The Farwalker's Quest (23 page)

Yet she was powerless to do anything but watch. At the center of attention, Zeke looked forlorn. Scarl huddled at the edge of the light. All control seemed to belong to the captors. Gust paced, twirling the dart in his fingers.

“I don't understand why you didn't just get rid of him,” he was saying.

Ariel strained to hear Scarl's reply.

“I told you. I thought Mason would want to talk to him. Test him. Maybe keep him a while, see if he could be turned to some use. A Farwalker must be good for something.”

Gust veered in his pacing to stand over Scarl on the sand.

“Your assignment was to collect the darts and make sure nobody fretted about what they said,” he reminded Scarl. “You realize that by bringing this particular receiver with you, you were risking the exact thing Mason wants to prevent?”

“He's a kid,” Scarl sneered. “He can't even understand the dart that found him. What's he going to accomplish?”

Gust kicked him. “He accomplished escaping from you.”

“He had help.” Pain tightened Scarl's voice.

“So did you. Where is Elbert now, anyway?”

“When the boy disappeared, we separated to cover more ground,” Scarl said. “Thought we'd snare him faster that way. I haven't seen Elbert since.”

“If that's true, he must be somewhere nearby,” said the woman. “But we can't—”

“Only if you think he was any good as a Finder.” Scarl snorted. “I don't.”

“I may have to agree with you there,” Gust said. Tucking the telling dart into a pocket, he moved to loom over Zeke. Flames reflected in the Fool's dull face. He added, “Elbert would be just the man, though, for the job that needs doing now.”

Ariel moaned. She had a pretty good idea what Gust meant, and she'd rather die herself than lose Zeke. She'd better think of an alternative fast.

“Misha, can't you help us?” she whispered. Instantly, a hand fell on her shoulder. She whipped around on one elbow. No friend of Gust's lurked beside her. Still, neither a spectral touch nor dimples in the sand could help Zeke.

The faces around the fire all focused on him. Gust unsheathed a knife much thinner but longer than Scarl's. Zeke drew himself into a crouch, ready to run. With adults poised around him, Ariel didn't think he stood any chance of slipping past them all.

One of the men cleared his throat and said, “I wouldn't be here if I'd known this would get so rough, Gust. Do you really want a boy's blood on your hands?”

“No, I don't. That's why Matthias is going to do it.” Gust reversed his knife and thrust its handle toward the man standing nearest him. “He understands the value of Mason's favor. As well as the pinch of his anger. Don't you?” He leered.

The man Gust had appointed nodded, but he shifted, uneasy. “We could just tie him up and leave him to thirst and the sun,” he suggested.

“And sit here for a week, if it takes that long? Some of you might leave the world before he does. No. Quick and certain.”

“Let me do it.” Scarl pushed himself to his feet. “You're right, I should have seen to it sooner, and now he's caused me a fair bit of pain. At this point I'll be happy to cut that brat's throat.”

“You?” Gust turned to appraise Scarl. Ariel's heart battered itself against her ribs. If Scarl could be untied, perhaps all was not lost. Yet a tinny voice in the back of her mind shrilled that with her free, the Finder might be willing to sacrifice Zeke to satisfy Gust and escape.

“I might actually have to respect you for that,” Gust told Scarl.

“Don't get carried away,” Scarl said drily. “You could just return my gear and let me go about my business.”

Gust debated. Ariel twitched, barely keeping herself from tearing down the slope shouting the truth.

With a flick of his hand, Gust signaled that the prisoner should be unbound. He held his knife ready in case Scarl moved without warning. First the blindfold came off, then the rope tying Scarl's hands. Holding her breath, Ariel willed him to jump for the knife, swing a punch, or grab Zeke and run. Scarl only rubbed his wrists, glanced at Zeke, then fixed his gaze firmly on Gust.

Gust's eyes narrowed. Tension outlined nearly every form at the fire. Two other men gripped the hilts of their own knives. His lips twitching in wry amusement, Scarl was the only one who looked relaxed.

He shifted his weight, waited a breath longer, and then turned up his palm.

“Are you going to give me that, or did you change your
mind?” he asked mildly. “There's no point in waiting till morning. I could use a good sleep for a change.”

