by J. C. Staudt
“Then we head north, into the Vors’ Rhachis,” said Papa. “I have brood-siblings in almost every village between here and the northern wastes.”
“We have to leave quickly,” Lizneth urged. “They’ll be here before long.”
“Right,” said Papa. “Let’s get to it then. Cuzhehn, help Mama pack our things.”
“What if they scent our haick and follow us?” asked Mama.
Lizneth allowed herself a smile. She put a comforting arm around Mama and gave her a squeeze. “The calaihn can’t do that, Mama. They don’t understand haick trails, and they have no haick themselves. We’ll be okay, as long as we leave soon.”
“I used to comfort you when you were a nestling,” Mama said wistfully. “Now look at me. I’m old, and you’re the one who knows best.”
“Don’t be silly.” Lizneth knelt in front of the rocker and threw her arms around Mama’s neck. When Mama hugged back, Lizneth could feel how thin and frail she’d become. A sudden fear gripped her; the road ahead was a long one, and her parents had been having enough trouble moving about the cottage. Lizneth couldn’t imagine who she’d be without Mama. If anything happened to her… she couldn’t bear to think of it any longer.
“Where we going, Papa?” Malak was asking.
“We’re going on a travel, cuzhe.”
“To where?”
“You just pack your things, son. I’ll tell you all about it when we’re underway.”
The nestlings, still dreary with sleep, did less to help pack than to cause confusion and disarray. After what felt like hours, Lizneth and her prodigious family left the cottage and headed north through the tunnels. They sounded like a traveling carnival, and there was little Lizneth or her parents could do to keep them quiet. Their only hope of escaping the calaihn was to get as far from Tanley as possible.
For hours they trekked through the northern below-world on their way to Molehind. Despite the darkness, Lizneth’s head swam with the memory of Tanley in flames. Bright spots still burned in her vision. She thought of her family’s meager, secluded cottage and wondered if the calaihn might miss it altogether. With the harvest lost, the cottage was the only thing they had left. She could only hope their home was still standing when they returned—if they ever did.
CHAPTER 15
The Blackhand’s Return
Raith Entradi sat in the shade of his lean-to, spinning Lethari’s scorpion seal through his fingers as he stared out across the desert of a late sunset. The others were sleeping around him. He could see the horses working at a stand of grass in the distance, a diminishing luxury in this increasingly dry landscape. The animals were thinning out, and the men had begun to ride less and walk more.
Belmond was within reach. So said Borain Guaidir, their nomad guide, who was the first of the others to stir. He opened one narrow brown eye and stared at Raith for a moment before following with the other.
Borain was a quiet man, though friendly enough and confident in his abilities. He’d taught them as they traversed the wasteland, pointing out edible plants and demonstrating how to prepare them, showing them how to watch the light-star for the best times to travel and the best times to rest. This meant sleeping during the hottest parts of the day and often traveling straight through the night without a break. The soft linen clothing they’d purchased in Sai Calgoar was better in the heat than their synthetic garb from Decylum, and they’d been able to travel faster in the darkness without flatbeds or rolling cages or herds of livestock to hinder them.
This desert journey had been more eventful than the others. It seemed to Raith that traveling in a smaller group had made them less frightening to some of the wasteland’s rarer wildlife. They’d encountered, at a distance, a herd of wild sandbred horses, a pack of feral dogs, and a kettle of vultures circling some far-off prey. Up close, the sightings had been almost as frequent: bushcats and scorpions at night, ravens at daybreak, bats at dusk, bearded lizards all through the day, and a strange thing with fur along its sides and exoskeletal plates across its back called a murbider. Borain assured them that while the trundling little creature looked harmless, it would become as ferocious as a carcajou if provoked.
Jiren had been adamant that they steer clear of Scarred territory, so they’d circled around to the south before approaching the city. This evening they would turn northwest and enter Belmond at its southern border.
