by J. C. Staudt
“Speaking of our overpopulation problem, what are we supposed to tell everyone when we get back?” asked Brence Maisel. “If we ever do get back…”
“We got our asses handed to us and barely escaped with our lives,” suggested Mercer Terblanche.
The two hunters shared a laugh, but there was no mirth in it.
“I was wrong to choose Belmond,” Raith said. “It’s more hostile here than I knew.”
Sombit Quentin, the usually quiet engineer, spoke up. “Hostile and full of wasted resources. There are no other cities within a hundred horizons of Decylum that could’ve provided the raw materials we needed. Hastle would’ve told you so himself if you’d raised the idea of going anywhere else.”
“All we need to do now is worry about getting home,” said Raith. “I’ll worry about what we’re going to tell them when we do.” Raith, Jiren and Derrow exchanged looks. The three councilors who might not be councilors anymore when they returned knew there was no reason to burden the others with rumors about Cord Faleir’s grab for power. For now, the threat to Decylum’s leadership was moot.
“Is it just me, or is it too early to be getting dark?” asked Ernost.
Everyone looked skyward. Nightfall wouldn’t arrive for several hours, but the western horizon was overcast. Not the deep blue-black of storm clouds, but a grimy earthen haze. Mercer and Brence climbed the nearest building for a better look.
“Sandstorm,” Mercer cried. “Coming straight at us.”
“We’ve got to get back and warn Merrick,” Raith said.
Derrow Leonard spoke quickly, calling upon his experience as a hunter. “I’m gonna have to advise against that. These things move fast. It’ll be on us before we can make it back. Best thing to do is find an enclosed space and hunker down.”
“These are all ruins,” shouted Ernost. “There are no enclosed spaces.”
“Then we move straight to step two,” said Derrow. “Hunker down.”
On the building’s low rooftop, Brence Maisel clutched his chest and stumbled backward. The crack of the distant gunshot reached them half a second later. Mercer Terblanche grabbed him before he toppled over the side, pulling him down behind a low section of crumbling wall. A second bullet struck the wall inches from his head, showering him in brick dust.
We’ve wandered too close, Raith realized with dismay. “Get down from there,” he shouted, scanning the distant skyline for another glint of daylight. The others dove for cover, some unsure who they were taking cover from.
“He’s hit,” Mercer called back. “I need a hand.”
The westward sky was growing darker. Raith and Jiren ran into the building and hustled up the interior staircase. A third bullet struck the stairwell wall in front of them. They fell prone and crawled to where Mercer Terblanche lay beside a bloody Brence Maisel.
“How are we going to get him out of here?” Mercer asked.
“I’ll draw them off while you and Jiren take him downstairs,” Raith said. “Carry him head first. Keep his legs elevated. Tell the others to find shelter before that sandstorm hits. Ready? Count of three.”
Raith stood on three and ignited his shield. Jiren and Mercer hauled Brence up and lugged him down the stairs. A bullet struck the rooftop between Raith’s feet. A second struck his shield. “Come on. You can do better than that,” he growled, waving his hands to make the semisphere move around him. He was expecting a heavy barrage next. Instead there was a lull.
No shots came for several seconds.
Then he heard Jiren grunt.
The footsteps on the stairs turned to tumbling thuds. Raith extinguished his shield and followed them down. The three men flopped to a halt on the lower landing, piled in a heap with Jiren at the bottom. Raith hurried down to untangle them while bullets struck the staircase and front wall.
By the time he’d pulled the others off Jiren, the young blackhand’s white linen tunic was soaked in scarlet, one hole each in front and back. The bullet’s gone straight through him. Together Raith and Mercer dragged Brence and Jiren across the room and propped them against the sidewall, where he hoped they were safe from the snipers.
Derrow Leonard braved an open patch of ground to fall in beside them, bullets trailing his footsteps. When he saw how badly Jiren was bleeding, he began to shake his head. “Oh, no, Jiren… No…”
“He’s going to be fine,” Raith assured him, though he couldn’t be sure. “We’re going to get him back to Merrick and have him healed right up. Hang on, Jiren.”
