The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (13 page)

She stumbled for words, not knowing what to say first.
“Thank—thank you. For rescuing me.”

The bluefur’s eye slivered open to stare at her, his head
still pressed to the pavement. “I didn’t rescue you,” he said, his speech
labored. “I’ve been after those
krahz
for weeks now. Thanks to you,
Morish just got away again.”

“You don’t have to be vulgar,” Lizneth said. She was
beginning to find most metropolis
ikzhehn
incredibly rude. “I did what I
could. I’m not an assassin, like you are.”

“That’s very gracious of you to say,” the bluefur said. He
laughed, then grimaced at the pain. “Most call me by other names. Criminal.
Thief. Murderer. Those names are more fitting for someone like me. I knew you
would be an easy mark when I spotted you at
Akikrish-Ziirah
.”

“You’ve been following me since the claybridge? You… you were
going to rob me.”

“You say ‘was’ as if anything’s changed,” he said, his
chuckle turning into a cough. “I’m Curznack, and I wish the circumstances of
our meeting had been more in my favor.”

Lizneth released his hand and shuffled backwards, adding a
fathom of distance between them. “It sounds like they saved me from you as much
as the other way around.”

“They’re slavers,” Curznack said. “Would you rather I’d
mugged you, or they’d turned you into a slave?”

“I would rather have enjoyed my trip to Bolck-Azock without
anything so awful happening. It’s not like you’d find much if you did rob me,
though. My pockets are empty.”

“I saw you trade for the glowfish. And the cloak before that.
My intention at first was purely to steal from you, but when I noticed you were
headed for the sea, I took a chance that you’d be the perfect bait to help me find
them. They would’ve taken you if I hadn’t been here. A healthy young
scearib
like you would fetch a high price across the Omnekh.”

The very thought made Lizneth shiver. She considered running.
Or taking up the bluefur’s dagger and finishing the job the brutes had started.
The two enormous thugs were pallid and bloated, their eyes bulging and their
tongues lolling. Their heaping shapes rose and fell in slow, measured beats.

“You got your wish,” Lizneth said. “I led you right to them,
didn’t I…?”

“And Morish fled yet again,” Curznack said, with another
cough.

“What do you want with
yinbelahn
like them?” she
asked, substituting Curznack’s previous obscenity for a kinder word.

“That old buck is dying. He’s riddled with disease.”

“I could smell it on him.
Taste
it—” Lizneth almost
gagged again thinking about Morish’s
haick
in her mouth, the flesh and
fur he’d left behind. “Will I get sick too?”

“No,” Curznack said, simpering. “It’s a defect. His papa was
taken captive by
calaihn
many years ago. They did terrible things to
him. Tests. Every brood he sired developed the same condition when they grew up,
and Morish has been searching for a way to cure himself ever since.”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Lizneth said. “Not this one, but
others like it. About the
calaihn
and their
aezoghil
.”

“Morish performs the same
aezoghil
on them,” Curznack
said. “The sickness in his body has brewed a lunacy in his mind. He has this
notion that
calaihn
have something inside them that will make him well.
He and his thugs kidnap
ikzhehn
like you and exchange them for
calaihn
wherever they can find them. It takes three or four of us to buy one of them,
but a
scearib
like you would’ve fetched the price of a whole
calai
almost by yourself.”

“So not just a slave, but a slave to the
calaihn
? That’s
what they would’ve made me?” There were sour knots in her stomach. Panic
abraded her like sandpaper.

“It’s likely.”

“I have to get home. I should never have come here.”

“Don’t,” Curznack said. “His brutes watch every path. They’re
trained to notice healthy females like you. Now that he knows your
haick,
Morish will find you—maybe even follow you—wherever you go. Even now, he’s
probably gathering his thugs to come back here and take us both.”

“I thought you
wanted
to find him,” Lizneth said.

“Not like this,” he said, as if she should’ve known better
than to suggest such a thing. “I can’t defend either of us now. Morish knows
your value, so I doubt he’ll let you go. The closer he gets to death, the more
desperate he becomes.”

“Why have you been after him, then?” said Lizneth, wondering
aloud. “Why don’t you just wait and let him die on his own?”

“Because he’s the only one who knows where my brothers are.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were taken, like you almost were. He put them on a ship
and sold them across the Omnekh. The both of them probably bought him less than
half an
eh-calai
slave put together.”

