Salt in the Water (A Lesser Dark Book 1)

by S. Cushaway

  “Yes,” she lied. “Are you?”

  “I’ve been better, but I’ve been a hell of a lot worse, too.”

  “That’s sweet,” Marty said as she drew near, a revolver clasped in one thin hand. She pushed it at Strauss without so much as glancing at him. “Are you two in love?”

  The genuine interest in her voice—almost girlish—made Leigh wonder who she’d been and how she’d ended up a ragged, weathered camp follower beholden to a monster like Lein Strauss. A thread of hope weaved its way into her chest. “No, we’re not. We just work together, for Dogton.” Cautiously, noting Strauss’s dark look and Felix’s little grin, she added, “The man you got the jacket from was my friend. He saved me once. I thought of him like an older brother.”

  “So, if he’s not your sweetheart. . .” Marty jutted one hip out so it pointed at Kaitar. “That mean you won’t mind if I have some fun with him?”

  Leigh’s hope snuffed out like a wasted candle, replaced by stony resignation. Strauss would rape and kill her soon. If she lived through the night, and if they didn’t torture Kaitar to death, they’d both be taken to Bywater. There, they would die. Orin and the other Enforcers would never know what happened to them. Erid Vargas would grow up wondering what had happened to his father. Bitterness drilled deep, but something in her soul—hard as a pebble—refused to crack under the awful weight of her fate.

  “Marty, did you bring the water?” Felix asked. “Or the food? Damn, if you could stop thinkin’ about cock for two seconds, we could have already had dinner by now.”

  A musky, sour odor filled Leigh’s nose as Marty crouched between her and the Shyiine.

  “You don’t remember me, but I remember you,” she said, toying with a length of Kaitar’s hair. “Saw you once with those Enforcers you led into Bywater. They killed an awful lot of folks tryin’ to get to Strauss, didn’t they? My mama was one.”

  “I’m going to assume your mama was one of Strauss’s bandits,” Kaitar said. “And in that case, she knew what she was risking. But since you want to know, I didn’t kill anyone during all that bullshit.”

  “But it was you that gave me the nightmares. Toros-tainted bastard!” She yanked his ropey hair so violently his head jerked back. Kaitar grunted, breathing hard through his nose, a murderous look shining in his strange eyes.

  “Stop!” Leigh wriggled, helpless. “He’s unarmed and can’t do—”

  Marty pulled his hair again, laughing wildly. “He likes it. Ain’t you ever heard? Shyiine boys like it a little rough.”

  “Leave him alone, Marty.” Felix’s brows drew down. “He’s dangerous enough; he might still bite you. You want some prick that bad, I guess I’m willin’, after dinner.”

  Strauss crossed his arms over his broad chest and smirked. “Might not be cock she’s really after, for once. Maybe I’ll let you play with him, Marty. After food. Go haul your ass over there and get the water, like we told you earlier.”

  “You two don’t own me.” Marty stood, wiping her grimy hands. “Either of you.” She sauntered toward the low wagon, calico frock looking more blue than white in the darkness outside the ring of firelight.

  I have to do something. Have to think. Will they be so distracted while they’re eating that—

  “Felix, haul that bitch away from the snake, or he’ll find a way to untie her.”

  The smaller man got to his feet, trotted forward, and knelt next to her, grinning. His rank smell made Leigh’s eyes water.

  “Like I said, I’ll be nice to you if you’re nice to me. I ain’t rough like Strauss.” A dirt-caked hand slid across her breast, squeezing. The tip of his pink, wet tongue poked from between the gap of his crooked front teeth, and his eyes bulged until they seemed ready to pop right out of his head.

  “Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”

  Unperturbed, he shrugged. “You might like it if you decide to just relax.” He pinched a nipple, bruising it. “Or I can be mean, but I’d rather not. Up to you.”

  Kaitar snarled, showing his teeth. “If you fuck like you pick a camp, you won’t even know where to stick your pen’jaeta.”

  Felix didn’t rise to the bait. His fingers dug into Leigh’s armpits as he heaved her upward. Pain raged through her back and down her pelvis, but she didn’t care; she thrashed her bound legs as hard as she could.

  Felix stumbled. “Stop that now!”

