Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (31 page)

“What’s going to happen to you two if you don’t get paid?”
Toler asked. “I heard you talking earlier. You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t
you?”

“I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

“What’s that thing around your neck?”

Lokes grunted, tucked it underneath his tunic, and said, “You
ain’t makin’ no sense today, Shep. Ought to get your eyes checked.”

Toler could see he wouldn’t get anywhere with that line of
questioning. “Any chance she has the power to grow tobacco?”

“Do all the bellyachin’ you like. You’re the one’s held us
back this long. Closer we get to Belmond, closer you are to having all the
smoke you ever wanted.”

We’ll see what the starwinds have to say about that
,
Toler thought.

When Weaver returned with the horses, she was wearing only
her trousers and a sleeveless undertunic. Her hair hung black and wet past her
shoulders, the daylight shining soft on the pale cleanliness of her skin. Lokes
looked her up and down as she approached, giving her an approving little grunt
when she handed him his horse’s reins.

Weaver ignored him.

Toler remembered little of their journey after that, except
that while the sandcipher couldn’t grow tobacco, she could make survival on the
wastes easier than it had ever been with the caravans. They never had to carry
excess water or large stores of food; Weaver caught game when they were hungry
and created wells whenever they had a thirst.

One evening, the sandcipher formed a pool large enough to fit
all three of them at once. Toler refrained, sitting by himself to watch as his
two companions stripped down and hopped in. The horses came to drink while
Lokes and Weaver splashed each other, laughing and shouting. There was a moment
when Toler thought their games might turn violent, but when they emerged from
the pool, their bodies glistening in the twilight, he saw it was love on their
minds, not war.

They rode into Belmond a few days later, crossing into the
outskirts as the starwinds faded with the first light of morning. Weaver was in
the lead, but when she came to the place where the sand ended, she pulled hard
on the reins to keep her horse’s hooves off the cracked gray road ahead.

Lokes sighed and shook his head. “I tell you what… one of
these days, you gotta get over this fear of yours.”

“Fear of hard ground is the healthiest fear a person like me
can have,” she said.

A sandcipher loses her power when she leaves the desert,
Toler remembered.
In order to use the sand, she has to touch it
.

“Come on,” Lokes said angrily. “We’re late enough as it is
without all this superstitious mumbo jumbo of yours.”

Weaver gripped her reins. She didn’t move from the edge of
the pavement until Lokes took hold of her horse’s bit strap and pulled her
along with him. The sandcipher shuddered as though the sound of horseshoes on
asphalt were as jarring as nails on a chalkboard.

Toler hadn’t set foot in this part of the city in years.
Whenever he arrived with a trade caravan from the east, they entered the
Scarred Comrades’ territory through the Garbage Gates, a heavily-guarded
passage whose gigantic hinged doors were reinforced with layer upon layer of
scrap metal and hard plastic. The stench was different down here, stronger and
more obscene. It was the kind of smell you only got on the breeze from time to
time in the city north. Here, it was constant and oppressive.

“This place is a filth bucket,” Toler said. “No wonder you
met my brother here.”

Lokes snorted. “I can’t wait to sell you for a fistful of
money.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“A little place called the Scorpion’s Uncle.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I reckon someone like you ain’t cultured enough for such a
fine establishment.”

“Whatever keeps your feet cold,” Toler said.

Lokes was calm and watchful as they rode through the city’s
twisted skeins. Weaver was nervous and frightened. On the wastes, she had never
seemed more uncomfortable or less at home than she was now. Toler was beginning
to see why these two needed each other so much: here in the city, Lokes and his
sweeties were the force to be reckoned with.

Lokes and Weaver knew these roads, making every turn as if
from habit. Their path took them down a two-lane street to a place where the
road dipped toward a pair of tunnels running beneath a larger highway. The
faded green sign overhead named these the westbound lanes of the Harcourt
Tunnel.

Weaver reined up on the rise, shaking her head. “I don’t want
to go this way. Let’s go around.”

“No time for that,” said Lokes, forging ahead.

“Too dark,” said Weaver. “Too dangerous.”

“Not for me,” Lokes replied. He patted his guns. “Stay close.
You’ll be fine.”

