The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  The last time he glanced over his shoulder, Toler was laboring to his feet, trembling and screaming and clutching at his face like a madman. The other three Vantanible men stood like poachers around a trapped creature, timid and uncertain, caught somewhere between sympathy and fear. The fifth was still splayed out on the ground with half his face decimated and glistening red. Daxin thought maybe he’d killed that one, and he wondered how long it would be before their thirst for vengeance soured inside them. Maybe now that they had what they’d come for, they would leave him alone. He doubted it. Toler would come after him someday.

  A lump rose in Daxin’s throat, and he felt the color drain from his face. He was small again, a misbehaving child awaiting punishment. That feeling would stay with him, he knew, no matter how far he rode or to which corner of the Aionach he fled. Toler had never been one to abandon a grudge. If there was any chance Daxin’s little brother could have forgiven him before, that chance was gone.

  CHAPTER 2

  Council

  “You have truly no idea what the above-world is like,” shouted Raith Entradi, hammering the desk with clenched fists. The clatter echoed down the long concrete hall, sending old facility maps and schematic diagrams drifting to the floor. Some of the other councilors flinched; the rest stood still as stones, their shapes sterile against the bluish lights pulsing along the walls. The pockmarks in the floor cast miniature shadows, and the room fell silent. Raith slid his chair back and stood, towering above them. On the desk, smooth fist-shaped craters remained where his hands had been.

  “Most of us born and bred here in Decylum cannot hope to understand the dangers of the outside,” Raith said. “The flare that Infernal began so many years ago has grown more deadly with each passing year. The surface is suffering a slow death, blistered by the light-star’s malevolent presence, and there’s no sign of a solution or an end. The topsoil turned to dust long ago. The Aionach has been baked to ash and swept up in the arms of the wind, layer by layer. Crop yields are smaller each harvest, and the width and breadth of the wasteland grows. It won’t be long before even the hardiest plants wither, the beasts starve, and the blight spreads to every shore. And so it stands to reason that our only remedy is to delve further into the depths and expand our facility. We must do this if we’re to provide room for our growing community.”

  Loren Horner shrugged the waistband of his synthtex suit up around his substantial breadbasket. He had jowls to match his belly, dark hair flecked with gray, and spectacles that many supposed were less to improve his sight than to enhance his intellectual affect. He adjusted the spectacles and cleared his throat. “Councilor Entradi, I did not mean to offend. I am aware of the, hmm, situation. I assure you, I am just as concerned as you are.”

  Raith eyed him, settling on the man’s midsection. “You’ve become far too concerned with your suppers lately, and not enough with the matters concerning this council.”

  There was an uneasy murmur, a fidgeting that fell short of laughter.

  Loren adjusted his waistband again, as if to shrug off Raith’s insult. “What I mean to say, hmm, is that, perhaps, it would be best for us to move. Let us dig deeper if that is what you think best, but in the meantime let us also send, hmm, hunters. Equip them for longer journeys, so they can search for… a new home. If there is one to be found, I say we find it.”

  “I speak with you,” said Wardel Slake, holding up the two-fingered sign of accord.

  “We ought to pack up and move to the Arcadian Catacombs,” said Rodge Leonard, raising his voice to be heard from the back. The comment garnered a few laughs. He had bright green eyes and a puff of coppery curls that sagged under their own weight. Rodge often kept to himself until he found the opportunity to inject a well-timed remark.

  In this instance, Raith deigned to offer him a reply. “If even one of us could get close enough to that place, we’d have considered it a long time ago.”

  “Yes, Decylum has served us well,” Loren continued, ignoring the interruption, “but we are outgrowing it, hmm, and as you have already explained, we do not know how many years longer the above-world will be habitable. Perhaps this is not the place for us, and there is another.”

  Several councilors murmured their agreement. Wardel Slake clapped Loren on the back.

