Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (30 page)

Lethari withdrew a few paces. Others in his
feiach
, come
to help clean up after the battle, were gathering around to see what was
happening. They all watched as Cean turned Sig’s body over.

“This is no
lathcu
blade,” he said. “This blade is one
of ours.”

“It was not mine,” Lethari insisted. “See? Mine is here…” He
showed him the knife he had used on Sig, still stained red. The one in Sig’s
back was of the same kind—no manufactured
lathcu
blade at all, but one
wrought by hand in a smith’s forge. The pale-skins carried them from time to
time as tokens to show they were slayers of the
calgoarethi
. It was
rare, but it seemed Lethari was unfortunate enough to have found one.

“Silence your lies, warleader. You have slain your loyal
captain.”

Lethari raised his voice. “You have the wrong of it, Cean
Eldreni. I am no traitor, and I do not answer to your judgment.”

Cean’s eyes narrowed. “Then perhaps you will answer to the
king. Challenge the fates on your own, Lethari. I will not serve a traitor. I
take my men and ride for Sai Calgoar at dawn.”

“You serve only with my favor,” Lethari shouted. “You have
forfeited that favor now. Guards, take him. Bind him as a prisoner and throw
him in the cages. A man who will not serve his master is no better than a
lathcu
dog.”

Cean broke into a run, but Lethari’s men caught him and dragged
him down. When they had bound his wrists and ankles, they picked him up to
carry him away. “You will answer for this, Lethari Prokin,” Cean screamed,
kicking and squirming against them.

“One more thing,” Lethari yelled. The men halted. “If he
speaks again, gag him. If he tries to escape, remove his feet.”

Cean fell silent as they dragged him away.

As soon as the battle was ended, but before the victory
celebrations began, Lethari turned his men loose in the shallows to search for
his sword. A torturous half hour passed before Aerlan Relisteri emerged from
the waves holding Tosgaith high above his head. Starlight glinted on the blade,
running in silvery streams along the wet steel. Lethari breathed a sigh of
relief, thanking Aerlan and offering him a share of his spoils as a reward.

By the time morning came, the pale-skin shipping crates were
empty and the slave cages were full. Lethari’s men lined up the flatbeds and
drove them into the sea, cutting the horses loose where they could and leaving
them to drown everywhere else. They had come as far south as they dared; the
lands south of the Causticlaim were too hostile to face in such small numbers.
They were just as likely to run afoul of pale-skin raiders or land-bound
corsairs as they were to find more trade caravans for the taking.

Lethari awoke the next morning under a cloud of misery. A
single battle had claimed two of his best captains. Cean’s imprisonment was
already breeding dissent among his men, who had spent half the night swimming
toward the pale-skin camp to strike the decisive blow and ensure the attack’s
overwhelming success. Sigrede’s men, too, were ill at ease under the sting of
their captain’s death, and rumors of Lethari’s questionable actions were
spreading.

His
feiach
was disintegrating before his eyes. His
reign of terror over the
lathcui
had come to a rapid end, and there was
little he could do about it. The important thing now was to clear his name. To
do that, he would return to Sai Calgoar and prove his innocence.
But I am
not innocent
, he reminded himself, removing the goatskin record from his
pack.

If only he could find some way to dispose of it. Whether
there were still viable targets on the record or not, he had no further use for
it now. If anyone caught him with it, there would be no question of his
disloyalty. And who knew how long it might be before some contingent of Cean’s
or Sigrede’s men banded together and rose against him.

Lethari would bring the
feiach
to the steel city
before he went home. He would orchestrate no further attacks until they arrived
there. If he could get to Diarmid Kailendi and his men before their loyalties
were tainted, Diarmid would offer him protection. All he needed to do was keep
the
feiach
together—and keep them from turning against him—until they
arrived.

CHAPTER 24

The Open Wastes

Toler Glaive had taken neither smoke nor drink since
he’d left Unterberg, and it was starting to wear on his nerves. The starwinds
were descending; he could hear them whining in his ears—feel their wrath in the
pit of his stomach. His captors had forced him onto his horse despite his
malaise, and every hoofbeat felt like someone driving a nail through his skull.

