Under the Crimson Sun (the abyssal plague)

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

“The Black Sands Raiders,” Fehrd muttered.

  “I really hate those guys,” Gan said with a sigh.

  Fehrd yanked his father’s staff out of the too-small scabbard. The Black Sands Raiders had been roaming the area of the wastes for decades. Once, their raids were all committed by their leader, Zeburon, the so-called “Iron Rider,” but lately their ranks had swelled to the point that splinter groups had been created to do secondary raids and such.

  They generally traveled in groups of a dozen or so, all riding crodlus with painted carapaces. Zeburon himself hid his face with an iron helm etched in ancient runes that nobody could read anymore. For his part, Fehrd chose to believe that they translated to, “The wearer of this helm is lost, please return to the Janos family in Gulg,” secure in the knowledge that no one-not even Zeburon himself, in all likelihood-could contradict him. Regardless, they had an appallingly high success rate.

  Zeburon’s minions simply wore all black, though some painted copies of the helm runes in silver onto their wraps. The color choice had always struck Fehrd as horribly impractical. Darker colors just made you hotter, which was insanity in the wastes.

  But then, Fehrd supposed that sane people didn’t try to make their living robbing caravans.

  On more than one occasion, the three of them had been hired specifically to protect caravans just like that one from the iron rider’s band.

  Rol continued to stare straight ahead. “Do we get involved?”

  Nodding enthusiastically, Fehrd said, “Absolutely. They might be grateful and pay us-or at least feed us something that isn’t jerky.”

  From the back, Gan asked, “What if we get hurt-or killed?”

  Fehrd snorted without bothering to look behind him. “Please-how many Black Sands jobs have we messed up?”

  “Yeah, when we were expecting them and ready for it. This is a little different, especially if we aren’t getting paid.”

  “We’re right on the edge of their sightlines,” Fehrd said. “They’re gonna see us soon either way.”

  “Fine, we do it,” Gan said. “Frontal assault?”

  Fehrd spared Gan an incredulous look. “That’s about as crazy as-well, as playing frolik with Hamno Sennit.”

  Gan’s response was a gesture that was a sign of peace in Balic, but was something a bit more rude everywhere else in Athas.

  Ignoring Gan with the ease of long practice, Fehrd turned back to look at the caravan.

  “Rol, can you get close enough to take care of the crodlus while we distract them?”

  At that, Rol just turned and looked at Fehrd.

  “Right, stupid question. Get going.”

  Rol nodded, and ran back the way they had come.

  Then Fehrd turned to Gan. “You’re about to have a broken ankle.”

  “Why do I have to be the one who has a broken ankle?”

  “Because you’re the one who lost-”

  Gan waved him off. “Lost the crodlus, right. Fine.” With a sigh, he got down on all fours, then fell on his back.

  Fehrd then turned, took several deep breaths so he’d seem out of sorts, and then ran right toward the caravan. Waving his arms back and forth over his head, he cried, “Hey! Hey! My friend is hurt.”

  Several people turned to look at Fehrd as he ran. Some were shocked, most were confused-and the raiders looked angry.

  “Who the frip is that?”

  As soon as he got fairly close to the caravan and its marauders, Fehrd stumbled forward and fell face first into the sand, thus feeding the perception of him being beside himself with worry over his friend.

  “I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly, “I’m really sorry, but my friend, he’s hurt, can you help me, please? I think his ankle’s broken.”

  Being closer, he was able to take in the details of the situation. There were indeed four carriages, one of them very large and made of stone rather than canvas. It was sealed tight, except for thin slits in a few spots-which added up to a slave trader, the only people who’d be carrying cargo that might try to escape. Animal carriers would have larger holes for breathing. Unsurprisingly, it had six crodlus reined to it, where a canvas carriage of that size would normally only require two.

  The other three were fairly standard, and he noticed several people sitting on the edges of them nervously.

  As for the raiders, they had planned their attack well. There were only six painted crodlus surrounding the caravan, evenly spaced and preventing anyone from escaping. Some crodlus had two riders, some one, but there were as many raiders on the ground amidst the caravan members as there were crodlus with only one rider, so obviously each crodlu had two when all was said and done.