The horses’ hooves echoed on the concrete retaining walls as
they descended the slope toward the tunnels. Morning lit the city around them,
but the tunnel entrance yawned into a darkness so long and deep that Toler
couldn’t see daylight from the other side. They stopped a few fathoms into the
right-hand tunnel to give the animals’ eyes time to adjust before moving on.

Daylight faded behind them, and all around turned to echoing
black.

They were a long way in when something shook Toler in the
saddle. He put a hand on Seurag’s neck to soothe him, thinking the horse might
be trembling from fear or cold. When something shook him harder a second later,
he knew it wasn’t the horse.
A tremor
.

No sooner had the thought occurred to him than the tunnel
began to shake. The ground convulsed and swayed until the world around seemed
to be on no more stable a footing than a ship on the ocean. There was a
thunderous crack, so loud he thought a chasm might open beneath his feet. Dust
showered down, and he heard larger chunks of rubble crash to the floor nearby.
Weaver was yelling, the horses whickering and sidestepping… and then everything
stopped.

The dust settled.

Silence ensued.

“We gotta go back,” Weaver said. “We’ll get crushed down
here.”

“We’re halfway through,” said Lokes. “No sense turnin’ back
now. C’mon.”

For a time, the only sound was the clop of the horses’
hooves. Toler wanted to dismount and hug the ground, such was the combined
effect of the quake and the pitch-darkness. His cravings for a good long smoke
weren’t helping either. Then there came a different noise from down the tunnel.
A scrabbling, faint and faraway at first.

“Did you hear that?” Weaver asked, too loud.

“I done heard lots of things,” said Lokes. “None sweeter’n
the sound of your voice, my li’l turtle dove. Don’t you worry your pretty
little head about it.”

She shushed him. “Stop. Listen.”

They halted. The sounds were getting closer. They were
dreamlike, hazy and diffused. Toler’s eyes had adjusted, but Lokes and Weaver
were still no more than shadows atop their horses. Just then he would’ve given
anything for a quiver of javelins and his old machete. He had left his javelins
at home, and the machete at the border of the Skeletonwood, embedded in his
brother’s arm.

The sounds came closer, solidifying into something more
distinct. Grunts. Howls. The slap of bare feet on pavement. Whatever they were,
there was more than one of them, and they were moving this way fast. Weaver’s
horse stamped and nickered. She let out a cry, something Toler couldn’t make
out, whether for the noise or the ineloquence wrought by her fear. He heard
Lokes moving, saw him turn his horse and swing out in front of them.

“Don’t you dare run, Jal,” Lokes said. “You neither, Shep.”

“What are they?” Weaver asked.

Lokes didn’t answer.

Toler wanted to know too, though his desire was fading by the
second. “Either of you have a weapon I can use? If it comes to a fight, I’ll
give it back when the fighting’s done. Promise.”

Weaver’s shadow moved. Something hit Toler in the arm and
clattered to the ground. He dismounted and felt around for it as the sounds
grew louder. His fingers closed around something. It was sharp. He gasped and
pulled away. A moment’s examination proved it to be a blade of some kind—a
short sword or a long knife.

He found his horse and mounted again, every instinct telling
him to flee. What had Lokes been thinking, leading them into the dark like
this? Jallika was powerless here, and frightened out of her mind. The starwinds
were shaking the world loose. Yet for some reason the deadeye remained as
unflappable as ever.

They were almost on them now—whatever
they
were. Toler
gripped the blade in one hand and held the reins tight in the other.
Maybe I
won’t get to see my brother again
, he reflected.
Won’t get to give him
the end I promised. And worse, Nichel will think I’m a traitor, or that I ran
away because I was afraid of him. Afraid of marrying his daughter. Reylenn will
live out the rest of her days never knowing why I left or what happened to me.
That’s a terrible thought
.

It was a thought that made Toler Glaive want to live.

CHAPTER 25

Pupil

Every night another hike through the city; every day a
new bed or patch of ground to sleep on. And every evening when Raith Entradi
awoke, a new mob of hopefuls had gathered outside whatever rundown outpost
they’d taken shelter in, clamoring to see the healer.

