The Jeep lurched to a stop beside the river and the leader lumbered out, pausing beside me. “Bring her,” he said. “Leave the man. If he dies, it will be easier to back up the Jeep and dump him in the river.”
“But the blood, boss! The shirt’s a ruin, but lemme save his coat!”
“Fine, fine,” he said, tossing a hand over his shoulder. “Take his coat.”
The others pulled me out of the Jeep as they set upon Niero, rolling him out of his coat, like scavengers picking on a carcass. My attention was forced to the massive cave before me, a place the river had probably carved for centuries before receding, leaving a wide, flat, sandy bottom and a decent amount of shelter from the rain. There were several fires burning, and I smelled the fish before I spotted them on skewers. My mouth watered, but that quickly disappeared when the foul stench of human waste and rot entered my nostrils next.
Two men sat in raised towers on either side of the massive cave, automatic weapons facing out. To guard them from what? Hoodite shepherd boys? The man who’d brought me to my feet in the Jeep now offered me his hand to get up and over the boulders that formed a barrier to the cave. I ignored it, choosing to make my own way, but followed him over to the nearest fire.
“Whatcha doin’, Socorro?” cried Bushy. “She ain’t getting any of our fish.”
“Yeah, keep ‘er skinny,” said the woman with a lop-sided grin. “The Zanzibians like ’em skinny. They don’ look so costly to feed.” I stared at her. How could she speak of women like she did? And how had she avoided the same fate? But then I saw the boss grin and slap her backside, and knew. She belonged to him.
Socorro cast me a swift look of regret, then gestured to Bushy. “Quit your gripin’. I’m not giving anyone nothin’. Just lettin’ her get warm. She’s shaking all over.”
“She’ll need the fire,” the leader allowed, “because we’ll be having her coat too.”
Two women pounced as if they’d been waiting on such word, and pushed and pulled me out of my oilskin. Even as Socorro yelled at them, they turned me over and pressed my face in the sand, so hard I worried I’d suffocate. I was abruptly released once they had the coat. “She has something on her arm, boss,” said one, scurrying backward with my coat in hand. “Something hard.”
The man’s gaze narrowed at me as I spit sand out of my mouth, and again I was more scared by his utter lack of emotion than by the others about me with more challenging, dangerous — but at least identifiable — feelings. “Bring her to me,” he said, waving to them.
I panicked, grasping at the man nearest to me, the one they called Socorro, who’d helped me a little. I felt bits of pity from him. Compassion. But mostly I felt grief, as if I was lost already to his mind. I tried to gather enough spit in my mouth to swallow.
The tall man and Bushy dragged me across the sand and we reached the side of the cave, where two, rusty chains came down from a metal circle inserted into the rock, high above. Two more from the base.
“What’s on your arm, girl?” asked the leader, slowly brushing off his sleeve as if he wasn’t really all that interested.
“A trinket. Worthless. A marking of my people.”
“Not a receiver?”
“A receiver?” I said, fighting to focus on his face. “I-I don’t know what a receiver is.”
“Show me,” he said, hands on his hips, his feet spread wide. He watched as they wrestled my sweater from me — my hair coming loose with it — then my long-sleeved shirt, leaving me in my T-shirt. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling exposed, vulnerable, and already terribly cold as the sun continued to recede.
The leader frowned and walked over to me, lifting my arm in his big hand.
I could not bear to look as he perused the priceless band. Tapped at it. Turned my arm back and forth. “Well, it’s not a receiver. Just a grubby adornment of some sort.” He tried to slide it down, like it was an arm cuff, and I cried out.
He looked hard at me. “What the — ”
“It’s a tradition in the Valley,” I said hurriedly. “The skin is seared, and the cuff adheres. It’s, as you say, worthless. A bauble to remember a rite of passage.”
He continued to stare, doubt lacing his eyes. “Everyone is to leave it be,” he declared, a glint in his eye. “It’s not worth much. But she’ll look all the more enticing and foreign to the Zanzibian traders in a couple days if we leave it on. They favor such adornments.”
