“This friend of yours knows his way to Tanguro.” Dayne squints at the map. “He even marked the travel caves along the North Road.”
I squeeze my gloves into fists to keep from fidgeting.
Without taking his eyes off the map, Dayne says almost to himself, “What I wouldn’t have given to know about these….” He rubs at the place on his right glove where I know the blazing sun tattoo marks his hand.
When he sees me watching him, he rolls up the map and taps it against his hand.
“Do you have any idea how valuable this is?”
I don’t know what answer he expects me to give, so I don’t say anything.
“If this is accurate, we might be able to reach Tanguro without having to worry about certain death from the Burn, at least.”
If Dayne noticed that my story doesn’t line up, he doesn’t say anything.
Dayne looks at our shadows. “Sun’s getting high, and I don’t like to hang around this close to the road. There’s an open stretch we’ll need to cover before high day.”
After plotting our route, Dayne gives me back the map, which I roll up and tuck into my bundle. I follow Dayne as he leads us toward a steep hill that, once we’ve passed over it, will make us invisible to anyone on the road.
The scorched land crumbles beneath our feet, and Dayne offers his hand to help me over the rocks at the base of a hill. Instead of taking it, I ask, “Who uses the North Road these days?”
“Halves, mostly. Occasionally Duskers. Although with the threat of Halves, the Duskers don’t often venture far from Malarusk.” A grim smile tugs at his lips. “They’re good at hiding in their citadel and letting the Dwellers do their dying for them.”
I look at Dayne in surprise. The Duskers protect the Dwellers, not the other way around.
I open my mouth to speak, but Dayne raises his fist without even looking at me. A shiver runs up my spine.
The ground beneath us begins to shake.
CHAPTER 12
Stones hurtle down the hill toward us.
My first thought is it’s a Dusker trap. I’ve heard of them lying in wait to catch violators of the travel ban.
Or maybe they were just waiting for me.
Dayne grabs my arm and pulls me out of the rocks’ path. We narrowly avoid an uprooted tree that’s hurtling down the hill in the flow of earth. The entire hill is crumbling before us.
When the rocks stop falling, I look around with wild eyes for the Duskers’ gray cloaks. I expect the black arrows from their dreaded crossbows to come whizzing at us.
With trembling fingers, I take out my sling. My fingers fumble in the dirt for a sharp stone fragment to place in the leather pouch. It will be a pathetic defense against even a single Dusker, but my daggers would be even less useful. Getting close enough to a Dusker to use it would mean certain death at best. Capture and torture in the Malarusk dungeons would be worse. I shudder at the thought and grip my sling.
Dayne stands beside me with his axe in one hand and a spear I didn’t even know he had in the other. I squint through the eddies of swirling dust to the crumbled hilltop, ready for an army of Duskers to descend on us.
No one appears.
I release the pent-up air in my lungs, but Dayne keeps his weapons drawn.
“It was no force of nature that caused those rocks to fall,” Dayne says, breaking the eerie silence. “You stay here and keep that sling of yours ready. I’m going to go have a look up there.”
Nodding, I tighten my grip on my sling.
It’s so quiet. Too quiet. Maybe Dayne is with the Duskers after all and has gone to warn them about me. But where could I hide? The trees are too far away; the Dusker arrows would find me long before I reached them. My limited options swirl in a disorganized haze as fear settles in my stomach. Finally, when I can’t bear waiting any longer, I edge closer to the bottom of the hill where the stones have piled up in a great heap.
A muffled squeak from the mound of rocks makes me leap backward.
“Dayne?” The air is still too dusty for me to make out anything farther than a few paces from where I’m standing. Did I imagine the noise?
“Help!”
This time, there is no mistaking the cry. The voice is coming from partway up the broken hill. I pick my way through the toppled stones, careful not to fall and break my legs.
“Help me! I’m buried!”