Alarm and confusion struck Lizneth like a blow. She wished so
badly that she had stayed at home, found a place in her fields to mope until
her mood had passed and she’d been able to forgive her parents. She forgave
them now, for all the good it did her. “I wish I could help you, but I need to
get home.”
I’ve lost brothers and sisters too, and I don’t want to lose any
more of them
.

“I told you, you can’t go home,” Curznack said. “It’s past
that now. They
will
find you if you try. The only way to make them lose
your
haick
is to use the sea.
Haick
doesn’t carry over the water.
My brood-brothers and I have our own boat. We can bring you out on the Omnekh and
make sure Morish and his thugs never scent you.”

“Can’t your brothers just take me back the way I came? How
close does the Omnekh get to Tanley?”

“Tanley?” Curznack gave a wet cough that might’ve been meant
as laughter. “Tanley is far from any part of the sea.”

“But I don’t want to come with you,” Lizneth said, tears
blurring her vision. “I want to go home.”

“I can’t bring you home. Not yet. But if I promise we’ll keep
you safe, will you at least trust me?”

She thumped her foot on the cobblestones, then smelled and
listened both ways down the street, expecting to hear the sounds of Morish and
his thugs heading in their direction. The smell of salt and the fizz of the
lapping seawater were all that came to her. “Maybe there’s some way I can send
my family a message. Something to let them know I’m okay.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Curznack said, his words
abrupt. “Now help me up. We need to get moving.”

Taking his hand in hers once more, Lizneth lifted the bluefur
and supported him with a shoulder. Neither of the brute’s bodies was moving
now. When Lizneth slipped Curznack’s dagger from the cinnamon brute’s gut, a
pustule of yellow slime trailed out from it. She would’ve been sick if she hadn’t
been so frightened.

“Careful with that. Here, wipe it on his fur and put it back
in my sheath. It’s built special. I don’t want you to get contaminated.”

They hobbled up the causeway and reached the ramp to the
claybridge. Curznack guided her up through the misty gloom and took them onto a
side platform Lizneth hadn’t noticed on her way down. Curznack was getting
heavier as they went uphill, so she was pleased to find that when the mists
cleared away they were just on the other side of a narrow stone bridge that led
to the docks. Another bluefur scrambled to the top deck of one of the ships and
waved.

“Is that your older brother?”

“One of them,” Curznack said. He grinned, and shifted his
weight just long enough to wave back.

There were several pieces missing from the cobblestone
bridge, so they had to navigate it with care. Lizneth looked down and saw,
dozens of fathoms below, an angled trough that looked like the same one they’d
come from.
That carter never told me I needed to turn to find the docks.
Things
might have been very different now if he had, she supposed.
Brungzhe. If I
ever see him again, I’ll have meaner things to say than that
.

It might be a long time before Lizneth would see her family
again, she realized, as they neared the ship. She feared for them, for what
Sniverlik would do if they didn’t bring in a big enough harvest this season.
For now, she pushed her fears to the back of her mind and considered herself
fortunate to be among friends instead of in some slaver’s shackles.

As they stepped onto the dock and approached the small galley
where Curznack’s brother stood, a third bluefur appeared at the end of the
gangway. His coat was mottled in white strands that gave it the dull flatness
of age. A bright red headcloth held back a mass of overgrown scalp fur, and his
canvas britches were ragged and frayed at the seams.

“What’ve you brought us, little brother?” he called out.

“A good one. Better be quick about it.” Curznack grunted as
he shoved Lizneth forward, giving it all his effort.

There was a bag in his brother’s hand; a brown canvas sack. When
Lizneth stumbled forward, he netted her head with it and tightened the
drawstrings around her neck.

“What are you doing?” Lizneth’s voice rasped through the
choking cords, her fingers frantic at the edges.

Someone grabbed her hands and pulled them down before she had
a chance to loosen the drawstrings, tripping up her legs so she fell hard
against the dock. She felt a second pair of hands helping the first, then the
rough bristle of rope against her wrists and ankles.

“These are fine threads,” another voice said, and she felt hands
fumbling at her neck to loosen the cloak and tear it from her shoulders. They
hoisted her up and carried her, one on either end, letting her swing from side
to side like two gravediggers hauling a corpse.

“In the hold with the rest,” someone shouted. The voice was
Curznack’s.

