by J. C. Staudt
“You are not taking the pulser?” Rindhi asked, as I packed my things in the morning.
“Why would I? These are ridgebacks we’re dealing with. The only thing in the wide world a pulser is going to harm is a techsoul. To a ridgeback, this’d feel like getting tickled.”
“I do not know. I am from Mani-Pani, and there we do not have these ridgebacks.”
“Then you should’ve stayed in Mani-Pani and considered yourself fortunate,” I said.
“To become an adviser to the Archduke of Finustria was a good opportunity for me.”
“And you left the Archduke’s palace to follow this dufus?” I said, hiking my thumb over at Thomas. “I was starting to forget about you trying to stick me up, but now I remember it clearly.”
Rindhi pursed his lips. “Yet, I will go to the canyon, if you have need of me.”
“I don’t.”
Rindhi still came along when Isaac showed me the way. Thomas stayed behind with Sable and Dennel to assess our losses and help mount the turbines I’d wired up the night before. The ridgebacks had stolen quite a bit besides the gravstone, though just how much remained to be seen.
As we traveled, the forest became grassland, and the grassland turned dry and dusty. I marveled at how quickly things had changed—not just in the terrain, but in our situation as well. Just the day before, I had been scheming about how to take on more passengers. Now, I found myself heading into the wilderness to teach a bunch of uncivilized monsters a lesson.
They say life is what you make it. But in my case, life has made plenty on its own without asking my permission first. I had a trick or two up my sleeve, though, and I was pretty sure life would never see them coming.
The stone obelisks were taller than I was; squared-off pillars with pyramidal points and strange runes inscribed in them from head to foot. Two bordered the canyon, one on either side of the sloping hill that ran down into it. The third obelisk was larger than the other two, smack-dab in the middle of the pass.
I was awed, but unimpressed. These were relics leftover from some ancient time, no doubt. But there was no magical power behind them. There were no dark forces brewing within, waiting to destroy anyone who trespassed beyond their watch, as Mr. Isaac and the locals seemed to think. I was convinced of that, and I strode down the slope with the confidence of a father going outside to spook the stray dog who’s been scaring his children.
Rindhi stayed put, apprehensive now that he was seeing the site for himself. So did Mr. Isaac, of course. I crossed the imaginary line that ran between the first two obelisks and headed straight for the third, the big one in the middle. I did feel a wave of something pass over me then, though if it was a wave of evil, I had never expected it to feel so good.
When I got to the obelisk, I stood there and inspected it for a moment. Then I jogged backward until I’d put a good bit of distance between the obelisk and myself. I stamped my boot in the dust, feeling like a mad bull before a charge. Then I lowered my shoulder and did just that.
I hit with a crack and ricocheted off, spinning sideways and falling down. The obelisk stood firm. Isaac hollered something at me across the distance, then hightailed it over the rise and out of sight, kicking dust up the side of the hill. Rindhi looked anxious, but he stood there and kept watching.
I picked myself up and shook the dust off, rubbing my sore shoulder. I trotted a few steps farther this time, stretched, hopped on my toes, and cracked my neck. I got down low and took off from my fingers, covering the distance and driving in hard with my opposite shoulder.
I managed a more direct hit this time, throwing my body at it with little regard for my own safety. The obelisk cracked again. I bounced off backwards and went sprawling onto my tailbone.
The obelisk’s shadow began to move. Its sharp, needle-like form tilted, as a tree would under a woodsman’s axe: slow at first, accelerating to a dead drop. I felt the wallop shake the ground when the obelisk slammed into it.
I got back to my feet, coughing and waving away the dust. Both my shoulders were smarting, but the pain had been worth it. Lying there on the ground, flat as a dead pencil, was my triumph, my slain giant. These obelisks had been the source of the little peoples’ fears for generations, and I’d just defeated them. I would’ve handed it to myself, except I’d already done so quite a few times over the last few days, so I refrained. Everything in moderation.
I looked over my shoulder at Rindhi. “You coming, or not?”
