Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (45 page)

“You’re their brother. If you don’t protect them, who will?”

Deequol stopped and took her squarely by the shoulders. His
grip was so hard it pinched. Ryn growled, but Deequol held on. “You don’t
understand how it works around here. There’s no protecting anyone once they’ve
been conscripted. Plus, I don’t have time to nurse after a couple of nestlings.
My responsibilities keep me way too busy for that. I’ve got plenty to worry
about on my own.”

Lizneth averted her eyes. “I thought better of you, Deequol.”

“Lizneth. Don’t do this. There are brothers and sisters
everywhere in this place. You think we don’t pass each other in the yard and
wish things were different? Even when we’re not fighting a war, there are always
things to be done. Tithes to be collected. Soldiers to train. Mouths to feed.
This may look like a haphazard mess to you… and it’s true, things run smoother
when Sniverlik is here… but it’s life, Lizneth. It’s everyday life, just like
any other village and border town, except we’re all working toward the same
goal: keeping the
ikzhehn
safe.”

Lizneth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Keeping us
safe? Is that what you call it?”

Deequol’s brow darkened. She could see she’d awoken something
inside him. “You and your ungrateful village think the only reason we exist is
to take from you. All the other border towns are just as thankless. Each long
year the villages multiply in population while our supply goes unchanged. The
Marauders can’t create farmland where there is none. We can’t tell the ground
to sprout a more plentiful harvest to cover the difference. We can’t draw fresh
water from a toxic well. We live on what we have, and Sniverlik and all his
servants make do with it, same as you. War brings death, and in its wake, new
life. But even after we win this war for you; after we’ve done what we exist to
do, your families and villages will curse us for brutes, murderers, and
thieves.”

“You
are
murderers and thieves,” Lizneth said.

Deequol released her. His face was dour; expressionless. “You
have five minutes to be with Raial. After that, I think you should go.”

Lizneth felt the tears coming afresh. “If that’s what you
want.”

The stronghold’s keep was a towering saltrock structure which
leaned against the cave wall like a pat of melting butter. They were at the
door when someone on the rampart began to shout. Deequol turned back. There was
a bluefur on the gatehouse wall, shouting and waving a torch to signal the
Marauders on the keep’s roof.

“
Calaihn dehn chevehr. Calaihn dehn chevehr
,” he kept
repeating.
The hu-mans are coming
.

Lizneth met Deequol’s eyes. She saw no fear or sympathy
there; only anger. “Why did you come here? This is no place for you.”

“Let me take Thrin and Raial and go. Even Nawk, if she’ll
come with us. I’ll keep them from harm.”

Deequol shook his head. “It’s too late for that. You’re stuck
here now. We’re all stuck here until the
calaihn
are finished with us.
You should never have come, Lizneth.”

“We’ll hide ourselves away,” she insisted. “We’ll go before
they get here. Come with us, if you like. We can escape out a back entrance.”

“There is no back entrance.”

Lizneth was shocked. “How could those gates be the only way
in or out of this place? That’s impossible. Ankhaz was smarter than that.”

“The rear tunnels are a deathtrap, Lizneth. Ankhaz built a
series of escape tunnels, but he didn’t account for them being below the tide
line. The cave empties and fills multiple times a day. Those tunnels eroded and
filled with silt and saltwater years ago. No one’s used them in our lifetime.
If you take them, you’re just asking to get stuck. Or drown.”

“Anything is better than being a slave,” Lizneth said. “Show
me where they are.”

“No way. I’m not letting you down there, and I’m definitely
not letting you take our siblings down there with you. If you want to get out
of here, help us fight.”

“I don’t know a thing about fighting.”

“Can you lift a stone?”

“Yes.”

“You do look like you’ve been eating well,” Deequol said with
a playful nudge.

Suddenly self-aware, Lizneth crossed her arms over her chest,
hoping it would hide her growing belly a little.

“Oh, now don’t be embarrassed. I’m only teasing. Can you use
that knife you carry?”

“I guess.”