Jiren shook his head. He lifted a lethargic finger and pointed westward. Raith turned to see a horizon thick with dust; a towering brown wall rushed toward them, drowning the day’s bright blue behind it.
“We need to fall back,” Derrow said. “Get away from those gunners.”
They lifted Jiren and Brence and dragged them through a doorway at the rear of the building, where they found several of the other Sons laying low. More joined them as they jogged another block southward. The tidal wave of sand hit the city and did not slow. Raith had never encountered a sandstorm before. Fortunately, Derrow knew what to do.
“Find something big to hide behind. Dampen your clothes with your canteens and use the wet cloth as a breathing filter, nose and mouth. I also recommend covering your head and ears if you can. Every bit of uncovered skin is in for a good lashing. And for Infernal’s sake, keep your eyes closed. The hunters know what to do, so if you’re unsure, find one of the hunters and follow his lead.” Derrow had to speak louder as the storm neared. He signaled them to get moving, then helped Raith carry Jiren to the closest safe spot they could find. Mercer and Sombit carried Brence in another direction.
Derrow and Raith laid Jiren in a narrow ditch along the interior wall of a mostly intact cinderblock structure with a rough sandblasted veneer. “This isn’t the best place,” said Derrow, “but it’ll have to do. The sand is usually thickest at ground level. It’d be better if we could get up higher, but there’s no time.”
They doused their hood-scarfs and covered their faces. Then they crouched inside their tiny niche and waited. Raith covered Jiren’s wound with his palm and applied pressure. He could no longer see the storm, but he could hear it, and its shadow grew over the ruins like a fast-moving cloud.
The wall of sand swept over them. The last thing Raith saw before he shut his eyes was the thick brown fog cascading around the wall of their shelter. Darkness took them. Darkness, and a wind like Raith had never felt before. Crueler than the harshest bluster on the wastes, and laden with stinging sand which swarmed across his skin and seemed to find a home in every open orifice. The sound of that wind was like the hum of a million angry insects, as loud as it was disorienting. Raith felt Jiren’s blood spill through his fingers and congeal as it gathered sand. He never let up, and he never opened his eyes.
Soon the exposed areas of skin on his face and arms began to burn. The wind was so dry it sapped the moisture from his hood-scarf and parched his sinuses. He felt sand caking in the folds of his clothing. The thickness of the air was like a vice gripping his lungs. Each breath came shallower than the last, until there was only dust to take in and he could breathe no more.
Then it was over. The storm’s back end rushed past them. Sand settled, and it was daytime again. A mantle of fresh powder lay over everything. When Raith tried to loosen his hood-scarf, sand avalanched from his shoulders and flooded his tunic. He inhaled deeply, coughing at the particulate dust still hanging in the air.
His other hand was still buried in the sand-covered folds of Jiren Oliver’s clothing. He pressed down, but he no longer felt the blood pumping from beneath. Jiren’s chest was still, his eyes lidded in tear-damp sand. His head lazed against the cinder block wall.
Derrow was the first to speak his friend’s name. He shrugged himself free of the sand and gave Jiren a shake. He removed the hood-scarf from Jiren’s face. Gave his cheek a gentle slap. He shook harder and spoke louder, as if to coax Jiren from sleep. Jiren didn’t wake.
Raith heard the break in Derrow’s voice, the beckoning turned to pleading, and something twisted in his chest. When Derrow broke down, Raith couldn’t hold back any longer. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he let himself forget. The responsibility of leadership. The will to be strong. The hope he’d never lost. For a moment, he let himself mourn. Curse this place for all the lives it’s stolen from us.
Jiren Oliver would have accepted the will of the fates no matter how it came to him, Raith knew. So would Hastle Beige and the rest. Hastle had lived a good long life before the fates had taken him; Jiren had had most of his yet to live. Young or old, it didn’t matter. This was no way to die, down in the dirt by a murderer’s bullet, horizons from home and family.