  A dozen raiders, just like usual. Each carried a bone knife, some fairly long. Based on Fehrd’s experience, they likely all knew how to use them also.

  One of the raiders stepped forward, and Fehrd knew instantly that he was the leader of the bunch, because the others on the ground stepped aside for him and all the riders turned to look at him.

  “Broken ankle, you say? That’s terrible. We’re having a bit of trouble with one of our carriage wheels right now, but I think we can spare someone.” He turned to one of his men. “Harak, go with him. Check it out, while we finish fixing this wheel.”

  “Whatever you say, Draz,” the other one said.

  Stumbling to his feet, Fehrd bowed several times. “Thank you, sir, thank you so much, I’m so worried about my friend.”

  Harak walked up to Fehrd and indicated the way he’d come with a hand. “After you.”

  “Of course, sir, just come with me, sir, thank you so much.” He started jogging through the sand. Harak was able to keep up with long strides.

  Gan was lying obligingly on the ground, his pack at his side, massaging his ankle. “Morning glory, but this hurts. If you could help me, sir, I’d really appreciate-”

  “Shut up,” Harak said, taking out his bone knife.

  Fehrd then clubbed him in the head with his father’s bone staff.

  As he fell forward, Gan pulled his own bone knife out of the holster in his not-really-broken ankle and plunged it into Harak’s chest.

  Getting to his feet, Gan said, “That’s one.”

  The bleating sound of hungry crodlus pierced the air. Fehrd turned around to see that Rol had done his part: spreading the gourmet crodlu chow on the ground. The crodlus immediately picked up the scent and came running, despite the best efforts of the Black Sands riders.

  “See? Rol had a good reason for keeping the chow,” Gan said with a grin as they started running back to the caravan.

  Fehrd snorted. “He probably slept with the merchant’s daughter or something.”

  Chaos was reigning in the caravan, as the raiders tried to get the hungry crodlus under control, and failed rather spectacularly. Fehrd had been concerned that they might have had well-trained crodlus, but that had been unlikely. The Black Sands Raiders lived hard and rode their beasts into the ground. The niceties of training the crodlus were superfluous when they could just steal another if one they had failed in some way.

  But that also meant they had no chance of getting them under control when someone spread gourmet chow on the ground.

  Rol was taking advantage of the chaos by pulling the riders off their mounts and slitting their throats.

  There was a reason why the three of them were some of the best bodyguards in Athas. Rol’s inability to keep it in his trousers gave them entirely the wrong reputation for getting more employment, but they were underestimated at the peril of their opponents.

  Two of the raiders saw Gan and Fehrd running back toward them, screamed something that Fehrd couldn’t make out, and then threw their bone knives.

  Both of them ducked the throws fairly easily. Fehrd smiled and brandished his father’s staff.

  Gripping the staff firmly so that his hands were evenly spaced, Fehrd hit one Raider at the temple with one end of the staff, then twirled it so that it hit another one in the collarbone. The firs
t dropped to the ground, while the other stumbled backward, and Fehrd took shots at his groin and jaw, then he too fell.

  Gan took care of two more with his own knife, leaving just the leader, Draz, standing before them.

  The man’s smile was visible under his head scarves. “Not bad for a last act.”

  Fehrd smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  Then Draz took a staff of his own out of a back scabbard.

  That just made Fehrd’s smile widen. “You know how to use that thing?”

  In response, Draz came at him with a strike to his head. Fehrd blocked it easily, but the move wasn’t meant to harm, but to simply answer the question. The Black Sands leader had been trained-his grip was formal, and his strike swift. It would have been effective against an unarmed opponent.

  Gan moved to help Rol with the remaining raiders, which Fehrd barely acknowledged out of the corner of his eye. His attention was entirely focused on Draz.

  They circled each other for a moment in the sand, and then Draz whipped his staff in an attempt to strike at Fehrd’s stomach. Fehrd blocked it easily, but Draz pulled back before Fehrd could hook his opponent’s staff in an attempt to disarm him.

