“Well, Kadya,” someone said. “What’s the plan?”
The templar checked the position of the sun. “Soon it’ll be dark. We’ll make camp, dine, sleep. In the morning, exploration will begin.”
Her gaze, pointedly, fell on Aric as she spoke that last.
He knew what was expected of him, and he hoped he could fulfill those expectations. Standing here at the city’s edge, he felt no pull from metals of any kind. He touched his coin medallion, taking comfort in its familiar smoothness, but even it had long since stopped speaking to him; the only essence contained within it after all these years was his own.
Since no one wanted to be the first into those buildings—not with night falling—the argosies were drawn into a circle before what remained of the city wall. Fires were built, mekillots fed and watered. It all resembled any night’s camp since leaving Nibenay.
Except that on the other side of that low, crumbling wall was a vast, unknown city. And although it appeared empty, no one knew if that was truly the case.
With the setting of the sun, the sky darkened, and soon a chill settled over the land. Aric took furs and leathers from the argosy and settled before a fire. As usual, Ruhm, Amoni and Damaric joined him there. The tension of earlier seemed to have vanished, at least among the others. For his part, Aric felt guarded, as if having had his trustworthiness questioned, he could not completely trust them.
“What do you think?” Damaric asked when he settled in with a plate and a mug. “It’s bigger than I expected.”
“The city?” Amoni replied. “It’s big, yes. It appears to have been prosperous, in its day.”
“Aye,” Damaric said. “Some big buildings there. And so close to the city wall. Inside, they may be larger still.”
“I keep thinking of how it must have been,” Aric said. “So many people. Were they happy? Did they live in freedom or bondage? Was joy part of their daily lives, or fear?”
“Always either or?” Ruhm asked. “Both at once, perhaps.”
“Sure,” Aric said. “Both at once. Like people everywhere, probably.”
“Freedom and bondage?” Damaric asked. “How does that work?”
“There are degrees, I mean,” Aric said. He knew his intent would he hard to explain to someone who had lived every day of his life a slave—and in truth, he had no idea how that must feel. “Take me, for example. I’m not saying I’m a slave in the same way you are. But I run my own business. I have debts and I have debtors. I have to keep working, day in and day out, to make sure I can pay my creditors, and at the same time I have to keep after those who owe me. If I hadn’t been ordered by the Shadow King to accompany this expedition, I would be there still, and with those same concerns. It never ends.”
“But tomorrow you could walk away from Nibenay, away from your debts,” Damaric said.
“And so could you. You would be hunted down wherever you went, and so would I. Do you think those who lend don’t have ways to track someone?”
“I suppose,” Damaric admitted.
“I said it was different. But an obligation is a form of bondage, and the more of them one has the stricter that bondage becomes. I could, if I chose, stop working and spend my days in the Hill District, spending what remained of my coin on pleasures of the flesh. But I would be picked up as a vagrant, soon enough, and forced into slavery myself. So the lines can be blurred.”
“I never thought of it that way, Aric,” Amoni said. “That’s an interesting viewpoint.”
“Don’t forget most important obligation,” Ruhm said.
“What’s that?”
“Paying me!”
Aric laughed, his mood suddenly lightened.
He hoped for an easy day tomorrow, full of fascinating exploration and free of danger. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to believe that would be the case.
7
Damaric had drawn guard duty. He was allowed a couple hours to sleep, but he was restless, and had finally only fallen into a deep sleep shortly before he was awakened. His head felt thick, his eyes gummy. He might have been walking through a thick fog.
But he took up the station his captain ordered, where the argosies came nearest to Akrankhot’s wall. The wind had finally died. In the still air, the only sounds were the crackling of the fires, snoring from the wagons and the occasional rustle as someone inside shifted positions.
After a few minutes in the cold air, Damaric was more awake. He walked to keep his blood moving, a few steps this way, a turn, a few back. On one occasion when he was facing toward the city, having given up on the idea that any kind of threat would arise during the night, and his primary hardship would be not falling asleep and freezing to death, he saw something move on one of the narrow roads that ran parallel to the grand avenue.
