Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  My shoes were holding themselves to my feet by narrow strands of fabric. The Walk had done a number on them, and I winced at every sharp little rock in the road, could feel every blast of dust and dirt carried on the wind as it was swept against my toes and heels. The extra ventilation actually felt good, though, as it helped fight off some of the heat I felt coming off the volcano to the north. Even several days’ walk away, its presence was imposing and pervasive.

  A few hours into our walk, Arwin suddenly reached out and flung an arm across my chest. “Wait, do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” I strained my ears, but the only thing I heard was the gentle swishing of the grasses to our right and left. “I don’t hear any—”

  “Shh!” She yanked me to the side of the road, and I nearly fell flat on my face as we leapt into the high-reaching field. We could have stood up straight and tall and still not have breached the tops of the crops with our heads, but Arwin forced me onto my stomach, and we watched the road for several minutes in silence. Dirt sullied my shoulder dressing, but there was nothing I could do about it; Arwin kept a firm hand on my back just between my shoulder blades, her eyes hard and unmoving as she glared at the road. Her wrist had been treated only hours ago and already it seemed just as strong as before.

  Despite the lack of obvious danger, I held my breath. I’d never seen her so serious, not even outside the mouth of the cave in Pointe before the Walk. She’d been facing almost certain death then, too, so what was it that bothered her now?

  She’s so temperamental and hot-headed and annoying and—

  Before I could think of any more adjectives for my mental rant, though, I heard it. Hoofbeats. More than a dozen of them, by the sound of it, at least four or five horses riding close together down the dirt road. A moment later, they came into view—six riders all wearing the colors of the Empire, green and silver trim lining their capes.

  Dust swirled in eddies about the horses’ hooves as the armed men blew past, completely unaware of Arwin and me crouched in the crops barely a few paces off the beaten path. The men rode without helmets, though, and I could tell that none of them were the blond guard we’d knocked out earlier. I could only imagine he was still recovering back in Mitbas.

  Arwin kept me pressed against the ground until the last sound of hoofbeats died off, replaced only by the warm, sullen wind, and even then she refused to budge.

  “Come on, I’m getting stiff,” I said, and at last she relented.

  “Once we get to Cleighton, we’ll be safe. They won’t be looking for us so far from Mitbas, not for something as lousy as stealing a loaf of bread.”

  “And beating a soldier unconscious,” I added.

  Arwin paused. “And cuffing him to the wall.” We shared a solemn glance. “So maybe they’ll send a few men after us after all,” she said.

  “Do you think it’s safe to keep going that way?” I asked, tilting my head down the road to where the riders had disappeared beyond the next gently rolling hill. “They could double back soon to get home before nightfall.”

  “I don’t see many other options, do you? Pointe is burned to us. Mitbas is burned. It’d be more dangerous to go south around the town now to get to the sea, and there’s only mountains to the east, so that leaves us with north.”

  I stared off to our left. “What about west?”

  “That fat sack Answorth didn’t teach you nothing, did he? Nothing but open desert.” She shook her head. “We’re hungry enough on lush, fertile grasslands. How do you think we’d fare under the hot sun for days and weeks without food or water?”

  I didn’t have any answer for that. I hated the way she made me feel sometimes, like I was a simpleton child who hadn’t enough sense to breathe without choking. Unable to meet her haughty eyes, I lifted one foot, then the other, and followed in the hoofprints of the Empire’s horsemen.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Arwin called, her voice full of scorn. But then I heard her quick footsteps as she rejoined me at my side, and suddenly it seemed our fight wasn’t so bad after all.

  * * *

  A scant couple of hours before nightfall, my prediction came true: the soldiers came galloping back the way they’d come. We were prepared for them, though, and Arwin didn’t even have to tug on my arm to get me to lay beside her belly-down in the grasses as we waited for them to come into view, pass, and exit our sight again.

