Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1)

by Benjamin M. Piety

  “Nothing to worry about. Guess it missed its mother.”

  Relief crosses his face. “Good to hear. If it had been twofooters, I don’t think I’m up for a quick jaunt at the major.”

  Iahel smiles in sympathy. “We should see if these work then, you think?” Logan looks apprehensively at the two legs.

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “I’m not confident we won’t be running for our lives tomorrow. Or even later tonight. We should do this before it’s too late. Labour through . . .” Iahel hesitates. “Through whatever pain these have in store for you. At least so you have some time to recover.” She watches Logan’s face as he contemplates the logic.

  With a huff, he says, “Fine then.”

  At that, Iahel plucks the legs from the ground and lines them up with both of Logan’s stumps.

  “You think we have to do this raw?” he asks.

  “Take off the bandage?” She looks down at each stub bleeding through.

  “Shnite. You’re probably right,” Logan says, defeated. He reaches down and begins to unravel the bandages.

  She turns and pulls an old shirt from her rucksack and aligns it under the tip of his stump, three-quarters up from where his knee might have been.

  As Logan finishes, Iahel gets her first glimpse at his horror. At her expression, he offers, “They cauterized the legs as soon as they cut them.”

  The end of each stump is mangled and black. Iahel covers her mouth.

  “I don’t remember them cutting the second. I went dark as soon as they hit an iron to the first. Told me I shouldn’t have run. Bragging, they said I was.”

  “Dustian.”

  “So, bring on these penetrating pins, shall we?”

  Iahel looks at Logan. Radiba cog spirit through and through. Carefully, she helps set the first leg into place as Logan grabs and adjusts it, pulling it farther back into the stump.

  He grimaces. Grits his teeth. “Apory, the pins are scraping a little.”

  Iahel stands back, holding hand to mouth. “I don’t need the details.”

  “I should get the other one in place, in case this first one doesn’t go well and you have to finish.”

  The thought terrifies her. “Let’s not need to do that.” She reluctantly steps closer. The smell of his wound hits her nose, and she suppresses her gag reflex, attempting not to look at his legs or his flaccid cock having spilled out after he unraveled the bandage.

  “Apory again.” He covers himself, slightly flushed.

  “I’ve seen it before, just reinforces why I’m no gully for them.”

  Logan laughs. “Make a boy feel real special.”

  She shrugs. “My specialty,” she says, then sets the other leg and stands back, returning to her safer distance.

  Logan adjusts the second leg, breathing deep with each slight movement, pausing and then readjusting. Once both are set, he looks up. “Here’s to nothing,” he sighs before commencing to screw in the first leg using both hands, one to hold it in place, the other to spin the many little cranks.

  At first, he seems capable of hiding the anguish, biting down and attempting to power through the screws digging, cutting into his skin. But soon, tears well as he closes his eyes, and the pain shrinks his heavy breathing into a low, managed grumble—before he gives in to an all-out scream.

  At this, Iahel kneels before him, covering his mouth. “We have to stay quiet out here.”

  Logan continues to turn the screws, his eyes focused entirely on Iahel’s. Soon he finishes the first leg, red-eyed, his face flushed and sweating.

  “You did well. Halfway there.” She releases her hand from his mouth. His lip bleeds from a tiny bite.

  With a deep breath and eyes once more closed, Logan begins again on the second leg. This one is sure to be even more painful, knowing what pain awaits him. He’s slower to finish, each turn followed by an excruciated holler. Iahel returns to holding back his scream, and her hand grows wet from the stream of tears pouring down his face. His breath steams in her hand.

  You have this.

  He stops and his eyes roll back before he slumps over. She catches his fall and softly lays his head to the ground. She looks at his leg. He finished. Blood streams from the holes made by the screws. Iahel stands and shakes the sight of the gore off, holding back vomit.

