As the wyverns circled overhead, Taimin saw people on their backs, dressed in crimson uniforms. The riders made sure they took a good look at the people approaching their city. Then they made a final approach, each peeling off from the group before descending. Wings tucked in as the wyverns plummeted, spreading out to brake at the end. Soon the riders had landed on the plain, one beside the other, a stone’s throw from the refugees. Their coordination was impressive.
“Have you ever seen humans riding wyverns?” Taimin asked Lars.
“No. Never. You?”
“No.”
Now that he had seen the city guard, Taimin could understand how the Protector controlled the plain. His worry about the city falling to invaders began to fade. Lars and Selena had been right all along. In a wasteland full of dangers, Zorn was a place of safety.
“We’ve done it,” someone called. “With the protection of the city guard, we’re going to make it.”
The closest soldier, a tall man in uniform, slid off the back of his wyvern, leaving the winged creature to snort and claw at the ground. The wyvern looked similar to Griff but its transformation had changed more than its front legs, which were much smaller than a wherry’s. Its ears were pricked rather than floppy, and its hide was redder and darker. The sharp teeth were as long as human fingers and its body was big, close to twice Griff’s size.
Taimin examined the men of the city guard as they dismounted. The soldiers wore crimson tabards over their leather armor, the material supple and made of a shining fiber. A white tower surrounded by a circular wall formed an insignia in the center of their chest.
Having dismounted, the tall soldier, evidently the commander, came forward with long strides, his face hard and unsmiling. He waved an arm, and his men spread out to flank him.
Lars left Taimin’s side. The bald, bearded skinner’s expression was earnest as he approached the soldiers. “Well met,” he said. “We can make our own way, but your protection is welcome. You need to hear what we have to say. There are bax in the canyon. A group of skalen—”
“We know,” the commander interrupted, his face like stone.
A second soldier came up to stand beside the commander. Now formed up in a line, the rest of the city guard waited in disciplined silence. Some of the soldiers rested their hands on the hilts of the swords they wore at their waists.
Lars glanced over his shoulder at the refugees. “These people have lost their homes. They have nothing to go back to. We need food and water.”
The tall commander exchanged glances with the soldier beside him and then returned his attention to Lars. His lips thinned. “We are accepting no one. The city is full.”
“Full?” Lars scratched his thick black beard, perplexed. Color rose in his cheeks. “What do you mean, full?”
“Turn back from Zorn and do not encroach on our farmland.”
“What are you talking about?” Lars scowled. “You’re the ones fighting the Rift Valley. Everyone here was just caught in the middle.”
“Leave now,” the commander said curtly. His dark eyes narrowed. “I will not ask again.”
“No, we won’t leave,” one of the older men said, coming forward. “I know you, Galen. You led the raid on the mine near our homestead. We traded with those skalen. There was friendship between us, but you slaughtered them.”
The commander, Galen, gave a cold-faced reply. “The mine was Zorn’s for the taking.”
The soldier beside Galen spat on the ground. “I don’t know how any human can call skalen ‘friends’.”
A skinny woman came forward. More of the refugees followed her to stand in front of the line of soldiers. “You started this war. Now you’re saying you won’t let us in?”
Galen put a hand on the hilt of his sword. The tall commander drew the weapon in a single, smooth motion. Immediately, every soldier in the line followed suit. But where the soldiers held swords of glossy basalt wood, Galen’s blade was made of shining steel.
“You’re implying that I care about you settler scum,” Galen said. “You can take your chances with the bax and your skalen friends.” He smiled without mirth. “I hear Blixen uses human skin to keep warm at night.”
For the refugees, the commander’s words were a call to violence.
The men and women surged forward until they were massed in front of the row of men in uniform. They screamed and yelled obscenities, fists held out in front of them. A few raised weapons—clubs, spears, and wooden swords.
Lars began a hasty retreat. He glanced at Taimin, his expression distraught. Zorn was supposed to be a place where everyone was welcome. His dream of a better life was rapidly fading.