  “Idiots,” Arwin muttered as we rose to our feet. “You know you’re not in Pointe anymore when the locals can’t even spot our tracks in the open road. We aren’t even trying to hide them anymore!”

  I had to agree with her. Growing up, even under the neglectful guardianship of Answorth, I’d learned all the ways woodland creatures, prey and fey alike, might try to conceal their passing through the forest. Broken twigs, crushed leaves, and muddy footprints were only the beginning when it came to tracking, and it took a lot of knowledge and experience to know how to cover up any trace of where you’d been.

  I wasn’t the best tracker, obviously, but compared to the blind men who’d ridden past us twice now, I was as all-seeing as the Lord of Clouds himself.

  We walked. My feet felt more air coming through the holes in my ragged shoes, and my thighs burned from exertion. Even though the land seemed flat, it was really more of a constant, gradual rise between hills, each incline seeming to last for miles. If this was what the ocean was like, I was glad I’d lived up in the mountains my whole life.

  I was thankful now not to have a jacket, or even long sleeves, as the warm air being brought in from the north made me sweat beneath the heavy bandages the doctor had wrapped me in, and the rest of me was just a hair past being perfectly comfortable. I yearned for the time a few days from now when I’d be able to rip away the white wrap once and for all, because it would only get hotter the closer we got to Berg Obehr.

  “Wait,” Arwin said, and she slapped her arm flat against my chest.

  “Would you stop doing that?” I complained. She hadn’t hit me all that hard, only enough to stun me into stopping, but it was the same spot as before, her accuracy unerring. “It’s starting to hurt.”

  “There’s someone else up ahead.”

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  The sun was waning now, maybe a half hour of light remaining in the day, and shadows were settling in across the land. I could see her well enough right by my side, and even had clear sight to the next major rise, but I couldn’t see anything along the eastern horizon until I got to Berg Obehr in the north.

  “What can you see?”

  She sniffed the air. “Something smells strange, like oil or something.”

  I lifted my own nose and inhaled deeply. “Crops,” I concluded. Then I sniffed again. “Crops and…lilies?”

  Arwin nodded. “Good, you’re not completely useless.” She paused. “Still, I don’t know why someone would be transporting lilies. They’re not exactly valuable.”

  “And why can we smell their cargo?” I looked toward the rapidly falling sun and then back to Arwin. “Look, we can’t stop every time there might be some sort of danger. Answer me this: what are the odds that a flower merchant is actually an imperial soldier in disguise, waiting to spring a trap on us?”

  “Slim,” Arwin admitted.

  “Let’s just go see what’s over the next hill,” I suggested. “If they look friendly, maybe we can even get a ride on their cart.”

  Arwin looked down at her feet, which were wrapped in thinner threads than my own, and said, “It would be nice to get a break for a while. And we’d still be making progress toward Cleighton.”

  “So it’s decided?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  Together, still moving with caution, we made our way to the next gently rolling hilltop and looked out over the shadow-covered land. We weren’t far from sundown now, and while the stars would be brilliant enough to provide some light to guide our way, I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of trekking cross-country at n
ight.

  Sure enough, down in the next dip between hills, there was a wooden cart off to the side of the road. It had a tarp over top that was secured to four rickety-looking poles, one at each corner of the cart bed, and even from a distance I could see that something had fallen out of the cart and onto the ground.

  “Looks like just an unfortunate merchant,” I said to Arwin, who grunted in agreement.

  “You should go check it out,” she suggested.

  “Why me?”

  She gestured to my shoulder. “You’re a cripple. People take pity on you.”

  “Nobody took pity on—” I stopped myself before the last word could escape my lips.

  Arwin rounded on me, fire burning in her eyes. “Go on, finish it. Nobody took pity on me? Because of this?” she demanded, and she pulled her veil of hair out of the way to reveal the gruesome scar on the right side of her face. “I’m not crippled,” she said, “and I’m not something to be pitied. But yeah, you’re right, nobody cared about me back in Pointe.”

