Shadows Book 1 in the World of Shadows (3 page)

Dathien stalked beside me and carried my
chain. I practically had to run to keep up with his gigantic
strides, but he ignored me, his attention on the swath of dust in
the distance that slowly faded away.

Chapter 3

I rushed to the edge of the tent more than a
hundred times that night at sounds that were probably part of the
normal desert cacophony, but that jangled eerie and unfamiliar to
my cave ears. Small, metallic looking silver beetles ran under the
edge of the canvas, their backs hot with the stifling heat they
absorbed while burrowed under the sand during the day.

Eerie-looking, fist-sized red creatures with
a dozen legs and flat, rock-hard bodies scuttled along day and
night. Marken, one of Axon's men who followed behind Dathien and I
to watch our back-trail, gathered these creatures into a sack to
cook at night. He called them sand crabs and pointed out how when
their backs got too hot from the sun, they just would flip over and
walk with their stomachs up. Their legs were jointed so that they
could walk either way in the same scuttling, sideways crawl that
gave me the creeps.

With night also came the hissing tams, flat
black slithering creatures with long bodies made of scales that
slid into each other as it moved and two heads, one at either end.
Both heads hissed so that an enemy couldn't tell which was the real
one. They had a lethal set of sharp spikes that rose down the spine
if they felt threatened, and they grew to almost the length of a
man by the time they reached adulthood. All in all, it was best to
leave them alone if you ever found one.

I ran my fingers up and down the curved,
unfamiliar blade Dathien had given me before dusk, and longed for
my spear and shield. Dathien had wrapped the chain from my manacle
securely around his arm while he slept, but left enough slack to
permit me access to the entire circle within the tent.

The Luminos slept around me in pairs
supposedly so they could guard each others’ backs in case of an
attack; but they would be no help if we were attacked at night.
During the day, the Luminos carried huge packs and walked endlessly
without the need to stop for food, drink, or rest; but when the sun
went down, they were weak as baby bats and slept before the last
shade of pink left the horizon.

I guarded the sleeping forms and
contemplated just how much trust Axon had placed in me. I could
kill them all or take the tent with me and leave them to the mercy
of the merciless Sathen. But as much as I hated both the Luminos
and Nathos, I couldn’t bring myself to walk away. Maybe it was the
way the men looked less like menacing warriors and more like tired
boys when they slept, or the way the moonlight softened their gray
features and took the harsh lines from their faces, or perhaps it
was the trusting look Axon had given me before he fell asleep with
his head on his arm. He had no reason to trust me, but he did. My
heart pounded at the thought of trusting him back.

The shift from dusk to dawn was a longer one
than I had ever held at the Caves. By the time the Luminos woke
from their moon sleep, I could barely think. My muscles ached from
the unaccustomed walking and the bruises that colored my skin in
patches of purple. When Axon’s men sprang to life at the touch of
the sun on their skin, I had to force myself to stand from my
sentry position on a group of rocks near the side of the tent.
Marken handed me food identical to the night before and gave me a
skin of water to sling over my shoulder. It felt like it weighed
more than I did.

“
One night down,” Axon said
with a smile while he watched his men pack the tent
away.

“
Yay,” I replied with all
the enthusiasm of a cactus. I waved my curved sword in a tired
victory circle, then slung it through the ring on my belt Dathien
had given me.

Axon’s eyes narrowed in amusement. “Not
thrilled about your accomplishments?”

I shrugged. “Not infused with the energy of
the sun, I guess you could say,” I replied with a nod at the rest
of his camp. They jostled each other and joked as they packed and
made ready for the trek. Marken dropped a sand crab from his pack
and Jatha, the youngest Luminos in the group, dove for it before
Marken could. They both wrestled for a moment in the warming sand
until Marken bested Jatha, then proceeded to drop the sand crab
down his shirt.

Axon smiled at them fondly. “They’re just
glad we survived a night in the desert. We couldn’t have done it
without you.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“
Ah, but you did.” Axon
picked up the cushion I had been using and dusted it off with hands
calloused to match the sword at his side. “It’s the thought that
you are standing guard that helped them rest, not the actually
guarding.”

