by Martha Carr
The orc’s eyes flickered toward him. “You take the veréle to rope this one all over no-land?”
“I’m not an idiot. I can buy enough sparking tech to last two lifetimes with what I’m making on this job.”
Cheyenne folded her arms and stared at him. “It was that much, was it?”
He spread his arms with a crooked smile, and the orc burst out laughing.
“Oh, sure! This one knows empty holes ‘bout how much is what, yeh.” He pointed at Cheyenne with a grubby finger, the yellow nail chipped in two different places. “You ain’t gettin’ what’s worth out here, nah. Nothin’ but ground slop, life wets, and us outernóre. Payin’ all the veréle for that. You won’t be coughin’ that out again.”
I have no idea what that means.
The halfling cocked her head and shrugged. “Just something I wanted to try.”
Persh’al smirked.
“Ha!” The orc let out a wheezing laugh before snatching up his copper mug and draining the last of whatever spilled out the sides of his mouth. “And then you skuttin’ all back into big lights and power switches. Yeh. Cork’ll have that skiffer ready real quick.” He clicked his tongue, stood, and went right back to his table, shaking his bald head and chuckling.
Cheyenne leaned toward Persh’al and tried not to laugh. “I paid you a lot of money to be my guide out here, huh?”
“It makes sense, all right.” He set his forearms on the table and leaned toward her too, lowering his voice. “Drow don’t show up in the Outers as a general rule.”
“Outers being way out in the middle of nowhere, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah. This place, though,” He glanced around the domed building and shook his head. “Last time I was here, this wasn’t nearly so far out as it is now. I mean, farming was a decent way to keep a family and a village going. Plenty of business, plenty of travelers coming through. These magicals are scrappers. Scavenging most of their supplies, too, if I had to guess. Looks like the Outers have moved inward.”
“Toward the Crown.”
Persh’al nodded. “At the capital, yep. Which is where most drow pretty much converged at the turn of the new Cycle. New monarch, new dictatorship, new ruling class if we’re talking about it in the simplest terms. So, you’re playing the well-cultured city girl with a flair for the dramatic.” He chuckled. “It’s kind of a low blow for these guys, but it’s the only story we have that makes sense.”
Cheyenne glanced at the table of orcs, who burst into raucous laughter. “They think I paid you to show me around to look down at them from my high horse.”
The troll scratched his chin, twisting his puckered lips to the side. “Pretty much.”
“That sucks.”
“It’s what we’re sticking with until we get into the bigger cities, all right? You won’t be such a rare sight at that point, and then you can be whoever you wanna.”
She sat back in her chair and nodded. “Sure. I mean, I know how to act like someone who’s got a lot of money to toss around.”
He hummed in amusement and shook his head. “You know how, but you don’t walk that walk. Not Earthside, and I’m pretty sure you won’t put that hat on even for an act.”
“Is that a challenge, troll?” Cheyenne snorted.
“Hey, I’ve already been tossed around enough for one day, okay? Keep sittin’ there looking slightly disdainful and aloof, and I think that’ll work just fine.”
The domed building’s only door jerked open, spilling bright sunlight in a thick beam across the floor before a hulking shadow blocked it. “Oyup, Muhaya. Skiff’s all buzz.”
The goblin woman behind the bar nodded and pointed at Persh’al and Cheyenne. “Yous hear that, travelers? Cork’s got your ride. Best get outta here before he breaks it down again.”
They stood from the table, slinging their bags over their shoulders, and Persh’al nodded. “’Preciate it.”
“And I appreciate your veréle, troll. You come back any time for bad water.”
The orcs at the table chuckled as the strangers walked past them toward the open door. The one who’d asked about Cheyenne raised a hand and wiggled his thick fingers. “Race away, yeh, mór edhil. Have a good smile at the scrappy.”
She jerked her chin up at him with a small smile, and the table exploded in rough laughter again.