  “If I’d have known you, I would have—” I started to say, but she cut me off again.

  “Would have what? Given me food? Let me sleep under your roof? First, I already told you, I don’t want anyone’s pity. And second, you were even more hated than me!”

  I gaped at her, warm air from Berg Obehr tickling the back of my throat as my jaw hung open.

  “You’re cursed!” Arwin continued, not bothering to keep her voice down. “Your whole family died in a fire, leaving only you, a babe, unscathed in the ruins and unable to see your reflection. That’s not normal.” She breathed out a few choice curses as she shook her head. “I got burned just trying to survive, but you kill your whole family and get away without a mark. Depths take you, Mal.”

  An oppressive weight pressed against my chest as her words sunk in deep like the spriggan’s pointed roots. She was right. I was cursed, responsible for the deaths of everyone who’d given me love. I couldn’t remember the fire, only the aftermath—more than a decade of living under Answorth’s abuse, and going out each day with all the eyes of Pointe on my back, as if watching and waiting for me to cause more havoc and mayhem.

  “My life hasn’t been easy, either,” I said in a low whisper.

  A long silence stretched between us, and I told myself it was because Arwin was taking my quiet response to heart and having a change of opinion that would redefine our uneasy…well, not friendship, but something a little less. Partnership? I knew it was a lie, though, just like all the lies I’d told myself at night in Pointe to get past the loss of my family, to push aside the scorn of the villagers.

  “Hello?” called a querulous voice in the night. “Is someone out there?”

  8

  Arwin and I exchanged another look, and I frowned at the heat I still saw in her eyes. I should’ve been the one who was upset, not her. Get over yourself, I thought, not willing to speak the words to her face.

  “The merchant?” she whispered, breaking our silent exchange to glance back down the hill. It was dark, and we were crouched low following Arwin’s outburst. I didn’t think the merchant could see us, not yet, at least.

  I nodded. She could still see me through the dusky gloom, and I didn’t trust myself to talk.

  “Please, if anyone’s out there, I need help,” said the voice, and I could hear a feminine tone to it. An older woman, by the sound.

  “We should help,” I said.

  “Normally, I’d argue and say we should wait for sunrise, but…” Arwin sighed. “Drangr, I’m just too tired.” She heaved herself to her feet. “Let’s go help the broad.”

  “Really?”

  “Come on, before I change my mind.”

  I held out one hand and gripped forearms with Arwin, and she pulled me to my feet. We started down the other side of the hill, and before long, Arwin called out, “Hey, we’re coming!”

  “Oh, thank you!” the woman cried.

  It was another five minutes before we reached the bottom of the hill and reached the old woman’s cart, which I saw now wasn’t actually in such terrible shape. Something had broken and one of its rear wheels had come loose, and it was obvious that the hunched woman wasn’t strong enough to lift the cart on her own and reattach the wheel. The stray wheel, a solid, round piece of wood that was gray in the darkness, was propped up against the side of the leaning cart. At the front of the cart, tied in place by several leather straps and a wooden rig of some sort, was a big gray gaur with horns as long as my arms. It snorted softly as we approached, its eyes wide and alert.

  The debris on the ground was the shattered remains of a rather large pot, and it had evidently been holding several gallons of some lily-scented oil. There was a dark puddle on the ground where it had spilled, and the aroma of lilies was magnitudes more powerful now that we were close.

  “What happened here?” I asked the woman as we approached, and she seemed to take a step back at my words.

  “I know that voice,” she muttered, and her wrinkled face came close to mine to see better in the nighttime gloom. “Oh! You’re the helpful boy from the well!”

  A sense of recognition washed over me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Arwin’s one good eyebrow soar for the stars.

  “You two know each other?” she asked.

  “Yes, I remember,” I said quickly to cover my shock. I hadn’t expected to see the old woman again; in truth, he had thought she was one of the villagers, a resident of Mitbas. Perhaps she was heading to Harcour with her shipment of scented oils.

