City Under the Sand

by Jeff Mariotte

  Ceadrin regarded her—approvingly, she thought, although she wasn’t the least bit interested in his opinion of her. His eyes had a light orange cast to them. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “It’s in my blood.”

  “And yet you’re willing to betray that blood?”

  “Family ties aren’t always the strongest bonds,” she said, hoping that was vague enough to get by. If she needed to, she could make up an argument, but she hoped it didn’t come to that. “As you must know, since I see a scattering of other elves among your band, but not an entire tribe’s worth.”

  Ceadrin shrugged. “You’re right. I was of the Starspeeder clan, but there were … difficulties, let’s say. You wouldn’t want to hear more than that.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “There are more of my clan, back at the fort. But not many, I grant you.”

  “What fort is that?”

  He waved a hand behind him, encompassing the whole lot of raiders. “Oh, we’re just one raiding party,” he explained. We’ve a fort, once called Dunnat. There we’ve three times this number. Almost too many, really. Although we go raiding in smaller bands, it’s still a lot to share with. And I’ve never been fond of sharing.”

  “Well, you’ll be a hero when you return with the goods you’ve stolen from House Ligurto,” Myrana told him. She allowed herself a slight grin, then pretended to try to hide it. “And I’ll have achieved a small measure of vengeance, myself. It should work out well for us both.”

  “You—what’s your name, girl? Myrana?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You might just have the spirit of a raider. Perhaps when this is done …”

  “Then I’ll want to be on my way with my friends. Aric, the half-elf, he’s from Gulg, and longs to return there. The others and I vowed to accompany him that far, and I mean to keep that promise.”

  “Gulg?” the elf asked. “I’d never have guessed it.”

  “It’s been a long voyage, Ceadrin. We’ve all made some changes, or had them forced upon us. There was a day you’d have looked at him and known exactly where he was from, but that was ages ago.”

  “And you, Myrana? Where’s home to you?”

  She indicated the desert before them. No harm in telling the truth on this score. “Anyplace there’s a tent pitched and a blanket to go over me. And a bargain to be struck—the lot of a trader’s life. All I know are the stars and moons and the shifting sands.”

  “Pity you’re so determined to honor that vow,” Ceadrin said. “There’s much about you that makes you fit to join our group. I think I’d like that a great deal, in fact.”

  “Even though I’d be one more to share with?”

  “Even though.”

  “Well, my word is not given lightly,” she said. Never mind that she had been lying to Ceadrin since they’d met. It was a simple matter of survival. And he was lying to her, too, which made it easier. “But we’ll see what the next days bring, won’t we?”

  “We will, at that,” Ceadrin said. “I suppose we will indeed see.”

  4

  That night, they had erdlu eggs and wine, along with the raiders. Their guard was no more lax than it had been the first night, but they seemed to be growing more accustomed to the captives, and in addition to including them in their meal, the raiders engaged them in conversation.

  For two more days they journeyed with Myrana riding most of the time. Given her damaged leg, Aric was thankful for this, but the others had to hurry to keep up with the raiders.

  Finally, they reached a spot that indeed seemed ideal for an ambush. Two tall ridges formed a wide canyon that converged at one end to a narrow pass through which perhaps six or seven mounted people could ride abreast. The hills on either were covered in large rocks and scrubby plants that would offer both cover and weapons. The gap wasn’t tight enough to make travelers anxious, but it was so slim that raiders could flank them from both sides and easily cut them down from above.

  “Why would your family’s caravan pass through here?” Ceadrin asked Myrana when she showed them the place. “It’s far from the main trading routes.”

  “Which is exactly why,” Myrana said. “The main trading routes are where most of your kind would look for them. And they’re where our competitors also travel—sometimes competing caravans are more dangerous than the most bloodthirsty raiders. You also won’t find a faster route between Urik and Nibenay.”

  “Interesting,” Ceadrin said. “When will they be here?”