As he stood transfixed, Taimin knew how the skinner felt.
The instant he had seen Galen, the commander with the shining sword, Taimin’s world had crashed around him. Despite his desperate hope, the fabled white city and the real city of Zorn were not the same thing.
The soldier next to Galen looked similar enough to be his brother. In fact, Taimin knew that they were brothers.
Both had pale hair, although Galen’s was more white than blond, close-cropped while his brother’s was long. Both had dark eyes and hard, angular features, although Galen was the taller and older of the pair. Galen’s manner was assertive; he was accustomed to making decisions and giving orders.
Taimin knew that they were brothers because he had met them once before. He remembered a time when two rovers pretended to have peaceful intentions until everything changed. He saw his parents taking step after step backward, while the two rovers moved menacingly toward them. An arrow had suddenly sprouted from his mother’s skull, while his father shoved him toward the cliff. As he ran, Taimin had looked back and seen Galen’s sword—the same sword he was holding now—enter his father’s chest.
The memory was so strong that Taimin felt sick. It was as if he had seen his parents die just moments ago. Everything in his vision became washed with the color red.
“I’ve had enough of this, Kurt,” Galen said to his brother. “What do you say?”
“They need a demonstration,” the long-haired soldier said grimly.
“Advance!” Galen called out. Then, without waiting for his men, he took action.
Fast as a snake, Galen brought the point of his sword toward the neck of the old man facing him and then flicked his wrist. The sharp steel entered the old man’s throat and opened up a gaping wound. Galen continued moving, so smoothly it was almost a dance, carrying the sword through the strike and into his next target, a heavyset woman.
Before Galen’s two victims had hit the ground, the other soldiers began to hack indiscriminately at the crowd. Screams rose in a chorus. While some of the refugees turned and ran, many tried to fight. But the soldiers were trained warriors, wielding swords and wearing armor. The refugees fell one after the other. In seconds, everything was chaos.
Taimin was barely conscious of moving.
As he ran, he left behind his bow, which was still fixed to his pack on Griff’s back. He was unarmed, but he didn’t even notice.
He first reached Galen’s brother, Kurt. The blond soldier finished striking down a youth and then whirled toward Taimin and lifted his sword. The hardwood blade came sweeping down.
Taimin ducked under the sword and threw his weight forward. Time slowed. He sensed the sword whistling past his head as he put everything he could into striking his opponent’s unprotected throat. He punched forward with the heel of his hand, twisting his body through the motion, pulling his left shoulder back as his right came forward. He shouted with primal rage.
Muscles expanded and contracted. Taimin struck with his entire body, honed by his training, hunting, and years of hard, physical work. With a sudden jolt, he made contact and with savage satisfaction he felt something break inside his enemy. The blond-haired soldier’s long hair flew around his face and his eyes shot wide open. Kurt flew backward, his face bright red as he choked.
Galen looked over, only to s
ee his brother go down.
Taimin’s eyes met Galen’s. He set his sights on the man who had been the first to act, thrusting his sword into Taimin’s father’s chest.
Taimin dropped to retrieve Kurt’s sword. Filled with bloodlust, he was barely aware that most of the refugees had either run or fallen. Galen slashed his sword along the torso of a middle-aged man with a club. He immediately turned toward Taimin.
“Taimin!” Lars’s voice cut through the red haze. “We have to go—now!”
Taimin pointed his sword at Galen. The other soldiers were still occupied with the crowd, and Taimin stood in his own space. Galen’s face was filled with a fiery anger that equaled Taimin’s own.
“You killed my parents,” Taimin called.
“The wherry can’t carry us both. You’d best go, lad.” Lars sounded like he was speaking from a distant mountain, but the emotion in his voice cut through. Taimin glanced over at him, surprised to see that Lars was standing right beside him.
“Find the girl,” Lars said in a hoarse voice. “Build a life together.”