“Then please… we can use every able-bodied
ikzhe
we
can get. These
calaihn
can’t be allowed to roam freely through our
homeland, destroying what we’ve built and enslaving us at will. If we hold out
here… if we win… we can end this war tonight.”

“What if Sniverlik never comes back?”

Deequol gulped. “We’ll finish it without him.”

At the stronghold gates, the villagers were clamoring to be
let inside. A line of Marauders stood in their way, shoving them back and
threatening them with brandished weapons and raised fists. More Marauders were
swinging the heavy gates outward, pushing them in a wide arc toward their
closed positions. A few of the villagers managed to squeeze past and dart
inside, where they were tackled and tossed back out.

“What are they doing?” Lizneth asked. “Why are they keeping
them out? If the
calaihn
are coming…”

“Sniverlik and his forces took most of our supplies when they
left, promising to return with more. We don’t have the stock to feed so many.
You’d better find yourself a black cloak to wear, or you’re liable to get
thrown out with them.”

“Where do I find one?”

“Come with me. Quickly, now.”

Deequol brought her to a supply shed where several thin black
cloaks hung from pegs on the wall beside brengen-hide breastplates and
tire-tread helmets. He gave her a small breastplate to wear and tossed a cloak
around her shoulders, then fastened a sword belt around her waist and lowered a
greened copper helmet onto her head. “There. You look a right Marauder now,
don’t you? Your fur could use a little dirtying up, but if you’re here long,
that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Lizneth kept a brave face on, though inside she was
petrified. To her, the disguise was as shoddy as the stronghold itself. How
could she pass for a Marauder? All she wanted to do was take her brothers and
sisters—Deequol included—and head for the escape tunnels. “I don’t feel very
good about this, Deequol.”

“Nonsense. You’ll be fine. Just keep your head down and stay
close to me. If anyone asks, you’re my new trainee.”

“Can I see Raial now?”

“That’ll have to wait. We have chores that need doing on the
wall before the
calaihn
get here.”

Lizneth wanted to cry again, but she’d done enough of that
for one day. She followed Deequol obediently from the supply shed, her heavy
helmet sliding across her skull with every step. Ryn yipped at her feet until
she told him, somewhat unkindly, to hush.

They climbed the inside staircase to the rampart, where a
sergeant pressed them into service loading fist-sized chunks of saltrock into a
catapult basket. Deequol introduced Lizneth to the catapult’s operator, a hooded
agouti named Jijek with a limp and a missing forepaw, who squinted at her
suspiciously before telling her to hurry up.

From their vantage point, they could see the first signs of
torchlight rounding the bend. It was just as Lizneth had imagined it, dull
orange on the cave’s pale blue walls. The snake’s spine was so narrow the
hu-mans could only travel double-file, moving slowly to avoid slipping down the
sides. When Rotabak emerged onto the gatehouse roof, he decided he’d use the
terrain to his advantage, ordering a full barrage of catapult fire on the
advancing
calaihn
.

The arms of the catapults snapped forward, spraying the enemy
with showers of stone to drive them off their feet and tear bloody holes in
their ranks. Lizneth wanted to look away; to lay down and curl up and forget
the screaming, dying hu-mans, but she kept her feet planted and her head down
while the others cheered. When Jijek gave the order, they began to reload.

Outside the stronghold walls, the volunteers crowded at the
gates to beat on the doors with their rudimentary weapons and beg to be let
inside. Rotabak peered down at them from the gatehouse roof. “You want to eat?”
he screamed. “You want to come inside? Earn your keep. A meal for every
calai
head you bring me. Give those filthy
calaihn
a reason to regret coming
here.”

When Lizneth looked at Deequol, his lips were wrinkled in a
disbelieving frown.
Rotabak doesn’t have enough food to keep that promise
,
she imagined him saying. The
calaihn
advanced down the snake’s spine
toward the broad head of land on which the stronghold lay. When the first few
began to arrive, Lizneth noted with dread that they were carrying the same
fire-spitting machines which had obliterated Sniverlik’s forces and set Tanley
to flame. Many of the
ikzhehn
, Marauders and villagers alike, had
probably never seen such contraptions before.

