“What are— what— what are they doing to him?” Jori’s partner blubbered.
“You don’t want to know,” Isa said.
They were preparing him to butchered, to be eaten, Senka realized. There would be no fighting their captors today. They left him like that, dangling from the tree, his body filling the air with the iron scent of death that Senka seemed to never get away from.
FOURTEEN
Dark Touch
“For the dead, the living, and the yet to be, all must be documented and reconciled.” – The diaries of Nyset Camfield
The Whisperers had Jori’s corpse roasting on a makeshift spit long before anyone else awoke, given the state of his blackened skin. Isa was the first to wake by his own account, more than ashamed at feeling his stomach rumble at the scent of freshly cooked meat. With a twist of his guts, he realized they had even taken the time to use spices. He watched the beasts eat with the fascination one pays to a caged animal, trying not to look it in the eye. Except these animals weren’t caged and were more than a bit dangerous.
He looked down at the bottoms of his feet, red with angry blisters. A few had already burst and were in different states of healing. Those partially healed would soon be re-opened, he thought with a sigh. He tried to steal another glance at the Tigerians and saw Tatlat staring back at him, golden eyes shimmering in the reflection of the morning light. Tatlat produced a gleaming dagger from his belt and carved a bit of flesh from Jori’s crackling thigh, winked at Isa, then dropped it into his carnivore’s mouth. He licked his lips, oily with Jori’s fat, then grinned.
“Bastard. Those are mine. By the Dragon,” Senka seethed, staring wide eyed over at the huddled group of Tigerians. “My father’s daggers.” Isa saw it now. The dagger Tatlat had used was indeed one of her Dragon-headed daggers, the other on his belt beside at least two others. “Disgusting beasts. No better than Death Spawn,” Senka hissed.
He was just glad Jori wasn’t Senka, glad she managed to hold her tongue yesterday. During times like this, you had to have a heart of stone to make it out alive. He knew it must’ve taken a tremendous effort on her part. Had it been her, he’d likely have gotten them all killed. He’d almost lost control when they killed Jori. It took all he had to master his rage. He had to stay focused on the mission. It’s what Senka would have wanted.
Isa leaned forward, peered about to make sure no one else was listening, at least not with intent. “Let’s not forget why we’re here. We have to live, have to get back.” Someone stirred near him and Isa leaning back. Senka gave him a few nods.
A Tigerian cut a strip of white flesh from Jori’s rib and started gnawing on it. He didn’t deserve his fate, but Isa wasn’t ashamed to say he was glad it wasn’t him. Even though he was reckless and often impulsive, Isa liked being alive. Even in their current state, he sort of enjoyed the struggle. Struggle wasn’t boring. Life, strength, and character were forged within struggle’s crushing embrace. He saw it in the Swiftshade recruits, saw it in himself. Some couldn’t handle the crucibles of life. Men like Greyson, who broke like pots under too much pressure.
The rest of the group woke after a time. More than a few people vomited after seeing the Whisperers slurping on the bits of flesh clinging to Jori’s bones. He wondered then why they had tossed away the corpse of the man they killed just days ago. Maybe they weren’t hungry enough to eat men then. Were they perhaps a food of last resort? They tossed Jori’s mostly picked carcass to the Tougeres who worked to eat the rest of him, even chomping through his bones like they were made of glass.
They set off before the sun rose high and the heat became oppressive. Isa’s legs were thankful for seeing the land veering down for once. It reminded him that the endless upward climbs in life all changed eventually. What mattered was whether or not you hung on long enough for the world to shift. Most gave up long before the great shifting. Along the shores of New Breden, he watched time after time as the tide receded to show the clams sitting on the sand for those who were patient enough to wait. Few had, leaving him and sometimes another fellow the best of the pickings.
His gratefulness soon wore off, and his good mood soured. His knees started to ache, quadriceps quivering, his balls chafing against his thighs. The air became dry and cutting as they progressed down the other side of the ridge. The road formed a series of steep switchbacks, a misstep threatening injury or death. He could already feel the precious moisture in his throat being wicked away with every shuffling step. The occasional green shrub gave way to choking weeds, all dried out and browned, petrified like squat statues.
