Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2)

by J. C. Staudt

  Derrow gave him a sidelong glance. “He’s taking advantage of her, Raith. That’s the same wherever you are.” Then, to the other man, he said, “Drop the whip and let her go.”

  “The woman is no concern for you,” said the man in his broken dialect.

  “She doesn’t look like she wants to be here,” said Derrow.

  “She is… my slave,” said the man, hesitating. “I do with her what I want.”

  “I don’t care if she’s your guardian spirit. You’re going to let her walk out of here, or I’ll make sure you can’t.”

  The man was done playing nice. He uncoiled the whip and swept his arm backward, ready to strike. “Now I punish you myself. You tell me name of your master, and I stop.” He swung, aiming to lash Derrow hard across the shoulder.

  The walls of the tent lit up in a red flash, and the man drew back to find himself gripping a few feet of smoldering leather. He backed up to the tent’s rear wall, tossing the whip away as if he thought it might burn down to his fingers like a fuse. “I swear to see you die for this,” he said, trying to find his voice. “Your master will honor me with your deaths, or I will buy you from him and take your lives myself.”

  “Calm down,” said Derrow. “We’re not slaves. We’re what you’d call… yarun merouil.”

  The man gave him a bewildered look. “Yarun merouil,” he repeated.

  Derrow folded his arms.

  The man’s anger softened to fear as he arrived at the sudden sobering truth of his predicament. “You do not know me,” he said. “Yes. This is plain. Allow me to introduce.”

  “I don’t care who you are,” said Derrow. “If the woman doesn’t want you touching her, you stay away.”

  “Oale Haelicari,” said the man, speaking in a hurry.

  “You’re Wally? Excuse me… Oale?” said Jiren with a laugh. “You. We heard you were some big-shot merchant with a mansion and tons of slaves. We traveled here with one of them—a murrhod named Tazkitt. Lethari Prokin brought him back from Belmond for you.”

  Even in the dim light, Oale seemed to pale at the mention of Lethari’s name. He cast the woman a backward glance, though Raith could not see enough of her to gauge her reaction. “I have many slaves, and many respectable friends,” Oale said. “You belong to Lethari Prokin, do you?”

  “For the last time—we don’t belong to anybody,” Jiren said. “We came here as free men, and we plan on staying that way.”

  Oale made a low gurgling sound. It took Raith a moment to become aware that he was laughing. “No lathcu is a free man unless the master-king wills it. Please forgive. Lathcui do not often wander the city alone and unchained.”

  “So we’ve heard,” said Derrow. “As it happens, the master-king has allowed us our freedom… even he knows it’s useless to put us in chains.”

  Oale gave a slow nod and glanced at the remains of his whip. “I know this also. So I tell you what I do. I let this be…” He grunted, searching for the word. “Eh… mistake. Misunderstand. I let you go now and I let woman go, and we forget all this thing.” He waved a hand.

  Raith was grateful, if suspicious, that Oale had decided not to alert the master-king of their interference. Best make their exit now that the situation had been diffused. “Jiren. Derrow. Let’s leave this man to his business so we can attend to ours,” he suggested. “We apologize for the trouble.”

  The two younger men followed Raith reluctantly as he exited the tent, leaving Oale and the woman alone inside again.

  “What was that all about?” Derrow asked, when they’d started back toward the city’s chiseled mountainside wall. “Why did you apologize? You backed down from that dope like what he was doing was our fault.”

  “He’s hiding something,” Raith said without breaking his stride.

  “What?”

  “You saw how his mood changed when he realized we weren’t slaves. There’s more to that situation than he wants anyone to know, and I think it’s best if we stay out of it. He claimed that woman was his slave, yet I didn’t see or hear any chains in that tent. Did you?”

  Derrow shook his head.

  “As much as I admire your eagerness to do the brave thing and save a person in distress, we can’t afford to make trouble of any kind. This is a different world from our own, and you’d both do well to remember that Ros’s life is at stake. Our actions have a direct consequence on Tycho Montari’s treatment of him, and the second we cross that line, we might as well be putting the knife to his throat ourselves.”

