The morn passes without event. Iahel’s only interactions with others come when a pair of getwish legs pass by, its body high above and hidden in the fog. Twofooters must hate these freks. She smiles for the first time that morn at the irony of getwishes in Misipit.
Erish’s boot prints, or what she’s chosen to believe are Erish’s, turn off the trail and begin trudging up a west canyon wall. Hopeful she’s on the right path, she follows them.
The way is winding and narrow, and if anyone were to come down, they would have to hold on to each other as they pass or risk falling from the steep ledge. As she ascends, the fog begins to clear, and after an hour’s trek, out of breath and leg sore, she finds herself at the top of the canyon.
The expanse is fresh and spacious with sporadic low-lying hills slouching across an endless crisp green landscape. Impossibly large boulders and petrified trees pepper the vista along the plateau. Below, the fog flows in channeled streams deep in the canyon valley. The boot prints Iahel had carefully followed throughout the morn have disappeared now that the path beneath her feet is stone. She grabs a bit of granola from her rucksack and takes a few bites to curb the rumble in her stomach. Starting her trek along the plateau, she finds no discerning course to track and no trails or roads or paths. In the far distance rises a cloud of dust.
The midmorn all too quickly vaults to full sun before Iahel finds shade under an overhanging rock. Over the past hours, other destined landmarks turned false when she discovered the penetrating heat of the sun was generating watery mirages. Here now, in the shade, she is grateful the rock is real. Taking a few last sips from her water jug, she closes her eyes for a major, deciding that reaching the next landmark ahead will take her the rest of her day, but the cool soft breeze coaxes her into a long kiptaleless nap.
Rumbling.
The ground beneath her shakes. Iahel wakes nearly an hour later and braces herself against the back side of the rock. Around her moves a massive march of ingreves easily hundreds and hundreds deep. The ingreves stomp to her east, to her west, and some down from the rock above. Standing twenty feet high and nearly as wide, the gray-and-brown-striped ingreves plod along. Their narrow, vertical heads open, revealing mouths in the same vertical direction with a double layer of rounded teeth. On either side of these sideways mouths are inlays of a half-dozen unblinking eyes that are frequently calcified from an endless amount of debris caught in their lids. Occasionally, they release a low, booming growl that reverberates through the air.
Riding these monstrous freks are dozens of twofooters, each in elaborate harnesses. Some ride on the sides of the ingreves, while others ride on top. Adding to the march are twofooters mounted solo on tall getwishes. The getwishes’ long legs, some five feet high, lead all the way up to rounded black-and-white-feathered bodies. Matching their thin double-jointed legs, long skinny necks rise to beaks, around which small bridles are used to lead them. The march is easily thousands thick. It takes nearly an hour to pass. Iahel huddles as close to the inside of the rock as possible, holding her breath once more, hoping no one turns around or notices her.
Luck to her, the march is indifferent to its surroundings. She listens in on pieces of conversations of twofooters complaining about the heat or what they ate for their mornmeal. Intermittently, Iahel hears twofooters speak of tenfooters, followed by many curses and guttural spits.
And then a cart pulled by a smaller ingreve passes. Atop it sits three large metal cages with rounded tops. In two of them are denizens Iahel has never seen, but in the middle cage sleeps Logan, his face bruised purple from a visible beating and burned red from a shadowless full sun. What’s more shocking in person than imagined lies below his torso, where his legs should be. Two bandaged stumps. Dustian, the poor cog.
After another ten minutes, the last freks and twofooters pass, leaving behind deep indentions and tracks in the loose gravel. Iahel continues to watch from the relative safety of the rock as the march grows smaller and smaller along the crest. The day holds only a few more hours before dusk. Now you know, Iahel. She remains under the rock, unsure of what she’s to do or how she might go about freeing the priced Logan. Shouldn’t you just run? One twofooter is enough to scare her, let alone a thousand of them. And is this not the march heading into Carvinga? The thought sends grenspimples across her arms as she imagines the destruction of the Land passing her by. War is an experience reserved for only the long ago of history.
I can’t allow Logan to be sent left.