Without warning Lars pushed Taimin with force. Taimin fell onto his hands and knees. The sword tumbled to the ground, but as Taimin grabbed at the weapon he was nearly bowled over again. This time it was Griff, growling at him, leaning into him, pushing him with his head. “Stop it, burn you!” Taimin cried.
Griff shoved at him; the wherry was small compared to a wyvern, but that didn’t make him weak. Taimin again spied Kurt’s sword and lunged to retrieve it. But as soon as his hand gripped the hilt, strong arms plucked him up to throw him onto Griff’s back. He caught a brief glimpse of Lars as the skinner slapped the wherry’s flank. Before Taimin knew what was happening, Griff was bounding away.
He tried to rein the wherry in, but nothing could stop Griff once he had started. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Lars facing the soldiers. His arms were spread; he looked like he was trying to talk. A soldier struck him and he went down. As soon as he was on the ground, more soldiers kicked his body.
Taimin knew he had to help, but as he looked back again dread sank into his chest. The skinner was dead. He had to be. No one could take such a beating and survive.
He didn’t understand why Lars had done what he had, but he knew one thing: if he didn’t get away, Lars’s sacrifice would be in vain.
Lars, the aging skinner who had at last caught sight of the city he had dreamed of, was nothing more than a motionless lump on the ground.
Taimin’s eyes burned. He rode as fast as he could, away from Zorn.
He headed directly for the Rift Valley.
The refugees were gone. They had learned their lesson and wouldn’t be back. But the price had been high. Much, much too high.
Galen walked slowly to his brother’s body. He knelt down beside him and kept his face hard, despite the painful grip on his heart. He let out his breath slowly, otherwise he knew it would come with deep, gulping heaves.
His men stood back, giving him space to grieve, but he was aware that they were watching. He reached out to close Kurt’s eyelids and brushed a few long strands of blond hair away from his face.
“Sleep well, little brother,” he murmured.
As Galen gazed at his brother’s body, he felt a catch at the back of his throat. Kurt was gone. After all their travels together, this journey would be one he would make alone.
For most of Galen’s life, it had just been the two of them. Their parents were killed in front of their eyes. He had been seven and Kurt just four. The trull had hunted their family while they were crossing the wasteland, on their way to the promise of a new settlement. Galen and Kurt hid behind some rocks while their parents fought the despicable creature that cut them to pieces, all for what they had: food, water, leather, and a few old tools and weapons.
Galen had always been the strong one. Kurt had his own strength, but he was quieter, more introspective. As rovers, sometimes they worked with others but theirs was a bond that couldn’t be broken. Galen had lost track of how many homesteads they had raided as they roamed the wasteland together. At first it was just stealing, but sometimes people got in the way. With every kill, it became easier to kill again.
Galen knew that the world was a harsh place. If people invested their energy in supporting the weak—children, the elderly, the sick and injured—that was their problem. Settlers chose to make their group only as strong as the most feeble member. Galen and Kurt had always laughed at how foolish they were, trying to scratch a life out of the dirt. The life of a rover was the only one that made sense.
But then they heard about the white city, a place where two strong fighters might be able to make a mark for themselves. The brothers had begun to search for it. Sometimes they raided homesteads when they didn’t need to, in order to question men, women, and children. Each piece of information brought them closer.
When Galen reached Zorn, and joined the city guard, his life changed.
He had always been his own man, but as he rose in the ranks he knew that in the Protector of Zorn he had met a leader he could follow. Kurt had thrived at his side. They were together as always, but a part of something greater.
As Galen stared at his younger brother’s body, it wasn’t just loss that burned inside him like an inferno. The rage grew stronger, and he fed the flames. Anger made his pain easier to bear.
At first he hadn’t recognized the boy, now a man, from the failed raid near the firewall. Galen’s life as a rover was a long time ago. It was only when Kurt’s killer roared something about his parents that Galen remembered a settler and his wife, and a boy who tumbled off the side of the cliff. Once Galen had wondered, the man’s limp had confirmed it.