  Raith himself was not so swayed. He cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at Loren. “Have you ever tried to grow crops inside a mountain? Planted seeds in the floor of a quarry?” He rubbed the toe of his boot on the concrete as if crushing a bug, and paused to let them hear the soft whish-whish-whish. “You know that what we sculpt is finite. There are many forms and purposes among us, but none of us can feed life. Not in many long years. And you want to send our hunters into the wastes. Send them to meet the bandits, marauders, nomads, mutants, and whatever other beasts roam the above-world?”

  Raith put a hand on one of the lightbeams on the wall. His fingertips glowed like dull orange embers, and the beam brightened until the shadows were dancing and flickering again. Raith hadn’t had fingernails for longer than he could remember. His skin was as black as charcoal from his wrists down, and so dry it cracked and split whenever he made a fist. From the wrists up, his skin faded to a dark, calloused gray, finally reaching its normal color at the elbows. Many of the other councilors’ hands looked the same.

  “Our hunters are more than capable,” said Laagon Dent. “The group we have is very skilled.” Laagon was Raith’s brother-in-law, a thin man of average height with reddish brown hair and a humorless face. Raith had brought him onto the council at his sister’s behest. Laagon had taken to the position with vigor, and a sense of pride that sometimes verged on pretension.

  “And when we turn our hunters into scouts… who will hunt for those they leave behind?” Raith asked.

  “The council will train and appoint new hunters in their stead. There are enough of us.”

  “There are enough of us only because we’ve foregone life on the surface in such large part. This place has kept us sheltered from predators, criminals, and the ravages of Infernal—the same ravages that are stripping the above-worlders of their ability to survive. Even their fertility wanes in the daylight.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Sebastian Rice, golden brown hair brushing the shoulders of his aqua-gray thermal suit. He was one of the younger councilors, but as wise and stubborn as his elders. “Many say it’s our gift that lets us make children.”

  Raith spread his hands. “Who truly knows? Perhaps we should bottle our seed and trade it to the surfacers.”

  Raucous laughter filled the hall. Sebastian Rice gave him a wry smirk. The only person who didn’t so much as smile was a middle-aged councilor named Cord Faleir, whose countenance remained as sour as usual.

  “However it may have come to pass that our pricks have maintained their awe-inspiring vigor,” Raith went on, “none of us can deny that Decylum keeps us safe. That safety, above all else, is the reason we thrive while the surfacers perish. If we remain here, we can keep our way of life intact. Our borders are secure, the facility is still functioning, and we as a people are flourishing. That’s why our best hope is to expand here.”

  “How much further can we expand?” asked Hastle Beige, Raith’s closest friend. “We need blasting supplies. Wood, steel, and iron to build new chambers. Where will we get the materials?” Hastle’s ruddy skin and sheets of hard muscle were a testament to the time he’d spent building cities on the surface in his younger days. Trimmed white-blond hair crowned his scalp and descended into a platinum beard.

  Raith could still remember standing in the hangar the day Hastle left Decylum. He could still see the heat shimmer that had swallowed Hastle’s figure as he trudged into the wastes. Raith’s hope of ever seeing his friend again had been as bleak as the surface itself that day. But Hastle had returned several years later, claiming to have seen enough of the above-world to know he didn’t want to be a part of it. Hastle’s return had proven him to be one of t
he strongest and bravest men Raith had ever known. Hastle had spent days recounting his adventures, and the people of Decylum had learned a great deal about the above-world and its condition as a result. That knowledge had paved the way for a trickle of other adventurous souls to leave the facility in the years that followed.

  “You know what life on the surface is like better than most of us, Hastle,” Raith said. “If the council votes to send our hunters into the wastes alone, of course I’ll have to allow it. But I would sooner organize a scavenging expedition. The city of Belmond is our best hope of finding the materials we need to expand. If we were to go there, I would lead the party myself.”

  “Belmond is infested with, hmm, zoomheads, and… and rotters,” said Loren Horner. “A supply caravan will not make it half a day outside the city before it is, hmm, overrun.”

