PATCHER

by Martin Kee

  “Sorry,” Noz says, suddenly bashful.

  The girl doesn’t say anything. Bex notices a series of bruises on her arms and legs, great blue blemishes.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” she asks.

  The girl only shakes her head.

  “You see?” Fell’al says. “Just a bunch of imagination games.”

  Bex looks at Veerh, an idea coming to her. “Veerh, Bindo is hungry. He might get into the plants.”

  “What?” Veerh swings his spiked head her way, confused.

  But Fell’al flares at the words. “I barely have the crops to feed my own! Your steer eats any of my crops and I’ll expect full compensation.”

  “Veerh,” Bex says, placing a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you ask our host where might be a good place to keep Bindo out of trouble.”

  With a grunt, Veerh heaves himself off the chair, heading for he door, Fell’al rushing out with broom in hand. Bex can’t help but feel relief that the woman at least put the axe away.

  Alone, Bex looks from Noz to Xeril, then back again. She smiles. The children stand attentively before her, but silent. She can see the way Xeril hides behind her brother, a mix of fear and curiosity on her face.

  Bex leans in, keeping her voice low.

  “They are big aren’t they?” she says.

  The siblings glance at one another. The girl clamps her mouth shut, her eyes round and scared. Noz pulls her close and speaks first.

  “She said not to tell. That we just imagined it.” He glances out the window where Fell’al can be heard yelling at the plainsteer.

  “Well, did you?”

  Silently, Xeril pulls her tunic up revealing a long dark bruise on her side. Bex stands and walks up to her, taking a closer look. Fell’al and Veerh bicker through the thin walls.

  “Did one of them grab you?” she asks. Xeril nods and Bex frowns. “Does it hurt?”

  More nodding. Noz pulls the girls clothes down. “Why are you chasing them?” he asks.

  “So there’s two?” She tries to build an image in her mind—another Scoop. Another giant. Just how many of them are lurking round the world?

  “One was hairier and bigger. It didn’t speak. It just made these low grunting sounds. Like a thrid.” To demonstrate, Noz makes his voice as low as he can, moaning and clacking his teeth together. He tries other sounds as well, dancing in a circle to try and get the tones just right. But his body isn’t right for making the noises exactly. After a while, he gives up. “The other one said only a couple of words.”

  “Words? Do you remember what it said?”

  “Something like shovel, or lift. I don’t remember.”

  “Scoop,” the girl says, her voice hoarse and rough. “He said ‘scoop.’”

  “That’s his name,” Bex says.

  “You know it?” Noz asks. “You know the giant?” There’s a hint of an excited smile. Restrained. Again, he glances out the window nervously.

  Bex nods. “Scoop was under my care. He ran off.” But what about the second one? It bothers her not only because of the fact she might have a feral on her hands, but also that Veerh predicted all this so clearly.

  She looks at the girl. “When they left, did you see which way they went?”

  Xeril only shakes her head.

  “Thank you anyway,” she says to them. “You’re both very brave.”

  “Why do you have a giant?” Noz asks. Now that the children have relaxed, they stare up at her with a hungry curiosity.

  “I found him when he was just hatched,” Bex says.

  “Hatched?”

  “Yes. He came out of an egg, one I found at the bottom of a stalker pit.”

  “Was it big?”

  “It was huge.”

  “What lays an egg that big?” Noz asks.

  Before she can come to an answer Xirel begins to bounce up and down, barely able to control herself. She tugs on her brother’s clothes and points out the window.

  “That was the flyer! I told you! I saw it and it dropped eggs! You thought I was lying and you even threatened to tell Mother, but I wasn’t lying. I tried to wake you up and you only told me I was dreaming! But it was him!”

  Bex tries to calm the girl, but Xeril is too caught up in her gloating. She pokes at her brother. “I told you! I told you!”

  Noz shushes her. “Do you want Mother to hear?”

  Somehow, as if through great restraint, the girl manages to gain control of herself again, just long enough for Bex to ask a question.

  “What flier?”

  “The Pequesmattl flier!”