The horizon stretched out to infinity. Swirling curtains of sand were thrown through the air, some forming dust devils of sand and plant matter at the edges of the road. The sky was banded in gradients of blue stacked up to the sun, a white ball of skin-scorching fire. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, not a tree in sight to give them a minute of relief. He was thankfully immune to the sun’s battering rays.
The straps of his makeshift sandals were cutting at the spot where his ankle met his leg. He finally peered down to assess the damage and saw blood weeping from the cloth. His blisters tore open as predicted, pus grabbing at his skin and the bottoms of his sandals. There was nothing to be done but to plow on and stuff the niggling pains down deep where they wouldn’t bother him. He wasn’t good at a lot of things, but he was good at ignoring pain. The Test of Stones brought him pain tolerance, but his far exceeded the average Swiftshade’s.
There were unfamiliar things in the distance, dark bumps emerging from the shimmering sand. Villages, maybe cities, he realized. Maybe there would be whores, alcohol, and water there, he thought wistfully. He caught a glance of Senka marching ahead and decided that alcohol would be fine.
“How far are they?” Greyson asked, sweat coming down his face in sheets.
“See them too? Good eyes.” Isa nodded at him. “A few miles to the first I’d say. Hard to tell with all the haze. The sun and blasting sands.”
Greyson grunted and let a few minutes pass. “So what’s it like being a Tower killer?”
Isa let out a long sigh followed by a grim snicker. Feet scraped and stones skittered from footfalls placed too close to the steep edge from somewhere behind them. An enormous vulture with blood red feathers circled above, shrieking with what might have been alarm. Maybe calling his friends for a feast, Isa thought.
“Did you not hear me? I asked you a question,” Greyson said in a dark tone that might have meant something in a palace. They were meaningless here. In another world, another time.
Isa raised an eyebrow, slowly looking over his shoulder to regard him. He hoped the message was clear, but most nobles seemed to have shit for brains. They spent too much time being coddled, never knowing how it felt to have your guts kicked in, jaw knocked loose, and egos smashed down to the floor. Isa’s hands balled up into fists, and he brought his chest up to rise to his full height.
Greyson started to say something else, but promptly closed his mouth at meeting his eyes. He huffed out an angry breath and turned his head to the side.
Everyone else marched in silence, learning long ago that speaking only served to waste water in this heat. Men drew arms over noses and faces, some pulling their shirts up as a mask. Some men coughed, and everyone cursed at the billowing gusts. Isa almost longed for the humidity of the forest. At least it offered shade and leaves beaded with water.
Sweat trickled down the furrow in his back. Every man’s choice boiled down to marching or dying, and on everyone went. Some eventually whimpered for rest, others for another water ration. Why was the urge to survive so strong in man? Isa wondered. No matter the misery, no matter the endless toiling, man pushed on. It was a strange thing, never giving up, never settling down to die like a dog.
The Whisperers donned veils that only added to their sinister look. In addition to a dark veil, Tatlat wore eyeglasses with leather pieces around the sides to keep the sand out. It was innovative, Isa had to give him tha
t. The Tougeres slitted their eyes against the fierce winds, their fur coats fluttering, bowing their heads against particularly strong gusts. Their white flags with their snake insignias flapped like sails against their saddles.
Eventually, the downward slope became trackless flatlands. A few great dust devils swirled in the distance, almost as tall as the trees they’d been camping under, dragging a trail of debris with them. They wouldn’t last for more than a few minutes before dropping their payloads for another to sweep up, fading in and out of existence.
There was no evidence of their group’s passing, nothing but a bit of tamping feet against the dust and gravel road. How many other enslaved had marched through here? How many others wondered what torture fate would bestow upon them? The road was so densely packed that he guessed thousands of miserable legs had passed through these lands.
