“Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
I was hardly in a position to turn down help. Instead, I focused on placing one foot in front of the other.
“I’m Reevie,” the boy said as he strained to keep his balance under my weight. His crippled leg wasn’t helping. There was something genuine about him, something that made me want to trust him.
“I’m Ayrion.”
“Well, Ayrion, in case no one has said it yet . . . Welcome to Aramoor.”
Sleep was slow in coming, and when it did, it left me wishing I was awake. My dreams were plagued with nightmares of my abandonment, an all-too-familiar distortion of my own reality.
In them, I was being hunted by someone in a red vest. Sometimes it was Red, other times it was my sister, Rianna. My own mother had worn the vest at one point and chased me out of the house with her ladle, shouting that I was no longer her son.
Through it all, Reevie never left my side. Each time I woke, he was there with another cool compress to place on my head, reassuring me that everything was going to be fine. The foul liquid he forced down my throat was nearly as bad as the injuries. That was my life for the next few days: wake, pain, compress, nasty liquid, and then back to sleep to start the cycle over.
As unexpected as the cruelty of Red’s gang was, the kindness of this little crippled kid was even more so. I really didn’t understand why he was helping me.
Other than my family, this street kid was about the closest I’d ever come to having a real friend. Even within the Upakan clans, I’d been shunned because of what I could do. But, like any other kid who just wants to fit in, I had used my abilities in an effort to gain the approval of those around me. I wished I’d paid more attention to my parents’ warnings, then maybe I wouldn’t be where I was today.
The trembling was gone, passed sometime in the night, but the pain from my beating remained. It wasn’t the shooting pain from earlier, but more of a throbbing ache. My entire body felt strangely numb, my movement sluggish. I tried lifting my head, but it took a few moments before my neck got around to obeying.
A floorboard creaked and I forced my eyes open. “Where . . . where am I?”
“Look who’s finally awake.” Reevie’s voice was soothing. “Still alive, I see.” His expression was composed, pleasant even, despite the dark circles under his eyes. “You’re in my home.”
I turned my head slowly but even that movement caused the room to spin. “I don’t feel very alive. What did you give me? I feel . . . funny.”
“Oh, that. That’s just a tonic I made for times like these.” He limped over to a small shelf on the far side of the room and rifled through a collection of colored bottles. “Bleeding pustules!”
My head shot up at the strange outburst. “What? Where?” I lifted my blanket to peek underneath. Realizing I didn’t have anything on, I yanked it back in place.
Reevie glanced over his shoulder and giggled. “Sorry. I curse in sicknesses. Helps me keep the knowledge fresh.” He tapped his finger on the side of his head.
I cocked my eyebrow. “Knowledge?”
“Yeah. I’m a healer. At least, I’m studying to be.”
The little boy was growing odder by the moment.
“Aha!” He held up a small bottle with some sort of dark liquid and smiled.
“What’s that?” I knew a thing or two about herbs. Upaka learn from a very young age how to survive off the land, what could be used to save life and what could take it. Both were important in our line of work. For hundreds of years, we trained as mercenaries and hired out as assassins, our services rented to the highest bidder. Add in our strange colorless eyes, and the rest of the world had plenty of reasons to shun us.
Reevie shifted from one foot to the other as he held out his bottle of tonic. “I use a number of different herbs, but at the base are: yarrow, willow bark, mandrake, and valerian.” He seemed excited by my interest. I wondered if he was as lonely as I was.
“All of them have strong anesthetic properties, especially the valerian,” he continued. “But I diluted them so their effect wouldn’t be quite so potent. A full dose would put you in a sleep so deep you’d never wake up.”
“That sounds pretty good to me.” I rolled to my side, but my ribs let me know that had been a mistake and I quickly rolled back. “How do you know so much about herbs?”
“My father was a physicker here in Aramoor.”
“Was?”
“The Black Watch took him. Lord Ackelman told everyone that my father was using magic in his healing when the lord’s daughter died. But that was a lie!” Reevie tightened his grip on the jar as if getting ready to hurt it. I raised my pillow in case he did.
“A rat bit her. She had red fever! Everyone knows there’s no cure for red fever! But that wasn’t good enough for Lord Ackleman. He was determined to make my father pay.” Reevie stared at the tops of his tattered boots. They were at least two sizes too big.
“When the Watch showed up, father hid me in the cupboards.” He took a deep breath. “I never saw him again.”
What did one say to that? “I’m sorry.” I shifted my attention to the rest of the room in case he started to cry. I knew how embarrassing that could be, especially between boys. Girls, on the other hand, seemed to find great enjoyment in crying. They cried about the silliest things at the silliest of times, except maybe for Red. She obviously enjoyed making other people cry. One of these days, I was going to return the favor, right after I got my father’s ring back.
Reevie wiped his eyes. “My turn to ask questions.” He pointed to my chest. “What’s all this?” I glanced at my bare skin, which was covered with scars. “And don’t try to tell me it was from your fight with Red’s beaters.”
