by Patty Jansen
Braedon said something in Mirani. How come he always managed to sound friendly? He was such a soft-hearted person. Not full of bristle and anger, like her.
The soldier spat. The glob of spit landed on Braedon's leg.
Izramith grabbed the man by the front of his uniform. "You don't do that to any of my trusted people, especially not to him. Do that again and I'll bash your face in."
He met her eyes with a defiant look. Oh, he understood her well enough.
The scent that rose from him was strange and familiar, and one she had smelled before, on a baby.
She took in his narrow face with strong cheekbones, his weird green eyes, his curly hair, resembling Daya's, but sand-coloured.
She grabbed him by the collar and shouted in his face, "The fuck, what are you? Some sort of perverted zhadya-born?"
He retreated, eyes wide, and fell quiet.
Braedon gave her a sideways look. "Was that necessary?"
"Someone needed to shut him up. You're much too nice."
"My regular job is to make people better. I do not enjoy killing them."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
He didn't reply.
The expression on his face remained emotionless. No doubt the irony would not pass him by that he was the person with the highest number of kills to his name during this expedition. The precision of his fire still chilled her. What were the things that Traders saw in the course of their normal work?
The feel of forest around her was suffocating. She couldn't see. Her visor kept fogging up. The humidity was so stifling that she couldn't breathe. Sweat ran under her armour.
Damn, fucking adaptation. Was this ever going to end?
"You want us to take our wire and motion sensors back?" Eris asked.
"Leave it for now," Izramith said. "Until we're safe. Until reinforcements have turned up from Barresh." Her voice sounded more strained than she wanted. The prisoner was nervous and that made her nervous.
The semblance of a path that led from the cave entrance faded pretty soon and then they were back to clambering over boulders, although this route at the back of the hill was definitely easier than the one they had taken. It was still raining and the moss was even more slippery than when trying to climb up. The prisoner was carrying on in Mirani.
They finally arrived at the bottom of the hill where at least they could walk normally.
The golden sand of the beach and dark water of the lagoon peeped between the trees. Hopefully the backup from Barresh wasn't too far awa—
A bright flash somewhere behind them.
A rumble in the ground.
For a moment, the world stopped.
Wairin yelled, "Run!"
Air whooshed through the forest. Then the front of the explosion hit.
Izramith pushed the prisoner face first into the sand and fell on top of him. Debris flew over her head. A large tree branch crashed next to her, spraying her with leaves and crap.
Oh, shit. What the fuck was that?
She scrambled up and pushed the foliage aside, even though her ears were still ringing.
The area behind her was a tangle of fallen tree trunks and branches. Sunlight penetrated between bushes stripped bare and tree trunks snapped straight in half.
Wairin struggled to free himself from the snarl of vegetation. Izramith gestured You're fine? He nodded.
Eris, who had been in front of her, said, "Shit, we're lucky." His eyes were wide and mouth open. Trails of blood ran from a series of cuts in his arm, probably from flying debris.
The hill and the shack had been had turned into a crater. Little bits of splintered wood lay scattered everywhere.
She hated to think what the explosion had done to the bodies, or what it would have done to them if they'd still been in the shelter.
Dashu was talking on her comm. "Yes, we're still here. Come quickly. I don't know what else will blow up." Someone at the council guard station, she presumed.
She and Eris dragged the prisoner onto the beach where they hid in the cave. Blood ran down his face onto his suit and there were cuts in his leg, too.
Eris unrolled his mat and let the prisoner sit on it. There was no more bravado or yelling. His face was pale and he said nothing. Braedon dug in his pack to get the med kit.
Izramith went to stand at the entrance, holding the gun. Her ears were still ringing from that explosion. That had been a very, very close call.
"There they are," Eris said into the silence.
The stout shape of a short distance craft already showed in the sky, going slow. Its downward beam blew aside reeds and made trees thresh about wildly.
Not much later, it landed with a spray of mist and settled on top of the water. The door opened and someone slid a dinghy out the door.
A guard jumped into it. A second person handed the first one the engine. This went onto the stand, a huge jet-fan that would blow the craft forward. It gave a high-pitched whine when the guards started it.
With the boat coming towards the beach, Izramith ordered the group to grab all their gear. Eris, Dashu went in the dinghy with the stretcher that contained Loxa's body. Eris carried both Dashu's and Loxa's packs.
Izramith remained on the beach while the boat receded. She couldn't look at the long shape wrapped in cloth and couldn't look away. Dashu's eyes were still red.
"What about boat?" Wairin asked, waving a hand at the punt that had taken them here.
Braedon said, "Pengali will return it. They do it for money."
She said. "We haven't even seen any Pengali."
"They're around. They know exactly where we are."
"Does that mean they're in agreement with these Mirani spies being on their land?"
"They probably don't care, as long as they get paid. It's never been any different. Pengali care about Pengali interests."
The dinghy arrived at the shuttle and filled up with guards, all of them in full gear and armed and carrying duffels.
The boat charged for the shore and crunched onto the beach not much later. The guards streamed out.
