They had been in the wastes for two days without incident, which was nothing short of miraculous. Komir just knew that meant something horrible would happen that day, so he was completely on edge. Just then, they were trudging slowly up a rise. Shira and Torthal were asleep in the back—they were taking more and more midday naps.
From behind him in the front part of the carriage, Tricht’tha chittered something in Chachik, then: “We know we’re getting closer, that’s kind of the point of going through the wastes to Urik—to get closer.”
Shaking her head, Feena said, “No, I mean we’re closer to where Gan is. I can feel him now.”
“Good,” Komir said. “I’d hate to go all the way to Urik for no good reason. For all that I joked about it, Father’s right—King Hamanu is crazy.”
Zabaj had been walking alongside the carriage—his long legs could easily keep stride with the pace the crodlus were making while pulling the carriage uphill—and he suddenly moved closer to the front where Komir and the others were. “We need to be alert.”
Peering ahead, Komir saw what the mul was talking about. “That’s the top of the rise.”
Nodding, Zabaj said, “Prime ambush spot.” Then he started moving faster, wanting to be ahead of the crodlus when they arrived at the top of the rise in case there was an ambush.
Nervously, Komir flicked his wrists to whip the crodlus with the reins. It didn’t serve any useful function except to annoy the mounts, since they couldn’t really go any faster with the burden they had. But the last thing he wanted to deal with was an attack on the carriage, especially since they were traveling alone. Zabaj could handle most problems—few of the desert scavengers could stand up to a mul—and Tricht’tha could hold her own in a fight too.
That was more for use against those who couldn’t be talked to. Opponents who could hold a conversation were not ones that they were too terribly worried about.
Zabaj was standing at the top of the rise when the carriage arrived, hands on hips.
“We’re clear,” the mul said, three seconds before four people leaped out from beneath the sand.
Komir barely had time to acknowledge that they were there when one of them had grabbed Feena and yanked her down off the carriage. He smoothly wrapped an arm around her neck. They wore the trademark all-black of the Black Sands Raiders, though the outfits were a bit ragged and torn. Of their mounts, there was no sign—which was odd, as atop the rise, they could see everything for miles.
“Oh great,” Komir said, as much for the benefit of the others in the emporium still inside the carriage as it was for their attackers, “more raiders. Is there any way this trip can get worse?”
“Give us everything you have,” demanded the man with his arm on Feena’s neck, “or the girl dies.”
Tricht’tha chittered. “Thought the Black Sands only traveled in groups of twelve.”
“We did. The others’re dead, and our crodlus ran. We got nothin’ left, so we got nothin’ to lose. We want all your coin.”
Komir pointed behind the carriage. “Go about ten miles that way, you may catch up with it. You’re the third set of thieves we’ve hit since we left Raam.”
Another Raider spoke. “That’s a pretty well-laden carriage.” He was closest to Zabaj, and the mul was staring daggers at him, his fists clenching and opening. Zabaj wasn’t going to do anything until Feena was safe, but the fact that Feena was in danger didn’t speak well for the Raider’s continued survival if Zabaj had anything to say about it.
Shrugging, Komir said, “That’s merchandise. You wanna take it, knock yourself out, but without crodlus, you’re gonna have a hard time of it.”
The one holding Feena said, “We can take your mounts.”
“You crazy, Voras? It’ll take us weeks to get back if we’re carrying all this crap.”
Voras turned on the other one. “Shut up, Tralk.”
Another one said, “He’s right, I ain’t takin’ no carriage.”
The last one said, “Why not?”
From behind Komir, he heard his sister say, “Oh, please, let them take the carriage.”
Whirling around, Komir cried, “What?”
Climbing to the front of the carriage and taking the seat next to Komir where Feena had been before being grabbed, Karalith said, “Just let them take it. We’re close enough that we can get there on foot within a few days.” Before Komir could say anything, she said, “Just take it. We’ll walk to the spot on the map.”
Voras’s eyes widened. “What map?”