For the first time, their chatter and action fully registered with me. They planned to steal my clothes and sell me as womanflesh. I thought of the dark streets at the center of that southern city. The sense of despair —
“What are you doing here, girl?” the leader asked, stepping forward to study me closer. “You and your friends? You’re not of the Desert. You’ve been trained to wield a sword. Where are you from?”
“The Valley,” I said. “We have safe-passage papers. Niero had them”
“Bah! I don’t care what papers you wield. You’re mine now. Your future is dependent on me alone. Where are you heading? For what purpose? This is what I wish to know.”
I frowned. How was I to answer that? “We were headed to the salt caves,” I tried, having no idea if it would help or harm, but too weary to think up a lie.
His eyes narrowed. “The salt caves,” he said dismissively. “Nothing there but starving villagers. Your friends turned tail and ran out on you. Is that how people of the Valley treat their companions?”
I stared at him.
“Is it? Because that’s how we Drifters do!” he said, with a sudden laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. The others laughed with him, but the sound was empty of joy.
“Tell me, really, where you are going,” he said, biting out each syllable and leaning down toward me. Greed and suspicion twined within him.
“Eventually north, for more petrol.”
“For what purpose?” he asked, throwing up a hand. “You have two extra tanks on your bike that are still full. The only reason you’d need more is if you were headed to Castle Vega. Or … Pacifica.”
“We seek to build trade for our people,” I tried, wary of the surge of bitterness I got from him at the mention of the city beyond the Wall. “Perhaps we could even trade with you. We got off to a rough start, but I’m willing to look past it for the right deal and safe passage.”
He stared at me for a long moment, and then again let out a loud guffaw. The others laughed, uneasily, around him. “You have us mistaken for those others who gave you safe passage. We don’t trade, girl. We take.”
“Hey, boss!” called a man, from beside what looked to be their storage area. “There are three barrels of potato whiskey here!”
“Where’d those come from?” he called, half-suspicious, half-pleased.
“I don’t know!”
“Well, find out!” he shouted, his eyes still on me.
He made a motion and two men took hold of my arms. They wrenched up on the chains until I was on the balls of my feet, and my arms spread out in a Y. I gasped. Then he came closer, so close I could feel his hot breath on my face. “When you’re ready to tell me where you’re really going, and why, I’ll loosen your chains. Tie you so you can sleep rather than stand through the night. Until then, I have some potato whiskey to drink. Catch me before I’m too drunk to hear your call or we’ll have to address it again come morn.”
I watched him walk away and felt the self-pity rise within me. A Vidar-like thought came to my mind. So far, this Ailith thing is less than fun.
My eyes shifted to the back end of the Jeep, no sign of Niero shifting or rising.
Never had I felt so alone. Maker, where are you?
Was this how it was to end? Me, sold into Zanzibar? I’d escaped the city once. But could I do it again — alone? If they’d followed Niero’s instructions, all of Tressa and Killian’s friends were long gone from the sewage tunnel. Clennan and Tyree were back in the Valley. A shiver ran down my spine, not from the damp of the cave or the nearby
river or the falling rain. But from the possibility of returning to Zanzibar. Not as a warrior, strong among her sisters and brothers. But as a slave.
It was impossible. It couldn’t happen. I had to escape. Or welcome death. Because I couldn’t go there. I can’t … I can’t … I can’t … I can’t …
Thoughts of the womanflesh traders, Tonna’s warning, even walking with my hand on some man’s hip, bound to a mate as property, made me want to vomit.
I wondered if my friends had gotten away. If they searched for us or carried forth without us. We’d never discussed anything other than to go everywhere together. Though that had been Niero’s plan. And he was here with me. Dead. Or could be still be alive? I was so sure I’d sensed that flash of vengeance within him … but had I only felt what I wanted to feel?