  Positioning herself across from Logan, she lies in the soft grass and dirt with her hands behind her head, trying to rid herself of the horror. It has been a while since she’s taken a major to watch the night sky and soft twinkle of the stars, whose movements and sparkles increase the longer you stare. When she was younger, she believed that the night sky was only a giant dome with millions of tiny holes poked through. A half dome. Like a bowl that circles the Land and rotates around the planet with the light of the stars beaming from sunlight constantly shining through. One of the caretakers had told her this child’s tale, concluding that even when the Land is night, when things are at their darkest, the light remains, shining through the pinholes of the sky and reminding us that the light is ever there. Lincoln sent.

  Perhaps that’s what it could be. Iahel imagines the conceit, the flatness of the atmosphere, of a giant hole-filled blanket. Her mind wanders to Jules. A kiss they had once in the dark. How her lips felt bigger than her entire body. She floats away and falls asleep.

  ❖❖❖

  The next morn, Iahel wakes up soaking wet. Her dark and undisturbed sleep in the grass left her drenched in the first morndew. Logan still sleeps, unmoving in the night. She stands and stretches and yawns, catching the sun peeking over crest, and looks behind the rock to see if twofooters are tracking them. The early morn mists hide any sight of denizens in the far distance. For the major, things are clear.

  She moves to Logan and gently shakes his shoulder. He stirs, grunting slightly before opening his eyes. “Good kiptales?” she asks.

  “Morn.” He smiles, pushing himself up, and looks around. “I kiptaled I was back in Radiba. I spent a night with Sanet there. Before all this.”

  “She told me.” Iahel smiles.

  Logan looks back to his legs. “Think these stumps work?”

  “Let’s hope so, or we’re in trouble.”

  She watches as he stares at the foot of each leg. There are no toes or discerning digits. After a minor, the west foot moves.

  Logan’s eyes widen and he gasps. “Lincoln, we did it.”

  “Try the other,” Iahel insists.

  Logan nods and looks to his east foot. It moves. “It moves!”

  “Grats.”

  Logan immediately pushes himself up.

  “Careful, Logan.”

  She stands close, but he holds her off, attempting to do it on his own. Bracing himself on the rock behind him, he slowly shifts upward. His new legs wobble underneath him. Iahel reaches out her hand again; Logan denies it.

  “I think I have it.”

  Stepping back, she watches as he stands completely, his hand on the rock for balance. “Can you walk?”

  “The feeling is only here.” He points to where the artificial legs meet his stumps. “Feels like needles dotting my skin.” He pushes himself off the rock and steps forward. One foot clumsy before the other. He takes a second step. This one with a bit more confidence. Another step. He grimaces.

  “Are you wisnok?”

  “The pins are settling.” He grits his teeth but takes another step. “Shnite. It feels so . . . it feels almost natural. Like I can feel them.” Logan begins to walk in a circle, each new step more accepted than the last.

  “Well, I won’t lie that I almost couldn’t bear to watch last night.”

  “You don’t like watching friends stab themselves with piercing pins and cutting screws?” he jokes.

  Iahel swallows back the disgust. “We should move.”

  Logan, whose face is twisted in both elation and surprise, agrees. She grabs her rucksack, and they set off.

  The day passes slowly. At times, Logan runs on his new legs. H
e’s fast. Quicker than Iahel, who attempts to race him. “Our little twofooter friend,” she jokes. He shudders.

  The conversation then turns to the twofooters’ march. “They seem dark bent on bringing war to the tenfooters. As if being slighted in some long way was too much to be forgiven,” Logan doubles.

  “But why now? How long have they been planning this?”

  Recalling what he overheard, he says, “There were rumblings about that Roar. How his advent inspired them to act. I heard another group of twofooters singing that same chant the crimson men did back when we were in Radiba. The one about the advent of the Roar. ‘Seven from’ or something like that.”

  “They sound Yikshir. Believing in a bunch of superstitions.”

