Chapter 27
27
Toorin
Unlike the badlands on the outskirts of Toonu, the badlands near Mercy cooled off at night. A gift and a curse.
The frigid nights were a relief after scorching hot days with little to break the heat other than a mild breeze that couldn’t dry our clothes faster than we sweated through them. Enough of a relief that I almost forgot how bad the days were.
Then, the next day came, quickly reminding me how intolerable it could get.
“I need the blanket,” Marc said, spreading one of the blankets Jord had supplied for the trip over us.
“How can you be cold? You have a fire at your feet and a camel warming your back.”
After five days, Marc no longer complained about the smell of the camels. Either his nose had become so saturated with the scent that it didn’t register anymore, or he stopped caring.
Especially since the camel who’d befriended him refused to give him space. At least the camel didn’t mind being used as a backrest while we ate and rested in front of the smoldering fire.
Kenner had gathered dried camel chips along the way left by the last group on their travels to Mercy. Enough to provide us with a small fire to heat our rations at night and our coffee in the morning.
“Did you hear that?” Arren stood, her blade drawn in one smooth motion.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Bodie said, though Arren alarmed him enough that he stood.
Jord kicked sand over the fire, dousing the flames and pitching us into semi-darkness. The nearly full moon and mantle of stars enabled me to see everyone standing around where the fire had been.
I stood, and Marc reluctantly got to his feet. We remained in a circle, looking out into the vastness of the badlands. With this being our third day, we should only have two more days of the hot, shifting sand before we made it to Mercy, but staring out at all the nothingness, I questioned that.
“There,” Arren said again, turning in a slow circle.
Jord grunted the grunt of a man who didn’t like what he heard. “I heard it.”
I hadn’t heard anything. “What is it?”
“Someone’s out there.” Kenner left the safety of the circle and started walking up the dune toward the ridge.
One of the biggest differences between the badlands near Dry River, where we started, and where we were now was the mounding of all the sand. The camels took us over dunes nearly a hundred feet high, only to drop down into the valley on the other side and then do it all over again.
The smoke from the snuffed fire tickled my nostrils. I held in the sneeze.
Marc tapped me on my elbow and handed me the blade Juniper had loaned me that I’d left by my pack. He had his in his hand. It was one of the ones Juniper had bought in Dry River and sharpened before we left. It was a decent blade, but it didn’t have near the heft, the balance, or the precision edge of the one I held in my hand.
“To your right,” Jord commanded Arren, his voice barely loud enough to be heard past our ring of defense.
She eased to the right as I heard a swoot sound that would have made my heart duck in my chest if I’d had a real one. Kenner cried out, and the whirring nearly deafened me.
It was loud, but not so loud that I didn’t hear Jord yell, “Outliers!”
Kenner dropped dead from an arrow through his chest as a wall of about ten outliers scrambled over the rise, startling the camel that had been warming our backs. It ran through the fire pit, kicking up red embers as it disappeared into the night.
We only had time to raise our blades before the outliers were on us.
Bodie rushed one of the men on the end, tackling him to the ground. I heard Marc’s blade contact another’s only a few feet away. As much as I wanted to protect him, I had my own problems.
Wait… make that two.
Marcelis
I don’t know how to fight.
At all.
That’s what the chancellor guard was for.
I awkwardly swung my blade, backing up and managing to block blow after blow, knowing that being a second too early or a second too late would be deadly. It took everything to keep the bloody outlier from cleaving off my arm… or my head. I didn’t have the experience or the skill to go on the offensive.
“Drive with your feet,” Bodie yelled to me as he wrestled with a woman nearly his size. They landed in a tangle of arms and legs and body blows.
Toorin fought somewhere behind me and off my right shoulder, though I couldn’t spare a glance to see how he fared. I blocked a glancing blow that missed my abdomen, but the business edge of the blade sliced my thigh with a glancing blow.