  Leigh bucked harder. The bandit fell to one knee, hands slipping from her body as he caught himself against the ground. His boot thumped square into her belly and all the air whooshed from her lungs. Before Leigh could catch her breath, Felix grabbed her again, tugging and groaning under the strain. She pulled against his slight weight, swinging her trussed body to and fro. Cursing, he fell as she twisted beneath him, desperately trying to get to her knees. Sand rammed up her nose; the choking sensation doubled as Felix clambered on top of her and squatted.

  “Hold still! I’m tryin’ to be nice to you!” Rank breath poured across Leigh's shoulders as Felix rolled her onto her back. All the lust was gone out of his eyes now, replaced by frantic desperation. “Why are you fightin’ like this? I wasn’t gonna hurt you!”

  “Pistol-whip that Sulari bitch if you can’t control her,” Strauss said as he poked at the fire. “Hell, Felix, if you ain’t man enough to drag her a few yards, how you expect to fuck her?”

  “He could just save his energy and have me instead,” Marty said. She tossed a heavy, antelope-gut waterskin to the ground. In the other hand, she held a small bundle wrapped in ragged cloth. She unwrapped the bundle and selected a piece of twisted jerky, too pale to be s’rat or antelope.

  Biting down on the meat, she said, “I’m prettier than she is, anyway.”

  Strauss laughed, but Felix did not. The half-scared look in his eyes turned hard and mean. He reached for the pistol at his belt and gripped it by the barrel. “I’ll do it. Be still and let me drag you over by the fire, or I’ll knock you out clean. You wouldn’t like it.”

  Leigh recognized that murderous look; she’d seen it too many times with Siat-rahl not to know what it meant. Felix had been bested by a woman, one trussed up like a hog. Such men—those who had their egos bruised by anything female—were the most dangerous of all.

  I don’t care. I don’t. Even if it means he’ll kill me, I will not be a scared girl cowering in the dust.

  “You gonna behave?” he asked.

  Summoning what little moisture was left in her mouth, she spat full into his face. Felix blinked as the saliva dripped down his chin and onto the duster. A heartbeat later, his baffled expression contorted into savage, concentrated hatred. His lips slid back from his big, crooked teeth as firelight reflected off his pale irises, making them appear oddly colorless. With a trembling hand, he raised his pistol; it gleamed, mirroring the flames several feet away.

  “Where’s the snake?” Strauss vaulted to his feet. “Where’s the Besh?”

  The pistol hovered above her, frozen in place as Felix peered at the spot where Kaitar had lain moments before. Only a slight imprint and a piece of frayed rope remained; Kaitar Besh was gone.

  “I . . . he was just there. He . . .” Terror made Felix’s scrawny frame quake with each word.

  “Why didn’t you watch that snake? I told you to watch him!” Strauss loomed close, his face full of a black fury that made Leigh’s blood turn cold.

  Felix dropped the pistol, shielding his head with both arms. “You both were here, too! You told me to haul her away from him, and that’s what I was doin’! You can’t blame this on me!”

  Strauss shoved him with one powerful sweep of his arm. The smaller bandit rolled to the ground, dodging a kick aimed in his direction. Without waiting to see if Strauss would come after him, Felix scrambled to his feet, kicking sand as he ran.

  “Come back here!”

  “To hell with you, Strauss!” Felix saluted the big man with a middle finger. “It was your idea to take them hostage and not just kill ’em!” His high, sca
red laughter faded as he vanished around the outcrop and into the night.

  Leigh lay still, hoping Lein Strauss would forget about her in his rage. He did not. Stooping, he grabbed her by the jacket and hauled her up until her feet dangled above the dust.

  “Where did he go?”

  A surreal calm spread over her, cool as well water. She met his eye steadily “I don’t know; I was too busy trying to defend myself from your scout.”

  He hurled her to the ground and slammed a boot into her ribs. A lightning fork of pain cracked deep within her chest, radiating outward, forcing a guttural howl from her. She tasted blood on the edge of that cry. The half-Druen blotted out the evening sky as he stepped over her, but Leigh didn’t care—it hurt too badly to care about anything. She lay there, choking against the sand and cradling her chest, wondering if she were dying.