There was a growing sense of agitation with each healing
Merrick performed. At first, people left after they’d been healed. They weren’t
leaving anymore. In fact, the mob had multiplied. The crowds which had once
congregated around the night fires only to vanish by morning were now camping
out, following Merrick and the Sons of Decylum like sheep.

By such miracles does the healer grow his flock
, Raith
reflected.
And as the flock grows, the wolves gather at the fringes
. He
had been training Merrick for a short while each day, focusing on what he knew
about the gift—which was to say, everything but the healing part. Merrick had
taken to that well enough, once he’d learned his ignition trigger.
It must
become a habit
, Raith’s Uncle Vigden had always told him.
Habits are
hard to break
. That was how Raith had always trained the younglings; he’d
taught them to find their triggers and make habits of them.

He had seen a change in the young healer these past weeks as
well. Not just a change in skill, but a change in temperament. Raith suspected
this was an expression of Merrick’s latent insecurities. There was an anger in
him, and as his following had grown, so too had his pride.

On the positive side of things, Raith and the Sons hadn’t
gone without food or water in days. Merrick’s healing carried a cost—one which
he accepted in the form of tithes and donations. His followers, even the ones
with nothing to give, were seeing to it that he never wanted for anything.

The Sons had split off from the flock this afternoon to
search Belmond’s eastern outskirts, where the Scarred had first attacked them.
They were getting close to Bucket Row now, and Raith wanted to make sure they
kept several city blocks between them and the hidden sentries Merrick had
warned them about. A daytime excursion put them at higher risk of being seen,
but this was their only chance to scour the area before Merrick and his flock
moved on.

“Do you remember where you were when you saw Hastle go down?”
Raith asked Gregar Holdsaard.

Gregar spent a moment in thought. “Hard to say. It was dark.
Everything looked different.”

“What happened after that? Talk me through the events of that
night. It may jog your memory.”

“I’ve replayed it so many times in my head…” Gregar said. “I
saw Hastle fall, went and ripped up the guy who’d shot him, then went back to
where Hastle was. He was dead before I could do anything. We were on this
busted-up section of rooftop somewhere. Not a rooftop; more like the second
floor of a building with no walls around it. I saw a couple soldiers go over
and check on the one I’d just killed. They saw me and started shooting. I put
up my shield. I was pissed. Just coffing livid. I remember leaping onto them,
shredding them both, but when I got down there, there were a bunch more I
hadn’t seen. They were shooting at me from every direction. I couldn’t handle
them all, so I… I lost my nerve. I took off. Not proud of it, but I’m not going
to lie… that’s what I did.”

“It’s alright, Gregar,” said Peperil Cribbs. “A lot of us ran
that night. What choice did we have, with hundreds of trained soldiers trying
to kill us?”

“I just feel like I could’ve done something more,” said
Gregar.

“As do I,” said Raith, “but it’s over and done with. Regret
is merely worry in past tense. We all have to make peace with our regrets, just
as we mustn’t allow our worries to consume us.”

“I’m going to get consumed by Infernal if we stand out here
too much longer,” said Derrow.

Jiren agreed. “Me too. Let’s spread out and start looking.”

“Stay low,” Raith warned. “If you climb any buildings, make
sure you’re out of sight from those high-rises across the freeway.”

The Sons dispersed through the ruins. Telltale signs of that
fateful night’s conflict punctuated the landscape: spent brass casings,
heat-baked bloodstains, mangled firearms, and smooth curved sections of edifice
that could only have been cut by the shields of blackhands.

The occasional bodily remnant provided a more grisly
reminder. What the city’s inhabitants hadn’t scavenged from the site, the
light-star had reduced to bones and tatters of cloth. The only smell was of
decay long completed, death a mere suggestion on the breeze.

“Found something,” came a shout from above.

Raith turned toward Bucket Row, toward the downtown
skyscrapers draped across the horizon like ragged silver scarecrows. He saw
movement in a high window, a glint of daylight.

He waited a beat.

Just a trick of the light
, he told himself, heading
toward the source of the shout.

Edrie Thronson was climbing down from an open relic of a
building with one rubbled corner and no roof, freed from his leg and shoulder
injuries thanks to Merrick’s healing. In his hand he held the commscreen,
shattered and scuffed, black and red wires hanging from the power cell
compartment. When Raith approached, Edrie handed it to him. “Doesn’t look like
we’re calling home any time soon.”

