Salt in the Water (A Lesser Dark Book 1)

by S. Cushaway

  Mi’et did not speak. His hazel eyes glinted dully in the sunlight, reminding Neiro of moss covered stones he’d seen lying at the bottom of mucky rivers during his youth. Stupid, senseless eyes, he decided. His hate for all things Enetic drew up sharper than ever. If these things hadn’t existed, if Toros hadn’t fallen from the sky, then he’d be back in Avaeliis. Powerful. Rich. Working for the Veraleid Corporation as Verand Eleid’s mouthpiece—

  The door rasped on its hinges before clicking shut. Mi’et had gone back into the jailhouse and left him standing there, sweating in the morning heat.

  It’s over, Verand, and I’ve had enough of playing savior out here in the desert to your little pets. I’m going back to Avaeliis in the spring. To hell with the rest of it. Let someone else play their game.

  Sometimes a Snake

  A thousand times that morning, Kaitar found himself staring at the stain on his duster. Sand would not scour the spot away. Whenever he thought he’d banished the memories, his mind began picking over the details, as if each were a delicate flower to be appreciated. Lingered over. Studied. And it always came back to blood.

  His legs trembled as he moved a few feet and knelt near a fist-sized rock. Fresh dew glittered on the rough surface, brighter than the faded stars above. Kaitar nudged the rock carefully, waiting for any sign of movement from a scorpion or spider. None came. He opened his canteen and tilted the stone. Moisture trickled into the container. When he rose again, his calf muscles cramped painfully and his breath came in frosty puffs.

  All along the low, sandy valley, Harper’s Hand grew in reedy patches. The thin, gray stalks clawed from the ground, their wispy blooms curling like decayed fingers. Kaitar watched Romano rip the plants out one by one and peel the stalks with his boot knife. A heap of the hardy bulbs lay at the Junker’s feet, full of starchy water. To the east, where the slope eased to the level valley, the first hints of dawn touched the skyline. There, outlined against the predawn gray, several dead acacias creaked in the wind. A short distance away, Leigh gathered brush for the lean-to they planned to make as shelter during the hot, daylight hours. Kaitar met her gaze, but she did not speak. Nor did he.

  He moved to the next rock, repeating the painstaking process of collecting dew. Something buzzed nearby to his left. He froze, palm pressed against the wet granite. Leigh, too, stopped. The whites of her eyes showed in the gloom as her gaze flicked toward him, alarmed.

  “Sidewinder,” he said quietly. “It’s near that thorn bush. Just slithered out from under it.”

  “Can you smash it with a stone?”

  “Just be still. Let it calm down. It will leave on its own.” He waited for the space of several heartbeats, mouthing the count silently. The buzzing stopped, and the delicately patterned, rust-colored snake uncoiled. It slithered toward the line of scrub opposite of the granite boulder, then vanished beneath the tangle of thorn.

  Kaitar tilted the rock to the lip of his canteen. “Never bother a snake if you can help it, or if you aren’t going to eat it. That’s the fastest way to get bit.”

  Leigh adjusted the brush in her arms. “Sometimes a snake will just strike anyway.”

  “No. It won’t. But be careful not to piss any off flipping rocks or picking up branches.”

  Without answering, she moved down the slope, outlined against the early morning sky.

  Kaitar followed, sidestepping along the sandy incline until he caught up with the Enforcer. “We need to get some of those acacia branches and—”

  “You killed my uncle.”

  “Not this. Not now.” He motioned to a bent tree, hoping she would drop the subject, knowing she would not. “We need to get those branches and make a lean-to. We’ll use all that brush as a screen, and I can hang my coat over the front. It’s big enough to block out some of the sun, but we need to get some more rocks to pile near the base. Is Romano still fucking around with the Harper’s Hand?”

  “Yes. He wants to gather as much as we can carry. He’s afraid of drinking Sulari tea.” Leigh turned on her heels, facing him, her dark eyes as deep and fathomless as a well. “Kaitar, just tell me that you did it. I want to know before I take another step.”

  “It doesn’t matter right now, does it?”