He stood still, watching. Both moons were high, casting light onto the roadway, but he saw no one. He couldn’t begin to identify that flash of motion, but he was convinced he had seen something. He took a dozen steps that way, past the wall that here was nothing but a nub of stone jutting through sand. His skin crawled, the small hairs on his arms and neck standing up. In a dead city, anything alive was not to be trusted.
Anything alive and hiding was all the more suspicious.
Rather than continuing toward the city, he returned to the caravan, walking backward and checking his footing a couple of times but otherwise not taking his gaze off the city. He decided not to alert the others. Yet. If it had only been a shadow, a trick of the eye, there was no sense stirring things up, waking workers who would need their strength during the day to come.
But if there were something out there, he would see it when it showed itself again. Because he was wide awake now, and didn’t plan to look away from that city under the sand until the sun was high in the sky.
DEATH IN THE DESERT
1
These last few nights, Myrana’s dreams had changed. Instead of focusing on the route she needed to take, she kept seeing images of a tall, muscular young man with long dirty blond hair. She had the basic route mapped in her mind, and they followed it as closely as possible.
She believed they were close to their destination. The appearance of the young man in the dreams caused her to think he was part of whatever this was all about, part of what they would find when they got where they were going.
On this particular morning, she awoke from those dreams with an odd, profound sense of loss, as if she had been close to the man, or at least close to answers about what this all meant, and they’d been snatched away at the last minute. Koyt tended to the fire, making a morning meal of a jankx he had killed the night before. The creature’s pelt was barely large enough to use, but it had been cleaned and set aside, and the meat’s aroma set Myrana’s stomach growling. Myrana didn’t see Sellis at first, but then he came around a dune, walking toward camp with a thoughtful expression. The sadness from the dream stayed with her, making her wonder if it was really all about the dream, or if she simply missed her family and friends.
“Morning, Myrana,” Koyt said.
“That smells wonderful, Koyt.”
“It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m famished, suddenly.”
“I hope you’re not too hungry,” Sellis said. “We only saw the one jankx, remember, and they’re small.”
“I won’t eat your share, Sellis, don’t worry.” She waited until he reached camp and sat down. “Where were you?”
“I thought I heard something, just as the sun was coming up. But I don’t see anything, or any tracks in the sand.”
“What do you think it was?”
“Some animal, I suppose. Maybe another jankx. Something larger would be good, though.”
Myrana dressed quickly and took a long drink from one of the water skins while she waited for breakfast. It was, as Koyt had promised, ready shortly, and they dug into their portions with enthusiasm. They were almost done when Koyt looked out across the sands. He froze
for a moment, then set his jankx bones down and picked up his bow.
“What is it?” Sellis asked.
Koyt inclined his head toward the western horizon. A figure walked toward them, very tall, with a huge head. “We have a visitor.”
“Desert giant?” Sellis asked.
“That’s what it looks like,” Myrana said. “But look at the way he’s walking. Something’s wrong with him.”
The giant’s gait was uneven, sometimes veering off course by as many as six or seven steps, then correcting, other times stumbling, catching himself on massive knuckles. Everything about him was gargantuan. He was powerfully muscled, as tall as five or six of Myrana. His facial features were exaggerated, with a pronounced ridge above his brow, a large, flat nose, ears like wings flapping at the sides of his head. He wore a breechcloth but was otherwise naked, his skin deeply tanned and leathery.
“You’re right, he doesn’t look normal,” Sellis said. He drew both swords and held them across his lap.
“Is he hostile, do you think?” Myrana asked.
“We’ll know soon enough, if he starts picking up boulders and hurling them at us.”
Koyt fitted an arrow onto his bowstring. “I’ve heard of giants who aren’t. But not many.”
“Maybe he smelled your jankx,” Sellis said with a grin.
