A World of Secrets (The Firewall Trilogy)

by James Maxwell

  All Taimin wanted was to rest and get better. He felt tired and guilty. As he chewed on some of Ruth’s nettles, no one else seemed to be in the mood for conversation either. Everyone tended to their individual tasks as Vance arrived at the camp with a fat rock lizard under his arm.

  “Look what I shot.” Vance’s grin faded away when no one replied. He scanned the weary group. “Why the silence?” He turned to Taimin, who shrugged and then Vance saw Selena apart from Taimin. His brow furrowed, but rather than say anything he turned to Lars. “Lars, mind showing me how to skin it?”

  “Can’t you do it yourself?” Lars cast him a black look.

  “Someone taught you, didn’t they? I’m asking for help.”

  “Fine,” Lars said shortly. “But we’ll have to do it away from camp. I’m tired, so you’d better learn fast.”

  Taimin watched Vance and Lars go. He pulled a few strips of dried meat from his pack, and gazed out at the rolling landscape of low hills and wide valleys while he ate. Color faded from the vista as light left the day, but at least a thin moon would provide light; even after dusk anything big would be seen coming from a long way away. He shifted on his blanket and winced when he moved his foot.

  Soon stars filled the cloudless sky while the silver moon shone down on the hill. Taimin chewed on nettles and glanced in Selena’s direction while she spoke quietly with Ruth.

  He remembered his aunt’s blunt words, soon after he had fallen off the cliff and injured himself. You’re going to be a burden to yourself and to anyone you depend on.

  The thought stayed with him as he tried to sleep.

  9

  Ingren turned the severed head in her hands. Bax were certainly ugly creatures. Not as ugly as humans, with their disgusting, bristling hair. Not as ugly as the sinuous, snakelike skalen. But ugly enough.

  Blood dripped from the bax’s neck, pattering as it struck the ground, like the first drops of coming rain. But rain was something this creature had never known. His head was broad and heavy, to match the body it had come from. Sand-colored, wrinkled skin covered his face, and blotches of pale green blemishes coated his cheeks. His brow was thick and protruding, his eyes were deep-set, and his nostrils were tiny, clustered above a wide mouth and sagging chin. The expression on the bax’s face was angry.

  Ingren reflected on the bax’s life, and how his head had come to end up in her hands. As part of their preparations, she and Ungar had marked out a bax settlement, a collection of huts grouped together in a low valley. When they finally arrived, they had watched the village from a distance. They already knew about the warrior in charge, but Ungar had been far more excited to see him in the flesh. This bax was much bigger and stronger than his underlings. He ruled by fear and carried a heavy club, studded with thorns, that he would use to strike the members of his village at will.

  Ungar made his choice.

  When Ungar’s prey went hunting with three companions, Ungar went after them. Ingren trailed behind, as ever struggling to keep up with her bondmate. Ungar killed the three minions and then challenged the leader. The fight lasted long enough for Ingren to arrive; the bax was big and had some skill. But Ungar’s spear pierced his opponent’s torso, erupting out of his back. Ungar gave a cry of triumph. Soon he was slicing the head away from the body with his ceremonial knife.

  Ungar had his first trophy.

  Ingren now sat alone on the shaded side of a sharp hill. Bright daylight scorched the barren plain around her and made her glad for her small patch hidden from the two suns. Her studies had told her that the wasteland would be hot, but it was far worse than she had expected. A dry wind blew, sending dead bushes tumbling along the rust-colored dirt, chasing each other until their race was frustrated by snagging rocks and spiky cactuses. Mountains speared the sky in the direction Ingren and Ungar were traveling.

  They had been heading toward the outpost – the place the humans had called a city – for a week. Ingren sighed. Thinking of a real city, Agravida, made her long for the quest to be over. At the outpost Ungar would find humans, and they already had the head of a bax. She hoped that the other races—skalen, mantorean, and trull—would be easy to track down.