When the morning’s ride was done, it was all he could do not
to fall from his saddle before they helped him down. They camped among sand
dunes as tall as mountains. Time passed like a fish through mud; hours, months,
seconds—all the same. His head swam with visions. He didn’t remember them
laying him down and pitching a tarp above his head to block the heat, but that
was where he found himself.

A bushcat prowled the scrub, staring out at him through
slivered yellow eyes. Jallika Weaver saw it too. She knelt and put her palms to
the ground. The animal darted away, but the earth opened up and swallowed it
before it could take three steps.

Toler was confusing reality with hallucination now, though he
could hear the animal screaming beneath the surface. The sand stirred. Weaver
lay there until long after it went still and the muffled screaming stopped. Or
maybe she was only there for an instant; Toler couldn’t tell.

She plunged her fist into the sand and came up with a
bushcat, limp and hanging. Then there was a fire, and the smell of seared meat.
She was pushing something into his mouth. It was greasy and hot on his lips. He
chewed, and it tasted good. He drank, and the liquid was stale and warm.

Weaver was kneeling again, and a deep hole the size of a sand
tire was opening in the ground before her. Water bubbled up to fill it. Toler’s
waterskin was full again, and when she pressed it to his mouth, the water was
cold and clear and fresh.

He slept, woke, slept again. Hours passed, but they didn’t
resume their travels. The sky darkened; a brown pillar was spreading across the
western horizon. Night was far away, yet there was no sign of the light-star
beyond the thick muddy haze coming closer, closer.

Lokes was shouting, holding his hat with one hand and chasing
the tarp, stumbling after it while the wind howled. Toler could hardly see.
Then Lokes and Weaver were there, huddled beside him, while the wall of sand
came rushing toward them.

Weaver shouted something. Lokes shouted back. Toler couldn’t
hear them above the wind. The woman was kneeling in the sand again. Everything
was about to go dark. Just as the storm reached them, there was a deep,
tuneless gulping sound, as if something big had swallowed them.

The rush of sand parted like a curtain. The wind swept
harmlessly around them, as if they were a boulder placed in the path of a
stream. All was quiet but for the sound of the wind scraping by, and yet Toler
could hear no words when his companions opened their mouths to speak. He looked
up and saw the curtain of calm lancing the storm like a blade, taller than the
sky. A soft breeze ruffled his hair. He wanted a cigarette. He felt the sand
between his fingers and ached for a cigarette.

This woman is a sandcipher
, he realized.
Dax found
a sandcipher and sent her to protect me. To protect me from a war he started
himself. And to bring me right to him, that fool. Doesn’t he know that’s
exactly what I’ve been waiting for? If he thinks he can change my mind, he’s
going to find out the hard way how wrong he is.
As strange a thought as it
was, Toler couldn’t wait to kill him
. When I do, my life will finally be my
own again. No more deceits. No more manipulations. The tide of these battles
we’ve been fighting with the nomads will turn back in our favor.
Then he
would deliver the Glaive Industries shipping crates to Vantanible, a small
measure to make right the damage he’d caused
. And yes, my life will finally
be my own again
.

The sandstorm raged on, but within the safe haven of Jallika
Weaver’s cipher, the raging of his need was worse. He wished the wind would
turn to smoke; he would sooner have died burning in a field shaggy with sweetleaf
than endure another moment without its soothing tang in his lungs. His head
throbbed with the longing, throbbed with his starwind sickness, throbbed from
the two heavy-handed blows Lokes had given him.

After what felt like hours, the sky cleared. The stars were
out, Infernal no more than a memory in red-gold sheets on the horizon. Lokes
and Weaver went about their nightly routines as if nothing had happened. They’d
lost half a day’s ride, and Lokes was eager to explain how unhappy this made
him.

“How long did that southerner say he was gonna wait for us if
we didn’t show up on time?” he asked, cracking a stick in half over his knee
and tossing it onto the fire.

“He didn’t say,” Weaver replied meekly.

“In that case, we ride through the night.”