I dropped to one knee, the pain nearly pitching me into total darkness. Toorin yelled, “Get up! Get up!”
My attacker kept coming at me, more of a shadow than anything else, relentless in his onslaught.
I swung at my attacker’s shins, catching skin and beating him back far enough to get my feet under me again. Our labored breathing bellowed nearly in sync. My attacker had to be nearly as gassed as I was.
Though, that didn’t stop him. We were both fighting for our lives.
He came at me again, and instead of stepping back the way I had been doing, I surged forward, using the remaining strength in my shaky legs as Bodie had instructed me.
I caught my attacker with his blade raised high over his head and drove my blade straight through him. His blade dropped, the hilt glancing off my shoulder on the way down.
Bile climbed the back of my throat as the man’s warm, sticky blood flowed over my hand. I yanked the blade free and swallowed down the bile.
I didn’t have time to process what I’d done before someone dropped one of the packs he’d been riffling through and ran at me. He didn’t have a blade, but that didn’t deter him. I swung. He dodged and tackled me to the ground. My blade landed with a thud in the deep sand out of my reach.
Free sand poured down the neck of my shirt and worked its way down to the waistband of my trousers, sticking to the sweat coating my skin.
I heard a lot of shouts and grunts and curses around me. I couldn’t tell who they came from or who had the upper hand.
I locked my arm around the man’s neck, cutting off his air as I wrapped my legs around his waist. I couldn’t let him get to my blade.
From a short distance away came a shout. “They’re taking the camels,” an unfamiliar voice said.
The man I’d wrapped my arms around stiffened, then tried to issue an order that he couldn’t get through the stricture I’d put on his throat.
Another man cussed. What little hope I had of making it to Mercy nearly died, but I couldn’t let go, even knowing the outliers would most likely take all our possessions, if not our lives.
As far away from Mercy as we were, being out here without the camels could be a death sentence. The outliers wouldn’t need the blades to eventually kill us.
“ Fuuuck ,” Bodie hollered into the night sky. It chilled me. And I gripped the man tighter. “Jord and Arren buggered off with the camels.”
The fight left everybody. Me, the man in my arms, the other men and women attacking us. I craned my neck, but all I heard was the rhythmic thump of the camels’ feet on the sand as they galloped away.
If Jord and Arren ran off, that only left the three of us to fight off the outliers. I didn’t like the odds. The fighting resumed with the ringing shock of two blades hitting each other.
Then, as if the break hadn’t happened, it all started again. I tightened my grip. Who knew choking someone into submission would be so bloody toilsome?
I didn’t know how many outliers remained. Bodie and Toorin each battled with someone. A woman ran at me, her blade raised over her head, her scream raising gooseflesh on my skin. I knew there were more. There had to be more.
“ Bodie!” Torrin cried out.
The desperation in that cry sent more adrenaline through my body than the people I’d been fighting had. My heart thudded, my throat closed, and everything in my field of vision blurred.
It wasn’t the cry of a winning man. It was the cry of a man who wasn’t.
At the last second, I rolled, shielding my body from the outlier running at me. The man I had in the headlock made some sort of noise as the outlier’s blade sliced through him, but by then, I’d already nearly choked the life out of him.
I shoved the man off me, scrambled for my lost blade, and struggled to my feet. I had merely a split second, maybe two, to get my bearings and see how Bodie and Toorin faired.
There was a lot of grunting, cussing, clanging of blades, and blood…
So. Much. Blood.
I didn’t have time to determine whose blood it was, only that Bodie and Toorin were outnumbered two to one. Which, honestly, was an improvement. I only had the one outlier to fight, the one who’d so kindly dispatched her comrade for me.
But this woman… this woman before me was huge, even though she was probably a good fifty pounds underweight. I didn’t stand a chance against her, especially when you compared the sizes of our blades.
I braced myself for her charge, then decided I didn’t want to die on the defensive. If I was going out, I was going out with a roar.