Komir put his head in his hands. “Nice one, Sis—why’d you mention the map? Two other sets of thieves come by, they take all our coin, as well as half the merchandise, and you don’t mention the map. Now you mention the map?”
“What map?” Voras asked again.
“Who cares?” Karalith pointed at the raiders. “They obviously want the merchandise. Look at them, they’ve got no mounts, no coin—they go back to their bosses like this, they’ll get their hands cut off. They bring back a merchant carriage, and it’ll be fine.” She turned to Voras. “Just let us keep the map, and the rest of it’s yours.”
Tightening his grip on Feena’s neck, Voras spoke very slowly. “If I have to ask again, the girl will be dead on the sand. What map?”
Karalith waved her arms back and forth. “Don’t hurt her. Look, it’s a treasure map, but you don’t want that. There’s merchandise in here that’s worth hundreds of gold.”
Komir didn’t react to that, but he was smiling inside, as the merchandise was actually worth thousands.
With one arm, Voras tightened his grip on Feena’s neck; with the other, he pulled out a bone knife and put it at Feena’s jugular. Komir saw Zabaj tense and take a step forward in the sand.
“Go ahead,” Voras said to Zabaj. “Move closer and kill her.” Then he turned to Karalith. “You will fetch this map.”
“What?” Karalith sounded stunned. “No, you don’t want that. It’ll take months to dig up the treasure. You’ve got all this merchandise right here, and we—”
“Fetch the map now or I will slit this woman’s throat.”
Zabaj moved toward the carriage. “I’ll get the fripping map.”
“No, Zabaj, please.” Karalith was starting to weep. “After all we went through to get that map—the merchandise is just stuff, they can have it, but the map is—”
Voras interrupted. “The map is going to be mine in about seven seconds or your woman—”
“Will die,” Komir finished, “we got it, already. Zabaj, get the map.”
The mul was already climbing into the back of the carriage. Komir prayed to the bright red sun of Athas, although he knew it wouldn’t heed his prayer, that Zabaj’s thumping around wouldn’t wake Shira and Torthal. Not that he doubted that they’d be able to go along with the game, but Torthal especially tended to be a bit out of it when he first woke up, and that might have ruined the whole thing.
But all he heard was Zabaj’s rooting around in the back of the carriage. So he kept an eye on Tralk and the other two, who also had gotten bone knives out.
Tralk said, “We should take the crodlus too.”
Another one shook his head. “No, these are carriage-trained. We’ll never get ‘em to ride through the sand unless they’re draggin’ something.”
Komir breathed a sigh of relief. He was really worried that he was going to have to convince them that the crodlus would be of no use without the carriage, and Komir had always found it easier to convince people of things that were false than to do so with the truth. If they couldn’t convince them, the raiders would actually take the crodlus, then waste at least an hour while they tried and failed to make the crodlus move while untethered to the carriage.
The carriage shook as Zabaj’s weight was removed from it. Slowly, the mul walked over toward Voras, a rolled-up parchment in hand.
“Let her go, and the map’s yours.”
Voras grinned, showing yellowed, broken teeth. “Nice try,
mul. Tralk, get the map.”
Nodding, Tralk moved cautiously toward Zabaj, keeping his bone knife at the ready. “Give it to me, mul.”
Scowling down at the Raider with a look that Komir knew Zabaj had used in the arenas of Tyr back in the day, the mul held out the map. Tralk hesitated a moment and gulped down a swallow before actually snatching the map.
He backed up slowly, keeping his eye on Zabaj the whole time.
“Take a look at it,” Voras said.
Komir stole a glance at his sister. Karalith was fidgeting. “Look, okay, it’s a treasure map,” she said as Tralk unrolled it, “fine, but like I said, it could take months before—”
“Shut up.” Voras bellowed. “Tralk, talk to me.”
Tralk peered at the parchment before him. “Who the frip is Sebowkan the Elder?”
“Ain’t he the king of Tyr?”
Voras frowned. “I thought he was that defiler from Nibenay.”