  “It must be fate that brought us together again,” she said, practically crooning. “If you could help me with this cart, that would be divine.”

  I gestured to my injured shoulder so that she would notice the bandages. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be.” Then I looked toward Arwin. “You could lift the cart, though, and I can slide the wheel into place with my good arm.”

  Arwin stood with her arms crossed and addressed the old woman. “If we help, you need to get us to Cleighton,” she said.

  “Arwin! Don’t be rude!” I turned back to the woman, whose wispy gray hair stuck out in errant curls. “We would be most appreciative for a ride to the nearest town,” I told her. “Our feet are worn from traveling, and—”

  “Oh, but of course! It’s the least I could do,” the woman said, and her gray-toothed smile returned, barely visible in the dark. “The busted wheel is just over there.”

  “Arwin?” I prompted.

  She sighed, but I thought I saw a small smirk curl the edge of her lip. It was hard to be grumpy around the old woman, even though she only seemed to be a burden so far. I’d had to gather her water back in Mitbas, and now she had a faulty cart wheel, but her personality was such that I was smiling now in spite of it all.

  Arwin positioned herself at the sunken corner of the cart, along the edge where the wooden bed scraped the dirt road, and braced her arm and shoulder against the wood. “Ready when you are,” she said.

  I grabbed the wheel and crouched down low next to her, ready to slide it into place. “On three,” I told her. “One…two…three!”

  She threw her whole body into the motion, pushing off against the ground with her legs at the same time that she heaved with her arms. She threw her shoulder against the side of the cart, and the whole thing lifted in one swift, jerking motion. “Go on, Mal, do it!”

  I fumbled for a second before getting the axle in the hole—it was hard to find in the dark—and the length of it slid through until an inch or so of the axle reappeared on the outer edge. “What holds it in place?” I asked the old woman.

  “Oh, I just had that piece,” she muttered, and I heard her scraping around for something.

  “Hurry, Mal,” Arwin grunted.

  “Oh, you can put that down. The wheel is on.”

  “Really? I can’t see anything up here.” She let go of the cart, and it fell back to the ground with another heavy lurch. I wasn’t sure how she’d managed to lift i
t in the first place, now that I saw how much weight was settling back to earth. “You could’ve said so sooner,” she huffed.

  “Here it is!” the old woman cried triumphantly. She shuffled over to my side, and I felt her deposit a small nub of steel in my hand. “Just thread that through the hole and it’ll be good to go!”

  I felt around and found the small slot where the metal piece belonged. After it was inserted, a small nub still stuck out, enough that it would prevent the wheel from moving forward again along the axle.

  Strange that it came loose in the first place, I noted. It didn’t look like a very flimsy construction; the metal should’ve stayed in place on its own, even on a bumpy road like this one.

  “It’s all in place,” I announced, and the old woman gave a little clap for joy.

  “Glad tidings indeed,” she said, grinning. Her eyes fell on both of us in turn. “Now, you’re, er, Mal?” she confirmed, looking at me.

  I nodded.

  “And Arwin?” the woman continued.

  Arwin stayed silent.

  My friend’s countenance didn’t seem to dampen the old woman’s spirit. “My name is Mabaya,” she said, smiling gently. “Climb aboard, both of you, please.” She regarded the broken pottery shards lying on the ground. “There’s plenty of room, unfortunately, now that I’ve lost some of my wares. Still, it’ll be good to have company on the way to Landis.”

  “Landis?” Arwin echoed. “We need to get to Cleighton.”

  “First, we need to sell these wares. Then we’ll see about finding you a ride to Cleighton.”

  I looked between Mabaya and Arwin and saw the latter’s shoulders droop in reluctant acceptance. “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  That gray, toothy grin reappeared. “All aboard, then.”

  9

  How long have we been riding?” Arwin murmured sleepily. She stirred against the side of my arm and rubbed sleep from her eyes.