Sedition

by Raven Dark

  “It also makes it easier for carrion to dispose of them for us. What we can’t take with us, we’ll hide somewhere here, so we can retrieve it on the way back home.”

  When we reached Diamond, she put down the pot she’d been washing and stood. She cleared a scratchy throat and took my shoulder. “You gave us a scare there. Glad you’re okay.”

  Her eyes were wet and red, and she suddenly hugged me. I knew she was probably as worried about Emmy as I was, and I squeezed her hand.

  Footsteps behind me made me turn. Pretty Boy walked up the path Hawk and I had taken, making his way toward us.

  Pretty Boy gave Hawk the world’s stiffest nod. “I’ll take her from here,” he growled. He almost yanked me from Hawk’s grip.

  Hawk gave him a stoic look and said nothing, but I distinctly saw his shoulders drop. He deliberately touched my chin and leaned in stealing a kiss, ignoring Pretty Boy’s grinding teeth.

  Apparently, now that he knew Hawk was all right, his anger was back in full force. I turned to give Pretty Boy a kiss of his own.

  “Fuck Sheriff’s orders,” Steel snapped, and he dropped the boots he’d taken off one of the dead Dregs, stomping toward his own bike, parked a few feet away. He stumbled over the corpse but kept going.

  Hawk’s gaze rose to the sky. “Here we go again.”

  I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Sheriff marched across the camp toward Steel, his arms full of clothes. Where had he even come from? He dropped the clothes and grabbed Steel’s shoulder. “We already had this discussion fifty times. You’re not—”

  Steel shook him off sluggishly, cutting him short. “I’m going after Emmy, General. I’m not sitting around fucking with dead bodies and shit when Emmy’s out there with those monsters who made complete fools of us. They’re not getting away with this.” He stomped toward his bike and mounted up. “PB, you comin’?”

  “You’re too sick, man.” Pretty Boy trudged after Steel. When he stumbled a little, I reached for him, but missed.

  “No one is going anywhere.” Sheriff grabbed Steel’s handlebars, holding the bike in place.

  “Yes, we are,” Steel said, and he jumped on the clutch. The engine turned over, but he mustn’t have hit it hard enough, because it sputtered and died.

  As Pretty Boy passed by Hawk, the Captain of the Guard grabbed his Brother’s cut and yanked him back. Pretty Boy tried to swing at him and missed without Hawk even moving. His feet slid out from under him and he went sprawling. I had a feeling that never would have happened if he had been a hundred percent.

  “What the fuck, man? I wasn’t gonna leave, I was going to stop him—”

  “Stay put,” Hawk said, when Pretty Boy stood to go at him again. “Let the General handle it.”

  I held my breath while Pretty Boy shot Hawk a dark look but didn’t swing again.

  Steel shoved Sheriff’s hands off his handlebars and jumped on his clutch again. The engine roared to life. Sheriff shouted, and Steel revved his engine. Sheriff shouted again, but Steel revved louder still, obviously drowning his General out.

  Sheriff grabbed Steel’s cut in his fists. Steel silenced his engine, his expression mutinous. “Get off the bike, Steel.”

  “Are we supposed to just let them escape with her?” Steel snapped. “Let them take what’s ours?”

  “Stand up,” Sheriff ordered.

  “Let me go, General.” Steel’s voice was icy.

  “Get off the bike and stand up.”

  “What?” Steel swung off and stood, his huge frame tense, his face hard, his eyes boring into Sheriff’s.

  “I’m fine, General, let me go. The others can stay here, but Pretty Boy and I will ride out now.”

  “You’re fine, are you?” Sheriff pushed him lightly. Steel didn’t stumble. Sheriff looked closely at his face. “Do you realize how many times have we had this same argument play out today? If you’re fine, how many fingers am I holding up?” He held up two fingers.

  “Four.”

  “Back away from the bike.”

  Steel didn’t move.

  Sheriff shook his head. “Don’t think I won’t lay you out, Brother.”

  For a long moment, the two men stared each other down. Finally, Steel’s shoulders fell, and he backed up.