But the fourth one, Komir noticed, had a faraway look on his face as he spoke very, very softly. “That’s one of the guys that ruled during the Green Age.”
Tralk made a snorting noise. “Was that before or after the Orange Age?”
The third one chuckled at that, but the fourth one still looked serious. “Look, this ain’t no joke. I knew a guy, right, and he told me all about Sebowkan’s treasure—that it was all lost-like.”
“Was lost.” Karalith pouted as she said it. “We found it. We earned it.”
At that, Voras laughed. “Ah, well, you see, my dear, the whole point of the Black Sands Raiders is that we take that which other people have earned.” He turned to Tralk. “Where is it?”
“The woman’s right, it’s only a few days’ walk from here.”
“Good. That map’s easier to move with than this setup. Bad enough we’re coming back to Zeburon without most of our people or our mounts. A treasure map will go a lot farther with him than a carriage full of worthless trinkets.” Voras suddenly threw Feena forward, and she fell facedown in the sand.
“Oof.” came her muffled voice from the ground even as Zabaj moved amazingly quickly.
“Feena.” Kneeling down beside her, Zabaj put an arm on her shoulder and slowly guided her to her feet.
“I’m all right,” grumbled Feena as she spit sand out of her mouth and glared at Voras.
Zabaj stared at the leader. “You have your map.”
“And you have your woman. It’s tempting to kill you.”
Zabaj smiled at Voras, showing his sharpened teeth. “You’re welcome to try.”
“Perhaps another time. Please don’t try to follow us—we know this desert far better than you, and it won’t end well.”
Slowly, never taking their eyes off the emporium’s carriage, the four raiders moved off with their newly acquired treasure map.
As soon as they were out of sight, Komir let out a long laugh. “Well done, Lith.”
Karalith took a mock bow. “Thank you, thank you.”
“This is no laughing matter,” Zabaj barked. “Feena was almost killed.”
Her tone sharpening, Karalith said, “Yes, but she wasn’t, because we gamed those imbeciles into thinking that treasure map that Gash screwed up was good.”
Shooting her lover a glance, Feena then said to Karalith, “And I am grateful, Karalith.” She looked up at Zabaj again. “Those men were desperate—and I’m pretty sure they’re the remnants of the same group that killed Fehrd.”
Komir nodded. “Didn’t need mind-magic for that. When Lith and I talked to some folks from the caravan back at Raam, several of them mentioned that only four of the raiders survived, and they ran off without their crodlus. Can’t imagine there’s more than one group of Black Sands like that in this region.”
Tricht’tha rubbed two of her pincers together, a sure sign of agitation. “I’m just glad we had Gash’s map. What would we have done if he’d gotten it right the first time?”
Karalith shrugged. “Something else. This is what we do, Tricht’tha.”
“Next time,” Zabaj said with a growling undertone, “try to do it without endangering Feena.”
“It’s not as if we chose to endanger her, Zabaj,” Karalith said sharply.
Zabaj snarled. “You could have just given them what they wanted. What if one of them recognized the map for a fake?”
Before Karalith could provide yet another sharp retort, Komir stepped in. “Zabaj, that wouldn’t happen—there are maybe six people in all of Athas who know about that impurity. It was just our bad luck that Belrik’s pet tutor was one of them—hell, that’s why Gash made that mistake in the first place, it’s not something that he would’ve needed to bother about under any other circumstances. There was no chance that a Black Sands thug was gonna know about that impurity.”
Feena put a hand on Zabaj’s huge arm. “My love, it’s all right. Komir and Karalith are right, just leave it—”
But Zabaj wasn’t having any of it. “And what if that one didn’t know about Sebowkan, and they thought it was crap?”
Komir opened his mouth to respond quickly before either Karalith or Tricht’tha could, but a voice sounded from inside the carriage. “What is all that racket?”
They all turned toward the carriage, where Torthal was sticking his head out the rear, his white hair flying off in all directions.
“What is all this yelling about? Shira and I are trying to sleep.” He frowned. “Why aren’t we moving?”
