“Why not?”
“Because they’re people, being forced to fight for these cocksuckers. No one should be forced to do things like that—especially going to war for the ones that took you as slaves in the first place. Just ain’t right. Besides . . . you free them, they make damned good allies, and we become stronger. We gain the kind of credibility that makes us more than a fishing village with delusions of empire, or some shit like that. It’s okay for us to think we’re civilized, but actually living that way requires more than just words.”
I turned back to the tree and scratched in a little more, explaining as I went. I saw understanding dawn on Aldebar’s face as I did, and then a smile.
8
Flint crested the ridgeline ahead of us then stopped and looked back, wagging her tail. In more open country like this, she wanted to scout ahead, probably because she wanted to run. She was built for it, too, with long, loping strides.
“Looks like the way ahead is still clear,” I said to Reyna, and she nodded back to me.
We were following the river southward, looking for a place to ford. It shouldn’t be hard; it was dry through most of glory season, so the water level was low enough to expose a good stretch of mud along both banks. That would change in another few weeks, when the weather cooled off and rain started to herald the coming of winter.
I looked at Reyna as we climbed the ridge toward Flint. “You’ve been quiet.”
She shrugged. “Not much to say.”
“Especially while Kai’s around, I noticed.”
That got me a sharp glance, then another quick shrug. “Don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?”
After a few paces in silence, Reyna sighed. “Look, I know we really only just met—”
“That’s true, we only just did.”
She frowned back. “—and I’ve got no call to expect . . .” She trailed off and shook her head.
“To expect what?” I thought of any number of things she could expect—and deserved, but this conversation had to happen at her pace.
“I don’t know. I just . . .” She shook her head again. “Never mind. I’m being stupid. You don’t owe me anything, Cus.”
“You’re right,” I said, “I don’t. So if I’m with you, it’s because I choose to be with you. I hope the same applies to you. Choice, and some degree of satisfaction in this place. It’s a hard world, and our choosing to be with each means something.”
“So that’s what this is? You choosing to be with me?”
“I could’ve left, just me and Flint. But here you are.”
After more paces in silence, she turned to me, looking rueful. “You’re right. I guess I’m just not used to being around a man that isn’t, you know, my father.” She shifted her pack. “So . . . why did you bring me along, anyway? Seems to me just you and Flint would be more efficient.”
“Because I’ve been listening. You and Aldebar seem to spend a lot of your time down this way, south of the lake. I’m thinking you know the area pretty well.”
“Oh. Well, I guess I do, yeah.” We reached the crestline and crouched to take in the view on the other side. Flint lay among scrubby bushes, panting in the sun and looking relaxed. I knew she was waiting for me to give her the okay to go on ahead, but I wanted to give the area ahead a good look-over before I did. We could see a long way from up here, at least a long rifle-shot to the horizon on the next ridge. In the low ground in-between here and there, the river meandered through a wide loop. Closer to us, the ground got swampy, hummocks and tag alders rising from black mud and a few standing pools. Beyond that, though, the ground around the river rose a bit, and I could see a stretch of rocks protruding from the water.
“Last time I came this way,” I said, “those rocks were under water. Think we can cross there? Water’s probably shin-deep at most.”
“More like ankle-deep,” Reyna said. “Might even be able to keep our feet dry if we’re careful.” She gave me a shrug. “Me and dad crossed there, coming this way, the day before we met you. Water’s gone down since then.”
“I believe you,” I said, scanning the landscape out to that next, far ridge, letting my tech see any sources of heat regular vision might have missed. I saw what was probably a small herd of blackhorn, which showed up as blobs of heat beyond a stand of poplar way off to our right, but that was all. I thought about taking a quick detour to bring one down, but then remembered Reyna’s husband had died because of a blackhorn. We didn’t need food or hide badly enough to bother, so I just stood and said, “Let’s go.”
Flint immediately started down the hill ahead of us, nosing her way through the grass and dusty bushes.