  Neither Jiren nor Derrow raised an objection. The rest of the walk back they remained as silent as they’d been on the way down.

  Breakfast was on by the time they returned to Sig’s household. There was a thick, salty smell in the air, and the others were already seated around the long dining table before a decadent spread. There were strips of fried meat ribboned with fat, simple round thinbreads, bowls of seasoned rice, pungent cheeses, and plates of something soft and pillowy that looked like cooked eggs.

  “Where’ve you been?” asked Ernost Bilschkin, the question laced with his typical note of worry.

  “Just out for a walk,” Derrow said, slipping into an empty chair.

  “We were about to go out and look for you,” said Mercer Terblanche, a sturdy bull of a hunter whose normally close-cropped hair had grown out to a shag since they’d left home.

  “No need for that,” Raith said.

  “We wanted to get some air before the streets started filling up with people. Figured we’d stay out of trouble that way,” said Jiren.

  “And did you?” asked Ernost.

  Jiren cut his eyes at Raith. “Any trouble would’ve been better than the way it smelled in here last night.”

  The men laughed, and Raith breathed a sigh.

  Sig joined them at the table a few minutes later, dressed for the day and looking all the more displeased for it. He sat at the head of the table and scanned the others before his eyes settled on Raith. “You all look like a pack of starving dogs. Come, eat. Do not leave this here for me. Can you not see what I will do with it?” He patted his belly, then began to pluck various items from the serving bowls and drop them onto his plate, working his jaw as if putting a great deal of thought into the effort. His wife Shonnie set a wooden mug beside his plate and kissed him on the forehead.

  The Sons of Decylum helped themselves, taking deep breaths to make room before refilling their plates with a modicum of reluctance. Raith could not identify every dish on the table, but he was too hungry to care much for what it was, and it all tasted good. The others asked him which route he and the younger men had taken on their walk, where they had gone, and what they’d seen. Raith let Jiren and Derrow do most of the talking.

  At times, Raith found himself running his fingers over the rough-hewn tabletop, staring off into space and letting the sounds of clinking tableware and muttered conversation swell to an indiscernible hum around him. He was not a daydreamer, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his dream; about Myriad and the two gargantuan statues. The dream had troubled him, perhaps more than it should have. Dreams mean nothing, he told himself. This one was no exception. Mere anomaly, drawn from the deceits of my own imagination.

  He hadn’t dreamed about Myriad in years. His only memories of her resided in brief glimpses he seemed to recall at odd moments, or in the whispers of the council chamber, or in the passage of Decylum’s collective mythology from one generation to the next. Myriad was a fable; that was all. A lost tale whose aroma was stronger than its substance.

  Presently the room fell silent. Raith did not realize why until he tore himself from his thoughts and looked around. Everyone at the table was staring past him, down the hallway toward the home’s entrance. Someone had come into the open doorway of Sig’s house and was addressing one of his servants in the antechamber. The servant came into the room to fetch Sig, who stood up from the table and followed him out.

  Sig returned a moment later with a look of suppressed happine
ss on his face. “A rider has come from the steel city. They have found your brothers.”

  Jiren shot up from his chair amid murmurs of delight. “Which ones? Who? How many of them?”

  “He did not say. Only that there are yarun merouil with Diarmid Kailendi at the factory camp in… Belmond.” Sig formed the word with an effort.

  “Are they on their way here?”

  Sig shook his head. “They remain in the steel city until the master-king sends his orders.”

  Raith dropped his fold of thinbread onto his plate, where it flopped open and sent bits of cheese and meat scattering. The news of any one of Decylum’s sons being found alive would’ve been enough to excite him, but his heart leapt to think Hastle might be among the survivors. “I would speak to the messenger who brought you this news. Is he still here?”

  Sig shook his head again. “He returns to the master-king’s luchair.”

  Raith stood. “We can’t let the master-king send word back to Belmond before we talk to him.” He looked at Derrow, then at Jiren. “We need to request an audience with Tycho Montari. Now.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Goatskin Record

  When Lethari woke, his wife was sleeping next to him. He had gone to bed late and hadn’t heard Frayla slip into bed beside him, so lost in his dreams he might’ve slept through a windstorm. He decided not to rouse her. He would wait in his den until she woke, then tell her what Amhaziel had shown him and what he had decided to do. We will not leave this household, neither one of us, until I have made clear my intentions, he promised himself.

