The Shepherd (The Aionach Saga Book 0)

by Staudt, J. C.

  As much as Toler hated the man, he couldn’t have been happier that Calistari was on this particular route. I’ll have a look at what’s packed away at the bottom of this crate of yours soon enough. “Korley, what kind of work did you say you did before this?”

  It was only Korley’s second time out with them, though he’d impressed them with how well he could handle a javelin. He drew in his lips, reminiscing. “Made a decent wage as a warehouse man before I came on as a shepherd. Not decent enough for my wife and three kids. Fourth is on the way and there’s more where that came from, if I have anything to say about it.” He smiled, and Toler couldn’t help but join him.

  “Living above-world is a good way to make sure your fourth kid is your last,” Blatcher said. He pointed at the sky. “Infernal don’t like kids much.”

  “There are above-worlders who can make children,” Toler said.

  “Not many,” Andover Mays mumbled past a cigarette. He took it between his fingers. “Except you, I hear. I hear you got a kid in every town from here to the Slickwash, Glaive.”

  Toler felt himself flush. “That’s me,” he said, feigning conceit. The smoke smelled good, so he fumbled in the pocket of his leathers for one of his handmade wraps.

  “Ah well, putting a stop to the childbearing would be fine by the missus,” Korley said. “Got her hands full as it is.”

  “Especially with you away on travel, I’d imagine,” Toler said, searching for a light.

  “You tell it true. Though the pay makes up for it, I s’pose.”

  “Danger does pay well.”

  Korley nodded, his face softening. Toler imagined he was thinking of home, and he let himself do the same. He loved to travel, but it wasn’t because of the women, like Andover Mays always said. Reylenn was the only girl he ever thought of anymore.

  “Look sharp, dways. They’re not wasting any time.” Blatcher’s shout woke Toler from his thoughts. Shapes were moving in the hills, bodies of animals and men hurtling toward them like an avalanche in black-and-brown. Nomads. Savages. The calgoarethi, they called themselves, among other things, their bloodlines more pure and ancient than any in the Aionach. They’d arrived on cue, as if the caravan were an expected house guest.

  When the nomads raised their battle cry, the sound chilled Toler’s blood. He knew the nomads would grant them no quarter. As always, he would treat them in kind. His heart leapt as he watched them come, a song swelling inside his chest. The rush of battle ran through him, fear wrapped in mettle. It was the sting of daylight and the comfort of new leathers; a thrill no woman's touch had ever given him.

  He swung his horse around to face them, pulling a javelin from his quiver. All along the line, he saw the other shepherds slipping between the merchant vehicles and coming to bear on the mountain side of the caravan. Horses stamped with the impatience bequeathed them by their riders. Toler smiled. We’re shepherds, and this is what shepherds do.

  The scavenging hounds had fled, perhaps reluctant to risk recapture at the hands of their former masters.

  Korley and Blatcher came alongside him, Andover Mays sucking down his perpetual cigarette and gazing toward the approaching surge as casually as if he were looking at an empty horizon. Calistari’s coachman was armed and ready to defend the flatbed, but the merchant himself was missing. He’ll be cowering somewhere right about now, praying the other merchants have given their shepherds generous gratuities. Praying he remembered to pay us ours.

  The wasteland covers a multitude of sins, and murder is chief among them. Toler had no qualms about killing. Neither did any shepherd worth his dust. Few enough were blessed with the good fortune to be alive and healthy after more than a few seasons working the trains. So when the savages came, with their hounds slavering ahead of them, hair shaven into wild patterns, cryptic emblems branded into their bare brown chests, and the slaughterlust in their eyes - every shepherd in the caravan knew that murder had never been more necessary than it was now.

  The meeting of two opposing forces is sometimes like the crashing of a wave against rocks; other times, there is the mere suggestion of one side’s strength over the other, the way two playing cards lean together to form a steeple fragile enough to be blown over by a draft. The nature of the meeting depends on the momentum behind it. Toler imagined the nomads’ wave crashing against the caravan’s rocks. He didn’t want to be a rock. He wanted to be a wave. So he let his horse feel his spurs.

