The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (7 page)

“Do you think we’re alone, traveler?” Cutlass asked, cutting
his eyes to either side. “We have you. Give yourself up so we can do this the
easy way.”

Smarmy jerkoff
. Daxin’s jitters began to melt away. Cutlass’
flippancy was getting on his nerves. It was time to call their bluff. Daxin
raised his broken left arm and rested the shotgun in the crook of his elbow. “Three
on one seems decent odds for a few starving bandits to give a lone traveler a
run for his money. So yes, I do think you’re alone.”

Cutlass looked amused. Then, he glanced down at Daxin’s
saddlebag, and the easy grin on his face turned dismal. Daxin knew that look
all too well; it was the same look all men took on when death was staring them in
the face. It was the look of fear.

“Okay, s-stand down,” Cutlass said, dropping his sword. He
was shaking now, worse than Daxin had been.

The other two didn’t move.

“Stand down, I said.”

The archer eased his bowstring forward, but he stayed
vigilant. Meanwhile, the shaved man with the makeshift spear slumped his
shoulders, then slammed his weapon to the ground and wrung his hands in
frustration. “Ya idiot,” he yelled through a mouthful of yellowed crags. “We
had him. He was gonna give over, and I wanted the horsy.”

“No he wasn’t, and he still isn’t,” said Cutlass. “So shut
your face, or he’s gonna shoot me.”

It was then that Daxin noticed the bandolier full of homemade
shotgun shells that had fallen part way out of his saddlebag when he’d retrieved
the gun. That was what had scared Cutlass so badly. Plenty of wastelanders had
guns, but few had ammunition to load them with. There was no better proof that
Daxin’s gun was loaded than a full bandolier.

He couldn’t help but laugh; it was a fortunate mistake that
may have spared him or his mare an arrow in the chest. He hadn’t meant to laugh
so loudly, but it erupted from him in a wave of relief that he was rather
inclined to let himself enjoy. The sound of it cut their argument off, and for
a moment the three bandits just stared at him, confused.

“I should line you up and put one through the back of your
necks, is what I should do.”

Cutlass shook his head. “Don’t hurt anybody. Please just be
on your way. We didn’t mean to offend.”

“Too late. I’m offended. But more importantly, I need water,
and it’s too coffing hot out here to waste my time or my shells on the likes of
you. So I’ll give you my word—if you can fill my skins, I’ll be on my way. No
harm done.”

“We have water. We have it,” Cutlass assured him, his hands
outstretched as if to stop Daxin from riding over him. “There’s lots of it.”

Daxin was puzzled.
Three men in the middle of the Bones
with plenty of water, but starved as a pack of broom handles. Something isn’t
right about this.

“Okay then. Take me to it.” Daxin almost lowered his gun
before he remembered that the bearded archer was still armed. “You, toss that
thing over here. The quiver too.”

The man did as he was told.

“Good. Now show me where the water is.”

“Give us your skins and we’ll go fill ‘em for you,” said the
man with the crooked teeth.

Daxin bristled. “Take me to the coffing water. If I have to
go on a scavenger hunt, I can promise it will not end well for you.”

They led him over the crest of the hill and across another
expanse of treed ground, Daxin on his mare and they out in front of him, their
weapons tucked safely in with his things for the time being. There were no
accomplices lying in wait on the far side after all. The afternoon haze blurred
the colors of the clay red dirt and the sickly off-white trees until they
became the deep blues and violets of the distant mountains. Infernal’s heat
was finally beginning to subside after a day that had been far too
long for Daxin’s liking.

As they rounded the bend of another small hill, Daxin began
to realize that it wasn’t a hill at all, but an enormous stone, which time and
weather had blended into the landscape. The stone was covered with dirt and
scrub on the near side. It wasn’t until they had circled to the rear that Daxin saw
the underside of the stone—a rocky shelf that jutted out above the ground,
forming a shallow cave beneath. The entrance was so well-hidden that Daxin
might have passed it by without noticing it.

The path that descended into the cave was smooth and well-worn,
hidden behind a wall of rock. Daxin had to dismount to follow the bandits under the
low ceiling. He stayed ten paces back and hop-stepped along, leading his mare
by the reins. He tried not to use the shotgun as a walking stick whenever he
felt himself losing his balance. There was a pleasant coolness in the air that
he hadn’t felt in a precious long time. Two other sensations came to him as
they made their way into the cave: he felt the damp, and he heard the voices.