  Noz intervenes, his face skeptical. “We’d just heard about it from a friend. He’d gone to a reading and then told Xeril. I tried to tell her it was just a story—”

  “It’s not just a story,” Xeril insists, so animated Bex thinks she is talking to a different girl entirely. “I saw it!”

  “What did it look like?”

  Xeril flings her arms out wide. “It had huge wings and it flew down through the Godcloud, and then eggs came off of it before it finally tore apart. Because that’s what happens when people go into the Godcloud, isn’t it? They come apart.”

  As impossible as it seems, Bex still has to consider it. But if things are beyond the Godcloud, then how many things? How many people live beyond that impenetrable sky? For a moment, Bex’s mind reels at the possibilities. She feels very small all of a sudden. If there is so much beyond this world, so much beyond the Godcloud she can’t begin to understand, how can she ever look at her world the same?

  “Can you tell me where it went?” she asks.

  Xeril shrugs. “It came apart.”

  “All of it?”

  “Some parts went up into the mountains, where the Horns are coming up.”

  Xeril smiles now as she talks, and Bex begins to wonder if it’s the first time any adult has ever listened seriously to the girl. Childhood can be such a horrific time for the poor—children born into what amounts to no more than slavery, arms and tools grafted to them as soon as they can walk, sent to work in fields and salvage sites. These two children seem to have gotten of lightly, only one or two augments slapped onto their backs. A sloppy job too.

  “Why do you want him back so bad?” Noz asks. “He has a friend. He’s not lonely. Should he be with his kin?”

  “I’m a Tender,” Bex says, forgetting momentarily about the Matron’s betrayal. “I’ve always tended, and that’s what I plan to do with him, take care of him. Even if his friend doesn’t like it, I’ll protect that one as well.”

  “I heard all the Tenders were dead,” the boy says, suspicious. “I heard they all live in the great city now.”

  “Don’t I look alive to you?” She gives him a smile, then turns to the girl. “You said over the ridge there to the north?”

  The girl nods, her energy spent.

  “You go get some rest,” Bex says to her. “You’ve had a very long day. Think of the stories you’ll have.”

  Xeril nods as Bex starts for the door. She can still hear more voices outside now. As she reaches for the handle, a tug on her sleeve stops her. Noz hovers beside her.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you really a Tender?” he asks.

  “I am.” Even if there’s no guild left.

  “Why?”

  She thinks a minute. “Because everything has a right to exist. Every living thing should be given a chance to exist.”

  “Is it true you get to play with all the animals? I mean, all the animals? I heard there’s hundreds.”

  Bex smiles. “We tend any animal that comes our way.”

  “I want to be a Tender when I am bigger. Do you think I could?”

  “That’s—that’s not really for me to say.” But without a Matron or a guild, who’s to say anything? “I’m sure you’d make a fine one.”

  Noz beams at her and runs off. She can hear him yelling the news to his sister in the back room. The wind feels good on her face and she realizes just how stuffy t
he small cabin was. She breathes deep, following side of the building to find Veerh. Conversational song chatters through the yard.

  Did the neighbors finally come by to see what all the fuss was about?

  She finds him, Fell’al, and several others. Bex’s feels a pit of worry in her stomach as she counts the bladed guards, the extra spikes, two of them total, almost as tall as Veerh. She barely notices the guards; she’s looking instead at their leader.

  Some new augments, she notices—legs lengthened, face scarred and humorless. A pair of insectile limbs, fitted with blow-guns and spears, line one side of his torso. It’s good work, professional work. The kind of work royalty would have done. But he’s not royalty; he’s a poacher. Even with all the grafts and limps, Ak’klin’s face remains the same.

  He sees her, steps forward.

  “The Ameer would like a word.”

  Chapter 34

  “I’VE NO wish to speak to the Ameer.”

  “The Ameer doesn’t consider this a request.”

  Bex studies the man before her; his royal guards, his official badge, shining like gold on his shoulder. The soldiers move about in their slow, lumbering steps, covered in thick, grafted plates. “You’ve been promoted. Apparently you found a way to profit from all this after all.”