  “I’m not sure why they believe in the advent of some child, like that’s possible. Or why that starts a war, but it seems more likely they’re using it to justify an act they’ve wanted anyway. Or at least some of them. Others seem happy just to leave the valley fogs.”

  “I’ve never met a tenfooter, but I can’t imagine that march is significant enough to win against them,” Iahel contemplates.

  “I don’t know. No one knows what goes on within those grasses.”

  “Do you believe Bernard fought one before?”

  “Maybe. Bernard was young. Maybe he just met a really tall adult.”

  At that, Iahel laughs. Suddenly, the thought of Sanet and Bernard sends her heart a passing pang. I hope they’re safe.

  In the distance, beyond the monotonous pattern of rock and tree, stands a grand manor. At first, it resembles any other house or farm one might encounter in the more populated states, but as they draw closer to it, its size triples, making it closer to a mansion than some pedestrian ranch. Iahel can’t believe the sight. “Logan, this is the manor Sanet said she went to. Where she found that little brass sliver.”

  The sun is soon to crest, and both are hungry, even after their makeshift duskmeal of small roasted tallingstones Logan hunted on his new legs earlier in the day. An unnerving, surreal, and awesome sight. As they watch the manor, lights shift on and off.

  “We’re not too far from the Tunnels then?” Iahel asks.

  “Probably a half-day from the Carvinga border. Another day to an entrance. The Crossroads are still closer.”

  “Sanet didn’t say much about who she got the brass from. You think they’re twofooters?”

  “Maybe. But not all Misipiants are twofooters. Especially ones who live on the plateaus,” Logan answers. He takes the last small bite of his tallingstone meat.

  “I wonder if they’re friendly? Should be, if Sanet met them.”

  “I’d imagine. But that’s if Sanet’s telling us the truth.” There’s a grimace to the comment. “She could have stolen it. And now they’re not so friendly.”

  At Logan’s hissy fit over his girl crush, Iahel rolls her eyes. “If they’re not so friendly, we’ll need to find somewhere else to refresh supplies,” she points out.

  “Now that we’re so close, I’m wondering if someone should tell the tenfooters about this impending attack.”

  “You’re not volunteering us, I hope. It’s not my war. And if I never meet a tenfooter in person, I’ll be wisnok with it.”

  “Wasn’t saying you or us. But I think someone should at least warn the Carvingians,” Logan states. The rescuer returns. Barely restored to health before he’s ready to save the day again. “Seems a little cruel to let friends be taken by surprise like that,” he continues. “Especially if the attacker is seeking revenge for some iniquities of a generation past.”

  “Yes, but assuming you’re even able to have a conversation with a tenfooter without being crushed or torn apart, how would you explain that an entire march is breaking the spirit of the Laws to start a war?”

  Logan shrugs without an answer.

  They sit quietly for a major before he changes the subject. “You think we should investigate the manor tonight? To get an idea of who lives there?”

  She looks ahead. The manor, oddly built in the middle of the plateau, waits in stillness and, at the major, lies unlit. Whoever or whatever lives inside is asleep, and the idea of sneaking up to a mad woman’s haynest or into the house of another crazy twofooter or perhaps a tenfooter who crossed the border makes her stomach uneasy. With few supplies left and no other real direction, however, she decides it’s their best option. “It’s our only option.”

  Logan smiles. He’s quick to be distracted, seeking any opportunity to run off to investigate. He seems purposeless. More to it, he seems afraid of his fate with whoever the Victors are. With no other objective to claim, they continue closer to the manor.

  “How are the legs holding up?”

  “They feel good. Almost too good. I forget they aren’t my own, but now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t have any soreness. I don’t feel like we’ve been walking all day. I guess the march of twofooters can do that . . . no rest?”

  “Denizens still have to eat. And the freks need rest.”

  Logan nods in agreement. The manor is built of marble, stone, and timber, four stories tall including its attic. Numerous gables form the roof. They approach with caution, hiding behind a waist-high and worn fence that surrounds it.