When night fell, they packed their things and rode toward a point on the horizon where fires sprang up to light the old suburban district. Sand turned to asphalt, and the winding streets led them through neighborhoods where crumpled houses crowned dead brown lawns. Cracked swimming pools held puddles of murky sludge; graffiti murals sprawled across brick and vinyl siding. The suburban buildings were low and spread out, strip malls and community centers and restaurants on the verge of collapse. And then, the city.
“I take you to the factory camp, and then I take my leave,” Borain said along the way.
Raith looked at him strangely. “What about the way back?”
“I find you.”
“Would it not suit you better to stay with your people at camp?”
Borain shook his head, but didn’t answer.
By the time they came within sight of the factory’s towering smokestacks, Borain had grown restless. “I leave you here,” he said. “The camp is ahead.”
“You’re sure you won’t seek shelter with us there?” asked Raith.
Borain grunted. “The watchers… they have seen me already. I dare not go further.”
“What is it with you and this place?” Derrow cut in.
A dark look passed over Borain’s face. “When you make your return to Sai Calgoar, I join you there.” He pointed to an intersection down the road where an overturned vehicle lay beneath a fallen traffic light.
“You’ll find us?” Raith asked.
Borain nodded, then wheeled his horse and started off into the growing darkness.
“Strange dway,” said Derrow, when the nomad had disappeared down a side street.
“Spend enough time by yourself and you’d turn strange too,” Jiren said.
“He’s quiet,” said Theodar. “That doesn’t make him strange.”
Jiren disagreed. “It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch out for.”
“I speak,” said Mercer, the sole two words Raith had heard him speak in days.
They all laughed, except Ernost Bilschkin, who hushed them quickly. “Let’s hurry up and get out of here. I hate to think about what must roam this city at night.”
“Never thought I’d see you so anxious to cuddle up with the nomads,” Derrow chided him.
Jiren chuckled. “We’ll all be slaves before dawn, won’t we Ernost?”
“Oh, sure, laugh all you want. You won’t be laughing when some gang of drug-addled ruffians comes along and cuts our throats.”
“That’s enough,” Raith said. “Everyone keep pace. The camp isn’t far.”
The nomads halted them at the front gate. When Raith flashed Lethari’s scorpion seal, the guards let them in and closed the gate behind them. The Sons waited there beneath a nest of pipes and silos and catwalks while a runner went to alert their warleader.
When word came back, Raith and the others were escorted around the side of the factory to the secluded inner courtyard. The loading bays and holding pens that had been bursting with slaves, livestock and foodstuffs during their last visit now held room to spare.
Though Raith had never met Diarmid Kailendi, he knew the warleader the moment he saw him. Power changes a man, he thought. His bearing is stiffer, surer than all the rest. “Well met, Diarmid,” he said, extending a hand. Diarmid didn’t take it, so Raith withdrew. “I regret that we did not meet when last we were here.”
“You are eight in number. My watchers tell me you were nine when you entered the city. There was another. Name him.”
“Borain Guaidir was our guide through the wasteland,” Raith said, puzzled.
“Then it is true. Foirechlier dares show himself.” Diarmid snorted, a brief, haughty sound.
Raith said nothing, unable to decipher the meaning of the unfamiliar word and reluctant to ask about it. It didn’t sound good, and that was all the inference he needed to leave well enough alone. He looked to Derrow, who seemed just as baffled.
“You have come for your sand-brothers,” said Diarmid.
“Yes.”
“Inside. This way.” Diarmid glanced at Lethari’s seal, but he neither mentioned it nor asked for it as he led them into a vast hangar lined with processing machinery, where only a few small fires burned to ward off the night. Most of the nomads were camped outside, but their fires were lit where they wouldn’t be seen from outside the factory. They treated Raith and the Sons with typical prejudice, dark looks and spitting and muttered curses.
This is the moment that determines our fate, Raith thought. If Wickman Garitall is not among the survivors here, I may have lost my last hope of keeping my promise to the master-king. My last hope of saving Ros.
“My feiach has searched the steel city for your brothers, and these are who we found alive,” Diarmid said, pointing.
