Salt in the Water (A Lesser Dark Book 1)

by S. Cushaway

  He hurled the screen with all his strength, feeling—for an instant—young and strong again. Nyia’s voice cut out as her face warped into a thousand strange shapes, and then vanished.

  Neiro rolled up his sleeves, his laughter crashing into the silence like a dropped hammer on glass. “Damn her!” Choking back another laugh, he wiped his eyes and grinned at Viyr. “Cynops. Syndicate. All of it.” He smoothed his hair with a shaking hand, pain slamming in his head as if his skull might burst just as the screen had. “I’m done with those reports. Done with it, Viyr!”

  “Neiro.” Viyr touched his shoulder. “Please allow me to prepare you a drink of water and a cool towel. Your heart rate is dangerously high. It would be advisable to rest for an hour.”

  This is not how I wanted it. Not how I wanted you to end up. Not any of this. But it is what I have, and Nyia will never lay a finger on anything that’s mine again.

  Neiro sank into his chair and rubbed his temples, suddenly weary. Viyr’s hand remained.

  “Fine, yes, get the water and the towel. But later we need to try to reach Niles again. And if Niles won’t answer, then Brynn Aurlin in Wrent. I’ll have to recruit a spy soon, if this keeps up.” Neiro shook his head. “I can’t send Kaitar, even if he was back. Everyone knows who he is. Someone less obvious. . .”

  Viyr opened the cabinet in the corner, producing a clear bottle of water and a glass.

  Neiro eyed the pure, clean liquid. “I suppose it wouldn’t be advisable to take a shot of Synth right now, would it?”

  “No. Water would serve best now.”

  “Always had my best interests in mind, haven’t you? Even now.”

  Viyr nodded, bemusement shadowing his serene expression. “Yes. Of course.”

  Neiro snatched the glass from him, hands shaking so badly some of the water spilled onto his fingers. “Fuck your programming, Viyr.” He sipped. “I’d rip your Shelfing out if it would do any good. I’d let that Shurin at you if I thought it would bring you back.” Lowering the glass, he stared through it toward the Mechinae. “But it won’t.”

  Heart-rate be damned. I wish this was Synth.

  He took a longer swallow of the tasteless liquid.

  Melons

  “Damn Karraetu!” Romano’s voice rose, echoing over the northern horizon, where Toros was still visible in the distance. “What are we going to do? What the hell are we going to do?”

  Leigh had no immediate answer to give him. She, too, felt the bite of panic, its neat little fangs sinking deeper with each passing moment. Soon, it would be dark, and with the dark would come cold. They had nothing to protect them from the chill. Everything—the firebox, their tent, the blankets—had been in the rover.

  “This is shit! It’s inhumane! When the Union hears about this, the Scrappers are done!”

  Leigh gathered the last remnants of her self-control. “We have to stay calm. What we need to worry about now is getting to water. Screaming isn’t going to help. If Karraetu changes his mind and decides to come out here and shoot us, we’ve got no way to escape. We need to go.”

  Kaitar, sitting on a nearby hillock, wiped blood from his cheeks. “We’re not far enough from the Scrappers or Toros. I can still hear that damned thing humming in the back of my head.” A grimace crossed his bruised face as he tossed his ropey hair over his shoulder and stood. “I know all the land out here. The location of every well. I mapped most of this area during the Bywater uprising, before Broach signed on. I can get us to the Harpers’ Well.”

  “You know the way from here to the Harpers’ Well? You’re sure of that?” Leigh asked.

  “Yes, I know where we’re at. I’ve been in this area plenty of times.” Moving gracefully, he sidestepped down the sandy incline. “The real question is finding a way to contact Orin so he knows what happened. He’ll need to avoid Pirahj when he’s got someone out looking for us.”

  The same thought had crossed Leigh’s mind. She nodded. “The Scrappers would do the same to any Enforcer that comes too close. Do you think N’jian Printz was behind this betrayal, or did Karraetu act on his own?”

  “No idea. I’ve never given a damn about any of the politics Neiro is elbow-deep in. All I know is by tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, Orin is going to send someone out to find us.” Kaitar's lips twisted into a smirk. “He’ll radio Gairy tomorrow morning after we fail to call in, and Gairy won’t answer. If they manage to get through to Os’tizal, Karraetu will feed him a pack of lies.” With a careless gesture, he tapped sand from his boots. “But Orin will know I’ll be trying to get you two to water so we can hunker down and wait.”

