Dunedrifter

by Elisabeth Wheatley

  The two of them didn’t talk for most of the next few hours. Talitha battled tangled knots of feelings. Ashek unbalanced her, made her body shiver and sent her mind in directions it shouldn’t go. He was a distraction of the worst kind and yet she needed him.

  Gilsazi needed him.

  Just when she started thinking she shouldn’t have come, she looked back to Kasrei. The magian’s scar twisted as she grimaced, eyes locked straight ahead. Gilsazi had a wife and children who loved him, needed him. He’d sworn his life in service to his ensaadi and she had a duty to protect him.

  “What do you know of this Xeram?” Talitha asked as the shadows began to lengthen and the yipping of warrigals echoed across the sand. “What’s he like?”

  Ashek thought for a moment. “Do you remember what your grandfather said about me?”

  Sand rat, to be thrown out at first light. No better than a stray dog.

  Talitha couldn’t forget. She’d been so humiliated and outraged and powerless to do anything. Not that it was different from so many other conversations she’d had with the man. “I remember.”

  “He’s like that. Almost exactly.”

  “Do you think Gilsazi is still alive?” she asked bluntly.

  “Yes. In what condition, I couldn’t say.” Ashek inhaled a long breath. “We’ll stop what we can and avenge what we can’t.”

  Talitha didn’t care about vengeance, she just wanted her friend back.

  “He means a great deal to you, the tavrosi.” The words were neither accusation or question, merely a statement of fact.

  The sirrushes warbled softly. It was getting dark. Soon they would have to stop for the night.

  “We grew up together.”

  “I see.”

  “He’s the closest thing I have to a brother.” A real brother. Somehow, she had always thought of Gilsazi as being more her kin than the man who had shared her parents.

  “A brother?”

  “We were never lovers, if that’s what you’re asking.” That hadn’t been what he was asking at all, she realized. There had been no reason to volunteer that information and yet…she always ended up talking too much around Ashek.

  “I’m not insecure, Talitha. You don’t have to explain your past to me.” Ashek kept his eyes fixed to the horizon.

  Talitha shot a glance over her shoulder. Everyone was still watching them, but giving them space. Damn them.

  “What do you want, Ashek?” Talitha asked. Less than twenty-four hours and she already couldn’t stand it. “What do you imagine happening? I don’t see any way this ends well.”

  Ashek was quiet for several long minutes.

  Talitha was tempted to break the silence, but she had already said too much. She clenched the reins and stared ahead, shame burning her from the inside. She should have kept her mouth shut. What an idiot she was, especially around him. He confused her, twisted her mind to knots…how was she supposed to fight that?

  “You Ilians have it all well and good in your city with your ceremonies, rituals, and courtesies, but…” Ashek chewed his lower lip. “The warrigals were given instincts to know when they’ve found their mates. Why should men be any different?”

  Talitha tried to ignore the shiver that rippled down her spine. She meant to tell him they should stop for the night, but that wasn’t what came out of her mouth. “We’re not animals.”

  “No, but we were made by the same God. Isn’t that what you believe? If we are His favorites, then why would He give us less than the desert dogs?” Ashek shrugged. “Too many civilized folk put rules and laws first. Those all have purpose, but they can distance you from what’s natural.”

  Talitha processed what he was saying, mulling over the implications. “You believe in the Lonely God?” Or was he just saying that because she did?

  “All Hudspeth did.”

  Talitha measured her response carefully. “You’re a Hudspethite?”

  Ashek nodded calmly. “I was ten when the city fell to Ensaak Morzei.”

  Talitha didn’t recall ever meeting a survivor of Hudspeth before. She had been to the city once, passed through its ruins. Her plan had been to stop there for the night, but her warriors had been too uneasy. The wind had wailed through the empty houses with an eerie lilt. Talitha herself was more than happy to put that place at their backs.

  Talitha’s grandfather had sieged Hudspeth after their high priest’s acolyte had killed his youngest daughter—Esreth’s mother—over a gambling debt. Even after Hudspeth had turned over her killer, the ensaak had been insatiable.

