“One last look couldn’t hurt.” He continues on as he helps Sanet atop a sizable boulder. She smiles polite, both knowing she doesn’t need the assist. “So, how does one track neox for months?”
“Mostly through Carvinga. Slowly through Carvinga. Very. Very slow.”
“Tracking through tenfooter land?” Logan is incredulous.
“It did keep me focused. When I lost the neox in the blades, it made for some . . . precarious nights. As I’m sure you’re aware, the grasses are difficult to navigate. Fear of losing that neox outweighed any fear of tenfooters.”
“I’d surmise you’re Yikshir if you’re that frightened of a neox’s omen.”
“I do come from Yikshir, but it’s not omens that push me. It’s what the neox has inside it. And why shooting it square, losing some useless meat, was the last of my concerns.”
“You know any trash that neox ate would have passed?”
“What I’m looking for didn’t pass . . . I checked.” Sanet frowns as Logan laughs but, on seeing the reaction, propers himself.
“You’re quite the florelle.” She doesn’t answer as the conversation draws quiet to the simple sound of their paired footsteps traveling in and out of sync.
Time passes before it’s late enough for them to set up camp. They sleep in separate tents. Logan is unable to fall asleep. Almost giddy in his instant attraction. To have a quick snuggle with her. To be worthy of her.
The next day brings with it a long trek upward as the two continue to discuss their travels and the plenitude of dangers they have faced. By the time the sun hits crest, they’re nearly great friends with an ease between them that Logan can’t help but latch on to just as his haynest comes to view.
A narrow path leads to his front door, which is faded underneath a crinkled weed that Logan brushes and kicks away in a sudden burst of humiliation. He reaches the door and holds it for Sanet, nodding with approsh as she steps inside.
“You’re welcome to take my old room. I’ve moved over to the master.”
“This isn’t yours?”
“It is. But it was my parents’ haynest until they moved to the shoreline, against my suggestion. Tormisands and all. But hard to break that custom with old Radibians. In any case, when my father was sent left, my mother returned here and took back her old room.”
“And where is she now?”
“Sent left, last year.”
“Oh. My sympathies.”
“Approsh. She was happy to the end, which is what matters.” He pauses. “In other ways, you can unpack there and settle in. I have a few slices of meat left over from the Tunnels I had planned to grill tonight.”
“Sounds delightful.”
Sanet leaves the room, and Logan enters the kitchen. With a quick glance at piles of filth and used dishes, he panics and rushes to straighten up. Leaving the house in such a state became suddenly disconcerting with a handsome woman around. Mom would be ashamed. After a quick and surface clean, he begins to grill.
It’s not long before Sanet enters, fresh as flowers. “I took a shower. I hope that was wisnok.” She’s handsome cleaned up. Though she was beautiful with layers of dirt and tangled hair, freshly showered, she carries the air of a royal family’s Mane.
Logan attempts to say something, perhaps a compliment of her looks or smile or presence, but instead he remains in a silent stupor, responding only in a flamboy nod. Sanet flashes him a smile and leaves him sure they’ll be single souls.
Engorged with unstinting drinks and a splendid duskmeal, the two friends laugh and talk past full moon. Sanet continues to present herself as generous, intelligent, and well traveled. Causing Logan to take note of the minor. A recollection of his lost happiness. And of what has filled it.
The things he broods on.
The fulfillment of his unhappiness.
Of the debts he owes to the Victors and the troubles awaiting him on his return to Organsia. And for this passing major, Logan thinks he could remain here, in the peace of Radiba with the company of a handsome, beaming woman.
But the Victors would find me. There was no hiding from them. And with the excessive debts that Logan owes, there will be no forgiveness. To double, he is confident that if they had to make a four-month trek east to track him down, his life would not end in smiles. For now, however, his apprehension is measures away, replaced by the leer and curves of Sanet.
She continues talking, “ . . . are you tipst again? Are you always so flushed?”
