Salt in the Water (A Lesser Dark Book 1)

by S. Cushaway

  Copyright © 2016 S. Cushaway and J. Ray

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the authors—with the exception of brief quotations embedded in articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover illustration by LEG Giordano

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  Special Thanks

  Julia Harrison – for your enthusiastic beta-reading and questions that helped develop the story even further.

  Jesse “Karraetu” Cushaway – for your support and help on this project, and for letting us include you into the story.

  Everyone who has encouraged us, followed our updates, and contributed to this project.

  For Valera, our wonderful daughter. We will always love you.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Special Thanks

  Bait

  Part One: The Scout

  Four Cigarettes

  Stain

  Saltang

  Salt Tea

  Badge

  Just Worms

  The Coalition

  Forked Tongue

  Part Two: The Greenhorn

  Moad

  Synth

  In the Rot

  Depth

  The Prisoner

  Big Dogs

  Purge

  The Namesake

  Melons

  The Harper's Sermon

  Ghosts

  Part Three: The Prophet

  All Cages

  Sometimes a Snake

  Bad Death

  Worm at the Bottom

  Pork

  Harbinger

  Two in the Dark

  The Sweats

  Static

  Bloom

  Hell

  Dogton

  An Epiphany

  Eye of the Sun

  Permanence

  About the Authors

  Bait

  Momentary peace blanketed him, thicker than the ochre grit the wind raked over his broad shoulders.

  “Hey,” a wheedling voice said. “There’s someone comin’.”

  Without answering, he reached to touch the bones hanging from the weathered acacia post. Femurs, ribs, jaws, and teeth clicked and rattled, singing. The post’s shadow cut his own in half, black and big, but he saw everything else in vivid shades of red. Blood, dripping from the sky, spilling over the hot scrub country, filling the entire desert until it reverberated in crimson waves. Beneath it all, he heard the low, steady drone. It beat against his eardrums and vibrated from his throat in a long, wordless chant, keeping time with the clacking bones.

  “From the north. A rover, I think. What do you want us to do?”

  The chanting died on his lips. He turned from the post, weighted by the hours of standing in one place. All the red leaked from the world until everything turned bright beneath the noonday sun. Near the edge of a wide ravine, a pop-eyed man squinted in his direction. Crouched next to a large granite boulder, a blond-haired woman peered down at a pretty girl, no more than seventeen. The girl’s hands and ankles were tied together so she lay on her belly, and she whimpered against the filthy rag stuffed into her mouth. Each movement made the silver pendant at her throat flash against the pale flesh.

  “She won’t stop makin’ that noise. Don’t know why. We gave her water last night.” The blond woman slid a large pair of sunglasses over the bridge of her nose. “I do like these, though.”

  He grunted, studying the girl, thinking how much she reminded him of a feeble pup. All three humans stared at him, waiting the same way they might await an approaching storm. One day, he’d offer their bones to Toros, too. They would all be there, bleaching under the sun, part of the eternal song. Forever.

  The scrawny man grinned uncertainly. “Should we get ready?”

  The thick tangle of his beard scratched his palm as he wiped his mouth. Then, he smiled and moved toward the girl, towering over her, the man, and the woman. Red tinted the edges of his vision as he pulled the goggles over his eyes, knelt, and patted her tear-stained cheek. When he spoke, the words rasped his tongue like two stones grinding together.

  “How fast can you run?”

  Four Cigarettes

  Glass cracked beneath Kaitar’s boot heels, spiderwebbing into intricate patterns that blazed red in the sunset. The wind rose, tugging at the black coils of his hair until they slapped against his threk-hide duster. A sweet, noxious odor rode that breeze, punctuated by the sulfurous reek of Firebrand.

  Kaitar tossed the reins across the saddle and patted his mule’s neck as he surveyed the wreckage. Near the western bank of the blind gully, crates lay strewn about in ashy ruin. A dead da’mel sprawled against the biggest container, its legs sticking straight into the air in a pantomime of some grisly sundial.