  “And yet, rather than travel as a host who can defend itself, you would have us scatter our hunters across the desert like sand, to journey in every other direction, looking for a home better suited to us than this one? Your logic disproves itself, Loren. If we take a host to Belmond and we find ourselves overrun, we’ll fight. Each one of you can handle any five surfacers with ease—ten, if they’re unarmed. Better to take our chances as a multitude, I say.”

  “I speak,” said Kraw Joseph, the eldest among them, and Raith’s predecessor as Head Councilor. Kraw was a stout, bald man with a wiry gray beard streaked with silver. He had served as the Head for many years before giving up his seat, opting to take a position of lesser responsibility instead.

  “I speak with you. To Infernal with whatever’s in that city. We’ll face it just as we’ve faced everything before it,” said Jiren Oliver, one of Raith’s fiercest supporters. Jiren had a young man’s lust for warfare, and he tended to lean toward whatever plan was most likely to find him more of it. Like Laagon Dent, Jiren had once been hunter. For some reason that Raith didn’t quite understand, many of the hunters styled their hair and clothing with inspiration from the nomads. Jiren shaved the sides of his head, but he kept the top long, sweeping it forward to mask one of his pale green eyes.

  “Even if this expedition is successful,” Hastle Beige said, “and we return with the materials we need, we then must begin the process of delving into the below-world. Myriad spoke of dangers—” That was a far as Hastle got before Laagon Dent interrupted him.

  “Myriad has been gone many long years now, without a trace. I, for one, would prefer to remember the visionary—not the doom prophet, as some seem to. Myriad’s warnings were intended to prepare us, not force us to live in fear.”

  “I’m not entirely convinced of that, Laagon,” Raith said. But Myriad’s words echoed once again in his mind. There are mysteries trapped in the innermost places, and in the farthest places. There are wonders to behold, and secrets fathomless, and horrors beyond horror beneath the Aionach. Yet of all these dangers, mankind’s will is the greatest. “Myriad held great power and wisdom, and we would all be at our best to heed those words as Hastle urges, though they’re long-since spoken. I don’t intend to lead thousands of innocents blindly into the below-world with little thought toward the potentials.”

  “And even so, you claim it must be done,” said Laagon.

  Raith remembered a time when his sister’s husband was a bolder man, focused only on the success of his hunters. His faith in them is biased, and it’s made him more hard-nosed in his dealings than is good for him. Authority has not had a positive effect on Laagon Dent, Raith decided. The council needed conflict at times, but Laagon stirred it up with such disregard that it often served only to alienate him from the other councilors.

  “This is not a decision I take lightly, Laagon,” Raith said, “nor would I expect any of you to do so. A solution can’t be reached without considering every option first. Whatever is decided, the clans must act in solidarity. Our choices stand before us: we send hunters to explore the surface for a new home, or we send a host to Belmond to gather raw materials for the expansion of our current facility. We can only spare enough people for one option or the other, as we’ve already agreed. We must never leave our gates unguarded, and that means some must always stay behind. Now… go home to your families. Rest, and think on these things. Tomorrow, we vote.”

  With that, Raith left them. The council carried on, their voices diminishing behind him as he strode down the long hall and turned the corner. The Head Councilor found himself alone with his thoughts as he made his way home, stopping every now and then to replenish the lightbeams that were running low. At last he came to the thick metal door that led into his hab unit. Clinical and bare as that door was, it was as welcoming a sight as any he’d ever seen.

  The hab unit held a collection of clean, simple furniture spread through three rectangular spaces. The plush white brengen skin rug in the center of the entry space was a comfort to his weary feet. In the old days, factories would’ve spat out thousands of rugs exactly like this one. In Decylum, it was a luxury. The chair and table were black upholstery and machine-cut wood, stained the color of dark coffee and polished to a shine. Both pieces of furniture still looked brand-new, as though they’d been preserved against time itself.

  In the next room, Raith touched the lightbeam, and it filled the chamber with its bluish glow. He unclasped his heavy nyleen vest, then stripped off his brown synthtex suit and flopped into bed. He was tired. He’d spent most of the day training the children whose hands were turning black. A blackhand’s gift can kill him if he doesn’t know how to use it, he’d told them. And it was the truth.