At the end of the hangar, huddled around a small fire, sat four men. Diarmid called to them, and they all looked over at once. Their lightburned complexions and tattered synthetic clothing pegged them as Decylumites. Beyond that, Raith wouldn’t have recognized them. He let out a breath when he saw the yellowed eyes staring at him from bearded faces thick with dirt. When they stood, they were like four bundles of twigs propping up tents of skin.
It wasn’t until they came closer that Raith began to catch glimmers of familiarity in their features. The sad eyes and dark wavy hair of Hayden Cazalet; the lithe frame of Brence Maisel, who managed to look fit despite his malnourishment; Tobas Baern’s compulsive facial twitching; and the missing index finger on Gregar Holdsaard’s right hand. In Decylum, the four men had been researcher, hunter, nutritionist, and mechanic, respectively. There was no navigator among them; no Wickman Garitall. And so it seemed to Raith that the fate of Rostand Beige—along with the Sons’ hope of ever returning home—must rest elsewhere.
The two groups of Decylumites clashed in a flurry of embraces and loud salutations. They sat around the fire to share stories and show off battle wounds. Gregar was the only blackhand among the four survivors, and had been the last of them to be found by the nomads. He’d spent some ten days sheltering in a public restroom at the back of an old transit station, getting his only source of water by licking condensation off the insides of the toilet tank lids. He’d eventually gotten so hungry he’d resorted to eating whatever insects he could catch scuttling across the tiles. He claimed the finger he’d lost working on one of Decylum’s air circulators hadn’t hindered him much.
When Gregar had emerged from the restroom in search of food, the nomads had surrounded him so suddenly he’d ignited and injured one of them before they could explain their intent. He’d been so weak by then that the sleep had taken him in short order, and he’d woken up in the factory camp the following night. “I was so hungry, I would’ve eaten anything they’d put in front of me,” he said. “But the food hasn’t been bad at all, thank the fates.”
“I’m surprised to hear they’ve been feeding you at all,” whispered Ernost Bilschkin, throwing Diarmid Kailendi a furtive glance. “The four of you look as dry as old parchment… it’s as though you’ve just come off the wastes.”
“We’ve all gained weight since we’ve been here, if you can believe it,” said Tobas Baern. His eyes twitched, one after the other.
“Is this really all of us that’s left?” asked Brence Maisel. “Weren’t there like a hundred of us?”
“Closer to eighty,” said Raith. “And yes, this is everyone we know about. Except—”
“Except Ros,” Derrow cut in. “The king of the nomads took him hostage to make sure we came back.”
“They have a king?” asked Brence. “Then who’s this clown over here, walking around like he owns the place?” He hiked a thumb at Diarmid, who had left guards to watch them while he saw to the camp’s needs as things settled down for the night.
“The king appoints warleaders to command his armies,” Derrow explained. “That dway’s just one of them.”
Brence snorted. “Could’ve fooled me…”
“Ah, Raith… that reminds me. Some men came here looking for you,” said Hayden.
“For me?” Raith asked, startled. “Who?”
Hayden gave a sigh, the sort one makes in the effort of remembering. “Four men, wearing filtermasks and gray overcoats.”
“When?”
“It was weeks ago now.”
Agents of the Scarred, no doubt, Raith decided. Sent to make me pay for their Commissar’s death. “What did they want?”
“They didn’t really say.”
When Diarmid returned from his rounds, Raith asked him.
“These men were gray ghosts,” Diarmid replied. “Tathagliathe. They walk with shadows.”
“Who are they?” Raith asked.
“They bring us slaves to sell, and we conduct peaceful dealings with them. Beyond that, we leave them to their own affairs. That is all I know of them.”
Hayden agreed. “They left pretty quick once I told them you’d gone to the nomad city.”
“You told them where I was?”
Hayden tensed, as if only now realizing he’d made a mistake. “They didn’t seem… I mean, I didn’t think it was a secret where you’d gone. Thought they were friends of yours. At least, the one seemed like he knew you. Asked for you by name. Raithur, he called you.”
