The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (54 page)

Lizneth beamed, unable to suppress a smile of her own. “Are
we going back to Gris-Mirahz now?” she said, hoping Artolo had forgotten about
the
Halcyon
.

“Not just yet,
ledozhe
. I have a ship to search first.
Take us around back so we can stay hidden from view.”

Lizneth guided the canoe around to the upturned side of the
Halcyon
,
putting the barnacle-encrusted ship between themselves and the port. Morning
was coming on and the docks were livening up. They were in plain view of a
dozen other ships to either side, but the route they’d taken through the rocks
would offer them a quick escape if the need arose.

Artolo donned a set of climbing spikes and tossed a grappling
hook over the top of the
Halcyon
, fastening the other end of the long hempen
rope to the hand hold on the bow of the canoe. “I’m just going up to take a
quick look around. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Lizneth watched him disappear over the top. She could hear
his claws scraping over the deck for a long time afterward, but eventually the
surf washed away the sounds of his movement. Short waves rolled beneath the
canoe and lapped against the galley, the seabed below reflecting gray and green
through its glassy shroud. Lizneth contented herself to watch the other ships
and the bodies crawling over them, always keeping one eye on the
eh-calai
in the boat with her. He never moved, but for the slow rise and fall of his
chest.

Artolo returned minutes later, carrying a flour sack so full to
the brim that Lizneth could see the items he’d plundered through the space
between the threads. When he’d recovered his rope and grappling hook, they
rowed back toward Gris-Mirahz, taking turns paddling and watching over their
unconscious prisoner. Artolo wanted to know more about Lizneth’s home and family,
he said, and he began to ask her questions he’d never asked her before. He listened
in silence, offering his own counterpoint to the answers she gave, telling her
about his old life and his small family in Zekuza, a town over the Omnekh to
the west. He seemed at times to forget about everything else, his loot and
their prisoner included, and focus his whole attention on Lizneth.

They reached Gris-Mirahz just before midday. Lizneth was
surprised to see a group of Artolo’s hangers-on waiting for them on the beach.
They dragged the captive ashore, and Artolo instructed them to bring the
eh-calai
straight to Jakrizah. After they’d left, Lizneth and Artolo returned the canoe
to its hiding place on the secluded strip of sand outside the village. They
offloaded their supplies and plunder, then camouflaged the canoe in the sand
again.

Lizneth began to gather up armfuls of their things to head
back, but Artolo stopped her.

“Let’s not rush,” he said, his hands on her shoulders.

Lizneth set her things down. When Artolo pulled her into his
arms, she didn’t resist. She breathed in his
haick
and felt the warmth
of his chest beneath the comforting layer of dark fur. Now that she was there,
she didn’t want to move away.

“You were great today,” Artolo said. “If I was cross with you
for a minute there, it’s only because I wanted it to go well. It did, and Mama
Jak’s going to be happy. She’s going to give you everything you need to get
home overland. I only wish you wouldn’t leave so soon.”

“You’re making me want to stay,” Lizneth heard herself say.
She regretted the words as soon as she’d spoken them. “But I can’t. I have to
see my family again.”

Artolo drew his arms tight around her and nuzzled her face
with his.

She could feel his air on her neck, and the soft tingle of
his breath gave her chills. She tensed up, suddenly aware that this was heading
somewhere she didn’t want it to go. They were wrapped up in each other now, the
black of Artolo’s fur against the white of hers. It was a contrast as stark as
the opposite shores of the Omnekh on which they’d been raised. Lizneth had never been held
by a buck this way, except for Papa. She knew it was wrong, but the feeling was
so new and thrilling that she couldn’t find it within herself to push him away.
Artolo was a swindler, just as Jakrizah had warned her—a rogue and a criminal,
no better than Curznack himself. Lizneth had gained freedom from her slavery,
and yet they’d taken a slave of their own today. Why did she crave Artolo this
way? Why did she find him so hard to resist?

Artolo’s mouth was open now, his hands down at her waist.
When he pressed himself against her, she felt the tension rising in him.

“No,” she made herself say, pressing her hands to his chest.