  Ak’klin shrugs, thin and small beside the heavily weaponized guards. “There are many political nuances in the city that you are not aware of. The Ameer hired me in the past, and once again I am here at his behest. What has happened between you and I, is of no concern. This is strictly business.”

  “If it’s regarding Scoop, you won’t have my help,” Bex replies.

  “Your giant is no longer of interest to me,” he says. “Teams are already searching for him, and I imagine it won’t be long before he is captured.”

  “They, you mean.”

  The poacher looks genuinely surprised. “Pardon?”

  “There are two.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. One of them seems to be feral, attacked one of the children from this farm. It’s far more dangerous than Scoop, and I think you remember how that worked out for your men.”

  “Interesting.” The poacher chuckles. “Dangerous is a quality we are hoping for.” He waves a hand. “But that isn’t why we are here. In fact, we were just going to make a King’s Offer to the owner.”

  “At last!” Fell’al rushes past, throwing her hands into the air. “How much does he offer?”

  “Enough to move you and the children into the city where you’ll be given a home and stipend. It’s no longer safe out in the hinterlands.”

  The woman, giddy in her offer, bows deeply. “This is no place for children. The land is no longer fertile. Growing has become nearly impossible save for a few meager plants.”

  Ak’klin nods. “The Ameer understands this. That’s why he has decreed we should consolidate the population, for we are all stronger as a whole than in parts.”

  Throwing her hands in the air, the woman whispers a silent prayer to the Godcloud. Bex watches as she backs away from Ak’klin as If he were the Ammer himself, bowing as she heads back into her cottage. The poacher watches Fell’al leave. After she is out of sight, he swings that focus onto Bex and she feels her stomach sink a little.

  “What does the Ameer want with me? And how did you find us?”

  “I am a tracker,” Ak’klin says. “Also, the Ameer has bugs throughout the world, insects who report back to him. If he didn’t know what people were up to, he wouldn’t be much of an Ameer.”

  “And my first question?”

  “That’s better discussed between you and the Ameer.” He gestures to the group of soldiers behind him, all teeth and spikes and blades.

  “Tell the Ameer I politely decline.”

  The poacher takes a step her direction. “That would be unwise.”

  “I am Tr-Bex, last remaining member of the Tenders’ Guild,” she says, planting her feet on the ground, raising her chin. I’ve faced him before and I can face him again. “I believe that makes me the sole representative.”

  “A representative with no organization is simply an individual. There is no viable guild left for you to represent, Tender.”

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “I would rather not,” says the poacher. He looks for a moment as if he’s about to say more. Instead, he waits.

  “There are a pair of giants on the loose.” She points out into the wilderness. “They will kill again.”

  “I am well aware of the tragedy that’s befallen our Lady of Meat and Bone,” he says. “She’s placed a bounty on your giant.”

  She considers him a moment, the shiny badge, the royal augments. No longer the scruffy, brutal hunter she remembers. “You really have been promoted. You aren’t even a hunter anymore,” she says. “This is a lackey’s job, a politician’s.”

  He bristles a little, spikes and scales rising. “If you aren’t going to cooperate, I’ll have to choice but to arrest you.”

  “And the giants?”

  “If we happen upon them along the way, we’ll deal with the matter.”

  “You mean you’ll kill him.”

  “I mean, they’ll be dealt with.”

  Bex tilts her head at his tone. “You’ve been sent to capture them as well, haven’t you? What for?”

  “That’s the business of the Ameer.” Something in his tone tells her she won’t get any more from him. She looks at Veerh and sees the same idea on his face.

  “And if I refuse?” she asks.

  Ak’klin takes a breath, lets it out in frustration. He extends a small grasping hand, a birth-hand. “I am trying to do you a favor, Tr-Bex. You and I have both lost much. We have lost people we care about, our purpose in this life. I know about the farm, the clinic. I know about your pet. Where will you go when you have your giant? Back to the farm? It’s gone. And for what? For some creature lumbering through the forests and desert, killing innocent people? How many more will die because you have remained so stubborn you cannot see the danger in your pet?”