  Ingren set the head on the ground. She frowned. Now the blank, staring eyes watched her disconcertingly. Nonetheless, there was no use delaying the task at hand; the sooner she began, the sooner she would be able to stop looking at the severed head. She picked up her medical array from a flat rock beside her and held it in the palm of her hand. To activate it, she squeezed it until she saw a red blinking light and then used her finger to move the light from one side to the other. The entire array flashed red three times. She pointed the device at the head and this time squeezed with force.

  The medical array buzzed as it ejected a mesh, flinging it out like a net to envelop the head. Pulsing strands shimmered like the trails of shooting stars and wove tighter. The lights traveling along the mesh changed color, from gold to pale blue. The wires crackled like sparks from a fire.

  The head of the bax warrior gradually withered. When Ingren was done, it would be cured. The bax would look much the same as he had in life, but the head would no longer be affected by decay. The trophy would then go into Ingren’s pack to take back to Agravida.

  Ungar was away, searching for tracks, and while Ingren waited for the process to complete, she had a chance to think. One moment the bax whose head she was looking at had been living, the next he was dead. He had lived a fruitful life. Despite his bullying, he had provided leadership to his settlement and protected his community. Then Ungar had killed him, for nothing more than a trophy to give him status among his peers. This bax hadn’t even known that Ungar’s race existed. He didn’t understand the nature of the world he lived in.

  Ingren shook her head. If she voiced such thoughts to Ungar, she had no doubt he would laugh at her. He was a bonded warrior, and there was no sentimentality in him at all.

  Spying movement, Ingren looked up to see Ungar climbing the slope toward her. He walked with his posture erect and held his spear like it was a part of him, rather than a traditional weapon that would be bizarre to carry around the streets of Agravida. He now had a tale to tell to the marshals he wanted to impress, and a head to show them.

  “Are you almost done?” he asked impatiently.

  Ingren glanced at the medical array in her hand. She nodded. “Almost.”

  “Good,” Ungar grunted. His red, spiral-shaped horns appeared especially bright in the sunlight as he turned to gaze into the distance. “It is time for us to depart. I think I have smelled out some trulls.”

  The heavy end of a long club sailed through the air to smash into Ungar’s head. He reeled from the blow and almost lost his footing. For a moment his eyes lost focus.

  The trull followed up with another blow, but Ungar took a clumsy step to the side and the trull’s club swept at the empty air. Ungar appeared to recover and moved to give himself some space and face both of his opponents at the same time. He gripped his long spear and glanced from trull to trull, ready to defend himself from the next attack.

  The bigger of the trulls, with a body of taut muscle and sinew, opened his mouth and snarled. His curved incisors, drooping below the outside of his bottom lip, glistened with moisture. Although he was only a little taller than the humans Ingren and Ungar had encountered on the dried-up riverbed, his frame was far more powerful. Scraggly gray hair covered the sides of his crown, with the rest of his scalp bald. His nose was snubbed, flattened to his face. His companion, also a male but younger, had more hair and fought with a two-handed sword made of glossy, pale wood. The young trull had skill, but the older was the most dangerous of the pair.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  Ungar had thought the trull he was hunting was alone. For days he had tracked a sole individual until he caught up with him in the foothills of the mountain range. Ungar had issued his challenge and the trull’s initial surprise became irritation and then anger. The trull
had bellowed something into the distance. As soon as the fight began, the younger trull came running.

  Ingren blamed herself. Trulls were known to be solitary. They were the most aggressive of the wasteland’s five races and didn’t enjoy interacting in groups. But that didn’t mean they were always alone. Her assumption had been wrong. If Ungar died, it would be her fault.

  Ungar raised his spear to deflect the next attack. The younger trull’s two-handed sword rolled along the shaft of the metal spear until Ungar flicked his arms, knocked the sword aside, brought his arm back, and thrust. The young trull weaved to narrowly avoid being skewered. There was a pause as the three combatants gathered themselves. They were all panting hard.

  The gray-haired trull moved first. He swung his club, again and again, forcing Ungar to give ground. Meanwhile the young trull circled round, trying to outflank Ingren’s bondmate.