  Romano plopped down on the ground, clutching fistfuls of dust. “What about the Old Tree Well? It’s further away, but we could use Gairy’s rover and just drive back.”

  Kaitar shook his head. “I don’t trust Gairy. Where do you think he got all that Saltang? Some trader? No. I think he’s being paid off by someone to keep his mouth shut and his Veraleid off.”

  Leigh considered. “Mal-eyio said not to go to the Old Tree Well, and I got the impression he was not very pleased with Karraetu’s takeover.”

  “He could be lying,” Romano pointed out.

  “He could be,” Kaitar said. “But I think Leigh’s right. I think he was trying to warn us away from something. Probably a Scrapper patrol on their way to the Old Tree Well taking Gairy another bribe.”

  Romano frowned. “Gairy’s worked for Neiro almost as long as you have. Would he really do that?”

  “He’s a drunk. He’d do anything for whiskey.”

  “He’s a drunk, yes, we all know that,” Leigh said, irritated by the Shyiine’s smug, knowing expression. “If you have something against him for what his father did back during Sulari rule, that’s understandable. But it doesn’t make Gairy Reidur a traitor.”

  The scout’s smirk wrenched into a sneer. “I think you’d sooner call me a liar than entertain the notion Gairy Reidur is a worthless piece of shit who sold his own soul for a crate of Saltang.” He stalked closer, moving like a prowling threk. Leigh flinched away, but Kaitar did not relent; he pressed so close the tip of his battered nose touched hers.

  “Why do you think Neiro doesn’t send him out on more escorts or mapping missions? Why do you think Broach and I were the far scouts, while Gairy sat on his ass at that well all the time?” His breath smelled of blood. “Because Neiro knows he’s not worth much. He used to be, but not anymore. Heh, Senqua can probably scout better already and she’s just a greenhorn.”

  Romano hurled sand at them. “Does it matter now? Do either of you get it? None of this is going to get us to water or to Dogton!”

  Leigh turned from Kaitar, grateful the Junker had interrupted. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter now. We should get moving.”

  “Let’s do it, then.” Romano pushed himself to his feet. “Whatever it takes. I’ve got a kid at home. A ten-year-old kid who needs his dad.”

  Leigh rubbed her face, suddenly so tired all she wanted to do was curl up in the sand and sleep away the last week like it had been a bad dream. She would wake up in her own bunk, listening to the gross spew-and-gurgle of the coffee pot. Gren’s shadow would move across the annex, pouring the first cup as he bantered with Orin about the day’s duties. She’d sit up, pull on her boots, and ask if she was on door duty or watchtower guard that day, or—

  The fantasy broke, and she lowered her hands. “Harpers’ Well, then.” Knuckling her composure back into place, she let out a slow breath. “Kaitar you have to pick our route and come up with a plan to scout us to the well. Once we hit the well, we’ll discuss how to contact Orin if we haven’t found a way by then. The next step won’t matter until we’re at water and relatively safe, anyway.”

  “Let’s put some distance between us and the Scrappers,” Kaitar said. “We’ll walk at night and rest during the hottest part of the day. I can find us enough water to keep both of you alive for a few days, and I know where some Harper’s Hand grows about thi
rty miles from here. We can hit it tomorrow night if we're lucky. The bulbs have water, and we can chew the stalks for more. We can use the leaves for medicine, if we need it.” He climbed up the little hillock he’d been sitting on moments before.

  Leigh followed, and Romano jogged to keep up with the Shyiine’s pace.

  “I have a few other tricks,” Kaitar said, not looking back at them. “I suppose you two are going to be getting a crash course in desert survival, starting now. We won’t be bothering with any food except Harper’s Hand until we get to the well. Eating would just make dehydration worse, and we’re going to be on tight water rations for the next eighty miles.” He paused briefly as Leigh caught up. “Hopefully, we won’t have to drink any Sulari tea. But, if we do, then we do.”

  “What’s Sulari tea?” Romano asked.

  “Piss and water.” The scout trudged up another sandy incline, steeper than the last.

  “Tell me that’s some sick Shyiine joke or something.”