  “Scoop didn’t kill the child,” she says. Bindo stomps, sensitive to her anger.

  “How do you know?”

  She glances at Veerh. “Because he could have killed again, but didn’t.”

  Ak’klin raises an eye. “When did this happen?”

  “Just now. A girl had been captured, but not by Scoop. He let her go, freed her. You can ask her yourself.”

  Ak’klin’s whiskers reach forward, skeptical. “Children lie.”

  “These don’t. The youngest one said Scoop’s name.” She studies his face. “You weren’t aware there were two, were you?”

  After a moment, the poacher shakes his head. “I was not. This certainly changes the light on the matter. Are you saying you would trade this other giant for your Scoop?”

  “And my freedom.”

  A chuckle. “You misunderstand the Ameer’s request. This was not a simple query. I am to bring you in.”

  “Why?” She wraps her hands around Bindo’s reins. “What does he want with me? I am an outcast. I am the last Tender of my trade. What would the Ameer want with an unemployed Tender?”

  “You misunderstand,” the poacher repeats. “It is my job simply to deliver the message and bring in your giant. It is not my job to bring you in.” The guards step forward, their spikes and spears facing out. “It is their job.”

  Her muscles coiled, legs tense, Bex takes a step back, ready to leap onto Bindo’s back, to take off into the forest, when Veerh steps in front of her, standing tall, his limbs out, bone blades unsheathed, all bristled scales and exposed shivs. He flares at the guards. They pause, their easy capture no longer as certain.

  “I’ve heard enough.” Veerh glances at the poacher. “There’s another option that neither of you are considering.”

  One of the guards takes a step forward, a scythe-shaped blade unfurling from his arm. It hisses at Veerh, but Ak’klin holds up a hand, h
is eyes focused on the Preserver. With his arms up, Bex can see the yellowing patch under Veerh’s arm, moldering and rank. Blisters have formed around the seam, but she tries not to react.

  “I’m listening, Preserver.,” says Ak’klin.

  “There are two giants,” Veerh says. “You take one—”

  “Veerh!” Bex starts to protest, but he holds up a hand to silence her.

  “The dangerous one, the one we do not know. The other, Scoop, comes with us to the city.”

  Bex can see, even from this angle, that the old soldier is panting just from his small speech. She can almost feel the fever from here, radiating off his body. But Veerh shows no signs of pain. He holds his weapons out, scythes and spikes and sharpened scales, facing the guards and their leader. For a moment, she wonders if he’ll simply topple over, if the guards will see the weakness, charge at him. Veerh postures well, but she knows, outnumbered he would fall.

  A long moment passes, Ak’klin chewing the inside of his cheek in thought. Black eyes go from Bex to Veerh, thoughtful. Calculating. The poacher nods, his eyes sparkling with agreement.

  “Why?” Ak’klin asks. “This proposal is generous, and if you can convince our stubborn Tender to go along with it—”

  “He won’t,” Bex shouts. “I won’t see the Ameer for anything.” She feels the urge to hop onto Bindo, to just take off and find Scoop herself. She doesn’t need any of them. Doesn’t need any of this. It’s pointless. They’ll just betray her in the end.

  She takes another step towards Bindo, and feels Veerh’s hand on her shoulder. She stops, looking at his old, tired eyes. Veerh pulls her close.

  “Listen to me,” he murmurs. “This is your best option, Scoop’s best option, Bindo’s best option.”

  “And yours?” she hisses. “You don’t care about Scoop? What they might do with him?”

  “They want a giant. They want that girl’s killer. Give them that. Let the Lady of Meat and Bone have her justice. Let the Ameer meet with you. That alone can guarantee Scoop’s safety.”

  “And what if the Ameer wants me dead?”

  “Would he go through all this trouble if he did? Easier to put a dart in your neck.” His face softens a little. “I know you hate the poacher for what he is, what he does, but you are letting that cloud your judgment. He is a person who does his job. He is not someone to go back on a deal once it is made. If he guarantees Scoop’s safety, then… well, then even I trust him.”