The yellow-eyed man made his way down the slope, hesitating when he came to the invisible line between the two standing obelisks.
He dipped a toe past the line, then worked his way up to a whole foot. When the rest of his body came over, he shuddered, as though he’d just gotten a chill.
“Feeling okay?” I asked.
Rindhi nodded, but his countenance said otherwise.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I told him. “They’re just a couple of fancy-looking rocks.”
“I am okay.”
“Good,” I said, ignoring his uncertainty. “Then hurry it up. We’ve got some ground to cover.”
The pair of us hiked on into the ravine, losing sight of the obelisks behind us. A series of winding bends dumped us into an open canyon with a trickle of stream running through the center and towering rock walls rising to either side. It was there that we got our first glimpse of the enemy.
I saw them in the distance, bestial forms that walked upright on muscled ungulate legs, with hulking shoulders and jutting spines, tusks curving off their faces like ivory daggers. Rindhi saw them too, and he was scared.
He was also unarmed.
I doubted he was going to slit my throat while there were dozens of ridgebacks bearing down on us, so I tossed him a spare augurblade I’d taken from the hidden stash in Sable’s cabin. “Be careful with that,” I told him. “It’s not as dangerous for you as it is for them, but it’ll still do some damage if you cut yourself with it.”
Rindhi drew the augurblade from its scabbard, and I heard it hum to life. The way he was holding the thing—like a stick of dynamite he thought might explode at any moment—I could tell I was going to have to keep an eye on him.
Ridgebacks were leaping down the rocks like jackals, scrunching their necks between colossal shoulders and charging toward us like the big lumbering knuckleheads they were. I triggered my own weapon—a device Chaz had installed back in Pyras, and one I thought I’d never have to use. That was before we’d been forced to land our boat way outside town and gotten ourselves swindled by a horde of uncultured swine.
The augurang slid up from its internal sheath along my shin, a sliver of bright metal with a vibe-wire embedded along its sharpened edge. I flicked my wrist to send the other half swinging out and felt it snap into place at the center hinge.
Our monstrous welcoming committee was seething. They’d formed a crowd around us, a slavering mass of tribal ferocity, snorting and stamping and braying like feral beasts. They seemed to like putting spikes on everything; there were long thin spines on their clothing, in their clubs, and through their facial piercings.
The ridgebacks left space between us as they gathered; there was room to fight, but running away was out of the question. I felt sorry for Rindhi—that guy was screwed. Not much I could do about that; he’d come along even though I’d told him not to.
But Rindhi was more than just a Mani-Panian with jaundice and an inexplicable sense of loyalty to Thomas the lovesick sociopath. As it turned out, there was a reason the Archduke of Finustria had hand-picked him as an adviser, and it had nothing to do with his judgment. Deep guttural noises came streaming out of Rindhi’s mouth, closer to the sounds of a horse giving birth than any spoken words I’d ever heard before.
The ridgebacks quieted. One of them shouted a response—or yowled it, or grunted it—from within the throng. Rindhi shot back a red-faced retort in that same brutal tongue, tendons standing out on his neck, his voice full of raw, animalistic fervor. Another res
ponse came from the crowd, and again Rindhi spoke into their midst with more courage and boldness than I’d known he was capable of.
I had a tight thumb-and-forefinger grip on my augurang, ready to hurl it into the swarm of bodies as soon as things went bad. Problem was, I had no way of knowing. “What is happening right now?” I asked. “What is everyone saying?”
“We are making talks of peace,” Rindhi informed me.
“Nobody around here looks peaceful—least of all you,” I said.
Rindhi sheathed his augurblade. “Put that away,” he said.
“Theirs first,” I said. “Tell them.”
He made more of those crude, inhuman sounds. A fusillade of what might’ve been laughter spread through the crowd like a wave. One of the ridgebacks spoke again.
Rindhi gave me a doubtful look. “You first,” he said. “They insist.”
