The Swords & Salt Collection

by Lindsay Buroker

“I’m sorry.”

  Falcon sighed. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. But I was thinking… if you were to do well in your own school, you’d probably have some choices too. I’ve heard of warrior-mages being able to pick their own bodyguards. The most important thing is to be with someone you trust out there, right? So they don’t assign you some random thug if you have a better option in mind. Someone you’ve known all your life who has the prerequisite military training…” His eyebrows arched.

  “Like my older brother?” This isn’t his dream, not truly. But if it’s his only way to see the ocean, maybe he wouldn’t find tagging along after his little brother so bad.

  “You know I’d protect your back. Maybe your other parts too.” For the first time, a faint smile stretched Falcon’s lips, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “Oh, good,” Yanko said, lifting his wine for a last sip. “I’m partial to my left… elbow.”

  Falcon snorted. “Is that the one Arayevo likes?”

  Yanko sputtered, spraying wine.

  “I heard she came to visit you a few weeks ago.” This time Falcon’s smile held more truth, more amusement anyway.

  “Uhm, yes.” Yanko thought about saying that she too had wanted something else and not simply come for the pleasure of his company, but it would probably come out bitter. He didn’t want that. His brother had enough bitterness to deal with already.

  Falcon stood up. “You ready to get some sleep yet?”

  “Er.” That hadn’t been his goal for the night.

  “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

  Well, Yanko could try and sneak out later… “All right.”

  He went along docilely, though he had no intention of staying put. When he turned to open the bedroom door, however, Falcon swept in with all the speed of his namesake, and plucked Yanko’s saber from its scabbard.

  “What are you—”

  “You won’t need this for sleeping,” Falcon said blandly, holding the sword out of reach. “In fact, that could be dangerous. You might cut off your left… elbow.”

  Yanko glowered. Even if he had been training hard in the last few months, his brother had trained harder, and besting him—or surprising him with some blow meant to distract him into dropping the saber—wouldn’t be easy. Probably not feasible at all. He could employ some illusion or other Science trick to achieve the same thing, but then what? Falcon would spend the night outside the door, waiting for his baby brother to try something else.

  “Fine,” Yanko grumbled and stepped into the dark room. The snores in progress didn’t falter when he shut the door firmly behind him.

  He leaned against it, listening for the sound of his brother’s footsteps. He didn’t hear them. He summoned his concentration and reached out with his mind… and sighed. Falcon was sitting down beside the door with the saber across his lap.

  Part 4

  Yanko should have spent the next few hours sleeping. Instead he lay in his bunk with his eyes wide open as he debated whether to obey his brother’s wishes or to find a way to sneak past him. He wondered, too, if some of Falcon’s dedication to protecting him was… less than selfless. Maybe he worried that his only possible way to his dream might kill himself before being accepted to Stargrind.

  He’s not that selfish, and you know it. He’s not like Father. He cares.

  Father probably cared too, in his way. Even if the man had never shown it.

  And you’ll never get a chance to see him show it if you go down there and get yourself killed.

  True, but I can get close enough to learn more about that species without getting myself killed.

  You’re not cocky enough to know that for certain.

  No, if I were cocky, I’d just do it, not lie here, having conversations with myself all night.

  That stilled his mind for a time. Eventually grogginess found him, and he drifted in and out of consciousness, but full sleep eluded him. Somewhere in the back of the mind, he knew…

  Yanko sat up with a start, almost clunking his head on the ceiling. His brother was gone. He hadn’t heard anything, but he sensed… yes, he had left the tunnel. Had he taken the sword? Yanko’s senses weren’t honed enough to tell. Maybe Falcon had only gone to visit the lavatory.

  “That’s long enough,” Yanko whispered and slid off the bunk again.

  He peeked into the hall and found it empty. He hesitated, almost suspecting some trick, that Falcon would jump out of a doorway as soon as Yanko started for the lift.

  If he went to pee, you’re wasting your time.

  “Right.” He closed the door and jogged down the tunnel. Nobody jumped out at him, but that didn’t keep his heart from hammering a thousand beats a minute as he stepped into the dark lift and sent it into the depths of the earth.

  Before he alighted on the bottom level, he already had his senses stretched to their limits, seeking signs of life in the corridors around the lift. Nothing except cool blackness came to him. He checked a second time before opening the bamboo gate and stepping out.

  His eyes experienced the same blackness that his mind had—with nobody working down here, there was no reason to keep the area lit. He produced a flame and used it to light a lantern. He would need his full concentration and didn’t want to split it to maintain conjured illumination. The mundane lamp seemed a weak beacon against the omnipresent darkness, but he reminded himself that he could create something more powerful if he needed it.

  “You’re not going to get close enough to look at anything anyway.”

  Yanko advanced, though not with any speed. Even though he could cast his senses hundreds of meters, he stopped every few paces to check the route ahead, to make sure no living beings had crept into range. He expected to reach the hole in the wall before being able to feel any other presences, but he couldn’t know for sure. They were gathering salt after all, and the salt was in these tunnels.

