Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2)
Page 39
“What the blazes are you tryin’ to do Shep, kill me? You forget how to use your arms or something?”
“Sorry,” Toler said, clinging to the weapon for dear life while trying not to be obvious about it. “I slipped.”
Lokes frowned and shook his head in disgust.
Weaver patted her partner on the back, a calming gesture. She had tossed Toler the knife while they were in the dark of the tunnel, meant for a fight that had never come. In the aftermath of the earthquake, she’d forgotten all about it. He only hoped she wouldn’t remember it was gone before they found his brother.
If Daxin wasn’t around, Toler would use the knife to send a message to the nomads. It’ll be a worthy cause, he told himself. Even if it kills me. One last sacrifice for the good of Vantanible, Inc. For the good of every living soul in the Inner East. A chance to make up for my mistake.
Vantanible’s trade routes existed for a reason. Although the nomads were bringing a bounty to Belmond in the form of stolen goods, they were preventing those same goods from reaching settlements across the Inner East. Settlements that needed the sorts of items that came from over the Clayhollows, around the Amber Coast, and across the northern lands. The nomads were slowly strangling them to death, and they knew it. Without the trade caravans, thousands wouldn’t live out the short year.
Before they went inside, Lokes appraised Toler, straightening his tunic and brushing the dust off his shoulders. “Gotta get you looking presentable for Quarterman. Assuming he’s still alive in there.”
“Quarterman. That’s a strange name for a savage.”
“Quarterman ain’t no savage. He’s the one gonna tell us where them savages are at. And fill my brass in the meantime.”
“Do I have to be there for that?”
“Shut your mouth, Shep. No one asked. Now get on with you.” Lokes shoved him toward the pile of rubble.
Toler clambered up, feeling dizzy and uncoordinated, his bound hands making the obstacle all the more demanding to surmount. On his way up, he managed to shift the longknife into a more stable position beneath his armpit. Weaver stayed outside with the horses while they crossed what used to be the front threshold and entered the building’s dim interior.
Empty shelves lined the walls and battered aisle fixtures lay among candy bar wrappers, potato chip bags, plastic soda bottles, and shattered fluorescent bulbs. The cave-in had brought half a dozen steel girders through the ceiling. If there was another quake while they were inside, they weren’t coming out again.
“There’s no one here,” Toler said.
“What did I just tell you about keepin’ your mouth shut?”
“To do it.”
Lokes cuffed him a stinging blow across the ear that made him suck in his breath. “You think I was joking? Follow.” He pushed Toler aside and headed down the hallway past the restrooms.
The hallway dead-ended a few fathoms beyond the next corner. At least, it appeared that way upon first glance. When Lokes knocked on what Toler assumed was the wall, it took only a few seconds for a panel to slide open and a shadowed man to invite them inside.
“Quarterman, this is Shep. Shep, Quarterman.”
“Toler,” Toler said, shaking Quarterman’s hand.
“Tagg Quarterman. Pleasure.” The man’s grip was firm, though the last two fingers on his right hand didn’t bend. He slid the panel closed and led them through a dark workshop thick with the sulfurous smell of gunpowder. He was short, with pockmarked cheeks, sharp bushy eyebrows, and a sort of waddling limp that he himself seemed not to notice.
Skylights allowed the daylight in from somewhere high above, though only a fraction made it through the gaps in the drop ceiling. Natural light, Toler realized. No open flames. Too dangerous.
A solid block worktable ran along the back wall, where rows of brass bullet casings shone beside reloading presses, powder measures, scales, and dies of all types and calibers. Tall glass jars held the various components of Quarterman’s craft. In a small adjoining room lay a narrow cot with tousled blankets and a thin pillow.
“Quite an operation you’ve got here,” Toler said. It was exactly the kind of operation he’d consider partnering with someday in his own ventures. But the smuggling game was the furthest thing from his mind right now. “Out of the way back here, too.”
“I prefer not to be noticed,” said Quarterman. “I don’t often deal with customers directly, but I’ll always make an exception for old Lokesy. Brings me good brass, and he’s always got a story or two to tell from his jaunts through the wide world. What’s your story today, Lokesy?”