“Wonder how much we’ll fetch?” Greyson said it loud enough so most would hear, but his voice was cut by the wind. A few minutes passed, and no one responded. “Scab!” he shouted and waved his chains.
Scab twisted around to look, giving a joyful grin and a wave. At least someone was enjoying himself, Isa thought.
“How much for the lot of us?” Greyson asked. A Whisperer plodded along beside them, his Tougere growling at the disturbance, mirroring his Tigerian rider.
“Might want to shut your hole,” Isa said from the side of his mouth.
Scab wrapped a hand around his mouth to project his voice. “You? Well, not much. Might just eat you, though not much on you. Maybe just feed you to their mounts.” Scab laughed. “If they knew who you were, then maybe things would be different.”
“I see. That’s well enough about that.” Greyson went quiet.
Scab continued, “Oh, how I miss my pub in Helm’s Reach. What a glorious place it was. You’ve been there, right, white one?” Scab started before Isa could respond. “Even had windows installed so you could open the shutters. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful the sunsets were there. The Tower on the horizon, all wonderful. I asked them— my employees, that is— to find me some blue cacti to put around the building because I love cacti. Or was it white? But all they could find were some boring green ones. But I didn’t ask for green, did I? If I wanted green, I would’ve asked them for green. Why is it so difficult to follow basic orders? Hah! You should have seen them apologizing, all full of fear that I might boot them out the door, back to the Dirt Ring with all their filth, all their dirty compatriots. I’m sure by the time I get back to Zoria, they’ll have them all planted. No. Wait, I can’t go back there.” Scab waved his nub. “The damned Arch Wizard. I remember now. Don’t you think that would have been nice, Greyson? White cacti? Why is that so difficult a request? It would have been lovely, beautiful against the dark wood. Building had so much character—” Scab fell with a thump and a vicious pop.
The man ahead of him marched on heedless, the chains jerking at his wrists to make him turn. He looked down at Scab, and scratched his head, then heaved a sigh.
“He’s gone fully mad. More mad than ever,” Greyson muttered.
Scab sat up with a gasp, blood streaming down his nose in rivulets, face caked with sand. “What happened?”
A Tigerian dragged him up by the lapels of his coat and shoved a waterskin in his mouth. The Tigerian tipped the skin back and massaged Scab’s throat, forcing him to drink. Isa realized with a nod that dehydration was the source of Scab’s ravings. Or perhaps the Arch Wizard had indeed broken him.
Another slave near him dropped, then another, both reaching for water. The Tigerian let out a rumbling chuckle and shook his head, corked the waterskin, and slung it over his shoulder. He kicked the first man in the ribs with enough force to make him skip across the sand, writhing for a breath. The second stumbled up to his feet, mumbling, and bowing apologies.
“Apparently, all one has to do is die to get some extra water,” Greyson said.
“Who are you, really? Scab said if we knew who you were—” Isa cut off at a mouthful of windswept sand.
“Already told you,” Greyson said through gritted teeth.
“Tell me again,” Isa said. He was hiding something. But who wasn’t?
“Does it matter? We’ll all be plowing some Tigerian noble’s fields if we don’t end up in their bellies first.”
He had a point, and Isa left it alone because he truly didn’t care. He’d be no one’s slave. There were only two things that mattered to him now: getting himself and Senka out of this mess and returning to the Arch Wizard. He didn’t care a shit about what happened to the Blood Eater. The man was a relic of the Shadow Realm and had no business being alive as far as he was concerned. Beggars couldn’t choose their allies though, and a man had to use every tool at his disposal.
Maybe the dehydration was getting to him, warping his mind. Even with his penchant for anger, he knew those were dark thoughts. Juzo was a friend, wasn’t he? Maybe something about this trek revealed some inner dislike for the creature. There it was, Isa thought. He wasn’t a man, but an abomination, a mongrel to be put down.