  Myrana looked to the sky, as if it could provide the answer she sought. “Two days, perhaps. Maybe three, depending on how hard the craftsmen of Urik are dealing. But when they come, they’ll have plenty of rich obsidian in their wagons: weapons, carvings, jewelry, and raw stone. Plus, of course, whatever they acquired in Draj and Raam, and a certain amount of gold.”

  “That sounds fine,” Ceadrin said.

  “So let’s kill ‘em now!” the halfling female they’d met before said. “We’re here, we know when the caravan comes.”

  “There’ll be no killing,” Ceadrin countered.

  “No killing?” the halfling echoed, her disappointment clear. “But—”

  Ceadrin raised a hand, to silence her and the other raiders who had already chimed in on her side. “No,” he said. “We don’t know what’ll happen when the caravan arrives. This looks like a good place for a successful ambush. We’ll be on both sides of them, with elevation on our side and boulders we can tumble down upon them. But it’s possible that a hostage will come in handy, as well, and for that we’ll need the girl.”

  “Kill the others, then! All they are now is more mouths to feed!”

  Ceadrin looked as if he were giving the idea some consideration.

  “Kill them, and I kill myself,” Myrana warned. “Then there’s no hostage. But let us live, and I know I can help in one other way.”

  “How?” the raiders’ lone goliath asked.

  “If I show myself, as they’re reaching the narrowest part of the pass, they’ll stop. Then you can make your attack, and even if they try to run, it’ll be from a dead halt. You’ll have a much easier time of it if I’m here. And cooperating.”

  “She makes sense,” Ceadrin said. He turned toward Myrana and her friends and lowered his voice. “You always make sense, Myrana. It causes me to be suspicious of you. If I find that you’ve deceived us in any way, you’ll wish you had died that first day. I’ll let my friends kill yours, slowly, while you watch. And your own demise will be excruciatingly slow and painful. I promise you that.” He grinned at her, his orange eyes boring into her. “And like you, I take my promises seriously.”

  5

  Two days passed. The raiders and their captives waited in separate groups, high on the twin ridges overlooking the pass. Aric, Amoni and Myrana had been kept with Ceadrin’s group, while Ruhm and Sellis had been made to climb the opposite slope with a group commanded by the halfling. Aric was still working out the hierarchy of the raiders, but he gathered it had much to do with an individual’s ruthlessness and skill in battle. The halfling, for all her diminutive size, appeared tough, with no sense of fear or mercy.

  Three raiders had taken the mounts and wagons to a point outside the hills to wait out of sight from the caravan regardless of which approach it took.

  On the third morning, Aric woke up to find that most of the raiders had taken up their positions on the hillside. Myrana was nearby, sitting on the skins she slept under. Amoni stood close to her, staring into the southeast. They couldn’t escape from here, but none of the raiders paid them any attention. Their gazes were fixed, instead, on something that might have been a cloud of dust in the far distance. “How long do you think we have, Myrana?” Aric asked. “Sooner or later, they’ll figure out that the House Ligurto caravan isn’t coming through here after all.”

  “They will,” Myrana agreed. “What I didn’t tell you is that this pass is indeed used for transit—just not by us.”
She nodded her head toward the smudge on the horizon. “I’m not sure who that is coming this way, but it’s not House Ligurto.”

  “Someone’s really going to be ambushed?” Amoni asked.

  “So it would appear,” Myrana said. “And we’d better be ready to take advantage of it, because I doubt we’ll get another chance.”

  “I wish we could tell Sellis and Ruhm.”

  “Sellis will figure it out. I don’t know Ruhm well, but I expect he will, too.”

  “You’re probably right,” Aric agreed. “I just hope we decide to take advantage of it in the same way.”

  “Me too,” Amoni said. “And I hope our captors don’t figure out that’s not a House Ligurto caravan until it’s too late. Because they are going to be very, very angry when they do.”

  They watched the approaching party, more than just a plume of dust at this point, but not yet discernible. Aric’s fingers rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, tapping against it. His left foot was twitching.

