Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert)

by Leona Wisoker

  “That was stupid.”

  “Yes. Never mind—listen. Pieas was a lackey for the people Wian just mentioned. He brought things through the Horn for them. Drugs, mostly. Including dasta. I kept an eye on the people he ran with; they are a dangerous bunch. At least one of them knows the old lore, and understands how to deal with desert lords.”

  Deiq stood still for a moment, absorbing that, then said, under his breath, “And she hasn’t come back yet.”

  “If they’re the ones sent that note, thinking you nothing but a merchant, and Alyea nothing more than a stupid young noblewoman sharing your bed—looking to twist you into taking Pieas’s place—and then realized what they really have in their hands—”

  “Fuck,” Deiq said, and sprinted after the servant girl, Eredion close on his heels.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Alyea blinked, groggy, and tried to remember what had gone wrong. Walking out of that room, leaving three dead men behind, confident that she could handle the two remaining men, especially her cousin—

  Only there hadn’t been two, and Kam hadn’t even been in the room. There had been a lot more than two: more than ten. She hadn’t had time to count, because in the ensuing scuffle, someone had managed to get around behind her; at least she hadn’t been hit this time. Instead, her attacker dropped a black hood over her head, the cloth heavily perfumed with a sweet-sick odor that swayed her knees out from under her before she knew what was happening.

  And now she was awake again, but not tied up this time. She was stretched out on a fairly comfortable bed, and naked. She sat up, wondering if she’d been rescued after all while unconscious. Movement required a tremendous effort; she had to fight against a strange lassitude.

  Cheerful blue curtains with a white diamond pattern fluttered in the night breeze coming through an open window. She’d seen those curtains, or that pattern, somewhere before; but the memory wouldn’t come clear. Her mind felt hazed, thoughts slogging through a thick mire.

  A lantern on a bedside table provided light enough to see that a man sat in a small chair across the room, watching her. She took in his dark hair, tanned skin, sturdy build; noted he wore good quality linen clothing in dark colors: then focused on his sharp-featured face.

  The expression there said quite clearly that she hadn’t been rescued at all. Fear gave way to a fierce anger; she rolled to her feet—and collapsed to the floor. He didn’t move.

  “You’re not going to be moving so well for a while, darling,” he said, voice clipped and harsh. “Side effect of the sleepy we used on you. It mucks up your muscles a bit.” He paused. “If you like the floor, I’ll leave you there,” he added. “You rather I help you back up to bed? You’ll wind up there soon enough anyway, you know.”

  She told him to do something anatomically impossible.

  He just grinned at her. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Although I’ll keep that in mind as an idea for you. It’s quite an intriguing concept. But me? No. Far too many broken bones involved. And unlike you, I won’t heal them overnight.”

  She fought to stand, and managed to lurch to her knees, grabbing the edge of the bed for support.

  “Now, here’s the situation, darling,” the man said. “There’s something I want. I believe you already understand that. You killed my best carrier, which puts a certain obligation on you to replace him in some fashion. I’d hoped to use you to turn Deiq of Stass into our service; you’re the first woman we’ve heard of him taking up with for any length of time in quite a few years. And he’d be even more useful than Pieas was. But he seems to regard you as expendable, and I don’t believe you have any other useful contacts we could bend into the position we require.”

  His smile made her stomach turn.

  “Won’t,” she croaked.

  “Oh, darling, I haven’t even finished explaining the situation yet,” he said, shaking his head. “I think you’ll reconsider, when I have. You see, the original plan changed when I found out that you’re a desert lord. I know quite a lot about desert lords. Especially about their weaknesses. And how fast they heal. I can hand out quite a lot more pain to you than I could an ordinary human, and for a much longer time.”

  She tried to stand; couldn’t move a muscle. “Won’t,” she said. “Just kill me.”

  “Oh, no, no,” the man said. “No, that’s silly. And no fun at all.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  He sighed theatrically. “Perhaps you need to understand with more clarity,” he said, then raised his voice. “Tevin!”