  Leigh shrugged. “It will keep you alive in an emergency, Romano. But maybe it won’t come to that.”

  “This is going to be the hardest walk you’ve ever taken.” Kaitar said. “Maybe not as hard as the one Leigh took five years ago, though.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “And what do you know about any walk I’ve taken, Kaitar Besh?”

  The sun—now only a pinch of bright orange in the west—dappled his coppery face with light and shadow, making his features seem menacing. “Before we go any further, I want to hear the truth. Who are you, Leigh Enderi?”

  Without answering Kaitar’s question, she pulled off her yalei and tossed it to Romano. It landed in a heap at the Junker’s boots. “Put that on. It’s cold, and your jacket is too thin to be very useful at night.”

  Romano opened his mouth to protest.

  “Do it,” Kaitar said. “It gets damned cold out here, and if you want to make it back to your little boy, you’ll put that on. Hypothermia is as bad as dehydration. The Shy’war-Anquai has a thousand ways to kill you. It isn’t picky about which will take you down.”

  The Junker shrugged the yalei over his shoulders reluctantly. “There, can we go? Or are you two going to have another argument? Because if you are, I’m just going to walk to the damned well myself before I have to drink piss.”

  Leigh didn’t answer him.

  Kaitar watched her, his expression stony. “You know this area, don’t you, Leigh? You know the little patch of Harper’s Hand I’m talking about, because I bet you had to walk there from Nal’ves and pick some when you were a girl.”

  She clenched her teeth, sick of the games, sick of Kaitar Besh and his narrow-eyed suspicion. “I was Sulari, yes. My uncle . . . you knew him.”

  “Did I? Heh. And what—”

  “His name was Madev Al’Daree.”

  The color drained from Kaitar’s face until the bruises across his nose showed darker than ever. “I thought it might be like that.”

  “Is that what you wanted to hear?” Leigh’s hands curled into tight fists at her side. “You want to know so you can see I’m not in a conspiracy to enslave Dogton? No. Don't speak. You wanted to hear it, so you will. Yes, I was Sulari, and married to one, too. My cousin, Siat-rahl. I married him when I was thirteen, and for six years, I was a Sulari queen in Nal’ves. Drinking Sulari tea, covering my bruises with a ragged old yalei. Do you know where I got that yalei?”

  “I’m walking!” Romano called from near a line of low, twisted scrub. “I’m sick of listening to this!”

  As much as she wanted to, she could not look away from Kaitar Besh, or stop the hot words pouring forth. “I got it from a woman who had starved to death. My mother. If I hadn’t been so sick and starved, or so beaten by my husband, I might even have had a Sulari baby. And do you know what else I am guilty of, beyond being a Sulari? I’m guilty because I was glad when the Shyiine came to burn Nal’ves and spear my husband. I’m glad I will no longer have to listen to my father going mad, talking about the Sulari rising again.”

  I miss them. Mother, Father, my friend, Ket . . . I miss them. But I cannot cry for them now. I cannot look back.

  She swallowed hard. “I am not sorry I stopped being Leih’aja Al’Daree and became Leigh Enderi.”

  Only the chirping sand crickets broke the ensuing silence. Kaitar regarded her with an odd expression Leigh could not discern, yet felt she should recognize. It was akin to pity, but not quite that emotion.

  Squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin the way her mother had taught her, she said, “Do not look at me like I’m a poor, wretched thing, Kaitar Besh. I am not so weak as that.”

  “No, I suppose you aren’t.” He glanced around. “Where did Romano go?”

  Fear squelched Leigh's indignation in an instant. “He . . . he was yelling a moment ago. I didn’t hear what he said.” Cupping her hands to her mouth, she called, “Romano!”

  From a few hundred yards over the slope and past the scrub, Romano’s voice drifted back. “Here! Come look what I got!”

  “Stay here.” Kaitar moved past her. “I can see better in the dark. Don’t move, Leigh. I’ll bring him back.”

  Will you? Or are you going to run off now that you know everything? Or are you going to wait until it’s full dark, and then sneak up on me and cut my throat, like you did my uncle’s?