  “Can you be still?” Myrana asked him.

  “I’m anxious,” he admitted. “Since we were captured, we’ve been living under the threat of imminent death, any time they tired of us. But now … now death is more imminent than ever. Even I can tell that group isn’t a caravan. They’re moving too fast. Once the raiders figure that out, they’ve no reason to let us go on living.”

  “I have a feeling that once they figure that out, they’re going to be a little busy,” Myrana said. “Those are thri-kreen.”

  “You can see that far?”

  “Far enough to make that out. Nothing else moves quite like thri-kreen.”

  She was right, Aric realized. He remembered seeing individual thri-kreen in Nibenay—not often, as their insectlike race was drawn to be part of their birth clutch, and failing that to join any other pack available—and their odd build, taller than all but the tallest elves, with powerful legs and four arms and sand-colored carapaces sweeping behind them like cloaks, gave their gaits a unique and noteworthy strangeness. Their heads seemed oddly unbalanced on slender necks, and their antennae were constantly in motion as well.

  More notable still was the sight when two or more walked down the street together. While each thri-kreen individual looked awkward, each step an unlikely series of jerky motions, in combination they moved exactly the same. Whether there were two or six, the largest group Aric had observed for any length of time, their motions matched exactly, as if there were only one mind operating all six bodies, all six sets of arms and legs.

  “I’ve never seen them in combat,” he said. “But I know what you mean.”

  “That’s them, all right,” Amoni said. The sun was still climbing into the sky. Sunlight gleamed off Amoni’s copper skin from the knees up, and below that her legs were shaded. “In combat it’s not quite the same, because they’re fierce fighters and they’ll take any advantage.”

  Aric had an idea. He rose and stood next to Amoni. The raiders on the far hill were still completely in the shade, but he was, like Amoni, half lit by the sun. Soon enough the raiders would tell them to sit, because they would give away the ambush if they were seen.

  So he slipped his sword a few inches out of its scabbard, facing into the sun and tilting it slightly. Sunlight winked from the steel blade. He directed that wink toward the southeast, toward the oncoming thri-kreen.

  “What are you up to now?” Myrana asked.

  “I’m letting them know someone’s up here. Stand between me and the other slope, Myrana, so they don’t see.”

  Myrana hurried to do as he bade her. In her position, Amoni was already partially blocking him. “Clever,” she said.

  “It’s my turn, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know about that. But this is an excellent time for it.”

  The compliment made him beam almost as much as the sun flashing off his blade was.

  He couldn’t keep it up for long, he knew. If he wasn’t careful one of the raiders on his side of the hill would see what he was doing, and then the three of them would likely be slain before the thri-kreen even made it this far. He had no way of knowing if the insectlike humanoids had spotted him, but he knew if he’d been in their place, looking toward where the canyon funneled down, he would have seen such a sign.

  He let the blade sink back into its scabbard and sat down again. Still, his fingers played about the hilt, nervous as ever. He had done what he could do. Now it was just a matter of time.

  6

  You there!” one of the raiders shouted. He was another halfling, this one a male and no bigger than the female. He looked younger still, but Aric knew it was hard to tell with that race—from any distance at all they all looked like children. This one had wisps of dark hair growing from his chin. “No one said you could stand.”

  “No one said we couldn’t,” Amoni replied.

  “I’m saying it.”

  “Fine,” Aric said. He sat down, and Myrana and Amoni joined him.

  “I’m keeping my eye on you,” the halfling warned them. “So don’t think you’ll be able to try anything, when we attack that caravan.”

  “It’s no caravan,” Ceadrin corrected. “I think it’s thri-kreen. We’ll let them pass, they’ve nothing we want. But keep an eye on the prisoners just the same—I’ll be wanting a word with the crippled girl when this is done.”

  “Do your raider friends on the other side know you’re letting them pass?” Myrana asked. Her jaw was thrust toward the elf, her eyes narrow slits. Aric knew she didn’t appreciate being called a crippled girl—true as it might be, she got around fine, if more slowly than some, and didn’t feel crippled in any serious ways.