The superior spoke to Eris in keihu and Eris gestured at Izramith and their prisoner.
"Mirani?" the guard asked.
"Not this man. He speaks Mirani, though."
From the corner of her eye, she noticed that the man flinched.
"You killed some?"
"There were eight in total," Izramith said. "Mirani and others. With spying equipment. We killed seven, before the hide-out blew up. I managed to salvage a couple of data storage sticks."
"You've taken one casualty?"
"Yes." She hated how impersonal that sounded. Remembered the look on Dashu's face as if she knew, even before they went into the hideout, that Loxa was dead.
That kind of connection had to be special. That was the zhayma bond.
The guard superior ordered his team into the forest, and Izramith climbed in the dinghy.
She was broken inside. This was why she could make love to a man without loving him, without speaking to him afterwards. Braedon was busy helping the prisoner into the boat and didn't look at her.
Wairin, next to her, was also very quiet.
"Don't like blood," he said when he noticed her gaze lingering on him. The glare reflecting off the water silhouetted his outline. "Seen far too much of it at home. Death and destruction. War is never pretty, no matter the glorious stories."
She nodded.
War made ruins of people's lives like a deep burn. It hurt when it happened, but continued to do damage for much longer than that.
Chapter 23
The dinghy arrived at the shuttle and Izramith climbed into the craft, a pretty basic cabin with two rows of seats against the side walls. The floor between them was a cargo space, where the others had put their bags, and the stretcher with Loxa's body covered in a grey cloth. The guards pulled up the dinghy. Dashu sat on the chair closest to the back, next to Loxa's body, hugging herself and staring out the window.
Braedon had his med kit out and sat on his knees to attend to Eris' cuts. Two long bandages went over Eris' forearm, stuck down with white tape. When he finished, he dragged his bag to Izramith and crouched next to her.
"Let me have a look at you."
"I'm fine."
He reached out and touched her face. His fingers came away covered in blood. "Not from where I'm standing. Do you feel fine?"
She nodded, but at the same time a wave of nausea washed over her. Blood had also leaked onto her uniform. She hadn't even noticed that she'd been hit.
"Take off your armour."
She didn't argue. She undid the clips and he helped her lift it over her head. The underside of his arms brushed her hands very lightly, bringing memories of a time that seemed much longer ago than the previous night.
"Whoa, look at this." He held up the armour. The backplate had a big dent.
He massaged her shoulder with firm hands. "Does it hurt anywhere here?"
She shook her head. With her fingertips, she gingerly touched her cheek. Blood. She smeared it all over her face looking for a cut or injury. Where did it even come from?
"Let me do that." With gentle hands, he wiped her forehead and the side of her face and her neck. She remembered how his fingers had caressed her. His face looked serious. The pile of bloodied bandages grew. "You might want to get this treated."
"I'm fine." She still felt nauseous.
"You get this glued, all right. I don't like to see a nasty scar on your face." His eyes met hers and held her gaze for an intense moment.
Why didn't he acknowledge what had happened between them? Yeah, she agreed to nethana but that didn't mean he had to go all stupid over it?
Braedon rose and moved to the prisoner, who had been tied to his seat.
He tried to wipe blood off the man's face, but he'd ran out of clean wipes, so had to use part of the man's ripped shirt.
Each time Braedon's hands came close, the man tried to retreat. His face was sheened with sweat. In the light of the cabin, he looked younger than she would have guessed he was. Barely adolescent.
She recognised his behaviour. His earlier aggression came from trying to mask fear. And because he was scared, he could probably be broken. She pushed herself from her seat and crouched next to him. He gave her a sideways glance and stiffened ever so slightly.
Braedon continued cleaning his face.
"You speak Coldi, no?" Izramith said, her voice low.
His gaze flicked to her, and then went back to staring at Braedon's hands. Too intense.
"If you talk to us, we can help you."
He stared ahead. Those eyes were really the most unusual colour she had ever seen. In the cabin of the craft, the zhadya-born scent was even stronger.
"What were you doing with all these Mirani people? Did they treat you badly?"
He didn't move.
"I understand that you are from a group of people that has been treated poorly just about everywhere they live. At Hedron we call them zhadya-born, but he—" She glanced at Braedon. "—says that you don't like that name. I am really stubborn and I'm going to use it anyway, because that's what we call your people at my home."
There was no reaction.
"I don't think you're from Hedron. I've never seen anyone like you before, but if I'm right, you'll probably know some of the zhadya-born from Hedron. I'll tell you something. I'm here because the Barresh council hired me. I'm also here because I have a nephew who is zhadya-born. At Hedron, people put these children in the care of an institute. They will never see the surface, they will never work, they will never have a partner and never lead a normal life. I wasn't happy with that future for my nephew, so I found out that my father has a zhadya-born brother. I wanted to ask him if he knew of a way to keep my nephew out of this horrible institute."
She paused, aware that Braedon and Eris were listening in.
"But my uncle has gone missing. One of his neighbours said that she thought he went to Ceren. When I saw images of Daya, I thought of course he would be in Barresh. But my uncle is not here. Is he in Miran?"