  He stole away and breakfasted alone in his great hall, sitting in his high-backed ironwood chair at the heavy sandstone table which embellished the cavernous room like an altar. When he excused himself, he left a great deal of uneaten food on his painted clay plate; his travels had acclimated him to slimmer rations, and the servants at home always prepared far too much. He supposed that was because they liked eating the leftovers, but he did not mind. And they had nothing to worry about on that score, as long as Frayla never found out.

  Before retiring to his chambers for his morning rituals, Lethari told Oisen to send Frayla to him after she had eaten. Once inside, Lethari removed the cloth bandages Amhaziel had lain over his new sigil and cleansed it with fresh water. He winced at the pain, but was pleased to see the progress the scarring had already made. A pair of sharp horns rose above the gentle curve of a snout that swept over his skin like a wave. A creature, both beast and man. The cuts were perfect; in a few weeks, the healed flaw would make a fine addition to the others.

  Lethari spent the rest of the morning doing all the things a great warleader did while no one else was watching. He cut his hair and shaved his face. He hummed a little tune he knew and had heard in the market upon his return to the city. He exercised. He practiced his forms with one of the spare scimitars he kept in his den. The scimitar he usually carried, Tosgaith, with its golden lizard’s-head pommel and two emeralds for eyes, had been severed by one of yarun merouil at the factory camp in the steel city. Lethari had commissioned the sword many years ago from Cairmag Charani, one of the great smiths who lived just outside Sai Calgoar. Today, Tosgaith was back in Cairmag’s forge, being remade.

  When there came a knock at his chamber door, Lethari thrilled to think Frayla had woken. But it was only Oisen, coming to alert him that the undertaker had returned with the lathcu’s corpse. Lethari commanded them to bring Daxin’s body into his den. They left the simple wooden casket—a slave’s casket, reserved for the lowliest of lathcui—on the floor for lack of a better platform, along with the burlap bag containing Daxin’s clothing and personal effects.

  Lethari was far from superstitious about housing the body, and he was not bothered about those who would renounce him for taking such care over a dead pale-skin; he simply wanted to return Daxin Glaive to his hometown. He owed Daxin’s family that much. To do that, Lethari would need Tycho Montari’s leave to go to Bradsleigh instead of accompanying him to the hidden sands. And with Diarmid Kailendi, Lethari’s second-in-command, still in the steel city, the master-king would have to rely on one of Lethari’s lesser warleaders to take him there.

  Changing Tycho Montari’s mind about anything would be a feat. Changing his mind about this, Lethari knew, would be impossible without the intervention of the fates. Lethari trusted the visions Amhaziel had shown him, however, and he did not think the fates would abandon him on the eve of his greatest triumph.

  Lethari removed the lid and stared down into the casket, studying the grim countenance of the man who had for so many long years been his friend and ally among the lathcui. Daxin Glaive’s face was dry and sallow, his skin smooth and pale. At Lethari’s request, the embalmers had dressed him in the traditional clothing of the calgoarethi: a loose-fitting outfit of thin white linen that covered him from neck to ankle. Despite the corpse’s clean appearance, there was a cold chemical smell masking the stench of decay, like flowers over fertilizer. The smell made Lethari’s eyes water, but he ignored this as he paid his last respects. Rest you now, my dear friend. If the fates will it, I will see you safely home before you travel into the beyond.

  Lifting the burlap sack filled with Daxin’s things, Lethari dumped it onto the floor. Leathers, cookpots, tools, blankets, weapons, and various knickknacks flopped and rolled out—all the comforts a pale-skin needed to survive on the wastes. You had all this with you, and yet the most valuable of your treasures was laid up in your mind, Lethari mused, thinking of the goatskin record.

  He opened the drawer on his sideboard to make sure the goatskin was still where he had left it. A sudden wave of dread fell over him. He was not sure why, since he, his wife, and his father were the only souls who knew of its existence. There it lay, rolled up and safe, a goat’s pelt covered in coarse brown hair.