There was nothing she could do to warn them amid the chaos.
She found herself screaming nonetheless, leaning over the wall and telling them
to run, to get out of the way before it was too late. No one heard her. Those
who didn’t know what the
calaieh
tank-and-candle contraptions could do
were about to find out.

Before Rotabak could give the order to fire another volley
from the catapults, half a dozen
calai
fire-spitters lined up along the
edge of the flatland. A few bold villagers sprinted toward them, letting out
callow battle cries. When the
calai
weapons hissed to life, their cries
turned to screams.

Gouts of yellow-orange flame washed over the hapless
villagers and surged against the stronghold walls, polishing the chiseled
saltrock until it was as smooth as blue silk.
They could break through with
fire alone, if they kept at it long enough
, Lizneth realized. It seemed to
her then, as she watched the villagers burn, that the
calaihn
wouldn’t
even need to go that far.

The villagers had nowhere to flee. They hugged the stronghold
walls, pounding on the gate and scrabbling at the stones, clawing over their
fallen kin as they tried in vain to climb out of danger’s reach. Deequol pulled
Lizneth back as one
calai
swept his flame upward to kiss a villager
who’d managed to climb a fathom or two off the ground. Lizneth wrenched herself
free and rushed back to the edge, knowing they were too high up for the flames
to reach.

By the time the catapults launched their second barrage, most
of the
calaihn
were past the snake’s spine, too close to be hit by the
big rock throwers anymore. Deequol and the other Marauders began picking up
chunks of saltrock and hurling them down. The enemy was unfazed, often
sidestepping the projectiles as though they were pebbles.
This is the best
we have to give?
Lizneth thought.
The
calaihn
bring fire and
steel and iron, and we throw stones?
They weren’t even real stones, truth
be told. Saltrock chunks tended to shatter on impact like brittle ceramics or
clay pots.
We’d be better off throwing dinnerware at them
. The Marauders
had armor and steel of their own, but those would do little good if Rotabak
kept them hidden behind the walls.

As the last few
calaihn
reached the end of the snake’s
spine and fell into formation on the flats, the true urgency of the Marauders’
situation dawned on Lizneth. A stronghold with only one lane of approach might
be more secure than one open to attack from all sides, but it was also more
vulnerable to siege. Deequol had been right; they were trapped.

Flaming arrows began to arc through the air and find homes on
the towers and walls of the keep. The saltrock began to melt and drip away,
though the moisture soon put out the fires. Without thatched rooftops and
wooden siding to latch onto, the flying torches didn’t carry the same potency
they had in Tanley.

Villagers lay in smoking heaps at the foot of the stronghold
walls, moaning in agony, furless skin pink and bubbling. Kroy was there, tangled
in the mass of bodies, his arm extended toward the heights. He was reaching out
to her, lips moving soundlessly. Lizneth’s stomach turned. She wasn’t sure
whether it was the unborn young stirring inside her or the sheer horror of it
all.

When the Marauders ran out of saltrock to throw, they
switched to their slings. Thanks to constant drilling, Sniverlik’s soldiers
were skilled with the weapons. The small lead bullets packed a punch, and they
soon began striking home to great effect. When the hu-mans saw the
ineffectiveness of their firebombs and arrows against the saltrock fortress,
they sounded the retreat.

A shout went up among the Marauders, but it was short-lived.
The
calaihn
fell back to the far end of the snake’s spine, but they
weren’t leaving. They knew as well as the Marauders did that all they had to do
was wait. Lizneth wondered whether she’d get a chance to take her siblings and
run while the
calaihn
weren’t watching. But her chance didn’t come that
day. Nor would it come the next day, or the next, or the one after that. The
calaihn
were always watching, and as long as they were out there and the Marauders were
in here, there would be no escape.

CHAPTER 37

Commune

“He isn’t showing any signs of improvement,” said
Theodar Urial, releasing Jiren Oliver’s eyelid to let it snap back into place.

