The Outworlder (35 page)

“We made it,” he said. “You’re free.”

Sahara swung her gaze from the blue sky to
Jared’s dark eyes, which were just tinged with silver. “I’m
free…but do you think it was a lie?”

“Do I think what was a lie?”

“What it said about Albadir.”

“We’ll find out in a few minutes,” Rafe
said.

Sahara studied Jared for a moment in silence,
then leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.
“I’m tired,” she said. “So tired.”

She felt Jared’s hand close over hers, warm
and strong. “We’ll wake you when we get there,” he said.

She tried to smile, but she couldn’t force
herself to move. Darkness swallowed her.

“Oh, my God.”

Sahara’s eyes snapped open. There was
something in Rafe’s voice, something that told her that things were
horribly wrong.

Jared and Brytnoth were crowded beside him,
and Sahara pushed herself out of her seat, staggering forward to
join them. For a moment, she blinked against the brightness. The
sun was well above the horizon, and Sahara realized that she must
have slept.

“Where do we set her down?” Rafe said.

“Land her just outside the city gate,” Jared
said. “We don’t know the state of things inside.”

“The scanners aren’t picking up anything at
all. Nothing.”

Dread coiled in Sahara’s gut, and she saw
Jared’s jaw tighten. “What does that mean?” she said.

Jared stepped aside to give her a clearer
view out the window. Just ahead of them lay Albadir…or all that was
left of it. The walls were crumbled and smoke billowed from the
southeast corner of the city. The once white buildings were
blackened and tumbled.

Sahara gripped the back of Rafe’s chair until
her knuckles showed white. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

“Don’t get too close,” cautioned Jared. “Set
her down just there, behind that ridge of dunes.” He pointed to a
shallow reef of sand arching up from the desert floor just west of
the main gate.

Rafe nodded and guided the ship toward the
spot. In a few minutes, they were nestled in the sand. Rafe cut the
engines and they sat there, staring out the cockpit window.

“This is all my fault,” Sahara managed, her
voice shaking. “All my fault.”

Rafe unfastened his harness. “Let’s go. Maybe
there are survivors.”

Wordlessly, they made their way down the
ramp. The sand burned Sahara’s feet, and the sun scorched through
her flimsy rag of a gown. Memories seared her mind, memories of the
ruined transport, of the heat and sand and sun, and of Jared’s
smile. And of the Lady Aliya, whose cool, gentle hands had healed
more than just her gashed forehead and sprained ankle.

“And it’s all gone now,” she murmured as they
clambered out of the hollow and made their way to the blasted
gates. “All gone.”

“It’s not your fault,” Brytnoth said, his
voice rough. “This is what happens to everyone who is cursed to
live under the rule of the Dragon-Lords.” His voice stopped as
abruptly as if it had been hacked off with a knife. He was staring
hard at something in the sand before the city gates.

“No, no, no!” he cried suddenly. He dashed
forward and slid down the eastern face of the sand dune.

“Where are you going?” hollered Rafe,
starting after him. “You idiot, if they’re still there—”

“They aren’t!” Brytnoth yelled over his
shoulder as he hit the level and set off at a ferocious pace. “I
know they aren’t!”

They followed him down the dune. As they ran
across the burning sand, Sahara felt the heat scorch away her
weariness and dread. Wrath flowed in to take their place, and as
they reached the spot where Brytnoth stood, staring at the sand
before all that was left of the city they loved, she vowed
revenge.

“They were here, just as they said,” she
said. “They’ve destroyed everything.”

“What the hell are you looking at?” asked
Rafe when he had breath enough to speak clearly. “What made you run
like the devil?”

“Those,” Brytnoth answered, pointing.

They all studied the sand. Finally, Jared
drew in his breath with a hiss.

“There was a ship here,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Brytnoth. “Exactly. Just like
on my own homeworld. They whittled us down to a single wasted city,
and then they came, blasted us out of our homes, and loaded us on a
ship. It’s all coming back to me now. They herded us onto that
damned ship and sent us to our deaths.”

“You think that’s what happened here? You
think that’s what this means?” Rafe asked.