  “It does matter. Everyone knows that story. And here I am, an Al’Daree.” Leigh dropped the brush before moving toward the twisted acacia. She scooped a branch from the ground and broke it over her knee with a crack that split the early morning.

  Sullen laughter bubbled out of his throat. “Are you pretending that’s my leg? You think I’m going to bite you. And here I am, thinking it will be you that kills me. You’d break my neck like you’re breaking those branches if you had the chance.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter!”

  Leigh hurled the branch at him. Kaitar ducked as it sailed by, his lips peeled back in a shocked little hiss.

  “It does matter. I’m out here alone with someone who might have some twisted notion to murder me because I’m Sulari. I thought . . .” She swallowed in an effort to retain her composure. “I told Orin I could handle this job. But I haven’t, have I? You and I, we’re both to blame for it. So, let’s just finish this. I told you my truth, now tell me yours. Did you kill my uncle?”

  Kaitar straightened, studying the branch that had missed his head by mere inches. It looked like a misshapen bone lying against the sand. “Romano will be coming down the hill, and we need to get to work before the sun comes up.”

  “I heard he was a very cruel man,” Leigh said, relentless. “And yes, I heard the story from Gren about how you came to Dogton. Starved, all bruised and cut up. Almost dead on your feet. Mi’et carried you to the barracks. Sokepta didn’t think you would live. Gren told me all of that. And he said even when you recovered, you wouldn’t tell anyone how you’d gotten free. Or what happened to Madev Al’Daree.”

  He stared at her, cold all the way down to his bones. “Don’t—”

  “I also know that Neiro sent Gren and Orin up to check the place out a few weeks later. They didn’t find anything but a few scattered bones.”

  “We need to get that shelter built.”

  “Tell me first.”

  The smell of blood flooded his nostrils as his gaze drifted past Leigh, trying to settle anywhere but on her face. He caught sight of Romano waving at them as he peeled another stalk. Above the sweeping hills, the stars had faded away and the black of night had brightened to a hazy, nothing color. Soon, the sun would nudge up from the east, breaking across the land. Its gentle orange glow would turn red hot, glaring mercilessly upon anything caught in the open.

  “You know, Leigh, sometimes I get really damned tired of seeing the color red. Everything is red out here. Everything.”

  With trembling hands, Leigh stooped to pick up the branch she’d thrown. “Is that a confession?”

  “I am sick of red though. I’m sick of the smell of blood in my nose. I’m sick of the desert and everyone in it.”

  I want to go ho—No. I don’t have a home. I just want to go.

  Kaitar lowered himself to the sand, too weary to fight Leigh Enderi’s hatred any longer. “I was starving, Leigh. Your uncle kept me in a cell down in the manse cellar at the end. Didn’t want his Besh—his champion—to get away, he said. I wasn’t alone down there. He had a half-breed bed warmer in another cell next to mine, and a pair of—”

  No. She doesn’t need to know that.

  “The bed warmer,” he said before Leigh could notice the omission. “She starved to death there.”

  “No one told me about her.”

  Kaitar shrugged, unsurprised. “Because no one cared enough about some Shyiine slave girl to make a note of it or ask who she was. Except me. And Mi’et. We knew her name.” He poked at the bloodstain on his duster as he spoke. The splotch reminded him of a threk, crouched and ready to attack. “Madev used to taunt us whenever he could manage to haul his fat ass down the steps. I remember th
e way his footsteps sounded on that stone stairway. The dust motes shining when the cellar door opened. Spiders . . . all skittering away when he came in. And he’d hold a plum or a date, rotten and covered in maggots. He’d laugh, flick the maggots at us, and we’d crawl to grab at them while he ate that rotten fruit in front of us.”

  The memory of that awful taste—slimy, wriggling—came back as he tongued the roof of his mouth. “There was no more food. No water. Nothing. I held her hand when she died. I waited to die, too. Passed out, fell asleep. Shit, I don’t remember. But I woke up and . . .” The words stuck, refusing to leave his lips. No matter how he tried, he could not speak the rest.

  Just as well. Does no good to talk about it. I’m tired of remembering it.

  “Tell me. How did you kill him?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. Please. I’m begging you. Just let it go.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Going to rip this out of me like I ripped that confession out of you, I guess.”

