The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  The ground shifted beneath the caravan. Earth fell away, leaving a minefield of pits and holes where solid sand had been. Horses tripped and stumbled. Flatbed wheels plunged into open cavities, and sand caved in to submerge them. Crates and pallets slid and toppled over, spilling trade goods across the sands. Weaver spread her fingers and stroked the earth, and the sand swallowed the goods the caravan had spilled. It all happened so quickly that some of the merchants didn’t realize what had happened until they were butts-up. The shepherds began to shout at one another about getting to higher ground, but the train was in such chaos that their warnings went unheeded for several moments.

  “How do you do that?” Lokes asked her.

  “Huh?” Weaver was distracted, watching the caravaners struggle with their faltering cargo. Without looking at Lokes, she pictured him setting his jaw and talking from the corner of his mouth, the way he always did when he was whispering to her beside him.

  “Make stuff disappear,” he said. “How do you do it?”

  “Told you before, it don’t disappear. I relocate it.”

  “So there’s a dune somewhere that just got a few million grains of sand and two pallets’ worth of tin cans taller?”

  Weaver shrugged. She didn’t like talking about it, especially not while she was in the middle of doing it. She slid a finger through the sand, creating a trough. A narrow channel opened up below one of the flatbeds, like a gopher racing through a collapsing tunnel. The flatbed crashed in, bouncing to rest on its springs.

  “Coff it, you are good,” Lokes said, shaking his head in awe.

  Weaver knew she was good. She knew it better than he did. “Uh-kay, you’re up, hot stuff,” she said. “And how ‘bout we stick to the script this time?”

  Lokes grunted by way of reply and slid down off the rise where they were hidden. He dusted himself off before mounting the spotted gray-and-white gelding he called Gish and riding out to meet the caravan.

  “Hally, gents. Looks like you got yourself a sandcipher,” she heard him say when he’d ridden to within a few yards of the nearest flatbed.

  “Yeah, no shit, dway,” said one of the shepherds. He and half a dozen others drew javelins when Lokes started to come closer.

  “Hey, back off,” said another shepherd, a mulleted youngster wearing riveted leather plates and fingerless gloves, who had a hunting rifle slung over his back. “We don’t need any help. Get going.”

  Lokes held up his hands in mock surrender.

  Lokes, you coy bastard. Don’t blow this one. You know you could draw from up there and butcher the lot of ‘em before they threw a single javelin. Tempted for a moment, Weaver hovered a finger over the sand, thinking how funny it would be to watch Lokes take a tumble. It didn’t get much more fun than messing with Lokes. Naw, that’d ruin things. Plus, he’d tear me a new one for it. It still made her smile, knowing she could, if she wanted to.

  “Don’t mean to raise no fuss,” Lokes was saying. He began to guide Gish alongside the column with his knees. “Just thinkin’ you could use a hand. By the look of this, I’d say your sandcipher is close. Prob’ly just up yonder.” He tilted his head. His hands were still in the air, Gish going at a slow walk. A breeze swept back his duster, and daylight glinted off the steel of one of his revolvers.

  Most of the shepherds were busy picking things up and helping the merchants dig out their flatbeds, but a few kept their eyes on him.

  One of the shepherds poked the air with his javelin as Lokes passed by, too close for comfort. “You trying to get yourself stabbed, mister?”

  “Well now, that depends. You fixin’ to stab me? ‘Cause if so, I reckon I’m tryin’.”

  The shepherd looked like he was about ready to stab Lokes just to shut him up.

  Cut the showboatin’ and let’s get this done already. Weaver scanned the column, looking for the man who met the southerner’s description, but they all looked the same from up here. She knew Lokes had a better view, but if she found their target first, she could save him some time—and a whole lot of bellyaching from the shepherds.

  “He’s got long hair. Dark brown. Think a younger, better-looking version of me,” the southerner had said when he’d found them at the Scorpion’s Uncle. The man had stared off at nothing while he was speaking, as if the shadows in the corner were helping him remember. Then he’d said, “He rides a coal-black mare, wears leathers head-to-toe, and has this ratty old checkered hood-scarf. And if it’s after about mid-morning when you see him, he’ll be drunk. Answers to the name Toler.”

