Neb clung to the saddle and leaned forward, letting the cold wind wash over his back as it spilled over him. He tried to keep his eyes fixed on the scout ahead, but the scenery kept pulling his attention away. There was a beauty in the shattered lands they rode through, and it tugged at his heart.
And these are just the far edges of it. Deeper into the Wastes, glass mountain ranges cast bloody shadows over forests of bone. And near these dead cities, expanses of white, coarse, glass where sea salt, left behind when the water boiled away, had fused with the sand to make razor-edged dunes that the wind moaned over. At night, creatures hunted there by the light of a blue-green moon. Indescribable leftovers of an age long past, driven mad by Xhum Y’Zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths.
He’d seen it in his dreams and had no doubt now that it awaited him somewhere ahead.
But for now, the landscape was simple rock and sand and scrub. Outcroppings of granite shaped by years of wind and dark straggly brush that squatted low to the ground. It looked nothing like his imaginings.
They’d entered the Wastes just ten minutes behind the metal man who fled them. If it had noticed, it paid them no mind. The mechanical moved fast, and just before they’d lost sight of it, it had still been upon the Whymer Way and moving east, the sun glinting off its bare head in the distance.
Neb feared now that they sought a solitary pearl in a vast ocean, but he was hesitant to say so. Beside him, Isaak rode uneasily in the saddle and kept his amber eyes on the road ahead, and his head swiveled to the left and right as he scanned the hills that lined the highway.
Finally, Aedric pulled forward and said what Neb wouldn’t say. “I think we’ve lost him,” he said, slowing his horse. “Even with the magicks, the horses can’t keep up.”
The others slowed as well.
“I can catch him,” Isaak said. His eye shutters flashed open and closed, the glassy jewels still fixed ahead.
Aedric shook his head. “We need to stay together. General Rudolfo would not-”
But he was interrupted when something hard bounced off the side of Isaak’s head with a dull clunk. A small stone clattered across the pocked surface of the highway. They heard giggling above. Neb and the others looked up to the rocky outcroppings that hemmed them in.
“Rainbow Men and Metal Men far from home,” a voice shouted. Its tone and timbre was off-it went high when it should’ve gone low and vice-versa. “No Ash Men to guard you.”
They stopped, and at Aedric’s low whistle, the men reached for their bows and backed their horses away from the direction of the voice. Aedric fixed his eyes in the direction of the voice. “We do not wish violence.”
More laughter. “Who ever wishes such a thing? But in the basement of the world violence simply is.” Another rock-this one smaller-pitched and arched slowly, giving Aedric time to sidestep his horse. “Where do you ride in such a hurry, Rainbow Man? And without your shovels and wagons?”
Aedric raised his voice and answered. “I am Aedric, First Captain of the Gypsy Scouts. We’re here on the business of Rudolfo, General of Wandering Army and Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses.”
Other voices joined in the giggling now, and the laughter bounced from stone to stone, filling the sky above them with what seemed an army of voices. “What forest, Rainbow Man? What general? What lord? Why do you speak nonsense to your orphaned boys? You come from the Luxpadre of the West. Say ‘aye’ to it and bring forward your payment. We will guide you truer than Renard.”
Neb looked up. Isaak did, too, and their eyes met. Neb’s hands moved quickly. Ask about Renard, he signed. Aedric nodded.
The First Captain turned his horse, looking above in the direction of the voice. “Who is Renard? Where can we find him?”
“No one and nowhere. You deal with Geoffrus now. Renard is mad. Geoffrus will see you to your digging holes.”
Aedric’s eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you come down so we can discuss this properly?”
This time the laughter continued on for a bit. There was an eerie quality to it that unsettled Neb’s stomach. He heard danger in it. “Rainbow Men with bows and knives. Do you offer kin-clave to me and mine?”
“Aye,” Aedric said. “For now. If you’ve stopped throwing stones.”
There was the scrabble of dirt and rock cascading above and behind, and Neb looked up to it. A slight form slipped into view, a slender man in patchwork cloth and scraps of rough leather. He moved lightly on his feet as he slid down the side of the hill to land with a flourish before Aedric.
“I am Geoffrus at your service,” he said, chuckling. “And these are my men.” A half dozen heads rose to peer down at them. “Kin-clave you offer and kin-clave we take. Payment for service is rendered upon agreement.”
The man seemed off balance to Neb, but at first he could not tell why. Then he realized that his eyes never quite landed. They moved over everything. His left hand twitched at his side, and when he opened his mouth, his teeth and gums were black from some foul-looking substance he chewed and sucked at while he waited for Aedric to speak.
Finally, Aedric cleared his voice. “You wish me to pay you. What service will you render?”
“I will guide you true. Take you where you want to go.” Then, as an afterthought: “Safely.”
“And what payment for this service?”
Geoffrus smiled and danced a jig. “Knives and meat. Meat and knives. And rainbow scarves for me and mine.”
Aedric looked to Neb with raised eyebrows. His hands moved. Do you think we can trust him?
Neb looked at the patchwork man, then back to Aedric. He could read what Aedric thought clearly in the way the First Captain sat in his saddle. No, he signed.
He glanced at Isaak. The metal man was watching the direction their quarry had fled to, eye shutters opening and closing as if calculating distance.
Aedric saw the same and made a decision. “We will consider your kind and generous offer for a later time,” he said. “But for now, we must ride.”
Geoffrus howled. He leaped and spun in the air, beating his chest with his fists. Above him, in the hills, other voices hooted and howled as well. “Rainbow Man, why do you spurn me and mine with the kin-clave so lovely between us?”
A new voice rose above the din. This one was deep and gravelly, and the laughter that it rode upon was bemused. “The Rainbow Man is wiser than you credit him for, Geoffrus,” the voice said. A figure stepped onto the highway. “Perhaps he knows that the only digging holes you’ll lead him to are shallow graves to hide their meat-picked bones. Perhaps the Luxpadre told him about the Ash Men you killed and ate.”
Geoffrus’s cavorting stopped. He fixed his eyes onto the figure, and Neb followed his gaze, surprised at the fear and rage that replaced the mirth so quickly. The newcomer was slender as a willow and tall, wrapped in the charcoal cloak of a Gray Guard. Beneath the guard’s cloak, he wore the rough fabric robes of an Androfrancine archaeologist. His salt-and-pepper hair and beard were both close-cropped, and his crooked smile betrayed a relaxed confidence. His eyes were hard points of bright blue. He held a long lacquered wooden stick loosely; a large bulb of some kind at the base of it rested easy in the palm of one hand. The man stepped forward, and the wind rustled his cloak and robes as he came.
“We have kin-clave with these men,” Geoffrus started, taking a step back. “We have nearly reached agreement.”
“It sounds to me,” the man said, “as if they seek a more polite way of extricating themselves from your company.” He took another step forward. “I will not be so kind. I hold the contract with the Ash Men. I hold the letters of introduction and credit from the Luxpadre that say so.”