  A vulture sailed by, its shadow blurring across the forty-yard radius of melted sand. The bird alighted at the narrow end of the ravine, settling on a massive boulder bearing the recent scars of some calamity. Aluminum flakes glinted against the red granite where the Draggin—one of the rovers from the Dogton Enforcers’ fleet—had smashed against it. It lay on its side in a dented heap, tires powdered with ochre-colored grit, the passenger seat hanging askew. Kaitar caught a glimpse of chestnut hair, fine as silk, drifting from behind the roll cage.

  What the hell happened here?

  As he inched around the wrecked vehicle, the vulture beat its great wings and lifted into the air with a single, indignant squawk. Kaitar ignored the bird, squatted, and studied the body crushed against the rock face. She was little more than a maggot-infested smear after lying in the desert heat. A silver Harper’s cross lay against her neck, and one purple-tipped breast bloomed from her shredded blouse. A fly landed on her bloated cheek, roving toward the gore-smeared lips. Others crawled over her glazed eyes, searching for moisture. She might have been pretty once. Her death had not been.

  Waving away the flies, Kaitar bent closer to inspect the necklace. The Harper’s cross caught the sunlight, flashing beneath the specks of blood. Swallowing a thick knot of revulsion, he dropped the pendant and stood, scowling and rubbing his hooked nose.

  What were you doing so far from the Citadel?

  As he turned, a metallic wedge caught his eye. He moved toward it with quick, glass-shattering strides, knelt, and plucked the small, rectangular object from the soot.

  A tin cigarette case.

  Kaitar wiped the grime from the engraved surface before opening the tin. Four cigarettes and a tooth tumbled to the ash. He stared at the single, tobacco-stained molar as he tucked three smokes back into the tin and put one to his lips. The sight of the tooth disturbed him more than the dead woman had; her troubles were over, and nothing more could be done to her. The tooth signified someone still alive, someone he knew. He scooped up the molar and turned it over in his palm, testing the hard bone against his fingertips. Cold fear, worse than he’d felt in a decade, slithered up his belly and nestled there.

  After a moment, he tossed the tooth away and scanned the wreckage a final time. Wind whistled along the steep banks, raking the gully bare. The only tracks were those his riding boots had smashed into the thin glass; t
he constant gusting had already smeared away any other print. Not even a wheel rut dimpled the land to indicate what direction the attackers might have gone.

  Poking his tongue against the inside of his cheek to avoid tasting the tobacco, Kaitar chewed the end of the unlit cigarette. Behind him, the sorrel mule snorted abruptly. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her long ears prick forward. She swung her head eastward, watching a long, scaled form slide past the rocky outcrop—a threk. It paused near the rover, rust-colored hide blending with the lengthening shadows. Kaitar touched the revolver at his belt.

  I see you there. Where’s your buddy? Right behind, I bet.

  The threk yawned, leaped onto the granite boulder, and curled its thick tail around the length of its body. A crest of red-brown feathers lifted along the base of its skull as it fixed him with a yellow, reptilian stare. Then, the beast lowered its head onto the rock, closed its eyes, and pretended to doze.

  Kaitar made his way to the mule. She waited for him, nostrils flaring, muscles quivering.

  “Relax, Molly. It’s not after you, but let’s go, hm?” He reached for the reins, swung into the saddle, and gave the mule her head. Molly’s haunches bunched as she heaved up the bank, surefooted and eager to be away from the scaled predator. As they broke over the horizon to high ground, she slid into a northbound trot, a pace she could keep up almost indefinitely.

  “No rest for us tonight, I guess. Sorry, girl.”

  Her ears swiveled back, listening. Kaitar tugged the collar of his duster against the gale. Sand swirled in a torrent until the dusk swallowed the long shadow of mule and rider.

