The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (28 page)

Welcome to Belmond, read the highway sign on the distant
overpass. Proudly Powered by HydroPyre, A Glaive Industries Technology. Hastle frowned
at the mention of Glaive Industries and the HydroPyre station that had once
professed to power this place.
What a fine welcome this has turned out to be
.

All along the outskirts, where the desert met the city’s
ruins, the other blackhands were arriving. Their red orbs winked out one by one
as they vanished among the ruins. The popping of firearms became a crash and sizzle,
tortured screams piercing the evening stillness. Hastle was pleased as these
new sounds began to reach his ears.
If these are the same Scarred Comrades
the men have been talking about, they’ve made their last poor decision
.

Hastle flinched. Something had stung him, or bitten him; a
chigger, or one of those blasted horseflies. He slapped the back of his neck
and drew away his hand. Red, dripping in the starlight. Too much blood for even
the largest insect. He gulped, but found he had no throat to gulp with. When he
breathed in, the air didn’t come through his mouth. It came from lower down;
his neck, maybe. Then his chest was wet, and he was drowning, and his sight
was falling to black.

CHAPTER 26

Comings and Goings

The
Halcyon
docked at the port of Sai Calgoar,
an immense network of docks bordering the southeastern shores of the vast
Zherath Omnekh, within a cave that opened onto the city proper. The cave’s
walls were streaked in bright color, oranges and reds and tans and browns, as
if the slabs had been laid down like blankets. It was a sight to behold, unlike
the featureless gray rock further below-world in places like Tanley and
Bolck-Azock.

“Sandstone,” said Dozhie, noticing Lizneth’s gawking. “
Calai
legend tells that their
kehaihn
and their
kehaihneh
before them came
from the sand; that they were carved from the very rock of this place, when the
Aionach was young.”

“It’s wonderful to look at,” Lizneth said.

“The stone may be, but the
calaihn
are not. See
there.” Dozhie pointed toward the docks, where they could just make out a short
section of pier through the tiny oar hole.

It was then that Lizneth got her first glimpse of a real
calai
.
Several, in fact. Most of them were moving goods on and off ships; lithe
creatures with narrow waists and broad shoulders, tiny triangular snouts and
skin the color of the darkest brown sandstone. They were furless except on
their heads, where each of them seemed to be set with a different shape and
length of coarse black strands. The lack of fur on their chests and arms left
their skin exposed. Seeing it slide across muscle and bone made Lizneth feel
like gagging. She didn’t like the look of them at all—they were too big, and
the way they moved on their skinny legs made them look clumsy and dim-witted.

“Yes, they’re very ugly,” Lizneth said. “Why does their fur
grow the same color, but in different patterns?”

“Remember when Bresh said they cut themselves? Now you see
why. Their skin and hair are all the same color. They must have trouble telling
each other apart, since they cannot scent, so I think they mark themselves that
way to show others who they are. It is like their
haick
. Without those
markings, they might not know their own brood-brother from a stranger.”

“They don’t have brood-brothers, remember,” said Bresh. “Or
brood-sisters, for that matter. They are born one at a time.”

“How vile,” Lizneth said, continuing to puzzle over the odd
creatures.

She heard the door open above the rowing hold and a voice
call, “Captain is coming down. He wants a word with the
scearib parikua
.”

Curznack entered, proud in a double-breasted pea coat of dark
blue wool and brass buttons—finer cloth than he’d worn aboard ship or in the
slums of Bolck-Azock. He looked almost dignified; less like a slaver and more
like a proper sailor. He ran his tail along the railing as he descended the
stairs—as if equilibrium came harder to him now that the ship was at port—and came
to where Lizneth sat on her bench, chained to the floor. Standing over her, Curznack
smelled of alcohol and the lingering musk of damp wool. Lizneth kept her eyes
straight ahead.

“How would you like to stay aboard my ship? You’ll be safe,
the way you wanted it. Though I’ll have you summoned to my quarters at night,
whenever I fancy a visit. I’ll give you that special treatment you want so
badly. When you’re too fat with my litter to row anymore, I’ll strap you to the
mast so the others can see you resting every time they change shifts. When our
whelps are born, I’ll sell them to the
calaihn
. Some of them will be
scearib
like their mother, if we’re fortunate, and they’ll fetch me a high sum on the
markets. You’d like that, wouldn’t you—birthing my litter?”

Curznack laughed. Lizneth felt herself blush, embarrassed
by his mockery, angry that he would carry on like this in front of the other
rowing slaves and his crew. The slaves were mostly silent, but Bilik and the
drummer stood at the front of the hold trying to stifle their laughter. Lizneth
would’ve wanted to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and cry, but she’d seen
enough of tears and dark holes to satisfy her for a while.