  Ingren clenched her fists. The two trulls knew she was nearby, but she was unarmed and kept her distance, and they were far too busy to concern themselves with her. Ungar’s eyes shifted between his two opponents. In an attempt to halt his retreat he moved forward and blocked the club. Despite his size, Ungar was grim-faced when his weapon and his opponent’s collided. The gray-haired trull snarled again. His muscles bulged as he pushed against the spear held horizontally in front of Ungar’s body.

  The young trull saw his opportunity and lunged forward to stab low. His two-handed sword found a gap in Ungar’s defenses and struck Ungar’s side. As Ingren’s breath caught, Ungar grunted with pain. Red blood dripped down his hip.

  But still Ungar continued to block his more experienced opponent’s club. He growled, then pushed hard. The gray-haired trull fell back. Ungar turned and brought his spear slicing toward the young trull’s neck, so fast it was a blur. He struck home and the sharp blade at the spear’s end bit deep into the young trull’s throat. The sword fell out of the trull’s fingers. He wrapped his hands around his neck and crumpled.

  The older trull roared and charged, but with just one opponent remaining, Ungar became more confident. He launched into a flurry of blows and used his superior height and strength to strike at places the gray-haired trull found difficult to protect. It was clearly a tactic intended to weaken, and it was working. The thick wooden club, far heavier than Ungar’s long but finger-thin spear, darted slower and slower with every block and parry.

  Ingren’s heart raced as she watched her bondmate fight. She kept her medical array handy, but all she could do was observe. He was the warrior and she the advisor. Their separate roles were in their bones. It had always been so. If Ungar was wounded badly enough, even the array wouldn’t save him.

  At last, Ungar found an opening. He sliced a wound in his opponent’s belly, enough to make the gray-haired trull falter. With his spear in both hands, Ungar thrust toward the trull’s face. Ingren suddenly became anxious for an altogether different reason: if Ungar damaged the trull’s head he might decide he had to find a different trophy. But she let out a breath of relief when the point of the spear pierced the trull’s thick neck and struck deep to open a gaping wound. Ungar brought his weapon back and the trull’s knees buckled before he fell, to bleed out on the rust-colored dirt.

  Ingren hurried over to her bondmate. “Ungar, you are wounded.”

  He looked surprised and put a hand to his side. He didn’t appear to have noticed the cut above his hip, which had sliced through his clothing and could have gravely wounded him if the blow were cleaner.

  “What a fight,” he panted as he glanced at the blood on his fingers. He was inordinately pleased.

  “Sit,” Ingren instructed. She pulled him down to the ground and activated her medical array. A swipe on the glossy surface caused the device to light up. The mesh erupted from the array and enclosed the wound in Ungar’s side.

  Ungar scowled at the tangle of lights dancing against his body. He obviously knew he wouldn’t be able to shift position for a while, and was clearly too animated to be comfortable sitting still. But when his gaze took in one trull’s body, and then the other, his good mood reasserted itself.

  “Which head should I take, Ingren?” He nodded toward the corpse of the gray-haired trull. “The older. Would you agree? The younger looks like a better example of his race, but it is the older the marshals will want to see.” He flashed his teeth. “What a story to tell.” He started to chuckle as the exhilaration of the fight worked through him. “I follow one and find two.” He shook his head and gave a full-throated laugh. “Ah, Ingren, this quest is becoming everything I had hoped for.”

  The mesh retracted back into the medical array and Ungar gladly returned to his feet. He peered at his side and nodded in satisfaction. His clothing was still torn, but he was whole again.

  Ungar gazed up at the tall peaks nearby. Ingren had studied her map of the wasteland and knew that on the other side of the mountains they would find the outpost.

  He then glanced her way. “Ingren, find a place nearby where we can camp for the night.” Turning away from the mountains, he drew his knife and walked toward the corpse of the gray-haired trull, eager to take the second of his five trophies. “It has been a long day.” He crouched and set to his grisly task. “I need food and rest.”

