“Why would he take me to—” Tokela started, but Galenu tilted his chin and puffed his chest.
“I’m taking him home, of course. But if my Chepiś friends could help him, then of course I’d—”
“Get off the cart, Tokela.”
It didn’t quite connect. Tokela stared at Galenu. “Chepiś? You’d take me—”
“If they can help you, of course I would.”
“Just like you took his dam to them for help? Get off the cart, Tokela.”
Tokela didn’t budge. It still wasn’t quite making sense, and this last… He stared at Galenu. “You… you were the one who… You took my mother… to Chepiś?”
“A story for another time, and I’ll be glad to tell it to you some—Let go of my horse, Našobok! Shade and sweet water, are you mad?”
And truly, the look in Našobok’s eyes was enough for worry. “Not mad,” he growled. “But angry enough to drag you behind this cart… are you mad? Your friends, you said. Your Chepiś friends, and you’d just hand him over to them?”
“You make it sound like some sort of… portside deal. No doubt you’d know a lot of those, but come now, you know me well enough—”
“I don’t think I know you at all, old one. Not if you’d be party to this.”
Tokela kept opening his mouth, kept closing it, but any good sense was dribbling out his ears at the realisation:
Našobok had come for him. Had ridden, from the look of him, through lastDark and thisSun to find him.
“Get off the cart, Tokela. I’m taking you back to River, with me. Where you belong.”
“How romantic,” Galenu scoffed.
Našobok ignored it. “Do you want to go with Galenu? Are you willing to have him take you to Chepiś? Willing for them to do more than he’s already seen them do? I told you, you’ve choices—and I aim to see you keep them!”
“What choice would you offer, wyrhling?” Galenu’s tone quelled, sarcastic. “Outcast upon a leaky craft, no home, no true place… save in your bunk, perhaps?”
This time Našobok did strike. He leapt across Tokela and grabbed Galenu by his tunic. Would have yanked him off the cart, no doubt, if Tokela hadn’t smacked at his head. Pure instinct, not even hard, but it broke the inexplicable rage. Našobok blinked, looked at Tokela for a long breath, then let Galenu back down. Slowly.
“Portside deals!” Našobok spat. “There’s plenty of those to be had, to be sure, where I run—but there’s ones even I won’t touch!” He turned to Tokela. “That’s why I’m here. They’re looking for you, my heart. Making deals in those portside villages. Sending their Matwau pets after you, prowling the slave markets up and down River, putting a reasonable likeness of you into the hands of whoever might be able to take you to them!”
“They wouldn’t!” Galenu put a hand to his hung-open mouth, and leaned back against the cart bench.
“This isn’t sneaking around to pay you a clandestine visit, or doing trade for glašg eyes. Your friends, Galenu, are making hostile incursion. Openly breaking a truce that’s lasted generations.”
Tokela dropped his gaze to his hands, didn’t see them. “To get at me.” It was hoarse, and the drum of his heart slowing, thick beneath Sun’s glare. His temples pounded.
Choices. Was there such a thing?
Našobok merely leaned over and laid his hands over Tokela’s. “And you know why. Don’t you?”
Tokela raised his head and peered into the storm-hued eyes. Nodded.
“Then nowhere’s safe!” Galenu blurted.
Našobok kept looking at Tokela. Waiting, buoying.
“River,” Tokela said. “River will see me safe.”
24 - Hunted
Massively unpleasant, this part of the big island. Even in the earliest phases of morning, it dried one’s nostrils and drifted through one’s lungs, leaving only a taut rasp of dust and heat behind.
No doubt should Sivan hint at any discomfort, her brother would explain in gravid detail how they were in a rain shadow, and how the western mountain range would, the more they left the southeastern estuaries behind, inspire not merely dry plains, but pockets of desert. Well, and Sivan knew that, and Jorda knew she knew it, but his nerves were strung in a different place than her own. Jorda prattled against Sivan’s quiet.
Maloh, on the other hand, would just roll dark eyes and smirk. This was her element. Even now she strode out, the sun glinting against her short halo of crimped sienna hair, her muscled arms bare to welcome the coming sun. Of course, Maloh’s people, like most of the planet’s natives, had adequate melanin. Furthermore, they did judicious trade with this continent’s stunted, if canny, denizens. Maloh had little reason for concealment, be it from a stint of solar rays or a breached truce.
Jorda was already cloaked and veiled. It was a reminder that Sivan should draw her own and pull the goggles over her eyes.
They shouldn’t be here.
“You’re sure they’ll come this way?” Maloh was scanning the horizon with dark brows quirked. “There aren’t many who venture near this part of the desert. Only the nomads, and they don’t stay in one place long. Hard enough for even their like to eke a living hereabouts, but the proximity to the vortex should make it all the more off limits.”
“I’m sure of nothing at present.” Jorda stumbled in a drift of sand; Sivan reached out to steady him. “Not until the satellites rise. I touched him briefly last night, but the connexion was… blurred. Faulty. As if he were drugged.”
No doubt proximity to the vortex also plagued decent reception. That or this rotting planet itself, shifting beneath their feet, keeping a baleful eye upon everything they would try to do.
They kept walking. Not even a burden beast had been allowed them. No easy journey, no light visit. Get in, get it done, get out. Capture the native boy