  “Now what?” Iahel asks.

  He shrugs and peeks over the edge of the fence. Iahel does as well. The yard is dark and still. Logan hops over.

  “Are you flam?” she whispers as loudly as she’s able. As he creeps closer to one of the windows and looks inside, she scans over her shoulder at the endless plateau behind them before hopping the fence herself.

  As she gets closer to Logan, she slaps him across the back of his head. “I should have left you in that cage.”

  “Wasn’t the point of coming here to investigate—”

  She hushes him, covering his mouth, and points with her other hand. Inside, a denizen walks about. Not a twofooter—an older man, who appears behind one hallway and crosses into another.

  “We should go.”

  Agreed, they turn and find themselves surrounded by a drum of cogs. Each is gray against the moonlight. They seem eager and happy to see the two. One of them hops up onto Iahel and turns yellow.

  “Shnite. Cogs.”

  Logan taps her shoulder and points. Iahel turns back to look inside. The denizen, now walking with a smaller child, heads back through the manor and toward the front door. Aware of the impending danger, Logan leads Iahel away from the window and back toward the fence. She sets the cog down, and it joins the dozens of others, which all follow them across the yard. To Iahel’s east, she catches a glimpse of a beautiful garden. Logan hops into it first, followed by Iahel. The cogs gather at the fence. From above them, a searching beam from a neonlight hits a boulder near the manor. The denizens are outside.

  “Let’s get farther away. Hopefully, they’ll blame any intrusion on tallingstones or something.”

  They run, slumping as low as they can, toward a hollow tree trunk, barely big enough for either alone. Inside, they’re unable to see the goings-on at the manor. So, instead, they wait, the only view the flat plateau ahead.

  A commotion breaks out in the manor behind them. The trunk muffles the sound to the point that neither of them can decipher what’s said. And then, a cog appears. Proshing freks. Followed by another. They playfully bounce and hop into the trunk.

  “Over here,” a young boy’s voice calls out.

  Iahel grabs for her dagger.

  Logan stops her. “That was the boy.”

  Iahel, unsure she cares, releases her hold. They wait for a major before a moonlit shadow covers the cogs, followed by the barrel of a rifle.

  Logan raises hands to head. Iahel follows. They exit the trunk slowly.

  “Careful, folk.” A bearded man stands before them, his gun pointed at Logan but his eyes darting between them. “What brings you all the way out here tonight?”

  Iahel starts, “We were traveling past. We’re low on supplies and didn’t k
now if anyone lived here.”

  “I’ve told the last of you that there’s no brass here.”

  “We’re not looking for brass, friend. Just a place to rest and some supplies, if you have it,” Logan states.

  The dozens of cogs, all of them pink, run freely between their legs. The man lowers his gun. “Well, if these damn cogs like you, I guess it’s not worth letting the boy see me send you two left.”

  Iahel grins with grateful apprehension.

  Chapter 20

  AN INEVITABLE CONCLUSION

  My curam is Carson. Carson Stollamite.”

  The older man pours two mugs of white steamed brackleberry tea and hands them to Iahel and Logan, who at the minor are seated around a quaint wood table in a nook that overlooks the manor’s back garden. With approsh, they sip the clear and soothing flora and nibble on a few warmed biscons pulled fresh from a hetsonbox. Carson’s haynest, constructed with dark wood walls and lit by warm, practical lighting, reminds Iahel of her time aboard the Gilraymond where she first met Aerial, marking the manor and Carson’s friendly demeanor in stark contrast to the threats of the looming twofooter march.

  “You say you were traveling past?” asks Carson. “Whereabouts are you headed?”

  Logan answers, “Orga—”

  “—nowhere in particular,” Iahel interrupts.

  Carson doesn’t respond, setting the teakettle back on the hetsontop. He walks back and sits down across from them. “And you’re from the valley?” he asks Logan with an eye toward the false legs.