  The General turned, eyeing everyone one at a time. “Let me make this clear again. Steel can’t see worth shit, Pretty Boy can barely walk, and Crash can’t walk at all. T-Man, you look like you’re gonna puke. Doc says it’ll be a good while yet before we’re cleared to leave.”

  Doc nodded when Sheriff looked at him for confirmation. “The General’s correct. If you men leave now and get into a fight, you’ll only lose, if you don’t fall off your bikes first.” His silver eyes were uncommonly hard. “We’ve found no less than seventeen Dreg bodies in and around the camp. We know they travel in packs of at least twenty. Emmy may have only three Dregs with her, but they could have met up with half their club and be doubling back to slaughter us.”

  “We already lost two men,” Hawk added coldly. “When we face those fucks, we do it together. If we don’t, Emmy is lost. A unified front is our only chance of success.”

  Which meant Hawk and Sheriff, who seemed to have improved better than anyone else, couldn’t face them alone.

  After a few moments of silence, Sheriff cleared his throat and looked at all of us.

  “We need to finish cleaning up this place. Everyone needs to wash up before we get the fuck out of here. The gas is gone, but we can’t be breathing it in on our clothes. If anyone leaves the camp before Doc gives the all clear, I’ll personally knock the one who rides on his ass.”

  He was right, the acrinite gas was gone, taken away on the breeze, but a hint of the smell still clung to everyone’s clothes and hair. The smell would hang in the air long after we left.

  Steel kicked the stand down on his bike. He picked up his helmet and threw it on the ground with a growl. I went over to him and laid my hand on his arm. He turned to me, moving slower than usual, his eyes unfocused, but angry. I slid my arms around him, drawing strength from him, trying to give him some of my own.

  Maker, what a nightmare this was. After everything we’d been through, I hated seeing my men so sick.

  “What about Emmy?” Crash said tentatively, making me glance over at him. He still sat on his rock, a splint now on his leg. “Sorry. It’s just, what they’ll do to her…”

  Sheriff dropped his shoulders. “No one is getting dead. You’re all worried about her. I get it. But first things first. You are my brothers. Get to work, all of you. Now. We’ll talk about what to do when we’re done here.”

  He ran a hand down his face, looking out across the camp at something.

  “Hawk, come with me,” he said at last. “We need to take care of…our fallen Brothers.”

  Hawk and Sheriff disappeared behind Sheriff’s tent, one of only two that remained salvageable. The other, a white one I recognized as Doc’s, stood nearby, but it had scorch marks on the side. The two men disappeared into the morning sunlight.

  An hour later, the camp nearly looked back to normal. The Dregs’ bodies had been left for the carrion, stripped bare, their bike parts stored in a small tunnel in the cliff face. With T-Man and Crash’s help, Diamond and I went through all the Dregs’ belongings, sorting what could be saved, what we were taking with us, what was being left in the tunnel for later retrieval, and burning everything else.

  Since Crash couldn’t move around too much, we helped him cook up a meal. We found bread and butter in the cooler in his compartment and threw together a meatless stew. While we worked, Diamond’s eyes were wet with tears and for a long time, neither of us spoke.

  “Did you know that Emmy’s name comes from her road rat name Emerald?”

  I looked at my new friend, shaking my head in response, my heart tearing apart inside. “No, I didn’t.”

  She nodded like it was just a pas
sing thought. “They grabbed her before I could stop them,” she muttered, stirring Crash’s spices into the stew. “I tried to pull her away, but the one with the mohawk hit me in the stomach, and I couldn’t…I…”

  I put my arms around her, wishing I could say something to comfort her. Worry ate at me until I felt numb. Memories of my mother’s capture, of the poachers who rode off with her, invaded my thoughts. I pushed them down where they couldn’t reach me. My masters needed me focused and present.

  Except my thoughts rolled around to what Doc had showed me, my blood that bright, luminescent blue. What was wrong with me?

  I looked out at the desert as if it held the answer. The sun seemed unusually bright over where Hawk and Sheriff had gone, and it was flickering. What…

  Oh, Maker. It wasn’t the sun.

  Shading my eyes with my hand, I could just make out the silhouettes of Hawk and Sheriff, more than a hundred feet from the edge of the camp. They stood beside a pyre that burned high, smoke rising, sometimes blacking out the sun.

