Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (37 page)

“Ain’t got a half inch to spare,” Lokes said. “What you doin’
here all by your lonesome, honey? And who’s that hanging out your living room
window?”

The girl cut her eyes toward the vehicle, around which the
noose’s rope was anchored. “He a dull dway, mister. It was me get him or him
done the flip. All got to go someways.”

Lokes leaned over and whispered. “What is this shit? Some
kinda southern jargon?”

“It’s a dialect,” Toler said. “These urchins stay pretty far
outside what you might call polite society. She understands what copper is
though, so she can’t be that far out. Try offering her some food. I hear that
works in every language.”

Lokes straightened and cleared his throat. He fished out a
stick of jerky and held it up. “You hungry, kid? You sure look it. We ought to
be movin’ on, so how ‘bout you take this and find you somewhere safer to hole
up?”

The girl’s nostrils flared. She took a step toward Lokes.
Then, something made her reconsider. “Be taking that way,” she said, motioning
them forward. “For the meat.” She looked up at the jerky, following it with
ravenous eyes.

Lokes was about to spur his horse, but he hesitated. He kept
the jerky where it was, dangling it between two fingers. His eyes narrowed as
he scanned the landscape of rusty, dented metal before them. A breath passed.
Two.

Lokes drew with his right and fired. The girl dove out of
sight. Metal rang, and Lokes’s bullet tore a hole through the tarnished blue
face of an upright vehicle hood. Behind it, a man’s body thudded to the concrete.

“Coffing beggars,” Lokes muttered.

Two more men leapt from their hiding places, each wielding a
length of sharpened signpost in his hands. Lokes put them down and popped the
jerky into his mouth before the smoke had cleared. He spat out a hunk of gristle
and swallowed the rest. “I swear, hanging your victims out for everyone to see
got to be the dumbest coffin’ thing I ever heard of, you want to earn your keep
at robbery. Watch for the girl.” He started forward, shoving another hunk of
jerky into his mouth and chewing noisily.

Toler didn’t have the slightest desire to see what else might
be waiting for them amid the maze of wreckage ahead. His plans for the
longknife secreted away beneath his leathers didn’t involve revealing his
possession just yet.

Lokes led them up the causeway, glancing left to right as
Gish bore him through the erstwhile shanty town. The overpass soared to a
height of a hundred feet or more, by Toler’s reckoning. At the crest, the
city’s eastern horizon spread out before them, its towers burning in the midday
light. There was no sign of the girl anywhere, no noise from within the
wreckage.

As they began to descend toward the highway, a sound came
from behind them. Lokes twisted in his saddle, drew, and fired, sending a
bullet sizzling past Toler’s head. He turned.

The girl was two fathoms behind him. Her arm was raised; in
it, a short wooden spear with a blade of razor-thin sheet metal. She had just
drawn back to throw. Her other hand clutched at the red stain spreading across
her sleeveless white shirt. She let the spear fall harmlessly to the ground. A
gasp, and she followed.

“Never can trust them coffin’ beggars,” Lokes said. “Offer
‘em a bite and they want the whole buffet.” He hawked and spat.

They descended to the freeway and found themselves on a
deserted stretch of open road. The Rutherford Turnpike was usually
well-traveled, but it seemed everyone had taken to the shade to wait out the
midday heat. Lokes and Weaver didn’t have time to wait, so Toler knew it wasn’t
worth suggesting. He took a long draught from his waterskin, fighting the urge
to fall to the ground and bash his skull open against the hot pavement. That
seemed the only viable solution to the headache threatening to split his head
in two.

The turnpike stretched on into the distance, and the three
riders headed eastward at a canter. It was too hot to run the horses for long,
and soon the animals worked up a lather and began to flag. They needed rest and
water—especially Seurag. Lokes pushed on, determined by the urgency of their
time constraint.

They passed an abandoned water treatment plant with a dry
reservoir, its bed a blotch of cracked brown mud. Then came long rows of
corrugated olive-green warehouses. After that, the Belmond Performing Arts
Center stood gatekeeper to an array of taller buildings crowding the open
freeway like curious spectators.