  He didn’t look back to see whether any of the others had followed, but it was clear that neither the savages nor their beasts were expecting his counterattack. He sent two hounds away licking their wounds with his javelins before he came close enough to draw steel. The machete was old, and he’d sharpened it and scrubbed off the rust more times than he could count. Feather-fletched arrows took the wind past him as he rode. He paid the arrows no mind as his horse stumbled up the rocky slope and into the oncoming tide.

  The next few hounds went down quick enough; they got busy snapping at the horse and forgot about him until his blade made sure forgetting wasn’t so easy anymore. Before he knew it, he’d amassed a following. He was spinning around, giving them all the trouble he could, when Blatcher rode through and trampled over a handful, providing Toler a way out.

  On he went toward the line of nomads. It was the first time he’d seen them up close in months, and he noted the hunger in them. There was a path to renown for the warriors in these tribes, but they often fought just as much for survival as for glory. His horse stumbled, tripping over a low rise and plunging a hoof down some hidden crater, dumping him forward like a limp sack. He was lucky the ground was soft where he landed - a bit of rock to the spine might have been hard to recover from.

  When Toler regained his footing, he found himself pressed in by two savages, while a third shot arrows at him from behind a nearby bluff. Though their longspears were well-fashioned, they were still wooden; he had the spears trimmed down by a head each before the men broke and ran. Toler left his horse where it stood and trudged up the hill, sidestepping one ill-aimed shot along his way to rout the archer from his roost. This savage didn’t flee as the others had; instead he drew a dagger and lunged. Toler’s swing was truer, and he sent the archer tumbling downhill with a wet neck.

  Short of breath already, Toler leaned hard against the bluff and wished for a smoke, letting the line of nomads sweep past him before he darted into their midst. He elbowed the first man between the shoulder blades and sent him tumbling down the scree, then turned and laid his machete into the next. His blade sunk through soft belly flesh, and when it came free the body opened with a shallow splunk and the bowels spilled like a nest of serpents.

  His strokes were hard and decisive. A second fire was in him now that he had the high ground. Another savage came at him, missing with his spear point but striking Toler’s face a sturdy blow with the butt end. His vision blurred and refocused. He steadied himself and set his machete out in front of him to block the backswing. The force of the swing against the blade’s edge was enough to shatter the savage’s spear in his hands. He flung the spear aside and drew a stone dirk, but Toler plunged a heel into the man’s knee and heard a crack. When the savage was on the ground, Toler set his blade to work and didn’t stop until the man was silent. He could only guess whether it was for mercy or vengeance that the nomad had cried in his strange tongue before he succumbed.

  Sensing no others around him, Toler caught a breath and looked out over the valley. The caravan was in good sorts, but the tide was turning. As well-guarded as the caravan was, the savage host still outnumbered the shepherds, merchants, and coachmen put together. That wasn’t counting their hounds. Toler even heard a gunshot or two crack the mid-morning sky. As most road men knew, there were only two times you ever spent a good bullet. The first was when you needed to be sure something was dead; the second was when you were going to die if you didn’t. Good bullets are worth too much to waste on Clays, Toler thought. He smiled. The best bullets are worth too muc
h to use on anyone.

  Toler ran down a savage whose flowing hair trailed behind him, taking it in a fist and yanking him hard aground. The man twitched when Toler brought glistening steel through his throat. Red pulsed from the wound, soaking Toler’s leathers. He raced to his horse and took the saddle, bounding over the rocks and cursing himself for leaving a hole in the line. Heroics aside, he knew better. Calistari would tear him apart for it. By the time he made it back to the line of flatbeds, other shepherds were returning to tidy up the mess.

  Cleaning up savages was a matter of chasing them off or hacking through what was left of them. The attack wasn’t over, but as it always went with the savages, there were the fearless fools among them who refused to flee. What good do they think it does them to stand and fight now, unless for some archaic idea that dying bravely is somehow better than living in healthy fear? Toler did his job, but that was the extent of his dedication to battle. There was no circumstance he could imagine where he’d forfeit his life for the promise of glory in death. Living suited him just fine.