Curznack was silent for a moment, as though he expected her
to reply. When Lizneth said nothing, he huffed. “Far be it from me to deny the
scearib
her wish.” He turned to Bilik. “See them fed and washed. Twice if you have to.
The stink of
krahz
in here is insufferable. Make certain the ship is
ready to set off at a moment’s notice. The prizes will be sold today, and I’ll
be spending the night ashore to look for my brood-brothers. We’ll depart for
Bolck-Azock as soon as I find them.”

“Aye,” said Bilik.

Curznack knelt beside Lizneth. She tried to turn away, but he
seized her by the jaw and jerked her around to face him. “I’ll introduce you to
Vril and Tazkitt when we return.” He slid his tongue down the side of a
longtooth and leered at her. “Or maybe I’ll let them introduce themselves.” His
eyes smiled, but his face was joyless.

A bell rang somewhere, signaling the arrival of a new ship or
the departure of an old one bound for distant shores. Judging by the bustle of
activity outside, Lizneth guessed there must’ve been many ships at port, but
the tiny gaps around the oars offered her a limited view. She didn’t know how
far through the belly of the Aionach the Omnekh’s waters flowed, or what
strange and unfamiliar peoples lived along its banks. She only knew that in the
innards of that slavers’ galley, with the silence lingering and the slaves and
crew and Curznack staring at her like there was nothing more amusing in all the
Aionach, she would sooner have been on any of those other vessels, bound for
any of those other places, than here.

Curznack turned without another word and left the hold in
deliberate strides, nodding to Bilik as he passed.

“Get them topside,” Bilik told the other taskmasters when
Curznack had gone.

They brought Lizneth and the others above, where they could
finally look out over the port and take in the sights. There were ships of all
make and manner docked along a stretch of shoreline spanning thousands of fathoms
in either direction; she saw the upturned oars of graceful wooden galleys, the
sleek-tipped fans of paddleboats, the smooth stiff masts and furled sails of
windblown schooners, and the bodies of gigantic freighters, their steel hulls spotted
with corrosion. More were coming and going all the time, from dinghies bearing a
single pair of oars to great squared behemoths with hundreds on either side.

The daylight hurt Lizneth’s eyes so much that it was
difficult to turn toward the cave opening. Black gulls squalled and hung on the
hot gusts that swept through from the outside and clashed with colder drafts
from within, as if the whole blind-world was sighing through the mouth of the
cave. The breeze sent loose rigging lines snaking over the decks and set the
sailcloth to cracking, but Lizneth found the air too muggy for her liking.

“The ships row in and sail out,” said Dozhie, still beside
her on the line. “That’s what they say about coming to Sai Calgoar. The wind is
so strong here it drives you away, but Curznack will have us row, even under
sail. As bad as rowing is, be thankful we’re not on one of those big ships. The
wheelboats work with propellers or paddles. The slaves stand around a big
spoked wheel and push it in circles with their legs, and the propellers spin
behind the boat. I’d rather work sitting down, wouldn’t you?”

The crew didn’t trouble themselves with buckets. Instead,
they tied off each slave one at a time and threw them overboard, dragged them along
the bow, and let them drip dry on the deck. When it was Lizneth’s turn, the
taskmasters began whispering to one another while her line was being tied off.
She stepped to the edge, but before she had time to take a breath, they tripped
up her feet and shoved her overboard. She could hear their laughter echoing out
across the water as she fell. She hit the water face first, a frigid slap that
stole her breath away.

They slackened the line, and the sound of their voices
bubbled away under the pressure of liquid in her ears. She began to sink,
with no air in her lungs and no idea which way was up. The
manacles around her feet and hands were fastened with lengths of chain too
short to allow for much useful paddling. By the time she managed to flip right
side up and acclimate herself, her lungs were screaming and her head felt like
it might burst. She clawed at the side of the ship for a handhold, but the
curve of the hull had fallen too far out of reach.

Lizneth spent a long, terrible moment scrabbling against the
current, looking up through bleary eyes into the faint traces of glittering
light that danced across the water’s surface. She watched the ship above her
grow smaller, hoping that by some miracle her manacles would break so she could
paddle toward the air. Then the meandering curl of rope went taut. She felt it
tighten around her waist as they trailed her lengthwise along the side of the
ship like shark bait. The journey to the surface took ages, and when they
finally brought her up for a breath, she was heaving and coughing.