“He’ll be disappointed, then,” Myrana said. “He can suck the marrow out of the bones, but I haven’t left any meat for him.”
The desert giant stumbled again, and as he regained his footing, he elevated off the ground, high enough that Myrana cold have passed beneath his feet. When he came down again, a few feet closer, it was in a cloud of sand.
“What was—”
“We’ve got trouble,” Sellis said.
“What?”
“He flew.”
“So it appeared.”
“Giants don’t fly,” Koyt observed.
“Not ordinarily. But creatures tainted by the pakubrazi often grow wings, and limited flying ability.”
“Wings?” Myrana asked. She knew the huge insectlike pakubrazi could curse other creatures, causing terrible mutations in their bodies and corresponding changes to their minds. But she hadn’t remembered all the details. She’d never encountered anyone with the taint, and although she had seen a few pakubrazi, they were usually dead.
“He hasn’t shown us his back yet, so I can’t be sure,” Sellis said. “But flying is a powerful clue.”
“If he’s pakubrazi tainted,” Koyt said, “then he’s sure to be hostile, perhaps even crazed.”
“Which might explain that awkward walk,” Myrana offered.
“Aye.” Koyt started to raise the bow. “Perhaps it’s best to just strike first, in this case.”
“But.… what if he doesn’t mean to hurt us?”
“If he’s pakubrazi tainted,” Sellis argued, “he might not mean to now, but he could go berserk at any moment. Go ahead, Koyt.”
Koyt got to his feet, drew the bowstring and arrow fletching back to his cheek, sighted down the arrow, and released. The arrow made a thwipping noise as it split the air.
The giant stumbled again, and the arrow struck him just beneath his left shoulder. He let out a ferocious roar and yanked it from his flesh. Streamers of blood trailed down his dark flesh.
Before he had seemed almost distractedly headed in their direction, drawn perhaps, as Sellis had half-jokingly suggested, by the smell of Koyt’s cooking. But now he focused on them, his head tilted toward his left side, glare fixed. He broke into a sprint, huge feet thundering against the sands, coming faster than she’d imagined something so large could move. The jankx sat heavily on her uneasy stomach.
Myrana slipped her dagger from its sheath. Sellis had his swords in hand, and Koyt had another arrow nocked.
They were as ready as they could be.
Koyt fired. This arrow hit the giant mid-belly. He simply swept his clawed hand, snapping it off and leaving the head buried, then took flight again, hurtling right for them. His wings were sheer, almost transparent, like an insect’s.
He hadn’t bothered throwing rocks, which was how most giants preferred to fight—knowing if they could crush an enemy’s skull from a distance, the battle was over before it began. But this one seemed determined to deliver his violence close up, by hand.
Koyt got one more arrow into him, which the giant tore out and tossed aside, before he came down in their midst. The earth shook at his landing. Myrana’s feet almost went out from under her, but she caught herself on the fingers of her left hand, dropping her staff but hanging onto the dagger.
The giant’s stink assaulted her first, ripe and foul. He swiped his tree trunk-sized arm toward them. Myrana dodged it, as did Sellis, but although Koyt tried to duck under it, the giant’s elbow slammed into his skull. He dropped to the ground.
Sellis attacked, swinging his right-handed sword in an arc toward the giant’s outstretched arm and thrusting the left-handed one into the giant’s upper thigh at the same moment. The giant screamed so that Myrana thought her ears would surely burst. He then stamped down had enough to quake the ground under her once again, and hurled himself upon Sellis.
The impact sent up blinding clouds of sand. Myrana moved in as close as she dared to the giant’s flailing limbs and stabbed him with her dagger, over and over, until his blood coating her hand and arm made the weapon almost too slick to grip.
She heard Sellis’s groans and the heaving of his breath, but she couldn’t see him. Koyt, dazed, shook his head and regained his feet, still unsteady. “He’s got Sellis under him!” Myrana cried. “He’s crushing him!”