For a gut-wrenching long moment, Lizneth was falling. There
was a sudden but cushioned landing. Then she was being jostled, kicked and
bumped as she drifted on an ocean of writhing bodies. The drawstrings were
still snug around her throat, every breath a narrow wheeze until she managed to
scrunch up her shoulders and loosen the bag. She tipped off the edge of the
pile of bodies and onto the deck, her face mashed against the wood and her legs
and tail still splayed above something lumpy and unmoving. Their
haick
was vague through the sack, but she could still scent the rich warm lignum of
the ship’s ironwood beams.

It smelled like home.

CHAPTER 13

Embarking

“Today is the day we ride to our deaths. Brave souls
floundering in a sea of impossibility,” said Cord Faleir, coloring his voice
with all the melancholy of a wilting flower. He fanned himself and dabbed his
forehead with a sweat-sodden handkerchief.

“You use the word
we
as if you’ve had the slightest
shred of involvement in this endeavor,” Raith said through the hood-scarf
covering his face, as he tightened the last ratchet strap over one of the water
tanks. “Didn’t you vote against this excursion in the first place? Why don’t
you lend a hand and keep your wailing to yourself?”

The hangar doors were open, and waves of heat were barreling
in on the dust-laden breeze. Shelter like this would be scarce in the days
ahead. Even in the shade, bare-chested and wearing only a pair of sentyle
cut-offs, Raith was dripping with sweat. The air was so thick and torrid that
he found himself coming up short for breath every few minutes.

“Being the realist that I am is the most generous hand I can
lend you, Raithur Entradi,” Cord said.

Raith grimaced when Cord used his full name. That made him
think of his mother, and Cord Faleir was the last person he felt comfortable
associating with her memory. She’d taught Raith how to be a good man; how to
take responsibility for his actions. How to live with conviction and
selflessness. All the virtues Cord Faleir always seemed to be slithering his
way out of.

The slender man blinked twice with vigor. “The council has
chosen a particular course. A course which those of us who possess sounder judgment,
including myself, are powerless to alter. I’m not entirely sure how else you
would expect me to behave.”

“Behave however you wish. Just do it somewhere else.” Raith caught
another strap as Jiren Oliver tossed it to him across the flatbed. Hooking it
to one of the recessed latches, he yanked on the webbing and began to tighten
it. The ratchet made a rapid
click-click
ing, and the big plastic
canister dimpled.

Cord was dressed in his usual finery, having made no apparent
plans to do any actual work himself. He huffed, turned on his heel, and floated
away inside his sinuous trencher, no doubt bound to instill his pessimism on
someone more willing to listen.

The four councilors who had voted against the scavenging
expedition to Belmond had all conveniently decided to stay behind.
Whether
they’re satisfied with the council’s decision or not, they and their clans are still
part of Decylum
, Raith thought.
A little help readying the convoy
would’ve been the smallest gesture of kindness they could’ve offered.
But
so far today, the people of those clans had been all but absent. Raith was
satisfied to let them sit it out, if that was what they wanted. As disappointed
as he was, he wouldn’t hold it against them. They had their reasons for feeling
the way they did. Raith wasn’t here because he wanted to be loved; he was here
because he had to lead, and that meant doing what he knew was best, even when
others refused to see it.

Jiren Oliver came around beside him to fasten a strap over
the next tank. The gleam of anticipation was in the young man’s eyes, and he
seemed not to mind the heat. “Low turnout for the big send-off, eh?”

Raith smiled. “You know, I was just thinking about that. No,
there aren’t as many people here today as I would’ve liked. This should be a
unifying venture, not something that turns us against each other. But pleasing
everyone is never possible. When the clan patriarchs express their views, they
rally the favor of their families behind them. Naturally, the more pivotal the
issue, the more it divides us.”

“I’ve never seen the clans divided like this before.”

“Neither have I,” said Raith. He crammed a shoulder against
the tank to make sure it was snug, sending a week’s worth of water sloshing
around inside. “That’s why I’m leaving enough good councilors behind to fend
off the vultures until we return. I’ve warned Kraw not to let them sneak any
votes through while we’re gone.”

“I don’t know, Raith. You think Kraw’s experienced enough to
be interim Head Councilor?” Jiren said, laughing. He pushed the hair out of his
eyes and swabbed his forehead in a single motion. “Let’s just hope he can hold
his own. There’s no telling what the mice are capable of when the cat’s away.”

