Under the Crimson Sun

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “He couldn’t have had that priest card. He just couldn’t.”

  Fehrd put his head in his hands. “Tell you what,” he finally said, “I’m willing to head out early if you’re willing to carry the pack.”

  Now Gan did throw his jerky against the tent flap. “It’s your turn to carry the pack.”

  “Yes,” Fehrd said slowly, “and I’m willing to give in to your desire to leave early if you’re willing to give in to my desire to not carry the pack.”

  Since their crodlus were gone—including the pack mount—they had to carry their own supplies. Rol had contrived a way to pack up the rolled-up tent and supplies into a single backpack, which they took turns carrying. Fehrd was up next, and he had been dreading the notion.

  Gan closed his eyes for several seconds. “Fine—but this was not my fault.”

  “Yes it was.” Rol rose to his feet as he spoke. “Fehrd just explained to you why it’s your fault. Now, it’s fine, really, because honestly? I wanted to leave Altaruk. It’s a hellhole. A blot that would that would not be missed if it were wiped off the surface of Athas. And I think we were pretty much at the point where nobody was going to hire us anymore.”

  “And that is your fault.” Gan pointed an accusatory finger at Rol.

  Rol shrugged. “If the girl had simply said she was our employer’s daughter, there wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “Our employer told you that she was his daughter, and you went ahead and—”

  “I thought he was talking about the other one.”

  “Whom you also slept with.”

  “Yes, but he didn’t know that. And besides—”

  “Enough!” Fehrd got to his feet. “Can we please just pack up and get moving already?”

  The three of them had been traveling for the better part of a month, so the procedure for folding up the tent and packing all their supplies into the pack that Gan would be carrying was fairly well streamlined.

  So it was only fifteen minutes later that they were once again trudging through the desert. They walked at a steady pace, adjusting quickly to the shifting ground of the sand beneath them—which, mercifully, wasn’t all that shifting, as it wasn’t windy today—and drank water when needed.

  They also didn’t talk, as a way of preserving their own water and ability to breathe, which came to Fehrd as something of a relief. Fehrd understood that Gan just wanted to see his sister, but his anxiousness had been growing ever more annoying over the past few days.

  Besides, the arguments between Gan and Rol had gotten more shrill as time went on. Fehrd honestly wasn’t sure if Gan was angry at Rol for costing them bodyguard work or because the women were inevitably more interested in Rol than Gan. Gan even had an eye patch that women often swooned over, but the bloom usually came off the rose the minute he started talking.

  Either way, their reputation for being effective as bodyguards but poor at interpersonal relationships had indeed spread throughout most of Altaruk. Such things rarely took too long, and they risked drawing the wrong kind of attention to themselves.

  Ironically, Gan’s frolik game was supposed to facilitate getting supplies for the trip. Instead, they had to dip into the emergency fund, which was only enough to pay for food and water, that being a greater priority than new crodlus.

  And not even good food. Just a great deal of jerky. The only other food they had was the crodlu chow that Rol had purchased before the frolik game. It was the good stuff too—near-poison to humans and elves, and it made dwarves nauseous, but crodlus couldn’t get enough of the gourmet vittles. It was intended to be a reward for mounts who were going to be riding hard through the desert.

  Instead, they were being ridden by rich kids in Altaruk, and the three of them were stuck with bags full of crodlu chow, which Rol had insisted on not selling for whatever reason.

  After so much jerky, the crodlu chow was actually starting to sound very appealing to Fehrd.

  They walked a bit slower than usual, as the sun was particularly brutal. Rol took the lead, as he often did—he had the keenest eyes of the three of them. Since Gan was carrying the pack, he took up the rear, as his burden slowed him down. His lack of a left eye generally kept him from taking point in any case.

  Sweat dripped into Fehrd’s eyes. He had to adjust his headwrap several times, and also had to constantly shift the staff scabbard on his back.

  “You’re adjusting the scabbard again.” Gan’s voice was laced with amusement.

