Rapture (23 page)

“I can hack off some more limbs if you want,” Ahmed said, “but she says she doesn’t know anything about it. Inaya, this rebel leader, sent her after Eshe. She hasn’t heard from her mother, the saint, in over a year.”

“And you believe that?”

“No,” Ahmed said. He was good at what he did, but out here in the blasted desert wasn’t the place for it. “I think she had some other reason to come out here that she’s not telling me or even Eshe. But unless you want to beat it out of her, I’d leave it.”

“Why the bloody fuck are Ras Tiegans out here?” Nyx muttered.

“The Queen has always been friendly with Ras Tieg,” Eshe said.

“So what’s the Queen doing with Ras Tiegans out here?” Nyx said. And then, to Khatijah, “I thought you said it was First Families that took Raine.”

“We aren’t sure who took him,” Khatijah said. “That was a best guess. No one ever thought the Ras Tiegans would be interested.”

“I feel like we’re all knotted up in one big game,” Nyx said, “and I don’t like playing games without knowing the rules.”

“Why?” Eshe said. “It’s not like you’d follow them.”

“Yeah, but everybody else would,” Nyx said. She made an impatient gesture at Ahmed. “Fine. Let’s keep moving. We can work this out while we go.”

“After prayer,” Ahmed said.

“I stutter?”

“After prayer,” Ahmed insisted, again, because he knew if he didn’t push now, he was going to keep getting rolled over.

“He’s right,” Eshe said.

“You too?” Nyx said. “Fuck and fire we have more important things to worry about.” She stomped back toward camp, yelling, “Eskander! Stop fucking around and head north. North. No, the other way. Sun rises in the east, so what way is north? The fuck, woman, you act like you never prayed before.”

Ahmed closed his eyes and thought of his farm. There was a real life at the end of all this. A better one. If he could outrun the war. When he opened his eyes, he saw the bristling lichen-tree forest ahead of him, a blasted wasteland where nothing of substance thrived. I should not have come, he thought. There would have been better paying positions. But all of those would have been in the city, and he couldn’t afford to be in the city right now among the bel dames and their red notes for criminals. There was little forgiveness for men like him, even after the end of war.

He had left behind a lot of things in Nasheen, but not as much as he’d left at the front. He thought of the call he’d made in Amtullah. The familiar voice. At least not all of the men he cared for were burned up in Chenja.

“Ahmed?” Eshe said.

“Yeah?”

“We’d best pray now, before she leaves us behind.”

Nyx stood in the campsite as Kage and Eskander packed up. “Hate to break your fine meditation there,” Nyx called, “but we’ve still got those fucking Drucian mercenaries behind us. Unless they get caught in that kill hole, they’re coming for us next.”

“This shit will be over soon,” Eshe said, and unrolled his prayer rug.

Ahmed thought he meant it to be comforting, but it came out ominous. It was what he told every prisoner the night before they were gutted and burned by the cleanup crew. He remembered thinking it was a kindness, then, to promise and deliver release. But most were so far gone by then that he wasn’t sure how many understood what he was talking about.

Ahmed knelt beside Eshe, and began the prayer.

W
hen Nyx went hunting, she needed to know a few things about her target. It was always good to know who they were, what they liked, sure. You wanted to know favorite hangouts and who they owed money to and who they’d done favors for. But more than that, you wanted to learn what was most important to them. For most people she hunted in all her years as a bel dame and a bounty hunter, the answer to that question was generally a person, or people.

So whenever she caught sight of the Drucian mercenaries, trailing them just at the edge of the horizon, ever-present, seldom visible, she sat down and thought about what it was they thought was most important in life. What was worth coming out here to the edge of the known world for? Money just wasn’t enough. She still didn’t understand as much about Drucian culture as she probably should have after her years in exile. She hadn’t exactly had a lot of Drucian friends.

She sat now on some tumbled fragment of stone among a heap of loose rubble and scrub brush. She chewed absently on a smaller stone she kept in her mouth to ward off thirst, and gazed into the dim horizon. Sometimes the Drucians were easiest to see in the violet dusk.

Someone came up behind her. From the length of the stride, she guessed it was Ahmed. She turned.

