Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  “Lark,” Saiph calls beyond the bison-hide windbreak. His voice is high, a little alarmed.

  “What?”

  “That . . . that noble is here.”

  I lift my head just an inch, my hair still curtaining my face. “What noble?”

  “From the stage. With the purse.”

  Tension ripples through my muscles like a strummed bowstring. “The dandy from the coach? He’s in the canyon?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Where? How did he get here?”

  “He, uh, he just walked up the drainage. He has a weird lantern—it’s making the ground around him shine. And, the uh, the horse. It’s making the horse shine.”

  I don’t know what that means, but if he’s near the horses, he’s in the grassy bay below the campfire. That damned grit-toothed piece of sod. I grab for my hair tie and clamp it between my teeth, swiping my locks out of my face.

  “Where are the others?” I call around the tie.

  “Uhh . . .” Why does he sound so shifty? “Not here.”

  Well, obviously. I only hope they’re all together, up at the campfire, and not out gathering twigs or water. I spit out the tie and wind it around my hair. “Can you distract him? Lead him away from camp while I get Sedge and Jema?”

  “Uh, well no, actually, because uh . . . ’cause uh . . .”

  Rat growls again, and I freeze in place, my hand outstretched to the lantern, realizing exactly why Saiph is being so shifty, exactly why he can’t lead the damned dandy noble away from the others up in camp.

  Another voice speaks.

  “Because I’m already here.”

  Veran

  There’s a long silence from the other side of the ratty bison hide. The boy called Saiph shifts from foot to foot, looking between the hide and me, cradling a crossbow that’s much too big for him. It’s pointed at me, but his grip is too low on the crank—I could run a circle around him before he had time to get off a shot. Still, no need to worsen my welcome, so I stand as mildly as I can, my hands out to my sides, one still clutching the indigo lamp. Even in the firelight, it’s illuminating the adoh powder left on my skin.

  When the Sunshield Bandit speaks again, her voice is different, cooler and more controlled.

  “Get to the others, Saiph,” she commands from the other side of the hide. “Tell Sedge to stay on guard. I’ll take care of this.”

  Saiph edges down the track, uncertainty tracing his face. He has a Moquoian look, but like the bandit, he speaks Common Eastern with a rough Alcoran accent. “Are you . . . are you sure?”

  “I only want to talk,” I say loud enough for both of them to hear. “Here—take my pack, if you want some collateral. Take whatever you need from it.” I hold it out to him.

  “Go on, Saiph,” Lark calls again.

  His hand darts forward and takes my pack and, juggling the crossbow in one arm, heads back into the dark scrub.

  I move closer to the fire, eyeing the scraggly dog lying on the far side. Its lip is curled, the coarse ruff of fur along its back raised. I keep my gaze on it—I’m not sure how to appear nonthreatening to a dog.

  “So,” I call out in what I hope is a calm, authoritative manner. She is, after all, huddled on wet rocks behind an old bison skin, and I’ve caught her camp unawares—if we’re honest, I have the upper hand.

  And besides that—besides that, I’m the son of King Valien and Queen Ellamae Heartwood of the Silverwood Mountains, ambassador to Moquoia, ally to Lumen Lake and Cyprien, student of Alcoro, representative of the allied East.

  I am not no one.

  “I found the Sunshield Bandit,” I say with full bravado now. “Years of being a mysterious desert ghost who disappears with the sun, and I’ve found your camp with a lantern and some glitter. I’m here, and I plan to stay until you hear me out and give me answers. So unless you’d like your position disseminated to the governments of Moquoia and Alcoro alike, I suggest you—”

  With no word or warning, a lantern appears above the bison hide. My diatribe fizzles on my tongue. Like a crowned head rising from a throne, the Sunshield Bandit emerges from behind it.

  She’s naked except for a pair of buttoned shorts, stripped of all the paraphernalia that hid her identity in the close confines of the stagecoach. But if I’d imagined this might make her appear less threatening—and I admit the likelihood of her standing before me wearing hardly a stitch had not crossed even the remotest corner of my mind—I’d have been sorely mistaken. She radiates power, from her crisp, thrown-back posture to the cold, calculating look she’s fixing on me. My feet take a full step backward before I can stop myself.