I charged, and so did the outlier. Even from a distance, the desperation in her eyes stood out. But we were both desperate. We both wanted to live, though perhaps I had something she didn’t have… the love of a man I’d do anything to protect.
I yelled as I charged, a guttural battle cry, letting go of everything that did nothing for me and holding on to everything Toorin had given me.
I attacked, but with the shifting sand, it felt like slow motion, or maybe that was the adrenaline doing that, sharpening and narrowing my focus to the center of the outlier’s chest, my blade raised to inflict a death blow.
The outlier’s shout made my blood shrivel and the air desert my lungs. She would kill me, no doubt, but I would take her with me.
She stumbled at the same time I heard another shout. One that I’d heard before. The outcry had to be in my head because that was the only way it made sense.
With my focus on the woman, I saw the moonlight flash on metal a second before she crumbled to her knees. I managed to stop my blade mid-swing when Juniper appeared behind her.
“Oi. Told ye you should have let me come.”
I wanted to hug her and make her walk the plank. If that’s something anyone did anymore. I didn’t know. I’d ask Metta if she ever pillaged us again. There wasn’t time to think about that, though. Toorin and Bodie needed help.
With a boot to the woman’s back, Juniper yanked her bloody blade free, and we ran to aid Bodie and Toorin.
I should have known that Juniper hadn’t come alone. Lyric and Darwin had already dispatched one of the men Bodie had been fighting and were pulling another off Toorin.
Bodie landed a brain-jarring blow to the remaining man attacking him. Neither had a blade, but they were doing a good job beating the bloody pulp out of each other.
Juniper and I pulled the dazed man off Bodie, and Bodie scrambled to his feet, his lungs drawing in great gasping breaths.
With a boot to the downed man’s chest, Juniper rested her heavy blade against the man’s throat.
“Mercy,” the man croaked.
“Mercy?” Juniper’s voice rose with each incredulous syllable. “Mercy?” She dug her blade in more. “Moon and mars, why—”
“ Juniper.” Toorin’s low, commanding voice stopped Juniper when I hadn’t thought anything would.
Dark blood dripped from a cut on Toorin’s temple as he swayed on his feet. I rushed over, bracing him with an arm around his waist, his grip on me so tight he might never let me go. Which suited me fine.
“But—” Juniper started.
“He asked for mercy,” Toorin said. “And it’s mercy we’ll give him.”
Juniper’s blade remained on the man’s neck, her features hardening. “They wouldn’t have shown you mercy. They would have killed all of you and taken everything you owned.”
“That’s what separates us from them,” Bodie said. He held his hand out to her. “Give me the blade.”
Time ticked by. The only sound was the raspy, desperate breathing of the lone survivor in the sand at Juniper’s feet.
Air escaped the man’s lungs when Juniper shoved off his chest and handed Bodie the blade.
“Get out of here,” Toorin said.
The man hesitated. He had to think it was some sort of trick. It wasn’t. Realizing that, he struggled to his feet, not even stopping to strip his mates of their valuables as he ran down the other side of the dune and disappeared. I didn’t know what lay in the direction he ran. Didn’t care either.
Bodie dropped to his knees, lifted his head to the sky, and roared. A primal, mournful cry to the moon, the stars, and everything above.
I bowed my head, and Torrin and the others did the same. Even Juniper. As tough as she acted, I knew that killing wasn’t anything she did for sport. Out here, that’s how you survived, pure and simple.
After several deep, cleansing breaths, Bodie stood. Toorin lifted his head. “What’s everyone’s status?”
I must admit, Toorin, in captain mode, did something to me that it shouldn’t have after a fight for our lives and finding our drovers had left us for dead.
Darwin shook out his hand. The knuckles dark—from blood, I assumed. “Never better.”
I laughed. The cut on my thigh thumped with each beat of my heart. “A few nicks. Cut on my thigh.” I glanced at Bodie and quickly added, “Won’t slow me down,” as if I feared Bodie would make a case for leaving me behind. Maybe I did.