The orc named Cork did hold the door open for them, then he grunted and nodded toward the outbuilding on their left. They followed him quickly, catching curious, wary glances from the other magicals living and working at the waystation, but no one else spoke to them.
When they passed the first open garage, the huge ogre inside snarled and shook his head before getting back to pounding on his project. Cork led them to the second outbuilding on that side and flicked his hand toward the closest wall. It crackled with a sputtering blue light and rolled up like a garage door before they all stepped inside the long, dark, rectangular space.
“This one.” He smacked his hand on the side of a boat-looking vehicle with a metallic clang. The thing’s hull was patched with different-colored sheets of metal, and it rested on a raised platform just inside the open door. “You know how to spark?”
Cheyenne glanced at Persh’al, who nodded slowly, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Oh, yeah. I’m not gonna turn that thing on in your shop, though.”
Cork grunted out a laugh, exposing missing teeth. “You got more know than you show. Get out. I’ll bring it.”
Persh’al nodded for Cheyenne to follow him out of the garage, and they stood off to the side while Cork rubbed his hands vigorously. When he clapped them together, blue sparks shot out between his palms. He climbed over the side of the skiff, setting the whole thing wobbling on the platform as he sat. Then he set both glowing blue hands on the control panel at the front, and the vehicle flared to life with a low hum. It lifted a foot off the platform and jerked forward, bouncing out of the garage but still hovering a foot off the ground.
When the orc jumped out again, he was grinning. “Good enough.”
Persh’al chuckled. “Good enough, outernóre.”
They shook hands briefly and Cork sniffed, swiping under his nose with a meaty gray-green forearm.
Cheyenne looked away from the hovering machine and nodded at him. “Thanks.”
His yellow eyes narrowed and he cocked his head, looking her up and down. Then he snorted and waved her off. “You ain’t pullin’ that out here. Don’t roll, nah.”
“We won’t.” Persh’al stepped toward the hovering skiff as the orc walked away. Cork glanced at them over his shoulder and scoffed, muttering under his breath on his way back to the domed building.
Cheyenne gestured after him. “He didn’t think I meant that, did he?”
“Not a lotta drow say thank you, kid.” Persh’al shrugged out of his pack and tossed it into the back of the skiff. “Out here, manners are pretty much a joke.”
“Fine. I’ll just be an asshole, then.”
“Yeah, that might be the best way to keep anyone from getting too suspicious. Hop in.”
She slung her backpack into the back beside his, then climbed over the rounded lip of the hull and stared down at the bench crossing the front of the skiff. “Does it matter where I sit?”
“Nope. No driver’s seats, no roads, no wrong side of the lane. Just sit.”
Cheyenne sat where she was on the right-hand side, and Persh’al crossed the front of the skiff, chuckling.
“You look like you’re about to jump out and run away, kid.”
She snorted. “I do not.”
He hopped over the side, settled down next to her on the bench, and scooted two inches away from her when she stared at the pant legs almost touching hers. “First taste of O’gúl tech for ya. Keep in mind, this humming beast we’re sittin’ in isn’t even halfway to state-of-the-art, but she’s purring, all right.”
“And hovering.”
“Yeah.” Persh’al studied the control panel covered in O’gú
l symbols, half of which had either faded from the metal surface or been scrubbed off.
“Is that the magic part or the tech part?” Cheyenne squinted and peered at the controls, which didn’t include a steering wheel, a lever, or even a joystick.
The troll grinned at her and nodded. “Both. I’d say buckle up, but our friend Cork apparently isn’t too concerned with safety. So brace yourself.”
She gripped the side of the hull and shoved her feet against the front wall of the skiff beneath the dash. “If you throw me out of this thing—”
“If I throw you out, I’m throwing myself out too.” Persh’al laughed and lifted his hand over the dash. “Damn, it’s been a long time.”
Green light flared across his palms and pulsed around his fingers. He lowered them both onto the dash and stared straight ahead. The skiff rose another six inches from the ground and added a high-pitched whine to the low hum of its magical generator, but that was it.