  There was no denying it: in all his years of service to the king, Lethari had never possessed an object of such great importance. Daxin Glaive had given him records like this before, but this one was the most detailed. And it would be the last. This was where the future of the pale-skin trading company rested. But there was only so much time before that future moved into the present and the record became obsolete. When the schedule expired, so too would Lethari’s opportunity to know the enemy’s movements down to the last detail.

  There was another knock at the door. Lethari slid the drawer closed and stood with his back to the sideboard, rallying himself for the delicate discussion he was prepared to have with his wife. This time it must be her, he predicted, calling for the person outside to enter. But it wasn’t. It was only Oisen again.

  The steward poked his head into the room. “A messenger is here, my master. He brings word from the master-king’s luchair.”

  “Give me a moment,” Lethari said, his heart sinking. He looked around at the mess on the floor. “On second thought, I will come out to meet him.”

  Oisen glanced at the scattered assortment of Daxin Glaive’s possessions, then at the open casket behind them. The steward’s nose wrinkled for the briefest of moments before he nodded and shut the door.

  Lethari met the messenger in the foyer a moment later. When he came in, the young man was flushed red in the face, still breathing hard after his long run up from the city’s lowest level.

  “Come, sit. Give yourself time to breathe,” Lethari said, inviting him into the lavishly cushioned front room.

  The young man shook his head, still trying to catch his breath. “I have a long run back, and my message is short. Tycho Montari demands your presence in his hall.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Now. There is not time to delay. Freagh?” This word was the short-form for ‘reply,’ a term the messengers often used to mean, ‘Do you have word you wish to send back?’

  Lethari was despondent. He had meant to speak to Frayla before the day’s responsibilities got away with him. Now he was regretting that he had not woken her sooner. “What is this about?”

  “He does
not say, my liege.”

  “When you left the palace, was the king alone?”

  The messenger hesitated, thinking. “There were men at his throne. Slaves. No—lathcui, but not slaves.”

  Yarun merouil, no doubt, Lethari surmised. “Tell him I will be there.”

  The messenger bowed and vanished into the daylight. Lethari withdrew to his wardrobe, where he donned his out-of-doors clothing and gear. Returning to his den, he stood at the sideboard for a long moment, his hand hovering over the drawer. If I do not bring it with me, I cannot change my decision. He opened the drawer and picked up the goatskin, sliding it into his satchel.

  “Oisen, I must go,” he said on his way out. “Tell Frayla not to leave the household under any circumstance until my return. There is a matter about which I must speak with her.”

  “Yes, my master.”

  Lethari did not hurry to the master-king’s luchair. He never hurried without good cause. To run is to show fear. A predator who chases his prey is afraid of losing it.

  The citizens of Sai Calgoar crowded the terraces as Lethari made his way down the hewn sidewall of the great tiered city. He passed both friend and stranger, though even the strangers knew him when they saw the extent of his flaws. The scars roaming his skin were the mark of a noble warrior, and many bowed their heads or touched their palms together in respect to him as he passed.

  Though Lethari basked in the attention, he did not reciprocate their gestures. It was quite a thing to be admired, but he would not lower himself by acknowledging the meek. He strode on, never slowing to avoid a collision or turning his shoulder to slip through a gap. He was of a substance to be yielded to, and that was what the people did. Whenever they didn’t, he crashed through with shoulders wide and sent them spinning off kilter to learn their lesson for the next time.

  The light-star was past its peak, the tips of afternoon shadows creeping across doorways and rooftops, by the time Lethari arrived at the king’s luchair. It was as the guards were ushering him inside that Lethari realized he had forgotten to close Daxin Glaive’s casket before he left his den. He brushed the thought aside as he strode down the Hall of Kings and entered Tycho Montari’s throne room. He was not at all surprised to find Raithur Entradi and the two younger yarun merouil standing before the high seat. I knew this summons had something to do with them, he thought. Lethari came to a halt on the near side of the room and cut his eyes at Raithur, who nodded in greeting.