They were sitting in the shadows of the sprawling cafeteria
on the basement floor of a high-rise near the heart of South Belmond. Jiren had
given no reaction during Theodar’s examination, yielding to the apothecary’s
touch without rancor. Over the past few weeks, he had eaten what food and drink
they gave him, and had traveled under his own strength with others to guide
him. They had helped him relieve himself a few times a day, cleaning and
washing him whenever he lost control of his bowels. Beyond that, he had
remained unresponsive.

Raith leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
How
much longer can we go on like this?
he wondered.
Jiren isn’t the man he
used to be; that much is clear
. At what point did a man stop being a man
and start being… something else?

Jiren hadn’t spoken a word since Merrick Bouchard woke him
from death. Whether this was some cruel twist of the fates or not, Raith was
running out of reasons to keep him alive. Yet the thought of giving up on him
was as painful as that of leaving Rostand Beige captive to the master-king.

The building over their heads was the liveliest of all the
tenements Raith had seen since he came to Belmond. Access to the upper floors
was prohibited to all but those its inhabitants deemed safe. Gates cordoned off
every staircase and elevator shaft, each of which was guarded around the clock.
The building’s most startling feature, however, was the one that separated it
from all the others—and the one which had brought them here.

It was crawling with mutants.

Merrick’s following had grown, but he needed more. He wasn’t
likely to win the nomads’ support any time soon, and the Gray Revenants had
maintained their neutrality in regards to his campaign for the city north. The
mutants, on the other hand, made up a significant portion of the city south’s
population.

Merrick had expressed his hatred of the
muties
, as he
called them, on more than one occasion. But he could not deny the value they
would add to his ranks if he could convince them to rally behind his cause.
Once Raith and the Sons had made him see that, he’d agreed to give it a try.
After
I heal a few of them
, he’d claimed,
the rest will follow like puppies
.

The crowds were a constant now; a noisy herd exceeding a
thousand in number, by Raith’s estimation. Most were waiting their turn to
receive the healer’s touch. Too few were there to support his claim on the
north, though Merrick didn’t see it that way. Blinded by arrogance and
accustomed to their idolatry, he now believed his followers were there because
they loved him. Meanwhile, he had continued to love them in other ways.

When the mutant envoy came to retrieve them from the
basement, Raith crossed the room and knocked on the kitchen door. “Merrick,
it’s time to go up.”

“Come in,” came the muffled shout from within.

Raith had no desire subject himself to Merrick’s
ill-considered escapades yet again, but in the interest of civility toward
their hosts, he twisted the handle and pushed open the door. The kitchen was
dim and dirty, coated in the sour stench of spoiled dairy. On a mattress near
the wall, the healer was fumbling for his clothes while the companions to
either side of him writhed and giggled beneath the blankets.

“The mutant envoy is here for you,” Raith said, lowering his
eyes.
This young fool thinks himself well-liked
, he thought with
disgust.
These women are after one thing
—
and it isn’t him
.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Merrick said with a chuckle.

“Best hurry,” Raith advised. “These mutants don’t strike me
as patient people.”

Merrick’s smile withered. “Lighten up. I said I’ll be there
in a minute.”

Raith shut the door, too hard. Merrick was becoming harder to
endure each day, but that wasn’t the only thing making him weary. His travels
with the healer had so far failed to turn up a single one of Decylum’s lost
Sons. He was beginning to think there was no one left to find. Making for Sai
Calgoar to rescue Ros by storm was sounding better all the time. They were
still trapped, though; trapped in the above-world with no way to find home.

Borain Guaidir had been shadowing them since they joined up
with Merrick, a presence more felt than seen. Raith had spoken to the nomad
guide once or twice, but the man had otherwise kept out of sight. Raith hadn’t
seen him in a few days, but he had no doubt Borain would be there to take them
back to Sai Calgoar when the time came.