  “He’s gonna kill Felix when he finds him,” Marty said. “And then, I'm gonna kill you. But first, we'll kill that Shyiine.” She pulled a short, nasty-looking knife from her bodice. The blade flashed in the fire’s glow. “Might cut off his dick, too, and shove it down your throat for makin’ Felix mess up so bad. I liked him, even if he wasn’t much of a screw.”

  Leigh coughed, her lungs desperately trying to pull in a breath of air against the spasms of pain. More blood wet her tongue, though she didn’t know if it was from a punctured lung or a busted lip. From where she lay, she could just make out Strauss’s huge shadow as it moved around the low wagon. He cursed as he jerked aside the back tarp, pounded a mallet-sized fist against the wagon bed, and howled in rage.

  A scream tore through the gully, echoing along the rocky terrain. An inhuman screech followed, joined by another, even louder. The sounds bounced off the high ravine walls until the night filled with the song of hunting threk. Strauss froze, the roaring curses dead on his lips. Marty, too, stared into the blackness, face pale, mouth slack with fear.

  Gritting her teeth, Leigh wormed her way across the sand, inch by inch. Each movement made her torso spasm and her vision cloud over until she thought she would black out. The muscles in her chest tightened, squeezing her broken rib and bringing agony with each raspy breath, but she refused to let herself stop.

  “Run!” Felix’s voice pounded the darkness, frantic and sudden. “Marty, run!”

  The threk shrieked again, closer now. Chasing. Thrilled by the scent of prey, just as they’d been the first night Leigh had listened to them kill the antelope. Felix appeared from the shadows—a shapeless blur in the gloom. He burst forth into the firelight, blind with terror, mouth opened wide. Flecks of spittle shone against his pale, dirty face. He sprinted past the fire, almost knocking Marty over as she scrambled out of his path.

  She screamed as a huge, scaled form launched itself from the night, its slavering jaws wide and its eyes burning like twin suns. It plowed into her; Marty fell back in a spray of sparks. The threk clamped its venom-wet teeth on the bandit and shook her so hard the woman's thin arms jerked. Marty's head rolled into the hot coals, and she screamed as her scraggly hair caught the flame and blazed like a torch.

  A shot rang out from the direction of the low wagon, whizzed through the air, and missed its target. The second threk crossed the dying firelight with fluid grace, its hiss rattling Leigh's very bones. One claw came down on Marty’s sunglasses, cracking the lenses into shining slivers. Muscles bunched, rippling under the predator’s scaled hide; the tension released like a coiled spring as the threk crashed into the Estarian woman. Marty’s lips peeled open, ready to scream, but a sickening crunch cut the sound short.

  Both threk tore into the unprotected flesh, swallowing Marty bite by bite as they rolled her face-first into the fire. The smaller beast lifted its head and regarded Leigh with a sly, knowing look; it seemed to be smiling at her.

  Keep still.

  Then, the world went black as the fire snuffed out under the weight of Marty’s limp corpse. A sharp, pungent odor of burning flesh permeated the air. It smelled a lot like pork.

  Numbing herself to that awful scent, Leigh crawled on her belly, hoping she had aimed in the right direction and the shadows in front of her were the eastern ravine wall. If she could reach the shrubs and boulders crowding the steep incline, she might have a chance.

  Strauss’s revolver roared again, followed by the squeal of a bullet grazing hard granite. Both threk hissed. Leigh heard the telltale click click of an empty cylinder being dry-fired, then the heavy steps behind her. She held her breath. Something gleamed in the corner of her eye, bright yellow.

  Strauss’s deep voice boomed, “The fuck is that?”

  Leigh squirmed forward, desperately trying to find her way. In the darkness, she could just make out the big rock Strauss had grazed with his wild shot. If she could get behind it, hide from him while—

  Her chin collided with something cold and hard. Steel.

  Felix’s pistol.

  She pushed her body in a semicircle until her fingers groped the short barrel. Praying she would not drop the weapon, she traced the smooth, half-moon trigger. Leigh crawled forward again, pushing her tied legs against the dirt with every ounce of strength she had left.

  “Where are you, Sulari bitch?” Two beams of crimson light poured from Strauss’s goggles, sweeping from side to side.

  No. Don’t let him notice me. Don’t . . .