  “Tell me, damn you!”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  Leigh's arms tightened around the branches until they crackled. “Romano’s coming down the hill and the sun is rising. Tell me, Kaitar. Let’s have it over between us.”

  His sharp nails cut into his palm as he squeezed his fingers into a shaking fist. “I think . . . maybe he slit his own throat, Leigh. . . I don’t know.” The lie hurt, and the silence seemed endless between them. At length, he spoke, disgusted by the pleading in his voice. “I wandered for three weeks, lost, starved down to nothing. No water. Should have died out there. Would have been a mercy.”

  She studied him, saying nothing.

  “I’ll get you home. Believe that, if you won’t believe the rest of it.”

  The first rays of dawn turned the sky rosy pink, banishing the no-color light. Her stare, black as a starless night, met his empty amber gaze. That mute exchange lingered on, as painful as the memories, heavy with hate and fear, mingling with the scent of long-shed blood. Nearby in the brush, a lonely cricket began its last song. The Junker trudged down the dune, puffing, his arms laden with Harper’s Hand. Kaitar regarded him dully, and saw he’d picked every last plant.

  Those will never grow here again, and that guilt is mine as well.

  “Hey guys!” Romano’s voice cracked the stillness.

  Kaitar’s mind hummed back to life. He stood. Cold. Numb. Part of some foggy dream he did not want to have, but didn’t want to leave, either. “We need to get that shelter made. I’m not going to kill you, Leigh. You can believe me a murderer, if that eases your mind. Everyone else thinks I am. But it doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago, and I don’t—”

  Bite.

  “—kill people unless I have a damned good reason. You haven’t given me one.” He managed a pitiful smirk. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever be friends. There’s too much salt in that water, isn’t there?”

  Without even a nod of acknowledgement, Leigh began collecting more branches.

  Romano blinked stupidly. “I missed another one of those arguments, didn’t I? Even now, that’s all you two can do.”

  “Help us build this shelter, Romano.” Kaitar’s feet moved, one after the other, boots sliding across the red sand and leaving drag marks.

  For half an hour, he gathered the largest rocks in the valley he could lift. One by one, he carried them to where Leigh and Romano had begun to set up the twisted, brittle branches. Together, they crisscrossed the branches against a big boulder, drove them into the sand with the stones, and used the rocks to prop them more securely at the base. Afterward, they piled the brush over the branches to make a rough screen against the sun. Kaitar shrugged off his duster, gave it a hard flap to shake off the sand, and draped it over the front of the lean-to. Then, he stepped back, regarding the whole mess with a frown.

  Not going to be much protection against the heat, but at least we won’t die of sunstroke. I wouldn’t anyway, but Leigh’s a human, and—

  Leigh’s fist caught him in the jaw and sent him sprawling.

  “Leigh!” Romano gaped. “What did you do that for? He . . . he was just standing there! You can’t just hit someone like that!”

  “Shut up, Romano.”

  Kaitar rubbed his aching chin. Stunned, hurt laughter—brittle as acacia twigs—tore from his throat.

  “You’re both insane! Both of you. When we get back to Dogton, that’s it. I’m putting in my notice of contract and going to the Foundry, where people act rationally.” Romano climbed inside the lean-to, muttering in a way that sounded almost like crying.

  Kaitar still could not stop laughing. The sound carried high into the air, echoing for miles as he stared upward. There, the pale dawn turned red and gold by increments. A crow soared overhead, beautiful, prismatic black against the gray morning light. The sight of it quelled the hysteria rising in his chest as he watched it drift across the sunrise.

  What’s it think of me, lying here?

  Leigh peered down at him, her face as still as the marble and onyx statues the Sulari had kept at their manses. “It doesn’t make sense. Your story.”

  “No. It doesn’t.” His chest ached as though a mallet were slamming him from the inside. Breaking his heart, maybe; he did not know and was too tired to care. “If I get up, are you going to knock me down again?”

  “I won’t hit you again. But I wanted you to know, before we put it all behind and get in this lean-to, I think you’re a liar, Kaitar Besh.” Leigh’s composure slid away until she only looked tired and sad. “Even that doesn’t change anything, does it?”