Koyt got an arrow nocked. He drew back the string, almost fell down, righted himself and tried again. But the giant saw him, swatted like an annoying bug. That huge clawed hand hit Koyt across the chest. The arrow skidded harmlessly into the sand and Koyt reeled back, a deep cut gushing blood where he’d been hit.
Myrana looked for a critical spot that she could reach. If she jumped on the giant’s back, maybe she could hit the base of his skull, or the side of his neck. She was about to try when one of Sellis’s swords jutted up through the giant’s back, just beneath an unnatural translucent wing. The giant roared again and pounded his fist into the sand, as if he could shift the pain there.
Sellis squeezed out from underneath the cursed creature. He was disheveled, bruised and bloody. The giant grabbed at him, but Sellis’s blades flashed and two clawed fingers flicked into the air, blood spraying from their nubs. The giant screamed, drew his injured hand to his chest, and rose up on his knees.
Koyt still sat on the ground, one hand over his chest trying to staunch the bleeding. He discarded his bow and drew his short sword. “You’ve cut me, you big bastard,” he said. “Now you pay.” His voice was weak, and there was so much blood, Myrana didn’t know how he would manage to gain his feet.
She darted in behind the giant, reached up, and drove her dagger into the base of his back, just above his knotted loincloth. The giant lurched to his feet and she hung on, lifted into the air, but with her dagger tearing down through flesh and muscle the whole time. He reached around for her, and Koyt made his move.
2
Koyt stepped forward, clutching the sword’s grip in two hands, and swung with every ounce of strength he could muster. His blade arced left to right, at the same time the giant reached toward Myrana, his hand moving right to left. Koyt felt the combined force of both motions in his shoulders, almost knocking him off his feet. He hoped that meant he had struck bone, for the blade was buried deep in the giant’s forearm, the blood flowing as freely as an undammed stream.
The giant howled and kicked out with his right foot. Koyt released the sword and dodged, but the side of that foot caught him and sent him tumbling. He drew his head up in time to see Myrana finally drop away from the giant’s back and run a few paces away. The giant made to go after her but Sellis, who still had both his swords, charged him as soon as he turned toward Myrana. Se
llis chopped and sliced. He was covered with the giant’s blood already, and no doubt some of his own. But he was the bravest man Koyt had ever known, and even when the giant spun back toward him, Sellis kept up his barrage.
Koyt tried to get to his feet, wincing at the stabbing pain in his side. Some ribs broken, he was sure. Blood coated his face and his abdomen, from the claw slice across his chest and cuts to his head suffered when he fell. His sword was trapped in the giant’s arm, probably wedged in bone, but the arm swung too fast for him to risk reaching for it.
The bow, then. It was his best weapon, anyway, the one he was most comfortable with by far. He had to move fast, before the giant overwhelmed Sellis. Biting back pain, he crawled on hands and knees to where he had abandoned it. He scooped it up, its familiar heft in his hand bringing him comfort, and reached for an arrow.
The quiver was empty.
One of the times he had fallen, the arrows must have spilled out.
He didn’t have time to look. Sellis backed away, keeping his swords in motion. Blood flew through the air with every swipe. The giant reached for him, though, and if he got a hand on Sellis again, they were done. Myrana was as brave as anyone, but she was on the small side, and crippled besides. And Koyt was too badly injured to battle the giant on his own.
He had to do something, now, before the giant caught Sellis.
He slid a bone knife from a sheath on his belt. The giant’s attention was fixed on Sellis, as if those flashing swords had hypnotized him. Koyt rushed up behind the giant, jammed the knife into the back of its ankle, and sliced across the tendon there.
The giant loosed another howl as that leg buckled. He drove his fist back, barely missing Koyt. Sellis dashed forward, slashing. Myrana had gathered stones and hurled them one by one at the giant’s head, aiming for his eyes. The giant was weakening, his strength flowing from his body along with his blood. We’re going to beat him—this Koyt knew, finally, as he braved another advance, meaning to strike at the leg that still supported their foe. We’re going to win this!
City Under the Sand Page 17