Artolo held back at Lizneth’s brief protest, waiting, but not
saying a word. They breathed together, their bodies heaving with the passion of
their restraint as they stood on the sheltered little beach, enveloping one
another, with the distant glow of Gris-Mirahz behind them and faint traces of
Sai Calgoar beyond.

Lizneth told herself it was time to resist him. She didn’t
want a mate. She’d never wanted one. Least of all, a mate whom she would never
see again after tomorrow. But Artolo’s arms were strong, and his longteeth were
hovering just over the scruff of her neck, and his breath was coming faster
now. The way he held her there made her forget about resisting. There was an
ache inside her, and as she breathed him in and indulged herself in his scent
and felt the size and power of his body over her, it grew into an ache that only
he could soothe.

Soon Artolo began to nuzzle her again. This time, she slipped
her hands beneath his arms and pulled him toward her. She could feel his
well-worked shoulder muscles gliding along his back, lean and lithe. When he
closed his mouth around the scruff of Lizneth’s neck, he was firm, but gentle.
His grip made her whole body shudder, and the sensation was unlike anything
she’d ever felt before. She wanted him, and there was nothing else. Before she
knew what was happening, Artolo had flung himself around behind her and pushed
her into the sand. The weight of him and the force of his hold overwhelmed her.

The ache had grown until it was all Lizneth could think
about. She stretched her legs back, reaching for him, grabbing at him,
desperate for him. It took him several tries to enter her, but when he did, the
pain between her legs was so fierce and good it made her gasp. Then he was
driving into her, frantic and uninhibited. They slid through the sand as one,
his body bearing down on hers, making it hard to breathe. It was strange how
heavy he felt, how powerful for one so thin. Only a brief moment passed before Artolo
made a loud squeak, gruff and strange, and collapsed onto her, breathing
heavily.

His weight had become too much.

“Get off,” Lizneth managed to say, propping herself up with
one arm and shouldering him aside.

He rolled over and landed next to her on his back, smiling,
his chest heaving. Lizneth filled her lungs, feeling at once foolish and
ashamed. The whole act seemed silly now, absurd and humiliating. Her body still
ached, but now it was a painful ache, tinged with guilt. She didn’t know what
had come over her, but she decided she would never let it happen again.

“I could never leave Gris-Mirahz,” Artolo was saying, his
tone quite a bit different than it had been moments ago. “Not for good. I go to
see my family sometimes, but Papa and I are much too busy with our work here to
visit often.”

“Your Papa? He lives in Gris-Mirahz?”

Artolo shook his head. “He’s a trader. He shares time between
Zekuza and Bolck-Azock, but he comes here all the time, too.”

“And you trade for him? That’s what gets you all those cuts
and bruises?”

“Not exactly,” Artolo said, laughing between heaving breaths.
He nudged the
eh-calai
’s bag with his foot. “When I’m not picking up
other work, I do this for him. Mama Jak and I both.”

“You and Mama Jak both…”

“My Papa’s sick. We’ve been working on something to make him
better. I’m sick too; we all are, in my family. Except my mother, of course.
That’s why Papa only sired one litter; we were all born sick, like him. It’s
not so bad yet with my brood-siblings and I. It really hits you when you get to
be a
twozhe
.”

“What kind of a sickness is it? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“Of course not, if you think you have a strong enough
stomach. It’s a flesh-borne disease. You just… decay. Atrophy. It’s
degenerative, which means that over time, the muscles and the skin lose their
strength, their flexibility. It’s like putting meat in a stew; it gets soft and
tender and falls apart—”

“Okay, that’s enough. I get it,” Lizneth said. She had
started to feel sick, but not because of his description. Her thoughts had taken
her back to Bolck-Azock, to the mouthful of flesh and hair and the scent of old
Morish’s
haick
, thick in her nostrils.
I knew Artolo’s haick was
familiar. Like his father’s. He’s Morish’s son. Artolo is Morish’s son. How
didn’t I scent it before? Only Morish’s scent was so corrupted by disease, I
could barely scent the true haick beneath it. The eh-calai we captured today is
to be used for Morish’s aezoghil. For his experiments. And Jakrizah is the one
who does them
.

“You okay?” Artolo asked, concern in his eyes.