  When he took the city, he had ordered every adult nailed naked with arms outstretched, eagled on the city’s outer walls. The only slaves taken were children and half of those had been burned alive as sacrifices to Anakti and to Enlil, god of ensaaks and victory. The only ones who survived were the ones sold as slaves to Thasrus of Jak’mor.

  Ensaak Morzei had poisoned the wells, torched everything that could burn, and left it in ruins.

  When Talitha had first heard the story, she’d only been eight. Sargon had grinned morbidly when he finished telling it and grabbed her wrist. “Better hope you don’t anger our grandfather, sister.”

  Talitha had cried and run to their grandmother, who was still living at the time. Her grandmother had wiped her tears and comforted her. Over hot tea and figs they’d wept together and prayed that peace would come to the Sandsea.

  For whatever reason, her grandfather had not led a war party since and Sargon died almost exactly three years from that day. Talitha had never cried for him once, though she kept the secret of those prayers. She’d shed too many tears because of him in life.

  “You…you spared my life, saved it.” The ensaadi could barely grasp the idea. “You were in our palace. You looked my grandfather in the eye. How…?”

  “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind,” Ashek replied. “But Hudspeth will be avenged in time. That much as been promised me. Besides, I’d rather not throw my life away for a fool’s chance at revenge.”

  “How did you survive?”

  Ashek looked back to Emalek, riding beside Shaza. “I had good friends.” He pointed to an outcrop along the mountain, some two hundred paces ahead. “We should stop there for the night.”

  Talitha nodded in agreement. “I feel I should tell you that—”

  The sirrushes keened and balked and Talitha had to struggle to keep hers in line.

  Shouts echoed across the sands and a dark line of figures appeared over the tops of the outcrop to the right.

  Talitha’s blade was in her fist the next moment. Ashek had done the same, wielding a sword marked with the triad suns of Ilios. So he had kept her sword as she had kept his.

  “What is it?” Talitha wheeled her sirrush in the direction of the newcomers while keeping an eye on their backs.

  “Well, we don’t need to search for Xeram any longer,” Ashek said, lowering his sword halfway. “It looks like he’s found us.”

  Chapter Seven

  Out of habit, Talitha spun to order her soldiers into formation. But she had no soldiers. There was only Kasrei and Shaza, though Shaza had a spear in hand and if Kasrei could touch just one enemy, she could use his life force to burn his comrades alive.

  Talitha clenched the reins of her sirrush in one hand and her sword in the other. “Ashek?”

  “Follow my lead.” Ashek replied with a steady voice, but there was that aggressive intensity he got when he was about to kill. He kicked his sirrush to the front of their formation. Talitha hung back with Emalek and the others.

  “Do you know this Xeram well?” she whispered.

  Emalek shrugged. “Better than we’d like.”

  Talitha swore.

  “Indeed.”

  “Ho, where’s Xeram?” Ashek’s voice rang above the clamor.

  There was a pause.

  “Tell Xeram that Ashek is here to see him.”

  The raiders didn’t withdraw, but they didn’t make to attack, either. Talith
a kept her eyes glued to the newcomers. At her side, Emalek ordered someone to watch their backs.

  Kasrei leveled her sirrush to Talitha’s left. “I could kill them all.”

  “And then what?” Talitha shot back. “They still have Gilsazi. Do you think they will be willing to bargain if we kill half their warriors?”

  “It might make them happy to bargain,” Kasrei growled. Her hands knotted in the reins of her sirrush, but she obeyed and hung back.

  “Xeram! Is that bastard even here?” Ashek let his sirrush take a small leap forward.

  Talitha noticed the line of raiders flinch overhead, though they were out of reach. Crouched atop the crags lining the cliff ledge, they had an ideal vantage point.

  “If you’re not with Xeram, you’re of no use to me.”

  An arrow flew from above in response. Ashek jerked to the side to avoid the shot, but it skimmed over his shoulder. The bolt flew past him and a sirrush screeched.

  The next instant, a dozen more arrows followed.

  Ashek bellowed orders to his men, but the archers were well hidden and too high up for a counter attack.