  They trotted on in silence another mile before he reined Molly to a halt. As she nosed at a patch of dry grass the sun hadn’t obliterated, Kaitar hooked his left leg over the pommel and jerked the Veraleid transmitter from the saddlebag. Cursing violently, he struggled to pull the antennae to its full four-foot length, and then stared at the device, hating it. He wished he could hurl it away, wished he still had pepper bloom instead of Gren Turren’s blood smeared tobacco cigarettes, and—most of all—wished he hadn’t seen anything in Bywater Gully.

  Stop fucking around. Just get it over with.

  The Veraleid whined, daring him to try for a connection in such weather. Kaitar propped the transmitter on his lap, listening to the hiss of white noise as the signal fell away. He had a vague hope it wouldn’t be able to connect and would have to wait until morning to make his call-in. Something, anything, to put off making the report.

  The telltale click of a connection squashed that little dream like a bug.

  “Boss, I’m out near Bywater Gully. They got your caravan and they took Gren. Didn’t find any sign of him except a tooth. I don’t know if that was a taunt against Dogton or just someone’s idea of a sick joke, but . . .” He cleared his throat, balanced the transmitter awkwardly against his chest, and raised his voice against the wind. “There’s a woman, too. Someone ran her down with the rover, and I don’t think it was Gren driving when that happened. Wearing a Harper’s cross, if that means anything.”

  No answer except a crackling drone.

  “Boss, did you hear that? Wind’s pretty bad out here.”

  Neiro Precaius’s voice broke through with the delicacy of a hammer. “Who did it, and where did they go?”

  Kaitar fumbled for the lighter in his pocket. It took several tries to get the cigarette lit, and when he puffed, the cloying taste made him sick to his stomach. Blue-gray smoke streamed from his nostrils.

  “Well, who was it? Speak up, I can’t hear you with all that static.”

  “My guess is the same squatters that got Broach. They’ve got something going on in Bywater again.”

  “What’s the total loss, by your estimate? Clean barrels. No half-barrel bullshit.”

  “About four hundred barrels. Clean.” Kaitar hesitated, then added, “I didn’t track past the gully, though.”

  “Why? Isn’t that what I pay you for? To scout?”

  “I’m almost out of supplies.”

  “Don’t feed me that line. You’ve been out in the field longer than this more often than not. Why didn’t you track them?”

  Choking down his anger, he took another drag off the cigarette before tossing it to the sand. “I need backup. I’m out here with almost nothing. If they managed to get Gren, what do—”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t even go see if it was those Sulari squatters who did it?”

  “I’m telling you if they catch me, you’ll be missing an Enforcer and a scout. You remember what happened last time?”

  “This isn’t last time, it’s now.” Neiro’s tone took on a keen, cutting edge. “Nothing we haven’t seen before. I’ll send a team out. You wait there.”

  “Stay here and wait to be ambushed?” Fury made his rolling accent more pronounced. “You don’t think they have lookouts posted near that gully? This is bad business down here, and fuck you if you don’t believe that.”

  Silence followed, long and heavy even against the shrieking wind. Kaitar’s hands shook along the smooth, black surface protecting the Veraleid’s digital innards. Just as he was about to kill the signal, he heard Neiro’s voice again.

  “Get back to town. Three days, Kaitar. You’re scouting a team out to Bywater. No excuses.” The connection dropped into white noise before dying away all together.

  He heaved the Veraleid with a grunt. It smashed against a rock, breaking into a dozen pieces that all went skittering across the dust like frightened beetles. For a moment, Kaitar sat staring at the tangled wires and broken circuit board, but what little satisfaction he felt slipped to bitter resignation. He wanted to ride far south, to the mild coast, and never have to think about Dogton or Neiro Precaius again. But if he did that—just rode south with a middle-finger salute to the whole shebang—he’d be leaving Gren Turren to his fate. Gren, the deadpan asshole he’d never liked, but had worked with for two decades.

  “Let’s go, Molly.”