“What was that?”
She laughs. “A perfect answer.”
Logan smirks. “Apory. It seems yes. Always.”
Sanet stands and, without warning or circumstance, kisses Logan, taking his face in her hands. In turn, Logan reaches around and grabs her from behind.
Sanet backs off, biting her own lip. “I’ve heard good things about Radiba men.”
“You’ll find us friends incredibly generous.”
They kiss again and make their way into the master.
❖❖❖
Bare in his bed, Sanet sleeps soundly against his chest, her hand intertwined in his. Rough skin, from hard labor. She’s of the Land. Logan massages her fingers with his thumb while a midmorn shaft of sun carries small specs of dust across the room.
Sanet opens her eyes and, looking toward the window, props herself on her elbows. “I haven’t slept that well in months.” She kisses Logan on the cheek. “Grats.”
As she sits all the way up, her lack of modesty draws out a rise in Logan. He reaches from under her, cupping her breast before peppering her back with soft kisses. He rubs his nose against her skin, breathing in a natural sweet scent.
She giggles at his touch and spins back onto him. “Another slip, my friend?”
He nods, eyes wide like a child.
The two wander the haynest bare through the full sun, stopping between meals to slip in and out of each other. They stretch in the sunlight and roll on the front lawn, then shower and wash and sit outside. Dusk comes. Sanet curls into Logan’s shirt. Logan wraps in a towel. At the major, Logan is shining his parents’ blade. A gift to him when they’d moved to the shoreline. The sky bears a swirled shade of pink and orange and red.
“Looks like a storm’s looming.”
At this, Sanet’s mood changes. “You think?”
“Sky like that’s somewhat telling. May not be a tormisand. Could just be a little thunderstorm.” He sits back, holding the hilt of the blade between his legs. And then, as if coming out of a daze, Sanet stands.
“I should go.”
“Go? Where?”
“If this is a tormisand, it’ll make tracking that frek impossible.”
“The neox?”
“Despite what some may want, I didn’t trek all this way to just slip with a boy.”
“First, approsh for the soft compliment. Second, I’m sure you can hold that frek as a loss.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not something that can be lost.”
She retreats inside, stripping herself of Logan’s shirt and tossing it to the floor. A fling, I suppose. Better than none. Logan takes the shirt and follows her into the master as she dresses.
“You’re a handsome slip, Logan. I wish it were better timing.”
“If you find your frek, will you come back?”
“I’d have to go back to Yikshir then.”
“I won’t be here long, perhaps we could travel north together?”
“I’m sure we’ll meet again. Maybe at the Crossroads in a year’s time, something like that?”
Logan frowns. I’ll never see her again. “Going all the way to the Crossroads? I usually take the Rail, just after Barwolves Pit.”
“Well, that’s my only bargain . . . I should go.” She walks over, dressed and with her rucksack over her shoulder. She reaches around Logan’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss one last time. “Approsh, Logan. You’ve given me the energy to make things right. And to let myself . . . give in a bit.”
“It
was my pleasure.”
As she leaves, she kisses two fingers and rests them a minor against the top of the doorframe before stepping outside, where the first drops of rain hit her face. Logan watches her disappear into the wood before stepping inside.
Alone again.
❖❖❖
The next day, he packs the few items he returned home for and sets them in a rucksack by the door. He wanders the house, shutting the windows and doors and cleaning the mess from both his extended absence and the twenty-four-hour tryst. While picking up, he finds a forgotten shirt left by Sanet—on purpose I hope—and stuffs it into his rucksack. The rain outside doesn’t look to be too troublesome at the major, and he hopes that by morn it’ll clear up. He falls back onto the master bed, restless with endless thoughts of Sanet, while rain patters rhythmically and unbroken against the windows. One more night, before he returns . . .