In that one moment, when Galen hadn’t been there to protect his little brother, this haunting from the past had struck, and he had struck hard.
Galen bent down to kiss his brother’s forehead. “I will make him suffer, little brother. I promise you. Wherever you are right now, I want you to watch as I make him pay.”
21
Taimin’s despair fought with his anxiety. If a man like Galen was in command of the city guard, what did that say about Zorn? Galen and his men had butchered the refugees. They had beaten Lars to death.
Life had taught Taimin a harsh lesson, but he vowed to learn, and to keep going. He would search the Rift Valley for Selena. If she refused to help Zorn’s enemies in the Rift Valley, she would die, and for what? She had to know the truth.
The next days were difficult. Taimin traveled by night, knowing that Galen and his men would be searching for him and that in daylight he could easily be seen from the sky. He crept through the darkness. There was danger in both directions. He had to be wary of both the city guard and the army of bax and skalen in the Rift Valley.
He knew that the wyvern riders were scouting. Again and again he saw the big flying creatures speeding overhead as they scoured the landscape below. Galen might even have mystics searching the plains. Taimin only stirred from the gullies he chose as hiding places when Dex and Lux were both well below the horizon.
It was so dark that Taimin could barely make out the range of mountains. Now that he was approaching the Rift Valley, the terrain was more broken, with hidden obstructions and fields of gravel that made his footing treacherous. With Griff at his side, he scampered from rock to rock, wincing as he heard stones roll from the passage of his feet. He worried that at any moment he and Griff might tumble into an unseen ravine.
When he saw the ground fall away ahead, he had no choice but to follow the cliff edge. The lip of the canyon formed a long, jagged line in both directions. Soon he would be descending into the canyon’s depths. He moved as quietly as he could and kept his ears tuned to any sounds other than those he made himself. Tension formed knots in his shoulders. Griff picked up on the mood and cast him reproachful looks every time he unwittingly caused rocks to slip and tumble. From his position, there appeared to be one main route down. The chance of an encounter was high.
He could hear something: voices that broke the stillness of the night. The gruff tones and grunts weren’t human. He ducked down and huddled against a boulder, using its bulk to disguise his body. Meanwhile Griff had the sense to sprawl out flat on the ground, sinking to his haunches and panting quietly. The voices grew louder before passing by and gradually becoming distant. Whoever it was, they were no longer coming toward him.
Taimin pulled his head out from behind the boulder and peered into the darkness. Ears pricked, he opened his eyes wide, turning his head as he tried to make out moving figures. He wanted to see who it was he was sharing the night with. If it was a large group exiting the canyon, it would be best if he fled the area altogether.
The voices had definitely belonged to bax. He warily left the protection of the boulder and crept forward, in the same direction he had been traveling. He knew from Abi that bax didn’t see as well in the dark as humans and wondered why they were traveling at night.
He scanned in all directions, and then he saw them.
The hunched figures were walking in the far distance, barely more than black shadows. They were leaving the canyon and heading in the direction of the city. The bax were trying to stay hidden from the city guard, just like him.
Taimin thought about how he would find Selena. His current plan was to capture and question a bax or a skalen, but he knew it would be difficult to find one alone.
He watched the departing figures and wondered how many there were. At least ten, he decided. Too many for his purposes, but at least they were away from the others. They might split up at some stage.
He decided to trail them for a time.
He left his hiding place and patted Griff on the flank to indicate he should follow. “But stay back, understand?”
He moved from one piece of scant protection to the next as he crept closer. Using a gnarled tree for cover, he focused on the bax he was following and left the tree’s protection. He scurried across the uneven ground. It was difficult to keep up while staying hidden and quiet. Ducking from gully to gully, slinking from boulder to boulder, he kept the bax in sight even as they drew away. He tossed up one plan and then another, unable to settle on any. He wondered if he should try riding Griff, but the terrain was treacherous and it would be difficult to stay silent on the wherry’s back.
A Girl From Nowhere Page 18