CHAPTER 7

Claybridge

Spires gleamed in the darkness, pale reflections of the
life agitating below. Lizneth sped toward the heart of the great metropolis of
Bolck-Azock, losing herself in the press like a lone snowflake in a cloud of
gray ash. Everyone was a stranger here, and the way they looked at her made her
feel stranger still. She hadn’t expected to go unnoticed, but she hadn’t
expected to receive this much attention, either. Or this
kind
of
attention. Her simple chinos and soil-stained legwraps did little to hide her
nubile age or her pearlescent fur, and she could feel every buck’s eyes
following her, hungering after her. When they salivated, she could feel their
desire in her whiskers. A few even called out to her, but she kept her gaze
straight ahead and quickened her pace. The bucks in Tanley had never been so impolite.

Lizneth wound her way up a
wobbly ironwood ramp that was coiled around a massive stalactite. The throng thickened
as she neared the top, and the dry-rotted supports shook under the weight. The
stench of cooked meat mingled with the
haick
of hundreds of
ikzhehn
she had never scented before. It was overwhelming to come in contact with so
many unfamiliar imprints. Each crosswind that blew through the chasm brought
dozens of foreign scent-shapes to her, and she hardly recognized a single one.

The top of the ramp dumped her out at one end of a gargantuan
red clay bridge. Shops, stands and kiosks littered either side, the biggest
collection of artisans she had ever seen in one place. Even on market day in
Tanley, the mass of vendors was never so astounding. Anything she needed, she
could probably find it here. When she saw the thickness of the crowds, she almost
turned back, but anything was more appealing than the thought of descending
that rickety ramp again.

A shrouded brown damsel was coming toward her, looking at the
ground as she hurried along. Lizneth stepped into the dam’s path and said, “Excuse
me… what is this place?”

The dam looked up with a start. “
Akikrish-ziirah
,” she
said, her voice a high-pitched chitter. Lizneth’s Ikzhethii wasn’t the best,
but she knew the words meant ‘trade crossing’ in the Aion-speech.

The dam yanked her shroud tight around her snout and slipped
past, continuing on her way.

Artisans haggled with their customers as Lizneth meandered
along the bridge, trying not to let the crowd sweep her off too fast. She
wanted to revel in the moment; take it all in. Her daydreams would be richer
when she returned to Tanley if she had tangible memories with which to treat
herself.

The color and excitement of things happening—deals being
made, meetings in the street, stories unfolding—was so much more than she was
used to. Tanley was like a black-and-white photograph, tame and ordinary by comparison.
It was a peasant’s town, full of serfs under the vassalage of Sniverlik, who
were too frightened of him to do anything about it. No one ever said ill of
Sniverlik, and no one failed to do what he required of them, unless they wished
to risk his ire. The
ikzhehn
here seemed so much freer—able to do as
they pleased. Lizneth envied them, and a very profound part of her longed to be
one of them if it gained her the same privilege.

“Step inside, nestling,” said a vehement shopkeep, a buck who
looked young enough to be presumptuous in calling her a child. He emerged from
the shadows and swept a hand across his bulbous abdomen in display of the
entrance. His crown was bandaged in a wide cheesecloth wrapping. She could see
the end of a bald patch coming through underneath, where an elongated scar had stopped
the fur from growing back, and the round of his skull on the left side, where
his ear should’ve been.

“Blitznag’s Bazaar, welcome to you,” he said in a heavy
Ikzhethii accent. “Baubles, bounties, bits, and beauties to behold!”

In spite of herself, Lizneth lost sight of the far end of the
bridge and wandered inside. The interior was musty and dark, but somehow much
larger than it had appeared from the street. The shop was beyond cluttered; she’d
never seen so many things packed into such a small space, except maybe her
brothers and sisters. It was loaded so full of oddments that she had to be careful
not to knock anything over as she began to peruse the shelves.

Following her inside, the buck strode through the flotsam of
his shop in the kind of perfunctory manner that showed he’d done so a hundred
times before.