The voice is too high-pitched to be Dayne’s. I keep my sling and dagger ready in case I’m walking straight into the Duskers’ waiting arms. Not that either weapon would do me any good if they’re waiting to ambush me.
“Where are you?”
The cry grows closer and more desperate. “Please! My leg is caught!”
I throw my pack and sling on the ground to use both of my arms to shift the stones away from the voice, which is coming from below ground.
As I pull away a slab of stone that is three paces long, a gloved hand reaches up to grab mine. Holding the stone aloft with one hand and scooping aside rubble with the other, I stare at the person emerging from beneath the fallen rocks.
Dayne appears beside me as the small person scrambles out from beneath the rubble. A boy, covered from head to foot in dust the color of filthy brick, scrambles onto the ground in front of us.
Before the boy can utter a word, Dayne points the blade of his axe at his thin neck.
“Dayne!” I gasp. “What are you doing?”
He ignores me, addressing the boy in the same harsh voice he used when I first met him. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Even beneath the layers of grime that cover the boy’s bone-thin face and tattered cloak, I can see he’s trembling. He can’t be older than eight or nine. His hair is matted with sweat and sticks up in every direction. His head seems too big for his twig-like body. The boy doesn’t look strong enough to stand, let alone attack the two of us.
“I was stuck under the rocks,” the boy stammers after a tense silence.
“You with the bandits? Where’s your cave? Are there more of you?”
The boy’s eyes dart from me to Dayne.
“Dayne, put your axe down!”
Surprised by my tone, Dayne lowers his axe without argument.
“Are you alright?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even to show we mean the boy no harm. His brown eyes are wide and seem to pop right out of his scrawny face.
Without looking away from me, the boy points to his leg. Blood trickles across the rock by his feet.
“He’s hurt!”
Dayne, still holding his axe in one hand, kneels on the ground to tie a strip of his shirt around the boy’s knee.
“We’ve got to get this cleaned up. Infection will kill him soon enough if the sun doesn’t get to him first.” Dayne makes no attempt to spare the boy from this diagnosis.
“Do you have any family? Any friends?”
The boy doesn’t answer. He stands in his too-big cloak, shivering in the baking sun.
“Are you alone?” Dayne persists.
When the boy manages a slight nod of his head, Dayne hoists him over his shoulder and picks his way through the rubble down the hillside. I gather my fallen pack and sling and trip over the rocks behind them.
“Where are you taking him?”
“Back to the river. We have to wash this knee and see what the damage is. Then, I’d like us to get back under cover of the trees before we attract every Halve and bandit this side of the mountains.”
Dayne handles the boy as gently as he would a sack of grain.
Where is the boy from? How long has he been out here? He looks frail enough for a breeze to knock him over. A trail of blood speckles the ground in his wake.
Dayne drops the boy onto the riverbank to inspect the wound. In the shade of an overgrown bush, he pushes the boy’s cloak aside.
His knee is swollen to at least twice its normal size. The wound leaks blood, which leaves muddy streaks down the boy’s leg.
I draw in my breath as
I see the sliver of stone wedged in his flesh. The boy’s screams turn more to howls as Dayne works his fingers around the tender area.
Dayne is going to pull the stone out of the boy’s knee. My stomach curdles. I clutch the boy’s hand, both to offer him comfort and to steady myself.
“On three,” Dayne grunts. “One, two, three!”
An agonizing wail from the boy subsides into pitiful whimpers as Dayne extracts the stone, holding it between his forefingers. I can’t take my eyes off the oozing hole in the boy’s knee and the tattered skin.
Dayne’s gaze softens just a little as he lifts the boy to his feet. He is gentler this time, and even mutters some encouraging words as he helps the boy limp to the water’s edge.
I cover my mouth to keep from echoing the boy’s screams as his knee is submerged in the water. The boy utters several curses when Dayne begins to scrub the boy with a rag and a bar of soap he produced from somewhere in the depths of his cloak. The boy’s shrieks become more vicious as Dayne nears the injured knee, and after a short battle, Dayne throws the soap at the boy and growls, “Here, do it yourself. But for sun’s sake be quiet about it, or you’re going to attract every Dusker and Halve this side of Malarusk.”