  Fehrd didn’t even turn around to look at him. “I’m sweating. This is what happens when we walk outside too close to midday as you insisted. The sweat shifts the scabbard.”

  “No, the fact that the scabbard was designed for a man half your size is why the scabbard shifts. I know you loved your father and all, Fehrd, but the man was tiny.”

  “Yes,” Fehrd said through clenched teeth, “I’m aware of how small he was, having been raised by him and all. He left me the staff and scabbard when he died. The staff is from the leg of the first—”

  “—the first anakore he killed,” Gan finished in a singsong voice. “We know. It’s a great staff, Fehrd, really, it is, but you need a better scabbard for it.”

  Finally Fehrd turned around. “Well, Gan, you know, I would really love to get a new scabbard. I’ll be happy to do that with all the coin you won at frolik.”

  “Very funny.”

  From the front, Rol said, “It is a little bit funny.”

  A retort died on Fehrd’s dry lips. “Can we not have this argument until nightfall? I’ll be more than happy to tell you both what imbeciles you are when the sun isn’t trying to roast m—”

  Fehrd cut himself off as he literally bumped into Rol. “Uhm, do you mind? The whole point of walking is to actually walk.”

  Then Rol held up his left arm and Fehrd shut up instantly, his arm reaching for the end of his staff. Behind him, he could hear Gan drop the pack onto the sand.

  Rol was half a head taller than Fehrd—who was fairly large himself—so he had to shift to the side to see what got Rol to stop.

  Just over a rise in the sand, Fehrd could see a mass of people: four large carriages, a few crodlus and kanks, most of which were being used as pack animals rather than mounts, and a variety of styles of dress. Among other things, it meant they were finally in sight of the Great Road.

  At first, it looked to be a simple caravan of people, of a type you often found once you hit the main passageways in the wastes. There was safety in numbers, after all.

  At least, in theory—those people weren’t safe. For one thing, they were all out in the open in the heat of midday without moving, which was suicide. You didn’t expose yourself to high sun willingly unless you were accomplishing something, like making forward progress.

  For another, the entire group was surrounded by a collection of crodlus whose carapaces had been dyed with distinctive black markings that were visible even at that distance.

  “The Black Sands Raiders,” Fehrd muttered.

  “I really hate those guys,” Gan said with a sigh.

  Fehrd yanked his father’s staff out of the too-small scabbard. The Black Sands Raiders had been roaming the area of the wastes for decades. Once, their raids were all committed by their leader, Zeburon, the so-called “Iron Rider,” but lately their ranks had swelled to the point that splinter groups had been created to do secondary raids and such.

  They generally traveled in groups of a dozen or so, all riding crodlus with painted carapaces. Zeburon himself hid his face with an iron helm etched in ancient runes that nobody could read anymore. For his part, Fehrd chose to believe that they translated to, “The wearer of this helm is lost, please return to the Janos family in Gulg,” secure in the knowledge that no one—not even Zeburon himself, in all likelihood—could contradict him. Regardless, they had an appallingly high success rate.

  Zeburon’s minions simply wore all black, though some painted copies of the helm runes in silver onto their wraps. The color choice
had always struck Fehrd as horribly impractical. Darker colors just made you hotter, which was insanity in the wastes.

  But then, Fehrd supposed that sane people didn’t try to make their living robbing caravans.

  On more than one occasion, the three of them had been hired specifically to protect caravans just like that one from the iron rider’s band.

  Rol continued to stare straight ahead. “Do we get involved?”

  Nodding enthusiastically, Fehrd said, “Absolutely. They might be grateful and pay us—or at least feed us something that isn’t jerky.”

  From the back, Gan asked, “What if we get hurt—or killed?”

  Fehrd snorted without bothering to look behind him. “Please—how many Black Sands jobs have we messed up?”

  “Yeah, when we were expecting them and ready for it. This is a little different, especially if we aren’t getting paid.”