  She’s holding the lantern aloft in one hand, as if a portable beam of light is just part of her psyche. Its glow highlights the ropy muscles cording her arms and shoulders, and I have just enough time to see a fleet of tattoos along her arms and over her chest before I cut my gaze away, staring unseeing at the darkened sagebrush with the glare of her lantern still spotting my vision. Heat curls through my stomach and along my collar. The last time I saw a naked girl was when I was talked into moonlight dipping in the reservoir outside the university, and then it was just flashes of skin under the dark water. It felt very bold and grown-up two years ago.

  It doesn’t feel that way now. Now it feels like I’ve somehow walked into a trap of my own making.

  She makes a small sound, something akin to a snort, and steps around the hide. She passes the campfire for a little creek, where a bundle of clothes sits on a rock. I stare intently at my sagebrush, examining its size and shape, the little bald patch on its northward flank, the broken branch near its base. Trying to ignore that persistent curl in my stomach that could be either thrill or fear.

  “Like they’d find you,” she says.

  I go to respond, but it takes a few tries before my throat is clear. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You, hollering about telling Moquoia and Alcoro our position.” The barest glance out of the corner of my eye shows her toweling off with a bit of sacking. “You’re assuming you get out of this situation with your life. I’ve got your horse, and I’ve got a handful of desperate folk with enough sharp blades among us to parcel you up neat, plus a half coyote that bites when I say go.” My gaze inadvertently flicks again to the feral-looking dog crouched by the fire.

  There’s a rustle of cloth and the jingle of a belt buckle. “Seems to me, the buzzards are more likely to find you than the crowned heads of either country.”

  I’m hit with the dawning realization that—yet again—I’ve gotten myself in over my head. I wonder if I’ll ever reach a point where I recognize my stupidity before I blunder into it.

  “A lamp and glitter,” she continues. “What did you do, coat your horse in the stuff?”

  “And my tack, and filled the saddlebags, with perforations along the seams.” My gear may never be truly clean again—I’ll probably always walk away with a butt that shines under Bakkonso light. “The powder streamed out while you led Kuree away. It even stuck to the rocks poking out of the river.” I swallow, trying vainly to find that wave of confidence I’d been riding just a moment ago. “Easy.”

  “Easy,” she repeats, a sinister edge in her voice. “What if I hadn’t taken your horse?”

  “I filled the money bag, too.”

  A short beat of silence. “You’re not lessening my urge to kill you.”

  I slowly turn back toward her. If she’s not concerned about standing before me half naked, then dammit, I’m not going to let it unbalance me. By now she has her trousers on and is fastening the hooks on a sleeveless breast band.

  “I may be tougher to kill than you suspect,” I say. “But even if I’m not, killing me would go poorly for you. I’m not some slaver the governments to the east and west would turn a blind eye to. There are folk who know where I’ve gone, and more who would root you out in a heartbeat if I turned up missing.” The image of this bandit facing off with Mama or Vi or Ida flickers briefly in my head. I draw
myself up a little more. “I came to talk, and if you think you can hold off roasting me like that wagon last week, you may find I can help you.”

  She pauses with a shirt in her hands, but both the lantern and the fire are behind her, and I can’t see the expression on her face. Her stillness only lasts a heartbeat—in the very next breath, she shrugs the shirt over her tattooed shoulders. Leaving it unbuttoned, she picks up her buckler and moves a few steps to a rock by the fire. With the same incongruous regality as when she emerged from behind the hide, she sinks down onto the rock and crosses her ankle over her knee. She gives a short whistle, and the mangy coydog rises and sits down next to her.

  “All right then,” she says. “So let’s talk.”

  All my training would suggest that now I physically have the higher ground—I’m standing, and she’s sitting. But she’s purposefully placed the fire behind her, leaving her little more than a shadowed silhouette, armed with her buckler and attack dog, and now I feel stupid again.

  “You took something that belongs to me,” I say bitterly.

  “Besides the horse?” she asks.

  “The pin,” I say. “I want it back.”

