GHOSTS IN THE GLASS Page 6

  Leigh stepped between the boy and the mercenary. “Leave him alone, J.T.”

  J.T.’s mouth popped open like a fish gasping for breath. Brown tobacco juice glistened against his lips.

  “Get him to the Foundry like you’ve been ordered. Don’t worry about Aerby,” she said, still blocking his view of Erid. “What do you think Karraetu or Niles will do if you bring a crying boy back to Ham Elgin? Do you think the Junkers’ Union will be pleased with how things are being handled here in Dogton? They could pull support, and that would mean no help fixing any sand bike or rovers. No help repairing the irrigation lines or the water pumps.”

  “The fuck do you think you are, givin’ me orders and threats? Just some ugly bitch that needs to learn to keep her mouth shut, that’s all.”

  Leigh wanted to lunge for J.T.’s pistol and ram it in his face, pull the trigger, and smile as his brains blew out the back of his skull. She gritted her teeth. “Take it up with your commander.”

  “If he touches Aerby, I’ll shoot him,” Erid muttered, burying his face into the dog’s neck. “I’d rather stay here anyway.”

  “He won’t hurt your dog, Erid. Will you listen to me for a moment?”

  The boy wiped his grimy cheeks, defiant and close to tears. “I’d rather stay here.”

  “You can’t. Your uncle Frell wants you someplace less. . . unstable. It’s going to be a hard year here, Erid, and being with your family at the Foundry will be a good change after what’s happened.”

  He pulled back, angry. “You mean after Dad got killed out there. You and Kaitar were supposed to protect him! You’re Enforcers, and he’s just a . . . he was just a Junker. Not a fighter or a scout.”

  Leigh’s heart ached with the weight of that failure. “They can protect you up at the Foundry better than we can here. Please, Erid. I’m sorry. You have to go. Dogton isn’t safe now.”

  J.T. shoved her. “Shut up with that talk. Dogton is safe. One more word about it and I’ll turn you over to Karraetu.”

  Grief burned to ash in an instant. Leigh whirled, meeting the Scrapper’s stare. “If I get word that you’ve harmed Erid before you reach the Foundry, I will find a way to do the same to you threefold, J.T., so keep it in that small mind of yours. A Sulari woman never forgets a wrong done to family.”

  “He ain’t your kin.”

  “Yes, he is. They all are.” She spat onto the Scrapper’s boots. The saliva left a clean streak on the leather as it dripped to the ground. “Go and report that, if you’d like.”

  J.T. narrowed his muddy colored eyes and fingered the pistol holstered at his belt. Wind raked across them, clogging Leigh’s nose with his scent—an unpleasant mix of sweat, gun oil, and stale tobacco. Those smells had never bothered her before she’d come to associate them with the Scrappers. Now, it made her want to vomit and leave more than a dribble of spit on his boots.

  “Leigh.” Erid leaned from the front seat, one hand still planted on Aerby’s neck. “I’ll go. He’s not worth getting shot over. None of them are. And there’s a group of them watching now, right over by the Bin.” He pointed to a gaggle of five or six Scrappers, all wearing identical brown uniforms. Goggles and sand masks hid their faces, but underneath, Leigh knew they’d be grinning, anticipating any excuse to use their guns. It was hard to think of the Scrappers as the same men who had once helped Dogton fight off bandits and set up static beacons.

  J.T. climbed into the driver’s seat. “That kid is smarter than you. Not that I’m surprised. Women are dense. Only good for two things, and that’s fucking and sucking. You remember that Erid, and you’ll be all right in life.”

  Erid said nothing as he continued to watch the group of mercenaries, his mouth hanging open in a curious expression. Leigh glanced their way again, worried they were drawing their firearms. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary beyond the obvious fact armed Scrappers patrolled Dogton. Then, someone moved toward them, shuffling at a steady pace. Leigh recognized the slim, short figure with graying hair tied neatly into long braids, the somber face punctuated by red-gold eyes.

  Anaz’dalo.

  He was no concern; he spent his days working leather, making boots, repairing coats and saddles, and never uttered a word about the bounty put on his daughter—a cowardly, broken man, very much like Kaitar Besh. Perhaps all Shyiine were the same. Leigh turned her back, pondering some way to convince J.T. to be kind to Erid on the trip.