  Fehrd swung down toward Draz’s ankle, which Draz blocked, but that left his face briefly open as he defended it. Fehrd brought his staff up toward Draz’s chin-which Draz managed to dodge-then swung it around again to try to hit his chin a second time. That time, though, Draz blocked it with his staff, the impact ringing through Fehrd’s arms.

  Then Fehrd whirled around to try to hit Draz from the other side, but the sandy ground made it difficult for him to maintain his footing. For a brief moment, he panicked, and Draz immediately went on the offensive, sending the staff right toward his face.

  Fehrd managed to deflect it, but he almost lost his grip in the meantime.

  Draz snarled and swung the staff around more quickly, and Fehrd was only barely able to get his staff up.

  It wasn’t until after Fehrd cried out in pain that he realized that Draz’s staff had smashed into his fingers. It was a struggle to keep those fingers curled in a grip.

  So he kicked Draz in the groin.

  Expectedly, Draz stumbled backward, making an “ooooohhhh” noise, prompting Fehrd to swing the staff at his head. Draz managed to duck that, but Fehrd kept the arc going, swinging low.

  His father’s staff smashed into Draz’s shin, knocking his feet out from under him. He fell onto his back, his staff having fallen to the sand next to him, and Fehrd immediately stood over him, the end of the staff right at his throat.

  Smiling, Fehrd said, “Not bad for a last act.”

  Draz snarled. “I don’t think so.”

  Fehrd never saw Draz’s hand move, but suddenly it was up, having thrown a bone knife right at Fehrd’s chest.

  Oddly, he didn’t feel any pain, even though he saw the hilt of the knife sticking out of his chest. But he couldn’t move, though whether from the shock of being stabbed or surprise that Draz would use a knife in a staff fight, he honestly wasn’t sure.

  “Fehrd.” That was either Gan or Rol, Fehrd couldn’t tell.

  He just stood there like an idiot, the knife sticking out of his chest.

  Then he saw Rol beating the unholy crap out of Draz while Gan stood in front of him. “Fehrd.” Gan was saying-but his voice sounded like it was miles away. “Are you all right?”

  “I-”

  Fehrd swallowed, and it tasted like acid.

  “I seem to have a knife in my chest.”

  Then he finally fell over.

  The last thing he heard was Gan screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Somehow it just figured that the last thing he’d ever hear was Gan carrying on about something …

  Gan’s left eye itched.

  He stood and watched the funeral pyre they’d made up for Fehrd and the members of the Black Sands Raiders who didn’t get away. The flames licked into the night sky.

  You didn’t bury bodies in the wastes. Corpses attracted predators, and it was impossible to bury a body deep enough to be hidden from them-not with the way the sands shifted. So you waited until dark when it got very cold, and you burned the bodies. In death, they still served a purpose: to keep the caravan from freezing. It got cold at night, and by the time things settled down in the caravan and all the bodies were gathered in one place, and the possessions of the dead distributed among the survivors, as was traditional, it was near sunset.

  As the red sun sank below the horizon, the bodies of the raiders and of Fehrd were set afire.

  Gan always used to understand the hard practicality of it. That night, he had a harder time doing so.

  For all his bravado to Fehrd earlier that day, the fact was Gan knew that it was his own damn fault that they had been stuck traveling the wastes on foot. And in the privacy of his own mind, he was willing to admit to himself, at least, if not to Rol and Fehrd, that he’d been an idiot. For some reason, Gan had been arrogant enough to think that he would be the one to beat Hamno Sennit at the game that he always won at.

  If he hadn’t been such an idiot, they might have had the crodlus. If they’d had the crodlus, they would have been at Raam, and never even encountered the raiders. True, the people of the caravan would’ve been robbed, but people got robbed in the wastes all the time. It wasn’t Gan’s responsibility to help all of them.

  It was his responsibility to look out for Fehrd-indeed, it was their mutual responsibility to look out for each other.

  He and Rol, they’d failed Fehrd. And it was entirely on Gan.