  She watched his lithe form fade into the growing darkness. When she could no longer see him at all, Leigh sat and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her head against them. A tremble worked its way up from her belly and shivered along her entire body. Trying to keep still and close her eyes did no good; the feeling of dread only grew more insistent and heavy. On the night wind, she thought she heard a voice—not Romano’s loud Estarian accent nor Kaitar’s rolling Pihranese—but one from her youth. It crawled from the depths of memory, inch by inch.

  “We will rise again, Leih’aja.”

  Dark. Bleeding. Lanced through the middle, her father stared at her, accusing.

  Leave me alone, Father. I’m sorry you died, but you were going to die anyway. I tried to get to you, but it was too late . . . it was too late.

  “You hid under the body of your husband and played dead,” the memory whispered. “You could have saved me. You could have saved Ket, too.”

  No. I couldn’t! I’m sorry!

  “Leigh!”

  Leigh stared up at the weird figure looming over her in the dark, its yellow eyes burning straight into her soul.

  A Nah’gatt!

  Before she could move or scream, Romano stumbled, shoved from behind. “Shit, Katey!”

  Leigh’s heart thumped painfully. “Romano?” She leaned up on her knees, staring at the Junker’s angry expression. The last echoes of her half-dream faded. “What happened?”

  “The damned fool was picking Senbehi melons.” Kaitar stepped around Romano. “Ten minutes in the desert and he finds the most poisonous plant to mess with. I should put a leash on you, Romano.”

  Leigh blanched, knowing what that might mean. Every child who had grown up in a squatter camp knew the Senbehi melon was a delicacy like no other, but to get pricked with the thorns meant amputation at best, and death at worst. She took a deep breath to steady the tremble in her voice. “Did you get scratched by one?”

  “No,” Romano replied, glowering. “I thought I could get a few so we’d have something to eat and—”

  “You stay by me!” Kaitar hissed. “You walked right over some fresh threk scat and you didn’t even fucking notice! What the hell did they teach you up there at the Foundry? How to run your mouth and jerk off?”

  Romano rounded on him. For an instant, Leigh thought it might come to blows between the two men.

  “You’re an asshole, you know that? If you and Leigh hadn’t been here arguing again, then I suppose you would have seen the threk shit and told me about the thorns on the melons.”

  Kaitar scoffed. “You’re a grown man, not some little boy. You—”

  “He�
�s right, Kaitar,” Leigh said. That guilt cut to the quick of her soul, leaving it bleeding shame. “It was our fault. We were arguing. It’s true.” Eyeing Romano with no small measure of disgust, she added, “He is a grown man and should know better. It’s one of the first things parents teach their children out here, Romano. Don’t play with snakes, scorpions, or spiders, and don’t pick the melons without something to protect your hands.”

  Romano crossed his arms over his chest, mute.

  “The threk,” Leigh said, turning her attention back to the scout. “Do you think they’re near?” The memory of the two big beasts lurched forward. She would never forget the way they had circled her as if she’d been some toy they were considering playing with. Before the throb of fear could swell into terror, she stiffened her spine.

  “Yes,” Kaitar replied. “And they’ll be trailing us. They probably smell my blood.” He shrugged. “I don’t think they’ll attack me, though. Or you, either, if you both stay close.”

  “Why do you think they’ll leave us be if you’re near?”

  “You’ll have my smell on you. That’s as best I can explain it. If you stay near me, they’ll keep their distance. For now.”

  You’re hiding something. And what surprise is that?

  “Damn Karraetu!” Romano looked as though he might start to scream, cry, or howl at the moon.

  Leigh closed her ears and mind to his complaints, gripped his shoulder, and tugged. “We have a long walk. Try to stay quiet in case the threk really are nearby. Come on, Kaitar is already walking. We have to stay close to him.”

  “Why do you two hate each other so much, Leigh? What’s the problem?” Romano’s long legs matched her quick stride. “He’s been Dogton’s scout for a long time, and you . . . even if you really came from Nal’ves, you’re a Dogton Enforcer now.”

  “And I wish it were that simple, Romano. I do.”

  The Harper's Sermon

  From his fifteen-foot perch in the watchtower outside Dogton’s gates, Zres could just hear Phineas Moad’s Hellfire-and-Glass sermon. The sun slanted over the land as the last orange blaze of light burned his eyes. Squinting, he pulled the brim of his hat low and stared down at the dusty scrubland. The sermon ended and a hymn rose from the direction of town, but he didn’t recognize the rhythm.