Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2)

by J. C. Staudt

  The underside of the ridge was long and narrow. She picked her way north, unconcerned with the noise of her chains, taking hold of them only when they got in her way. Where the path smoothed into an impassable cliff, she ascended until she came to another vantage point alongside Sniverlik’s horde, looking down on the battle from the heights. She’d had long enough now to consider her plan, and she was realizing how absurd and implausible it was. Did she think she was some kind of guerilla warrior? Had she thought from up on that boulder that she’d had any chance of getting close to Sniverlik?

  She sank down and watched the battle unfold as the light-star beat down on her back. After only a short while the shade began to look enticing. Her tail was heating up and her goggles had begun to fog. The lash wound on her back was still stinging above her older wounds. On top of all that, the will to overcome her fear had waned. She would die if she tried to get involved in this fight, she knew, even if she’d been wearing no chains at all. No, I’m no warrior, and I won’t survive a minute down there.

  So she remained in her hiding place, concealed from calaihn and ikzhehn alike. She’d been awake for more than a day now, and no amount of excitement seemed enough to stop her tired eyes from closing. Despite the role she had fantasized about playing—delivering the blow that ended Sniverlik’s life—her part in this war amounted to nothing more than a drop in the bucket, if she was honest with herself.

  She curled up in the shade and tried not to fall asleep. Yet even as the gruesome songs of the dying rang in her ears, war soon began to sound like a lullaby.

  When she woke, it took her a moment to remember where she was. The light-star had crossed far into the afternoon sky and her shaded hideaway was fast becoming a daylit well in the rock. She stood and remembered her chains. Despair flooded over her, as did surprise at having slept so soundly through everything. Her body ached, and the heat made her feel light-headed and feverish. She slid her tongue around inside her mouth, but there was no moisture to be found. The nearest water would be in the below-world. She could scent a passage into the caverns, and it wasn’t far.

  The ridge was littered with bodies. Insects buzzed and carrion birds circled high above. The battle was ended, but she could still hear the voices of calaihn and ikzhehn dying on the crags. It was impossible to tell which side had won. In times of war, it was hard to believe anyone ever truly won anything. Had the calaihn stormed up the ridge and entered the caverns, or had Sniverlik’s Marauders swarmed over them and chased them south? Lizneth didn’t much care anymore. All she wanted was to see her family. To hold little Raial again; to be wrapped up in one of Papa’s hugs; to warn them that there was a war going on, and that they were its spoils.

  Lizneth made her way over the rocks to the spot where Sniverlik had been standing during the battle. Could she have made it all the way here without being detected? The dying called out to her in a jumble of Ikzhethii and the Aion-speech and other languages she didn’t understand, some begging for a drink, others for death. She hurried past, her heart breaking with every step. The heat would kill her if she stayed above. And what could she give to the wounded but the mercy of a quick end?

  There were calai corpses strewn about the mouth of the tunnel. The calaihn began to fare better as the battle went on, she theorized, though even after she had scented and listened down the tunnel, the battle’s result remained unclear. Every whiff of haick was tainted with the stench of blood and death and calai sweat. Bloody trails led off down the ridge and into the abandoned calai camp, but there were just as many tracks leading into the dampness of the tunnel.

  I’ve put off seeing my family for too long already, Lizneth told herself. She took a side passage into the below-world and headed toward Tanley, stopping to drink from pools of standing water wherever she found them. If the fighting was still going on in the main tunnel, she was better off avoiding it altogether.

  The scents of battle died away in the dark. She let the chains rattle and clink as she ran, too concerned with getting home to care about the noise. Alert to the slightest sign of danger, she took side roads or detours whenever she scented trouble ahead. By the end of her journey, the chains had begun to feel like lead weights. Her heart was racing and her mouth was dry, each breath as rigorous as Kroy’s mill wheel churning river water. But when she caught sight of her parents’ cottage, she ran as though nothing in the world could hinder her.