When he rejoins us on the bank, the boy is dripping and almost clean. Without the layers of grime, he somehow looks even frailer.
Tossing me a fresh piece of cloth, Dayne says, “Bandage his knee. Tight enough to keep the blood locked in, but don’t cut off his circulation.”
We sit in a sliver of shade so the boy can roll up his cloak. Blood still leaks from the wound, but it looks less hideous now that it’s clean.
Dayne watches me work with a critical eye. “We’ll need to mend those tears in his cloak before he gets the Burn.”
“Thanks,” the boy mumbles when I’ve finished.
“You have anything you want to tell us?” Dayne demands.
After a brief pause, the boy asks, “You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”
His voice is pitiful. I dig a Sustum brick out from my pack and hand it to him, along with my waterskin.
The boy gobbles up the entire brick and downs the contents of my waterskin in two gulps.
“Thanks! I haven’t eaten in days!”
The boy dabs the remaining crumbs from his palm and licks them off his fingers. I watch him with a horrified fascination. The children in Subterrane Harkibel were thin, but this boy, with his hollow cheeks and bulging eyes….
“Hemera, pull out that map of yours and find us the nearest cave to spend the high day,” Dayne says. “And then I’m going to rustle us up a proper dinner.”
We find the cave on Brice’s map easily. It’s obvious the cave has been long-abandoned before we set foot inside; it’s overgrown with plants and tree roots. It would be impossible to find unless someone already knew it existed.
Thank you, Brice.
There is still an hour before high day. While Dayne is out hunting, I make camp.
“I’m Hemera,” I say, trying to distract myself from the boy’s sickly features. “My Subterrane was attacked by Halves, and now I’m traveling north in search of any captives.”
The boy’s eyes fill with tears. He wipes the dirty sleeve of his cloak across his nose.
It’s alright,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me who you are if you don’t want.”
The boy sniffs and then says, “My name’s Wokee. My settlement was destroyed by Halves.”
A short bout of hiccups stops Wokee from saying anything else. I pat his back and offer him a clean cloth to wipe his face.
“Settlement?” I ask tentatively.
Wokee nods, blowing his nose on the cloth and then balling it up into his small fist. “Our home.”
At the empty look I give him, he adds, “In the Banished Lands.”
My brow furrows in confusion. Only criminals and barbarians live there. I even heard some of them had lost the ability to speak and communicated in grunts like the Halves.
“We’re not all bad like the Duskers say,” Wokee says, sensing my thoughts.
“Then why do you live in the Banished Lands?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
“We’ve lived in the Banished Lands ever since Grandpapa was expelled from Subterrane Jevin.” Wokee shrugs. “And now it’s home.” His thin face twists into a sad smile. “Or at least, it was.”
Wokee doesn’t say why his family was forced out, and I don’t pry.
As I try to disguise our footsteps leading from the road to our camp, Wokee tells me about the caves where he lived with a dozen other families until the settlement was attacked. I listen in fascination as he talks about his mama, a cloaker who could stitch a cloak twice as fast as even the most skilled in Subterrane Harkibel, and his papa, a trader. They sound …normal…nothing like the exiled criminals the Duskers always described.
It’s not long before the boy is smiling, revealing a dimple in his right cheek.
“I haven’t talked to anyone in days. Except for the birds, but they don’t talk back.” He grins. “I didn’t think anyone would ever find me. I got so hungry I even ate worms.”
He crinkles his nose in disgust, which makes his numerous freckles bunch together on his cheeks.
Wokee’s mouth falls open as he watches me lift an enormous stone above my head to hide the entrance to the cave from any prying eyes.
“How can you lift that?” His wide eyes seem like they will pop right out of his face.
