Shale, Citrine in his arms, gave Mica a despairing look. "Please," he said. "Please."
To Shale's relief, Mica didn't question him. He nodded and grabbed two water skins from where they hung on the wall and went to fill them from the dayjar. In the Gibber Quarter, no matter what you did, you thought of water first. Shale hurriedly unearthed his piece of bloodstone from where he had buried it under his sleeping sack.
"We'll hide in the wash," Mica muttered.
Shale was already pushing his way through the sacking of the door, trying to hush Citrine's cries. She was calming and her screams became a few muffled sobs. He ran out, looking around, wanting to assess which way to go, which way was free of people.
And stopped dead.
In the few moments he had been inside, the sun had sent its first rays racing over the land. The shadows were long fingers stretching across the purple of the plains: shadows of men on pedes, each rider with his chala spear in his hand and his long-handled curved scimitar at his waist.
"I'll be bleeding withered," Shale whispered.
"Reduners," Mica said, expelling the breath he had been holding, as if he didn't know whether to be frightened or just puzzled. "Never seen so many. What could they want?"
Shale went cold all over. He ran around the corner of the hut, to look in the other direction. More men and pedes were silhouetted against the skyline there, too. Below, the wash was full of moving shapes.
"Nowhere to run," he said, coming back to Mica. "Got t'wait and see what they're after." He held Citrine tight, joggling her to keep her quiet. As more light poured across the plains, silhouettes sharpened into packpedes and myriapedes, riders became armed men, each with his lower face muffled, wrapped in the ends of a red head cloth. Each wore identical red robes without any adornment. There was nothing to show which tribe they were from or which dune.
"I'll get Pa," Mica whispered.
As Mica dived back into the hut, Shale saw one of the packpedes peel away from the waiting line and head their way. There were eighteen riders on its back, one to each segment. He wanted to run, to hide. Instead, he clutched Citrine still tighter. She squirmed and giggled, thinking it was a game, and then plucked at his fist. "Shalie," she crowed, spotting the piece of jasper, "Shalie give!" He relinquished the gem to her. The packpede slid to a halt thirty paces away. No one moved.
Mica came back with their parents. One glance and Galen's swearing faded, and Marisal reached to take Citrine back. They all knew there was nothing to be done. There was nowhere to hide on the plains and you couldn't outrun a zigger. Shale surrendered his sister and slipped his water skin over his shoulder.
Out of the air there arose an unearthly sound, a bullroarer's buzz that settled into a deep fluctuating whirr as whoever held it twirled it faster and faster. Another began to sound in the wash, and the message was taken up by a third and a fourth, then another so far away it must have been on the other side of the settle.
Shale shivered. It must have been a signal for the Reduners to move, because down in the drywash men rose out of hiding and raced towards the settle. Many clutched scimitars, others chala spears, and some lighted torches from smouldering tinder as they ran.
"Goin' t'fire the thatch," Galen said flatly.
Shale wondered how he knew.
As if in answer, Galen said, "My grandpa tole stories about nomad raiders. Back in the days when they took slaves. They'd light the thatch first, and when people ran into the streets…" He shrugged.
"They don't take slaves no more," Marisal said. She sounded more puzzled than frightened.
"Whadda they want, then?" Galen asked. He ducked back into the hut to fetch his skin of amber, then continued, "Whatever it is, we're dead meat, Marisal. They may take the young'uns, but they won't want us. And maybe they won't want t'leave any to tell the tale." He drank heavily and, ignoring Shale, offered the skin to Mica. "Here, drink. Better not t'know what's comin'."
Mica shook his head dumbly and slipped a hand into Shale's.
The men on the myriapede in front of them, following an unseen signal, dismounted and ran to surround the huts. When Gissek the forager rushed out of his door to see what was happening, one of the Reduners casually speared him through the chest. Rushing out behind him, his wife tripped over his body and fell. The toddler she carried, the little girl everyone called Sooks, went sprawling. She took a deep breath as a prelude to a wail, and another Reduner stamped on her throat before any sound emerged.
"Oh, waterful mercy," Marisal gasped, and clutched Citrine even closer.
"Don't move," Mica pleaded. He was shaking with fear and his voice wobbled. "Don't move."
Galen gave a sour smile and drank more amber. "That's not goin' t'make no difference."
Another pede approached, this time one man on a myriapede. His glance swept over the group of people in front of the huts. Shale looked around, aware of his trembling but unable to stop it. All their neighbours were outside now, faces pale in the dawn light: Ore the stonebreaker and his family; Demel the widow and her two children; Topaz the scrubber; Parman the legless. They were all staring at Gissek and Sooks, so obviously dead. Gissek's wife was sitting up, her shock so deep she wasn't able to move.
The man on the myriapede looked them over and ordered, "No trouble!" His tone was hard. Uncaring. They didn't need to be told he was in charge. And he didn't need to threaten them further. He had a zigger cage tied to the segment handle. The creatures were agitated, their high-pitched humming frenzied. The Reduners who had dismounted had their spears levelled.
None of the settlefolk moved.
The man spoke to several of his men in their own tongue. As they scattered to enter the huts, he turned back to the settlefolk saying, "Men search. Even sand-ant hiding, we find. Then fire roofs."
Marisal drew in a sharp breath; Galen dug her hard in the back. "Shut up, woman," he growled.
Shale felt removed from what was going on around him. Remote. Being detached was the only way he could handle it; the only way he could stay silent. Stay still. He wanted so badly to run, yet knew he would die if he did.
They had a good view of the settle from where they were. Fires already flickered across the roofs of the houses. Although the stone and mud-daub walls would not burn, the roofs were another matter. There was no better fuel than bab fronds dried under a desert sun.
A while earlier, he had been about to look for fronds to burn. Shit.
As the villagers fled their homes, Reduners cut them down in the streets. The whirr of the bullroarers finally ceased. The screams went on. He knew he would never forget the screams. Images burned into his memory. Iolite the seamstress on fire. Gamath the resiner decapitated as he tried to reason with one of the raiders. Rishan thrown alive into a burning house. A woman, he didn't know who, raped on the back of a pede, then tossed to the ground like a sack of stones. Reeve Gravel being dragged through the street behind a pede.
It was then that Ore the stonebreaker went berserk. He picked up a heavy rock from the ground and leaped at the closest of the Reduners. His initial rush caught the man by surprise; his spear wavered and Ore slammed into him, battering him with the rock. The man went down, unconscious and bleeding heavily from the nose and eye. Ore's arm went up and punched down twice more, even as the first of three or four spears thudded into his back.
Shale drew in a shuddering breath. Refused to think. Refused to ask himself why. The answers were all too terrible. And much too personal.
Beside him Mica stood, wide-eyed and shivering, Marisal pressed Citrine's head into her shoulder so she wouldn't see what was happening and Galen drank himself into unthinking numbness.
The Reduner leader sat for a while on his mount, watching what was happening down in the settle. Then he turned his beast and came back to where Shale and the others huddled together in front of their burning homes. He looked them all over and then homed in on Mica. "You," he said. "Name?"