  She wasn’t halfway down that familiar meandering stretch of road before the cottage door opened and her family spilled out into the clearing. Her brothers and sisters stumbled over one another to reach her. The collision was like being pummeled with a cartful of stones, only the stones were laughing and shouting and licking her and crying and blanketing her in fur.

  After a joyful few moments, Papa helped her to her feet and examined her. “Lizneth, you’re absolutely torn to ribbons.”

  Her white fur was caked with dust and dirt, blood-stained and yellowed from the above-world air. The skin was rough and raw where the manacles had tugged at her neck and ankles. She was bruised and battered and cut, sore and tired and feeling twice as old as when she’d left home. But she was home. There would be time to tell them about all she’d seen and been through later. For now, it was enough just to be with them.

  Mama’s face was a sad wreckage, aged by the desolation of worry, her eyes lined with the crust of red tears and wet with the clear ones she was crying now. Lizneth knew all the things she wanted to say, about how worried they’d been and how far they’d searched for her and how hard it had been here without her. But all those things were written on Mama’s face already, and they both knew there was no need to say them now, after all that had happened.

  “There’s a war—”

  “We know,” said Mama.

  “Sniverlik has called every able-bodied buck from all the villages to fight for him,” Papa said. “Not as conscripts for the Marauders… as members of a temporary militia in this time of need. Not me, of course. I’m too old. Many of the farmers and fisherfolk have been granted leave to pursue their trades in support of the effort, until such a time as the fighting ends.”

  So it’s not over, Lizneth realized with despair. Today’s battle was only the start of something much larger. “What are we going to do?”

  Papa and Mama exchanged a look. “First, we’re going to get you out of these chains. Then we’re going to do the only thing we can do,” he said. “The only thing we’ve ever done when times were hard. Go on living… and do our best to stay together.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Bargain

  Raith Entradi and his seven companions spent the night on the floor of Sigrede Balbaressi’s den, crammed together like salted fish in a crate. Raith woke with strains in his neck and back, opening his eyes to the sight and smell of Theodar Urial’s feet. He sat up on his elbows and rubbed his eyes, squinting through the pre-dawn light to count the others. Everyone was present, and two of them were awake.

  Jiren Oliver and Derrow Leonard gave Raith commiserating looks when they saw him reach up to massage his neck. Jiren stood first, taking care to do so quietly. Derrow did the same, and they beckoned Raith to follow them out into the morning.

  Together the three men descended the sandscape terraces of Sai Calgoar, bound for the empty market below. They spoke not a word, but Raith knew the two younger men had it in mind to discuss what was to be done about Rostand Beige and the master-king, and that they intended to do so beyond the listening ears of Sig and his family and servants.

  On the way down, they passed hundreds of doorways standing dark and dim and still. When a flock of sparrows panicked from a rooftop and swirled into the muddy sky, the memory of a dream returned to Raith like a ringing bell. He had dreamed of Myri, the graceful, mysterious girl he had known in his youth; the healer who had left Decylum and never returned.

  In his dream, Raith had found Myriad far from the halls of their underground facility, in some hallowed place timeless beyond estimation. She ha
d been yoked to a great block of stone, and when Raith looked back he saw that the stone stretched as far as he could see into the distance behind. He had tried to break her harness, to shatter the stone and set her free, but both were harder than even his gift could penetrate.

  Then Myri had stopped him with a calming hand, and said, ‘This encumbrance is not yours to bear.’ And then two pillars had risen up, one to either side of her, and they had formed themselves like liquid into great looming statues—one in the shape of a man wrought in steel; the other, a woman made of sand. The statues had begun to move alongside her, lending her their strength. And before his eyes, Myriad and her helpers had begun to pull their great burden together. Raith had only been able to stand and watch as the girl and the two living pillars had dragged the stone on and on toward the unreachable ends of the earth.