Raith tried to think back. There are fewer than a dozen people in this city who know me by my full name. Unless… “And you’re sure these men weren’t from Decylum.”
Hayden smirked. “Raith… I’d know my brethren if I saw them. Wouldn’t you?”
I’d like to think so, Raith mused, remembering how these four men had appeared as strangers moments ago. “You’re sure they gave you no names?”
“None. I told them I was sure you’d be back soon, and they just said they’d keep an eye out for you.”
“Did they say anything else that might give us some clue as to who they were? A word, a place, a situation…”
“Well… I overheard them talking when they first came in, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was hard at work on my supper at the time, and… I don’t see why this is important.”
“Because if someone’s after me, it may mean the difference between life and death. Do any of you remember any other details about these men?”
Gregar raised his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t there.”
Brence and Tobas claimed they remembered nothing.
“I knew some of these men,” said Diarmid. “Not the one who was looking for you. He was new to their feiach. The others, however… two brothers and their cousin. Porter is the name of their household. Swydiger, Cluspith, and Eldridge are the names of the men. The newcomer’s name, I do not remember.”
Raith asked the Sons if they knew those names. All he got in reply were vague gestures and a few comments to the negative. “Thank you, Diarmid. That’s something to go on, at least. Where do these gray ghosts live?”
Diarmid shook his head. “Nowhere. We see them one day, and they are gone the next. Always on the move, making fear in the lesser pale-skins of the south. Yet they themselves fear the Scarred lathcui.”
“So they’re not allied with the Scarred,” said Raith.
“If they were, they would be no friend to us.”
Raith was bewildered. Who could these strangers have been, if not agents of the Scarred? And what did they want with me? “I suppose we’ll have to keep one eye over our shoulder while we’re in Belmond.”
“How long will that be?” Tobas asked.
“That depends… do any of you know what became of Wickman Garitall?”
“The navigator?” asked Brence. “
I saw him the night we were ambushed. We were toward the south end of the column when they started shooting. I split off from the main group to try and get behind them, get a look at who they were. Wickman was behind me at first… then he wasn’t. I don’t know where I lost him. Never saw him again after that.”
“What about Hastle Beige?” Raith asked, hopeful.
“He led the advance,” said Brence. “Did a fine job while you were under. When the blackhands ignited and took off toward the city, he was with them.”
Gregar Holdsaard cleared his throat and swallowed. “I was next to him when it started. Center of the line, middle of everything. I raised my shield right away. Looked over and saw him on the ground. Not hurt, just taking cover. He went shields-up right before I bolted. Hit the city a few seconds after I did. I saw him take down a couple soldiers, and then… he got hit when he wasn’t looking. One of those cocksuckers shot him in the neck. I tore the bastard apart, but… by the time I could get over and give Hastle some of my warmth, it was too late. He was already gone.” Gregar looked down and began to rub the dark knuckle at the base of his missing finger.
A hole opened in the pit of Raith’s stomach. Heartache and sorrow washed over him, followed by a wave of relief. He knew the truth of it now. So you are gone then, old friend. Rest with the fates, brother. Soon I’ll join you where you are.
The group’s mood grew somber. Diarmid seemed to sense this and took his leave for the night.
“It’s a shame, what happened,” said Hayden. “What those Scarred people did to us.”
“Raith got them back for it,” Jiren said proudly. “Killed the dway in charge.”
Hayden looked up in astonishment. “You did?”
“I would’ve let him keep his life, but he refused to free us. He chose to let his pride determine his fate.”
“You met him? Talked to him? Why’d they do it?”
“They’re lunatics,” said Derrow.
“They’re arrogant and territorial. They desire dominance, even if they have to kill to maintain it. We were right to fear for our lives when we left Decylum.” Raith lowered his voice. “These nomads have their aggressive tendencies, just as the Scarred do. Our own Rostand Beige is facing dire peril as we speak.” Raith explained at length the situation with Ros and the master-king. “That’s why we were hoping to find a navigator amongst you. Not that we aren’t glad to see each and every one of you…”