Lizneth sniffed the air and found dozens of unfamiliar
haick
traces, but they were faint, left by
ikzhehn
long departed. She was
alone with the shopkeep. As she browsed ever deeper between the congested
shelves and teetering stacks of sundries, the urgent noise of the crowds
outside diminished to a dull hum.

“Anything particular you have eye for?” the shopkeep asked in
his broken dialect, twitching eager whiskers as he watched her from the
counter.

“Just browsing,” Lizneth said. Many trinkets caught her
attention, but she never let her eye rest on one for too long, lest she catch
an unwanted dose of salesmanship from her observer. There were things both
decorative and mundane along the aisles, both handmade and manufactured, from
times ancient and recent. Cloth and clothing, plastic and glass, tin and steel
and rusted iron; dolls, baskets, thatched figurines and other crafts; gold and
silver jewelry, encrusted with gemstones; mountains of dusty furniture; rows of
vases, cups, kettles, jugs, pitchers, and bowls; and pillars of old books, most
of which, having been printed in the tongues of the
calaihn
, were of
little use to any
ikzhehn
aside from the occasional linguist or
historian who could read them. There was also a display case filled with items
of a more delicate or dangerous variety, on which the shopkeep was leaning.

“You are from other part of town, yes?”

Lizneth felt herself blushing, delighted to think he’d
mistaken her for a city-dweller. “Why do you say that?”

“You scent like
parikua
,” he said.

Lizneth’s heart sank. He’d smelled the dirt on her, noticed
the mud stains on her legwraps, and called her out for the farmer she was.

“I am
parikua
,” she muttered.

“I thinked you might be from the pits or the nethertowns. We
do not often see white-furs here. I know all the
scearib
around, and I
don’t know you.” He sensed her dejection and paced the counter, pretending to
organize the contents of a shelf, though his fumbling seemed to have the
opposite effect. The term they used for albinos was not always mentioned in a
derogatory way, but why would he point it out unless it made a difference?

“I’m from Tanley,” Lizneth the
scearib
replied. She’d
found something she wanted to buy. She approached the counter with it, being
careful not to stumble over anything on her way there.

“Ah, very nice hood and cloak, this one,” Blitznag said, his
remaining ear perked. “What is your trade?”

The cloth was midnight blue, and it reminded Lizneth of the color
of the rime caves in darkness. She loved the color, but she hated to think
of those caves. It reminded her of Deequol and the other siblings she’d lost,
and Papa had told her never to think of them. Deequol had always been her
anchor; the brother she’d been able to confide in whenever anything went wrong.

“Dark shades look good on you,” he’d told her once, when she
had used one of Mama’s darkmoss aprons to keep her fur clean as she scrubbed
the bowls before supper.

She had never forgotten that compliment. She doubted she would
ever be able to forget Deequol, either.

Lizneth searched her pocket and came up with a handful of
mulligraws. “This is all I brought with me,” she said, blushing. “Is it
enough?”

“Beans,” Blitznag said. “Beans?” The word came out as a
squeak the second time. His eyes had become spheres of glassy red-ringed onyx.
“You bring here to insult! You want bargain of fine linen for simple worthless
beans!”

Lizneth wondered how her offer could be worthy of such great
offense. “I didn’t… I’m only here for the day, I didn’t think to bring—”

“I tell you what,” Blitznag said, and in the space between
that moment and the next, Lizneth thought he might have relaxed. “Out. Out of
my shop, and I don’t find someone to take you away for stealing.”

“I’m not stealing. I haven’t stolen anything,” she said.
Tears welled, and she felt them escaping the corners of her eyes despite her
best efforts. She flung the cloak onto the table and dashed out, knocking over
a stand of wicker baskets along the way. With a last stung effort she called
back to him, “I wouldn’t steal this junk if I found it in the tunnels!”

“Mah.” Blitznag scowled, waving her away.

The bridge was still teeming with activity. Lizneth threw
herself toward the crowd, drying her eyes on the fur of her forearm.

“Blitznag get the best of another one?” asked the next-door
neighbor, as she sulked past him. His shop was open to the street, with rows of
neat shelves and a clean backdrop facing the milling crowds.