  “That’s the point I tried to make earlier. It doesn’t matter.” He heaved himself up, jaw stiff and swollen, nose hurting again. The wind stirred, cool against his throbbing cheek. “If there’s a gale, this thing will come down on our heads. The threk will be tracking us tonight. We still smell like blood, and we’re going to be getting slower and more tired each night until we hit that well.”

  “Are we going to die? At least tell me the truth about that. Can we make it to the well?”

  “Can we be done with hating each other until we get back to Dogton? If that answer is no, then we’ll die out here.”

  “Like Gren . . . he’s gone.”

  “Yes, he’s gone, Leigh. I’m sorry about that.” Kaitar reached for the duster and pulled it aside, eyeing the stain. “Go on. Get inside and rest. Tonight’s going to be rough.”

  As she bent to enter, she paused. “Orin is going to take it hard.”

  “Yes, I suppose he will.”

  “Gren saved my life.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He was my friend. I’m going to miss him more than you can understand.”

  “I know.”

  She pushed her way inside.

  Kaitar followed, dappled shadows-and-light dancing across his arms and legs as he lowered himself to the ground. In that close, cramped space, they sat shoulder to shoulder, trying not to touch one another. Romano, especially, seemed disinclined to speak to either of them. Kaitar was glad for it; the notion of never having to speak to anyone again was a pleasing one.

  After a while, Leigh pulled out some of the Harper’s Hand bulbs piled near the entrance. She offered one to him. Kaitar took it, gnawing the tasteless, starchy mass while the Enforcer and Junker did the same. The sound of their chewing filled the stifling silence. The water tasted acrid, but it soothed his parched throat, and he felt a little better.

  Outside, the sun continued to climb into the desert sky, the soft red glow spreading across the land above the heat waves. The hours stretched on, endless. Exhaustion pushed down, heavier than ever, kneading Kaitar’s thoughts until they softened and lost shape. The pattern of sunlight and shade blurred together into dullness, dragging him down with insistent, gentle fingers until the world became black and silent. In that deep sleep, dreams and nightmares tracked him but could not follow all the way to the bottom. But the humming was there, soft and crooning, almost
soothing. Beckoning him to remember something beneath his own being.

  He could not.

  Bad Death

  Kaitar fell asleep like any other man would, Enetic or human; his head bobbed, his eyelids lowered and then opened briefly before closing. The hard lines of his face relaxed a little, and his shoulders rose and fell with the even breathing of deep slumber.

  Leigh wanted to kick him for it.

  Romano, too, had dozed off. She studied the men, noting the subtle differences between human and Shyiine. The Junker was broad and muscular where the scout was lean and slim. Romano’s skin had a paler cast despite his tan, while Kaitar’s complexion looked like burnished copper. The Shyiine’s sharp features and point-tipped ears didn’t seem all that remarkable compared to Romano’s—only small oddities easily overlooked. The blood was the real difference, she decided; something in the genes that made one capable of murder and deceit, and the other recoil from it.

  Leigh let them sleep, leaning as far away as possible, arms folded around her chest in the vain attempt to find a comfortable position. The air turned stuffy and stale. Sweat trickled down her brow, her lip, and her neck, soaking her shirt. The reek of blood, and grime made her want to vomit. She chewed another bulb of Harper’s Hand. After she swallowed the wet, pulpy mass, she closed her eyes, thinking about Bywater. About Gren.

  In her mind’s eye, Bywater was a replica of Nal’ves—squat, dingy little shacks made of sheet metal and stone, crammed together behind a rough fence. That fence, constructed of as many odds and ends as the hovels themselves, marked the pathetic barrier between the wretched inhabitants and the desert. The Shyiine had probably laughed when they’d seen it.

  But there were no Shyiine as her grim muse painted an uncompromising portrait of a squatter town. Instead of Shyiine raiders waving lances, thin, haggard people moved around in listless routine. Dirty, half-wild children picked through refuse, looking for anything that could be eaten or made into a crude toy. And wasn’t she there with those children? Yes, a skinny thing, crouching in the dust, eating the rind of a Senbehi melon, face screwed up in ravenous concentration.