  “Erid,” she began. “Your uncle Frell is with Niles right now, but—”

  “Boss Niles.” J.T. winked.

  “Boss Niles. But he asked me to tell you he says goodbye, and he will see you in the spring.”

  Erid hadn’t appeared to hear a word, but his eyes grew big and round. “Leigh. . . what’s he doing?”

  Aerby gave a nervous whine as Anaz’dalo slowed his pace. His boots did not stir the dust at all, and the steady wind ceased rustling his clothing. Sunlight slanted over him and cast a strange, too-long shadow. The blood drained from Leigh’s face as fear knotted tight in her chest. A nightmare recollection of Nal’ves burning shifted the scene before her, rife with ghostly echoes of people screaming as the Shyiine cut through town on their strange-eyed Enetic horses, lancing people and bringing fire from the sky without any sign of torch or coal.

  Without thinking, Leigh moved, her mouth opened to form a cry of alarm. Before she could get the word out, Anaz’dalo stepped across and through his own shadow. Steel flashed as he slid amid the Scrappers, a bone-handled knife cutting through the air. Red streaked behind it, oddly slow, as if the old Shyiine were the only thing capable of real movement. Blood painted the dust and flowered against fatigues as his blade vanished into flesh.

  The Scrappers moved all at once, yelling and freeing guns from belts and aiming bulky rifles. Anaz’dalo’s lithe form ducked and twisted, jabbing and slicing, his long hair fanning out like a noonday shade. Cloaking him. Blurring the lines between light and darkness until only the gleaming knife remained.

  A bullet smashed into a post, splintering it. One Scrapper fell in the dust, torn to shreds. Leigh’s boot struck something in the road—a twisted bit of wire that had been blown in by the Bloom—and she fell, crashing to the ground so hard her teeth met with a snap. Pain lanced her chest. She groaned and curled into a fetal position. For a moment, nothing existed except the hurt of her half-healed ribs.

  J.T. fired his pistol. “Get back. Get back so I can get a clear shot of the fucker!”

  Leigh caught her breath at last. “Erid, get down! In the rover, get down!”

  Bullets whizzed by. She crawled a few paces, calling again in a ragged voice. Two more Scrappers fell. Another shot rang out and missed. Anaz’dalo danced, weaving and striking so quickly the kicks and punches aimed at him hit nothing but empty space. The knife slid effortlessly across one man’s throat, and pale skin parted like a hideous, crimson grin. Another Scrapper fumbled with his rifle, but the Shyiine’s blade tore across his belly and he dropped the gun.

  Leigh forgot the pain and fear as sharp elation filled her.

  He’s killing them. . . they can’t stop him!

  Thunder cracked over the town, tearing through the hot sky and making her skull rattle. Another boom followed, smaller, almost puny in the wake of the big rumble preceding it.

  “Again, J.T.! Empty it all in him, the son of a bitch!”

  Karraetu.

  Anaz’dalo wasn’t moving anymore; a weird, gaping hole in his belly showed bits of ragged, torn flesh and a great nest of ropey guts. A second bullet wound leaked at his chest, and when third shot rang overhead, another appeared in the Shyiine’s midsection. He swayed, hand twitching where it gripped the bloody knife, eyes trained on the blond man standing a dozen yards down the street.

  J.T. whooped in triumph. Behind that exultant voice, Leigh thought she heard Erid’s muffled sobs. From the Bin, someone’s wails pounded the brief silence following the gun fire, followed by shouts of alarm.

  “What happened? W
hat’s goin’ on?”

  “Is it bandits?”

  “Stay down, damn you! Don’t get up yet.”

  Queen—a gun Leigh would recognize anywhere—boomed again, sound swallowing all other noise in the world. Anaz’dalo’s head burst into a grotesque spatter of red, punctuated by big chunks of bone-white. He toppled into the dust, limbs jerking, snakeskin boots thumping. Then, he fell still.

  Leigh buried her face into her arms, too shocked to feel relief or dread or even despair. It was too much, and she could not make sense of any of it. Her mind plugged down into low idle, refusing to roll ahead into a logical thought process about what she’d just seen.

  Two. . .

  She continued the mental count, dimly aware of J.T. stomping past her, cursing.

  Three. Four. . . five.