  I could find a grain of sand in a dune easier than pick out a shepherd in a herd of shepherds, Weaver thought. Half the shepherds on the train match that southerner’s description. And I ain’t about to start hollerin’ his name like I know the dway.

  “Toler!” Lokes was hollering. “Toler? Anybody here by the name of Toler?”

  Weaver shook her head and sighed, but she was smiling. That’s how he gets himself into these situations. Anything I’d never do in a million long years, it’s the first thing he thinks of.

  The southerner had handed Weaver a scrap of folded notebook paper, sealed in wax. “When you find Toler, give him this,” he’d said.

  Weaver hadn’t told Lokes, but she’d slid a knife through the seal one night by the campfire when he was off having himself a shit. The paper was blank except for the short note scrawled across it. Admittedly, reading wasn’t Weaver’s strong suit, but she’d had enough time to trudge through it.

  Toler,

  Sorry bud—I memorized the routes. By the time you read this, Vantanible’s empire won’t be long for this world. I’m sending these folks to spare you from the war that’s coming. Consider them your guardian spirits. I know how much you must hate me, but I want you to know that no matter what happens, you’re still my brother, and I love you. I may not express it in the healthiest ways, and I can’t change what I’ve done, but I mean that. Sorry for everything. Stay safe.

  -Dax

  Weaver had melted the seal back on in the fire and returned the note to her pack.

  One of the shepherds was saying something to Lokes now, but she couldn’t quite make it out. The shepherd hiked a thumb over his shoulder, and Lokes continued toward the back of the caravan, still calling out the name. A fellow on horseback rode out to him. They were too far away now for Weaver to hear anything without resonating.

  Lokes shot him. He drew and fired twice into the man’s chest, collared him, and pulled him onto his lap. Then he rode off and left the man’s horse standing there with an empty saddle.

  Weaver went to work. Wherever there was a shepherd ready to throw a javelin or draw a firearm, she made sure there was a new dimple in the landscape for him to stumble into. Her fingers danced across the sand like a pianist whose fingers remember all the right notes.

  Lokes was grinning from ear to ear when he got back. “We better hide, I’m thinkin’.”

  Weaver rolled her eyes and gave a loud sigh. “Oh, is that what you’re thinking? What’d you do that for? We’re supposed to protect him, not kill him. I thought you—”

  “This ain’t him,” Lokes said. “Toler ain’t with the train no more, says this fella. Wouldn’t say where he is though. I reckoned he could use some persuadin’.”

  “Looks like you persuaded every shepherd in the train to come after us while you were at it.”

  A mob of shepherds was racing toward the dune. Some were on foot, others were mounted; they all looked angry.

  Weaver sighed. “Okay. Come on, ya dumb git.” She took Meldi’s reins and led Lokes and his captive down the far side of the dune. “You better hope he got good lungs, ‘cause I ain’t givin’ him mouth-to-mouth if he faints.”

  She knelt and put both palms flat on the ground. A squarish platform of sand began to slide downward, lowering them until the horses’ heads were a foot below ground level. Sand flowed up the sides of the walls and formed a ceiling over their heads. The humidity was unbearable in their little ch
amber, the air stuffy and dank in her lungs. Gish and Meldi stood patiently, waiting for it to be over. This was just another training session, for all they knew.

  “And another thing,” Weaver whispered. “Any of them steps on that and falls through, you gotta kill ‘em fast, and without makin’ a lot of noise.”

  Lokes nodded, eyes scanning the ceiling of sand above them. Maybe he was only heeding her words because he knew it was his fault they were down here. Still, any time he listened was a win, as far as Weaver was concerned.

  They waited.

  From time to time they heard muffled shouting, or the vibrations of hoofbeats in the walls. The air was getting stale, and she knew there wasn’t much left that was breathable. Opening a hole would be too risky, though. Someone might see it, and it would take every effort not to let anyone who stumbled upon the thin layer of sand fall through.