  “We’re right on the edge of their sightlines,” Fehrd said. “They’re gonna see us soon either way.”

  “Fine, we do it,” Gan said. “Frontal assault?”

  Fehrd spared Gan an incredulous look. “That’s about as crazy as—well, as playing frolik with Hamno Sennit.”

  Gan’s response was a gesture that was a sign of peace in Balic, but was something a bit more rude everywhere else in Athas.

  Ignoring Gan with the ease of long practice, Fehrd turned back to look at the caravan.

  “Rol, can you get close enough to take care of the crodlus while we distract them?”

  At that, Rol just turned and looked at Fehrd.

  “Right, stupid question. Get going.”

  Rol nodded, and ran back the way they had come.

  Then Fehrd turned to Gan. “You’re about to have a broken ankle.”

  “Why do I have to be the one who has a broken ankle?”

  “Because you’re the one who lost—”

  Gan waved him off. “Lost the crodlus, right. Fine.” With a sigh, he got down on all fours, then fell on his back.

  Fehrd then turned, took several deep breaths so he’d seem out of sorts, and then ran right toward the caravan. Waving his arms back and forth over his head, he cried, “Hey! Hey! My friend is hurt.”

  Several people turned to look at Fehrd as he ran. Some were shocked, most were confused—and the raiders looked angry.

  “Who the frip is that?”

  As soon as he got fairly close to the caravan and its marauders, Fehrd stumbled forward and fell face first into the sand, thus feeding the perception of him being beside himself with worry over his friend.

  “I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly, “I’m really sorry, but my friend, he’s hurt, can you help me, please? I think his ankle’s broken.”

  Being closer, he was able to take in the details of the situation. There were indeed four carriages, one of them very large and made of stone rather than canvas. It was sealed tight, except for thin slits in a few spots—which added up to a slave trader, the only people who’d be carrying cargo that might try to escape. Animal carriers would have larger holes for breathing. Unsurprisingly, it had six crodlus reined to it, where a canvas carriage of that size would normally only require two.

  The other three were fairly standard, and he noticed several people sitting on the edges of them nervously.

  As for the raiders, they had planned their attack well. There were only six painted crodlus surrounding the caravan, evenly spaced and preventing anyone from escaping. Some crodlus had two riders, some one, but there were as many raiders on the ground amidst the caravan members as there were crodlus with only one rider, so obviously each crodlu had two when all was said and done.

  A dozen raiders, just like usual. Each carried a bone knife, some fairly long. Based on Fehrd’s experience, they likely all knew how to use them also.

  One of the raiders stepped forward, and Fehrd knew instantly that he was the leader of the bunch, because the others on the ground stepped aside for him and all the riders turned to look at him.

  “Broken ankle, you say? That’s terrible. We’re having a bit of trouble with one of our carriage wheels right now, but I think we can spare someone.” He turned to one of his men. “Harak, go with him. Check it out, while we finish fixing this wheel.”

  “Whatever you say, Draz,” the other one said.

  Stumbling to his feet, Fehrd bowed several times. “Thank you, sir, thank you so much, I’m so worried about my friend.”

  Harak walked up to Fehrd and indicated the way he’d come with a hand. “After you.”

  “Of course, sir, just come with me, sir, thank you so much.” He started jogging through the sand. Harak was able to keep up with long strides.

  Gan was lying obligingly on the ground, his pack at his side, massaging his ankle. “Morning glory, but this hurts. If you could help me, sir, I’d really appreciate—”

  “Shut up,” Harak said, taking out his bone knife.

  Fehrd then clubbed him in the head with his father’s bone staff.

  As he fell forward, Gan pulled his own bone knife out of the holster in his not-really-broken ankle and plunged it into Harak’s chest.

  Getting to his feet, Gan said, “That’s one.”

  The bleating sound of hungry crodlus pierced the air. Fehrd turned around to see that Rol had done his part: spreading the gourmet crodlu chow on the ground. The crodlus immediately picked up the scent and came running, despite the best efforts of the Black Sands riders.