“Were there any others?” asked Ernost Bilschkin.

Raith shook his head. “This was the only commscreen we
brought with us. Unless someone else brought another of which I’m not aware.”

“We have no Wickman and no commscreen,” said Ernost. “We have
nothing.”

“We have the Glaives,” Theodar reminded him. “They were our
fallback if all else failed. It seems we’ve reached such a juncture.”

Gregar considered this. “Were we planning to stop by soon?”

“They don’t live in Belmond, remember. Their estate is
located in a small town southwest of here, within the crescent of the
Skeletonwood.”

“It’s no wonder people have lost track of the Glaives over
the years,” said Ernost. “Back when Hastle was working for them, Glaive
Industries was one of the largest corporations in the Inner East. The company
went under a few years after the Ministry dissolved. The fact that the Glaive
family fled to the frontier makes me wonder if their ties to the Ministry were
stronger than my research has led me to believe.”

“I’m sure their affiliation with the Ministry wouldn’t have
been public knowledge,” said Theodar.

“You’d be right to think that,” said Ernost. “Decylum’s
databases were expunged during the Ministry meltdown. The information that
remains to us—as inconclusive as it may be—strays far from what the public
would’ve had access to in the old days.”

Hayden Cazalet scratched his head. “So you think if we find
whoever’s left of the Glaives, they’ll not only help us get home… they’ll tell
us why Decylum was built in the first place?”

“Isn’t that something we’ve all been wanting to know our
whole lives?”

“I know I have,” said Gregar. “And my mother before me, fates
rest her. She was part of the second generation in our family born blackhands.
Third, after her sister and brother. We’ve all wanted to know.”

“Isn’t it strange how no one does?” said Hayden. “You’d think
somewhere along the line, it would’ve come out.”

“Our ancestors were oathtakers,” said Raith. “They swore to
uphold the Ministry’s secrets, most on pain of death.”

“And as far as we know, most have gone to their graves
without breaking those oaths,” said Ernost. “Many thought the Ministry’s
dissolution was merely a test of their loyalties.”

“That doesn’t mean the Glaives were sworn to secrecy,” said
Theodar. “The Glaives living today aren’t the same Glaives who filled the
Ministry’s order to build Decylum. They may have looser tongues than their
forebears.”

“We can only hope.”

“Someone should ask them why they didn’t build it bigger,”
said Jiren Oliver.

“It was the right size for what they needed at the time,”
said Ernost. “Decylum was only supposed to house about four hundred people.
That’s including scientists, technicians, maintenance workers, and their
families. We’ve grown to well over twice that number, even after our losses…”
He trailed off.

Raith thought of his niece Meluria, Petra’s daughter, who had
moved into Atton Mews’s hab unit when his ailing father died. Xeb Mews had left
his son alone with a sprawling six-room dwelling, which would’ve been lavish
for any family of five by Decylum’s standards. Raith suspected Meluria’s move
had been more about escaping her parents’ cramped living space than because she
felt strongly about Atton.

“Speaking of our overpopulation problem, what are we supposed
to tell everyone when we get back?” asked Brence Maisel. “If we ever do get
back…”

“We got our asses handed to us and barely escaped with our
lives,” suggested Mercer Terblanche.

The two hunters shared a laugh, but there was no mirth in it.

“I was wrong to choose Belmond,” Raith said. “It’s more
hostile here than I knew.”

Sombit Quentin, the usually quiet engineer, spoke up.
“Hostile and full of wasted resources. There are no other cities within a
hundred horizons of Decylum that could’ve provided the raw materials we needed.
Hastle would’ve told you so himself if you’d raised the idea of going anywhere
else.”

“All we need to do now is worry about getting home,” said
Raith. “I’ll worry about what we’re going to tell them when we do.” Raith,
Jiren and Derrow exchanged looks. The three councilors who might not be
councilors anymore when they returned knew there was no reason to burden the
others with rumors about Cord Faleir’s grab for power. For now, the threat to
Decylum’s leadership was moot.

“Is it just me, or is it too early to be getting dark?” asked
Ernost.