Ahmed hesitated, just an arm’s length away. He followed her former gaze, out at the horizon. “You thinking it’s time to take them out?”

“Rather figure out what they want, first.”

“I assume they want to kill us.”

“Can’t go around thinking the whole world’s out for you. It’s a big place. Lots of people in it.”

He, too, was sucking on a small stone. Eskander kept promising them that they were near a settlement, and kept them running along on a thin stream of drivel. Nyx wasn’t sure how much longer she could put up with it.

Ahmed folded his arms. “We used to have Chenjan scouts follow us like that. They were usually doing it to make sure we ran right into some ambush.”

“They aren’t Chenjans.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means not all of us think alike.” Nyx turned back to camp. They weren’t bedding down this time, they were just getting up. Being out in the desert this exposed meant it was time to start traveling exclusively at night, with a short break during the deepest part of it. Traveling at night meant they needed less water, but it didn’t mean they thought about it any less. She saw Kage sitting at the edge of camp. She, too, was staring out toward the eastern horizon. Nyx had caught her at it a few nights now. She suspected that putting Kage on watch for them would save her a lot of time. The girl was far more vigilant.

“Ask Kage to come over here,” Nyx said.

Ahmed looked puzzled, but obeyed.

A few moments later, Kage stood next to her, massive gun in hands, gaze on her feet.

Nyx nodded to the figures on the horizon. “You know those folks?”

“Not all Drucians know one another.”

“You seem to take a special interest in these ones.”

“I do not trust strangers.”

Nyx wished she had some sen. She’d spit it on the girl’s sandaled toe. “Then maybe you can give me some insight. What you think folks like those are doing still trailing us after all this time?”

Kage said nothing.

“I remember I once got a visit from some Drucians,” Nyx said. She decided not to mention that she had still been in Druce at the time. “They were dour types. Dressed in formal robes, black. Funny hats and topknots. Strange guys. They told me they were searching for a criminal. If you exile all of your criminals, why would anybody go to the trouble of finding one?”

“Criminals must be… tried. They must be formally removed from their households. If they leave without undergoing this ritual, they are never dead.”

“What’s wrong with never being dead?”

“They are ghosts.”

“So?”

“After they die, they can come back and haunt you.”

Nyx sighed. It wasn’t any worse than believing in djinns or demons or a God that sent men to war, she supposed.

“So it stands to reason that these guys are either criminals who took a tough job or they’re hunting criminals themselves?”

Kage hesitated.

“What did you do, Kage?” Nyx asked. “You fuck somebody you shouldn’t? Cut off somebody’s tail?”

Kage’s grip on the gun tensed.

“All right, let’s have this out now. We can take them out, Kage, but I need to know what they are. Drucian bounty hunters? I’m not going to turn you in. Whatever you did is done. You start with me, you start fresh.”

Nyx waited. She was terrible at waiting, but she did it anyway while the wind purled across the desert and Kage drew soft breaths through her nose.

Finally, Nyx stood. God, she hated waiting.

“They will never stop hunting me,” Kage said.

Nyx grabbed her by the collar and drew her up. The girl couldn’t have been more than forty-five kilos. Her feet left the ground. She hung suspended, eyes still averted.

“I said, who the fuck is after you? Or do I just kill you myself and leave you to them? Your choice.”

Nyx released her.

Kage dropped lightly to her feet, as if it had been her idea to get picked up all along. She hopped back a few steps.

“I’m done with this,” Nyx said. “Give me your gun and get out of here.”

Kage shook her head.

Nyx held out her hand. “Give me the gun. I bought it when I bought you, didn’t I? I own it.”

Again, she shook her head. Nyx wanted to twist her head off. She reached for her own scattergun.

Kage moved like water—sudden, smooth, deliberate. She slid her gun free and fired, point blank.

Nyx had the sense to flinch, though she knew what was coming. The gun didn’t fire. Simply clicked, then gave a small gasp.

“I’m not completely stupid,” Nyx said, yanking the gun from Kage’s hands by the barrel. “Though you all sure keep treating me like it.”

When she spotted their tags again the night before, she had Ahmed stifle the barrel with a particularly gummy insect that secreted a mucus that disabled firing, knowing Kage cleaned her gun at night, not in the morning. Kage might sleep with her gun, but an insect could get past her. Nyx wasn’t going to risk a confrontation with an armed teammate.