  He rode around to the far side of Calistari’s flatbed to check on the merchant. There was Korley Frittock, slumped against the wheel, his chest spoked with javelins. His horse stood beside him, chewing a mouthful of scrub grass. Korley’s hand was still caught in the reins. When the animal moved, it looked like Korley was waving, part of some grisly puppet show.

  Calistari bellied out from his hiding place under the flatbed, a gopher too fat to fit in his hole. He stood, his pink skin profuse with butter-sweat, and brushed the dirt from his sweat-yellowed tunic and its embroidered buttons. Jakob cringed at the sight of Korley’s body. “Get him off the wheel. We’re going.”

  Blatcher and Andover Mays exchanged looks, and Toler dismounted to help them carry Korley’s body into the foothills. They gathered what items of value they could find on Korley’s corpse and in his bags, setting aside anything that might be of particular importance to his family and splitting the rest amongst themselves.

  “Strange to see one of the primitive tribes so far east, ain’t it?” said Blatcher, appearing not to struggle with Korley’s weight.

  “Yeah,” said Andover Mays. “No steel, crossbows or guns. Those dways were archaic, not like the usual tribes. That attack was uncoordinated. Sloppy, sloppy.”

  “And this poor fella,” Blatcher said, laying Korley’s body in a ditch between two stones. “No reason for anybody to die to a soft attack like that. He stayed behind to defend Calistari, that fat coffer. All he got for it was a ticket to an early grave. Won’t even get a grave, now I think about it. No time to bury him out here in this rocky soil.”

  “Calistari should’ve been the one skewered like a hog, not Korley,” said Andover Mays. “Nomads would’ve made a fine feast of him. Calistari would’ve fed their tribe for months.”

  Toler would’ve laughed, but the silence seemed more fitting.

  3

  The rest of the way to Tristol was uneventful, apart from some of the worst weather the caravan could’ve encountered. There were several days above a hundred and twenty degrees apiece, a caustic rainstorm that came off the mountains and ate at them the second night and all through the following day, a glimpse of a cyclone in the valley, and a brief dust storm. They were all things the trade caravans were prepared to handle; routines in an unpredictable land.

  Tristol was one of the legendary desert cities, built in a time when endless renewable energy was real. A time before the starwinds - intermittent geomagnetic storms that shed plasma and radiation into the lower atmosphere and kept electrical components and power stations in a constant state of disrepair. It was a Glaive city; one of the cities Toler’s ancestors had architected. Glaive Enterprises was no more, though its prime competitor in those days had been none other than Vantanible, Inc. They say ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’ Toler had never liked old adages, and he didn’t care enough about the past to give up a lucrative job with Vantanible.

  There was little in the way of order in Tristol; there was no militaristic organization like the Scarred Comrades who ruled the northern half of Belmond, or the Corsair’s Guild of Southcape, or self-proclaimed Emporer Delmarr Orinchild of New Kettering and its surrounds. Tristol was a city run by gangs who called themselves businesses; a metropolis of thieves and scavengers, full of syndicates and vigilantes. Like all desert cities, so many had died in the years ensuing the Great Heat that only a fraction of Tristol’s former population remained. Now it was a decaying mass of buildings huddled together over sands that fretted away at it year after year. Its shape on the horizon was worn and melted, like a wax sculpture left too long in the daylight. There it sprawled, a low-lying rust heap hedged in by suburbia, with wide boundaries that offered its dwindling populace plenty of space.

  “The markets in Tristol are the best around,” said Andover Mays, when he saw the first signs of the city on the horizon. “You can get a hooker for a four-inch of copper, and drunk as you please on another two.”

  “That’s if you don’t mind liquor that tastes as bad as the hookers,” said Blatcher.

  Jakob Calistari’s intrusion stifled their laughter. “Not so fast. You’re not off duty until I say you are,” he said from his seat on the flatbed. “The haul needs protecting until we make it to the Square. You expect Mr. Shapperton here to ward off the throngs of people eager for my wares? I’ll not have it.”

  Calistari’s coachman, a gray rail of a man named Hyll Shapperton, winced.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Blatcher muttered, waving him off.