  “See? Rol had a good reason for keeping the chow,” Gan said with a grin as they started running back to the caravan.

  Fehrd snorted. “He probably slept with the merchant’s daughter or something.”

  Chaos was reigning in the caravan, as the raiders tried to get the hungry crodlus under control, and failed rather spectacularly. Fehrd had been concerned that they might have had well-trained crodlus, but that had been unlikely. The Black Sands Raiders lived hard and rode their beasts into the ground. The niceties of training the crodlus were superfluous when they could just steal another if one they had failed in some way.

  But that also meant they had no chance of getting them under control when someone spread gourmet chow on the ground.

  Rol was taking advantage of the chaos by pulling the riders off their mounts and slitting their throats.

  There was a reason why the three of them were some of the best bodyguards in Athas. Rol’s inability to keep it in his trousers gave them entirely the wrong reputation for getting more employment, but they were underestimated at the peril of their opponents.

  Two of the raiders saw Gan and Fehrd running back toward them, screamed something that Fehrd couldn’t make out, and then threw their bone knives.

  Both of them ducked the throws fairly easily. Fehrd smiled and brandished his father’s staff.

  Gripping the staff firmly so that his hands were evenly spaced, Fehrd hit one Raider at the temple with one end of the staff, then twirled it so that it hit another one in the collarbone. The first dropped to the ground, while the other stumbled backward, and Fehrd took shots at his groin and jaw, then he too fell.

  Gan took care of two more with his own knife, leaving just the leader, Draz, standing before them.

  The man’s smile was visible under his head scarves. “Not bad for a last act.”

  Fehrd smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  Then Draz took a staff of his own out of a back scabbard.

  That just made Fehrd’s smile widen. “You know how to use that thing?”

  In response, Draz came at him with a strike to his head. Fehrd blocked it easily, but the move wasn’t meant to harm, but to simply answer the question. The Black Sands leader had been trained—his grip was formal, and his strike swift. It would have been effective against an unarmed opponent.

  Gan moved to help Rol with the remaining raiders, which Fehrd barely acknowledged out of the corner of his eye. His attention was entirely focused on Draz.

  They circled each other for a moment in the sand, and then Draz
whipped his staff in an attempt to strike at Fehrd’s stomach. Fehrd blocked it easily, but Draz pulled back before Fehrd could hook his opponent’s staff in an attempt to disarm him.

  Fehrd swung down toward Draz’s ankle, which Draz blocked, but that left his face briefly open as he defended it. Fehrd brought his staff up toward Draz’s chin—which Draz managed to dodge—then swung it around again to try to hit his chin a second time. That time, though, Draz blocked it with his staff, the impact ringing through Fehrd’s arms.

  Then Fehrd whirled around to try to hit Draz from the other side, but the sandy ground made it difficult for him to maintain his footing. For a brief moment, he panicked, and Draz immediately went on the offensive, sending the staff right toward his face.

  Fehrd managed to deflect it, but he almost lost his grip in the meantime.

  Draz snarled and swung the staff around more quickly, and Fehrd was only barely able to get his staff up.

  It wasn’t until after Fehrd cried out in pain that he realized that Draz’s staff had smashed into his fingers. It was a struggle to keep those fingers curled in a grip.

  So he kicked Draz in the groin.

  Expectedly, Draz stumbled backward, making an “ooooohhhh” noise, prompting Fehrd to swing the staff at his head. Draz managed to duck that, but Fehrd kept the arc going, swinging low.

  His father’s staff smashed into Draz’s shin, knocking his feet out from under him. He fell onto his back, his staff having fallen to the sand next to him, and Fehrd immediately stood over him, the end of the staff right at his throat.

  Smiling, Fehrd said, “Not bad for a last act.”

  Draz snarled. “I don’t think so.”

  Fehrd never saw Draz’s hand move, but suddenly it was up, having thrown a bone knife right at Fehrd’s chest.