  The door opened; a broad-shouldered, grey-haired man with a heavily pocked face came in, carrying a large wooden chest. He set it on the floor near the bed, then looked down at Alyea with a smirk that chilled her blood.

  “You ready for me?” he asked.

  “Almost,” the man in the chair said. “Be patient for another few moments, please. Start planning out what you’re going to do, while I finish explaining.”

  Alyea’s blood went from chill to ice at the look that crossed Tevin’s face. I’m a desert lord, she reminded herself frantically. I can control my muscles. I can stand up. I can order my body to do what I want it to do. . . .

  She managed to get one foot under her, but couldn’t move the other; sat in a weird, slumping half-kneel, glaring at her captors. The two men watched her with a kind of shared fascination.

  “Oh, darling, I’m enjoying this, I really am,” the man in the chair said. “You’re remarkable. Now, I hope you’re as smart as you are courageous. Listen closely, dear. Tevin is going to hurt you. Quite a lot, I’m afraid. He doesn’t always know what he’s doing, once he gets excited. But all you have to do, to stop the pain, is to say, ‘help me’. That’s all. And I’ll pull him off you, and send him away, and we’ll have a little talk about how you can help me. Very, very simple. All you do is say ‘help me’. All you do is ask me to stop him. I’ll even let you refuse to help me a few times afterward, to give you a nice break and let you heal a bit. But he’s going to be more and more difficult to stop, and at some point he’ll stop listening even to me. And at that point I really don’t know if you’ll survive for long.”

  He tilted his head and stared at her with an expression she’d seen before; the detached amusement that had glittered in Rosin Weatherweaver’s gaze. It threatened to loosen her bladder. She felt tears rising in her eyes.

  He said, “I know you think you’re unbreakable, darling; you’ve probably been told that a desert lord can’t be taken down by an ordinary person. But it is possible to break a desert lord in a remarkably short time, if you know what you’re doing. And I do. Please believe me. I do.”

  His voice stayed mild, but the clipped words and harsh accent reminded her of a crow’s derisive caw.

  “Hold her, Tevin.”

  She tried to punch out at the big man as he approached, willed herself to kick, to spring, to claw, anything. But her body simply refused to listen; muscles remained limp and unresponsive. Tevin gathered her up from the floor and turned her around to face the man in the chair. He pinned her arms behind her, although it seemed hardly necessary; she couldn’t even stand without his support. She could barely hold up her head and look forward without her eyes crossing.

  Tevin smelled of rosemary, garlic, and tomatoes; that had probably been his most recent meal. Alyea’s stomach rumbled loudly in response; she hovered between laughing at the incongruity of the moment and shrieking in unbridled terror.

  The man in the chair stood and drew a small vial of dark liquid from a belt pouch. “You’re going to drink this,” he told her as he walked forward. “You can open your mouth and swallow, or Tevin can pry your jaw open. He might break it, though, he doesn’t always know his own strength.” He paused in front of her, waiting. “Open or force open? Your decision. I understand a broken jaw is tremendously painful. And it will make asking for help difficult.”

  She drew a breath and caught his eye. He smiled at her, completely unaffected; she couldn’
t even feel his mind.

  “Oh, no, darling,” he said pleasantly. “I did say I was prepared, didn’t I? There’s a trick or two you don’t know about yet, involving drugs that help defend against a desert lord’s little whimsies. I’m loaded to the lips, dear, so you won’t get me that way. And so is Tevin, so don’t waste your time with him, either. Nobody else is going to come into this room until we’re through with you, and by then you won’t be in any shape to try imposing your will on a sick rat. Now open your mouth. Last time I’ll ask nicely.”

  After a last useless struggle to force her body into any kind of defiance and achieving only a feeble twitch, she allowed her clenched jaw muscles to relax. Her mouth sagged open.

  “And swallow properly, of course,” the man said, uncapping the vial. “You don’t want to spit this back in my face, you really don’t.” He tipped the dark liquid into her mouth.

  Alyea half-considered spraying him with it anyway; but what other options did she really have? She swallowed the whole mouthful without protest. It tasted like rancid, thickly honeyed mint tea.