One thing I knew: Ronan wouldn’t leave me willingly. He’d be fighting, desperately trying to get back to me, free me. I’d been relieved when the other Drifters pulled in, having failed to capture the remainder of our group, and I concentrated on that emotion now. I watched as my captors pushed, shoved, jostled for more potato whiskey, a clear liquid they drank from cups of all varieties — cans, ceramic, glass, even what appeared to be hollowed rocks — downing more and more of it.
Ronan will come. The thought gave me strength.
And yet, if they couldn’t find our trail, couldn’t find the access point to the canyon high above, couldn’t find us, what were they to do? While Ronan and I were inexplicably tied, and I knew the other Ailith on a deeper level of kinship, were we not all called to a higher task? Regardless of the cost to some of us, wasn’t our collective goal more important?
No, they wouldn’t leave me and Niero. Not without knowing we were dead first, lost to them until we were reunited in the afterworld. I knew it. I knew it. But then I feared the thought. If they came down here, were shot dead or captured with me, all in an effort to save me … If I was the cause of any of them losing their lives —
I pulled at my chains, wishing I could wrench them free from the rock above me. But as I tugged at them, I knew they wouldn’t budge, even if they were old and rusty. And I felt the scream of panic within, as wide and all-encompassing as my grief when I first discovered my parents were dead.
It was that thought that brought me up short. Reminded me of Ronan carrying me, so tenderly, to the river’s edge. Of Raniero, forcing me to rise. Of him saying that fear blocked the power of the Maker. Of him gripping my arms and making me promise I’d remember. To hold on to what I knew rather than getting lost in what I felt.
In what I felt.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to grab hold of the tiniest tendril of truth, in the midst of all my feelings roiling about in my head and heart. Raniero had known something like this would come. He’d known. And while my gifting gave me an edge at times, it also left me weak, vulnerable.
Truth. Whispers teased me, like the very end of a frayed thread, refusing to move through the eye of a needle. What truths do I know?
The Maker sees me.
He does not abandon his own.
I am called.
He hears me.
Maker, hear me now … Deliver me. Protect and deliver me …
I dozed off or passed out for a time — I didn’t know which.
I came to with a start, my eyes wide, shifting. But the camp had been drinking for a good while, judging from those who were down already, slumbering as if they might not wake for days. The remaining number played a game in which they each downed a gulp of whiskey, then took three steps along a line in the sand, then took another, dropping off, one by one. Two children, one who looked about his first decade-and-two, the other far younger, sat and watched the drunken adults — casting furtive glances my way — while moving about, scavenging food from the adults’ hands like starving dogs. Perhaps they were but insignificant creatures among the Drifters. Just another mouth to feed until they were big enough to fight, bully, take. When they’d eaten their fill, they fell asleep, cuddled up together beneath a filthy blanket. The guards in their towers looked decidedly dazed as they stared outward with glassy eyes.
I studied the thirty before me, now like logs among the sand, snoring, blessedly leaving me alone, and found myself grateful for the discovery of whiskey. Even if it meant I’d be standing here all night. I selfishly wished Raniero’d been tied beside me; his presence would give me confidence and hope. I glanced into the dark, trying to make out the lines of the Jeep, but could see nothing but the wash of white upon the river, oddly a second off from the sound. Perhaps the cave
Niero, I reminded myself, trying to focus as my vision swam. My thoughts were all over the place. Unfocused. Might he be rallying? Could I rouse him if I could somehow break free?
I shivered in the cold. Beyond the mouth of the cave, it was raining. I twisted, looking for anything I might use to aid me, then up at the rocks and chains that tethered my blood-drained hands to them. A soft groan from the far tower drew my attention, and I saw a guard fall from view and tumble to the floor. Had he given in to the drink and the lulling sounds of the river?
His companion appeared confused, then disappeared too.
Hope surged within me even as I frowned, trying to make sense of what I’d seen.
I squinted, trying to see better in the gathering dark, given that the fires had burned down to embers. A man, mostly hidden in deep shadow, appeared between the guards and lifted one to his perch again, positioning him so that he looked like he’d merely fallen asleep. Then he pulled back the chamber of the gun, dropped the bullets into his hand, and placed the gun in the man’s arms again. He swiftly did the same with the second man.