Lokes dropped a fistful of spent brass onto the table.
Quarterman inspected the casings one by one as he talked.
“You been out front yet today? Might be you ought to think about moving.”
“I felt the quakes. Haven’t been out, though. Why?”
Lokes gave him a sympathetic look. “You done had a collapse, my friend.”
“How bad?”
“Place looks like a plate of hash browns.”
Quarterman knitted his bushy brows together. “This old place is solid. Didn’t think she’d ever let the quakes get to her.”
“Solid don’t mean shit if the ground ain’t.”
“I can’t move my whole workshop now. I’ve got deadlines to keep. It took me forever to find this place, and longer still to rig it up nice and hidden-like. What am I going to do?”
Toler felt sorry for him. A man trying to earn an honest living was rare in south Belmond. Thieves and addicts prowled every street in this city; people who’d just as soon steal the shirt off your back as look at you.
“Wish I had more time to hang around and give you a hand,” said Lokes. “As it turns out, I’m on a deadline myself, of sorts. As for news, I’ll tell you the starwinds are the strongest I ever seen ‘em. Savages are still eating them trains alive. Things are tough out there. Getting tougher. Tell you what, though. Your stock looks good. Here’s a little something extra to get you back on your feet.” He gave Quarterman a tiny gold ingot, three silver rings, and a six-inch coil of copper wire, then swept a short line of revolver rounds off the table and into his open palm. “That look good to you?”
“You don’t have to do that for me, Lokesy,” Quarterman said. He slid the silver rings back toward Lokes.
“I ain’t takin’ those,” Lokes insisted. “They’re part of the deal. We got a trade, or don’t we?”
Quarterman smirked humbly. He lifted a reluctant hand, which Lokes snagged and gave a firm shake.
“We have a trade.”
“My highest regards to you and yours, as always,” Lokes said. “Now, got a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“Where was them savages holed up, last you heard?”
“Axant Chemical,” said Quarterman. “Factory up near the river ducts, across the bridge.”
“Oh, right. I know it. Much obliged to you.”
“You have business with them?”
“Tell you about it another time. Got to go.”
“Alright. Be good, Lokesy.”
“Always am. Get you out of this place as soon as you can,” Lokes urged him. “More quakes comin’, says Jal. Last thing you need is your eggs scrambled.”
“Will do. Tell her hello for me.”
They said their goodbyes, left through the disguised wall panel, and joined Weaver out front. She was sitting by while the horses stood around looking for something to eat. Toler could see the heat was tiring them out.
He held the knife close against his side this time as Lokes gave him a push onto his saddle. He thought he could feel blood in his shirt from where the blade had cut him, but he didn’t dare check.
The road opened onto a patch of bare ground where the dry brown remains of a lawn and tree plantings led to the highway. Ahead, an overpass curved across the many lanes of the freeway below. A decomposing skeleton hung from a noose in the sidewall, swaying in the breeze. They sta
rted up the overpass, a one-lane exit littered with vehicle wreckage. The aluminum gantry held a faded sign pointing them toward the eastbound lanes of Rutherford Turnpike.
Someone had been living on this overpass, Toler could see by the way the vehicle parts were assembled into a series of roughshod lean-tos. The makeshift dwellings stood in grubby contrast to the clean blue sky behind them. At first glance, the bridge looked abandoned. But when they came closer and saw fresh refuse littering the asphalt, there was no doubt the residents were still at home.
Lokes raised a hand to halt them. Toler and Weaver tugged their mounts to a standstill alongside him, lining up like racehorses at a gate. They sat still to watch and listen.
The wind blew. The rope creaked.
Toler Glaive felt a lot like that skeleton; he wasn’t too far from the end of his rope, either. He would’ve given anything for a good smoke, or a drink of something hard and fiery. He could taste it; he could smell that sweet husky aroma, feel the heat sliding down his throat.