Lizneth gave him a calm nod and tried not to let her sudden
insight show. “Yes. Definitely,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Good,” Artolo said. “My Papa’s ship was supposed to have
arrived last week, but there were delays. He should be here before you go. I
want you to meet him. I think you’d like each other.”

CHAPTER 48

Banishing

The infirmary was still in an uproar when Merrick
returned. The Second Mobile Ops had followed him back from the underground
springs, but he’d been running the whole way, and it was easy to outpace them
when he ignited.

He began to tend to the wounded as soon as he got there. The
ignition, and the subsequent glow, came to him without effort. The warmth
bubbled up from deep in his chest, and he found that he could compress the burn
to make it flow more slowly and steadily to prevent his fingers from getting
too hot. He could start and stop as he willed, and he could turn it up or down
as long as he was touching someone who needed it.

Some of the patients had lost their limbs, and in those cases
Merrick’s healing only served to cover the dismemberment sites with fresh scar
tissue. Others had sustained damage to internal organs, and he couldn’t always
tell what happened when he laid hands on them. He could only guess that his
gift was curing their ailments as best it could. The healing wasn’t
regenerative, but it seemed to stimulate and speed the body’s natural healing
process many times over.

Wax and the Second Platoon were out of breath when they
stormed through the infirmary doors. Merrick could tell by the Commissar’s
frantic mannerisms that they were looking for him. He didn’t care what Wax
planned to do; he was busy making people better, and he wouldn’t stop until
he’d touched every last person in a bed and righted the wrongs of the
Decylumites. Knowing those men were still at large somewhere in the city still
angered him.
They have these powers, and they think tearing people apart is
the right way to use them?

“Cuff the traitor and throw him in the jailhouse,” Wax said.

Merrick looked up from his patient to find himself surrounded
by the men of the Second. Admison Kugh, Coker Reed, and Jettle Trimbold had
their rifles leveled at him, their faces somber and apologetic. Something in
their look told him they were doing more than just following orders.
Somewhere
along the way back, Wax managed to turn them against me. He told them I was
dangerous, or something.
Merrick doubted he would be able to sway them back
to his side before they carried out Wax’s orders.

“Sorry, Bouch,” Kugh said. “Gotta take you in.”

“I’m healing these people. These are
your
men,
Commissar. At least let me finish returning them to health before you throw me
in jail.”

“That’s not your place, Corporal,” said Pilot Wax. “I hereby
discharge you from active service. As of this second, you’re no longer a
Scarred Comrade.”

“I’m not doing any of this to serve you,” Merrick said. “Not
anymore.” He took his hands off his patient, a member of the Fifth who’d been
thrown out of a building during the battle at the jailhouse.

The man got up and walked away as simply as if he’d just
woken from a nap. Physicians swarmed him with release papers as he tried to
leave the infirmary.

“You’re a traitor to the city north, and a hazard to these
men,” said Lieutenant Larabee. “You staged a jailbreak to set your friends
free, and then you led the entire Second Platoon into a dead-end to distract us
from recapturing them. The wounded need rest and medical attention. You’re not
a doctor, Corporal. You have no medical training, and I won’t allow you to pose
a further threat to their well-being. You
will
step away from that bed
and allow yourself to be cuffed.”

Merrick rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? You gotta be
coffing kidding me. Did you not just see—”

Larabee slammed a fist into Merrick’s stomach and sent him
stumbling backward.

“Calm down, you asshole,” Merrick said, clutching his belly.
Anger boiled inside him—the same kind of anger he’d felt while the shepherd was
taunting him.
You can’t heal him to death
, Merrick reminded himself.
But what about those red orbs? The ones I saw from the top of Mobile Ops
command. The one the prisoner used to shield himself from my gunfire and cut
through the bars of his cell. I bet I could make one too. I just need to figure
out how
.

“Turn toward the wall and show us your hands,” said Larabee,
sour-faced and smug.

“You’re all nuts,” Merrick said, obeying. “Every time a man
dies because I wasn’t here to heal him, it’s your fault. Remember that, Wax.”

He felt cold steel against his wrists and heard the ratchets
click-click-click
the handcuffs into place.