Each of those markings told a story. Some were training accidents; times where I’d failed to block an instructor’s blade. The jagged scar on my shoulder was from being impaled on a rock while climbing without gear. There were burns from when I’d been dared to hold an ember in my hand. The worst of them, though, was the long, thin scars on my back from an undeserved whipping.
The training to become an Upakan warrior was severe. But that was what made us the best, which sounded a little funny considering I was lying in bed half-dead because I’d decided to do something stupid. Still, I would have liked to have seen another kid my age take on that many attackers and live to tell about it.
Reevie was still waiting for my answer. I rubbed one of the raised slashes on my forearm from a failed parry several years ago. “It’s from my . . . education.”
Reevie’s brows shot up. “Education? Remind me to never attend any classes with you. Why don’t you have any on your face?”
The absence of scars on my face was something I was quite proud of. While most of my classmates had at least one or two scars, thanks to my magic I had been able to avoid such damage—yet another reason why my classmates hated me.
I tried to sit up.
“Whooping cough!” Reevie cursed as he limped his way over to my makeshift bed of old blankets and mismatched cushions. He gently pushed me back down. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I can’t just lie here all day.” A sudden wave of nausea hit and I collapsed back onto the pillows.
“See, I told you.” Reevie grabbed a cloth and wiped my forehead. “You’re fighting an infection. You’re going to need to stay in bed at least a couple more days if you want your body to heal properly.”
“A couple of days?” I tried sitting up again, this time releasing an embarrassing yelp as something in my abdomen felt like it had been cut in two. I collapsed back onto my pillow and took several shallow breaths, waiting for the pain to ease. “I don’t have time to waste. I have to find Red. I’ve got to get my father’s ring back. It’s my only tie to my family.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve already mentioned that,” Reevie said with an unsympathetic flip of his hand as he limped back to his shelf of ton
ics. “You have to do this. You have to do that. What you have to do is rest and heal. Besides, your ring and satchel, not to mention those boots and nice green cloak, are long—”
“I’m not going to just lie here. I need to—” I quit fidgeting when what he said hit me. “Wait. How did you know I had a black cloak?”
Reevie froze, his back to me. “You told me.”
“I didn’t tell you I had a cloak, let alone what color it was.”
Reevie turned. “I, uh . . . I’m sure you told me about it.”
I glared at him, waiting.
“Okay, okay.” He raised his hands in submission. “So, I might have been passing by your street a little earlier than I let on.”
“Earlier? What do you mean earlier?”
“Well, let’s just say I happened to catch your little scuffle with Red’s beaters. I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. You took down half her guard before they knew what hit them. It was amazing.”
I was stunned. “Why didn’t you do something?”
He looked at me like I was insane. “What was I going to do? If I’d opened my mouth, I would have been right there beside you.”
“You could have gotten help? What about the patrol?”
Reevie started laughing. “Are you crazy? The patrollers are worse than the tribes.” His smile faded. “Look. I was being selfish. I figured you stood a fair chance of surviving and that it would probably be in my best interest to have someone like you around. So, I helped you out. It was a strategic decision, nothing more. I save your life, and now you’ll owe me.”
That was a miserable reason for helping someone. There was a long silence as we stared at each other. I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. I supposed Reevie had his own sort of code for surviving on the streets, and I couldn’t very well fault him for looking after himself. Besides, if he hadn’t, I’d probably still be lying in that abandoned alleyway.
Reevie went back to his scavenging and I took the opportunity to get a better look at where I was. The walls were mostly brick with age-worn plaster. The ceiling joist looked to be supporting another floor above us, and by their size, a large one at that. There were candles scattered around the room on boxes, broken shelves, and old barrels. Reevie had either found an abandoned house or a shop with a storage cellar, or had somehow managed to rent one. It was possible he was simply squatting here, but I didn’t think that likely.
“Here, eat this.” Reevie hobbled back to my bed and handed me a couple slices of cheese and a hunk of bread. I stuffed both in my mouth and barely chewed before swallowing. It was either the best tasting cheese and bread I’d ever eaten or I was a whole lot hungrier than I thought.
Reevie smiled at the look on my face. “It’s not exactly fresh, but the bread’s still soft.”
“It’s good.” I licked my lips and belched my thanks.
“Well, you can stay here as long as you like. I’ve got plenty of room. And there’s more where that came from,” he said, pointing to the remaining piece of cheese I had gripped in my left hand. “I know you’ll be happy here, and when you get to feeling better, I can show you around Aramoor.”
I coughed. “No offense, but I think I’ve seen enough of your city to last me a lifetime.”
“Bloody flux!” Reevie said with a dismissive wave. “You haven’t seen anything but the butt-end. Just you wait, when you’re back on your feet, I’m going to take you places that’ll bring tears to your eyes.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I think I’ve had enough of that already.”
Reevie laughed and so did I.
The days seemed to drag on and on, and the nights weren’t much better. My jailer had me bound to my bed with little to do but stare at the walls and rafters. By the time he let me do anything beyond sitting up, I’d counted every brick within sight at least four or five dozen times.
Every day, it was the same question: “When can I get up?” Every day, I’d get the same answer: “Not long now.” I was wearing him down, though. I could see it in his eyes.
