They say the lake is bottomless.
My people leave the crater alone. It’s not exactly a holy place, but an awesome, uncomfortable one, reminding us that once giants, both good and evil, strode the land.
It’s been violated.
The sun strikes bright flashes on steel—vehicles hitched to giant ground worms, hoisting machinery, the barrel of an eldritch gun. White-roofed shelters stand out against the unrelenting brown, and tiny black figures, miniaturized by the distance, move against the backdrop.
Most of the activity is around the site of the lake.
The former lake, I should say. No longer a dark circle, a concentrated dot of silence and mystery. Its waters are spilled all over the broken rock, painting them a dark brown. Tiny rivulets run like capillaries across the crater floor from the punctured lake. The lake lies dying, gasping, its insides now outside, turned clear and transparent in the sun.
Daral mutters a curse. His body tenses.
I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze, hard.
Daral looks at me with burning eyes. “What shall we do?”
Two men, one with a missing hand, and two eerie men, who may or may not be on our side?
Easy.
“We leave,” I say. Then, as there’s a shift in the air around us, a movement, “Watch—” Adrenaline surges; my spiders respond weakly.
Daral drops into a crouch, hands near his sleeves, as figures swarm into view.
We recognize them at the same time. “Baradari,” says Daral, but he doesn’t relax, doesn’t straighten.
I unsheathe my sword, hold it up for the men to see. “I am Kato Vorsok,” I say. There are other formalities, but I can’t bring myself to say them. Not anymore. “Who is your chief?”
Within their hoods, above their covered mouths, I see the men’s eyes widen. There are five of them, but baradari work in bands of seven. Where are the rest?
One steps forward, bends his neck in a perfunctory bow. “We are baradari under Khan Mehmet of the Hawks, khaleesa.” He uses a respectful title, but once these same men would’ve called me Khalan.
“The hothead,” murmurs Daral in my ear. I nod. I know the man. “I heard that he was removed from his position as Bolar’s war-chief.” Not surprising, that, considering the temperaments of the two men.
“What are the baradari of Khan Mehmet doing so deep in the Painted Hills?” I ask, sheathing my sword, keeping up my arrogant air, as if I have perfect right to ask the question.
By the customs of the itauri land, I do. Both my confidence and the conventions work to erode the baradari’s mistrust. “We go after the blasphemers.” He points toward the Crater, and spits his disgust on the ground. A grave insult in this parched land. “And their creatures.”
He crooks his fingers and, after a bit, the remaining two baradari arrive on the scene, half-carrying, half-dragging their furry, struggling captive.
I keep my face as still as a mask. Daral’s shoulder’s twitch—is he laughing, curse the man?
The baradari dump their burden near me, hold him down.
“This one is mine,” I tell their leader. He hides his surprise, nods, gestures his men back.
Leap struggles to his feet, spitting out the gag, making faces. “Sorry, Ironhand,” he rumbles. “Got careless.”
“Where’s Grip?” I ask.
“Eh, went back to the fort before’n white clothes showed up.” Leap shrugs.
Sowing discord as we speak, probably. “You said going after the blasphemers.” I turn my attention back to the baradari leader. “Mehmet will attack them at the crater.” It’s not a question. Beside me, Daral lets his breath out in a hiss.
The baradari leader says, “You will join us, khaleesa?”
“Your camp for the night, yes. And then you can tell Khan Mehmet that I am at Kaal Baran, and he is welcome to seek shelter there.”
“You don’t think they can win against Highwind,” remarks Daral early the next morning. We left the baradari scouts’ camp before dawn, and hiked in silence across the desert, Leap loping ahead of us. It isn’t until the dark bulk of Kaal Baran comes into view that Daral speaks.
“It’ll be a bloody massacre,” I say. “Mehmet’s stubborn, though, and he’s the type who needs to bash himself against a rock a time or two before he’ll listen to reason. We’ll still be here when he’s ready to talk to us.”
Long shadows of charcoal-grey stretch out across the rock. A wail goes up into the air—Screech on duty again.
I frown. I should’ve told Bound to take her off the sentry duty roster.
If Flutter had been there, she’d have swapped Screech out.
I glance over the desert, probing the shadows, hoping that one of them will move, rise, form into Flutter.
Nothing.
Screech warbles overhead as we enter the narrow archway. My frown deepens.
Where are the guards?
And then I hear them—the yelps and yowls and battle cries. The crash of metal against metal, the thump of flesh against flesh.
I run into the courtyard. Eerie men and cobble crunchers are in a free-for-all brawl. Right in front of me, a cobble cruncher sinks its teeth into an eerie man’s ankle. The eerie man howls and kicks, sends the cobble cruncher flying into the air.
I was gone for one day. Only one day.
Cloud drifts past, and I grab her arm. “What’s going on?”
She shrugs, and her sleeve and arm mist out of my grasp. “The cobble crunchers accused the eerie men of stealing their canned worms. The eerie men said that the cobble crunchers tunneled too close to the well walls, and now there’s midden in the water. Then one of the crunchers bit an eerie man’s nose and matters rapidly deteriorated from there.
“Excuse me. I need to quiet her.” Cloud points up towards the wall. Screech is a spread-winged silhouette and a demonic wail against the sky.
“Is Flutter back?”
Cloud shakes her head no, and glides away.
Nine-bloody-forsaken-Hells!
I look at the fighting mass of my army. My army, my responsibility. Sera’s no longer.
Taurin’s veil, they were a mess.
I grab an eerie man, spin him around to face me. His face goes from gleeful and bloodthirsty to shamed when he sees me.
