Chapter Three #2
His heart raced. He stopped in the sand. The heat swirled
around his head. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“No.” She stepped forward, poking a claw down into his
chest. “You tell me, Isaac. You ever gone a day in your life without food in
your belly?”
Isaac stared back at her.
Her claw pressed deeper. “You stand on a street corner, and
you watch some fat pig nobleman saunter by with fresh bread in his hooves, and
you listen to the little pup next to you crying from hunger, and you tell me
you wouldn’t snatch that loaf without a second thought.”
The air was hot and swirling.
“Maybe I would,” Isaac said. “Even still, I wouldn’t pretend
to be better than I am.”
Her ears flattened. The poleaxe on her back glinted in the
sun. Carefully, she leaned over him, speaking in a low growl. “How about you
keep your focus on tombs and mages and absent fathers? Clearly, it’s all you
intend to know.”
She shouldered past him, knocking him to the side with a
brush of her leather vambrace. Isaac caught his balance in the sand. He tried
to steady his breath.
Eventually, he followed her.
They continued on. The distance across the dunes was slowly
scraped away, like sand brushing grooves into rock. With a shawl tied around
his torso, Isaac felt some measure of relief from the heat, though it ended up
being little comfort in the end. His legs ached. Each step through the sand was
more exhausting than the last. Retrieving a waterskin from his pack was
difficult with his hands tied in front of him, and the water itself was
invariably hot.
A short distance ahead, Zaria kept a steady marching pace.
Her tail flowed through a hole in her knee-length trousers, shifting with each
of her steps. The wild mohawk of hair on her head and neck flowed down her
upper back, brushing up through the white fabric of her shawl. Below her
shoulders, her vest was beginning to tinge with spots of fresh red. She must
have wounds on her back, ones that still wept with blood.
He hadn’t seen her receive any injuries during their escape,
though she had been a prisoner of the pirates for some time before.
Had they tortured her?
Were those old wounds reopening again?
Further down, at the base of her tail, the curve of her ass—
Isaac blinked, looking away. He tried to recall his map.
Zaria had taken possession of it, but he knew the gravesite was fairly close.
If they kept travelling at their current pace, they would reach the tomb of the
necromancer before noon tomorrow.
He felt a quiver in his chest.
He almost couldn’t believe it. All his life, he had imagined
how the unplundered capital of the ancient necromancers would appear. A tomb
built around the colossal skeleton of some ancient giant, sinking deep into the
earth, its corridors built under the arches of ribs and petrified muscle. How
dusty were its halls? What kind of engravings would line the burial chambers?
Where would his father lie amongst all that ancient ruin?
In less than a day, he would finally know. It almost didn’t
seem real.
He glanced at Zaria again.
He couldn’t fail his father now.
“So,” Isaac called out, his voice rusty from exertion. “What
did you do to anger your friends? Why did they imprison you?”
Zaria’s tail immediately stiffened. “I’d cease my gab if I
were you, Isaac.”
“You were giving plenty of it before.”
“At your expense. Not mine.”
He quickened his pace, closing the gap between them. “Was it
just between you and your shipmates?”
She kept walking ahead of him.
“Zaria,” he called again, “I need to know if the other
pirates are going to search for you.”
She looked up at the sky. Sand fluttered from her mohawk.
“Aye, they will. That’s why we need the distance. All we can do is hope the
wind covers our tracks.”
“Oh,” Isaac said. “That is terrific. Truly. Not only have
you kidnapped me for coin, but you’ve also sicced a band of cutthroats after
me. Is there anything else you care to hamper my mission with? Perhaps an
assassin? A court jester, to complete the farce?”
“Tell you what, squire,” she replied. “If you continue to
slow us down, I’ll be sure to tell them who blew up one of their prized magic
ships.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t you start thinking you’ll get off
better than me.”
“Hey,” Isaac said. “What did you do?”
She shifted her white shawl, scratching the fur of her neck.
“At this point, I have a right to know.”
Her ears fell.
“Week or so back,” the hyena said, staring off into the
middle distance, “we got a contract for moving cargo from one of the Diet
kingdoms, some royal shipping company or other that wanted their goods
delivered to an outpost deep in the shrubland. I forget the name. Should’ve
paid attention.”
“A king hired pirates to move his supplies?”
“Sure. Best insurance one can buy. Who’s going to steal from
a pirate ship?”
“The pirates themselves, I imagine.”
She gave a small snort. “I believe the ledger keepers call
it loss reduction. Skimming from the top is better than stealing wholesale.”