The first of three dark nubs materialized on the horizon. He stared at them for a few minutes, thinking them a trick, but their shapes remained after trying to blink them away. The first was most certainly a village. No pillars of smoke rose from it, no shifting shapes around its low walls. It seemed intact, not razed, not burned out. There didn’t seem to be anything living from what he could see, though it was still a fair distance away. Something was shining like a mirror on the ground, certainly a trick of the light. The gleam never went away though, never dissipated as they staggered onward. Could his senses be trusted?
“Water. Look at all that water,” Greyson breathed from behind. “I’ll drink for days. Maybe even piss again,” he snickered.
“A mirage,” Isa groaned. “No water out here. Not that much,” he growled, wishing he was wrong.
“No,” Greyson said firmly. “It’s real. Know the difference, damn it.”
Isa ran a hand down the back of his neck, crusted with crystallized sweat and clinging dust. “Don’t know. How could there be so much?”
“You’ll see. You’ll see how right I am, white one,” Greyson said with almost religious fervor.
They drew closer to the village, and the Whisperers let them rest. Everyone plopped onto the ground, sun beating on their backs. They sent a pair of riders for the village, the rest of the pack leading them on towards the shimmering disc. He kept expecting it to fade away like a dust devil on the horizon, but there it was. He could see its beautiful rippling as the wind tore across it. The edges were laced with about a foot of bright green grass, life-giving water on one side and the scourging winds on the other.
The Tougeres reached it first, made a flock of tiny golden birds circling it twitter up in the sky. They dipped their heads in and sucked down great mouthfuls. The Tigerians dismounted, dropping on all fours and dipping their heads down in kind.
“It’s real,” Isa breathed.
“Told you,” Greyson said with excitement.
The group reached the water, laughter and smiles spreading up the line of chained men. Isa splashed his face and drank, dipped his head in, uncaring of the silt being stirred up by all the bodies. He opened his eyes in the water, blinking away dirt. All that precious liquid touching his face was almost enough to make him smile. “Can’t believe it.” He cupped his hands and tossed water down his back, gently working to wash away the dirt covering the scabs there.
“We can just stay here. Stay here forever,” Greyson said between gulps.
“Take the opportunity to rinse out your wounds, if you’ve got any.” Isa slipped off his sandals and dipped his feet in, gently brushing gravel from the blisters and cuts on his feet.
He saw Senka with her head submerged, bubbles rising up around her. Others mirrored her, dunking their heads in, scrubbing out salt and wind-swept dirt. Isa snickered and dunked his head in again. Water was sloshing in his ears when he heard a distant roar
. He jerked his head out and peering around. He dragged his hand down his face, streaking it with fine sand.
A cloud of dust followed the two riders galloping out of the village, weapons drawn and waving. They were bellowing out roars of what must’ve been alarm. The other captives rose up, a mix of bewildered looks and smiles falling from their faces. His mind raced through possibilities. Attacking raiders? Something they couldn’t see? Water poisoned?
“What’s happening?” Greyson asked.
Isa shook his head, trying to discern the trouble by their body language. He wondered if he should be sticking two fingers down his throat to induce vomiting. The pair skidded to a halt before Tatlat and the others, barking in a series of short grunts. Tatlat made hard gestures to the captives then back at the village. The Whisperers split into two groups, six riding back to the village, the rest coming to the oasis. The slaves peered about, eyes nervously scanning the oncoming group.
“What do we do?” Greyson stammered.
“I don’t know. Start by staying quiet,” Isa hissed. “Watch. Listen.”
A few Tigerians reached out and grabbed their chains, gesturing for them to start for the village. They complied, knowing well the price of ignoring their orders.
The village was a series of shanty huts made from a variety of woods — some dark red, some pale, some supported by what looked to be freshly hewed trees. A wide street ran down the center of the village from one side to the other. Cutting across it ran another street making the shape of a cross. The length of the main street spanned no more than ten or so buildings. A low dilapidated fence trailed around the perimeter, not seeming to do much but stop the occasional dead shrub from tumbling into the dirt street.
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