Gathering her rucksack, leaving her fears behind and against her stomach’s churning, she follows the march. Tracing and hiding behind one large boulder or petrified trunk after another, she draws closer and closer to the plodding march. Having no real weapons on her, Iahel shakes through many ideas of what she’s going to do. She hates the idea of using guns, and her paltry dagger is little use against a single twofooter let alone an entire march. Her attempt to rescue Logan will require a unispar recipe of stealth, timing, and untold luck.
Last chance to turn away, Iahel.
With a deep, unsettled breath, she continues forth.
About an hour before dusk, the march stops and begins building a temporary camp populated with quick pop tents and tended fires. The many ingreves are gathered and fed while the forty dozen on dozens of getwishes wander free, some chasing others.
Iahel finds a safe lookout rock two hundred strides away from them. She scans the far-reaching camp for the three cages and finds them almost immediately, only to see them occupied by other priced men. The large assortment of the twofooters’ cages scattered among the entire encampment makes the task of finding Logan’s nearly impossible.
She hunts and watches. Scanning for another triple set of cages that hold Logan, and it’s not until the sun falls below crest that she finds him asleep and lying motionless in his cage. She watches him anxiously. He can’t be sent; they would have thrown him away. Anticipating any sign of movement, she waits. Come on, Logan. Near him, an irregular arrangement of twofooters, getwishes, and ingreves are led by the man from Bluesteep curamed Erish, standing on his two wood-and-metal legs. Others in the small camp among the larger march maneuver about on stout, dexterous arms and hands.
The most important part of her plan, luck, is in her favor, as this grouping is on the outside circle of the march. She scans the area near them and spots what might work as a hiding space relatively close.
Since Logan is without legs, she’ll need to find some means to move him quickly. Her first instinct is to find a getwish they can ride. What I wouldn’t do for Whistlers right now. Getwishes, with their high, flimsy legs and long necks, look more troublesome than they’re worth. As she investigates the encompassing area for a solitary getwish wandering around, she spots a baby ingreve not fifty strides from Logan’s cage. It roams in a small grass patch alongside a larger ingreve that, due to similar striped patterns and colors, Iahel assumes is the little ingreve’s mother. That could work.
She makes her way down the overlook rock and toward the baby ingreve and its mother to prepare them for what and who might chase once Logan’s released. While sneaking closer, she plots their escape. Her first notion is to head south. If they’re on the same plateau Sanet had visited three months ago, there will be a lone manor there, where she’d snipped that sliver of brass. South is too much open air. Dangerous. Their other option would be to head east and into Carvinga, maybe a half-day’s trek. Twofooter to tenfooter. The other directions are not an option, as they’re either into or through the ingreve march. Unsure, she returns to her reconnaissance of the camp.
A still-burning fire mixed with the full moon offers Iahel enough light to find the right path but enough darkness to keep her presence covert. She treks closer and finds a quiet hiding place in the remains of an old overturned tree, fossilized over the eras. She watches as the smaller ingreve playfully pounces in the grass, hunting an unseen frek. Its eyes are bright and new, its mouth without teeth. Once every few majors, it bites down into the
field but comes up empty, shaking its little head. The larger mother ingreve stands unmoving on thick, stumpy legs while her unblinking eyes make it unclear whether she’s still awake or asleep.
When the moon falls past full moon, the area quiets to sleep, and the ingreves rest, still in their patch. Resolved once more, she slinks into camp. Now or never.
While a few whispered conversations from other parts of the march linger about the air, within the circle of tents where Logan’s cage rests, the twofooters are asleep. The crackle of a paling bonfire radiates in the middle of the campsite as Iahel squeezes between two tents, each with its front door tied open. As she catches sight of a twofooter dressed in leather shifting in his sleep, her heart skips. She waits an eternity.
Iahel finds Logan is in even worse shape up close, with dirt and dried blood covering his face. She reaches a hand into his cage—don’t make a noise, Logan—and shakes him awake, four finger to her lips. Logan shuffles and his eyes grow wide after catching a glimpse of her. He sits up, wincing in pain. His hands are bound, and he looks to his legs. He whispers, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Shnite talk. You’re coming with me, so we’re square,” she whispers back.
