Mirage (6 page)

He took one last look at Aluna, still scrunched up on her side, then went to help break camp. By the time they had everything loaded up and the fire stamped out, Aluna was up and ready to go.

Secrets
, Hoku thought. When had they started collecting those?

T
HEIR JOURNEY TO SHINING MOON
blurred into a series of hot yellow days and cool ink-black nights. Even Aluna had trouble keeping up with the pace Tayan set. It was no secret why the SandTek ancients had given Equians four swift hooves instead of two legs. Tayan also seemed to need less water, could gnaw on cactus as she ran to keep her strength up, and, despite her light-colored skin, never burned.

Dash didn’t have horse legs, but he ran as if he did. He never complained, never seemed to get tired. Aluna could only imagine what it must have been like for him, growing up in a place where everyone is faster and stronger and bigger than you.

At night, they barely had the energy to hunt for food, gather materials for the fire, and eat before collapsing. Sometimes Aluna managed to ask about the Thunder Trials, or they swapped stories from their homelands. Aluna never asked Dash why he helped the Serpenti. He’d tell her when he was ready, or she’d just have to assume that everything Tayan said was true.

One morning, when they’d stopped briefly to let Hoku pull some stones from his boots, Aluna heard Calli cry out from the sky.

“Tents!” she yelled, pointing northeast. “I see tents!”

Tayan galloped ahead to the next ridge and called back, “Shining Moon! We are home.”

Aluna looked at Dash, expecting to see fear or apprehension on his face. Instead, it lit up as if he’d just seen the sun after years in darkness. He bolted for Tayan, and Aluna could only scramble to keep up.

Below them, hundreds of colorful tents sprouted out of the sandy, scrub-dusted landscape like a cluster of bright anemones. Hundreds of Equians walked and cantered through the settlement, far too many to count, and she guessed that there were a lot more inside the tents. Aluna could pick out a dozen training areas scattered around the perimeter, along with several large animal enclosures. One for horses, another for two huge rhinebras, and a third, covered in nets, that seemed to house birds. A huge meeting area at the western edge of the city contained a massive fire pit spitting a trickle of dark smoke into the sky.

“Tides’ teeth,” Hoku muttered. Aluna hadn’t even noticed when he’d arrived.

An Equian down by the settlement spotted them and yelled.

Tayan grinned. “We made good time. Tonight is Darkest Night, when we celebrate the hidden moon. You will eat our best food, hear our best word-weavers. Then you will understand why we will defend this desert and our herd traditions with our lives.”

Calli and Hoku whooped. Aluna knew that the trek had been hard on them — it was impossible not to see the exhaustion on Hoku’s face each day — but she wasn’t excited about reaching the herd. While they traveled, Dash was safe. A prisoner, but alive. Now that they’d arrived at Shining Moon, his fate was less certain.

A movement caught Aluna’s eye. A lone gray-and-black horse cantered around the outskirts of the settlement. It reminded her of Conch, a dolphin that begged for food near her family nest in the City of Shifting Tides. Why wasn’t the horse in the enclosure with the others? It didn’t look injured or old, at least not from the way it danced out of range of passing Equians.

“Come,” Tayan said. “We have much to tell my father and brother. Let us feel the wind in our faces.”

Tayan burst into a gallop and headed toward the city. Hoku and Calli raced after her. Aluna was about to join them,
swift as a seal
, when Dash grabbed her elbow.

“Are you well?” he asked quietly. “You lie awake in the morning without moving. Three times now. Something is wrong.”

Aluna’s right foot stumbled in the sand, and she almost fell. He’d noticed? “Never mind that,” she said. “We have more important problems to think about. Your trial —”

“So it
is
a problem,” Dash said. “I knew it! You must let me help. We have many medics in the herd. Perhaps someone can —”

“No!” she snapped. She hadn’t meant it to come out so harshly, but she’d found a new thick patch of skin near her knee that morning. A patch that looked suspiciously like scales. She’d been jumpy as a squid ever since. “No,” she said again, much more calmly. “I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want help.”

“Fine,” he said, although the expression on his face told Aluna that he was anything
but
fine. He turned as if he were going to follow the others, but paused. “You are not alone, you know. You may prefer to be sometimes, but you are not.”

He took off down the ridge before she could respond. Not that she knew what to say. The more she kept this secret to herself, the harder it was to even think about telling the others. It grew like a pearl inside her. The bigger it got, the tighter she wrapped her arms around it.

By the time she reached the edge of the Shining Moon settlement, Dash was gone. She joined Hoku and Calli near a cluster of Equians welcoming Tayan back to the herd.

“They took him away,” Hoku whispered. “To prison. Or a prison tent. Or something like that. Tayan said they wouldn’t hurt him.”

“She gave us her word,” Calli added.

Tayan broke out of the cluster and clomped over, still smiling. “Come, we will report to my father, Khan Arasen, and give the others time to prepare your tent.” She looked at Aluna and had the good sense to drop the grin from her face. “Dash will not be harmed,” she said. “Not until after his trial, and then only if he is found guilty.”

“Which he will be,” Aluna said. “You know he will be.”
Lie to me
, she thought.
If you lie about this, then maybe you could have lied about Dash
.

Tayan stared at her. Her tail swished. Eventually, she said simply, “Follow me. My father is this way.”

Equians stared as they followed Tayan through the settlement. Aluna had expected their horse bodies to be the same color, or at least similar, but they weren’t. She saw blacks, browns, and light grays, reds like Tayan, and even sandy yellows. Some Equians wore solid colors that turned dark at their hooves and tails, while a few others had stripes. She didn’t see any two alike.