Brytnoth nodded. “But maybe there’s someone
left behind. Maybe they weren’t as totally thorough as they should
have been. Maybe…” He choked and pushed past them, heading through
the twisted metal of the gates and into the blasted street
beyond.

“How could there be anyone left?” Sahara
asked as they followed him. “Wouldn’t they do a sweep?”

“We won’t know for sure until we do a sweep
of our own,” Jared said. “But there’s just one thing more. We can’t
be here too long. Those guards at the temple know we escaped.
They’ll send out a search for us, and if they find us…well, let’s
just say we don’t want to be found. And if we want to leave with
the ship, we have to be gone before dusk. That thing won’t survive
a sandstorm.”

“We’ll salvage what we can for supplies,”
said Rafe. “And maybe we’ll find something that will help us decide
what to do next.”

The city stood in breathless quiet. The main
street into the city was pocked by deep holes and singed stone, and
anything green and living had been utterly destroyed. Sahara
couldn’t help a shudder as they passed a row of what used to be
shops and was now little more than a heap of burnt stone and
timber.

The guilt was weighing her down with every
step. Every burned and blasted building stared at her with
blackened eyes, convicting her.

If I hadn’t pushed them to rebel, this
never would have happened
, she thought
. I wouldn’t have
gotten myself caught…and they wouldn’t have come to destroy the
city.

It was inevitable
, came Jared’s voice
suddenly in her head.
They would have come for us no matter
what. It was only a matter of time.

Sahara glanced up at him. “That’s what you
told me on the day of the battle,” she said aloud. “That I was just
giving them the chance to die sooner.”

“I said a lot of things that day,” Jared
sighed. “I think I wanted to be proven wrong.”

“But you were right.”

Jared didn’t say anything, and Sahara sped up
her pace to catch up with Brytnoth.

The Great House was still partly in flames
when they arrived. Smoke billowed from the eastern wing, and Sahara
could see tongues of fire licking at the windows on the second and
third floors.

“Be careful,” Jared cautioned as they stepped
through the rubble that had once been the front doors. “The
building could come down on us at any moment. We need to be
quick.”

Sahara coughed, the smoke choking her lungs.
There was no sign that fire had reached the central wing of the
building yet, and she glanced down the wide corridor that led to
the dining hall.

“Where should we search?” asked Jared.

Sahara moved slowly down the hall, and she
heard the others following her. “If I was going to hide out in a
ruined city, I’d find a place where I had access to food and
water,” she said softly.

She stopped at one of the long tables and ran
her finger along the grain of the wood. “Somewhere secure,” she
murmured. “Somewhere…” Her voice trailed off, and then her head
snapped up. “I know where. Follow me!”

She led the way through the dining hall and
into the kitchen beyond. On the right hand side was the doorway and
stairs down into the pantry, and she clattered down them.

“The pantry?” Jared said. “They’re sure to
have searched this, Sahara.”

She ignored him and moved to the large shelf
at the back of the low room. She groped behind a heavy pot of honey
and found what she was looking for. A tiny lever in the wall. She
pulled it and stepped aside. The wall to her right shifted
suddenly, slipping open and revealing another set of steps that
fell away into darkness.

“Anyone got a light?” asked Rafe.

“No need,” Sahara said. “Follow me.”

As she started down the stairs, lights
flickered on above them and lit their way.

“How did you find out about this place?”
Jared said. “I’ve never been down here before, have you, Rafe?”

“No.”

Sahara motioned for him to be quiet and led
the way down the corridor. It ended in a wall of glass. A
sophisticated keypad on the right blinked at them. Sahara glanced
up.

“Someone’s been here,” she said. “Someone
else knew about this place.”

“Can you open this?”

Sahara tapped the code into the keypad and
the door slid open. “Yes.”

“What in God’s name is so important that
Arnauld would keep it down here?” Rafe asked. “Those look like wine
barrels.”

Sahara smiled at him and stepped through the
door. “They are. This room is temperature controlled, so Arnauld
stores all the best vintages of wine in here. But that wasn’t its
original purpose.”

“Well, he certainly took advantage of it,”
Brytnoth said, gesturing to the racks of casks that lined the far
wall.