  Talitha’s sirrush reared back and she slammed into the ground before she know what had happened. A clawed foot came slamming down toward her face and she barely rolled out of its path in time. The sirrush shrieked as it ran, but Talitha couldn’t see where.

  Gasping, she fought to drag the air back into her lungs. She rolled onto one elbow, scarcely able to breathe.

  A flash of light bathed them all in red. Talitha spun around in horror as a line of fire blocked them in, trapping them against the outcrop.

  Someone yelled. She had lost Ashek in the cacophony. Kasrei and Shaza were nowhere to be seen. The magian was useless unless she had a source of energy to harvest and right now, she was surrounded by allies. Natural excess energies weren’t half enough.

  Coughing, Talitha flipped over and dropped into a crouch. Ashek was ordering the men into a tortoise formation on foot while the sirrushes squalled and bucked before the wall of fire.

  The heat licked at Talitha’s skin and another torrent of arrows rained from above. Dashing for the cliff, Talitha pressed against the foot of the rocks, where the archers couldn’t see her.

  Hastily, she removed her sword belt and lashed it over one shoulder. A javelin bolted up from a Dunedrifter’s fist and an archer fell from the outcrop, impaled. Talitha couldn’t count how many archers there were, but she was fairly certain there weren’t more than ten.

  She couldn’t look back. She couldn’t afford see Ashek or Kasrei or Shaza and lose her focus. Talitha grabbed the nearest handhold and dragged herself upward. The archers shouted but she couldn’t make out their words. She hauled herself up the next handhold. The sirrushes kept wailing and braying, covering the sound of her approach. Talitha ascended the rocks carefully, circling around the edges. If they spotted her before she reached the ledge itself, she was dead.

  “Surrender!” cried a voice from above.

  “To who?” Ashek snapped back.

  “Breida of Firisi, sacker of cities.” The female voice sounded quite proud of that title. Firisi was in the north, though Talitha didn’t recall where.

  There was a moment’s silence. “What if we don’t want to surrender?”

  “Then you will die and we will pick your corpses clean before the vultures strip your bones.”

  Along the cliff, there was only about three feet of ledge at the widest point, but a collection of rocks allowed the bandits to hide.

  Taking a deep breath, Talitha dragged herself up onto the ledge, grateful the sirrushes were still braying to cover the sound. She laid low behind a small boulder. The nearest archer was fixed on the Dunedrifters below.

  Unlike Ashek’s band, these people all appeared to be from the same tribe. They were draped in warrigal skins and sirrush leather, pale faces marked with paints or perhaps tattoos. The one speaking was a woman with a helmet made from a massive panther’s skull, carved and fitted close to her head with the teeth framing her face.

  Talitha drew her sword carefully, unbuckling her sheath from around her shoulder. She had to climb up over the boulder blocking her path. At the top, she perched carefully, crouched above the bandits, out of their line of sight.

  “What if I skin you for a new saddle?” It was Kasrei who shouted.

  The bandit leader—probably a Dunedrifter—laughed and all her warriors laughed with her. “You have until the count of five to decide.” She gestured to her warriors. “One—”

  Talitha skidded down the boulder, kicking over the nearest archer. He plummeted head first over the edge, screaming. Before his spine cracked around the ground, Talitha had her sword into the gut of the next bandit. The small spearwoman screamed, but couldn’t fight as Talitha held her up for a shield. The woman’s back was instantly peppered with arrows by her own friends.

  She was still breathing when Talitha slammed her into the next bandit. The third warrior faltered, but didn’t buckle. The wiry man dug his heels in and slammed his shield straight into his former comrade. His teeth flashed white as the bone necklace rattling against his bare chest.

  He bashed his shield sideways, knocking the dead bandit off the ledge. Snapping his shield back, he rammed it into Talitha’s arm, knocking her sword out of reach and over the edge. With a wicked grin, he slammed her to the ground.

  Talitha saw stars and couldn’t breathe, but her arm snaked around the back of his neck. She seized the bone necklace, yanking it up just below his jaw before twisting it tight. His eyes went wide and his hand went to his throat, unbalancing his weight.

