Chapter 12
YUMA
As the four-legged silver giant dangled Trudie by the ankle, Yuma thought of the iridescent nullstones in her pocket.
But the Grim King had given them to her to serve his own purpose, believing he could hold Danras hostage and manipulate her against her will.
Which was why no matter how frightening the iron monster was and how desperate a situation the herders found themselves in, her hand would not reach for the stones and stayed firmly on her crossbow.
Unwavering in her aim, Yuma shouted, “Stop! Or I will shoot the man hanging from your stomach!”
She hoped the giant understood her. That it valued the man under its stomach, that it read the threat in her movements if not her words. But she had no way of knowing whether that hunk of metal would understand, or if the man was important to it—or even alive for that matter.
But it apparently understood, or was at least surprised at her shout, for the metal giant stopped in its tracks. Trudie also stopped screaming. Yuma took this as a good sign.
“Let go of Trudie. Comply, and I will not kill him right away.” Her voice was calmer than it had been a moment ago, placating even. But she could only imagine what the Grim King would do to the spy once she handed him over.
The metal giant did not let go of Trudie, but its movements were more cautious. It did not, at least, attack.
The heat of the burning steppe was licking her back. Trudie no longer struggled or screamed, but her eyes were wide with fear. The other two herders stood silent, looking at Yuma and the giant and back again.
What kind of a country must this Empire be to possess such a weapon?
The metal hide would be impervious to arrows, and the largest sword would at most dent or nick it.
The corpse armies of the Grim King might know no fear, but she didn’t think even scores of the undead attacking that thing at once would slow its pace.
And if the Empire had tens, hundreds of these …
Yuma imagined the silver giants swimming through an ocean of moving corpses. Of the Grim King being dangled by the ankle instead of Trudie.
For the first time since the night Jed and Rizona were killed, Yuma smiled without pretense. The giant slowly started to move the arm holding up Trudie as if to put her down. But Yuma had to stop her sigh of relief in the middle—Trudie was now flying toward her.
She had a split second to fire at the metal giant, but Trudie was in the way. The bolt went flying from her crossbow only after Trudie had crashed into her.
The bolt bounced off the hide of the giant with a twang as Yuma fell off Aston’s back and rolled onto the ground.
Her injuries from her battle with the stormbird flared up with so much pain it made her dizzy.
By the time one of the nullstones was in her hand, the giant was already rearing up to stomp on her face.
But even in that moment, Yuma hesitated in crushing the stone.
Incredibly, the moment was interrupted with a weak shout.
“Fractica…!”
The giant’s leg stopped in midair, and the man in the net rolled out and onto the ground.
He was a slender man, thin in arms and legs and torso, like he had been stretched.
He would have been much taller than she was, had she been standing.
The metal frame around his body resembled scaffolding used in construction, but the frame glowed faintly with violet.
The man had delicate features, the likes of which Yuma had never seen.
He looked exhausted. The torrents from the Grim King must’ve been an ordeal for him.
Yuma kept her eye on him as she propped herself up on her left elbow. With her right hand, she felt around for the crossbow she’d dropped.
“Earnest, regrets.”
The man’s Mersehi was stilted. He pointed at himself.
The frame clicked as it followed his movements.
What she had first taken for the frame’s tint was actually violet light that glowed weaker and stronger according to how he moved.
Yuma’s eyes followed his gestures. He continued to speak, each word an effort.
“Peace. Amity. To Mersia … No, Merseh! Emissary, Empire. To Danras.”
Mersia. There was the word Yuma had been hearing in the markets of Danras in the last few years. Foreign merchants and travelers had begun to refer to Merseh as Mersia, the Mersehi as Mersians. Perhaps it was an Imperial rendition of her homeland’s name?
“Ridiculous, when you’ve brought that fearsome weapon!” Yuma shouted, pointing at the silver giant.
The man mouthed Yuma’s words back to himself, and said, “Ah,” and, his eyes shining, he said in a louder voice, “Averte, Fractica.”
The metal giant was silenced. Only then did Yuma realize it had been humming loudly all along. She got to her feet.
The man said, “Don’t be alarmed.” Then, he collapsed where he stood.
Yuma picked up her crossbow and approached him.
He was still breathing, and his body looked even thinner than her first impression.
His face wasn’t thin, but his arms and legs looked almost devoid of muscle.
She touched his face—he was feverish. Too much shivering in the rain, skinny as he was. The man smiled and his voice was weak.