He clapped me on my shoulder and squeezed. He didn’t say anything. The touch said it for him. I was officially one of them. They’d get me to Mercy if I couldn’t do it alone. Not that I thought Toorin would leave me… but still.
Lyric held up the torn fabric of his long skirt. “Bastards ripped me best dress.”
“I meant to your body.”
“It’s me lucky dress.”
Lyric stared at Toorin until Toorin ducked his head and glanced back up at him. “You’re right. We’ll get it mended in Mercy.”
Juniper grabbed handfuls of sand and scrubbed the blood off her hands. “None of this is mine.” Then she motioned to Bodie. His nose, bottom lip, and right eye had already swelled three times their normal size. “And Bodie’s never looked more handsome.”
Bodie feigned chasing after her, and she ran a couple of steps, her peal of laughter bringing levity when we needed it most.
“Did you bring any of that salve,” Toorin asked her.
Bodie scoffed. “I don’t need any bloody salve. I can see the stars with my other eye.”
That left Toorin’s injuries. “We should put something on that,” I said, indicating the cut on his temple.
Darwin removed the strip of fabric from around his waist that he’d used as a belt. “Take this.”
I took the proffered material and looped it around and around Toorin’s head, tying the ends together where they met on the side of his head.
“How did you three get here?” Toorin asked.
“Camels,” Lyric said, stating the obvious.
“Should I ask how you paid for them?”
Darwin shook his head.
Juniper just said, “Paid?”
If they stole the camels, maybe all wasn’t lost. “I don’t suppose you have them?”
“We couldn’t secure them,” Juniper said, “seeing as we were trying not to let you get killed in the meantime. Luckily, sounds travel in the badlands at night, or else we wouldn’t have found your bodies till morning.”
“I wasn’t planning on losing,” Bodie said.
“Your face says otherwise,” Juniper countered.
He cut her a look, but it was hard for him to look menacing with his face all swollen.
“Now what?” Darwin asked.
“Gather the gear,” Bodie said. “We’re not staying here.”
It only took one command for everyone to turn and gather our belongings that had been strewn all around the dunes in the fight.
Reluctantly, I stepped away from Torrin, only for him to pull me against him. His arms wrapped tight around me, more quiet desperation than a come-on.
He burrowed his face in the crook of my neck and breathed me in. I half-expected him to choke on the stale scent of sweat and loose sand. “Are you really okay?”
His hands held my face, and he turned me toward the moonlight to get a better look. I held onto his wrists. “Sore, but good. You?”
“Sore, but good,” he parroted back before pulling me into his chest and holding on tight. “I thought I’d lose you.”
“Takes more than a heavy blade and a little luck to kill a Toft.”
He shook his head. “How can you joke?”
“Because I’m afraid I’ll cry.”
“Oi.” Juniper nudged Torrin with his pack. “Everyone has to pull their weight. That means you, Captain.”
He snagged an arm around her neck and kissed her temple before she could shove him away. Only she didn’t push him away, and a smile cracked as she scrubbed the kiss from her skin. “Gross.”
“You love it.”
Instead of denying it, she turned and handed Bodie a pack.
We threw the remaining items in packs, not taking stock of all the gear. We’d do that when we found a place to bed down. We couldn’t wait to escape the dead bodies and the pools of dark sand where it had absorbed the blood faster than it could clot.
“Shouldn’t we do something about them?” Lyric asked as everybody hitched their packs onto their backs.
Bodie looked to Toorin, who looked around at the rest of us. Darwin said, “He’s not wrong.”
Bodie removed his pack. The rest of us followed suit. There was little we could do besides scoop sand over their bodies that the wind would likely whip away by morning. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
When we finished, Bodie stared at the stars with one good eye, then pointed in the direction Jord and Arren had taken off. “This way.”