  He smiled and touched the side of her face lightly, like a parent comforting a child.

  “What you just swallowed,” he told her, “is called dasta tea, or dashaic. It’s a very concentrated syrup, which is usually diluted back out before we sell it up the coast; but for you, darling, I thought it best to leave it pure. Put her on the bed, Tevin. Time to get started.”

  She landed on the bed clumsily, an unexpected warmth rushing through her body. The weakness in her muscles faded, replaced by a startling flush of strength. She rolled and sat up, glaring at them.

  “Lovely,” the smaller man said, watching her closely. “It’s working faster than I expected.”

  “I’m going to kill—” She paused, blinking.

  There were suddenly two of him. No, three. And sweat trickled down her face and body as though the room had spun into a Bright Bay high summer.

  “Uh. Gods.” She couldn’t move. Her muscles had gone flaccid again.

  “Lovely,” the smaller man said. “See, dear, the thing with dasta is that it’s normally just used as an aphrodisiac; but it’s rather more than that, if you know how to apply it. In the pure dose, as in what I just fed you, it lowers all your defenses. It makes you hypersensitive to every little touch, every pinprick. You can’t escape into your own mind now, because you won’t be able to block anything external from your consciousness.”

  “I’ve been raped before,” she said, grimly hanging on to clarity against a wave of dizziness. “You don’t scare me.”

  “Oh, no, no,” the man said, appearing surprised. “You’re misunderstanding, dear. That isn’t the point at all, although it will doubtless be part of Tevin’s routine at some point. Oh—I see. I forgot to mention the relevant bit, which is that Tevin’s previous employer was Rosin Weatherweaver. And Tevin worked in the cellars of the Church Tower, ferreting out traitors and enemies of the king.”

  The nausea in her stomach congealed to a freezing, empty horror.

  “Ah,” the man said. “Now I think you understand.” He smiled. “Did you want to say anything, before we get started?”

  With the last of her courage, she spat towards him; it fell far short, and he didn’t even flinch.

  “Very well,” he said. “Go ahead, Tevin.”

  The big man flipped open the box, revealing quite a lot of shiny, sharp metal items and thick leather straps; Alyea let out a low whimper, unable to help herself.

  “Anytime you like, just say the word, darling,” the other man said, sounding bored. “This can stop any time at all. I’ll have a lovely meal waiting for you, too. All you have to do is ask.”

  Alyea threw everything she had into trying to kick out at Tevin. The attempt only shifted her leg a fraction; and Tevin’s smile only widened.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  The first place Wian led them to, a noisome tavern near the docks named The Grey Wind, was empty. Completely empty, doors locked, abandoned; Deiq smashed the door aside with a single kick and went in anyway.

  Three paces into the taproom he could smell her. And blood. And human death.

  He followed the scent trail like an asp-jacau on a hunt, bashing aside doors with a complete lack of regard for irreparable damages, through hallways and down a set of hidden stairs to a cellar that reeked. Four dead bodies had been piled carelessly near the foot of the stairs, a rough tarp thrown over them the only concession to human dignity.

  Deiq lifted the tarp away and looked at their faces, making sure Alyea wasn’t there; the stench overwhelmed his ability to tell without sight. All men.

  “Alyea killed them,” Eredion murmured, coming up beside him, his own face grey in the dim light filtering into the room from the street-level windows high above their heads.

  Deiq dropped the tarp without responding and prowled into the other rooms of the cellar, studying blotches on the floor and listening to the past-echoes of violence still raging through the air. Against the background of recent death and the horrific smell in the dank room, he had to concentrate harder than usual to hear anything useful.

  “Yes,” he said finally, returning to the central room, where Eredion waited. “She killed one, then three, then . . . I think there was a third fight. I think she killed a few more, there. But in the end, they took her down again and moved her. And there’s something. . . .” He tilted his head, eyes almost shut, trying to place the elusive aroma.