  Raith thought back to a time when he had known Myriad. He supposed he had loved her then, but it had been a love fashioned more of admiration than desire. How one so young could possess so much wisdom and insight was beyond his reckoning. She’d bent the will of the council to her own, and proven her foresight in ways far beyond what anyone expected of her. She had been older than Raith, yet her youthful beauty had remained long after that of the other women began to fade.

  A warm breeze was funneling through the market streets, lifting tent flaps and shaking wooden stalls as it blew the previous day’s debris down the lanes like the ghosts of children at play. Being outside wasn’t altogether unpleasant—the shadow of the mountains would keep the market in shade for hours yet as the morning drew on—but Raith carried with him a feeling of unease nevertheless.

  “Imagine living in a place like this,” said Jiren. “The chance to find goods from all over the Aionach; antiques from the old days with the work of new craftsmen, all together in one place. This city is a world away from Belmond, yet it’s just a few days off through the desert. What a wretched place that was.”

  “Wretched maybe, but it’s a place we may have to return to sooner than we’d like,” Raith said.

  Derrow Leonard was somber. “The master-king’s caravan will be ready to leave in five days. He’s forbidden us to leave the city. There’s no way we’d make it to Belmond and back without him finding out.”

  “I don’t know why he’s convinced there’s some secret to discover in Decylum,” said Jiren. “Blackhands are born, not made. He must know he’ll never be able to learn the gift for himself.”

  “A fool’s hope is just that,” Raith said. “And a powerful man is more susceptible to his own foolishness than anyone. Tycho Montari has already begun to lure himself toward Decylum with the promise of greater power—a promise he’s made to himself, despite our warnings to the contrary.”

  “I don’t think he’d listen to another dose of reason if we gave it to him,” said Jiren. “Like if we told him we’ve been researching the gift in Decylum for decades and we haven’t found an explanation for it, you don’t think that would change his mind?”

  “I’m afraid that might make him even thirstier for it. You heard the way he spoke about us. We’re legends in the nomads’ eyes. Yet here we are, in the flesh. Our very existence seems enough to have entrenched his belief in the impossible.”

  Derrow Leonard frowned. “The master-king can dream of impossibilities if he likes. I’d sooner return to Belmond. We should be looking for our missing brothers.”

  “Not that I’m not worried about them,” said Jiren, “but what about the council? What about home? There’s Cord and his scheme to think about. If he forces his way into a Head Councilorship, we’ll be returning to a very different Decylum from the one we left.”

  “I’m not on the council,” said Derrow. “We’ll straighten out Cord Faleir and his minions after we’ve granted our lost brothers a safe return.”

  “I last spoke with Kraw Joseph weeks ago, before we reached Belmond,” Raith said. “If I hadn’t lost our commscreen, we’d have a better grasp on the situation back home right now. Kraw only hinted that Cord might be staging a coup. That wasn’t a certainty. Electing a new Head Councilor requires a nearly-unanimous vote. As cunning as Cord may be, I doubt he has the influence to turn the whole council against Kraw Joseph. They respect him too much.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Jiren. “It gives me the dithers, thinking of the damage that maniac could do if he ever took the headship. He could reinstate the cycle of chosen births, or enact any of a hundred other terrible laws.”

  “Derrow is right,” said Raith. “We have no choice but to hope for the best and deal with him when we return, if the worst has come to pass. I’m also of a mind to return to Belmond. But as long as Tycho Montari is holding Ros hostage, I don’t see us having much choice in the matter.”

  “So we break him out,” Jiren said.

  Raith considered this, surprised at himself for entertaining the idea. “I have little doubt we could do it, but at what cost? The nomads are the only friends we have out here, as taxing as their friendship may be. There would be bloodshed—on both sides, like as not.”

  “The master-king has done everything short of threatening bloodshed himself. He’s made it impossible for us to refuse him by using Ros’s life as a bargaining chip. What sort of friendship is that?”