Sure enough, the next day, he gave me permission to test my strength. I made it all of two and half steps before gravity took over and I toppled onto the floorboards, taking a set of boxes down with me.
Reevie just stood there shaking his head with an I-told-you-so look smeared across his face. But I didn’t let it get me down. Pretty soon, I was back on my feet and moving about. That was, I was able to hobble from a stack of boxes to an old barrel, and then back to my bed. The pain was still there, but slightly duller thanks to the herbal tonics Reevie continued pouring down my throat.
Reevie was astonishingly resourceful for a crippled street rat. He had somehow managed to procure an entire cantermelon. One side was showing sign of age, but it was still sweet. I had no idea where the food came from, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I was more concerned with stuffing mine full of the soft, yellow nectar.
“You’re getting around better.” Reevie limped his way down the stairs and plopped his carry bag on a barrel at the bottom.
It took me a while to answer. I was savoring the last bite of melon.
“I am,” I finally said as I slurped in the juices seeping from the corners of my mouth. “When can I go outside?”
Reevie prodded a couple of my deeper cuts and then felt my ribs. I fought to hide how much they still hurt. “I’d give it another day or two. You need to get to where you can move around on your own before going up there.”
I knew what he meant. I needed to heal enough to be able to survive on the streets. But there was more to surviving than just being healthy.
I glanced at his gimp leg. “How have you . . .” I wasn’t sure how to word it delicately.
“Managed to survive with this?” he asked, patting the top of his right leg. “Not easily.” He sat on a small upturned crate labeled Herring. “It’s hard enough even without a leg like mine. The best you can do is beg, unless you find a group to take you in. Out there on the streets, you can’t survive on your own. You need a place to belong.”
“You seem to be doing well enough on your own.”
Reevie rolled his eyes. It was an expression I was getting used to seeing whenever I opened my mouth. “I might choose to live here,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m on my own.”
I glanced around the dimly lit room as if expecting someone to come hopping out of the shadows and surprise me.
“Not here, nitwit; out there. To survive, you must band together. Find people you trust to watch your back. Where did you think the food you’ve been eating came from?”
“I was afraid to ask.” I doubted Reevie would have an apprenticeship in his condition, so naturally, I figured he had applied sleight of hand to what he brought home.
“It’s from my tribe.”
Reevie had used that word before when talking about Red and her gang. I was keen to learn more. “What’s a tribe?”
“Don’t you have tribes where you come from? Where do all the street kids live?” Reevie rubbed his nose. “Come to think of it, where are you from?”
I was surprised he didn’t already know. “I’m Upakan. I figured my eyes would have given it away. We live up north in the underground ruins of the Lost City.
“Hmm, I’ve never met an Upaka before.”
“That’s probably a good thing.”
Reevie studied my eyes with interest. “I just thought you had some form of deficiency. I guess your ability to fight makes more sense now.”
“To answer your question, no, we don’t have tribes or street kids. We have clans. Each is made up of a select group of families.”
“That’s sort of the same thing,” Reevie said. “We just call them tribes here. The Warrens have clans, but you don’t want to go in there.”
“The Warrens?”
“Forget about the Warrens.” He wiped his hand down the front of his face. “Oy, I keep forgetting you’re not from here. Let me see if I can explain this a little better. Every
one on the streets must belong to a tribe. It’s street law. If you don’t belong to a tribe, you can’t work, which means you can’t get food. Basically . . . you die.”
My jaw tightened. I didn’t like the sound of that. To be honest, there wasn’t much about this place I liked the sound of.
“In order to gain membership into a tribe, you have to be of some value. Typically, with a leg like mine, I would end up getting branded a reject, but because of my knowledge of medicines, I’ve been allowed a place.”
Without realizing it, I had clenched my fists. Part of what he had said struck close to home. It reminded me of Upakan society. Those physically able to fight would be given the right to join the ranks of warriors, earning the respect of those within the clans, while those less fitting were sent to the top to cultivate the crops and managed the livestock. Not saying there was anything wrong with either, but most tended to look down on those not wearing the black ring.
I had spent my entire life training so that one day I could claim the title as warrior. Had I been guilty of the same? Had I looked down on those not able to do the same? I hoped not. I’d never thought about it before. Just because a person was a cripple didn’t mean they had no worth. Reevie was living proof. If it wasn’t for him, I would probably have already been dead.
“There are five tribes. Each is named after a natural force. There’s Hurricane—the tribe I belong to—Avalanche, Rockslide, Sandstorm, and Wildfire. And then there’s the Guild. It controls the tribes.”
“The Guild?”
Reevie chuckled. “Pretty silly if you ask me. As much as those on the streets shun the idea of having some all-powerful ruling class telling us what to do, like regular society, we go and organize one of our own. The Guild acts like the Senate in that they give themselves the authority to make the laws, enforce those laws, and punish anyone who doesn’t follow them. Namely us—” He pointed to himself. “—the poor workers who don’t get a say. But in all fairness, if not for the Guild, we would be seeing a whole lot more street wars taking place.”
Hurricane (Street Rats of Aramoor: Book 2) Page 3