❖❖❖
Squalls already? Logan wakes to the master window hurling open and closed. He hurries over, slamming it shut and attempting to lock it. The window struggles against his strength. Proshing bells. He turns the latch at the sill, but it snaps off its hinge, which permits a torrential rain to teem inside. “Forget it.”
Leaving the window flapping and a small growing puddle on the floorboards, he walks down the hall into the kitchen to make himself an early mornmeal, an under of eggs and granola. The broken master window becomes another sign that his trek here was the wrong idea. The haynest sitting alone in his absence, abandoned and forgotten since his mother was sent, fits the current state of things.
Wanted thoughts of the handsome Sanet, wandering through the halls naked under a borrowed shirt, grow further away as the threat of the Victors skulks back in, riding atop the regret he holds in hiring them. His incautious attempt to discover a purpose for his father’s sending ignored warnings from friends that “only the flam enter into a bargain with the Victors.” But who sent my father left? These thoughts bring an unwanted memory of his father’s sent corpse twisted in that inhuman form—
Logan has long thought about what he might do when or if he ever found out who sent his father. Immoral thoughts consume him, a desire for what he knows would be an unsatisfying retaliation. A hollow vengeance. The tallingstone’s tale may be shnite pacifism, but it does earn itself one truth, that the only friend damaged in retaliation is the retaliator. His Radibian upbringing of gentleness and pacifism is why he eventually called off the Victors’ investigation. He realized he shouldn’t know who did it, and he also didn’t want to face a decision to “let it go.” That was when the Victors tripled what he owed, an unfounded and unfair turn of events. But no one says no to the Victors.
Outside, the winds die down after only an hour. An oddly timed tormisand if it is one. He stands and looks around for the last time, knowing this would be as good a time as any to leave. He lifts his rucksack and flings it over his shoulder—breaking and spilling his belongings across the foyer and into the front yard.
“What in proshing bells is going on today.”
Remnants of rain drip from the roof onto his exposed clothes and rations. Logan curses as he retrieves his belongings, returning everything to the house in a slopped mess.
It takes hours before he’s repacked, retooled, and ready to return to the trail. As he shuts his door and begins down the narrow path, a glimpse of smoke to the south catches his eye. The dark plumes appear to originate from a fire. After so much rain? He conceives that lightning must have caused a spark or perhaps a small brackle fire but believes it won’t last long in the rain-drenched forest, except frontz leaves don’t burn out in water.
His curiosity draws him closer and he wonders if he might get a better glimpse of the fire from across the Lothatin Bridge. He sets off along the trail, making his way through the forest, losing sight of the smoke as the canopy above thickens. You’re delaying yourself again.
After a half mile or so, the colossal Lothatin Bridge, one of the key landmarks of the northern Radiba Highlands, comes into view. Its foundation was erected in timber, then reinforced with high stone columns carved with figures and scenes of a distant past that detail the fabled tale of the Last War, two and half thousand years ago when the North fought the South. A war protracted and expanded through the whole of the Land. A war that left humanity with no more than a hundred thousand friends. These final men, women, and children made a Great Migration to what is now the state of Niance, a city built over a city built over a city until the entire state itself became one of the tallest manmade peaks in the Land. There, debates took place over many decades that eventually led to the formation of the first borders of the hundred and thirty-three states. Each state chose to govern itself in isolation without fear of intervention from its neighbors, regardless of politics or moralities, a predilection that was one of the leading causes of the Last War. It was important that the states had total independence of each other. Once formed, the remaining hundred thousand returned to their new and individual states, leaving some with a return of only a few hundred friends. After the Last War, most of the Land, once populated with large numbers of friends, lay sparse and unclaimed.
The smoke across the Lothatin Bridge is not of a single forest fire but of many smaller fires, each originating from a distant haynest along the Highland ridge. Lincoln, what chanced here? Logan hurries across the bridge, wondering if anyone might need help. As he approaches, he sees the old Babek house aflame and then . . . a fleeting impression of Sanet, running in her green hood, screaming for his neighbor Bernard.