  He reached the spot where the first two men had died. Mishnal had ordered the bodies taken up for funerals, but the blood stains remained, all too fresh and bright against the gray floor and wall. Of its own accord, Yanko’s hand strayed toward his waist, where his saber hilt would await if Falcon hadn’t taken it.

  “Probably wouldn’t do any good against them anyway,” he whispered.

  Yanko stepped past the stains, then halted, his foot in the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred, some plucking of his senses. He stretched out with his mind…

  …and nearly shouted in terror. They were coming.

  A half dozen of them. Moving fast. By the gods, they moved fast.

  He turned, sprinting for the lift. The sounds of rapid clacks soared down the tunnel after him.

  Wait, you idiot. You came down here to communicate with them. Now’s your chance.

  I came down to study them. From a distance.

  Yanko made it to the larger chamber that had been carved out around the lift. With his escape in sight, he managed a little more calm and slowed down to listen and look into the dark tunnel he had left.

  He no longer heard the clacks, nor anything except for his own ragged breathing. They hadn’t followed him. Could he have imagined it?

  Though aware of his vulnerability, he risked entering the meditative state necessary to use the Science. He tried to skate on the edge, to stretch out with his senses without losing full awareness of his own body and physical surroundings. It didn’t take much effort to locate the creatures. Six of them. They remained together, milling about in the area Yanko had left. Were they checking his scent? Wondering what all these pesky humans were doing down here? Wondering if… he’d taste as good as the last ones?

  Stop it. They didn’t eat those miners.

  No, they just killed them. Absolutely fine then.

  Yanko squelched the internal bickering and watched the creatures with his mind. His senses still couldn’t tell what they looked like, but the way they moved, skittering about in the tunnel, reminded him of cockroaches. Large cockroaches.
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br />   Soft rasps and scrapes drifted down the tunnel to Yanko’s ears. Four of the creatures had skittered closer to the walls, to mine the salt, he realized. They had come for it, not for him. Before he could relax, two of the auras moved away from the others. They were heading in his direction.

  Somewhat bolstered by the proximity of the lift, Yanko remained in place. Sword or not, he wasn’t defenseless, and he had time to prepare. He set his lantern down and stretched a hand out toward the tunnel entrance.

  The clacks of footsteps—or something like them—grew audible over the scrapes from farther back.

  Yanko channeled the air around him, making it denser until it created a barrier across the opening. He finished a few seconds before the shadows stirred in the tunnel. Before he had a good look, the dark shapes blurred toward him. The sudden motion almost startled him into dropping the barrier. He chastised himself for the weakness and reapplied his energy to reinforce it. At the same time, the two creatures smashed into it so hard that they bounced back.

  Stunned, they remained still for a moment, and Yanko finally had a good look at them. His cockroach thought had not been far off, but they were longer than he had guessed, perhaps three feet from head to… end. They had elements of centipedes, with numerous legs and segmented bodies, but other parts were too alien to compare with another species—like that chain of suction-cupped tentacles… or were they antennae? The pincers reminded him of something a crab would possess, though with small sharp digits near the tips. Some tools evolved for mining salt?

  A thrill ran through Yanko, and he forgot his fear as he remembered his earlier thoughts, that he might have discovered some new species. A type of insect? He had never seen an insect so large.

  The creatures exchanged squeaky sounds with each other, then crept forward, testing the air with their antennae this time. When they discovered the edge of the barrier, they made a few more chirpy squeaks. Not a language, surely, but they did seem intelligent for insects. They worked together, one probing the invisible screen near the floor while another walked up the wall and prodded the barrier from different elevations. Searching for holes.

  Yanko swallowed. They wouldn’t find any, but knowing the creatures were systematically seeking a way to reach him chilled his whole body.

  “You’ve seen them, boy. What now?” he whispered to himself.

  The sound of his voice made them pause, but only for a moment.

  “You can hear, so you have ears,” Yanko mused. “Do you have eyes as well?”

  He didn’t see anything that qualified, but that didn’t mean much. Careful not to lessen the density of his air barrier, Yanko sent a sliver of concentration in another direction, creating a globe of light that operated on the same spectrum as the sun. For a few seconds, its brilliance flooded the chamber, and he had to shield his eyes. The creatures did nothing to indicate that they saw the light, so he let it wink out.

  “Makes sense. What use would eyes be in the utter darkness down here? How about heat? Do you feel heat?”

  It took some mental finesse, but he created another globe, this time of flame and this time in the tunnel behind the creatures. He wriggled his fingers, inviting it closer. It edged nearer and nearer to the backsides of the creatures. The one on the ground reacted first. Its rear end bucked up, and it spun about. It backed toward the barrier until it couldn’t go farther, then clacked its pincers at the flame. The one that had been climbing kept climbing, reaching the ceiling, then also facing the heat and clacking in agitation. Or maybe fear. Could such creatures feel fear? He’d sensed such emotions in animals many times, but in insects? He couldn’t remember, but admitted he hadn’t spent as much time trying to interact with them as a boy.

  Yanko let the flames disappear without coming close enough to damage the creatures. Their reactions told him enough, that fire could harm them.

  After a moment, the creatures faced him again. He wondered if they had made the connection, if they knew he was responsible for these strange elements?