  She snorts again. “I want a pillow and a jam biscuit without dirt on it.”

  “It’s mine, Lark,” I say. “I’m all for you freeing slaves, but you’re starting to make enemies you don’t want to make.”

  “Like you?” she says with sarcasm so thick it drips. “I’ll take my chances. I’ve always had enemies—they’re just taking more notice of me. And let’s get something straight up front—you keep my name out of your mouth.”

  “Shall I just call you the Sunshield Bandit?” I ask. “And you call me the dandy?”

  “Suits me.”

  “How about we do it this way instead—my name is Veran Greenbrier.”

  “The balls kind of a name is that?”

  “I’m from the Silverwood Mountains, well to the east of here.” I eye her as well as I can in the firelight, my cheeks hot. “And before you scoff at my epithet, I’ll have you know that where I come from, little birds like you depend on greenbrier thickets.”

  “So now I know everything,” she says testily. “Am I mistaken, or were we supposed to be discussing something important?”

  I hesitate, standing awkwardly in the dirt. My thoughts rest briefly on my firefly pin again, but I push them aside. I’ll get it from her one way or another, but now isn’t the time.

  I take one step to my left, away from her dog. She twitches slightly, the firelight glinting on her buckler, but I simply cross my boots at the ankle and sink to the ground. The flames are still behind her, but now they’re at an angle, and I can see a little more of her face, enough to see her smoothing away the brief surprise that flickered there. Her hair glows again in a frizzy halo.

  “How much do you know about Moquoia?” I begin.

  “The inside of a quarry,” she says shortly. “Why, is there anything else?”

  “So you were a slave—that story is true?”

  “Hurry up—I still want to kill you.”

  I force myself not to swallow, trying to match her bravado. “So why don’t you?”

  She leans forward, a shadow against the light. “Because I want to see if you have anything useful to offer me before I do.”

  By the Light, this is going to be difficult. “Fine. Here are the basics. Back in June, I traveled from Alcoro to Moquoia, charged with opening diplomatic discussions with Prince Iano Okinot in-Azure—in large part to stem the trafficking trade through the desert, I’ll have you know.”

  “I’m not selling myself out to you,” she says flatly.

  “I never asked you to, and I don’t plan to.”

  “Then get to the point.”

  By the Light. “Then listen instead of interrupting me.”

  That catches her—and me—off guard. I press on.

  “Despite his initial enthusiasm, I made no progress with the Moquoian prince, and now I come to find out it’s because he’s being blackmailed with the safety of the woman he loves, who’s being held somewhere out here in the desert. Have you heard of the Moquoian ashokis?”

  “No.”

  “They’re performers, singers and musicians, usually, who study the nuances of court and country and tell truths back to the courtiers, wrapped up in stories or parables.”

  She turns her head and spits into the sand. “That’s the most useless thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I couldn’t wrap my head around it at first, either—but the position of ashoki has more power than I guessed. It’s how the court members get their news. It’s how they stay connected with the whole length of Moquoia, and the interests at play in politics. It’s what they base their decisions on.” I spread my hands. “An ashoki with certain political leanings could drive the country in an entirely new direction.”

  She’s silent. But I don’t think it’s a pensive silence—she still seems angry.

  “Tamsin was that kind of ashoki,” I continue, unable to get a read on her. “One who was digging into the roots of the slave trade. She was heading to the quarries outside Vittenta when her stage was attacked. The rumors all said it was you who attacked her.”

  I expect her to jump to her defense, but she remains still. The hair prickles on the back of my neck.

  “It . . . wasn’t you who attacked her, right?”

  “I attack a lot of stages,” she says. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  Oh! I know this one—Queen Mona schooled me on this. Folk will take credit for things they didn’t do, if you give them the opportunity.

  “You’re bluffing to try to scare me,” I say. “You weren’t anywhere near Vittenta the night Tamsin was attacked, because you were over near Snaketown, turning over my professor’s stage and stealing his boots. Do you recall that? A single Lumeni traveler, blond hair and beard?”

  She seems to ponder this. “The old man with the ship tattoo?”

  “Colm isn’t old.”