“Once we’re across the river,” Reyna said, as we walked after Flint, “there are some old ruins. A settlement—fairly recent, I think. Looks like it got burned out.” She looked at me. “Think the Osterway’s been this way before and we never knew it?”
“Doubt it. From what I’ve seen of the Osterway, they don’t seem shy about making their presence known. It’s part of what they are, I think.”
“Vicious, arrogant assholes?”
“Yup, pretty much. Anyway, that old settlement probably burned in a grass fire. Had some big ones some years back, during a drought. Started by lightning, usually, or someone being careless.” I lost Flint briefly, but saw her reappear behind a stand of bulrushes around a pond, angling toward our ford.
Reyna chuckled. “It’s like she understood what we said up there, so she’s scouting a way to the ford for us.”
“She did, and she is.” I gave my head a shake. “Don’t say anything in front of Flint you don’t want her to hear.”
“Well, it’s not like she can tell anyone.” Reyna stopped, though, and glanced at me. “Can she? I mean, I’ve never heard her talk, but . . .”
I laughed. “Oh, she’s smart. She understands most of what we say, and can often figure out ways to communicate back. But you have to know her language. And no, it ain’t speech, like a human. At least, not that she’s ever let on, anyway.”
We walked on through the early afternoon. Glory season was still in full swing, so it was hot under the full sun, with only a scattering of wispy clouds way to the north. We suffered through a sudden surge of mosquitoes and blackflies as we skirted the swampy stretch, but they died off by the time we reached the ford. Reyna was right; we could cross by stepping and jumping from rock-to-rock. Flint didn’t bother and just splashed her way across, then stopped to shake herself on the other side.
“That looks refreshing, actually,” Reyna said, watching her, then shading her eyes and glancing up at the hard sun. “Maybe getting wet wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, if it meant washing off some of this dust and sweat.”
Her voice trailed off in a way that made me glance back from scanning the ground beyond the ford. I saw her looking back across the river . . . then I saw what had caught her attention. That small herd of blackhorn had wandered out from behind the poplars, and now grazed where we could see them, although still a long way off.
“Anyway,” she said, turning away from the blackhorn and back toward me, “we should carry on.”
I nodded, pretending I hadn’t noticed her staring at the blackhorn. “Yeah, I’m just giving those ruins you mentioned a look-see. I spent a night in them once, but that was a couple years ago, now.”
“Dad and I just passed through ‘em,” she said. “He doesn’t like ruins. Has a thing about them.” With an almost apologetic shrug, she added, “Ghosts.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Ghosts? Aldebar? Really?” I couldn’t reconcile her father’s no-nonsense attitude with something like that.
She shrugged again. “He might just not like ruins. They can be dangerous. Talked to some traders a couple of months back that decided to poke around in some old city. Slouis, I think, on the big river out west. Mentioned they lost a man in there, fell into a deep hole they couldn’t see for the undergrowth, couldn’t get him back out before he ble
d out.”
“Well, they’re right in that. Slouis is a dangerous place. Just before I met up with Flint, I did some investigating there myself. Almost had a big chunk of concrete flatten me. Figured it was the noise from my footsteps that made it fall, that’s how precarious it was.”
“It’s funny,” she said, as we started away from the water, following Flint toward the ruins, “I can’t imagine you without Flint, somehow.”
“Well, she and I have only been together a couple of years, actually. Somehow seems a lot longer than that and almost no time at all, both at once, if that makes any sense.”
“It does,” she said, then smirked. “Kinda like the two of you are married.”
I glanced at her and thought again about her staring at those blackhorn. But, again, I just left it alone.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do admit to giving the ruined buildings a few sidelong glances. Pieces of walls, stone, and concrete stuck up from the dirt and undergrowth like broken bones, but there wasn’t much else to see. Anything wood was long gone, rotted—or, looking at old scorch marks on some of the stone, burned—away. Like I told Reyna, fires could be a big problem, especially during dry spells. More than a few settlements had been wiped out by wildfires burning through grass and scrub. I’d even seen one out west that spawned tornadoes of fire, massive, roaring pillars of twisting flame.