Slowly Gust reversed the blade and extended the handle. Scarl stepped to it casually, as though offered a cup of tea. His fingers brushed the knife's handle, then drew back.

“Actually, I don't suppose I could use my own knife?” he said. “It's done a similar job for me before. And it'll make a better keepsake—since I'm sure you'll want yours back.”

Relaxing slightly, Gust jerked his head toward the woman. She bent to a pack and soon held out the sheath with Scarl's knife.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Scarl took it. When he straightened, a blade Ariel recognized glinted in the firelight. Her breath caught.

“All right, you little cur,” Scarl said softly to Zeke. He raised the knife. “You remember what I told you before?”

Zeke's crouched body looked tight as a spring. His voice only achieved a hoarse whisper. “I remember, scum.”

In three strides Scarl was on him. He grabbed Zeke's shoulder and yanked him to his feet.

Ariel lost all control of her body. It leaped up and flew down the slope toward the fire. Her screams of denial split the darkness. Sand that she'd clenched, unaware, in her fists sprayed out toward the light. Startled faces turned her way. Her stumbling feet churned up more sand around her.

Perhaps Ariel needed to provide that idea. Perhaps ghosts just have excellent timing. As she swooped down the slope, a rush of wind hit Ariel's back. She nearly tumbled onto her face at its force. It lifted sand from the dune so the swirling air filled with grit.

Ariel saw Scarl fling Zeke over the burning snag toward her. Then a billowing curtain of sand blocked her view.

“Zeke!”

The wind stole her cry and whipped sparks from the fire into the frenzy. Ariel's eyelids clamped tight against flying grit. Still running, she banged her shins into some unknown bulk and tripped hard. Sprawled on the ground, she raised one hand as a shield. The other tried to pry open her eyelids. Her watering eyes could see nothing.

A hand clutched her calf. She jerked it away.

“Ariel!” She could only just hear Zeke's voice above the scream of the wind and the skitter of sand lashing wood. They fumbled into each other and clambered together to their feet.

“Run!” Uncertain by now where the snag lay, the sand in the air was so thick, they clasped hands and struck out randomly. Their feet floundered in the soft dunes. They coughed, inhaling sand with the air, and stumbled over unseen rises and dips. Their legs slipped, then caught and drove on, lungs and muscles burning with effort.

Abruptly they ran beyond the edge of the sandstorm. Beneath stars once more, they risked a look back. Misha's whirlwind formed a large sandy blot on the otherwise crystalline night. The only sign of the fire was a slight glow in the haze. Everything else had been swallowed by the suffocating cloud.

“Scarl?” Ariel whimpered.

“He'll escape. He'll find us.” Zeke's voice shook, though. He spat grit.

“I thought for a minute he might really kill you, Zeke.”

“I—” Zeke swallowed. “So did I. Because you were already
safe. Until he said that about remembering. Then I thought, ‘Maybe not.' But five against one …”

He shuddered. Sand cascaded out of his hair. More clung to his eyelids, his ears, and the rims of his nostrils. Ariel wiped sand from her own eyebrows and lips.

“I wouldn't have been so brave,” she said. “I would have run as soon as Gust pulled out that knife.”

“What are you talking about? You actually ran toward the danger.”

She couldn't deny it. They'd resumed walking before Ariel had found any answer.

“Maybe that's something Farwalkers do.”

Guided by moonlight, Ariel and Zeke headed for the distant stone outcrop and its hidden water hole that Scarl had been trying to reach earlier. They agreed that the Finder would expect that. Besides, they wouldn't be able to rest anywhere less sheltered, knowing that Gust or his friends might still be hunting them.

Although the pair glanced back often, not a single figure emerged from the sandstorm. When the knot of flying sand finally dissipated, the dark desert looked empty. Listening only to their own grinding footfalls, Ariel fretted about what to do if Scarl failed to appear. Home now seemed impossibly distant, not only in miles but in events and emotions. A cramp of hopelessness seized her heart. She reached for Zeke's fingers, seeking comfort. He did not seem to mind.