  “They will when I don’t make the first move,” Ceadrin said. “I still command this party.”

  The halfling shot him a look that Ceadrin didn’t see because he was eyeing Myrana. Aric wondered if the little man thought he—or more likely the female halfling who seemed to be second in seniority—should be in charge of the band. Perhaps she had even challenged Ceadrin in the past. Some of her scars had seemed of recent vintage.

  Ceadrin moved off down the hill to join others watching the approaching thri-kreen intently. He spoke quiet words to them, most likely telling them not to engage the group. The halfling watched the prisoners for a couple more minutes before his attention also wandered back toward the thri-kreen. By now they were clearly visible, racing up the valley floor on those powerful legs.

  “Do you think they saw your signal?” Myrana whispered.

  Aric shrugged. “We’ll find out soon.”

  As the thri-kreen came closer, movement from the raiders ceased. They had taken their places behind boulders and bushes, as if prepared for ambush, but they didn’t want to attract the attention of a group of thri-kreen numbering more than they had. They would wait and watch and hope.

  Aric made his extremities stop jittering around. He rested his hand on the sword hilt, drawing comfort from its steel. Amoni seemed on edge as well, her muscles tense, ready for a fight. Only Myrana appeared relaxed, now that Ceadrin was gone.

  As the sun rose high enough over the far hills to flood the canyon floor, the thri-kreen started to pass below them. Aric could make out individual faces, but to him the thirty or more imposing insect men all looked the same. Huge black multifaceted eyes glittered in the sunlight, antennae bobbed as they ran. The clicking of their mandibles was audible even far up on the hill. They wore no clothing to speak of, although some had harnesses or belts from which they suspended weapons and belongings. Every one of them carried weapons in their upper limbs, the middle set of arms being far the weakest of their six limbs. They were especially fond of gythkas and chatkchas. Many also carried shields of wood or shell.

  Every raider’s gaze was riveted on them. The halfling and another raider, a muscular, heavily tattooed human with only one eye and a nasty scar snaking down from his empty left socket to the corner of his mouth, sat behind the captives, so that even while watching the thri-kr
een they could see if Aric, Myrana, or Amoni tried anything. Aric wondered if he should make a move anyway. If they could take out those guards quietly, perhaps he, Amoni and Myrana could go up over the crest of the hill and come down on the other side, then capture some mounts.

  And then what? Go back into either a battle or a troop of thri-kreen warriors for Ruhm and Sellis? Abandon them? Neither option was a good one. Myrana would have a hard time on the uphill sprint. If they were seen, the raiders need not call attention to themselves, at all. A few could chase them over the hill and catch them on the other side of the hill without the thri-kreen seeing anything.

  No, there was nothing to do but hope and wait until an opportunity presented itself.

  “They’re going,” the one-eyed human said softly. “Thank Ral and Guthay, they’re passing us by.”

  At that moment, the thri-kreen attacked.

  7

  They broke formation without notice, many of the insect men sprang off their strong legs, some landing thirty or forty feet up the hillside.

  As they charged, the raiders responded, knowing they hadn’t gone unseen after all. They shoved over huge stones, fired arrows, hurled javelins. Most of the weapons clattered off thri-kreen shields. A hurtling boulder smashed into one, who gave a chittering wail as it died. Others simply leapt over the oncoming rocks and kept swarming up the hillside.

  With howls and battle cries, the raiders left their hiding places and rushed to meet the thri-kreen. A crystalline chatkcha arced through the air and crushed one raider’s skull. A thri-kreen engaged a half-elf raider, gythka to sword, the gythka’s crescent blades at each end spinning around and the stabbing blade in the center keeping the raider at bay until the mantis man finally cut the half-elf’s leg, then pierced his heart.

  “Aric, look!” Myrana said, grabbing his upper leg. She pointed to the ridge across the canyon. Aric saw nothing, at first, then realized that was the point.