Derrow’s tears cut streaks through the grime on his face. They fell from his lips and chin, darkening the sand on Jiren’s tunic. Raith tasted his own salt tears and felt the bitterness of loss, the defeat that eclipsed mortal understanding. I’ll see the souls of those who did this sent to join the fates, he promised. “We should go,” he told Derrow, laying a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Brence needs the healer’s touch. We’ll carry Jiren together.”
Several weary hours later, Raith and the dust-ridden Sons returned to camp, encumbered by the casualties of their unexpected calamity. No one came outside to meet them, so they entered through the battered front doorway of the Sweet Things Bakery and headed for the back room. They found Merrick lounging on a pile of dusty old rugs, half-clothed and accompanied by a skeletal woman in a similar state of undress. Both he and the woman covered themselves when Raith and the Sons walked in.
“Glad you could make it,” Merrick said, fumbling for his trousers. “We were just getting ready to move on.”
“We have an injured man here who needs your attention,” Raith said, ignoring the girl.
“Give me a minute,” Merrick told her, and swept her toward the back door.
She stumbled into her clothing and pushed open the door to join the crowd of followers huddled in the back alley. They applauded and made lewd remarks as the door swung shut behind her.
“What are you doing?” Raith asked.
“Enjoying myself. What are you doing?”
“Being attacked by your Scarred Comrades.”
Merrick’s easy look turned dour. “What? They attacked you?”
“We stayed away from Bucket Row, as you suggested. Not far enough. The sentinels fired on us from several blocks away.”
Merrick rolled up his sleeves and knelt beside Brence Maisel. “When I was in the Sentries, they never let us waste ammo unless someone was threatening to cross the road. If a sentry shot at you like that, they were disobeying orders.” He lifted the hunter’s tunic, laying one hand on his hip and the other on his arm. Brence was barely breathing.
“Then they were stubborn in their disobedience,” said Raith. “Stubborn enough to fire several times, and to keep firing until they hit two of us.”
“Maybe their orders have changed,” Merrick said. He ignited. The muscles in Brence’s chest went taut.
Raith saw a lump emerge from the wound, saw the slug tumble down the side of his tunic and land on the floor.
“He’s going to be fine,” Merrick said.
Brence sat up and swabbed his face with a hand. He picked up the mangled bullet that should’ve killed him and stood to accept the warm embraces of his brethren before turning to thank Merrick.
“Who’s the other?” Merrick asked.
Before anyone could answer, his eyes fell on Jiren Oliver’s lifeless body. The color left his face.
Raith cleared his throat to loosen the words that were caught there. “Jiren was killed,” he managed to choke out.
Merrick was silent for a moment. Then the look of concern on his face changed to one of resolve. “Did my mother—did Myriad ever wake the dead?”
The Sons of Decylum exchanged looks.
“She never—” Raith broke off. “I don’t know if I was dead. Near enough…”
A murmur arose.
Merrick gestured. “Bring him to me.”
They laid Jiren’s body where Brence had lain only a moment before. His limbs were already stiff, his skin bleak with the pallor of death. Merrick lifted the tunic to examine the wound. He laid hands on Jiren like he’d done with Brence. His brow wrinkled, as if feeling for something inside the corpse. “He is dead,” Merrick confirmed. “All the way. When I touch people now, I can feel the life inside them.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Derrow.
Merrick looked up at him. “I’m going to try.”
Derrow folded his arms and stood back.
Merrick took a long, deep breath. He ignited.
The heat was so strong Raith could feel it where he was standing. He could almost see it making the transfer from living flesh to dead. But if there really was energy passing from healer to patient, the effort appeared to be for naught; Jiren Oliver—or the body in which Jiren had once resided—lay cold and motionless.
Merrick persisted a few moments longer, until his skin began to peel. He lifted his hands and extinguished himself. In a flat tone of voice, he said, “I guess I can’t raise the dead.”
Then Jiren is truly gone, Raith thought, still in disbelief.