  He rose up against the starry sky, looking as big as the Senbehi mountains. A bone-handled skinning knife dangled from one hand—the very one he’d used to butcher Romano Vargas. Leigh yanked her forearms against the rope frantically, nearly breaking her wrists in the effort. The knot slipped and then gave way.

  The lens covering his eyes glowed like coals. “I see you there.”

  No!

  The pistol slipped from her tingling, rope-numbed fingers. Leigh groped for the weapon as Strauss stalked closer, waving the knife. A dozen yards behind him, the threk tugged at Marty, dragging her away into the dark. They raised their heads in a sudden alarm.

  Chirrup?

  The ground behind Strauss shimmered—dully at first, then brighter than any sunset. Leigh stared, transfixed even in her terror. Strauss turned too, eyes fixed on the strange apparition. The sand was moving, each grain a glowing, miniscule coal. The illusion danced, spiraling closer, first along the ground, and then flashing higher. Something moved, blurred by proximity and speed. A smell—

  Firebrand!

  —seared the air, followed by a soft hsssss. A third threk materialized from the darkness, the pulse and flicker of Firebrand-charged yatreg illuminating his lean face and making the amber eyes burn crimson and gold.

  Strauss braced himself, legs spread apart and planted like twin tree trunks. “Toros snake! I see you there!” His skinning knife flashed in a deadly arc, followed by a whoosh of steel. Leigh rocked to her knees, hand sliding over sand as she scrambled for the pistol. She saw it, lying a mere foot away from her knee, gleaming in the dancing light behind her. Waiting. She reached for it, lifted the gun, and braced her right hand with her left. Her eyes watered when she turned to face the blinding light.

  Strauss staggered forward as the specter whirled in front of him, all shadow and flame. It ducked his strike, leaving a streak of white-orange heat that stamped the night with a too-bright imprint.

  “I’ll kill you!” The bandit lurched, making clumsy swipes with the knife. “You and the Sulari bitch are—”

  Abruptly the light vanished as the shadow sank its blades into the half-Druen’s midsection. Strauss swayed as a stream of fire roared from his belly to his beard. When Kaitar pulled the daggers free, the Firebrand dimmed to nothingness. Then, he was gone, too—fading into the night like a wraith.

  Leigh pulled the trigger. The old pistol cracked, the recoil jolting her from wrist to shoulder. Strauss doubled over and coughed. Something too thick to be spit dribbled from his mouth and spattered to the ground with a soft plop. The half-Druen straightened, pivoted in her direction, and bared his teeth before stumbling fo
rward a few feet. Leigh would never forget the way he smiled, or how his voice came out in a low, wet rumble.

  “I’ll hang your bones on my grave.”

  Silently, as if they’d waited for some unspoken cue, the two threk smashed into him. They slammed to the ground in a tangle, the threk snapping at Strauss’s chest and belly, the bandit beating at them with his hard fists. He screamed, but the sound twisted into a high squeal as the hole in his lung filled with Firebrand, burning from the inside out. The squealing rose, contorting into a thin, airy whine, carrying far over the gully to echo into the desert. The goggles on his face popped as teeth broke through the lens, killing the stream of crimson light. Fire-orange smoke rolled from the wound in his back as droplets of blood sizzled to the ground.

  Leigh clamped her hands over her ears and watched, wide-eyed. She could not move, even to swallow down the coppery taste of blood still lingering on her lips. The pain lancing her chest became surreal, too distant to take heed of. Just when she thought she might start shrieking herself, Strauss’s screams died and—for the second time that night— Leigh smelled the awful, porky odor of cooking human flesh.

  Mother help me. . . it smells like Nal’ves when it burned!

  The two threk nosed Strauss’s corpse. One sneezed at the smoke drifting from the man’s open mouth and singed beard. Underneath the body, where the last of the Firebrand discharge had seared through flesh, the sand melted to glass. It shattered beneath the threks’ claws as they moved, spiderwebbing with high, musical notes that made Leigh shudder. The predators crept from Strauss’s body and into the shadows. The last Leigh saw of the threk were their eyes—bright, but growing distant. Then, they were gone, and the night became still.

  She regarded the pistol in her lap, finger still hooked around the trigger. Not knowing what else to do, she counted her heartbeats.