  Karraetu barked an order for everyone to stay inside and shut up. Slowly, Leigh lifted her head. The Commander and J.T. stood over the pile of bodies, staring down at them, dumbstruck.

  Karraetu kicked the Shyiine’s corpse. “That motherfucker took out six. Panezii’s slit from ear to ear. Worthless shits.”

  “No one could hit him,” J.T. countered lamely. “He. . . it was almost like that Zippy, when we took Dogton, except—”

  “Get that kid to the Foundry. Now.” Karraetu turned his ice-blue eyes, and Leigh found herself staring right at him. Her heart skipped a beat as he raised Queen.

  “Did you know what he was planning?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Karraetu studied her a long moment with the shrewd, piercing look he’d worn at Pirahj.

  I won’t look away. I faced down Lein Strauss. I can look Jess Karraetu in the eye.

  At length, he lowered the big revolver and grinned crookedly. “Get up. Where’s that fat Drahgur and that Harper? We’ve got to clean this mess.” He raised his voice, calling through the streets. “Tinn!”

  A voice drifted from behind a merchant stall, almost timid. “Yessir?”

  “Round up the boys. We’re on double patrol tonight. No fucking around unless you want to end up like this heap of shit at my feet here.”

  “Yessir!”

  Bracing her side with both arms, Leigh struggled to her knees. J.T. inched past, shoulders hunched, a nervous twitch making one eyelid hop up and down. He didn’t even glance in her direction as he approached the Draggin.

  “Time to go, Erid. Keep your mouth shut about what you just saw, too.”

  The Draggin rumbled. Erid hunkered low, face hidden by Aerby’s yellow fur. The boy did not look back as the rover rolled down the street and toward the big gates, opened to the barren desert.

  Leigh’s throat went tight as she watched the boy go as if that, and not the gruesome scene twenty feet away, was the worst thing she’d ever witnessed. Erid seemed too small and alone in that Draggin. When she tried to call out to him, a stab of pain muted the words; she could only send a silent plea to whatever kind spirit might be listening that Erid Vargas be all right. He’d escaped Hell—not the prattle the Harpers had made up in their Good Book, but a real, living Hell.

  “Get going,” Karraetu said, loud enough to make her jump. “And if I hear any gossip about this coming from one of you Enforcers, you’ll end up like that old Shyiine there.”

  Suddenly too tired and in too much pain to care about his threats, Leigh staggered down the road. The barracks seemed a long way off, and each step brought dull agony rippling along her ribs. But she walked on, barely noticing Sokepta and Harper Moad as they hurried past. Sokepta shot her a look, but she ignored it. Scrappers appeared like brown cockroaches to skitter down the street as Karrraetu barked orders.

  There would be nightmares tonight, and tomorrow night—maybe for every night for the rest of her life. Bad dreams of Evrik Niles demanding water, of bloody, maggot-streaked remains in the back of a low wagon, of Shyiine screaming war cries, and Kaitar Besh walking out of the night with two huge threk at his side. And, worst of all, Lein Strauss would stalk her dreams, stinking of Firebrand and death, tipping his hat as he asked around a soot-filled grin, “You ever been to Bywater?”

  Leigh cried, the silent tears rolling inwardly until she thought she would drown.

  A Black Cloud

  A gray-brown sparrow flitted between the thorny, flat leaves of a squat cactus. It pecked delicately around the plant’s three-inch spines, gathering what bit of dew remained from the night chill. Then, it fluffed its drab feathers, opened its beak, and began singing a lilting morning serenade. Behind the little bird, the sun crowned the morning sky, bright orange and pink pushing back the starry veil of night.

  For a moment, Senqua was happy.

  Countless times before most of Dogton had roused itself, she and her father sharpened their tools and watched the sun come up over the eastern Senbehi. Anaz’dalo would sing quietly in words Senqua couldn’t always understand—Shyiine songs remembered from his long-ago youth in a place called the Xi’jahata. Other times, he would tell her stories. His graying hair would swish to-and-fro against his thin shoulders, and though his expression and tone never changed, Senqua knew he was pleased to have her there.

  But she’d been impatient as a child, hoping for an excuse to go off and do something else. Now, Senqua wished she could be bored like that again. Bored and safe in Dogton, listening to her aging father sing about making a pair of boots.