I clicked the augurang to release the locking mechanism, then swung it shut. I felt the cold metal glide into place as I slid it into the slimline port next to my knee, slow and casual-like. The sun was blazing above the canyon, shining down on us from heavens that seemed altogether too close for comfort, like a bare patch of skin next to a blowtorch.
The restless ridgebacks stamped their hooves and brandished their tusks, swaying like blood-drunken berserkers. Bodies parted and moved aside to let a formidable-looking figure emerge from their midst. He was thick and bovine in shape; beads and small bones were knotted into the tangled fur on his head and neck, and his skin was the color of chalk, pale and waxy.
“Who’s this guy?” I asked, talking to Rindhi out the side of my mouth.
“He is their chieftain. He is called”—Rindhi made a sound like two pigs wrestling with a goat—“and he wishes to look upon you.”
Two-Pigs stepped forward and bumped me with his gut before I had a chance to object. He began to move around me in a circle, scrutinizing me with those dark animal eyes. There was a glimmer of intelligence in them, but they unnerved me all the same. When he’d made a full lap, he lowered his head and stuck his face into mine. He inhaled deeply, then gave a great bellowing roar, blasting me with a cloud of hot breath that smelled like something I could’ve wiped off the bottom of my boot.
I winced, keeping my mouth closed until the stench had washed over me. I didn’t know if vomiting in the chieftain’s face was a compliment or an insult in ridgeback culture, but I decided to leave that question unanswered.
Rindhi got down on one knee and lowered his face to the ground. “This thing he has just done; it is a challenge. If we wish to live, we must bow to show our submission to his might and power.”
I scoffed. “Submission? Tell him he’d better submit to bringing back my gravstone and my friends, or I submit that his fat ass is gonna answer for the death of Neale Glynton.”
Rindhi didn’t look up.
“Rindhi? You heard what I just said. Say it. Tell him.”
Rindhi shook his head timidly. “I dare not.”
“Rindhi… I didn’t come all this way to grovel to a herd of swine, so you’d better tell him something before I turn these ‘talks of peace’ into talks of my foot up Two-Pigs’s ugly keister.”
Rindhi cleared his throat, raised his head, and guffawed something like a mule. The crowd fell silent. Two-Pigs gave a long grunt, halfway between belching and throat-clearing. He closed a big meaty hand around my neck and lifted me off my feet.
“He is not pleased,” Rindhi said.
“I could’ve told you that,” I gasped, gripping him by the wrists. “What’d he say?”
“He said he is going to chew on your bones and suck the juices from your flesh while his people watch.”
I didn’t know how Rindhi had gleaned such vivid and specific detail from something that had sounded like a dying cow, but I decided it was time to drive my knee into Two-Pigs’s balls and trigger the slimline port. The augurang shot up into my hand. I flicked it open and made an upward slash through Two-Pigs, cutting a clean line from his rib cage to his shoulder.
His arm slid off his body, dropping me onto my feet and leaving a ham hock of meat and bone hanging from around my neck. It took a second for the rest of Two-Pigs’s body to figure out it was supposed to start bleeding. It took the other ridgebacks longer still to fully grasp what had just happened. With the medallion on my chest, those few seconds gave me a lifetime.
By the time Two-Pigs fainted in a spray of his own blood, I was already hurling the augurang into the surging crowd. It slashed through bodies like a serving spoon through whipped cream, spinning away into the distance on a thin trail of crimson. Its flight path shifted, and it began its graceful aerodynamic arc. I held up a hand, ready to catch it when it returned. But instead of spiraling back toward me, the augurang leaned lazily to the right and soared over the bluff, disappearing from view.
“I guess I should’ve practiced a little more with that thing,” I said, prying Two-Pigs’s hand off of my neck and wielding his severed arm like a club.
Rindhi’s response came out as a frightened squeak, more mouse than monster.
The swath I’d cut through the crowd filled in as the ridgebacks advanced. I knew my solenoid wouldn’t work in the dirt, so I tossed the last of Chaz’s gravmines into the empty swath and detonated it. The concussion shunted bodies aside as if an invisible balloon had been inflated in their midst. I decided I loved biological flesh, if only for how fragile and flimsy it was.