Merrick emerged from the kitchen without his consorts,
looking pleased with himself as he smoothed the wrinkles in his shirt and
shorts. He’d bartered his healing services for some new clothes and a curiosity
or two. He now wore a brown t-shirt and denim cutoffs, both a snug fit for him.
He also carried a compact black pistol with a worn-out magazine and five rounds
of ammunition in a leather belt holster. Derrow had scoffed at that, claiming
he wasn’t a true blackhand if he needed a firearm to protect himself.

“They’re waiting,” Raith said.

Merrick gave him an icy stare. “I heard you the first ten
times.”

Raith said nothing.

“By the way, you made a mistake a second ago. You said you
didn’t think the mutants were patient people.”

“You disagree?”

Merrick nodded. “They’re not people.”

Raith knew Merrick was trying to provoke him, but he answered
anyway. “I didn’t realize you were the foremost authority on measuring a
person’s humanness.”

Merrick snorted. “A dway can’t have his own opinion? Shit, I
can’t remember the last time you went a whole day without telling me yours.”

Opinions like yours are poison to the untouchables of this
world
, Raith might’ve said. “You mistake guidance for imposition. It has
never been my intention to—”

“Leave it alone, Raithur. I wanted to learn from you, not be
told how to think.”

Raith opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. “We
shouldn’t keep them waiting. Derrow?”

Derrow stood from his seat beside Jiren. “Keep an eye on him
while I’m gone.” Jiren’s condition had plagued Derrow worst of all, the
evidence plain in his slumped shoulders and the dark circles beneath his eyes.

Mercer Terblanche, leaning against the wall with closed eyes,
nodded.

Raith and Derrow escorted Merrick from the cafeteria and
followed the lone mutant through the stairwell door. Four other mutants were
waiting at the bottom of the stairs, each his own picture of disfigurement.
They were armed with cobbled weapons, some of which resembled firearms. The
tallest among them had a slender neck that seemed too long somehow. The
shortest walked on squat mismatched legs, one of which ended in a shapeless
stump. The mutant standing in front had a writhing tentacle where its right arm
should’ve been.

Raith had caught glimpses of mutants from afar, but he’d
never seen one up close. The five of them together gave off a thin rancid
smell, somewhere between mildew and raw fish. The smell wasn’t bad enough to
make Raith and Derrow forget their manners, but Merrick pinched his nose and
grimaced in disgust.

When the tentacled mutant spoke, Raith realized there was a
woman beneath that homely face and the oddly-placed bulges beneath her clothes.
“After you,” she said. The tentacle made a wet sound when she gestured.

They started up the stairs with the five mutants following.

The gate at the top of the second floor was thin but sturdy,
a web of welded steel from handrail to ceiling. The guards let them through,
and they ascended until the envoy stopped them on the sixteenth floor. The
smell hit Raith as soon as the door opened. It was that same mutant smell, but
many times stronger, as if someone had been cooking it into the walls for a
long year. He swallowed and forged ahead.

Merrick lifted his shirt to cover his nose as they walked,
grunting his displeasure with every breath. Raith’s heart went out to their
hosts, as much for the horrors they lived with every day as for the healer’s
tactless behavior.

The hallway was a tunnel to nowhere, narrow and dark, packed
with refuse. Ahead of them lay the leapfrogging doors of at least two dozen
apartments. Some of the doors were open. Raith promised himself he would look
neither left nor right, but somehow he couldn’t help it.

The things he glimpsed in those bereft corners and dimly lit
rooms were enough to bring him to the fringes of his sanity. Spinal bones
crusted with spurs growing through skin; eroded facial tissue that left teeth
and nasal cavities exposed; limbs so twisted and malformed he wondered if they
had ever been human to begin with; and boils. Boils on every empty patch of
skin, running in clusters across necks and shoulders and legs, many ruptured
and weeping fluid.

“Here,” one of the mutants rasped from behind them.

Raith stopped at the next door, a right-hand entrance leading
into a tiny apartment with a grimy kitchenette and an open sleeping area.
Derrow waited in the doorway while Raith and Merrick entered. On a tousled
queen bed with stained white sheets lay a child; an infant, no more than a
month old by the look of it. This was one of the only children Raith had seen
since he left home. The child’s limbs were well-formed, but its skin was
covered in boils.