The sky was beginning to darken by the time they reached
their exit and left the highway in favor of the precious shade beneath tall
buildings along a corporate avenue. In the distance, a fast-moving thunderhead
was rolling across the eastern desert. Lightning forked down, and the air
rumbled.

“Where in tarnation does a rainstorm come from on a day like
this?” Lokes complained.

“Them starwinds make strange things happen. Don’t give no
warning, neither,” Weaver said from the back.

Lokes cursed.

They were in gang-infested territory now, every wall and
window painted with some bright motif. A narrow track took them alongside a
line of industrial buildings, a low chain-link fence the only barrier between
them and a towering plunge to the road below. Lokes was ever-vigilant, Weaver
nervous and silent behind him.

The twisting roadway led them around to face the tall
smokestacks of the Axant Chemical Factory. The thin spires rose above a jungle
of silos, scaffolding, pipes and holding tanks. Toler’s heart began to race
when he spied the first of the borderguards on one of the rooftops—a mohawked
warrior with a savage’s dark eyes and bronze flesh. Dozens more patrolled the
factory’s many balconies, a blatant show of force which the nomads used to
great effect.

The three riders crossed the final street under a sky of
thick gray clouds to reach the factory’s surrounding fence. Lokes lifted a hand
to signal the savages for peace. Within seconds, nomads had materialized around
them.
Tricksters through and through
, Toler thought with disdain.

“Who’s in charge here?” Lokes wanted to know.

“Diarmid Kailendi is warleader,” said a stout nomad with deep
furrows carved into his bald scalp. His accent was thick, and Lokes seemed not
to understand.

“Eh… lemme talk to him.”

“What is your trade?”

Lokes glanced at the sky, using his tongue to massage his
bottom lip as he considered the oncoming storm. “Well now, I got this dway
right here for sale,” he said. “Strapping young lad. Make a fine slave. Horse
is for sale, too. The whole kit, matter of fact.”

“Now hold on, Will,” Jallika said, bringing her filly forward
a few steps. “We came to see about a man, name of Daxin Glaive.”

“Yeah? Well things has changed, Jal. Or ain’t you noticed?”
Lokes pointed upward.

“We ain’t gonna beat that storm back to Fink, and you know
it,” she said.

“Not if we set here dillying about this missing-person
nonsense. We trade ol’ Shep for the hardware we need, and then we go. That’s
the last of it.”

“The rain comes,” said the nomad. “We go in.”

Lokes sighed. “Fine. Lead the way.”

The nomads took them around the corner and through a gate in
the fencing. There they sheltered in the yard, dismounting beneath an overhang
provided by one of the walkways above. The factory still wore its chemical
smell like a lingering perfume, mixed with the bloody tang of old rust.

“Weapons,” said the savage.

Lokes reluctantly agreed, giving his gun belt and sweeties a
longing stare as the nomads tossed them into a pile on the ground.

Toler’s heart skipped a beat when they began to pat him down.
A savage slid his hands up each leg, then felt Toler’s hips and lower back.
Oh,
no
.

It began to rain.

The nomad examined Toler’s pockets, then forced him to spread
his arms. Toler felt the longknife slip free of his armpit and fall to rest in
the waistband of his pants. The nomad’s hands patted him front and back, then
along his sides. When he felt the bulge of the blade’s hilt, he stopped.

With a grunt, the nomad turned Toler around and wrenched his
leathers open to expose his chest. He reached inside and withdrew the knife,
tossing it onto the pile of weapons with a suspicious stare.

Toler looked up to find both Lokes and Weaver looking at him,
bewildered. Weaver’s gaze, especially, was difficult to meet, somewhere between
disappointment and disbelief.
She should’ve expected nothing less from me
,
Toler told himself.

The ground rumbled. This time it wasn’t thunder. Toler looked
down the road to see a vast host galloping toward the factory gates, hurrying
to escape the rain.
More nomads. Scouts, or a war party
. As more and
more of their number came into view, he realized this host was too large to be
merely an excursion force. It was a caravan, complete with slave cages and herd
animals.

The guards opened the gates wide to let the new arrivals
stream into the yard. Toler couldn’t believe his eyes. There, atop a tall
corsil at the head of the column, his skin wet and reddening in the rain, sat
one of his brother’s oldest friends: the warleader, Lethari Prokin.