The young man's eyes met hers. "You'll never see him again. Not after this." He spoke a curious mix of Hedron Coldi with a Mirani accent.
Yes! Once he'd started speaking, the information would flow.
"What do you mean by that?" But he had already admitted in a roundabout way that the Hedron zhadya-born were in Miran.
He didn't reply and looked out the window.
Izramith made a show of unclipping her knife from her belt. After the fight in the hideout, it was covered in dirt and other unmentionable substances.
He glanced at it. "I'm not afraid. Kill me."
Izramith raised the knife in front of her face. He didn't flinch. He really wasn't afraid.
She proceeded to clean her nails with the tip of the knife. "Gamra prohibits the execution of defense-less prisoners without a trial. I think I might be better off handing you back to Miran. I might be able to negotiate something for your release."
His eyes widened. "Please, no. Don't send me back. They'll kill me."
"And just a moment ago you wanted me to kill you?"
"I rather you kill me than be sent back for them to come and find me, like what happened to my friend. He escaped and was killed by soldiers in a back street."
Izramith's heart jumped. "When did that happen?"
"A few days ago."
"He was keihu?"
He nodded.
Izramith met Eris' eyes. The man who had been butchered in the alley that linked Fountain Street and Market Street. The man who was very similar to someone who had gone missing years ago, because he was someone who had gone missing years ago.
"Tell us about this person. Tell us about yourself and where you were held and why."
The man's eyes widened. "You have to guarantee that you'll keep me safe."
"We're almost in Barresh now. We'll be met at the airport by guards. If you're afraid of your captors, custody is probably the safest place to be."
The man was silent for a while, looking out the window as if he expected someone to be in pursuit.
Then he started speaking in a low voice. "I was born as Ridan in Miran of a Mirani Endri father and a keihu mother. I never knew my father, but my mother lived in the same building as me. With us were a group of people, thirty-five in total, some of us of the same blood, some from other races. Twenty of us were men, and fifteen women. All except me and a young boy were taken off the streets of various localities, but mostly Barresh. There were Pengali and keihu. They were mostly girls. The men were mostly from Hedron—"
"Do you know anyone called Reyar?"
He frowned. "Tall fellow?"
"Yes." Her heart thudded.
"He's in Miran. He does the communication for this whole plan."
"Voluntarily?"
He laughed, not in a funny way. "None of us are there voluntarily. We are prisoners. They killed my mother. My friend was keihu. He was abducted from the street during the midsummer festival. He had fought with his family and was living on the street. He was always talking about going back and when they gave him the opportunity to come here, he took his chance and escaped. Caught him, too."
"Who are these people keeping you prisoner? The Mirani council?"
"We had contact only with one: Nemedor Satarin. We're a private project of his and he uses privately-hired guards to control us. He knows about Daya Ezmi and his group of people with Aghyrian blood and he's trying to set up a rival group, because he thinks that Daya is stealing Mirani genetic material, because the Endri are the purest Aghyrians of all the races, but they have fertility problems and —" He glanced at Braedon. "—sorry. The man is paranoid. He's keeping us in an old building that's been abandoned. It's old, with little pr
etty towers and coloured windows and everything. In the middle of town somewhere.
He will come into the compound where we live with a couple of thugs and makes you strip down and stand naked in the courtyard for 'experiments'. Look." He slid his foot out of his shoe. The pale skin was marked with purple patches. "That's where I had blisters from standing in the snow."
"What are you doing in Barresh?"
"Nemedor Satarin wants to take back Barresh and he needs to find its weak points. He's using local people because they can blend in with the population."
"By local people you mean other prisoners captured from Barresh?"
"Yes, and people who live locally."
"Who are these people?"
"I don't know them. Nemedor Satarin has a big network of friends in Barresh. They look like rich families. We went into their gardens and roofs."
Izramith's heart jumped. "People who live along the main streets?"
He shrugged. "I think so. Don't ask me for names or anything. Most times I never saw who lived in the house. I just got told where to go."
Izramith couldn't help thinking of the golden-haired man she had seen with the young Semisu nephew. So, the two of them had been setting up spying equipment up on the top floor of the commercial building when she witnessed their argument. Why did none of this surprise her?
"Did you send messages with threats to the Andrahar family?"
"Not me, but others did. Nemedor Satarin hates them. And there is this second in command who keeps talking about how his wife and daughters betrayed him and how they should come back to Miran with him."
Mikandra's father. "Is he likely to carry out his threats?"
"I don't know. You can expect anything from those lunatics."
Izramith didn't like the hesitation in his voice. Likely, there was some information he wasn't going to share. She gestured to Eris, Wairin and Braedon and the four of them moved to the front of the cabin.
"What do you think?" she asked both of them, meeting their eyes in turn
"I don't trust him," Eris said. "He's much too upfront with the information. Who is to say that they haven't planted him to tell us what we want to hear?"
"He's young enough for me to think that he wouldn't have the maturity to lie so convincingly. I think a good deal of what he says is true."