Logan smiles weakly and drags himself closer using his elbow, then reaches for the cage door. “I think Drax has the key. He’s the one in that tent over there.” He nods his head, and Iahel turns to see a tall and triangular tent. “I’m moderately sure he’s alone in there.”
She nods again. Why didn’t I think of needing a key?
She spins in place, taking stock of the small camp. There are five tents of various sizes all similarly triangular. She steps toward the tent Logan pointed toward, careful to avoid various trash and sticks on the ground. As she approaches, she reaches out to grasp the tent flap only to hear a small grunt. She turns to see Logan motioning his head. Wrong tent. Her heart skips a beat, and she moves over one tent and confirms with Logan, who nods approval.
There are no windows in the tent, so Iahel presses her head close to it to listen for any signs of motion inside. Still. She lifts the tent door, a small leather flap, and reveals Drax sleeping with two other female twofooters. They’re intertwined head to waist, Drax sleeping with one of the women’s tiny foot-like stumps in his mouth. His hair is long and unkempt. Scanning the tent, she notices a small bag sitting against the wall to her west. She reaches in. Slow. Steady. Quiet.
One of the female twofooters wakes and stares at her. Iahel freezes. The woman looks dazed and half asleep. She smiles at Iahel before laying her head back down on Drax’s body. With a quickened pace, Iahel grabs the entire bag and lifts it up and out of the tent. She swallows and takes a deep breath. The fire crackles and fades, the light around them darkening. She returns to Logan’s cage and carefully rifles through the bag, keeping the noise to a minimum. Along its side, hooked on a small flap, is a set of keys. She takes them in her hand. At the sight, Logan’s eyes beam with excitement.
She places the first key into the lock. It clicks and the cage door pops open. “Lucky try,” Logan whispers. “Now how are we going to escape?”
“I have a plan, but it’s mad.”
“Can’t be worse than what’s happened to me today.” He compresses his lips.
Logan grabs the side bars and pulls himself, likely more from a desire to escape than from a remaining strength, out of the cage and drops to the ground with a pathetic thump. The sight is surreal. Here is a man who once stood tall and handsome, who once was charming and a bit of a child, and who now lies mangled and physically destroyed. And he was not proud and confident, like Erish or Gretchel. He was forced into this condition.
Taken from.
After releasing Logan’s hands, the two begin to move past the tents when Iahel spots Erish’s legs. The wood and stone and metal machines stand in wait next to his tent. She motions to Logan, dragging behind, who nods at her before she grabs them.
Leaving the small camp, they return to Iahel’s hiding tree trunk in view of the sleeping ingreves, where she left her rucksack.
“You want to take that little ingreve,” Logan whispers.
“Little” wouldn’t be how Iahel would describe the baby ingreve, which is easily big enough for the two of them to ride. “You have a better idea?”
“Can’t I just use those?” Logan points.
Iahel looks down at Erish’s legs. “I’m not sure there’s an easy way to put them on without some . . . alterations.”
Logan takes one of them and inspects it with his hands. “Yeah, you’re right. Looks like there’re pins here. Not sure I can handle any more injuries right now.” He gives a wincing smile.
“Once we’re on that beast, we’ll get far enough away that they won’t find us. We’ll get you walking again.”
“Maybe. They seemed pretty determined to turn me over to the Victors.”
“I heard them. You’ll have to tell me about that once when we’re out of here—”
“Once we’re safe, I’ll tell anything you want.”
With that, Iahel shifts her focus back to the baby ingreve.
“Wait here.” She steps out of the trunk and closer to the two freks. When she’s within a few strides, she begins to ruffle the grass, making a smacking sound with her lips. The little ingreve turns its head. Its eyes spark to life. It looks frightened at first. Iahel continues to play in the grass and make the smacking noise with her lips. It’s not long before the ingreve hops in place and begins to circle a bit in the lawn. Standing up, it’s close to four feet tall. Its pounces rumble the dirt beneath it.
Iahel draws the frek toward her as she backs away toward Logan and the trunk. It follows unknowingly, its vertical mouth opening in a soft growl. A red tongue slips out and wags eagerly. When it’s away from the mother, Iahel reaches out to pet the side of the young ingreve’s head. It pushes into her, licking her arm. Iahel contains a giggle. Just like calming a krake.