Komir was unable to help himself, he burst out laughing.
So did Karalith and Feena and, in her own way, Tricht’tha.
After a few seconds, so did Zabaj.
“What’s so damned funny?” Torthal asked.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
For the first few days, Gan and Rol fought in the undercard.
Gan’s initial fight against Krackis was actually the longest of their matches. It was immediately followed by Rol’s first fight.
Like Gan’s, it was against a goliath.
Unlike Gan’s, it ended with one punch.
Rol walked out onto the arena floor to gasps of disgust, as three of those lesions had grown on his face, marring Rol’s irritatingly attractive visage.
The goliath who faced Rol was less verbose than Krackis—he would almost had to have been—and focused entirely on staring at Rol.
But as soon as Jago told them to start fighting, Rol threw a right punch to the goliath’s head, which whirled from the impact so fast it broke the goliath’s neck, and he fell to the floor in an instant.
The real problem, though, was that the lesions wouldn’t go away.
They showed up everywhere, red and hideous, like giant bumps on his skin.
Calbit and Jago brought in healers, but none of them were able to do any good. But he wasn’t sick otherwise, just covered in lesions, so they kept fighting.
And they kept winning.
After a week, the guards came to bring everyone up for the undercard fight—but they didn’t open the cubicle doors for number four.
Gan ran up to the door, peering through the barred window. “What’s going on?”
“Who cares?” Rol was behind him, sitting on his bunk, staring ahead into the air. Rol’s listlessness in the cubicle was almost as worrying as his fierceness in the arena.
“Hang tight,” the guard said. “You’re the main event tonight.”
With a sigh, Gan said, “Great.” He turned to Rol. “Maybe now we can start talking about escape plans?”
Still staring ahead blankly, Rol said, “I’m working on one.”
Gan blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I said I’m working on one.”
“Were you going to share this with me?”
“I haven’t finished it yet. I didn’t want to talk to you about it until I was sure it would work.”
“Are you sure it’ll work now?”
Rol finally looked at Gan with bloodshot eyes. “Honestly? Not really. I think it’ll fail. That’s
why I didn’t mention it.”
“So why’d you mention it now?”
“Just making conversation,” Rol said with a shrug.
Gan sat down next to him on the bunk. “Something’s wrong, Rol.”
“Really? What was your first clue, the garbage on my skin?”
“This goes back to the Great Road, Rol,” Gan said intently. “You took down that anakore singlehandedly. What happened out there?”
“Nothing happened. I went to take a piss, I came back, I killed an anakore. And then I came here and am getting lesions on my skin. You now know everything I know.”
Gan snarled. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”
“Brilliant observation.” Rol threw up his hands. “Calbit and Jago have had a dozen healers in here, and they don’t know anything.”
“Yeah.” Gan leaned against the wall. “So we keep fighting?”
“Until I come up with a good plan. Or you do, but let’s face it, that’s pretty unlikely.”
That prompted a chuckle from Gan. “Well, that was nice.”
“What?”
“Verbal abuse of me—you almost sound like your old self …”
The pair of them sat alone for a while after that, until the guards came to bring them up the spiral staircase.
They were alone in the waiting area. Stepping forward toward the rusty metal gate, Gan looked out at what he could see of the crowd, which was primarily those in the front rows opposite where the holding area was. It was only about five percent of the full crowd in his line of sight, and since it was expensive front-row seats, they were the most fanatical and devoted fans of the arena.
Which meant they were holding up signs that expressed their love for Gorbin, sometimes with a simple declarative like GORBIN’S THE BEST, others simply with his name or a crude drawing of his face. Some children were in his line of sight, and many were carrying small dolls that bore Gorbin’s likeness.
Jago was standing in the center of the arena again. “Tonight is a very special night here at the Pit, as Gorbin will once again take the arena—but against two new foes. These are vicious killers from beyond the wastes. You’ve seen them in the early fights, and they’ve won each and every single time. Now they’ll take on the greatest fighter in the Pit’s history—Gorbin.”
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