“And how do you propose we get this dway moving again? You
really gonna to tie him off to that old smooth-mouth of his and drag him along
behind us? He’s been witless as a woodrat since you cracked him upside the
head.”

“I don’t much care whether he’s half-dead or fixin’ to run a
footrace. He gonna come along, one way or the other. I ain’t lettin’ nobody
stop us from getting him there—him least of all. You know as well as me what’ll
happen if we don’t get our hands on that hardware.”

“That’s why we ought to be more mindful of keeping him alive
than dragging him there on his last legs,” she said. “You reckon the southerner
is looking to mend fences with his dead brother?”

“I reckon you ought to shut your yap, woman. You keep
blabbering away like that, I’m liable to wind up sicker’n ol’ Shep, over
there.”

“I’m trying to make plans with you. Figuring on what we’re
gonna do.”

“Will you let me handle things for once? I know you a
sand-licker and all, but you gotta cool it, Momma.”

“Let you handle things, huh? Like the way you handled him
swiping your sweeties right out from under your nose?”

Lokes marched over, flushed with anger. He leaned forward
until his face was inches from hers and began to yell. “You didn’t see it
comin’ neither, did you? Or were you just playing coy so you could hang ol’
Lokes out to dry and never let him hear the end of it? Huh? That why you always
gotta remind me of everything I done wrong? Every mistake I’ve made? So you can
forget how much you hate yourself? Make yourself feel like you ain’t such a
screw-up?”

Weaver stood in silence while Lokes boiled over. When he
paused to take a breath, she wiped the angry globs of his spittle off her face
and said in a quiet voice, “I swear… trying to have a conversation with you is
like scratching an itch with a razorblade.”

After that, it all happened too quickly for Toler to take in.
They both began to yell and scream, their voices overlapping in manic chorus.
Lokes shoved a finger into Weaver’s face. She grabbed it and pushed it away.
His hand snapped back and slapped her across the cheek. She went for him then,
her fingers closing around his throat and shoving him backwards until they both
tumbled to the ground.

Lokes pried her hands free and drove a fist into the side of
her head, hard enough to send her rolling off him. He climbed onto her back and
grabbed a fistful of long black hair to yank it by the roots. She screamed.

Clapping his other hand around her chin, Lokes brought his
face close beside hers. There was a rage in him so fierce he was shaking. Toler
wanted to help her, but when he tried to push himself up, the strength went out
of his limbs and his belly churned like stones in a drum. His head spun,
throbbing with every heartbeat. It was all he could do to keep his wits about
him, let alone stand and stop Lokes from brutalizing the woman he claimed to
love.

When Lokes jammed his elbow into Weaver’s spine, she let out
a gasping cry. An instant later, the ground opened up and swallowed them both.
The sand quaked, a larger pile than the bushcat had managed. Even through the
layers of earth, Toler could hear Lokes shouting and Weaver crying out in pain.
A rectangle of sand caved in like a collapsed grave, and their muffled voices
turned to choking sounds.

The sand shifted again and went still. Toler waited a long
time, fading in and out of awareness. He tried again to stand, but the horizon
tilted and he sat down in a heap.

Soon there was a rumbling, and Weaver rose up out of the sand
like a creature surfacing from the sea. She stumbled forward, coughing and
hacking as the grit fell from her clothes and drifted in the wind.

Next Toler knew, a hand was clawing its way up, and then a
face, and Lokes was gulping air and sputtering through the torrent of sand
falling from the brim of his hat. He pulled himself out to the knees before
sprawling onto his back, panting. Sand spumed from his lips when he cleared his
throat. To Toler’s surprise, the gravelly noises coming from his mouth turned
to laughter.

Weaver glanced over her shoulder at him, looking as surprised
as Toler felt. Lokes was wheezing with laughter now, a dry rasp like wood on
asphalt. “I done been got,” he said. “You learned me a thing or three, honey.
Just when I think things is as fun as they can get, you go on and show me how
to have a good time.” He coughed, a pitiful little noise that somehow managed
to elicit a hint of sympathy in Weaver’s expression.