“That’s an incredible supply.”

Jared stopped suddenly and grabbed Sahara by
the arm. “I want to know how you knew about this,” he said. “And I
want to know right now.”

Sahara jerked her arm out of his grasp. “You
say it like you think I wasn’t supposed to know about this. Like I
was some kind of spy.”

“Well?”

“Lady Aliya showed me how to get in here,”
she said. “Because of that.” And she pointed to a case that hummed
along the wall opposite the wine casks.

“What the hell is that?” asked Rafe.

“It’s medicine.”

Jared’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Medicine. Anesthetics. Antibiotics.
Vaccines.” She shrugged.

“We don’t have supplies like that,” Jared
protested. “Our medical supplies dried up a long time ago!”

Sahara arched her eyebrows and pointed. “No,
Jared. They’ve been here all along. Lady Aliya had them stockpiled,
in case there was ever an outbreak or something that couldn’t
effectively be treated with herbs.” She folded her arms. “It’s the
perfect place to hide.”

“You’re right,” someone said from behind
them.

They spun around to face the speaker, and
Jared cried out in surprise.

“Kirin!”

Kirin grinned at them and bowed. “The same.”
Then he called out, “You can come out now, Emma! It isn’t
them.”

“Emma!” cried Brytnoth.

She emerged from behind a row of casks and
came forward, pale and dirty. Her entire face lit up when she saw
Rafe.

“I thought you were dead!” she cried, her
eyes welling with tears. “My God! Where have you been all this
time?”

She ran to him and as Rafe clasped her
tightly in his arms, Sahara saw the relief that flooded his
face.

“I thought they had taken you,” he said, then
he turned to Kirin. “What happened? And how the hell did you know
about this place when none of us did?”

”Lady Aliya told us.”

“How—” began Jared, but Sahara
interrupted.

“Let’s get some food,” she said. “If we’re
going to tell stories, I want to eat first.”

Emma stared at Sahara as though she’d never
seen her before, and the color rose into her face and then faded
just as suddenly. “You’re the one,” she said. “The one they were
going to sacrifice to the dragon!”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go,” said Jared. “I think I saw a good
supply of provisions in the upper pantry.”

They raided the pantry, gathering dried fruit
and nuts, flatbread, some strips of dried meat, a rich and dense
fruitcake, and several flagons of dark red wine. They clustered at
the end of one of the long tables in the dining hall and heaped
their bread with food. As Jared poured the wine, Brytnoth spoke to
Kirin.

“Tell us what happened here,” he said. “And
tell us how you knew about that storage room.”

Kirin clasped his hands and closed his eyes,
and Sahara, glancing up with her mouth full of bread, thought for a
moment that he was praying.

“They came yesterday,” he said slowly. “Just
after the noon meal. We had no warning. The city gates were closed,
but they blasted them open. They flooded the streets and went house
to house, pulling every man, woman, and child out into the street.
There was no bloodshed. Not yet.” He stopped.

“I was here in the Great House,” said Emma,
“and so was Kirin. I was visiting my father. They came through like
a sandstorm and swept us all in here and then they left. That’s
when some of the men decided to attempt overpowering the
guards.”

“Did they?” asked Jared.

“They tried.” Kirin pressed his palms into
his eyes and shook his head. “They were slaughtered. And that set
off our captors. They dragged thirty people out of the crowd and
shot them on the spot. After that, no one dared to move.”

“And that was just the beginning,” Emma broke
in. “It came at sunset. The dragon. They forced all of us out into
the courtyard, in full view of the beast. And then it just…” Her
voice died away for a moment. “Burning. Everything.”

“Everyone was screaming, running,” Kirin
said. “The whole place was chaos. And that’s exactly what they
wanted. They sealed us off from the main street, and there was
nowhere for us to go. I found Emma just by chance. We chose the
same stone bench for shelter, trying to escape being trampled or
burned to death.”

“The guards at the door of the Great House
were overrun,” continued Emma. “Kirin pulled me out from under the
bench and the crowd carried us inside. We were halfway up the
stairs when we met her. Lady Aliya.”