I saw nothing here, human, animal—or ghost. We found a piece of old wall big enough, and positioned just right, to give us some shade and settled into it for a rest and a bite to eat. Flint kept nosing around, checking out the other ruins and generally keeping an eye out. That let Reyna and I actually relax, now that we were in hard cover.
For a time, we just chewed on jerky and berries and drank water, content to stretch out our feet and enjoy the respite from walking. After a while, though, Reyna sat up and looked at me.
“Thank you, by the way.”
I swallowed jerky. “For what?”
“For the thought you showed when you saw me looking at those blackhorn. I knew what you were thinking . . . that I was thinking about my husband.”
“Yeah, well, seemed like a personal moment. You didn’t need me piping up with anything.”
“That’s why I’m thanking you. You didn’t feel like you had to say something, to fix anything. I haven’t told anyone about how I lost him because I imagine someone hearing my story and—and trying to make it right. Like that’s even possible.” She picked up a stick and scraped at the dirt. “Worst of all is my dad. Oh, he means well. They all mean well. But it’s not something words are gonna . . .” She shrugged. “Anyway, thank you for not trying to mean well.”
“Everyone’s got their story,” I said.
She looked up from the stick and whatever she’d drawn in the dirt with it. “So what’s your story?”
“Complicated. Like yours. Like every story. I don’t there are simple lives anywhere out here. Not with this world waiting to add—wrinkles.”
Reyna grinned. “Okay, you’re right. Here I just finish saying how I’m glad you didn’t say anything about my husband being gone and then I turn right around and try to pry.”
“Ain’t prying. My story really is complicated. This tech inside me—everyone hears about it and thinks, well shit, that’s amazing, I wish I had that, but the truth is a lot less desirable, and there’s a cost to it. You know as well as I do. Nothing is free, and nothing is without a cost you can’t anticipate, either now or later.”
“You mean being faster, and stronger, and able to see things other people just can’t? You blame them?”
Flint popped her head around the wall we were using for shade; she apparently wanted to check up on us. She was covered in bits of grass and a few burrs, and she had blood on her muzzle. She’d obviously found something to eat. Satisfied we were where she’d left us, she vanished again.
Reyna chuckled. “And then you have Flint, on top of it all.”
“I guess.”
“So what makes it complicated?”
I stretched out my legs and leaned back against the wall. “You notice how the Watermanse folks asked Aldebar to go and find their lost ships? Then asked him how he thought they should deal with the Osterway, and how to set up their defenses?”
“Okay, so you get asked to do stuff for people. Yeah, I can see how that can get complicated.”
“It’s more than just that. Once word gets around you’re a Legacy, most everyone becomes one of two types of people—the ones like Watermanse, who want your help, and the rest, who see you as an obstacle, I guess. Something to be challenged. Tested. Whatever the right word is, anyway. Something to be defeated.”
“Well, like it or not, it does make you special, Cus. And while I can appreciate everyone seeing you as either an enemy or ally, for those of us who aren’t stronger and faster like a Legacy, it still seems preferable.”
Shadows crossed her face, the sad thoughts only skin deep. I understood, even through her silence.
If my husband had been a Legacy like you, then maybe he’d still be here.
I nodded. “Yeah, I get that. And for every bad situation being a Legacy has gotten me into, it’s gotten me back out of even more.” The sun had fallen low enough that we were fully in shade. The air was still warm, but out of the direct sun it wasn’t actually hot anymore. I knew we needed to get moving, but I decided to put it off a little longer. “Being a Legacy is an admission that I can’t stay still because the world won’t let me, and putting down roots is one ability my tech keeps out of my reach, it seems. But that doesn’t matter to some people. They want my problems, if it means gaining my abilities.”
“Can you blame them?”
“No, of course not. If I was them, I’d tend to lean on someone like me, too. I get things done, and even worse, I don’t take it personally. It’s like being a weapon, but you’re aware of having an edge.” I sat up. “What I need to find is somewhere safe. Somewhere where the problems are simple. Things like fixing a leaky roof, or breaking up a bar fight. Not an invasion by Hightec-hungry, murderous fucking slavers.”