She waved a hand. “Anyway, we get the merchandise, we set sail, everything’s to
order. We pass up more than one caravan since the contractor made such a fuss
about fast delivery.
“Night three or four, I’m posting watch, and I hear a cry
from the cargo deck. I check it out, as you do, but there’s no one below. Still
hear the crying. Sounds real pitiful like. Finally tracked it down to one of
the crates.” Her fist balled at her side. “Crack it
open and there’s three tiger kittens staring up at me. Starved and covered in
their own filth. Next crate I check has two young horses, and one’s clearly
been dead a while. Third has humans. Fourth was boars. You get the idea.”
Isaac almost spoke. He decided to wait.
“By then,” Zaria said, “my shipmates come down as well,
because I’m making a ruckus, and the kits are cryin’ loud. First one brave
enough to approach asks what the hell I’m doing. I ask him if he knew we were
transporting slaves. Children, at that. He tells me no, but why should he care?
Job paid too well to ask questions. Hopefully, they hire us again. Then he
kicks the crate and screams at the kittens to stop crying so much.
“Before I know it, I’ve split his head open. Next two
shipmates liked me some so they try calming me. I tell them clear as I can that
the next person who gets near these kits is dead. By then, more are coming
down.” She gazed off towards the horizon. “I’m so beside myself that I kill
nine others before a different plan strikes me. Managed to push them out and
barricade the stairs long enough to rig a satchel of black powder next to the
hull. Blew a hole in the ship, resealed the crates, and started dumping them
out the side.”
She shrugged.
“We were close enough to a border town for the garrison to
hear the noise. I dumped a third of the cargo before the crew broke through and
pinned me down. From there, the skimmer broke hard to avoid pursuit, so I know
they never picked what I tossed. That’s something.”
She spent the next few moments walking in silence.
“They tortured me a couple days. Tied right to the mast, no
food or water. Everyone who lost a mate got a turn.”
She fingered one of the bleeding wounds on her back.
“Captain kept them in line, for the most part. Traitors like
me get reserved for special treatment. She wanted to haul me back to Crookspur,
way deep in the canyonlands, and spill my guts for the other crews to see.”
Zaria gave a rough, humorless snort. “See, though, that’s the thing. She had
live cargo. If she makes the journey to Crookspur, it’ll spoil on her. And she
has a reputation of keeping her word.”
Isaac kept walking behind her.
“So,” Zaria continued, “she’s forced to hail down another
ship, and she tosses me on board, and she promises to chew my guts like straw, and
then she fucks off to sell children like cattle, as she promised. I was on that
second skimmer for a couple hours. Then, of course, you came along, and you
burned it down. And now we’re here.”
The hyena glanced at him.
“Just so we’re clear,” she said. “I ain’t goin’ back. Not
for you, and neither for fear of what’s in that tomb up ahead. Not for
nothin’.”
“I understand,” Isaac replied.
“Do you?”
“. . . I think so.”
She made a noise in her throat, turning back. “Good.”
Isaac watched her carefully. “There weren’t any slaves
on that ship, right? The one I found you on? The one I. . . .”
“The one you burnt to cinders?”
“I mean, yes, if that skimmer wasn’t your original vessel,
then there wasn’t anyone else imprisoned there, correct? There weren’t any . .
. bystanders?”
She glanced back at him. “Is my squire suggesting he would
have stopped his holy mission to rescue a couple kittens?”
“Yes! Of course I would!” He felt startled by the question.
“What kind of person do you take me for? I would’ve helped.”
She grunted, still watching him.
Isaac looked away.
“Something else on your mind?” Zaria asked.
“Well. . . .” He thought about her story, picking through
the details. “How many other ships are loaded with slaves? Who’s paying for all
this?”
“You know,” she said. “I’ve been wondering that, myself.”
“Which Diet kingdom gave you the cargo?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does! Slavery is expressly forbidden under the
mandate of the nine kingdoms. This king is breaking several treaties. He should
be brought to justice.”
Zaria snorted, as if that was funny.
“I. . . .” Isaac fiddled with his hands, working against the
rope. The wind was very quiet. “I don’t know.”
“Aye. Me neither.”
He gazed off into the distance, over the wrinkled hills of
sand, looking for the rising spiral of smoke or the glowing sails of a skimmer.
He saw nothing but sand and sky.
“That satisfy your curiosity, Isaac?”
“In some ways, sure.”
“Good. If we’re done gabbing, then, we should hurry the
pace. The more distance we get, the better.”
He looked down at his feet. “Lead the way.”
“Oh,” she said, looking at the horizon, “that I do intend.”