If nothing else, a couple of drinks would’ve made it easier to forget what a shitshow his life had become. An ailing fiancé who thought he’d left her; a boss and future father-in-law whose company was falling into ruin; a side business at risk of being found out; and a jackass brother who couldn’t keep his grubby mitts out of everyone else’s affairs.
There was one thing to look forward to in all of this. If the fates bore him any goodwill at all, he’d soon be in the presence of every single person responsible for his plight. Imagine that, he thought. Everyone who’s had a hand in screwing up my world, all in the same place at once. All breathing the same air.
A head popped up from behind one of the wrecked vehicles to study them through big brown eyes. Lokes drew with his left. The head vanished, then reappeared in the vehicle’s cracked rear window. It was a girl, blonde-haired and skinny. Toler didn’t know enough children to make a decent guess at her age, but he would’ve said ten or twelve if pressed.
“Hey. Come on out,” Lokes said, holstering the revolver. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
The girl slipped her fingers around the vehicle’s rusted door. Timidly, she stepped out from her hiding place. Her hair was an oily tangle lopped off above the shoulders. She wore a loose-fitting, sleeveless white shirt above tattered denim shorts and bare feet. When she stood, her legs were like sticks. “Spare a two-inch of copper, mister?” she asked.
“Ain’t got a half inch to spare,” Lokes said. “What you doin’ here all by your lonesome, honey? And who’s that hanging out your living room window?”
The girl cut her eyes toward the vehicle, around which the noose’s rope was anchored. “He a dull dway, mister. It was me get him or him done the flip. All got to go someways.”
Lokes leaned over and whispered. “What is this shit? Some kinda southern jargon?”
“It’s a dialect,” Toler said. “These urchins stay pretty far outside what you might call polite society. She understands what copper is though, so she can’t be that far out. Try offering her some food. I hear that works in every language.”
Lokes straightened and cleared his throat. He fished out a stick of jerky and held it up. “You hungry, kid? You sure look it. We ought to be movin’ on, so how ‘bout you take this and find you somewhere safer to hole up?”
The girl’s nostrils flared. She took a step toward Lokes. Then, something made her reconsider. “Be taking that way,” she said, motioning them forward. “For the meat.” She looked up at the jerky, following it with ravenous eyes.
Lokes was about to spur his horse, but he hesitated. He kept the jerky where it was, dangling it between two fingers. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the landscape of rusty, dented metal before them. A breath passed. Two.
Lokes drew with his right and fired. The girl dove out of sight. Metal rang, and Lokes’s bullet tore a hole through the tarnished blue face of an upright vehicle hood. Behind it, a man’s body thudded to the concrete.
“Coffing beggars,” Lokes muttered.
Two more men leapt from their hiding places, each wielding a length of sharpened signpost in his hands. Lokes put them down and popped the jerky into his mouth before the smoke had cleared. He spat out a hunk of gristle and swallowed the rest. “I swear, hanging your victims out for everyone to see got to be the dumbest coffin’ thing I ever heard of, you want to earn your keep at robbery. Watch for the girl.” He started forward, shoving another hunk of jerky into his mouth and chewing noisily.
Toler didn’t have the slightest desire to see what else might be waiting for them amid the maze of wreckage ahead. His plans for the longknife secreted away beneath his leathers didn’t involve revealing his possession just yet.
Lokes led them up the causeway, glancing left to right as Gish bore him through the erstwhile shanty town. The overpass soared to a height of a hundred feet or more, by Toler’s reckoning. At the crest, the city’s eastern horizon spread out before them, its towers burning in the midday light. There was no sign of the girl anywhere, no noise from within the wreckage.
As they began to descend toward the highway, a sound came from behind them. Lokes twisted in his saddle, drew, and fired, sending a bullet sizzling past Toler’s head. He turned.
The girl was two fathoms behind him. Her arm was raised; in it, a short wooden spear with a blade of razor-thin sheet metal. She had just drawn back to throw. Her other hand clutched at the red stain spreading across her sleeveless white shirt. She let the spear fall harmlessly to the ground. A gasp, and she followed.