She was still gasping for breath when they began to pull her
aft again, and she slid beneath the surface for another long, scary interlude.
It was a torturous haul to the deck, each tug on the rope crushing her insides
as she hung there like a wet rag, hacking and sputtering. Her throat made a
gruff croaking sound as she tried to cough past the water, until finally she
vomited wet green onto the deck. The process of drying wasn’t much better; the
other slaves splashed her with icy water as they came back on board, and again
when they rung out their fur. The air from the blind-world gave her the
occasional rush of warmth, but instead of helping her dry it only turned the
water tepid beneath her clothes and made her fur feel like it was soaked in
oil.

One last look at the shoreline before the taskmasters sent
them below again made Lizneth reconsider the wish she’d made earlier. The
calaihn
were ugly and strange and frightening, and she didn’t want to belong to one. Staying
with her own kind—Dozhie and Bresh and Fane and the others—would be better than
being left alone so far from home, even if she had to suffer Curznack. Perhaps
if she spent the journey back studying the taskmasters and crew, learning
everything there was to know about their habits and routines, she’d find some
way to escape when they returned to Bolck-Azock.

“I’m so sorry,
cuzhe
,” Bresh said, after the
taskmasters had fed them from a pot of unidentifiable gruel and left them in
the rowing hold.

“For what?” Lizneth asked.

“Curznack isn’t selling you. Spending any more time with him
must be the last thing you want.”

“What about you? Don’t you want to be sold so you can get off
this boat?”

“We’re here because we’re all too old and used to be worth
anything,” Dozhie said. “Curznack would have to sell half a dozen of us before
it got him a decent return. You, you’re still young and bright-eyed and
healthy.”

“And you’re a
scearib
,” Fane said. “A few more trips
across the Omnekh and your fur will be yellowed, your longteeth overgrown, and
your back bent like a warped plank. You’ll be as broken as we are.”

Bresh slapped Fane’s arm with her tail. “Fane. How can you
say such things? Don’t you think she’s traumatized enough as it is?”

“I was… I—” Fane began, but he gave up when he saw the way
Bresh and Dozhie were looking at him.

“It’s alright,” said Lizneth. “I know what’s in store for me
if I stay aboard. But I’d rather go back to Bolck-Azock than stay here.”

Bresh clucked, her face drawing softer. “Oh, you poor sweet
cuzhe
.
We aren’t going there again. Not for a long time. When Curznack finds his
brood-brothers, we sail for Rustwick. It’ll be months before we’re in
Bolck-Azock again. I thought you knew…”

Something churned in the pit of Lizneth’s stomach. She wanted
to cry, but she had no tears left. The floorboards were knurled, and the wood
was graying with bilge-slime, but she stared down at the floor as though it
held the answers she needed. She lifted her hands and heard the chains
clink
as they drew tight through the ring. She lowered them, lifted them again.
Clink
.
Again, forcefully this time, but the ring
clinked
and held steady.
Again, and the memory of being tossed over the waves came like a nagging ache
on her mind, while the thought of the hot wind and the garish light outside
proved no better. The feeling of being trapped between two harrowing
circumstances spoke a soliloquy of inescapable torment. She pulled at her
chains again, and there were tears burning in her eyes. Again, not feeling the
pain. Again, not hearing the whine rise in her throat and turn into a scream.

“
Cuzhe
, calm down. It’s okay,” said Bresh, but Lizneth
was tugging at her chains, chittering and wailing and bucking, unfazed by the
way the manacles were biting into her wrists.

“Shut her up. She’ll get us all scourged,” someone said.

“Lizneth, control yourself,” Fane shouted.

The door to the hold opened and footsteps creaked on the
stairs, but Lizneth didn’t care who was coming. She had to break free; she
couldn’t bear the thought of another agonizing journey over the water, let
alone several of them, if that’s how long it would take to get home again.

It was Bilik, of course. When he saw what Lizneth was doing,
he strode across the room and gave her a solid crack across the ear. The knuckles
stung, but she endured two more of his blows before the pain was enough to
make her stop. She sank to the floor, defeated.

“Up,” Bilik said. “Two feet and a tail.”

Lizneth stood, head and shoulders hung, and Bilik unhooked
her from the ring. In her first moment of freedom, a frenzy stirred within her.
She made a dash for it, slamming her hip into a surprised Bilik as she tried to
get past him. The maneuver proved feeble; Bilik stayed on his feet, grabbing
her by the arm and wrenching her toward him. She squirmed and bit down on his
hand, but he held her tight, ignoring the blood that began to run through his
fur.