  The sparrow ended its song abruptly and flew off, careening between the bristling cactus and shrub. The wind stirred, still cold, but whispering with the promise of an especially hot winter day. The season had been a dry one thus far, and she wondered if there would be rationing in Dogton that year. There had been many such lean years, and Neiro was an expert at managing the water. Far better than the last generation of Sulari princes had been, at least.

  Senqua glanced over her shoulder and saw Aizr-hin rolled in his tattered coat, sleeping in front of the remains of their fire. He held the Pumer tucked under one arm so the barrel rested against his cheek. On the other side of the glowing coals Gairy snored, his big chest rising and falling.

  I could just leave them. They’re grown men. They can take care of themselves and it was Gairy who made the bargain, not me. I could get back to Dogton in two. . . maybe three weeks at the most.

  Gairy rolled to his side, his snores trailing into a ragged cough. He grunted, sat slowly, and spat to clear his mouth. When he raised his bleary eyes and saw her watching, he frowned. “What?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “The fuck you doing up already, anyway? Shyiine don’t eat, they don’t drink, and I guess they don’t sleep either.”

  “I was only waiting for you two to wake up so we could eat and start walking.”

  Groaning, he hauled himself to his feet and lumbered toward a line of scrub. Senqua turned away, crossed her arms over her chest under her yalei, and tried to block out the sound of his pissing. The sunrise lost some of its beauty; even the bright streaks of crimson and gold became dreary. The rock she’d been leaning against—a big, ugly limestone chunk rising out of the earth like a misshapen finger—felt cold beneath her back. But she didn’t want to move, didn’t want to turn to say a “good morning” to Aizr-hin, who had roused himself and sat, yawning.

  “Now that is a beautiful sunrise. He is the true king of the Shy’war-Anquai. Did you know, Senqua, that is why the Sulari noblemen only called themselves princes and not kings? It was so we would not offend the Sun. We could have our Sulari queens, yes, but never could we be kings in Sun’s empire.”

  “I don’t care why the Sulari called themselves anything. All that I want to think about is how far we might walk today. We aren’t making very good time.”

  “It’s because the Druen slows us down.”

  “What’s the rush?” Gairy asked, stomping toward the fire. He kicked sand over the coals, his face frozen into the deep frown Senqua knew would be there all day.

  “No rush especially,” Aizr-hin replied. “Except what remains of my
people are starving while Lein Strauss terrorizes them.”

  “Bunch of thieves anyway,” Gairy muttered.

  “We are thieves because it is the only way to survive.” Aizr-hin stretched before swaggering to the line of brush. “And some are drunks, yes, much like yourself. But many are simply trying to keep their children and wives from starving.”

  You let the slaves starve. Where was the pity then, I wonder?

  But Senqua was too tired of the topic to want to argue about it. Instead, she gathered up a few of the canteens, checked their meager supply of threk jerky, and calculated how much longer it might last. Another three or four days, at best, she supposed. They would have to hunt something. Water would have to be found soon, too.

  “If we had a da’mel,” she mused aloud. “We could carry more and make better time.”

  “If we had a da’mel, I’d shoot it,” Gairy said. “They’re more trouble than they’re worth. Stubborn. And they bite, like Shyiine.” He stooped to pick his hat from the ground.

  Senqua sighed.

  Aizr-hin tied his trousers shut and sauntered close. “Senqua and I could easily make thirty miles in a day, I think. But with you. . . we’re lucky to manage fifteen. It will take a long time to get to the Foundry at this pace.”

  “If we were in the mountains, you’d be the ones slowin’ me down.” Gairy beat his hat against his leg. Puffs of dust rose from the filthy material, shimmering in the morning sun. “You’d freeze up there, too.”

  Aizr-hin grinned. “I doubt it.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Senqua hoisted several canteens and swung them over her shoulder. “We’re not in the mountains yet, and we won’t be until we reach the Foundry. North of here, we’re going to have a hard time finding water, too. There are less rocks. More dry grass, yes, but you can’t get anything from that. We need to start collecting all we can now. Food, water, Harper’s Hand if we find any, and—”

  “I know what we need.” Gairy jammed the hat over his head, his long, tangled hair bristling around his face. “I told you before, I been a scout a long time. I know the job. Who do you think mapped this region for Neiro?”