Reyna stared at the marks she’d made on the ground. “Is there a place like that anymore?”
“I don’t know. Maybe back in the old times, when Hightec was just a part of life.”
“Except that whole world died, Cus.”
“Yeah, it did that.” I sighed. “Anyway, who knows. Maybe we can have that again somehow, somewhere. Like, maybe after we put an end to that threat from Osterway, that’ll be it. Watermanse won’t have to face anything like that ever again, and we can all just settle down there.”
“You believe that might be true?”
I gave her a bleak smile. “No.” I pulled my legs back, meaning to get to my feet. “Anyway, that brings us back to why we’re out here today. And that means we should get moving.”
Just then, a rush of wind rattled and shook the bushes and sent ripples waving through the grass. It gusted out of the north, off distant Le’kemeshaw, and it was cold, making us both shiver. More clouds filled the sky that way, too.
“Looks like rain coming off the lake,” I said. “Might be glory season now, but you can feel the cold coming.”
She crossed her arms. “Yeah. Not looking forward to it.”
“Nobody ever does,” I said, standing and looking at the sky. The sun was still powerful and hot, despite the cooling breeze. “We’re not gonna make it back to Watermanse today. Let’s push east ‘til sundown, see what we can see, then make camp.”
We slung our packs and headed out. Flint materialized just ahead, already leading the way.
We found another stand of ruins just as the western sky was turning crimson. It was another one Aldebar had avoided for ghosts, Reyna said, but I knew these well enough. One in particular-- three stone and concrete walls in a rectangle, a good twenty paces by ten-- offered an excellent combination of shelter from the wind, concealment from observation, hard cover from anyone shooting at you, and a way of
blocking firelight. With Flint roaming around and keeping watch, it meant Reyna and I could settle in quite comfortably. Drawing a relaxed breath became an attractive option, once I let my eyes skim the ruins for a final time.
I pulled off my boots and stretched out on my bedroll. The breeze off the lake had died and the air had warmed right back up, but it would cool back down soon enough. I figured I’d enjoy a few pleasant moments just lying in the tepid evening, airing out my feet and contemplating the stars starting to appear overhead.
Reyna finished putting out her own bedroll but didn’t lie down. Instead, she just knelt in place for a moment. It struck me she was thinking about something . . . something that would shortly become words. I just let her, figuring she’d get to it in her own time.
“Cus?”
“Mmm?”
“I . . .” she began, then suddenly moved so she was kneeling beside me. “Cus, you’ve been so good to me and dad. Especially to me.” She looked like she was going to say something else, but instead, pressed her mouth against mine. We kissed deeply, then she pulled away.
“You sure about this?” I asked. “You’re not a—you’re not a thing, even if this is a gift. But gifts had to be given freely, not out of a sense of obligation, no matter how much you think it matters.”
She nodded. “Think I said once you’re the first man I’ve really felt safe with since . . . my husband. Safe is rare. I don’t want to just let it slip by when it does show up.”
This time, I pulled her to me, and we kissed again, softer than the first time. We were learning.
Her boots came off, and our feet touched. I hooked my toe into her sock and worked it off. Then I worked off the other one Still kissing, our hands found buttons, ties, straps, and undid each. Shirts came off. Pants. Underwear. She was smiling at how efficient I was, but I’m a man who believes that gifts are meant to be opened, not hidden away.
Reyna pulled her mouth away from mine and kissed my chin. My neck. Her tongue, hot and wet, flicked over my nipples. Trailed down my belly, her breath maddening across my skin. Touched the head of my hard cock, tasting it. Her eyes met mine as she turned her head to the side so she could make eye contact, running her open mouth and tongue along the bottom of my length, to the end, to the base, and then she did it all over again. I was transfixed at the variations, the warmth. The care, and giving—all of it, and then she tilted her head to open her mouth wider, swallowing me to the hilt in a motion that was neither fast or slow, but on her own time.
Legacy Page 8