  Pup’s and Latch’s bodies. My thoughts spun, a tangle of sadness and loss. Latch. Pup. How many more would be lost? It was all so surreal. Just last night, before the horror began, we had all been laughing around the fire. Now they were gone, Emmy alive but gone nonetheless.

  I’d never gotten to know Latch or Pup. Now I wished I had. Pup had been so young…

  The salvage operation took another hour. I suspected it would have been finished sooner if everyone had been up to par. Sheriff announced that we’d be leaving soon, provided Doc gave everyone the all clear. Already, T-Man and Pretty Boy had more color in their cheeks, and Steel didn’t seem to be finding everything by feel anymore.

  No one said much while we washed up. The Dregs hadn’t showed up with much in the way of supplies, but they had been riding with four large jugs of water in a compartment of their own. Doc insisted none of us drink it. Who knew what half-crazed devils like them did to their water? Instead, we used it to wash off, cleaning our clothes and hair, keeping us from having to diminish our own water supply in the process. I felt an unexpected stab of foolishness at my getting on Sheriff for wanting to take that water from the fueling station.

  When Hawk and Sheriff had returned from the funeral pyre, I saw Hawk carrying two cuts, stowing them in one of the bike compartments.

  Everyone gathered around the fire in the middle of the camp. One and all, the men looked tired and wan. With the exception of my six hours of unconsciousness, none of us had more than a few hours sleep since leaving the Grotto.

  “Does anyone have any idea where the Dregs took Emmy?” I asked as I joined the others.

  “We do, Kitten.” Hawk’s voice was somber.

  Sheriff seated himself on the biggest rock at the fire. “I wouldn’t let Hawk tell anyone this before we were ready to leave.” His gaze swept over everyone in the group. “I didn’t want any of you chuckleheads going off half-cocked, trying to save Emmy yourselves.” He fired a dark look at Steel and Pretty Boy. “Hawk, show everyone what you found.”

  Hawk reached into his cut, pulled out a small velvet pouch and upended it. A single coin dropped into his palm; he held it up in the firelight.

  “Well, shit.” Steel.

  “Fuckers,” Pretty Boy muttered. “Where did you find that?”

  “I found it on one of the Dregs,” Hawk said. “According to his cut, he was Saketh’s Sergeant-at-Arms.”

  I stared at the coin as Hawk turned it over in his fingers. It was twice the size of a zone credit, and instead of the various emblems zone captains put on their currency, this one bore a stylized flame on one side and three phoenixes on the other. Not insignias anyone used on currency.

  “What is that?” Beside Hawk, Crash leaned over and studied the coin. I answered before Sheriff could.

  “It’s an auction token.”

  Everyone looked at me. If the Dregs had one of those…

  I swallowed.

  “Fancier auctions held by clan captains or zone heads only let the cream of the crop in,” Sheriff said, picking up a stick and jabbing at the fire with it. “People who enter the auctions to bid on slaves have to buy a token like that to enter.”

  “They’re usually worth a lot, ensuring only the wealthy can afford to enter. May I see it, Master?”

  Hawk handed me the coin. As a slave, I’d seen tokens like this, but I’d never touched one. No slave was allowed to.

  I ran my fingers over the emblems embossed into the flat surface on each side. The metal was smooth, and the token was surprisingly heavy. It was gold, solid gold, by the weight of it. The emblems on it, the symbols of the clan Family, looked like they’d been stamped with a professional press. I guessed it would have been worth a thousand credits or more. The average man looking for a slave wouldn’t get into an auction that required one of those coins.

  “Steel and I stole two of them from entrants to Damien’s auction,” Pretty Boy said with a nostalgic grin. “That’s how we got in to steal you, Princess. Wait. Sheriff, if the Dregs had one of these, they must be headed to an auction, which means…”

  My stomach roiled violently with understanding. “Which means they’re going to sell her.”

  Chapter 12

  Just a Slave

  Upon my words, quiet lay over the group. Feeling suddenly sick, I handed the coin back to Hawk, wanting it as far from me as possible.