  A man walked up to Gan from his right side, which was the only reason why Gan noticed his arrival, since that was the only side where he had any peripheral vision. He’d been introduced to the man earlier, but had no recollection of the man’s name. That was primarily because the introduction had taken place only a short time after Rol had pried Gan off of Draz’s corpse, Gan having stabbed him several dozen times. Gan’s memory of that particular time was fuzzy at best. The man was human, at least, and had thick black hair and an equally thick beard, both of which were curled into ringlets.

  “I, ah,” the man said haltingly, “wanted to, uhm-to thank you again. You and your friends saved our lives. I’m-I’m truly sorry that your friend died.”

  Having no interest in discussing Fehrd with a perfect stranger, Gan turned his one-eyed gaze on the man. “Look, uh-I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

  “I’m called Yarro. I’m the caravan master. We’re traveling to Raam-all, that is, save for the slave traders. They’re staying on the Great Road, heading to Urik.”

  Nodding, Gan said, “We’re also bound for Raam. And we’re running late. If we could travel with you …”

  Yarro breathed a loud sigh. “We were hoping you’d say that. We were already robbed once, before the slaver joined us, and we fear that a third attack will destroy us.”

  “Don’t worry.” Gan put a hand on Yarro’s shoulder. “We were caught off guard-Rol and I will be ready this time, and the only people who’ll get hurt are the bastards who try to harm this caravan.”

  It was bravado, but it was what they always said when they started a job. Normally, Fehrd was the one providing that reassurance, of course, but Gan figured he needed to get used to it.

  “What brings you to Raam?” Yarro asked.

  “My sister.” That, for the first time since he was cheated in that damned frolik game, prompted Gan to smile. Thinking of Feena always did that. He adored his little sister, and right then, seeing her ice blue eyes and curly blond hair was the most important thing in his life. “She’s working for some traveling merchants. They’re in Raam for the bazaar.”

  Yarro frowned. “I think that bazaar ends for the season tomorrow-or perhaps the next day. And we’re still three days out of Raam.”

  “I know. They’ll wait for us.” Despite his words, Gan wasn’t at all convinced that that was the case. Feena would ask, of course, and Komir would probably also speak up for G
an, but Serthlara and Shira hated him, and Karalith didn’t think all that highly of him either. He wouldn’t put it past them to go on without them.

  And since Gan had no idea where the Serthlara Emporium was headed next, he and Rol would be in trouble.

  Well, not in trouble, precisely-but Gan hadn’t seen his sister in far too long, and he wasn’t too keen on the notion of not knowing where she was. Sure, they could leave a message with someone in Raam, but there was no guarantee Gan and Rol would see it.

  Also, Fehrd was the one with all the friends and contacts in Raam …

  Again, Gan stared at the flames that grasped upward, the flickering light making it impossible to see the stars, leaving the sky bereft.

  With a sigh, Gan turned away. He was getting maudlin, and it needed to stop.

  Following him back to the main gathering of the caravan-everyone was clustered around the slave trader’s stone cart, as it was the largest vehicle-Yarro started, “We don’t have much to pay you …”

  “It’s okay.” Gan waved him off. “Just feed us something that isn’t jerky, and we’ll consider ourselves well compensated.”

  Yarro did better than that. His own carriage had space for Gan and Rol’s pack, and all of the other carriages were willing to let one or both of them ride. Since they were charged with protecting the caravan, they rotated where they sat, each making sure that they had good sight lines for the land beyond where the caravan was.

  Even with the caravan forced to move at the pace of its slowest member-in their case, the slave trader-they were making far better time than Gan, Rol, and Fehrd had been on foot.

  It was small consolation, but Gan would take what he could get. With Fehrd dead, it was even more important that he reach Feena before Serthlara left Raam.

  Early the following morning, just as the caravan was getting underway for the day, a messenger came riding through on an erdlu bound for Raam. Yarro provided him with information to post at the Raam caravan station, including his own name as caravan master and the roster of travelers who would be arriving there in a few days’ time. Gan hoped that Feena would see his and Rol’s names (the messenger refused to put Fehrd’s name, an insistence on brutal honesty that Gan had rarely encountered on the wastes) and make sure the emporium didn’t leave town until they arrived.