  “I mean it,” said Calistari, poison in his look. “I hired you to perform a job, and I expect it done to my satisfaction. You’ll not be permitted to take leave without my consent.”

  Blatcher tugged at his neckcloth and turned his unsightly visage toward the merchant. “You didn’t hire me. I work for Nichel Vantanible. All you are is one of the boneheads who rents his stuff. I’m here to guard this--” he smacked the side of the shipping crate with his open palm, “--and make sure these wheels make it back to Unterberg just like they left it. You people and your wares are an inconvenience I have to work around. Saving your life comes at no extra charge. So don’t you for one second think I give the slightest squeeze of a shit about you or what’s inside this thing.” He hit the crate again with the side of his fist. “Now I’ll thank you to shut your coffing mouth. I can perform my job just fine without listening to another word of your bellyaching.”

  “Very well,” said Jakob, a quiver in his lip. “Nichel will hear of your insolence upon our arrival in Lottimer.” He was fuming, but he kept his voice smug and level. “You too, boy. I intend to give Mr. Vantanible an earful about your antics last week, you can count on that. Leaving Mr. Shapperton and I alone under the vehicle to fend for ourselves. Shameful.”

  Shapperton winced again. Toler knew the old man wanted no part to play in Calistari’s tirade. The coachman hadn’t been the one hiding under the flatbed. Toler thought about defending Shapperton, but he figured he shouldn’t. Blatcher’s outburst had already flared the merchant’s temper, and he dared not push him further. If Calistari kept his promise, they were all in deep enough trouble already.

  4

  The city of Tristol had been old and grimy for so long, it was impossible to tell how it might’ve looked when it was new. The buildings were crooked as thieves, built in haste on a foundation of shifting sand that left them sagging and settling at odd angles. As the caravan crossed into the first of the suburban neighborhoods, Infernal was dropping into the mountains to the west, casting the city in shadow.

  “What I wouldn’t give to have a go at that fat bastard.” Blatcher was seething and bent on revenge. The look on his face was so much more sour than usual that Toler was beginning to think Blatcher might quit his job just so he could give the merchant a beating. The three of them plodded along, several horse lengths behind the flatbed, where neither the merchant nor the coachman could hear them over the noise of the approaching c
ity.

  “Your big mouth gets you into a lot more trouble than you give it credit for,” Toler said.

  “You want to sit around obsessing about him the whole time, that’s fine by me,” said Andover Mays. “We’re here for two days at best, and I got a mind to do two days’ worth of drinking and hustling.”

  “‘Fraid I’m in the same boat as Mays,” Toler said. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way about lardass over there. Watching that son-bitch suffer would give me the warm fuzzies. But it sounds like you’re fixing to do something you’ll regret. Why don’t you come out for some drinks with us tonight and cool off? I’ll pay the bill.”

  Blatcher’s mouth tightened. “You think a little moonshine is gonna make this go away? That coffer is a bad egg. He’s threatening our livelihoods, Glaive. He ain’t gonna forget about it. Why should we?”

  All of a sudden I’m ‘Glaive,’ huh? I’ll be ‘boy’ again when you don’t need me on your side. “Because we of all people should know merchants piss on anything that gets in the way of them getting richer. Calistari is an asshole. Vantanible knows that. He’s not going to listen to him. Not a chance we’ll lose our jobs over this.”

  “Lose our jobs? I’ve seen Vantanible kill shepherds for less.”

  It was a fair point. Toler had seen it happen too. Nichel Vantanible was not a man to let formality come between him and the success of his business.

  “Fine. You’re worried. Let’s do it your way then. What’s the one thing merchants love more than anything else?”

  “Getting rich. We covered that.”

  “No. Not getting rich. Everyone loves getting rich. What merchants love is the deal.”

  “The…”

  Toler could almost hear Blatcher’s gears spinning. “The deal,” he repeated. “The bargain. Merchants are professional shysters, Blatcher. If all they wanted was to get rich, they’d be roadside bandits, or cult leaders, or slavers. What merchants love is haggling. Intellectual superiority. Getting the best of people. Finding ways to give you the shaft and make you think it’s mutual.”