“Never can trust them coffin’ beggars,” Lokes said. “Offer ‘em a bite and they want the whole buffet.” He hawked and spat.
They descended to the freeway and found themselves on a deserted stretch of open road. The Rutherford Turnpike was usually well-traveled, but it seemed everyone had taken to the shade to wait out the midday heat. Lokes and Weaver didn’t have time to wait, so Toler knew it wasn’t worth suggesting. He took a long draught from his waterskin, fighting the urge to fall to the ground and bash his skull open against the hot pavement. That seemed the only viable solution to the headache threatening to split his head in two.
The turnpike stretched on into the distance, and the three riders headed eastward at a canter. It was too hot to run the horses for long, and soon the animals worked up a lather and began to flag. They needed rest and water—especially Seurag. Lokes pushed on, determined by the urgency of their time constraint.
They passed an abandoned water treatment plant with a dry reservoir, its bed a blotch of cracked brown mud. Then came long rows of corrugated olive-green warehouses. After that, the Belmond Performing Arts Center stood gatekeeper to an array of taller buildings crowding the open freeway like curious spectators.
The sky was beginning to darken by the time they reached their exit and left the highway in favor of the precious shade beneath tall buildings along a corporate avenue. In the distance, a fast-moving thunderhead was rolling across the eastern desert. Lightning forked down, and the air rumbled.
“Where in tarnation does a rainstorm come from on a day like this?” Lokes complained.
“Them starwinds make strange things happen. Don’t give no warning, neither,” Weaver said from the back.
Lokes cursed.
They were in gang-infested territory now, every wall and window painted with some bright motif. A narrow track took them alongside a line of industrial buildings, a low chain-link fence the only barrier between them and a towering plunge to the road below. Lokes was ever-vigilant, Weaver nervous and silent behind him.
The twisting roadway led them around to face the tall smokestacks of the Axant Chemical Factory. The thin spires rose above a jungle of silos, scaffolding, pipes and holding tanks. Toler’s heart began to race when he spied the first of the borderguards on one of the rooftops—a mohawked warrior with a savage’s dark eyes and bronze flesh. Dozens more patrolled the factory’s many balconies, a blatant show of force which the nomads used to great effect.
“Who’s in charge here?” Lokes wanted to know.
“Diarmid Kailendi is warleader,” said a stout nomad with deep furrows carved into his bald scalp. His accent was thick, and Lokes seemed not to understand.
“Eh… lemme talk to him.”
“What is your trade?”
Lokes glanced at the sky, using his tongue to massage his bottom lip as he considered the oncoming storm. “Well now, I got this dway right here for sale,” he said. “Strapping young lad. Make a fine slave. Horse is for sale, too. The whole kit, matter of fact.”
“Now hold on, Will,” Jallika said, bringing her filly forward a few steps. “We came to see about a man, name of Daxin Glaive.”
“Yeah? Well things has changed, Jal. Or ain’t you noticed?” Lokes pointed upward.
“We ain’t gonna beat that storm back to Fink, and you know it,” she said.
“Not if we set here dillying about this missing-person nonsense. We trade ol’ Shep for the hardware we need, and then we go. That’s the last of it.”
“The rain comes,” said the nomad. “We go in.”
Lokes sighed. “Fine. Lead the way.”
The nomads took them around the corner and through a gate in the fencing. There they sheltered in the yard, dismounting beneath an overhang provided by one of the walkways above. The factory still wore its chemical smell like a lingering perfume, mixed with the bloody tang of old rust.
“Weapons,” said the savage.
Lokes reluctantly agreed, giving his gun belt and sweeties a longing stare as the nomads tossed them into a pile on the ground.
Toler’s heart skipped a beat when they began to pat him down. A savage slid his hands up each leg, then felt Toler’s hips and lower back. Oh, no.
It began to rain.
The nomad examined Toler’s pockets, then forced him to spread his arms. Toler felt the longknife slip free of his armpit and fall to rest in the waistband of his pants. The nomad’s hands patted him front and back, then along his sides. When he felt the bulge of the blade’s hilt, he stopped.