  “I’m sorry, Raith, but I have to agree with Jiren here,” said Derrow. “Can we really betray Decylum’s location to the nomads? Lone wanderers may stumble across the facility every now and then, but the nomads know the desert better than their own reflections. Once they know where it is, they’ll never forget. We’ll be at their mercy for the rest of eternity. I may not be a member of the council, but I would never cast my vote in favor of letting a foreign dignitary and his armies force themselves upon us.”

  “I do not disagree with either of you,” Raith said. “We are in the master-king’s snare, there is no doubt.”

  “Then why haven’t we freed ourselves from it?” said Jiren. “It’s clear that we can never show Tycho Montari where Decylum is. Do we agree on that much?”

  Raith and Derrow both nodded.

  “Then we need to rescue Ros. That, or change the master-king’s mind.”

  “I have a solution that wouldn’t require us to do either,” said Derrow.

  Jiren was curious. “Spit it out.”

  Derrow gave them a mischievous smile. “The nomads may know the desert, but we don’t.”

  “Pretend we’ve lost our way home, you’re saying…”

  “We don’t have to pretend, Jiren. We are lost. We were relying on our navigators to get us home. Aliman Torpor and Staley Gilcraft are dead. Wickman Garitall is missing. Without Raith’s commscreen, we have no way to call Decylum and ask for guidance. The plain truth of it is that we couldn’t get back if we wanted to. Not without a helping hand from the fates.”

  “And what happens when the master-king decides we’re taking him for a fool?”

  “We ask him for a few weeks to go back to Belmond and find our lost navigator.”

  Jiren scratched his head. “That sounds like a big gamble to me. I don’t like the idea of gambling with the people who are going to be keeping us alive in the desert.”

  “We don’t have to gamble,” Raith said. “Derrow is correct—we are lost. There are only two ways we’re sure to get home. We need to find a working commscreen somewhere, or Wickman Garitall has to turn up alive. That gives us two perfect excuses to go back to Belmond.”

  Jiren gave him a relieved smile. “We may not have to lead the nomads halfway across the Inner East after all.”

  “Not yet, at least. If the master-king lets us go to Belmond first, all we’ve really done is bought ourselves some time. Assuming we’re successful in finding a way home, then we can talk about how and when to rescue Ros.”

  A muffled cracking sound halted their conversation. From within one of the large market tents nearby came a shuffling noise and the low sound of strained voices. Derrow was the first to react, breaking into a run toward the
tent.

  Raith and Jiren followed close behind.

  When they arrived, Derrow lifted the door flap and spoke into the darkness of the tent. “Hey, you—let go of her.”

  Raith came near the opening just as the shapes of two people, a man and a woman, were pulling away from one of the low wooden tables inside. The man yanked his billowing white trousers up around his doughy rump while the woman tossed the crumpled fabric of her skirt down over her knees. The man adjusted himself with one hand and grabbed a whip off the table with the other, then stepped in front of the woman as if to protect her. She cowered behind him, still seated on the table.

  All Raith could see of the woman was the scarring that ran down her left leg past the ankle—an old wound, maybe, or one of the nomads’ ceremonial tattoos. After the warning the master-king had given them, Raith wondered whether they should be getting involved. You are free to wander my city as you please, but if you bring harm to my people, harm will come to him, Tycho Montari had said as his men took Ros away.

  “Abin ti daenien duos sheo?” the man asked, indignant.

  Derrow faltered, trying to decide whether he knew the words. “I don’t understand,” he finally said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “This is not place for you to come looking,” the man shouted, gesturing with the coiled whip in his hand. “Away.”

  Jiren took a step inside the tent. “Not until you let her go.”

  “Lathcu methact,” the man said, bristling. “You dare to speak to me in this way? Who is your master?”

  Derrow grinned. “He thinks we’re slaves.”

  Raith did not like where this was going. One small screw-up could land them in front of the master-king again, and not under circumstances they were hoping for. “Careful, Derrow. We’re not at home. Things are different here.”