Everyone looked skyward. Nightfall wouldn’t arrive for
several hours, but the western horizon was overcast. Not the deep blue-black of
storm clouds, but a grimy earthen haze. Mercer and Brence climbed the nearest
building for a better look.

“Sandstorm,” Mercer cried. “Coming straight at us.”

“We’ve got to get back and warn Merrick,” Raith said.

Derrow Leonard spoke quickly, calling upon his experience as
a hunter. “I’m gonna have to advise against that. These things move fast. It’ll
be on us before we can make it back. Best thing to do is find an enclosed space
and hunker down.”

“These are all ruins,” shouted Ernost. “There are no enclosed
spaces.”

“Then we move straight to step two,” said Derrow. “Hunker
down.”

On the building’s low rooftop, Brence Maisel clutched his
chest and stumbled backward. The crack of the distant gunshot reached them half
a second later. Mercer Terblanche grabbed him before he toppled over the side,
pulling him down behind a low section of crumbling wall. A second bullet struck
the wall inches from his head, showering him in brick dust.

We’ve wandered too close
, Raith realized with dismay.
“Get down from there,” he shouted, scanning the distant skyline for another
glint of daylight. The others dove for cover, some unsure who they were taking
cover from.

“He’s hit,” Mercer called back. “I need a hand.”

The westward sky was growing darker. Raith and Jiren ran into
the building and hustled up the interior staircase. A third bullet struck the stairwell
wall in front of them. They fell prone and crawled to where Mercer Terblanche
lay beside a bloody Brence Maisel.

“How are we going to get him out of here?” Mercer asked.

“I’ll draw them off while you and Jiren take him downstairs,”
Raith said. “Carry him head first. Keep his legs elevated. Tell the others to
find shelter before that sandstorm hits. Ready? Count of three.”

Raith stood on three and ignited his shield. Jiren and Mercer
hauled Brence up and lugged him down the stairs. A bullet struck the rooftop
between Raith’s feet. A second struck his shield. “Come on. You can do better
than that,” he growled, waving his hands to make the semisphere move around
him. He was expecting a heavy barrage next. Instead there was a lull.

No shots came for several seconds.

Then he heard Jiren grunt.

The footsteps on the stairs turned to tumbling thuds. Raith
extinguished his shield and followed them down. The three men flopped to a halt
on the lower landing, piled in a heap with Jiren at the bottom. Raith hurried
down to untangle them while bullets struck the staircase and front wall.

By the time he’d pulled the others off Jiren, the young
blackhand’s white linen tunic was soaked in scarlet, one hole each in front and
back.
The bullet’s gone straight through him
. Together Raith and Mercer
dragged Brence and Jiren across the room and propped them against the sidewall,
where he hoped they were safe from the snipers.

Derrow Leonard braved an open patch of ground to fall in
beside them, bullets trailing his footsteps. When he saw how badly Jiren was
bleeding, he began to shake his head. “Oh, no, Jiren… No…”

“He’s going to be fine,” Raith assured him, though he
couldn’t be sure. “We’re going to get him back to Merrick and have him healed
right up. Hang on, Jiren.”

Jiren shook his head. He lifted a lethargic finger and
pointed westward. Raith turned to see a horizon thick with dust; a towering
brown wall rushed toward them, drowning the day’s bright blue behind it.

“We need to fall back,” Derrow said. “Get away from those
gunners.”

They lifted Jiren and Brence and dragged them through a
doorway at the rear of the building, where they found several of the other Sons
laying low. More joined them as they jogged another block southward. The tidal
wave of sand hit the city and did not slow. Raith had never encountered a
sandstorm before. Fortunately, Derrow knew what to do.

“Find something big to hide behind. Dampen your clothes with
your canteens and use the wet cloth as a breathing filter, nose and mouth. I
also recommend covering your head and ears if you can. Every bit of uncovered
skin is in for a good lashing. And for Infernal’s sake, keep your eyes closed.
The hunters know what to do, so if you’re unsure, find one of the hunters and
follow his lead.” Derrow had to speak louder as the storm neared. He signaled
them to get moving, then helped Raith carry Jiren to the closest safe spot they
could find. Mercer and Sombit carried Brence in another direction.