  “Ancient,” she confirms, and now I think maybe we’re joking? Am I joking with the Sunshield Bandit?

  “You have a mighty low threshold for old if forty-eight means ancient,” I say, amused.

  “Well, when most folk you know don’t see thirty . . .” she retorts.

  Oh, we weren’t joking.

  Uh, backtrack.

  “Well—well, you were robbing his stage at the time Tamsin was attacked—”

  “I hit him, too,” she says almost thoughtfully. “Right in the ear.”

  She’s trying to rile me, she’s purposefully trying to rile me, and now it’s Mama boiling around inside me, not cool, calm Queen Mona. I grip my knees and try to find some middle ground in my father instead. Business. Focus.

  “Whoever attacked Tamsin’s stage, they dragged her away into the desert,” I say through gritted teeth. “Iano and I have pinpointed her position somewhere south of here, perhaps in one of the old mining settlements.” I reach into my cloak pocket and produce Iano’s latest letter, complete with the water spot. “Long story short, I need to find her and bring her back. Without her, our hope of uniting the East and the West collapses, and with it the chance to stamp out trafficking in the Ferinno for good.”

  Her gaze drops to the letter, and too late I wonder if I’ve offended her further by assuming she can read. I can’t tell if her eyes are traveling down the page or simply flickering over the words. She focuses in on something, some detail near the bottom of the page, squinting in the dim light. “And you felt the need to root me out for this treasure hunt because . . . ?”

  “Because everything I’ve heard, read, and personally experienced points to you as the most capable person to hunt down a captive in the Ferinno,” I say. “And because I think you could probably use the help I can give you. I told you in the stage—I’m prepared to offer you two hundred keys, or the equivalent in Moquoian coin, upon the recovery of Tamsin Moropai, on top of the thirty I’ve already given you. Bes
ides that, I brought every necessity I could fit in my pack, which your campmates are probably parceling out among themselves right now.” I tick off my fingers. “Cornmeal, jerky, dry cherries, pickles, beans, bandages, tonic, skin salve, fever drops, two quilts, a knife, and a cookpot. And I’ll get you more, Lark—I’ll get you whatever you need with the blessing of the next king of Moquoia, if you’ll just help me find Tamsin.”

  There will be time to try to convince her to meet with the authorities in Alcoro later, after I’ve gained a modicum of her trust. For now, I suspect, meeting the immediate needs of her camp will be more convincing.

  “Please,” I add.

  She leans back, her gaze fixed on mine again. I can’t see any expression in this light. I have no idea if she’s warming to me or not. Out of the sun, her bronzes and coppers are darkened into night blacks, like she’s made of changing sky.

  “No,” she says.

  The word bounces off my ears. “What?”

  “No,” she says again. “Thanks for the money and the food, but I’m not running off after your lost princess.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t help folk like you.”

  My earlier awe is gone, and she’s pissing me off now. “Has it occurred to you that folk like me may actually be able to do some good out here?”

  She uncrosses her leg in a swift motion and leans forward, her face thrown into sharp shadows. The tang of salt and sweat wafts over me. “Has it occurred to you that you’re the ones who make it rotten for folk like me? You locked me up in a wagon, Veran Greenbrier of the Silver Mountains—you gave me my first tattoo.” She hitches up her right sleeve and turns her arm over—the image is of her longsword, but at the end of the point, to all appearances being stabbed by the blade, is a scarred concentric circle. Like a cattle brand. My stomach balls up in a knot.

  “And then when you opened the wagon, you dumped me in a rustlers’ camp to sweat more of my life away for nothing, and you’d have let me die there if it meant you got to keep your ass walled up safe and sweet in your palaces and universities.” She points at me. “You did that, because you didn’t care. You care about trafficking now, because it’s mucking up your parlor games, but you didn’t care then. And because of that, me and the rest of us wound up in your glass forges and quarries and ship bilges and rice plantations, and we’ll stay there as long as it’s convenient for you. So no, Veran. You could offer me a wagon full of gold and I’ll still turn you down. I’ll keep doing what I do, but I won’t be bought and sold by you and your courts in the name of politics.”