I shrug. “Tell me more about your parents,” I say, trying to change the subject. Instead of answering me, Wokee comes closer to inspect my work.
“The men in my cave were strong. You’re...you’re like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Wokee flails his hands as he grasps for the words. “How much can you lift at once?”
My father’s warnings echo in my head.
“I’m not stronger than anyone else,” I snap.
Wokee’s lower lip trembles.
“Well let’s see,” I say, awash with guilt. What threat could this little boy be to the likes of me?
I pile the largest stones I can find on top of each other until the pile sways and threatens to topple. I bend over, keeping the stack steady by bracing my body against it, and lift up.
Wokee claps his hands and laughs with glee as I launch the pile of rocks up and over the makeshift wall.
“Whoa!”
I can’t help but smile; Wokee’s reactions are so opposite from what I’m used to.
“How far can you throw that one?” He points to a boulder that is as wide and tall as I am.
Wokee’s dimpled smile makes me pick up the rock. I pull my arm back, but it catches on the branch of a dead tree I hadn’t seen. As I try to free myself, the unstable rocks beneath my feet shift. I land on my backside, the huge rock still held above my head. A puff of rock dust rises from the impact.
I wince.
When Wokee starts to giggle, I crack a smile. It’s not long before he’s laughing so hard he snorts, which reminds me of Destinel. Instead of making me sad, though, it warms me to this boy. I can’t help but join in with his uncontrollable laughter.
It takes minutes for us to compose ourselves. When we have, I make a show of checking to make sure there’s nothing blocking my arm, and then let the boulder fly. It sails more than three paces in the air before it lands on another rock and fractures. My veins swell with the strength of the Halves’ blood.
“That’s amazing!” Wokee squeals.
His enthusiasm is contagious, and I find myself grinning along with him.
“Have you ever seen someone use one of these before?” I take the sling out from my belt and place a stone in the leather pouch. Wokee watches as I wind the sling by my side, faster and faster until the ropes are a blur.
I release the stone. It moves too fast to pick out against the bright sky, but three loud pops come from the direction in which I aimed the stone.
Wokee limps over to a line of
trees to investigate.
“Hemera,” he shouts. “Your stone went straight through three trees!” He jumps up and down on his good leg. “Through the trees! Three of them!”
Wokee is dancing around the trees. “What else can you do?”
“Well,” I bite my lip. “I’m a fast runner.”
“Show me,” the boy commands.
When I hesitate, Wokee folds his arms over his chest.
Shaking my head and stifling a laugh, I draw a line in the dirt with my toe. I position myself at the imaginary start line.
“Say go,” I tell Wokee.
At his signal, I take off.
The wind is cool as it passes through the thick material of my cloak. My long hair fans out behind me as I dart around obstacles in my path.
I stop after less than a minute. When I turn around, I utter a yelp of alarm. Wokee and the rock wall are no longer visible.
My stomach twists in knots. What have I done?
I retrace my steps, more slowly this time. I follow the marks of footprints in the dirt and places where the grass is still pressed down from my weight.
I haven’t tested my speed since I ran in the race during the Dark God festival, and I was just a child then.
The race held on the last day of the Dark God festival is a grueling ten laps around the outside of the Subterrane, in our cloaks. Everyone who saw me at the starting line laughed at the little Bisecter child who thought she could compete with the Subterrane’s fastest runners.
I won the race, beating the fastest Dweller in the Subterrane by four laps. I always knew I was faster than the other kids, but before this race, I had never tested myself against the adults in the Subterrane. It was the first time I knew beyond any doubt that I was as different as the other Dwellers said.
My father told everyone I had cheated, that I ran two of the laps instead of all ten. I left the winner’s circle red-faced with shame. The Dwellers’ boos followed me all the way back to the Subterrane. After that, I swore I wouldn’t stand out from the others. If I forgot I was different—if I never tested myself again—they might, too.
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