I shrugged my shoulders; the movement pulled
against the still fresh whip wounds along my back. They scratched
at the rough cloth of my shirt, pulling in places where the blood
had dried against the fabric.

Axon’s brow creased. “Are you
alright?”
I opened my mouth to reply, then shut it again. A Luminos had never
asked me if I was alright. Luminos as a rule didn’t care about
Duskies, though Axon seemed an odd exception. I glanced around the
camp and noticed that the gazes of those who looked my way were a
little less harsh than the day before, a little less disgusted at
my presence. I nodded. “I’m fine.”

He frowned. “I don’t expect you to walk to
the next campsite after standing guard all night.”

I gave a wry smile. “And what, someone’s
supposed to carry me?”

He nodded and I shook my head, horrified at
the thought. “I’ll be fine, trust me.”

He studied me thoughtfully. “You weren’t a
very obedient Duskie at the Caves, were you?”

I bit my lip. “What makes you say that?”

He smiled. “No one’s ever talked to me the
way you do. You argue, don’t follow orders, and try to do
everything the hard way.”

His eyes crinkled again at the corners and I
looked away at the thought that he was laughing at me. He chuckled
and walked to join his waiting men. I lingered for a moment by the
rocks, then a tug on the chain drew my attention. I made my way to
Dathien’s side and the trek continued.

By the time we stopped at midday, I could
scarcely force one foot in front of the other. I had drained half
my water and barely ate any of the rolls and jerked meat, but I
shoved the remains in my pockets for later and sucked on the bitter
skin of the dried fruit in an attempt to stay awake. Dathien walked
beside me until I stumbled on a rock that wasn’t there. He tugged
on my chain to catch my attention. “You know, I don’t look this
strong for nothing.”

I glared at him. “Yeah, I remember.”

He frowned and his lips pushed out. “You
won’t be any good at guarding the camp tonight if you can’t stay
awake.”

“
I’m not good at guarding
it anyway,” I mumbled. Dathien glanced at me and I finally nodded.
“Alright, fine. You can carry me.”

He smiled as though he had won something and
picked me up in his arms like a child before I could protest. He
continued on as if I didn’t weigh anything. I felt silly and told
him so.

“
You need to sleep,” he
said simply.

“
I’m not a child to be
carried,” I argued.

One of my earliest memories surfaced. I saw
the Nathos mother who watched over the young Duskies strap her own
pure Nathos baby tenderly into a pack and lash him to her front in
a secure halter. A Duskie child a year younger than me toddled over
to her and opened and closed his hands for her to pick him up, too.
She glared at him in revulsion and turned away, leaving him to cry
his abandonment to the cavern floor.

“
You aren’t much more than
a child,” Dathien reasoned with a glance down at me.

I bristled. “I’ve lived longer than some of
the Duskies at the Caves.”

Dathien’s jaw tightened, causing a vein to
stand out along his throat. “I have a daughter your age at Lumini,
though she’s of pure Luminos blood.” His eyes creased for a moment,
but he continued walking and didn’t speak again. I fought back the
wave of absurdity I felt at being carried and closed my eyes.
Within minutes, the rhythm of his steps and the cadence of his
breathing lulled me to sleep.

We stopped just before dusk and I awoke on
soft desert sand still hot from the sun’s rays. I pushed groggily
to my feet and wordlessly accepted the night’s meal. This time,
someone had gathered prickly pears from the cacti and peeled them
to remove the spines. The fruit was sweet and juicy, and the taste
lingered in my throat long after I had eaten it.

Marken built a small, smokeless fire, then
banked it until smoldering hot coals remained. He threw the sand
crabs into the pit, laid a tanned hide over the top, then covered
the pit in sand. Just before the orange sun disappeared below the
edge of the lonely red hills, he and Jatha uncovered the pit to
reveal smoky brown shells that were piping hot when he handed them
out.