CHAPTER 30

The Pale-Skin Ransom

Rainwater had begun to burn on Lethari’s skin, but his
attention was fixed on the three visitors standing beneath the factory
overhang. A slender woman with long black hair, a gruff-looking man in a
wide-brimmed hat, and a younger man with wavy brown locks whom Lethari knew to
be the shepherd Toler Glaive. Lethari did not know why Toler was here, but the
look on the young man’s face made him wary.

Drawing Tosgaith from its sheath, he goaded his corsil
forward and circled around behind them, shouting to Diarmid’s warriors. “Bind
the
lathcui
. Do not allow their hands to touch steel.”

The gruff man resisted at first, but Diarmid’s men were too
many for him, and too strong. They had already stripped the pale-skins of their
weapons, Lethari saw; a longknife, two revolvers, and a few smaller blades lay
on a pile of belts beside them.

After passing beneath the silo’s catwalk to escape the rain,
Lethari kneeled his corsil and dismounted. Teibast was of inferior breeding to
Jadoda, but Lethari’s fondness for the male had grown these past weeks. So too
had his unease regarding the warriors in his
feiach
. Everywhere he went,
he could feel their eyes on him. Judging him. Waiting for him to make a
mistake; to give himself away as a traitor to the master-king.

Lethari handed the reins to Eoghan Teleri and approached the
visitors. Behind him, the
feiach
was still flowing in through the gates,
taking shelter wherever there was shelter to be had. They were a fraction of
their former size, but still larger than any other force in the city, save the
Scarred Comrades. None had dared challenge the
calgoarethi
between the
outskirts and the factory, even with their cages full, their packs overflowing,
and their herds thick with livestock. Now, the enemy stood before him. Although
Toler Glaive had spoken no challenge, Lethari saw the murder-lust in his eyes.

“
Maigh
Glaive,” he said, moving toward him. “You were
half a child when last I laid eyes on you. How you have grown.”

Toler took a step back. His wrists were red and chafed
beneath the ropes, his eyes veined and distant. Lethari stretched out his hand.
Toler didn’t take it. He only stared, a ruinous look which hinted that he was
barely finding the will to restrain himself. The two
lathcui
flanking
him were calm, but wary.

“Will Lokes,” said the gruff man, intercepting Lethari’s
handshake. “Call me Lokes. This is Jallika Weaver.”

Lethari touched hands with the woman. “What brings you to my
camp?”

“You Diarmid?” Lokes asked.

“I am Lethari Prokin. Diarmid Kailendi was warleader while I
was away, but no longer.”

Lokes winced as he tried to find a comfortable position for
his bound wrists. “Awful rude of you to treat your guests like this. We don’t
mean you no harm.”

“Then you have no need for weapons,” Lethari said.

Lokes grunted and spat. “We’re lookin’ for this dway’s
brother. Fella by the name of Daxin. We was s’posed to meet him downtown
earlier, but he never showed. Toler here says you might know where we can find
him.”

Lethari paused.
Toler Glaive does not yet know his brother
is dead. How could he, unless he has been home to see his niece?
If Toler
had truly attempted to kill his brother, as Daxin had claimed, would he rejoice
to hear the news?
And how much stronger must his hatred be toward me, for
all the damage I have caused him? All the more reason to keep them bound until
I determine his aim
. “
Maigh
Glaive is your prisoner,” he said,
pointing to Toler’s bonds.

“Naw, he just don’t like us,” Lokes said with a grin.

When he offered no further explanation, Lethari said, “Let us
escape this rain and speak within.”

“‘Fraid we ain’t got time to sit around and jaw with you,”
said Lokes.

Lethari blinked. “If you wish to go, then go. My men will cut
your bonds and return your belongings when you have withdrawn.”

Lokes and Jallika exchanged glances. He sighed. “Alright.
Inside it is.”

Slipping between patches of shelter beneath a maze of piping
and ductwork, they crossed the factory grounds to the hidden inner yard. It was
empty when they arrived, the animals and slaves having been herded into the
loading bays to wait out the storm.

They entered the factory through a side door and ascended a
metal staircase to a high catwalk overlooking the massive production floor,
where gigantic steel vats stood beside cylindrical drums, connected by pipes
and gauges of every kind. Goats wandered the industrial landscape while the
calgoarethi
tethered their mounts to the building’s exposed steel girders and shoved the
new slaves into paddocks with the rest.