“Huh. These outernóre don’t know shit about steering.” The troll shifted one hand a quarter of an inch to the left and let off another pulse of green light. The skiff turned slowly to the left, aiming away from the garage and the other buildings of the waystation to face the hill they’d descended from the dry basin. “Now we’re talking. It’s like riding a bike, kid. Just takes a bit of—”
The skiff lurched forward and raced toward the hillside. Cheyenne grabbed the underside of the control panel to keep from flying backward, and Persh’al let out an excited whoop, then started laughing again.
“How the hell do you steer this thing?” she shouted over the rumbling drone of the engine. Or generator? Power source?
“Like puttin’ one foot in front of the other!” He slid a finger down the panel’s smooth metal surface, then swiped it to the right. The skiff banked away from the hill, spewing up a spray of dirt and sand and dry grass ripped from the ground. Then they were tearing across the flat expanse of dead ground past the waystation, heading away from the blackened, dried-up lakebed and toward O’gúleesh civilization.
Cheyenne squinted against the wind buffeting her face. Her white hair streamed behind her, and she turned to look at Persh’al when she felt him staring at her.
“You look as insane as L’zar right now.”
“Ha.” The troll grinned. “Maybe I am, kid. Feels damn good to be back behind the wheel of something I understand.”
She grinned and gazed out over the brown grassland as they zipped across it through the Outers of Ambar’ogúl. “There is no wheel.”
“I know!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They raced across the flat, lifeless plain for another hour before the landscape changed. A huge mountain range curved toward them from the left, then another from the right until they were funneled into a pass twenty feet wide carved between the rocky ledges. Persh’al slowed the skiff to a safer speed once they reached the pass, and Cheyenne studied the high, jagged cliffs on either side of them.
At least there aren’t any faces trying to break through these.
Persh’al stared straight ahead, his eyes narrowed in determination as his mohawk fluttered in the air. “Once we get through this, we’ll be in the Oronti Valley. We’ll see things start to change once we get there. The rest of this? This isn’t the real Ambar’ogúl, not the way I know it. Trust me.”
Cheyenne frowned. “Oronti Valley?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “You’ve heard of it, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure it’s like you remember it.”
“What makes you say that?”
She shook her head and watched the end of the pass growing steadily closer. “Some old neighbors of mine used to live there. A troll family with a young kid.”
“Oh, nice. Represent.” Persh’al thumped a fist against his chest and chuckled.
“They made the crossing, obviously. Because of what happened to the valley.”
His smile faded, and he looked away from her for two seconds before quickly returning his gaze. “Were they farmers?”
“I think so. Maybe radan herders?”
“Oh, I see.” The troll shot her a crooked smile and shrugged, his confidence restored as he returned his attention to the end of the pass. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in stories from the Oronti Valley villagers, kid. The outernóre like to make fun of everybody right to our faces. Farmers and herders? They embellish stuff. Like, a lot. We have a saying where I come from: ‘The Crown takes a shit, and the farmers saw her fly off on a dragon.’” He burst out laughing and slapped a hand down on the control panel. The skiff skittered sideways, and he instantly readjusted with a muttered curse.
“Who’s ‘we’ in that scenario?”
“Huh?”
“You said ‘we’ and ‘where you come from.’” Cheyenne fought back a laugh when she looked at his startled, confused expression. “Who else uses that saying?”
“Shit, kid.” Persh’al rubbed his head and slumped his shoulders. “Okay, maybe it’s only been passed around as a joke. An inside joke.”
“Yeah?”
“Okay, between me and myself. Are you happy now?” He shot her a sidelong glance. “How do you do that?”
“I just asked some questions, man. The rest was all you.” The smile broke free on her lips. “You probably don’t hold up very well under interrogation, do you?”