  Raith’s breathing slowed as he stared up at the blank white ceiling. The lightbeam danced and dimmed, but no matter how hard he wished for sleep, it wouldn’t come. As was usually the case, the day’s activities were weighing on his mind. What was more, lying still had made him realize how much his hands hurt.

  He roused himself with a grunt and lumbered into the third room, where he filled the sink and tempered the water with a few drops of Theodar Urial’s soothing formula. The old apothecary had taken great pains to get the mixture right. Fight through the discomfort, and a measured dose will take away the day’s strains, Theodar had told him. As Raith slouched over the sink and plunged both hands beneath the water, his skin began to tingle. There was a stinging, but he held fast until the moisture began to work its way into the cracks, softening the hard, dry skin and dulling the pain.

  The mirror above the sink was so clean, Raith could see every age line in his face, the wrinkles above his bristled brow, and each graying hair that conspired against him in display of his years. His broad shoulders were yoked to a stout neck and strapping flanks, tapering down to an abdomen that wasn’t as muscled as it used to be. Not many things are like they used to be, he reminded himself. Tomorrow is set to be the most pivotal day of my tenure as Head Councilor. Maybe even the most pivotal day in Decylum’s history. If the council accepts Loren Horner’s plan, we will have consigned to send our best hunters to their deaths. So I must hold to whatever hope I have that my fellow councilors are wiser, in the end, than I believe them to be.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Mulligraws

  Lizneth peered out from her hiding place among the beanstalks as the Marauders were shouldering the last few sacks of grain. Rotabak was with them, the brown-and-white buck who was always gawking at her with that lazy eye of his. When he turned toward the village, she drew back into the shadows. Is it his good eye, or the one askew he sees better with? She couldn’t remember.

  Soon the Marauders’ footsteps were clunking over the river bridge and starting down the gravel path toward their stronghold in the rime caves. Lizneth twitched her whiskers and scented for their haick on the air, emerging from her hiding place only after she was satisfied they were gone. Kroy the miller was getting back to his feet by the time she got to him. She helped him dust off his leather jerkin and clean up the mess of boxes and burlap sacks the Marauders had left.

  “Did you see that? I wasn’t even giving
them trouble this time,” said Kroy, as if Lizneth needed convincing. “I give them the goods nice and easy and they’re just as rough as ever.”

  “Don’t pay them any mind, Kroy. It makes no difference whether you give in or not. They push us around because they think it’s their right.”

  Kroy sniffed and looked around nervously, running his fingers down his snout. The fur on his neck was standing on end, his longteeth chattering as if he’d caught a chill. He wiped away the drop of blood running from his wet pink nose. “It is their right,” he said. “They’ve made it their right. That’ll be the way of things as long as we’re us and they’re them.”

  Lizneth didn’t know what to say. Kroy was right, and he didn’t need her consolation to be certain of it. “I’d better be getting home,” she said. “I should make sure everyone’s okay.”

  Kroy gave a brief nod, perking his ears to listen for trouble. “Be safe, cuzhe.”

  Lizneth snatched up her wicker basket and darted past the mud-and-thatch cottage that belonged to Skrikkit, the old banded roan who tended the mushroom pads. He had a damp, earthy haick about him, and she didn’t want to smell like mushrooms, so she always hurried by and hoped he wasn’t in the mood for one of his discourses on the intricacies of fungal farming.

  The river bridge’s ironwood planks croaked beneath Lizneth’s feet, old things, but sturdy. Fisherfolk waved to her from the burbling waters below, their tails swishing in the shallows, hooked and baited for glowfish. Rows of silkvein were budding in the north fields, its bitter, sweet smell mingling with that of the blooming red leaves of heart’s cress, starchy broadroot, plump bittermelons, and shoots of orenseed. None of the crops were ready for picking yet, so the Marauders had only been able to lick their lips and count on their fingers how many days it would be until the harvest.