Chapter 9
SOUTH FREKS WORTH IT
Traveling deeper into the dimly lit Tunnels, the gang finds the endless strip of yellow neon isn’t the only thing that’s distinctive from Radiba. The Tunnels also breathe in a despotic heat, without a cool breeze carrying through; an air that presents itself stale and listless, gluing sweat to skin. Friends, colloquially known as “denizens,” often amble about bare chested and when the heat at times rises to temperatures too unbearable, they quite literally strip to their unders. Around them, lone window shops sell an assortment of odds and ends. Foods. Weapons. Sex and ales. Bernard, who at the minor is ogling the air of sexuality floating through the Tunnels, amuses Logan. The innocent kid.
The friends here are rougher. Meaner. And more primal. Witnessing an all-out brawl in the road or an outright sendleft is commonplace. Passersby sometimes wear busted noses or spit blood as reward for escalating trivial slights. The lawlessness of the Tunnels operates in near opposition to the lawlessness of Radiba. There, there’s a moral center, respect for friends and the Land. Here, the Tunnels are populated with travelers from across the Merigen states, with clashing cultures and moral truths creating a constant unspoken tension.
This is doubled by an abnormal perverseness hiding in the Tunnels. A knowing that anyone can victimize with anything, where judgments are kept to one’s self. Flings and behaviors travelers avoid elsewhere are encouraged, if not desired, here. When the tenfooters built and soon after abandoned the Tunnels, they made the prodigious assertion that these Tunnels would devolve into the sewers of the Land. And it would be difficult to find anyone who doesn’t agree.
A trio of hardened men shrouded in dull-yellow hoods pass by, seated on giant krakes. They leer down at the three friends from the towering and plodding freks, a standard mount of the Tunnels. Krakes were first discovered in small scattered-about nests during the tenfooters’ excavation beneath the Carvinga surface; though most krakes are domesticated these days, these first exposed drums reacted with extreme violence, causing many horrific casualties among the Carvingians.
It took nearly ten generations to domesticate these slow freks wandering about the tunnels, made so as they subsist on tiny parcels of meat and excessive amounts of sleeping. Known by many as the “scaled sleepwalkers,” krakes can trudge along, step by step, while they’re resting, which, without the careful guidance of their riders, leads many parties into hidden, sometimes undiscovered expa
nses. When not sleeping, the sightless krakes lick the air to orient themselves. In total, they make better-suited and quicker mounts than getwishes, the more traditional riding frek over the hundred and thirty-three states. As they plod along, their glinting scales rattle about as if attached to loose strings and cause a soft and distinctive klink klink klinking echo, another hallmark of the underland sewers.
“I feel like a kid seeing the Land for the first time,” Bernard states as the strange trio on krakes passes.
Logan grins. “Had I known you’d enjoy a good trek, I would have invited you on a trip west.” As solo treks across Merigen are often coupled with gloomy isolation, warm company offers a welcome respite. These thoughts drift toward Logan’s impending goodbye, as the turnaway toward the Rail is only a few hours away. Perhaps I could continue north with them and then break away at the Crossroads? The Victors, however, would know. They know everything.
“As much as I love that idea, I couldn’t leave Jame by himself that long.”
Logan swallows. Of course. “I’m appize. It still doesn’t seem real.”
“Doubled.”
“In any case, you both should grab your own krakes for the venture north,” Logan continues. “Though, I’d keep that creshwillow of yours safe, Bernard. They could mistake him for a mood cog.”
“Brute is no cog,” Bernard says, offended. “And why aren’t you heading north with us?”
“After Barwolves Pit, I’ll be taking the Rail. Easiest way west. If I don’t, I’ll have to make my way all the way through Misipit Valley on foot.”
Sanet speaks up, “I, for one, am no gully for that state.”
“It’s not the most pleasant in Merigen.”
Bernard speaks to them both. “How have I missed so much in life?”
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 9