Fun? What world does this dway live in?
Toler
wondered.
And what is she doing?

Weaver was moving toward him, hesitant at first. Lokes spread
his arms in surrender. When she knelt beside him, he reached out and touched
her hand. Then she was cradling him in her lap, sobbing and hugging him and
covering his face with kisses.

Later that night, when the fire had burned low, Toler could
hear them making love beneath the blankets. He turned his head away and piled
his jacket beside his ear, but nothing seemed to drive away the soft sounds of
whispered giggles and the smack of lips on skin. It was too much to bear.
A
man like that ought to catch a beating
, he thought.
Ought to suffer.
He’s lucky I’m in no shape to make him…

The night sky was alive with shimmering patterns, brighter
still than all the nights before. These were some of the worst starwinds Toler
had ever seen; they made the dead of midnight feel like some cold, peculiar
dawn. The sandstorm that had ravaged them that day was only the first of the
starwinds’ terrible aftermath, he knew.

By midmorning the next day, Toler had begun to feel better.
His mind was dull and muddled, and his whole body felt pulverized, but he had
at least gathered the strength to stand and move around. Still, every motion
made him wish for a drink to soothe his aches, and every breath reminded him of
the cigar box on his nightstand back home, in which his pipe and stash lay
regrettably undisturbed since his departure.

While Weaver went off into the scrub to wash and gather the
horses, Lokes cleaned up the camp and packed their things, whistling a tune.
When he was done, he climbed the dune to stand beside Toler and look out across
the wide expanse before them.

“Not much further now,” he said. “That’s what she tells me,
anyway.”

“She’s a sandcipher.”

“And a Calsaire, at that. She’s a firecracker, ain’t she?”

“A Calsaire? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lokes turned to look at him, his busted lip and bruised cheek
shining like violet pearls around that mouthful of yellowed teeth. There was a
pendant of some sort hanging from his neck. Toler had never noticed it before,
but somehow Lokes had let it slip outside his tunic when he’d dressed that
morning. “Never came up. ‘Sides, you’re a smart dway. You figured it out for
yourself.”

“I never would’ve tried to escape if I’d known.”

Lokes shrugged. “Live and learn, Shep. That’s why your
brother hired us. Can’t no regular folk keep you safe from them savages.”

You’ve done a great job of keeping me safe
, Toler
wanted to say. He rubbed his head, feeling the two large welts Lokes had put
there. “How long have you known her?”

Lokes wrinkled his lip, thinking. “Long time. Dunno, exactly.
Day we met, she got me out of a real bind. Lawman was fixing to end ol’ Lokes.
She spoke up and convinced him not to. We been pallin’ around ever since, she
and I. That one’s somethin’ else, I reckon. Some people’ll tell you they never
forget a face. But there’s some faces you never forget, no matter who you are.
Hers is one of ‘em.”

“Why are you doing this?” Toler asked.

“Doin’ what?”

“Talking to me like we’re buddies.”

“Ain’t we?”

“The only thing you and I have in common is the weather. You
took me away from my girl, and I’m in a heap of trouble because of it. By the
time I get back, my whole life will be in shambles. Beyond that, I just don’t
like you. Truth be told, I don’t much like either of you. The fact that you’re
the type to keep company with my no-good brother says a lot about the kind of
people you are. And I see the way you pull her strings. You’re manipulative.
You remind me of my brother that way. You’re not going to pull my strings, so
quit trying.”

“Well shucks… I was just tryin’ to be nice. Didn’t know that
was a crime in these parts. Heck, I didn’t know there was such a thing as
crimes in these parts. You southerners sure are a peculiar bunch.” Lokes took a
deep breath and spat.

“I don’t think it’s peculiar to be skeptical of people like
you. Or to want my freedom, either.”

“Suit yourself, Shep.”

“I’d like to, but it’s a little hard with my hands tied.”

“You want to get out of those again, you can ask your
brother.”

“Doesn’t it seem weird to you that a man would have his own
brother kidnapped just to talk to him?”

“Sure it does. But I ain’t gettin’ paid to think, Shep. What
I’m gettin’ paid for is to bring you to him.”