They all crammed into a small office along the catwalk, where
Lethari shut the door behind himself to cut out the noise, then dropped his
pack onto the desk. The only sound they could hear now was heavy rain on the
roof above.

Lethari cleared his throat. “
Maigh
Glaive… your
brother no longer lives.”

“What?” said Lokes, going pale. “Aw, well shit.”

Toler’s brow darkened. “When did he die? And how?”

Lethari explained.

“You brought him all the way to Bradsleigh to be buried?”
Toler asked.

“He deserved to rest with his family.” Lethari saw the
muscles in Toler’s jaw tighten like thick-wound ropes. The young man’s face
flushed red; not with sorrow, but with anger. His chest began to heave with
mounting rage.

“You dirty coffing savage,” he said, too placidly. “You son
of a bitch. I’d dig out his corpse and string it up to some tree before I let
it share the same dust with my parents. He’s not fit to rest on our family
plot.”

Although Lethari understood Toler’s feelings, he did not agree
with them. Daxin Glaive was a hero; a man who had gone to great lengths to
deliver the pale-skin traders into his hands. There was no sense arguing this
with Toler, whose mind he would never change. “You will be silent, or I will
silence you.”

At the back of the room, Lokes cleared his throat. “Y’all
interested in making a trade?”

“You have nothing I want, pale-skin.”

“How ‘bout the kid? Ol’ Shep here’d make a mighty fine slave,
you ask me.”

Lethari considered this. He would not make Toler a slave;
their families had too much history for that. But he
was
the heir to
what remained of Glaive Industries, and that made him important. If Lethari
could hold the shepherd for a while—long enough to ensure that the old Glaive
shipping crates didn’t fall into Vantanible’s hands…

“Hold up, Will,” said Jallika Weaver. “Toler ain’t ours to
sell. His brother hired us to protect him.”

“Yeah, and we ain’t gettin’ paid for it no more. You heard
the man. Time to cut bait and run. We got to hightail it out of here, ‘fore
Fink and his inbred posse realize we done left.”

“You ain’t fixing to run from him again, are you?”

“Sure, why not? We ain’t got the hardware anyhow.”

“Oh, I dunno. ‘Cause he’s going to kill us?”

Lethari was losing patience for this bickering. He did not
wish to delay speaking with Diarmid Kailendi any further. The longer he waited,
the more the
feiach
’s murmurings would spread through the camp,
poisoning Diarmid’s warriors against him. “Do you wish to sell Toler Glaive, or
not?”

Toler’s eyes were pleading. “Shouldn’t I have a say in this?”

“A few ounces of gold is all I ask,” said Lokes. “I’ll even
throw in his horse and saddle to sweeten the deal.”

“Don’t you touch my saddle,” Toler said. “That was a gift.”

“That’s up to the man, here,” Lokes said with a grin. “What
do you say, chief? We got us a trade?”

Lethari turned to Joarim Beisar, one of his treasurers. “
Tilier
oria
.”

Joarim bowed and left the room. He returned moments later
with a box of fine metals—an assortment of wire, coins, and jewelry they’d
taken from the pockets, necks, and fingers of pale-skins across the Inner East.
Lethari chose several pieces and held them out to Willis Lokes. “All of this
for Toler Glaive and his possessions.”

“Deal,” said Lokes, swiping them without hesitation. He
picked through the proceeds, an awkward affair while his wrists were bound. He
separated out a small portion and dropped it into his left pants pocket before
dumping the rest into his right. “Thank you kindly. Welp, we ought to be
getting on our way.”

“Wait a minute,” said Toler. “Jallika’s right—I’m not your
property to sell. You can’t just trade me away because my hands are tied.”

“All our hands are tied,” said Lokes. “And ours more ways
than one. That brother of yours hadn’t decided to up and die, you might still be
a free man. We was counting on that hardware. Gotta get while the gettin’s
good, and go while we got the time.”

Toler glared. “You’re an idiot if you’re planning to run from
your old posse again.”

Lokes raised his eyebrows. “I don’t see how we gonna make it
back before nightfall with all this rain in the way.”

