"Tuff, don't. It's only trouble!" Her hands twisted around the scanty cloth she still had left to cover her body. "Promise me? Leave it be, Tuff." The desperate need in her voice drove him to nod and pat her shoulder tenderly.
And he waited.
Brots took the position opposite Staffa the next day, and between the two of them, they bore the front portion of pipe.
"Later," he heard Brots call to Kaylla in his heavy throaty voice. A shiver rippled down her tanned back.
Eyes slitted, Staffa took Brots' measure. The fellow weighed in about a hundred pounds heavier than he did. Huge arms bulged with muscle thick as a wrestler's thigh. Irritating arrogance reeked from Brots' beastly leer. Staffa found himself locking eyes with the giant all through the hot day. The air crackled with challenge.
That night, Staffa watched. Kaylla got to her feet just after dark and ghosted silently away as she normally did to relieve herself in private. Staffa turned his gae to where huge Brots slept and saw the giant's head come up. When Kaylla slipped over the dune, Brots rose to his feet — moving to intercept her.
Staffa pursued like a sand leopard as the huge man plodded over the dune crest, eyes on Kaylla's tracks.
"Hey! Well, see who I find in the dunes again!" Brots' thick voice frayed Staffa's temper.
Kaylla's voice carried her sudden fear and resignation.
"Please, I'm tired tonight. Anglo's back tomorrow. He doesn't like the goods used. It will be worse for you."
"On your back and spread, woman. Now! Do it or you'll hurt the worse for it."
Staffa stepped out from behind the dune. "You ever touch her again, Terguzzi scum sucker, and I'll kill you." He'd settled himself, toes gripping the still hot sand. Every nerve tingled as the gut-twisting anger surged. Come on, Staffa begged silently, let me destroy you, you bastard.
Brots rubbed his hands and grinned as he advanced.
They met, thumping hollowly, grunting as they came together and fought across the sands: Staffa with all the tricks in his long experience, Brots with brute strength and animal zeal.
The desperation and guilt burned free, Staffa kicked, struck, and lashed insanely into that giant body. The beating he took fed every frustration and injustice from Broddus' deceit to the hell that burned from each humiliation and the suffering in the sun. He fought, powered by the guilt that obsessed him. He fought for Chrysla and Kaylla, for Peebal and the rest. Staggering blows landed by Brots goaded him with pain that freed his berserk strength.
Staffa unleashed a brutal blow with his elbow, catching Brots under the chin. The man's head snapped back with a crack. Staffa pistoned a hardened palm to the man's nose, and shot stiff blinding fingers into an eye. His skill prevailed as he broke the big man down, dislocating a kneecap first, breaking a wrist next. Finally he targeted the weaving mass of flesh and lashed out, catching the big man in the throat with a perfectly timed kick.
Brots wavered on his feet, huge chest heaving as a rasping wheeze gurgled from his throat. Staffa stepped back, took a run, and panted a fist deep in the giant's solar plexus. On agile feet he back-heeled Brots to the sand. Staffa dropped to grab the huge head. Work-toughened muscles rippled and bulged under sun-blackened skin. Staffa heaved against the thick corded muscle of the giant's neck while sausagelike groping fingers found a choke-hold on Staffa's windpipe.
For long moments, they heaved, muscles cracking and pulling, sweat streaming down gleaming skin. Their faces
contorted with hate. Brots' neck strained. Staffa's vision "\ shimmered as his throat crushed under those thick lingers.
Vertebrae cracked loudly in the night. Brots' big hands spasmed before they loosened and thumped into the sand.
Breath tearing at his throat, Staffa swallowed living pain and staggered away before he fell and rolled on the hot sand. He coughed in agony as he massaged his swollen throat.
"You all right?" Kaylla asked, cradling his head as he blinked dully into her pale face.
"I… think," Staffa croaked, chest heaving. Something damp — a tear — landed on his face. He lifted a spent arm to | give her a reassuring pat.
"Why?" she asked, voice oddly hoarse. "Why kill for me?"
He swallowed again, the sensation like a splintered stick being pulled down his esophagus. He pulled her close, holding her gently while his thoughts reeled. "You're. worth more."
They lay there together, Kaylla curled protectively in his shaking arms.
"We've got to get back," she told him finally.
Staffa glanced at Brots's limp body. "Better get him buried first. They'll see him from the air."
Together they dragged the' big man to a slip face in a crescentic dune and cascaded unstable sand over him.
Walking back, Kaylla asked, "What do we say?"
Staffa smiled, wincing at the beating the big man had given him. "That he told us no collar would hold him. That he could beat any desert anywhere and they could let the Rotted Gods chew his abscessed ass before he'd stay a slave."
Hand on his shoulder, she said, "In the end, he would have killed me, you know. It was in him."
"I think of Skyla… if she were here. If I never get out of here, and she's ever in this kind of situation, maybe someone will. Rotted Gods, what am I saying?" He ended with a self-reproving growl, irritated and embarrassed by this new softness. "C'mon, it's a long hot one tomorrow. Get some sleep."
She glanced up at him in the moonlight and nodded.
"Your Skylas a lucky woman Tuff." Then she walked off to find her place in the sand.
Morning came too early. Staffa stood, wincing at his bruises. Every joint ached as if it had been pulled from its socket. His throat burned, the trachea fevered under swollen flesh. He took a step, reeling on his feet.
Staffa squinted his eyes in the blinding glare of the sun where it hung over the horizon. His dry mouth gagged him. Aching limbs shrieked pain into the base of his brain. Brots had hurt him. Numbly, he came to the realization that the big man might have killed him after all. The agony in his body, coupled with the night's exertion, might keep him from getting through this day.
Gasping stifling air into his wounded lungs, Staffa glanced down at the bruises on his rib cage. His elbows looked like swollen roots and his fists had scabbed, only to bleed when he flexed his hands. He staggered to his place by the pipe.
"Whoa!" the tail man called and Staffa threw his weight into slowing the heavy pipe. He stumbled and almost fell, catching his balance by grueling effort of will.
In agony, he followed Kaylla's directions to align the long tube.
"Yup!" came the cry, and Staffa collapsed under the weight of the yoke.
He blinked, feeling heat radiating from the hot steel.
"Tuff?" The worry in Kaylla's voice cut through his misery. "Come on, get up. We've got a whole day."
Staffa ground his teeth and levered himself up.
Koree, another of the crew, suddenly bent down, hand under Staffa's arm. "For today, maybe I'll pair with Tuff."
Staffa's bruised voice rasped. "Yeah, maybe today I need it." Why did this man offer help? What was his purpose?
Koree: another misfit. Skin and bone, the man nevertheless suffered here in the sun with the rest of them. Frail and fragile, Koree — like Peebal — wouldn't last long as a slave on Etaria.
Staffa nodded his thanks to Kaylla. Her tan eyes had grown grim. She slapped him on the back encouragingly as they returned for another length of pipe.
"That true," Koree asked, "what they say about Brots?"
"What's that?" Staffa whispered to save his voice as he concentrated on his
wobbling feet.
"That he run off?" Koree gnted under the weight of the pipe, ropy muscles straining. "He took part of my food. He took from all of us."
"So?"
"So we all noticed you're hurt. That's all. Many of us saw Kaylla's bruises. Yesterday, you and Brots. well, you love Kaylla. We all do. Today, Kaylla stands straight again. You're hurt and Brots is gone. We'll have our fa share of food and water again."