I passed the baked sand crab he handed me
from one hand to the other, unsure what to do with it. The shell
left smoke stains on my fingers and a strange smell wafted from the
inside.

Marken set a crab on a flat rock, then hit
it with another rock. Steam rose from the crack in the shell and he
wedged his knife into it and pried the creature apart to reveal
dark purple meat that had been steamed to perfection in the pit. He
handed the cracked crab to Rasa, who sprinkled some spices from a
little pouch onto the meat before giving the crab to Axon. Marken
then held out a hand for the next creature to crack.

I thought he would forget me and preferred
not to make a fuss, but when he finished cracking a crab for Jatha,
an extra large one for Dathien, one for Staden, who acted as the
group's doctor, and one for Dyloth with the ink-stained fingers, he
held out his hand to me without meeting my eyes. I handed him the
crab, careful our fingers didn't touch so that I wouldn't have to
see his reaction.

The crab cracked cleanly on the stone and he
held it out for Rasa's spices before handing it back to me. I
carried the crab to my cushion near the edge of the tent and
cradled it carefully in my lap. I watched the others relish their
food, eating the meat with their fingers and then licking them
clean before drinking what remained of the juices in the bottom of
the shell. Axon caught me watching and held up his shell in a toast
before downing the contents. I fought down a smile and tasted the
purple meat.

Sand crab turned out to be the best food I
had ever tasted. Rasa's spices complimented the dark, tender
ranginess that left lingering reminders of cactus dew and the
cinnamon mineral taste that colored anything touched by the sand. I
licked my fingers as thoroughly as the Luminous when I was done,
and relished the warmth the liquid made in my belly when I drank it
down. I smiled, then caught Axon watching me and turned away.

The night passed uneventfully and as quiet
as a desert night could be. Bats flew by the moon casting larger
than life shadows across the sleeping group. Insects hummed and
somewhere a hissing tam voiced a warning after being rudely woken
from sleep. An animal barked in the distance, the sound lonely and
haunting as it resonated off the cooling red sands. I took comfort
in the desert sounds, reasoning that the animals wouldn’t be so
loud if the Sathen were near.

I thought of my parents, something I did
when I found myself alone and lonely even though I was surrounded
by people. I had never known who my mother or father were, which
one was the Luminos and which the Nathos, or what they thought when
they realized my mother was pregnant. All I knew was that they must
have loved each other very much to risk being cast out if their
relationship was ever discovered.

Per the law of the Caves, any child born of
a coupling between a Luminos and a Nathos was taken away and forced
to be a slave as their Duskie heritage required. I wondered if my
mother had fought for me, or if my father had told her it was for
the best. I wondered if they still saw each other, or if giving up
their child had been too painful.

I could only hope that they loved each
other, and that somehow they could find happiness together despite
the prejudices of our world. The hope calmed me as I searched the
dark desert for danger, the sword an unfamiliar weight against my
side and the cushion a small comfort from the still-warm sands on
which I waited.

The next day passed in much the same way,
Dathien carrying me as I slept, hard rolls, cactus fruit, and dried
meat for dinner, washed down by flat water from the skins. The
Luminos talked quietly among themselves as they settled down for
night. I ignored them like they ignored me, a quiet understanding
forming between us that as long as we were both left alone,
everything would be fine.

I settled in the lower branches of the
twisted desert tree where Dathien had fastened the end of my chain
and stared out at the gathering night. “Take care,” a voice spoke
near my shoulder.

I turned to find Axon watching me, his face
weary and covered in the dust of the desert. He gestured toward the
sands beyond the side of the tent. “My men saw dust a while back
and are worried about Sathen. They shouldn’t find us, but keep a
sharp eye all the same.”

I glanced to where he pointed. “I don’t know
if the thought of me defending anyone is going to save us if Sathen
really attack.”

Axon shrugged, his lips touched into a smile
at the corners. “Then think the Sathen away,” he said. He settled
with his back against the trunk and closed his eyes.