  Heaving, Talitha snapped her body sideways. The bandit pitched off her and flipped over the edge with a cry.

  No sooner had he fallen than the leader was there with a spear. Her skull helmet yawned with the gleaming teeth framing her face. In the red light, she looked like a monster’s nightmare.

  The spear dove for Talitha’s gut.

  Talitha sprang straight for the other woman’s legs. She hugged the bandit’s shins together, shoving her shoulder into the woman’s knees. Talitha’s feet scrambled on the ledge. Pebbles and gravel rained down.

  The leader stabbed for Talitha’s back and missed. The two of them fell in a tangle of knees and arms. The flat of a spear smacked Talitha in the cheek, but not with enough momentum to knock her off.

  The bandit drew a knife and Talitha grabbed it between them. The pair grappled while the other woman snarled like a wildcat.

  A boom shook the ledge—a flash and the stench of burning flesh followed an instant later. White-hot energy shot into the rocks behind the bandit, blasting through her remaining comrades like lightning.

  One of the bandits must have still been alive when Talitha threw them down. She didn’t see Kasrei, but the woman’s work was effective. Charred corpses fell in a landslide down the cliff face, followed by an avalanche of rock.

  The woman in front of Talitha hesitated for just a moment, but it was all Talitha needed. The ensaadi couldn’t wrest the hooked skinning knife away, so she kicked as hard as she possibly could. The bandit’s legs skidded off the edge and it was over.

  Talitha’s eyes locked for one instant with the other woman’s. Her eyes were so wide, it was almost comical.

  The ensaadi rolled back to the balls of her feet, sandals scraping against the loose gravel. She crouched, ready for the next attack.

  Only then did she realize Kasrei had brought down an entire section of the cliff and the remaining bandits with it. If any of them had survived, they had been forced to flee.

  Talitha rose after a moment’s hesitation. A javelin shot for her. She dodged, but the head lodged itself a good three inches into the stone where her temple had been.

  “I’m sorry!” someone shouted. “I thought you were—I’m sorry!”

  Talitha peered over in time to see a young man—somewhat familiar—dropping his shoulders in shame. Emalek smacked the back of his head and the youth hung it i
n shame

  “Talitha!” Kasrei shouted, waving her arm from below. “Are you alright?”

  Talitha waved back. The ensaadi flipped over the side of the ledge, scrambling down. Descending was almost as difficult as going up. Halfway down, her handhold gave and she skidded the rest of the way.

  Landing in a cloud of dust with a train of gravel, she stiffly pulled herself to her feet. Shaza stood with one sandal pinning the shoulder of the bandit leader. Several of the others lay with their throats cut and their blood soaking the sand.

  The fall hadn’t been enough to kill the leader.

  Beneath Shaza’s heel, the woman whimpered quietly, a knife and dagger—presumably stripped from her—lay out of her reach. Shaza surveyed Talitha with a single brow raised higher than the other. “I’m impressed.”

  Kasrei picked up her magian’s robes, dusting them off angrily. She must have removed them to fight. Underneath she wore a wrap that circled the back of her neck, crossed over her breasts, and tied between her shoulder blades. Her hips were cinched by a leather skirt and her arms jangled with the bracelets and crystals she used to aid channeling. Without the robes to muffle the sound, she rang like a wind chime.

  After three children, stretch marks clawed across Kasrei’s torso and thighs, but she had long since given up vanity. Her scarred face had taught her not to give a damn.

  Emalek looked between Talitha, Kasrei, the dead bandits, and the ruined cliff face. He turned back to Shaza. “Ilian women are terrifying.”

  Shaza grinned, but gave no response.

  “What was that?” Ashek roared, swooping from seemingly nowhere. “What were you thinking?”

  Talitha spun around, sure that was meant for her, but Ashek bore down on the youth who had thrown the javelin. He grabbed the young man by the front of his jerkin. It was Kurzik—the boy Ashek had saved from the doomworm that night in the moisture fields of Lakesh.

  “You nearly killed her for your stupidity! What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  Emalek took a step toward them. “Ashek—”