Growing confident, and knowing time is short, she motions for Logan to appear, and he crawls from the trunk. The ingreve stumbles backward a bit but is assured by Iahel, who continues to pet and smack her lips. Logan attempts his own smacking noise, but it comes out wrong, and the ingreve shows a slight agitation. Iahel hushes him. Logan nods, embarrassed.
She looks the ingreve in the eye. “We’re going to get on you now, are you ready for that?” The ingreve doesn’t react. Saying a quick Dustian, Iahel takes the ingreve by the neck and pulls herself up. It immediately stands straighter and starts to circle erratically as if uncomfortable with the sudden weight. Iahel, with both hands, massages either side of the ingreve’s neck, calming it.
Pressing deeper with her west hand, she leads the young frek toward Logan, who pulls himself up and atop the ingreve using Iahel to support him. With both on, the ingreve grows more restless, spinning and bouncing up and down. It begins making little roars. Don’t wake mama, little frek, she thinks with apprehension, looking toward the other impossibly large and motionless ingreve.
Iahel closes her eyes, pushing and massaging her hands deep into the ingreve’s neck, calming it with more lip smacking. It slows.
“I think we’re good. Let me get our stuff.” She leads the ingreve over to the trunk and hops off, ensuring her hand never leaves its neck. It appears content and curious as she grabs Erish’s legs and gives them to Logan. “You should start to massage its neck here. Right there where it’s warm.”
With one arm wrapped around the mechanical legs, Logan uses his other to rub the ingreve’s neck. It reacts to the change of hands but finds the new motion comforting. Iahel hangs her rucksack over her shoulder and hops on behind Logan.
“Let’s get out of here.” She moves her hand around Logan and leads the ingreve. It happily plods along away from the camp and toward the moonlit grasslands ahead. Looking back, Logan stares at the other large ingreve.
“Is it going to miss its mother?”
“Hopefully not anytime soon. I think it’s enjoying this for the m
ajor, but eventually it will, I don’t doubt. But, with any luck, after we’re long gone from the march.”
Facing south, they trek along and into the night.
Chapter 19
THE MAN WHO LOST HIS LEGS
If the threat of vengeful twofooters chasing them wasn’t looming, the moonlight radiating off the landscape of large boulders and petrified trunks would have been a calming and picturesque scene. From crest to crest, the sky marks itself with thin strips of noctilucent clouds and an untold number of dotted starscapes. Behind them, the fires of the camp fade into the distance, evolving to less and less threatening specks of light. Iahel spies a large boulder they might use as a safe space to rest out of sight.
She guides the ingreve toward the arched rock, dismounts, and helps Logan perch against the crag. The ingreve, groggy in step, promptly spins and plops to the ground, and Logan drags himself toward the rock, propping himself upright. Iahel sits next to Logan, and they wait patiently. And for an extended major, they both remain silent.
After a time, Logan breaks the quiet. “Approsh, Iahel.”
“This just makes us square.” She shrugs off the appreciation, her feelings for Logan shifting. In the rush to rescue, she’d buried her thoughts, but over the calm, she’s come to believe her bravery was only obligation, convincing herself she was supposed to be the heroine even though all it will lead to is inevitable. Her lot in this story is loss. Departures without waves or single souls sent left. Attempts to hold stability or a foundation in her story would always and have always been uprooted and splintered into dust. Aerial was right to believe in Dustian. Consuming life until there’s nothing left. Until there’s only dust.
The ingreve lifts its head, then stands. Without notice, it speeds away even as Iahel reaches out a hand to stop it. Missing her grip, she stands and turns toward its trajectory. Her heart quails at the thought of what might be on the other side of the rock. A scouting party or twofooters on getwishes hunting the runaway long legs. She finds instead the ingreve’s shadow diminishing in the moonlight as it hurries toward the camp. To its mother. The instinct for haynest, for family, evades her; she’s unable to comprehend the concept of having a mother or being a daughter, of having another to call her constant. To double, since she never wanted children herself, it is a relationship she would never understand. Turning back to Logan, she finds his expression begging for good news.
Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1) Page 21