  That night, as a thin moon dominated the sky and brilliant stars gazed down from above, far more numerous than the stars in Agravida, Ingren looked at her bondmate from across a crackling fire.

  “You need to be more cautious, Ungar.”

  “Bah,” he grunted. “I was never in any danger.” He squeezed paste from a tube of rations into his mouth. “And I now have a great story to tell. The bax was a good fighter, but the trulls . . . two of them at once . . . now they were worthy opponents.”

  “And if there had been three of them? Rather than laughing about it now, you would be dead.”

  “I could have managed three,” Ungar said with a shrug.

  “Could you have managed four? Five?” Ingren was unrelenting. “What about a hundred, or a thousand? We will soon reach the outpost. Will you keep killing humans until there are no more left on this world? Surely you know that given enough enemies—or enemies that you underestimate—even you will fall.”

  His eyes, a mirror to the red embers glowing in the fire, met hers. “You doubt my skill?”

  Ingren sighed in exasperation. “No, Ungar. I do not doubt your skill. But you must exercise some caution. Tell me you understand that there is a time to fight, and a time to run.”

  “Run?” His tone was scornful. “I am a bonded warrior, a sub-marshal. I will never run from an enemy.”

  “These enemies are of your choosing—”

  “Yes,” he cut in, “and just as I do not seek out the weak, my honor demands that I fight to the end. I do have integrity, bondmate.”

  “I understand that,” Ingren said, trying not to sound frustrated. “But you also have a duty not to be reckless. Your quest demands you return with five trophies. Not ten. Not twenty. Five.”

  “Enough,” Ungar growled. “I have two trophies, and only three more to acquire. You have your own duty, Ingren. To support me. When we are done, I will surely be made marshal. I may even be sky marshal one day. But I still need mantorean, skalen, and human.”

  As Ungar stared into the fire, Ingren decided to leave him for a time. She climbed to her feet and walked until she reached the end of the mountain pass where she and Ungar had made their camp.

  Standing at the ravine formed by two tall peaks, she gazed out at a new landscape.

  Moonlight glowed on a series of steep slopes, like ocean waves frozen in time. The mountains fell away toward a plain, but between the sharp foothills and the plain was a vast canyon, a rift valley, stretching from one side of Ingren’s vision to the other. A maze of ravines and slender passages, it was the kind of place where Ungar would find more heads to fill Ingren’s pack.

  The warm wind blew. Ingren found the landscape both desolate and beautiful.

  But still she l
onged for home.

  10

  For day after day the undulating terrain continued. Keeping close together for safety, Taimin, Selena, Lars, Vance, and Ruth traveled over hills and through valleys. At nighttime they alternated camps between defensible crests and hidden gullies. The lonely mountain, sharp as a knife edge against the azure sky, provided the only guide that they were heading in the right direction. The mountain became steadily larger.

  The mantoreans they had traded with had said it would take them a week to reach their next destination: the mine in the mountain, where they could trade for supplies and information from the skalen who lived there. As the swelling in Taimin’s foot went down and the bruising began to fade, he set himself the goal of reaching it sooner. He marched with determination, pushing himself hard, always up front.

  After so much time together they each knew their tasks at the end of a day’s travels. Taimin spent time with Vance and passed on the survival skills he had learned from his aunt, teaching what he could about life in the wasteland. Selena and Ruth practiced with grapples. As always, Lars remained somewhat distant.

  Now Taimin found himself standing at the edge of a short cliff as he gazed up at the jagged mountain, which dominated his vision. Crevices and ridges colored the mountain gray and black; it was much craggier than it had appeared from far away. He hoped the fissures and chimneys might provide places where they could climb up, for he couldn’t spy a trail.

  Behind Taimin, his companions still slept under the overhang where they had settled the previous night. Their camp was in a rocky region, where the stone had a blueish shade, tinged purple as the two suns rose together. The distant sky displayed swatches of pink and yellow that fought each other above the horizon, as if unaware that their azure enemy would soon emerge victorious. The air was warm and still. Soon the growing heat would wake the people sleeping.