When he woke in the morning, he vomited; he had the worst headache he had ever had in his life. He didn't want to eat, so they gave him water. The next thing he knew, it was hours later and he was lying lengthwise on the back of a pede, a packpede this time. He was tied to a baggage pallet like a sack of bab fruit. Two Reduners rode the beast, one at the head, the other at the back. They had not bothered to wrap their faces. He didn't think these were the same men who had guarded him the day before. The myriapedes those first men had been riding had vanished, and now there was more baggage than there had been.
He tried to make sense of what had happened, but drowsiness overcame his senses.
After that, his conscious moments blurred into a series of vague images as confused as any dream. Sometimes he was in a camp, wrapped in a blanket; sometimes he was lying on the baggage pallet, and they were moving. During other half-lucid moments, aware of the agony of aching muscles and a bruised body, he ate, drank, relieved himself. Most of the time, though, he just slept. Every time he struggled awake, when he thought he was beginning to make sense of what was happening, the clarity would slip away once more. He tried to ask where they were taking him, but the men just laughed and said things he couldn't understand.
Several days passed before he made the connection between the water they gave him and his inability to stay awake. He tried to refuse to drink, but they forced it down his throat and he couldn't remember what happened next. Hours later, he woke on the back of the pede, muscles screaming.
Then one night, after accepting the food and water they gave him, he felt better, not worse. More alert, for the first time in days. When he slept, it was in snatches, lightly. He wondered if they had run out of whatever it was they had been putting in the water, and began to feel hope.
He was dreaming. Someone was shouting, but he couldn't see them. "What happened to the brother?" a voice growled, irate. "Where is he? Mica? Where is the one called Mica?"
Someone replied, but he didn't hear what they said.
Then, "Yes, I know she died! But there was a brother. Tell me, or-"
Something knocked against him. He woke, terrified. People were fighting around him. He struggled up, entangled in his blanket. He kicked himself free and scrambled to his feet, heart thudding in the suddenness of his terror. Two men, just dark shapes in the starlight, rolled past him. They were grunting, punching, wrestling. He didn't know why, and he didn't care. All it meant to him was an opportunity to escape.
He grabbed for what he thought was one of the packs-he would need food and untainted water if he was going to head off into the desert alone-but his hand closed around an ankle instead. In shock, he stumbled and thumped down on his backside next to a body. One of his captors, semi-conscious, groaning. Who was the second man in the fight, then? He looked, just in time to see one of the fighters hit the other with a blow that lifted him off his feet.
The victor looked around, saw him, and said, "Shale?"
He was too stunned to answer.
"It's Highlord Taquar. Come on, quick, let's get out of here."
"How-how-" he began, but his mind wouldn't think. No, couldn't think.
"Later. My pede is this way." A hand closed over Shale's and pulled him around a rocky outcrop to where a myriapede waited. "Quick, up you get."
"But-"
"Later." The voice gave every indication the owner of it would not tolerate further delay, so Shale stretched, hopping awkwardly, to shove his foot into the mounting slot and heave himself up. He settled cross-legged on the padded cushion-saddle. Experienced riders might be able to balance themselves without holding on, but Shale had no illusions. People could die falling off a pede. He held tight to the handle.
Taquar mounted in front of him and swung the pede away from the prostrate figures. Shale tried to sort out what had happened. How had Taquar known where to find him?
"Are you all right, lad? Hold on tight. I want to get out of here fast. Crouch down low."
He did as he was told and felt the pede lift up underneath him as it quickened. The ground blurred; the wind rushed by. He gripped so hard his fingers ached.
When the beast tired and slowed, Taquar settled it down into a steady pace, then twisted around in the saddle to look at Shale. "Don't worry, they won't find us even if they do wake up. The ground is hard here-there'll be no trail to follow."
"How did you find me?"
"Come now, people like you and me don't need marks on the ground to know a pede passed by. We can sense the trace of water ahead of us. I'm sorry it took so long, though." He patted Shale's arm. "And I'm so very, very sorry about what happened back there, in your settle."
"I didn't tell no one!"
"I fear it may have been my fault. I thought-never mind that now. I was coming to fetch you, but I was just a day too late."
Memory flashed, unwelcome. "They s-spitted m'sister and Ma and then Pa. I saw that. My brother-they didn't k-kill him. Mica and some of the older'uns-they were still alive when I left." He started shaking and wasn't able to stop. They had played a game with Citrine. And she hadn't died until the third player had passed her back to the sandmaster and he had gutted her on his chala spear. Her blood had sprayed…
His stomach heaved.
For a moment Taquar was silent. Then he said, "Sometimes they take boys and youths back to the Red Quarter. Girls and the prettier women, too."
Shale's shudders went on. "As slaves?"
"No. Converts, more like."
"Don't unnerstand."
"They take them to make warriors out of them. Tribe members. Tribal women. To become Reduner. It's not a bad life."
His revulsion and denial were instant. "Mica'd never be one of them spitless bastards!"
"You'd better hope he's bright enough not to tell them that, then. Otherwise, he's already dead. I asked the Reduners about him, back at the settle, and just then, too, but no one could tell me anything. I did hear about your sister. I'm sorry." He fumbled in the saddlebag and then turned once more to press something into Shale's hand. "I found this," he said. "Your piece of jasper. It was lying on the ground near your hut."
Shale's hand closed around the stone, feeling its familiar shape. Citrine had held it in her hand and smiled. He was silent, grieving.
"I fear Mica will have to make his own choices. There's nothing you or I can do about what happened in your settle, Shale. At least not yet. Put your mind to other things."
He thought that over, and although it made sense, it just wasn't possible. How could he rip out the pictures in his head of Citrine dying? Of so many bloody deaths? The splitting-shrill-begging scream of dying. The blood-vomit-shit stench of it. Citrine turning in the air, her little hands opening and closing as if she wanted to clutch something, anything, the jasper spinning away to be trampled underfoot, unnoticed by the Reduners, forgotten by him until now.
He tried to swallow away his terror. His grief. He slipped the jasper into the seam of his tunic and held on to the segment handle tight to stop the shaking of his hands. "W-where you takin' me?"