  Eredion inhaled through his nose, and scowled. “Damn. No question left on who has her now, or what kind of trouble she’s in; I know that smell. It was one of Rosin’s favorite tricks when dealing with desert lords: stibik oil mixed with ether. It would have dropped her like a rock. And she’ll be helpless when she wakes up.”

  Deiq let out a low growl and spun on the desert lord. “How do so many damn people suddenly have access to something that the ketarches were ordered to destroy?”

  Eredion licked his lips and backed up a cautious step, then three more. “You’d have to ask the ketarches,” he said. “I was only told they found it wise to keep a limited supply active.”

  Deiq snarled again and stomped up the steps without answering. Wian, hovering just outside the tavern with a sick look on her face, ventured a question as he emerged; he shot her a glare that silenced her instantly and snapped, “Where next? Hurry, damn it!”

  Trembling, she took them to two more places, both also deserted; they contained no trace of Alyea’s presence, stibik, or dasta. Wian didn’t know any other places Pieas’s friends might have taken her. She sobbed on the ground in a heap, utterly miserable.

  Deiq leaned against the outer wall of the third place, staring up at the sun, which was descending through the sky. A corrosive, bleak despair gnawed through his veins. He’d failed his responsibility again. He should have stayed with her; but he’d let emotion get in the way, as weak as any human could have been.

  And then, when the ransom note came, he hadn’t even considered that anyone truly dangerous might have laid hands on her. He’d thought it best for her to learn her own strength without his interference. He’d thought it would be a good lesson, gods help him.

  He’d been a fool.

  The people passing by steered a wide circle around the three standing outside the broken door to a disreputable home. Deiq ignored the suspicious stares he was receiving.

  “What’s going on here?” a voice with authority behind it demanded.

  Deiq looked up into the hard stares of a King’s Guard patrol, all with their clubs held ready as they took in the smashed remnants of the door. Oruen had cleared out the sadists who had almost taken over the Guard under previous rulers; the shift to more honorable recruits had made it both safer for the city and more dangerous for true criminals to operate. These guards had to have an answer, and a good one, and fast; but Deiq didn’t feel up to offering courtesy, let alone clarity, right now.

  Eredion roused himself from his weary slouch and stepped
forward. Deiq let him handle the situation, closed his eyes, and took a moment to search for Alyea’s mind, even knowing it was useless.

  “Her cousin,” Wian said suddenly, sitting up and staring wildly at the men around her, as if she’d only just noticed the patrol arguing with Eredion. “Kam. He’d know. He’s one of them.”

  Agonized hope flaring, Deiq reached down and pulled the girl roughly to her feet. “Where is he? Where would he be right now?”

  “Wait a moment—” the patrol leader objected. “What’s this about?”

  Deiq glanced at him, then focused more intently. The patrol leader was one of the men who had been at the southern gates on their way in from the Horn. Memory supplied a faint blush crossing the man’s face in response to Idisio’s strange code-phrase, and that he’d let them pass after hearing it. Deiq’s temper rose swiftly, broke past restraint.

  “You tharr bastard—”

  Eredion hollered, “Deiq, wait!”

  Three of the guards made the mistake of trying to lay hands on Deiq; they quickly went sprawling into each other and across the ground. The leader of the patrol froze like a frightened rabbit as Deiq lunged at him.

  Eredion’s voice came from somewhere behind a red haze: “Deiq, don’t—”

  “Bless this, you tharr ta-karne ii-shaa—”

  Bones snapped; the patrol leader howled.

  “Deiq, godsdamnit, stop!”

  The patrol leader landed atop his men, both arms broken in multiple places; his screaming, sobbing curses drowning out all other nearby sounds.

  “Come on,” Deiq snarled, slapping Eredion’s shoulder hard enough to rock the visibly appalled Sessin lord back a step.

  “Damn it, you godsdamned idiot, you can’t just—hey, wait—damn it—”

  The shouts and curses faded into the distance as Deiq sprinted to catch up with Wian, who’d taken advantage of the distraction to get a head start; and he heard Eredion galloping, still cursing, to catch up.