“Kage,” Ahmed said softly. Nyx started. He had snuck up on them from camp. God, how many times did she need to tell him not to interfere? “Let us know who’s following you. We can help. You don’t need to shoot all of us.”

Nyx begged to differ about just how much she was willing to help, but Ahmed was the one with the slick tongue. She settled for putting Kage’s weapon aside and remaining taut and ready to draw her own loaded gun if necessary. She wasn’t so sure how she felt about Kage pulling the trigger yet. A lot depended on how good her story was. It always did.

Kage breathed deeply through her nose. She seemed to settle herself back into her skin. The more relaxed stance made Nyx want to stop worrying about her gun. She decided that was the whole point of it, so didn’t give her the satisfaction.

“They are fukushu-sha,” Kage said. “Hunters. Blood avengers.”

“How far are they willing to go to get you? How—”

“Kage,” Ahmed said. Soft voice, again. Measured. “Do you know how we can defeat them? Can we pay them off, distract them?”

Kage shook her head. “I am a criminal.”

“Aren’t we all?” Nyx said. “That doesn’t tell me—”

“How can we stop them, Kage?” Ahmed said.

“You can deliver me to them. That is all. But I won’t go. You must kill me first.”

“What’s waiting for you back there if you go with them?” Ahmed said. “Do they mean to kill you?”

“No. It’s… It’s our business.” She shook her head. “Why would you help me? You don’t know me.”

“I need your eyes. And your aim,” Nyx said. “Things aren’t going to get much better out here. I eliminate your hunters, you owe me a favor.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Even to Nyx, it didn’t sound like much, not with thirst bearing down on her like a fucking freight train. That, paired with Eskander’s mad babbling, Eshe and Isabet’s bickering, Khatijah’s dour stares, and Ahmed’s disapproving frown, meant she was in dire need of a little more than simple goodwill. She had no idea where the fuck she had been or where the fuck she was going. Bring back Raine from the end of the world? Sweet fuck, why? But this was what she had, and she needed to get the best from it. God help her.

“All right,” Kage said.

“How do they hunt? In pairs?”

Kage nodded. “There will just be one pair. Just two.”

“Good,” Nyx said. “And if they’re anything like you… they’ll have a lot of water with them, won’t they?”

Kage nodded again.

Also good. Stealing from these shadowy hunters could give them four more days of water, or more, if she could keep Kage upright on a little less. Staking out teammates to die in the desert this early on was bad for morale.

“And? What else? What can I use against them?” Nyx asked.

Kage raised her head, just a fraction, but it was enough for Nyx to see her eyes directly for the first time. Kage’s gaze met hers for a moment, so quickly Nyx half thought she imagined it.

“They want me alive,” Kage said.

It was the best thing Nyx had heard all day.

+

There was very little high ground in this place, just one more reason Kage found to hate it. She had volunteered to scout out the position of the fukushu-sha, but Nyx had Eshe do it. For once, the mewling magician made herself useful putting together bugged transceivers for them. Kage held the mealy little wire-threaded worm in her hand, dubious, as the others stuck the things in their ears like it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

“Let me help,” the Ras Tiegan girl said in mangled Nasheenian. She was standing just behind Eshe, like a lost dog.

Kage glowered at her.

“I can be very good at scouting,” she said. Trying so hard to be useful.

“You aren’t welcome,” Kage said.

“What if assassins wander into camp? Kill me and Eskander?” Isabet said.

“Can’t say I’d cry over it,” Nyx said. She passed something to Eshe. “We’ve got exactly one pair of thermal specs. Don’t lose them.”

The girl spouted off, then, in Ras Tiegan. Kage knew a few words of it, but not enough to make sense of what she was saying. Instead, the syrupy sounds of the language just put her in mind of another night, another band of Ras Tiegans. She very nearly jammed the butt of her gun into the girl’s face. She took a deep breath instead, and focused on the toes of her sandals until Nyx gave the order to move.

Kage brought the worm up to her ear, then palmed it into the pocket of her trousers. She could speak to them just as well with the worm set on the end of her gun once she was in position.