He looked over to me and I frowned. For I’d hoped it was Ronan or Niero.
But it was neither.
CHAPTER
14
I swallowed an oath. I didn’t know whether to hope or be more frightened than ever.
The tall man crept to the next tower, wary of the other guards, pausing by the boss and carefully lifting the keys from his pocket. A woman lying in the crook of the big man’s arm moaned and moved, even sat up, blinked heavily, and then laid back down, all while this mysterious visitor was right beside them. He moved closer to me, glancing at the guards, but he apparently decided to risk that they were sacked — or unable to shoot us if they awakened. He gave me a slow, idle smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Here I thought it was going to be the bushy-bearded one that would come around for me,” I said, forcing a cavalier tone to my voice. I hoped he didn’t hear the waver in it.
He pocketed the key to my chains in his trousers, looked back at the camp and then to me. “I’m thinking you might be open to a deal,” he whispered in my ear. His movements were smooth. Deadly.
I swallowed and tried to give him a casually interested look. “Oh?”
The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. I decided he wouldn’t be terrible looking. If he wasn’t a monster inside. And yet he was.
“What’s your name?” he asked, his lips hovering near my ear, my neck. In all this time with the Drifters, not a one of them had asked that. I concentrated on that odd fact, rather than the man hovering near me. I didn’t answer. His hands came to my waist, and foul, fetid darkness rolled out of him and into me. It took everything in me to remain still, to not react.
“No name?” he whispered, his lips near my temple, then my jaw. “No matter. There’s a good dolly,” he said, his hands beginning to move around to my back as he pulled me closer.
“You said you had a deal,” I said quickly, and with some relief, his hands stopped roving.
He smiled then and drew a bit back, a small, thin-lipped grin on his face. “Why yes,” he said, again in my ear, leaning in, his hands running down my back.
I closed my eyes. Don’t move. Don’t move, Dri.
“Here’s the deal,” he said in a breath. “I free you. And you give me a tumble around the corner.”
I tried to gather enough spit to swallow and failed. “What’s to keep you from returning me to these chains afterward?”
He laughed softly, lowly, and in that moment, I wished it was Bushy rather than this man. Even the boss. This guy was far more ruthless. “Nothing. But what’s your option, dolly? I can have at you either way.”
“True,” I allowed. I looked him in the eye. “Unchain me, quickly, and I’ll see through your deal.” I hoped I managed to give him the teensiest invitation in my look. Inside, all I could feel was revulsion.
Glee surged through him. He crouched down and slowly unlocked my right ankle and then moved to my left, his long fingers lingering on my calves. I knew that if I left this cave with him, I’d likely not return alive. But being free of at least two of my chains sent a wave of hope, strength through me.
He ran his hands up my legs and over my hips as he rose and I couldn’t handle it any longer. Again, I acted on instinct, grabbing hold of the chains at my wrists, lifting myself up and kicking off of him, then wrapping my legs around his neck, squeezing with every bit of energy I had left to me. He writhed and struggled, clawing at my legs, too surprised to reach for his knife. But he was strong, and we went on in our strange death dance for long minutes, the chains rattling so loudly, his grunts and growls so frequent, I couldn’t believe no one came to his aid. But I concentrated only on him, on his waning breath, his hatred. It was so dark, so all-encompassing, I began to draw back, loosen my hold, until I remembered Niero urging me to remember what I knew, rather than what I felt.
He is my enemy. He will use me and then kill me.
Dimly, as if I were twenty paces away rather than right there with him, I watched as the life faded from his eyes. And then, I felt nothing at all from him.
I forced myself to release him, staring as he crumpled to the ground, the key still buried in his trouser pocket. I glanced up to the chains that still held me. Great, just great.
I closed my eyes and tried to think. Was there any other way out? And what would happen, come morning, when the Drifters found this man dead beside me? Would they decide to use me and kill me themselves? Had I traded one horror for another?
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