Far too quickly, they reached the khan’s tent. Inside, blue and silver light danced across the packed dirt floor. The fabric walls had appeared solid from the outside, but sunlight somehow streamed through. There were no windows, but the air felt cool and refreshing. A glorious change from the heat.

Khan Arasen wore his brown hair short and his beard neatly trimmed. His tunic seemed similar to Tayan’s, with maybe a few more strands of blue and silver and white woven along the hems. A huge blood-red amulet hung from his neck, exactly like the one that she’d seen High Khan Onggur wearing. His horse flank glowed dark brown, even darker than his hair. He stood talking to another man, an older Equian in elaborate blue robes that complemented his spotted black flank.

“My father stands on the right,” Tayan whispered. “The other man is Weaver Sokhor, a treasured adviser.”

“What’s that amulet around your father’s neck?” Aluna asked. “High Khan Onggur wears one just like it.”

“It is the Shining Moon bloodline,” Tayan said.

Hoku grimaced. “There’s actually blood inside it?”

Tayan shook her head. “No, not blood — something more precious. Biological codes. All the genetic information about our herd. When we are ready to birth new foals, our bloodline tells the tech how to make a new Shining Moon, not a new Red Sky or Arrow Fall or Cloud Hoof.”

Hoku’s grimace turned to wide-eyed wonder.

Aluna was about to ask how easy it would be to destroy the bloodline amulet when Khan Arasen turned, stepped over, and clapped Tayan on the shoulder. “It is good that the sun and sands have brought you back to us so swiftly, Daughter.”

Tayan bowed. “Father, I bring urgent news from the High Khan about the coming war. But first I must speak of herd business.”

“You would speak herd business in front of wetlanders?” Khan Arasen asked.

Wetlanders? Well, it made a certain kind of sense, Aluna thought. She looked over and saw Hoku mouthing the word to Calli.

Tayan flicked her tail. “I would, Father, for the business involves them . . . and Dashiyn.”

“Dashiyn!” Weaver Sokhor said, clomping over to join them. His dark eyes seemed like pits under his graying eyebrows. “The boy has broken his exile?”

“He has,” Tayan said solemnly. “He and his friends entered Mirage of their own free will. In their defense, they were trying —”

“No,” Sokhor said. “We do not need to hear excuses. Herd law is herd law. The boy must be punished. Where is he? I will see to his death myself.”

Aluna took a step forward, ready to bring out her talons, and found Tayan’s hand on her shoulder, pushing her back.

“With all due respect, Weaver,” Tayan said calmly, “I came here to tell my khan, not you.”

Weaver Sokhor sputtered. He looked just like Elder Peleke back home, when Hoku figured out the answer to some tech problem before he did.

“You were quite right to mention this, Daughter,” Khan Arasen said smoothly. “He came willingly?”

“He did.”

Arasen nodded. “Yes, I would expect nothing less.” Aluna noticed the darkness under the khan’s eyes, the deep lines around his mouth. She hadn’t realized how old he was until just now. “And why did you bring his friends?”

Much to Aluna’s surprise, Tayan looked at her then, a question in her eyes. “Go ahead,” Aluna said. “He needs to know everything. The only weapon we have right now is that we know the enemy better than she — or Karl Strand — thinks.”

That was all Tayan needed. She began with her arrival at Mirage, when she and the other emissaries had been taken prisoner. Aluna filled in the parts about Scorch and Karl Strand, and Hoku and Calli jumped in with details. Hoku remembered High Khan Onggur’s exact words better than anyone. Calli mostly remembered Scorch hitting her.

Khan Arasen asked a few questions, and they went back further. Calli told them about Tempest and the Aviars’ battle at the SkyTek dome. Aluna talked about Fathom. Hoku talked about how Dash had fought off the Upgraders long enough for Hoku to access the main computer system.

When they were done, no one spoke for a long time. The khan’s brow was creased, and his hand stroked his beard.

“Well, the solution is clear,” Weaver Sokhor said at last. “If Onggur wins the Sun Disc, then we will hand over the children and join Red Sky’s alliance. Herd law and our honor demands it.”

Tayan stomped both of her front hooves. “You did not see what has become of Mirage, Weaver Sokhor. If you had, you would not suggest that honor had anything to do with this alliance.”

“You won’t give us to her, “Aluna said. “Don’t think for one flash of a tail that I’ll let that happen.”

“We’re here because we want to work with you
against
Karl Strand,” Hoku said. “Don’t make us your enemies, too.”

Calli rustled her wings. She lowered her chin, and her eyes fell into shadow. “You don’t want see what happens when the Aviars call for revenge.”

Aluna stared at the girl, a mix of horror and pride swelling in her chest.

“Enough,” Khan Arasen said. “I must think.”

Like magic, the flap of the tent opened, and they were ushered back out into the sun.

W
HEN THEY WERE OUTSIDE
, Tayan held a finger to her lips. “Say nothing. Not here.” She led them to a large round tent stitched from dyed fabrics in green, white, and blue. “I thought these colors might remind you of the ocean.” She nodded to Calli. “Or possibly the sky.” Tayan lifted the flap and motioned them inside.

The Equians had been busy. The khan’s tent had been built for huge horse bodies that didn’t need to lie down to sleep. But Shining Moon had filled this space with rugs and pillows and low tables piled with food. A tall curtain divided the room, and washbasins rested on short pedestals on both sides. Stacks of clean clothes were neatly piled by their sleeping rolls.

“For Hoku,” Tayan said, pointing to the smaller side. “The girls can sleep here. My apologies that we cannot offer you all your own tents.”