“We’re not running again,” Jallika insisted. “Soon as the
rain lets up, we head back to the Scorpion’s Uncle to make right with Fink and
the gang.”

“By the time this rain lets up, Fink’ll be fixin’ to tan our
hides and wear us for a jacket.”

“He’ll understand if we don’t make it on account of the
rain,” she said.

Lokes was skeptical. “Hannigan Fink? Understand?”

“When you give him a handful of hardware, he will. I hope
you’re kidding about running away again.”

“This slave trade business seems awfully profitable. Say we
go catch ol’ Fink and sell
him
. Two birds, eh?”

Lethari’s skin itched from the rain. He called for a dry
cloth and told his men to fetch Diarmid Kailendi. Then he told the two pale-skins,
“Our trading is done. My men will bring you to the gates and cut your bonds.
There they will return your mounts and belongings. Farewell.”

“You reckon we could hang around ‘til the rain lets up?”
Lokes asked.

“No.”

“You gonna send us out in the middle of that storm? We’ll fry
like sausages.”

“You have gold. Buy a coat.”

“Some hospitality, huh?”

The men seized Lokes and Jallika and shoved them through the
door, leaving Lethari and Toler alone in the room. They could hear Lokes
complaining all the way down the catwalk. Lethari went to the window and looked
out over the production floor, turning his back to Toler. Members of his
feiach
,
having unloaded the wagons and stowed their belongings, were running inside to
escape the rain, greeting their friends and brothers after months on the
wastes. The talk around the cooking fires would be plentiful tonight.

Where is Diarmid?
Lethari wondered. His men had not
returned with his cloth, and the itch was starting to burn. Watching them all
down there was putting him on edge; it would be easier to sway Diarmid to his
defense if he heard Lethari’s side of the story first.

There was a noise behind him.

Toler’s hands came down over his head. The shepherd yanked
backward to choke him on the length of rope between his wrists. Lethari lost
his balance; they stumbled backwards and slammed into the office’s rear wall.
The shepherd laced his fingers behind Lethari’s neck, pulling the rope taut.
Struggling for breath, he began to drive his elbows into Toler’s ribs. The
younger man grunted, but did not let up.

“You’re going to die for all the shit you’ve brought down on
me,” Toler said, his voice a whisper. “The Vantanibles owe you one.”

Toler slid to a seat against the wall, pulling Lethari down
with him. Lethari’s body arched like a bridge, heels slipping on the worn tiled
floor. His vision grew spots, then began to darken. He scrabbled at the rope
against his throat, still trying to regain his footing. When that proved
useless, he tried to hit Toler in the face; tried to get a finger in his eyes.
No amount of struggling made Toler loosen his hold.

Is this how I am to die, then?
Lethari wondered.
Before
I have cleared my name? Before I have seen the birth of my son?
Horrified,
he noticed the goatskin record poking up from his pack, leaning out as if to
taunt him.
I will die, and my family will be shamed
, he thought with
despair.

He had spent the trip to Belmond looking for a way to dispose
of the record. Cured leather burned slowly, and none of the roaring fires of
his camp were ever left unattended long enough to try. He had considered
burying the record within the privacy of his own tent. But if some animal came
along and dug it up, there was always the chance, however remote, that it might
turn up again in the future. No, that would not serve. A travesty that he
should die before getting a chance to destroy the record once and for all.

Lethari’s vision had gone black by the time he heard
footsteps coming down the catwalk. When the men arrived at the office window,
their casual pace turned frantic. They flung open the door and swarmed in,
drawing their blades.

Toler finally released his hold around Lethari’s neck. The
ropes slipped away. Lethari sucked in the deepest breath he’d ever taken,
curling up on the floor to shield himself from the stampeding feet of his men.
Toler was yelling at the top of his lungs, screaming as he tried to fight them
with his bare hands. He managed to wrench a knife away from one of them and
began slashing at the air, throwing himself into their midst with abandon.

He is ready to die
, Lethari realized.
Ready to
surrender himself to the fates for the smallest taste of vengeance
. Rolling
away from the melee, Lethari crawled to the far wall and slouched against it,
gasping for breath.
He will not yield, and they will kill him
.