“I am Lysandros. I do not harm. Do not worry.”
Yuma called for her three herders. The two who had kept their distance out of fright came running. Trudie, dazed but barely hurt, managed to get to her feet. Yuma checked to see if the three of them were all right before giving her orders.
“Find your horses and return to camp. Tell them everything has been put right. When you see Aidan, tell him to send everyone back and come alone.”
The herders tipped their hats and turned away. To their backs, Yuma added, “And tell the Host that we have a patient.”
Thankfully, the wildfire was dying down. If it weren’t for all of the rain a few days ago, this patch of the steppe would not have had enough grass left for the oroxen to feed on. Yuma examined Lysandros more closely. The violet light was gone from his metal scaffolding.
“This frame, it allows you to move, correct? You’re wearing this because it enables you to walk?”
No answer. Lysandros’s eyes were closed, and he was unconscious. He must’ve been very exhausted indeed.
This man had stopped the giant when he couldn’t walk, much less protect himself.
She didn’t know if this was bravery or foolishness.
She stared at his face. Many foreigners came to the market in Danras, but his features did not seem to fit with any of them.
It was hard to tell his age. Maybe twenty-three or so?
Or perhaps even thirty, a year or two older than herself, if the way he acted earlier betrayed his age despite his youthful features, and not the other way around.
Aston was standing far from the fire, looking warily in her direction.
Yuma whistled, and the horse approached reluctantly.
She hugged his neck, praising the beast, and unrolled the sleeping bag she had packed.
She slid Lysandros, frame and all, into it.
His body seemed light enough for her to lift on her own, though the frame around him was heavier.
But if she left him on the damp ground like this, he would lose too much body heat.
But what if he did? Once he was given over to the Grim King, he would be killed anyway, then brought back from the dead, and that’s when the interrogation would begin.
The prospect didn’t thrill her, but she decided she would at least treat him like a guest while he was with her.
That was the custom of the herders of Danras, to extend hospitality to whomever one encountered traveling alone on the steppe.
This was simply another lone traveler—albeit one with a rather unusual, violently tempered, oversized horse. That also had arms and no head.
“Too pretty a face, for a man,” she murmured out loud. She placed a hand on that face. It was still burning. She looked around at the smoldering wildfire. There was someone approaching on horseback. Aidan. Yuma stood up and waved.
Aidan didn’t take his eyes off the metal giant until he reached her.
“What is that thing?”
Yuma glanced at the unmoving giant and said, “A horse.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Aidan stroked his mustache. “What do you intend to do now?”
Looking at the leather sleeping bag with Lysandros inside it, she tried to guess how heavy it was. Probably too much for her to carry alone.
“Did you bring a travois? He has a fever. We should get him to the Host.”
“He’s going to die soon. Why go through so much trouble?” Aidan asked, echoing her earlier thoughts.
But Yuma gave him such a look that Aidan immediately clammed up and unhitched the travois from his saddle. They tied the ends of the travois to Yuma’s saddle before hoisting Lysandros up into it.
“Don’t go too fast, or the grass will leave scratches on his face.”
“As I just said, he’s going to die soon. Whatever we do or don’t do to him is inconsequential.”
“We still have to take care of him until then. He says he’s a foreign emissary.”
Once on Aston’s back, she turned to glance at Lysandros, his face barely visible in the sleeping bag.
The Grim King’s attention was a terrible thing.
Yuma doubted that there was a future for this brave, ailing man who surrendered himself to Yuma willingly.
Such a waste, she thought, but it would take a revolt to save this man’s life—something the Chief Herder of Danras couldn’t afford to do.
There were thousands upon thousands of her people in Danras, all at the Grim King’s mercy.
Then there was the silver giant, a weapon that could easily sweep away half a dozen of the Grim King’s skeletal soldiers each time it swung its metal arms. And the Empire, whose might could create machines like that.
The long, rhythmical swooshes of wet grass blades brushing against the travois.
The plops of Aston’s hooves on the rain-soaked ground.
The steppe rarely got wet, and when it did, it dried quickly.
Yuma turned her head to the unconscious, weakened man being dragged behind her.
She chuckled to herself at her fantasy of metal giants smashing through the Grim King’s undead horde.
All Mersehi knew that whatever oddities happened in Merseh, all would go back to the way it was, as long as there was the steppe, and as long as there was the Grim King.
She dearly wished otherwise.