“I’d rather not think about what they’re capable of. But Kraw
has sovereignty now, so it’s up to him.”

Jiren stared out into the open desert beyond the hangar
doors. The sand’s reflection was shining in his eyes, where that youthful fire
still burned.

Raith could tell how anxious Jiren was to be gone, and for a
moment it made him jealous. So much of Raith’s life had passed him by, yet this
would be the first time he’d ever ventured more than a few horizons away from
Decylum. He wondered if the trip wouldn’t be more of a vacation for Jiren than
a hardship. “Things must be very different for you now that you’re on the
council. I know you enjoyed life as a hunter. How does your family feel about
you going out there again?”

Jiren gave him a skeptical look. “Mom and dad? Are you
kidding? Getting me out of their hab unit is the best thing that’s happened to
them since I got back. I want these expansions worse than anyone. Do you know
what it’s like to be thirty-three and stuck in your parents’ house because
there are no empty places to move into? And what’s worse, Tesya is starting to
think I like it there. You can’t imagine what I go through trying to find time
alone with her.”

Raith smiled, remembering how he’d felt about his parents at
that age. They hadn’t been forced into such close proximity as people were
these days, but he’d still found himself at odds with his kin on many
occasions. He couldn’t blame Jiren for wanting to get away for a while. Most of
Decylum’s people still carried a subtle sense of fear about the outside world.
He hoped Jiren’s bravery and enthusiasm would inspire the others in the convoy to
put their fear aside as well.

“So you don’t think they’ll miss you very much.”

“Don’t know. I sure haven’t started missing them yet, but ask
me again after we’ve been gone awhile.”

There was a long pause while the two men gazed out over the sands.

“You think this is the right thing—what we’re doing?” Jiren patted
the flatbed in front of them.

Raith thought for a moment. “One thing you may learn is that
whenever you’re in charge of anything, people are quicker to condemn your
failures than they are to praise your successes. In fact, you’re lucky if they
acknowledge your achievements at all. Failure and success are pretty
subjective, in most cases. So I don’t often think in terms of whether something
is
right
, anymore. I don’t even think it’s always possible to know what
the right thing
is
. You just have to trust that you’re reasonably good
at guessing.”

Jiren scrunched one side of his mouth, considering. After
another pause, he said, “Well then, do you think we’re making a good guess?”

“Ask me again after we’ve been gone awhile.”

Jiren rolled his eyes and gave a wry laugh.

Men were yoking horses to the flatbeds, long ironwood
trailers on sand tires with thick knobby treads. There were four flatbeds in
all—two empty for now, the other two stocked with food, water, shelter, and
supplies. On the return journey, every spare inch would be loaded down with
salvage.

“Is four horses going to be enough to pull a loaded flatbed?”
Jiren asked, looking more doubtful than worried.

“That’s another thing we’re taking a guess on,” Raith
admitted. “That
I’m
taking a guess on. I have it on pretty good
authority that it will.” He found Hastle at the far end of the hangar, oiling
up the axles on the last flatbed. “The horses we’re bringing with us are about
all that can be spared, so I hope it’s enough. We’ve never done anything like
this before, so there are plenty of pieces to the puzzle that I’m uncertain
about.”

Jiren gave him a rough pat on the shoulder. “That’s okay. I
trust you. Everyone trusts you.”

I certainly hope they’re wiser than I feel
.

One of the stairwell doors opened, and a woman came through
with two teenage boys. The woman waved as they came toward him.

Raith rushed to meet them. “Petra… you’re the last person I
expected to see today.” He wrapped his sister in a long embrace, unable to keep
himself from grinning.

“We had to come,” said Petra, kissing his cheek. “Laagon was
angry, but I wouldn’t let him keep us from seeing you off.”

Raith gave her an understanding nod, then turned to his
nephews. “And how are you two? Such strapping lads you’ve become. I always told
you they’d take after their uncle.” He mimed flexing his muscle.

The boys smiled, inflated by their uncle’s compliment. Both
had their father’s slim build and wavy reddish-brown hair, but Raith hadn’t
lied about their growth since last he saw them.

“We’re good, Uncle Raith,” said Tavish, the older of the two.

“Good. And you, Leny?”

“Good,” said the younger boy, studying the ground as he
spoke.

“Look at your uncle when you’re speaking to him,” Petra
scolded.

