He gulped the whiskey down, and though it burned, it helped alleviate the drought. He almost felt like washing his eyes with it, but he knew that burn would not help at all.
“You're asking the wrong guy,” Jacob said, handing Whistler the cannister. “I'd offer you water, but this is all I've got.”
Whistler reluctantly took the cannister, just as Rommond, Brooklyn and Taberah stumbled inside.
“I was only minding it!” Whistler exclaimed.
Rommond and Taberah were wearing goggles, but they still coughed up sand like all the rest of them. Brooklyn had his blanket over his head, and it was clear that Rommond led him to the warwagon or he would not have been able to see where he was going. The trio collapsed upon the floor, panting and wheezing.
“Phew!” Taberah said. “We got lucky there.”
Rommond nodded, unearthing his cannister of water and pouring some of it over his face before handing it to Brooklyn.
“You call that lucky?” Jacob asked, taking back his own cannister from Whistler, who had been eagerly shoving it towards him since the others arrived. The smuggler swamped down another swig.
“We're still alive, aren't we?” Taberah replied.
“Until those dust devils come looking for more people to eat.”
Rommond laughed. “You've never been up here before, have you, Jacob? Tabs is right. We got lucky here. Those are not just dust devils out there. Those are the Dust Riders.”
“Losa Ariasa,” Brooklyn said, sharing their tribal name.
“They're the most skilled of all the tribes' riders,” Rommond explained, “so skilled that they can match the exact speed of one of those twisters, and they can hide in them, and they can even guide them, urging them along in any direction they will. Only the best of the best are out there. Those who aren't up to scratch … well, they don't survive the training.”
Rommond seemed to admire this approach. Jacob was glad he did not quite apply the same strict rules for Resistance fighters.
Jacob tipped his cannister to the general as a form of cheer. “Well, it's quite a cool idea.”
“Where did you think we got the idea for Dustdelving from?” Rommond replied with a smile.
11 – THE LAST OF THE GREEN GRASS
The Dust Riders never greeted them, and perhaps it was impossible to greet, what with the spinning sands about them, but Rommond gave a salute through one of the windows, before setting the warwagon back in motion, accompanied for a time by a galloping and a whirling, u
ntil the night crept in again, and those horsemen crept away.
Jacob watched as the thick sand gave way to a thin dust, which faded into a cracked earth, dotted here and there with patches of grass, until the warwagon rocked on healthy soil. The sight of the yellow and red turning to green was beautiful, and though Jacob was never much of a nature lover, nor much of an outdoors man, he watched the shifting terrain and could not help but think back to what Altadas was like before the demons came.
“It's beautiful,” Whistler said, peering out the window on the other side. There was no glass on those windows, but if there were, Jacob was certain that the boy's face would be pressed against it. Instead, he hung over the edge, dangling one arm, trying to feel the blades of grass as they whisked by. It took a moment for Jacob to realise that Whistler had probably never seen grass before. He was supposed to have been one of the Last, born just after the Harvest, but he was born even later than that, born to a human mother and a demon father, into a world of sand.
“Be careful,” Jacob told him, as he glanced over to see the boy nearly completely out the window, his legs halfway in the air.
Whistler hauled himself back inside and perched himself on the edge of his seat, as if he was ready at any moment to dive back outside again.
“Why does it grow here?” the boy asked. “Does it rain here? Will we see rain?”
“I think Brooklyn would know more about that,” Jacob said, “but as far as I'm aware, the tribes carry water from the wells for miles to manually water this land. It's why there's not much of it. It's the last of the green grass. They don't wait for the rain, because it doesn't fall often enough, or heavy enough. They tend to it every day.”
Even as he spoke, Jacob could see figures in the distance, carrying long hollow wooden beams on their shoulders, with little holes every now and then in the frame, from which fell a trickle of water as they walked.
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