When they set foot on the bedrock rising out of the sand, Zeke dropped her hand and took over. He led Ariel between wrinkles of stone to a tiny puddle of rainwater at the base of a twisting stone bluff. Once they'd licked the pool dry, he sank to rest among the scattered boulders nearby.

Still on her feet, Ariel looked up doubtfully. “Isn't there anywhere better? Rocks might fall on us here.”

Zeke shook his head. “If any were getting ready to jump, I could hear it, I'm sure. And this bluff will protect us.”

“From what?” No clouds veiled the stars, but any rain that did fall would pour right down on them.

“Anything—anyone—that would hurt us.”

Ariel had trouble imagining how a rock could put up much fight. Sighing, she turned to gaze over the dark swells of sand they had crossed.

“It's a good place to keep a lookout for Scarl, I guess.” She dropped beside Zeke and pressed her body against the stone's lingering warmth.

Her watch was short-lived. A troubled, half-conscious doze overtook her, molding her limbs to the ground and gluing her lids shut with sand. She couldn't move. When she moaned at the discomfort, hands came to pat her all over. The wind, or a voice, whispered jumbled syllables of her name at her ear.

“Ariel.”

At last she dragged her eyes open. A man crouched before her, shaking her soundly. Ariel gasped and cringed against her stone bed. Fear rattled through her before she recognized Scarl.

He put a finger to his lips. “Careful,” he whispered. “Our voices will travel far here.”

She blinked and sat up, her mind clearing. Zeke snored beside her. The sun just breaching the horizon showed Scarl alone, his skin and hair yellow with sand. He'd lost his knit cap.

Without thinking, she threw her arms around his neck.

“It's all right,” he whispered.

She released him as quickly, stuffing her willful hands into her armpits. Her impulse to hug him both shamed her and
made her uneasy. Trust was one thing, affection another. She wasn't yet ready to forgive him for his part in the loss of her mother—a loss that had echoed when Scarl had stood in the firelight with a knife raised to Zeke.

They woke Zeke. Without saying anything more, Scarl waved for them to follow him. That's when Ariel noticed the sand-clotted slash across the back of the Finder's coat.

He led them deeper into the flowing river of rock. The stone rippled into folds and tight canyons where wind-driven sand slumped in the corners. The trio skidded down a slope and then clambered into a shadowy chasm. At the bottom, water bubbled up from a crack and filled a small pool fringed by ferns and green vines.

Grateful, all three slaked their thirst. Zeke submerged his whole head.

Giggling at him, Ariel turned to Scarl. Her grin faded. He'd removed his coat to rinse sand from his face and neck.

“You're bleeding.” Seeing his red-soaked shirt, she was loath to learn what hid beneath.

“I know.”

Zeke resurfaced with a jerk that sprayed droplets from his hair. “What happened? Did you kill all of them?”

“I don't know that I killed any of them.”

The Finder may have misunderstood Ariel's frown. He added, “Oh yes, I tried. I'm not going to protect you from that. If it bumped me, I put my blade to it. I just had to trust that both of you had stayed out of the middle. Or at least wouldn't be jumping on me. But I couldn't see the knife in my hand, let alone any work it got done.” He ran his fingers through his hair. Sand flew.

“And the first clear air I spotted, I ran for it,” he added. “For
all I know, there could be five corpses in the sand or five pursuers behind us. The truth is probably somewhere between.”

Zeke got to his feet thoughtfully and moved off a short distance. Guessing Zeke wanted to be alone to speak to the stones, Ariel approached Scarl more closely.

“You'd better take off your shirt.” She had to force herself to say it.

Scarl lifted one shoulder and winced. He shook his head. “Not much I can do about it here. It's better left alone.”

“Not much
you
can do. But I can probably help it a little.”

A grin split Scarl's face. “I don't know. You flunked your Healtouch test.”

“Shut up,” she said. “That was your fault.”

“I didn't intend it. I was as surprised as you were, and worried about what it meant.” He shook his head. “But it's true I wasn't quite disappointed.”

Ariel had spent a lot of time watching her mother at work. She'd learned more about dealing with injured people than she'd realized until now. “You're stalling,” she said. “Take it off.”

“It won't kill me before we get to Hartwater.” Scarl gazed east as if he could see through the rock. “Shouldn't, at any rate.”