“Depends on what kind.” Leaning away from her, Persh’al stared down the quickly shortening pass in front of them. “Apparently, I’m a sucker under drow questioning. But let me tell you, I can take a beating and keep my mouth shut. I’ve done it before, and I’ve still got it. If that’s what you’re worried about, you shouldn’t be.”
Taking a deep breath, Cheyenne readjusted her position on the hard bench beneath her and glanced up at the cliff walls racing past them. If I’d forgotten why we’re here, he just handed me a fucked-up reminder. “That won’t be something we have to worry about. That’s why we came here, right? So I can see what I need to see before L’zar crosses with me next time and we put an end to all this? The war. The rot coming through the portals. Having to take a beating and keep our mouths shut.”
The troll wrinkled his nose. “That’s the goal, sure. No guarantees in this game, though, kid. L’zar knew that when he started this whole thing. Damn drow acts like he has all the answers to the universe, but he’s always filtering what he can’t control into the equation. Sometimes, shit goes bad.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Cheyenne lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I guess what matters is how often it goes bad, right?”
“Sure. That’s a good way of looking at it.”
“So.” She rested her forearms on her thighs and leaned forward. “How often does shit go bad for L’zar Verdys and his band of rebel O’gúleesh?”
Persh’al snorted. “You need to trademark that.”
“I’m serious.”
His smile disappeared as he shot her a quick look. “Yeah, you got your serious face on and everything. Honestly, kid, the last seventy-five years have been the quietest. Still some bumps in the road, but nothing we couldn’t handle as soon as we hit ‘em.”
“So you’re saying it’s pretty smooth sailing as long as he’s behind bars.”
“I didn’t—” The troll shook his head and stared straight ahead. “You and your questions.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Okay, look. He’s a crazy dude. I’ll give you that. Maybe not clinically insane, but he’s got his moments. For as much of a pain in the ass as your father is, the rest of us wouldn’t have walked through fellfire and back for him if we didn’t believe in what he’s doing.”
Cheyenne straightened and rubbed her thighs. “I heard L’zar doesn’t care about anything or anyone unless there’s something in it for him.”
“Who told you that?”
“Corian.”
Persh’al hissed out a breath in a mix of surprise and amusement. “St
raight from the nightstalker’s mouth. I wouldn’t call Corian a liar, but I wouldn’t call L’zar a tyrant gorging himself on the subjects he’s supposed to be protecting either.”
“Kinda hard to do when he doesn’t have any subjects.”
Persh’al shot her a quick glance and jerked his head forward again. “No, he doesn’t. But that’s what the Crown is doing, and those of us who are fed up with her bullshit and want to see something better for all O’gúleesh are willing to put up with L’zar’s less than perfect qualities. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll get us to where we wanna be, especially now that you’re in the picture.”
“Well, I don’t have any subjects, either.”
“You’re somethin’, kid. I tell you what.” The troll snorted and shook his head. His face lit up as they reached the end of the pass. “Now, this is what you want to…”
The skiff dropped softly down the incline when they emerged from the pass, carrying them swiftly over the rock-strewn hill at the base of the mountains. The Oronti Valley stretched out in front of them in gently rolling hills.
That’s the only gentle part of this whole place.
* * *
The travelers stared at the wasteland studded with dilapidated or ruined buildings. On their left, a dead forest reached toward them from the curving mountain range, the trees bare and gnarled. Most of them had fallen over or broken in bent, twisted fragments. Some patches still had their leaves, but they were few and colored a grotesque black-tinged yellow. Some of the trunks oozed a thick, noxious yellow substance that made Cheyenne think of an infected sore. Some of the grass had returned to the valley, but it was brown—white in some places—and untouched by working hands for a long time.
“No.” Persh’al blinked and scanned the destroyed land. “This too?”
“If farmers are known for embellishing stories, I’m guessing it wasn’t this bad a year ago.”
“A year?” The troll gave her a blank look, reeling from the realization that he’d been wrong about what they’d find here.