  The silence grew heavy and oppressive. Anger poured off of everyone, even Hawk, who gripped the auction token in his fist as if he was trying to crush it. The unspoken anger gave the quiet a deadly, frightening sort of edge.

  Only Sheriff’s face looked stoic, the mask of a leader.

  “We need to consider the obvious here,” Hawk said, putting the coin back in his cut.

  His voice was so soft I barely heard him, so calm it unsettled me.

  When everyone looked at him, he sighed. “Onyx might be right, they may sell Emmy. But there is a chance they won’t.”

  “How do you figure?” Pretty Boy growled. I didn’t think all the gruffness in his voice was from concern over Emmy.

  Hawk didn’t look at him or acknowledge the caustic tone.

  “Dregs are not particularly wealthy. What little money they make comes from the chemicals they mine for those flashbangs, and off the explosives they used tonight, but it’s not like what we make off the rocks in the Grotto. Every Dreg knows only three things. How to kill, how to loot, and how to blow shit up. They aren’t the kind that would be invited into a major auction, and they wouldn’t normally waste their limited resources on a token like this one.”

  “Especially since they’d likely have more than one,” Doc put in.

  I imagined that, if they had bought the coins for the auction, Saketh, being their leader, probably had one on him.

  “Then how did they get it?” Pretty Boy challenged.

  “They stole it,” Sheriff muttered, echoing my thoughts. “The same way you and Steel got the ones for Damien’s auction.”

  Hawk inclined his head. “If they came across some bigwig headed to the same auction, they could have picked the coin off him after they killed him. Or they could have found it by chance. They wouldn’t have bought it legally. That’s too coordinated for them.”

  Sheriff ran his palm down his face. “If they stole it, they might be intending to use it to get into the auction. There’s one being held about eight hours from here, in Kessle, at the tip of Zone 8. It’s about half a day west of the road to Delta. One of the big, yearly ones. But they might decide to keep Emmy for themselves. If they’re planning to keep her, they’ll take her to their lair.”

  “Their lair. Which is where?” No one looked cross at me for asking, letting me know how worried they were.

  “My Yantu Master told me once.” Hawk pulled a blade from his belt and started cleaning his nails with it. “Their nearest crew has a lair a few miles before Zone Delta. In the mountains that run through Devil’s Pass.”

  “If t
hey take her to their lair…” Diamond’s throat worked hard, and her face lost all color. She got up from the rock she’d been sitting on and went over to where the Legion bikes were parked. Doc got up and followed her, a guard dog unwilling to let her out of his sight.

  I knew what Diamond couldn’t bring herself to say. If the Dregs took Emmy to their lair, she’d be dealing not with the three men who had her, but with who knew how many, all eager to take out their anger with the Legion on her. My gut churned, and I looked into the fire, letting the dancing flames soothe me. I wished to the Maker I had Hawk’s unsettling calm. My hands shook.

  Pretty Boy walked over and squatted in front of me. His hands slid over my knees. His pale eyes found mine. I couldn’t bring myself to voice all the dark thoughts filling every crevice of my mind. He must have realized this, because he just picked me up in his arms and seated himself where I’d been. He held me close while the others talked, all of them occasionally looking over at me with concern.

  If those men took Emmy to an auction, she might be better off, but that might not last. Memories of the night Damien had put me on display for the bidding ate at me, and I closed my eyes, burying my face in Pretty Boy’s shoulder, clinging to him.

  With sudden, violent intensity, I missed Cherry. Missed the Grotto. I missed home.

  I heard the sound of a match being struck and looked across the fire at T-Man, who lit up his pipe and puffed.

  Pretty Boy grunted. “Should you be smoking that shit right now? Aren’t you sick enough?”

  T-Man gave him the middle finger and blew out a long string of smoke.

  “Well, it looks like we have a choice to make,” Sheriff said.

  Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

  Hawk inclined his head, finishing for the General. “Do we assume the Dregs will sell Emmy and head for the auction in Zone 8, or do we head to the mountains, for Devil’s Pass?”

  “One way takes us a half a day off course,” Steel said. “Those asswipes are already almost half a day ahead of us. Whichever course we choose, if we fuck this up, Emmy’s lost.”