“Take him,” said the Commissar.

Merrick stared Wax down as they pushed him past. “You’d still
be lying in that bed if it weren’t for me.”

“If it weren’t for you, I’d have three more children. Human
civilization would have three more people to pass its legacy onto. Instead,
there’s you. A delusional little twerp who wants to take everything I’ve worked
for and keep it for himself. You’re not taking anything from me, civilian. The
Scarred Comrades have been standing strong since long before you ever became
one of us, and we’ll go on long after without you. You won’t be missed.”

Merrick blinked. There was an emptiness nagging at the pit of
his stomach, the kind that would’ve brought him to the verge of tears when he
was a child. The kind he felt every time his dad had ever made a scapegoat of
him. That had happened every day, once.
Hard luck needs a hard will
, his
father’s voice told him.
The Aionach won’t go easy on you. Why should I?
Merrick was used to the feeling. It was the feeling of his identity being torn
away, one page at a time, ripped from the person he should’ve been.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Where I should’ve had you taken a long time ago,” said the
Commissar.

“But I can save these people.”

“The people don’t need a savior. They have me.” He turned to
his men. “Bind Mr. Bouchard’s hands and feet and throw him in the desert. I’m
sure there’s something out there that needs saving. I’m sure a good fat meal
like this one would do it.”

When they took Merrick by the arms and escorted him out,
Pilot Wax watched him go with a satisfied look.

It was sometime around midnight by the time they’d
folded Merrick over the back of a horse, ridden him two horizons past the
outskirts, and dumped him in the sand. The night was a deep royal blue, and the
stars shone pale from a clear sky. Admison Kugh gave Merrick a piteous look
from atop his horse as the others tried to decide what to do with him. They
began to deliberate about Merrick as he lay on the ground below them, listening
to everything they were saying. These men had been his friends, or at least,
they’d respected him enough once to trust him. Now he was nothing but scum in
their eyes.

“We could kill him. Wax would never know the difference,”
said Stagg Gilbighton, a shifty-eyed corporal who cracked his neck when he was
nervous.

“No. Wax might ask, and I don’t want to put myself in a
position to have to lie to the Commissar,” Histus Nazzal said through a jungle
of gray-brown beard.

“If Wax thought he was a real threat, he would’ve killed the
dway himself,” Kugh said. “He kills his problems and lets the wasteland handle
the rest.”

It was an indirect attempt at reconciliation, Merrick knew,
the way Kugh was trying to convince them to spare his life. The gesture was as
good as stabbing someone and then handing them a bandage, as far as Merrick was
concerned.
Kugh can keep his coffing bandage. I’d rather bleed
.

“I agree with Kugh. Our orders were to leave him here and let
the desert deal with him,” said Cynus Maljorian. His complexion was so dark as
to render him near-invisible against the night sky, a man who looked part
savage and part Farstrander, like the seafaring folk from Port Angosia or
Yellow Harbor.

“Have it your way,” said Stagg Gilbighton. “Let’s get out of
here.”

Merrick heard something thud in the sand as they wheeled
their horses and rode away. He waited until their shapes failed in the darkness
before he crawled to where he’d heard the noise. A knife. Standard issue, if
there was such a thing in the Scarred. The blade was stuck in the sand, dropped
straight down. Intentionally, maybe.

It took him at least half an hour to free himself from his
bonds, cutting through the thick rope little by little with small, awkward
strokes. All he had on were the trousers he’d found outside the jailhouse. He
couldn’t go home and get his belongings. Birch would still be shining in its
holster, locked away in the chest at the foot of his bed. His clothes, his
uniform—even the little guitar with two broken strings he hadn’t touched in a
long year. They’d all sit there gathering dust forever, until his bunkmates
realized he was gone for good and made his things their own.
What am I
supposed to do now? I don’t have a home to go back to
.
The nomads will
find me when daylight comes, and when they see the mark, they’ll kill me
.

Merrick had to wonder how he’d managed to become one of the
most powerful men in the city and get banished in the same night.
Wax didn’t
want me, after all. It didn’t matter how much I had to offer. He wants to be
surrounded by people who say ‘yes’ to him, not people who challenge his
leadership. Why would he? That’s how he’s kept his hold over the city for so
long. He kills his problems
.