Jiren had been one of Raith’s finest pupils. He would’ve made a great Head Councilor someday, assuming Cord Faleir’s power-mongering didn’t get out of hand. The loss to Decylum and to his family was a grievous one.
Derrow’s tears turned to sobs. Across the room, the Sons joined him in his sadness; even those who hadn’t known Jiren as well. But when Raith looked down at Merrick, the healer’s eyes were dry.
Merrick’s stare was intent on Jiren’s face, still watching. Still waiting. “It went somewhere,” he said. “I felt it. I felt it leave me. I never feel it leave unless it goes somewhere.”
There was a hissing sound, soft but distinct.
A breath.
Jiren’s eyes were closed, but Raith swore he’d seen a fold in his tunic move ever so slightly. “Jiren,” he said, kneeling beside him. “Jiren… wake up.”
The eyes slid open, slow and tired. They blinked away sand and stared, first at Merrick, then at Raith. They were Jiren’s green eyes, but there was no recognition in them. They remained fixed on Raith, even as the others gathered around. Jiren took another, deeper breath. Merrick lifted his tunic, and they saw the bullet wound healed over like something suffered years ago.
To Raith it seemed that Jiren’s eyes were staring out at him from some prison of the mind, some faraway plane where he was trapped, and from whence he was unable to return. There was awareness in them; cognizance, even. But no expression, no emotion or depth to indicate a greater level of understanding.
“Jiren, if you can hear me and you understand, please say something,” Raith said.
Jiren only stared.
“Theodar, what do you make of this?”
The apothecary came over. He pried Jiren’s eyelids open one at a time and peered into them. He felt for a pulse, once at the wrist and again at the side of the throat. He pinched Jiren on the forearm. No reaction. “Appears to be some sort of catatonia. He’s alive, but it’s like he isn’t here.”
“Maybe it takes a while before his body catches up to his brain,” Hayden offered. “He has been through a lot.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Raith said. “For now, let us thank the fates—and the healer—that Jiren lives.”
CHAPTER 26
Farstrander’s Gambit
Sand. Everywhere was sand, and the Cypriests had no choice but to take shelter from it, leaving the basilica undefended while the storm raged. Priests and acolytes were gathered in the refectory for games, while those who’d fallen casualty to the starwinds kept to their bedchambers and Brother Reynard’s hospital staff roamed the halls tending to them. Sister Bastille had been one of the casualties herself, only her headaches had let up enough that she’d ventured out
from her chamber for some fresh air.
The rest of the basilica’s inhabitants were clustered in the sanctuary, hard at prayer. They prayed for the sick, and for the souls of those undevoured heathens whom the storm would claim, and for the safety of the Mothers and Fathers and everyone who served the Mouth with wholehearted devotion. Bastille would’ve been praying too, but recent events had quelled her fervency where prayer was concerned.
She had never been one for idle pastimes, yet she found herself sitting in the refectory, enduring the gleeful banter of godechente players and the befuddlement of men and women amusing themselves with puzzle boxes as they sipped goat’s milk and ate fig pies. They have no sense of what’s about to befall them, Bastille thought. So many people, and knowledge in such short supply.
Part of her wanted to warn them that this abundance might be the last they saw for some time. What good would that do? Little, except maybe to cause a panic. Sister Gallica was always worrying about causing a panic. The sandstorm had hampered the Order’s efforts to resume trade with the heathens, so it seemed a panic was imminent one way or the other.
“Care for a game, Sister?” Brother Travers was sitting further down the table, having just conquered a sullen Brother Eustis in a game of godechente.
And provide you with yet another means of challenging my authority? “I’ve never been any good at that game,” she told him.
“Oh, don’t be so modest. I’ll go easy on you.”
Bastille didn’t know how many times she’d reprimanded Brother Travers for addressing her without the proper formalities. So many she’d given up trying in that particular area. She hadn’t given up trying to slow his and Sister Severin’s growth in the classroom, however. Subduing his flippant behaviors at the same time had proven a demanding task. “No, but thank you, kind Brother.”