  The shepherd on Lokes’ saddle gave a loud, anguished groan. Lokes drew a revolver and cracked him on the skull. His body went limp.

  Weaver glowered at him.

  Lokes shrugged and smiled a toothy smile back at her.

  Meldi stamped, growing restless, the way young horses do.

  Almost half an hour passed before the sounds of the search diminished above them.

  “You wanna climb up and take a look-see?” Weaver asked.

  “Be glad to. This hole’s hotter’n a bushcat’s buttcrack. Keep an eye on this one.” Lokes shoved the shepherd aside and let the unconscious man slump to the ground. He sidled Gish over to the wall and scrambled up where Weaver made an opening, boots disappearing through the hole just before she closed it again.

  Weaver was glad to see the horses behaving themselves. They’d never been underneath this long before. The shepherd’s tunic and leathers were soaked with blood, but there was nothing she could do for him while she was holding up the cipher.

  A sudden weight hit the roof, two pinpoints of strain on the fabric of sand. The depressions rose, and the weight lifted. Then it came down harder. When the feet jumped and landed a third time, Weaver gave up and let Lokes in. He came crashing through the ceiling in a cloud of sand and landed on his rear, laughing and coughing.

  “You having a good time up there?” Weaver was regretting that she hadn’t given into the temptation to sandhole him earlier. “How’d you like it if I dropped the whole cipher right now and let you claw your way out?”

  Lokes stood and brushed himself off. “I love you. So much,” he said, still chuckling.

  If Weaver could’ve moved either hand to make a crude gesture at him, she would’ve. “Love you too, y’asshole. What’s doin’ up there?”

  “They gone back to diggin’ themselves out. Be on their way before nightfall. You know how it is with them trains—gotta stay on schedule. Can’t wait around to look for the lost sheep.” He kicked the shepherd to make sure he was still alive. When the man groaned, Lokes gave a quick nod of approval. “Let’s get outta here and see what this man knows.”

  “You gotta be more careful,” Weaver scolded him, when they were above ground again. “Just ‘cause I can slow the wounds doesn’t mean you gotta go around giving people so many of ‘em.”

  Lokes smirked at her, that smart-ass look that always made her want to slap him.

  “I just hope I can keep him alive long enough to find out where this Toler dway is. Nomads get to him before we do and we can kiss the other half of that hardware goodbye.”

  “If the southerner don’t pay us the other half, I might just take it from him. How ‘bout that?” Lokes said.

  “You got a nose for trouble,” Weaver said. “Gets you into it a lot better than it gets you out. I’ll make an honorable man of you yet, Willis Lokes.”

  Lokes spat. “Ain’t no honest folk left in the East. ‘Cept the dead ones.”

  “Honesty got nothing to do with it. It’s about proving you’re a person of your word. You get a reputation for making good every time you shake a dway’s hand, keeping him liable for holding up his end when he don’t, you’ll have half the Aionach jingling their hardware in your face, asking for a handshake.”

  “Got by just fine when my reputation was for bein’ good at shootin’ dways.”

  “Bullshit. ‘Member where you were when I found you? Well, think about that next time you figure on double-crossin’ somebody. Help me get this shepherd out of his clothes so I can patch up the holes you put in him.”

  Together they removed the shepherd’s gear, his leather coat, and his tunic. He was tall and thin, and his back was bent like a bow with too much curve in it. There was an iron symbol hanging on a leather thong around his neck. There were four small holes through it; a square hole on each point of the three-pointed star, and a round hole with the light-star’s rays shining out near the center. The man was murmuring to himself, lost in a fever dream, his face covered in a sheen of sweat.

  Lokes yanked the cord off his neck and held up the symbol. “Now, what do you reckon this is?”

  Afterword

  I hope you’ve enjoyed The Infernal Lands. Remember to leave a review at your favorite online retailer to let me and others know what you thought of the book, then sign up for my author newsletter to receive updates on new releases and advance copies of future works. Thanks for reading!