Some animal gave a gruesome howl in the distance. Merrick knew
he couldn’t stay here, but where could he go, if not back toward the city? The
desert was as foreign to him as his own mother’s face, something he’d always
seen from a distance but had never touched. He was getting tired. Not only
because it was the middle of the night, but because the strain of healing and
the stress of being held captive had worn him down. He shuddered at the thought
of sleeping on the sand, of scorpions scrabbling over his skin, of the carrion
feeders circling above, and of the hounds and foxes and wild dogs who had
already smelled him and would help him die if he let them. Would it be any
safer in the city south? He hadn’t lived there since he was a child, but he
decided it was his best chance—his only chance.

The wind streaked past him as he ran. He let the heat
smolder, flowing from his chest down to his fingertips in a slow, controlled
burn. It was starting to feel more natural to him now, but the sensation was
still painful and clumsy, like some strange bulk sitting on his shoulders,
bearing down on his lungs. He didn’t know how to stop it from happening, so he
ignored it instead.

Running back to the outskirts took him less time than it had
taken his bearers to ride him out. He angled his approach to stay well south of
Bucket Row, hidden from the men in the birdhouses. The Sentries—what a laugh
that had been. One day the Scarred would be his. He swore it to himself then,
as if the thought had just entered his mind for the first time. He would unseat
Wax and take his place. He only hoped the men he had healed knew what he’d done
for them, and why. It was his best chance of gaining support in the city north.

There was a ratty laundromat a few blocks inside the city. Merrick
kept to the deepest shadows as he made his way there, knowing it was foolish to
expect kindness from any southers he came across. He could see an apartment and
a tiny storage room on the second floor above the laundromat. From the rear, he
could see shattered windows and one collapsed corner of the building that had
fallen into a shallow sinkhole.

Water stains still patterned the cheap tile floor within.
There were bare spots in the shape of the old washing machines, bordered in lint
and grime. Merrick ascended the stairs, creaking wood beams bowed and
splintered by the collapse. He climbed out onto the fire escape and pulled himself
up to the flat, gravel-covered terrace roof. He tried not to make noise as he
walked over the gravel, but the way it dug into his bare feet made the task
laborious. There was a shredded blue tarp near the HVAC unit in the middle of
the roof, but he didn’t find signs that anyone might be living here.

Looking out over the street, he saw a row of storefronts, a
few office buildings, and a concrete overpass that arched like a flat snake
above the city. There was an old Ministry government building in the distance,
trimmed in triangular pediments of discolored limestone. A grand staircase and
columns as fat as ancient trees adorned the building’s front, but the overall
effect was that of a thing decaying, like a tarnished silver cup hidden on a
back shelf.

A shadow moved atop the roof of the Ministry building—or so
Merrick thought. The shadow melded itself with the dome on the building’s roof
and was gone too fast for him to be sure.

He descended the fire escape and found a stained mattress in
the apartment below. The springs poked him in the back when he lay down, and
his hands were bleeding from the gift, but he was too tired to care about
either discomfort. He had pushed himself too hard in getting here, maybe. But
he could rest now.
If the Commissar really does kill his problems,
Merrick
thought, as he drifted off to sleep,
then he must not have considered me a
problem. He should have
.

It struck Merrick as odd that he could stay asleep so long
with the mattress coils poking him in the spine and the light-star shining full
in his face, but somehow, half the morning had passed before he woke. He was
drenched in sweat, and a vague outline of his shape darkened the mattress when
he got up. His fingers had crusted over and started to heal, but his legs still
ached from all the running he’d done the night before.

The streets around the laundromat were empty. The echoes of shouting
voices and barking dogs reached him over the rooftops, and he could see lines
of new breakfast smoke trailing into the sky. It was like waking up in a bad
dream and reliving his childhood all at once. But it wasn’t a dream, and that
made it a nightmare as real as any he’d ever known. He was truly outside the
safety of the city north now. The south was an untamed territory where no one
would come running if there was a disturbance; no one decided who was allowed
in or out. There was no law.