  “So, why not ask them?” he murmured.

  Back home, he had communicated with everything from dogs and cats to elk and bears when he had been growing up. He had enjoyed it. He would have specialized in the nature sciences if his father hadn’t been so adamant that he become a warrior-mage. This would be different, vastly different, but who better than he to try?

  About a million Kyattese practitioners probably, but they’re not here.

  Yanko wiped a bead of sweat from his eyebrows. Communicating with a familiar hound was easy, but with a new species? He wished he had another practitioner with him to maintain the barrier so he could focus entirely on the task. But he didn’t. So…

  He stared at the head of the creature on the floor. It had stopped probing at the barrier and was staring back at him—or it was doing the eyeless equivalent anyway. Using skills similar to those telepaths employed, he projected his thoughts toward the creature’s head, hoping it would be receptive enough to sense his intrusion. With humans, he would have used words, but he could only use images to portray his thoughts, not dissimilarly to the way he would conjure an illusion before the eyes of an audience.

  Yanko thought of the bee-like hive he had sensed, letting the creature know he knew where it lived. It might feel less excited about attacking humans if it knew there could be repercussions back home. He showed the creatures mining salt and carrying salt. Next he showed it humans mining salt and using it to preserve their food. Finally, he projected an image of humans and these creatures mining salt side by side, though he almost snorted at the idea of his uncle and all of his workers agreeing to an arrangement like that. Imparting human emotions to animals was always difficult, but he tried to share a feeling of calmness and cooperation along with that last image.

  A barrage of thoughts came back at him with such intensity that Yanko staggered back a step. The tunnel where the guards had been killed… the men swinging swords at the creatures… pain being received even if the blades hadn’t cut into their armored bodies… rage and worry for the hive… attacking and killing the humans… the sense that it was easy. That all humans could be handled this way if they didn’t leave.

  “You wanted communication,” Yanko rasped. “You have it.”

  He smoothed his robes and took a moment to gather his thoughts and to make sure his barrier remained strong. He would need to come up with something better if he wanted cooperation, or at least a let’s-not-kill-each-other agreement. He thought about showing the big insect a box of blasting sticks and what his uncle intended to do with them, but that would be akin to sharing military intelligence with the enemy nation.

  At least the creatures had stopped probing the barrier to consider him. They seemed willing to listen, even if they didn’t like his first proposal. Yanko tried again, this time trying to suggest dividing the level. He showed his people closing off these tunnels to humans and mining out in the other direction, leaving this salt for the creatures.

  Frustration and irritation accompanied the next chain of images, ones that showed the humans encroaching over the decades, growing ever closer and closer to the hive and to other hives as well. The constant retreating, the not wanting to have anything to do with them, and then this final intrusion, one that had to be met to defend the queen and all her eggs.

  Yanko grimaced. He hadn’t wanted to be right about eggs, knowing any animal would do whatever it had to do to defend its young.

  A final image rammed into his head with such intensity, that he thought the creature might have telepathically sent it at first. But no, it was only that the subject disturbed him so… a picture of his own body being hurled backward as snapping pincers tore into his flesh, eviscerating him. The creatures then skittered past him and figured out how to destroy the lift.

  “That’s… not a future I’m eager to see,” he muttered, taking more deep breaths. He had chanced across animals in the wild before and irked them with his intrusion, but when he had touched their minds, a
pologizing and promising to leave, they had always accepted that. None of them had ever fantasized about killing him.

  “All right, let me try—”

  A loud clank sounded behind him. The bamboo gate banged open. It startled him so that he nearly pitched over, thinking the creatures had somehow found a way to him by coming in from a different level. But it wasn’t an oversized cockroach that stood in the lift; it was Falcon.

  His saber in one hand and the short kyzar in the other, he raced into the chamber.

  “Look out!” He pointed the longer sword behind Yanko.

  In his distraction, Yanko had let the barrier drop. The creatures were charging at him.

  Even as Falcon raced past, Yanko raised his arms, forcing the calm he needed to re-gather his concentration and create a new barrier. But Falcon had already leaped onto the closest creature, his blades hacking down at the chitinous armor like an axe man hewing a log. This log attacked back though, those suction-cup antennae batting at Falcon.

  Yanko growled in frustration. He couldn’t create a barrier or push the insect back without pushing his brother back too.

  The second creature raced around the battling pair, its dozen-odd legs clacking on the bare floor as it charged Yanko.

  More from instinct and years of practice than premeditated thought, Yanko flung his arm out, hurling a wall of air at his approaching foe. The creatures might be deadly with their razor-edged pincers, but they weren’t heavy. The black body was flung several meters to crash against the nearest wall. Hard. It slid to the floor and didn’t move.

  Though the power of his own blow surprised him, Yanko didn’t have time for pride—or to see if he had killed the creature. He was too busy spinning toward his brother, expecting he would have to find a way to help. But Falcon, riding the insect’s back like a Kyattese surfboard, had found vulnerabilities between the segments of the long body. Dark ichor dripped to the floor in several spots, and Falcon’s kyzar stuck out of one of those segments. He had released it to grab his saber with both hands, to raise it above the creature’s head for a mortal blow.