The child’s mother sat in an armchair beside the bed,
emaciated but for her left leg, which was swollen to twice the size of her
right. A heavy bulge protruded from her left shoulder; thin wisps of black hair
clung to a scalp overrun with boils.

When Merrick saw the child, he made a heaving noise in his
throat and had to look away.

“Are you alright?” Raith asked him.

Merrick gathered his resolve. “This is who they want me to
heal?”

Raith gave the woman a glance. She in turn looked to the
doorless refrigerator in the kitchenette, where a thin man Raith hadn’t noticed
before was standing.

“My boy,” the man said in a fragile voice. He lifted a hand
toward the child. A row of moldering nubs were all that remained of his
fingers.

Raith gave the man a slow nod, then turned to Merrick. “Are
you okay to do this?”

Merrick didn’t answer. He was staring down at his hands, lost
in some trance he couldn’t seem to escape. After a long moment, he bent over
the bed to scoop the motionless child into his arms.

When the little one stirred, his mother gasped. Her eyes
welled up and she began to cry.

Merrick didn’t ignite straightaway. He stood there for a
time, cradling the boy in his arms. “I’ve never held a baby before,” he said
without looking up.

“They remind us of how precious and fragile life truly is,”
Raith said.

Merrick nodded, as if to himself. “I’m going to try.”

Raith stood back.

The walls blushed a dull orange. Raith was pleased to see
Merrick letting the fire grow slowly, the way he had taught him. Less wasted
heat meant less stress on himself and his patient.

The babe began to squirm, then gave a squeal of what sounded
like happiness. An orange smile lit Merrick’s face as the child’s mother and
father looked on in astonishment, mouths agape. For a few short moments, it
appeared as though Merrick’s touch was the answer.

Then the worst happened.

The child’s tiny head lolled to one side. The light left its
eyes, and its body went limp.

Merrick frowned. He persisted, pushing his ignition further.

Raith smelled burning flesh, now stronger than the
apartment’s fishy mutant scent.

Merrick wasn’t ready to give up yet. He strained until the
glow was so bright the others in the apartment had to shield their eyes. Dark
lines snaked up his arms, veins turning black against the white-hot glow
building within him. Skin melted from muscle and bone, and it was not Merrick’s
skin alone anymore. His heat was burning the child as well.

Raith waited.

He saw Merrick sway on his feet, and still he waited.

“What’s he trying to do?” Derrow shouted.

Raith held up a hand.

When Merrick opened his mouth, white light burst forth, waves
of heat escaping him like a furnace’s breath. He began to shake as the glow
crept up his arms and neck, his skin a red-orange film over his body’s infernal
fire.

The woman screamed when she saw what was happening to her
child. She scrambled over the bed and made to grab the infant, but flinched
away when she felt the heat. The father approached Merrick next, but he too
shied away.

Raith took Merrick by the shoulders. “Enough, Merrick. It’s
no use. The child is gone.”

Merrick didn’t stop.

Raith could only hold on for a few seconds before the heat
became too much for him. He let go and stood back while Merrick’s fire grew
ever brighter. The sheets draped over the side of the bed in front of him began
to curl and wither. The wallpaper behind him crisped and darkened.

Merrick screamed as he poured every ounce of himself into the
child. Pure white light emanated from him like the light-star’s rays, blinding
everyone in the room. His fingers were little more than bone now, his forearms
bound in white-hot sheets of flesh. His hair stirred on the hot breeze. The
clothing around his midsection took flame.

That was when Raith knew he had to end it. The air around
Merrick seemed to crackle with static as he drew near.
Fates forgive me
,
Raith thought, drawing back to strike Merrick a blow across the head.

Before he could bring his fist forward, the light went out.

Merrick faltered, then toppled to the bed in a smoldering
heap. Both he and the child were smoking like something pulled off a grilling
iron. And the smell… the smell was beyond definition.