  He lit another cigarette and reined the mule north, toward Dogton.

  Stain

  Sometimes, the stain on the canvas ceiling above Leigh’s bunk reminded her of a crouching threk, feathers and spines bristling. At other times, it looked more like some lone wanderer hunched in grim contemplation. That morning, however, the spot was only a faint discoloration in the dim glow of the cell lantern, and nothing else. All night, she had tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable, only to find herself staring back up at that damned stain. Finally, she had given up and lain awake, wondering how anyone had splashed coffee up high enough to leave a dark splotch. Maybe it had been Gren.

  Someone stirred in the nearby gloom. A grunt punctuated the soft rustle of fabric as the interior flaps pushed aside. A moment later, the dim glow of the lantern rose a notch behind the thick canvas. Leigh turned her head and saw the captain silhouetted behind the dingy material, adjusting the light. His shadow moved, beginning the laborious task of making coffee, a duty usually reserved for Gren.

  But Gren wasn’t there.

  Leigh kicked aside the thin wool blanket and slid out of bed. She padded past the other bunks, listening to the familiar snores and slow breathing of her comrades in arms. In the dark, Garv sprawled on her cot, arm over her face, mouth open in midsnore. One flat breast slipped out the side of her tank top and flopped against the mattress. At any other time, Leigh might have smirked at the sight, but that morning her brain barely registered the ludicrous sight of Kira Bolgarv in repose. She pulled the flaps aside and stepped into the annex.

  “Leigh?” Orin turned from Gren’s empty chair, his brows furrowed. “Why you up?”

  “I think you know why, Captain. I can’t sleep, worrying about Gren and where he is, same as you.” The twinge of a Pihranese accent slid down each syllable, and she wished she could tame it into the long drawl of her Estarian co-workers.

  Leigh sat. The chair felt cold against her legs; she hadn’t bothered to pull on her fatigues. Nearby, the pot bu
rbled away. Everyone else in the world got to listen to morning birds as their alarm clock, but the Enforcers in the Dogton barracks made due with the retching coffeemaker.

  Orin grunted. “Well. Let’s not think the worst yet. He’s come back from some situations no one else could. But since you’re up, I need to talk to you anyway, after I get my brain workin’.” He tilted his head toward the pot. “You wanna cup?”

  “Yes.” Goosebumps rose on her dark skin, and she rubbed at her arms to warm them. Outside, there might even be frost on the windows of some buildings. It always struck her as kind of crazy, the way the Shy’war-Anquai desert burned all day under the ferocious sun only to become cold enough to freeze at night.

  When Orin offered a cup—Gren’s cup—Leigh took it gratefully and sipped the hot, bitter liquid. “What did you want to talk to me about, Captain?”

  Orin pursed his lips for an experimental slurp. “How you and Gren can drink this shit when it’s still boilin’ is beyond me.” He set the mug down. “And I wanted to talk to you about a meeting I had with Neiro.”

  She froze mid-sip and lowered her cup.

  “Oh, now. You didn’t screw up or anything. Hell, Leigh. Have you ever screwed up? Even if you did, why, we keep Zres on. I don’t think anyone can fuck around as much as he does.” Orin’s brows bunched together. “He wants to send someone out to find Gren.”

  “So you want me to take Vore or Garv’s shift over?” It would be Vore, she decided. He was the likely candidate for a long ranging and had the common sense to keep alive in the desert. Leigh rubbed her arms again, wishing she’d pulled her jacket on over the black tank top. “You know you don’t have to ask, Captain. I’ll pull a swing shift with Garv or Zres if you need me to. I don’t mind the extra hours.”

  “I’m not asking you to take a swing shift. I’m asking if you’ll go.”

  As the silence following his words stretched out between them, Leigh wondered if she had heard correctly. She opened her mouth to ask why he’d changed the policy about greenhorns going afield without a more experienced Enforcer in charge, but Orin held up a hand and the question died on her lips.