Grabbing Rindhi by the arm, I drew the augurblade on his behalf and sliced a path through what was left of the mob. “Run, Rindhi, run!” I shouted, sprinting out into the open canyon and hoping it was him I heard darting along at my heels. The hydraulics in my legs chugged awake, my medallion singing.
Behind us, ridgebacks were wailing over their fallen brethren, roaring in pain and bitter rage. Rindhi was losing ground as I bolted ahead. If he was augmented in any athletic capacity, I hadn’t seen him take advantage of it yet.
Around the next bend, a high canyonside waterfall plunged into a pool of teal green water. We waded through the shallows and toward the ridgebacks’ village, a cluster of rectangular stone lodges with a round altar at the center. Bewildered ridgebacks watched us as we worked our way through the neighborhood, stopping to peek around door flaps and behind buildings in search of our lost crewmembers. By the time we’d scoured the front half of the village, stragglers from the war party were beginning to arrive.
“See what you can do to buy me some time while I search this last stretch,” I said. “Here, take this with you just in case.” I tossed him Two-Pigs’s arm.
Rindhi let the arm hit him in the chest and slump to the ground, leaving a smear of crimson blood on his shirt. He gave me a blank look, then turned and headed off toward the village entrance.
I found our captive crewmembers inside a well—a deep pit with waist-high stone walls. The two ridgebacks guarding it backed away when I brandished my augurblade. I shot my still-frayed grapplewire into the pit and let my friends climb it while I braced myself against the wall.
“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” said Thorley Colburn, looking ragged.
“You’d know half as well as anyone,” I said.
Thorley did not laugh. His signature eyepatch was missing, and the eye beneath was dead and milky.
“Forget it,” I said. “Bad joke.”
Eliza Kinally climbed up right behind Thorley, but little Nerimund was still cowering in the back corner of the pit, his hands fidgeting over one of his long, slender ears like a scared rabbit.
“They gave Nerimund a few bad knocks on the way over,” Eliza said. “He’s been beside himself without Sable around.”
“Come on, little guy,” I said, coaxing him. “We’re gonna take you back to Ms. Sable and get you all cleaned up.”
Nerimund took a tentative step, but the growing clamor of snarling ridgebacks from across the village was frightening him. I retracted the grapplewire, opened my arm, and tossed the winch to Thorley. “See wha
t you can do,” I said. “We still have to find that gravstone, along with whatever else they took. Any idea where it might be?”
“They buried the gravstone somewhere further up the pass,” said Thorley. “The ridgebacks have already divvied up the rest of the stuff amongst themselves. We’ll never see it again, unless you want to spend a few hours tearing apart every house in the village.”
I shrugged. “It’s your stuff. Makes no difference to me whether we get it back. The gravstone is the important thing. Once we have that, you can buy twelve more of everything they stole.”
“How are we going to carry it all back with us?” Thorley wanted to know.
“We’re not.” I tossed him my bluewave comm. “Radio the Galeskimmer and tell Sable we need a pickup.”
“Is the ship airworthy again already?”
“I damn well hope so. If they haven’t bolted on those new turbines yet, we’re in trouble.”
“Sable can’t set her down in the canyon. The ridgebacks will overrun her.”
“I wish you people would start having a little faith in me for once,” I said. “I’m going up to find the spot where they buried the gravstone. Tell Sable to land the ship behind me. Not in the village. Whatever she does, tell her, don’t land in the village. Get Nerimund out of that pit however you can. I don’t care if you have to climb down there and carry him out under your arm. Come up and meet me once you have him. We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
“What about those two?” Thorley said. He gestured toward the guards, who looked wary of my augurblade but were chomping at the bit for a chance to take me by surprise nonetheless.
I strode over and hacked the two ridgebacks to pieces, showering the ground with chunks of seared flesh. “Whoever started the rumor about nobody returning from Torag Canyon didn’t have one of these,” I said. “Anything else I can do for you?”