Coleny Dent, whom everyone called ‘Leny,’ lifted his eyes,
but not his head.

“It’s okay, Petra. I’m glad you came. How’s your oldest these
days?”

“Getting along,” Petra said with disdain.

Raith noted the immediate change in his sister’s mood. “Still
shacking up with that boy, is she? My offer still stands, you know. I can have
him called up. Once he’s a hunter, he’ll be put in danger regularly—and not
only that, but he’ll be gone for weeks at a time.”

Petra scowled. “That would just get him on Laagon’s good
side.”

“I didn’t know your husband had a good side.”

Raith’s sister heaved him a boulder of a look.

His jokes never seemed to lighten the mood where Meluria was
concerned. Petra’s oldest daughter was as strong-willed as they came. She was
Laagon’s daughter too, of course; Raith could guess which side of the family
that force of will came from. “Alright, alright… I’m only kidding. Let’s not
end this day on a bad note. I
am
really happy you’re here. Hey, you boys
want to give old Uncle Raith a hand with these feed bags? What do you say?”

When the last of the flatbeds had been loaded up and the
animals were fed and watered, Raith thanked his nephews for all their hard
work. “You’ve served Decylum well today, lads. We’re fortunate to have young
men like you around. The years ahead look all the brighter for it. I hope
you’ll be here to help us unload our haul when we get back. I don’t know how
we’ll manage without you.”

“Good luck, Uncle Raith,” said Tavish. “Don’t let the savages
eat anyone.”

Petra glared at her son. “Tavish, now really…”

Raith ruffled his nephew’s hair. “I won’t let anybody eat anybody
else. How about that? Now look out for your mother while I’m gone. And see that
your father behaves himself.”

Decylum’s herdsman was a strong blond man with a mellow
affect named Sarl Sandonne. Sarl brought Raith his mount, an adult corsil named
Beguli. When the herdsman kneeled the great lanky beast, it snorted and
guffawed as though it had been asked to stand on one leg. Raith hugged his
sister again before he mounted. The floor fell away fast as the animal stood on
its tall slender legs, and Raith found himself lurching and swaying atop the
creature’s humped back as it shifted its weight and slapped its hooves on the
concrete. Raith clenched his thighs and white-knuckled the reigns so hard his
blackened hands cracked and bled.

The animal twisted its head around on its slender neck to
look at Raith from the corner of its eye, as if to assess its unseasoned rider.
Its sand-colored fur was short and soft like a horse’s, except where darker
tufts sprouted from its spine like brown geysers. Its snout was long and slender,
with wide flaring nostrils and glassy black eyes that sat far up on its head.

Raith closed his eyes to let a wave of nausea pass. He felt
utterly out of his element, though he doubted he would’ve been much more
comfortable on a horse. He’d always thought corsils were silly-looking animals,
but Beguli would fare better in the desert; corsils were fast and light on
their feet, and they could survive even longer than camels without water.

A small crowd had gathered near the hangar doors to see the
convoy off. It wasn’t the throng Raith would’ve liked to see, but he was
grateful for each one of them nonetheless. He tried not to make a spectacle of
goading his mount to the front of the column as members of the convoy bid their
loved ones farewell to either side. Hastle Beige and Jiren Oliver flanked him
at the mouth of the hangar, mounted on corsils of their own and looking more
confident about it than he did.

Behind them, a group of hunters in mottled earth tones
stirred atop their light horses. They chattered and swore, tested their drawstrings,
counted their arrows. The animals beneath them were just as restless. Behind
the hunters snaked the remainder of the convoy, a mixed band of engineers,
medicine men, blackhands, and an assortment of other disciplines, numbering
just over four score in strength. Less than a quarter were mounted. The rest
either functioned as coachmen, or they tossed their packs onto the flatbeds and
climbed up to hitch a ride.
They won’t like having to walk on the way back
,
Raith predicted.

“Convoy is inspected and ready,” said Rostand Beige, one of
Hastle’s grandsons. He was the spitting image of his father and bore a strong
resemblance to Hastle, but he had darker hair and pale skin, even on his hands.
He was dressed in a hooded blue synthtex shirt and a striped nyleen hood-scarf
over black sentyle cargos. His brown and white stallion was a haughty and
spirited mount, descended from the sandbreds that roamed the Aionach’s
scrublands in dwindling herds.