Lizneth looked sideways at him and frowned, but there was
warmth and sympathy in his face, and she felt obliged to stop. He was an older
buck, soft-eyed and wiry, with thin rutted incisors and drooping whiskers that
were so long they would’ve brushed his shoulders if they’d still had their
youthful springiness.

“What do you mean he got the best of me?” Lizneth asked.

“It happens all the time. I see folks like you come out of
that shop with that same look on their faces. The Blitznag you met in there is
actually the
son
of Blitznag. It was his papa’s place first. He
inherited it when his old
kehaieh
died. I’d be surprised if he’s sold a
thing since, the way he seems to treat his customers. He’s been running the
place for a couple years now. He’s come up on the wrong side of some choice
characters in that time. Not everyone’s as passive as you are—hence the scars.”
He wagged a finger at his head. “But mostly I just see
ikzhehn
like you
coming out of there, looking like someone’s thrown their pride on the floor and
stomped all over it.”

“I just didn’t expect him to be so… mean.”

“Nor should you. And neither do most,” said the shopkeep. His
condolences were starting to make Lizneth feel better. “That’s how he is. Who knows
what might be twisting his tail. I stopped going over to say hello the day he
accused me of spying on him so I could set my prices lower than his. Truth is,
my little stand has been booming since he came into the picture. I haven’t had
to change the way I bargain at all to outsell him. These days I tend to leave
him alone. What’d you have in mind to buy in there, anyway?”

“There was a cloak I really liked,” Lizneth confessed. “Blue linen.
Deep, like the rime caves near my home.”

“Give me just one moment,” he said, and disappeared behind a
near set of shelves. In two blinks he was back, and he let the cloth in his
grip unfold. “Like this one?”

“Yes,” she said, and smiled. It was very much like the one
she’d picked out. Exactly like it, in fact.

“There’s an old seamstress who sells us these cloaks. She
comes around every now and again. You’ll find two or three in any shop on the
claybridge. They’re well-made, but nothing too rare. I’ll let this one go for a
pittance, since I like you. And because I feel bad that Blitznag gave you such
a tough time. So what’ve you got in trade that gave him such a fit?”

Lizneth hesitated. What if offering mulligraws was some kind
of local insult she wasn’t aware of? What if the sight of them made this nice
old buck turn her out the same way Blitznag had? It seemed life in the
metropolis was more worrisome than she’d anticipated.

“Come now, show me what you’ve got,” he said, and Lizneth still
saw the same kindness in his eyes.

She dug a hand into her pocket. “These.”

The shopkeep laughed.

It was loud and crowing, and it made her feel small and
foolish again.
At least he wasn’t so mean about it.
She shoved the
mulligraws back into her chinos, spilling some in the process. Having gotten an
idea of their apparent value in these parts, she didn’t bother to pick them up.
Her bottom lip quivered against her longteeth.

“Wait,” the shopkeep said between sputters. He ran to her and
touched her arm. “Stop. I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise.”

“Go ahead and laugh. I’m just a farm girl. I don’t have
anything valuable to offer.” Lizneth stood in place and let the crowd stream
past, brushing her like a river weed.

“It’s not that,” the shopkeep yelled, because he had to yell
to be heard over the crush. “I laughed because it goes to show how hard-headed
Blitznag is. How narrow he must be if such an innocent gesture sets him off.
Come, speak with me a little longer. Come back.”

A part of her still didn’t believe him, but she followed him
anyway, making her way out past the edge of the tide and into the gentler
eddies by the store front. She still felt insignificant, embarrassed.
The
metropolis isn’t my place
, she realized.
I was a fool to come here
.

“I didn’t mean to laugh at you,” said the shopkeep, pushing
the cloak toward her. “I want to trade this to you.”

“I’m not a drifter. I don’t need your handouts.”

“I know you don’t. This isn’t a handout. It’s a trade. Give
me half your mulligraws and we’ll call it even.”

“All the mulligraws I have aren’t worth a patch of fabric
from this cloak.”

He favored her with a warm smile. “You’ll owe me a favor
then. Next time I see you. When I go home to my family tonight, we’ll put your
mulligraws in the cauldron and they’ll flavor our dinner. My whole brood will
thank you for it. We don’t ever get them that fresh around here.”