Renegade Page 11

  Darsal’s mind was having difficulty keeping up with all of his disjointed comments. They seemed to be alive, which was a good thing. But they also seemed to be trapped in some kind of white prison.

  “How do we get back?”

  “To Paradise?” Billos asked.

  “To Middle. To Thomas and Silvie and Johnis!”

  He blinked. “With the books, I suppose. Not that we should go back, mind you. This is bigger than Johnis.”

  “We’re trapped in this box with a contraption that you don’t know how to work. Doesn’t look so big to me.”

  He stared at her. “You’re going to have to learn to trust me now. Once and for all.”

  “Is that so? The one who broke all the rules and ran off with the books? Which, I might add, are now lost. Why should I trust you?”

  “Because I have the suhupow. I’m the chosen one.”

  She frowned, upset at finding him with this attitude after he’d put her through so much.

  “You abandoned her,” Karas said. “A little sensitivity would be helpful about now.”

  Billos could have refuted the girl. Instead he glanced at her, softened, and approached Darsal. “I’m sorry. I had to know. But it’s worked out. I would have come back for you.”

  His words, however sketchy, filled her with warmth. She knew his heart.

  “Would you? You don’t have the books. We’re trapped. You don’t even know how to make this contraption work.”

  Billos smiled and touched her cheek tenderly. “Oh? Maybe that’s where you’re wrong.”

  She couldn’t help but lean into him. Billos wrapped his arms around her. It was all she could do to keep her tears back. “I was so afraid,” she whispered into his musky neck.

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to leave you.”

  “Never again, Billos.” “I swear. Never again.”

  They stood in the embrace for a few seconds while she regained her composure.

  “Nice, but I’m feeling no less trapped,” Papa said. Darsal pulled back. “Okay, tell me everything.”

  illos finished his tale and left them all staring at him incredulously. Papa was the first to speak.

  “This is the most preposterous thing a man can stand to hear,” he mumbled. Then louder, glaring at Billos, “You’re saying that you found these books in the Black Forest under our noses? That we are blind to both the Black Forest and the books, not to mention Shataiki and Roush?”

  “It’s true,” Karas said. “My eyes were opened as well. I saw Shataiki, I saw the Roush, and I saw the Black Forest.”

  “Even so, how do you know this isn’t all just trickery in the mind? You say you went into the blasted village named Paradise without ever leaving this place. How do you know you ever left Middle Forest to begin with? For all we know we’re still in the desert at this moment. The books are probably only making us believe we’re in this white room!”

  “Impossible,” Darsal corrected him. “I saw Billos vanish into the books.”

  “Well, forgive my smallest doubt.” Papa made a tiny sign between his thumb and forefinger. “Billos also believed he was in the so-called ‘village of Paradise’ when we saw him lying right here.”

  “Your mind’s clogged,” Karas said. “Your judgment is the least trustworthy here. I should know; I was Scab only a few days ago.”

  “Is that so, supposed daughter of Witch? And I should listen to a child?”

  “I had the good sense to bathe in their water. Do you?”

  “And now you smell like they do.”

  “Stop this!” Darsal snapped. To Billos: “What now?”

  He tapped his fingers together and walked around the contraption. “The best I can figure, I escaped this place by donning the helmet and the gloves and speaking the right commands, not unlike a horse.”

  “But you didn’t leave this place,” Papa said. “If I’m the diseased one, why is this fact only obvious to me?”

  “Because it’s not that simple, Papa,” Karas said. “Even if he did leave it only in his mind, he found three books there. The one we brought is probably there as well now. They’re the key to our escape.”

  Papa waved his hand at Billos. “This fool talks as if he doesn’t even want to escape! All this talk of guns and Marcudeves—”

  “Marsuvees,” Billos corrected.

  “Whatever. Some demon who ordered you to slay common village folk.”

  “The enemy, armed with guns.”

  “Which you say they only used in defense,” Papa pointed out.

  “They had the books!” He gripped his head. “Why are we listening to this slug of diseased flesh? You should have killed him in the desert.”

  “Fine, kill me when you get your hands on one of these magical guns of yours. Until then, don’t think this sword won’t put you on your backside.”

  Billos humphed.

  “Will you all stop arguing like spoiled children?” Darsal demanded.

  “Yeah,” Karas chimed in. “Grow up, both of you.”

  They all glanced at her.

  Darsal walked up to the contraption and ran her hand over one of the helmets she’d mistaken for a cocoon spun from black thread. “Billos is right about the books. We need them to return. Even if there was a way to return without them, we wouldn’t dare. If we return with all four books, on the other hand, all might be forgiven.”

  She faced Billos. “So we follow the books. As long as we agree to return the moment we find them. We’re not staying in this lost Paradise of yours, no matter where it is. We have an obligation to Johnis.”

  Billos nodded slowly, but he didn’t look convinced. “Fine.”

  “He doesn’t mean it,” Karas said.

  “Shut your hole!” Billos snapped. “We should leave you as well.” Darsal felt defensive of the girl, a sentiment that surprised her some. “Easy, Billos. She’s my sister. Niece, to be more precise, but she likes to call me her sister.” “Your niece? She’s a Scab.”

  “And not long ago the Scabs and we were one,” Karas said. “Or did you forget your history lessons?”

  He looked from one to the other, then turned away. “Bring your niece, if that’s who she really is, and bring your Scab dog; what do I care? Just keep them out of my way.”

  He slid up onto the same chair Darsal had rescued him from. “So we put on the helmets and the gloves?” Darsal asked, touching another chair. “Then what?”

  “Then you speak a command. ‘Let’s go, you haggard beast.’” “This contraption responds to being called a haggard beast?” Papa asked, warily approaching another seat.

  “Shut up and lie down.” Billos grinned, then added, “Baby.” “Baby?” Papa glared. “You think I respond to insults?” “You’re acting crazy, Billos,” Darsal said. “We’re all under considerable stress; go easy!” “Yes, sir. Baby.” “Why do you call us that?”

  He shrugged, then pulled on his helmet. Slipped on his gloves. Spoke into the cocoon over his head. “Let’s go, you haggard beast.” The contraption named DELL began to hum, and the red lights around its crown brightened. The flat glass panel on the wall flickered and showed several lines.

  Billos’s body immediately arched, then slowly relaxed.

  Darsal glanced at Karas, who’d climbed into a seat, then at Papa. “Seems to have worked.”

  “He’s still here,” Papa said.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  The Scab grunted and pulled on his helmet.

  Darsal’s world went dark inside the musty-smelling headpiece. She slipped her hands into the gloves on either side, pried her eyes for a view of something besides darkness, and, seeing nothing, spoke aloud.

  “Let’s go, you haggard beast.”

  Nothing happened that she could tell. Maybe her helmet was ruined. She tried again. “Let’s go, you haggard beast!”

  Still nothing.

  Darsal finally sat up, pulled her helmet off, and turned to the others. “What’s supposed …”

&n
bsp; The others were gone. Darsal faced five empty seats. Alarmed, she scanned the room, but there was no sign of them. They’d made it out and left her?

  The door . . ,

  She flew off the seat and had crossed halfway to the door before realizing that it was ajar. She reached for the knob, threw it wide, and stared out to a dusty alley bordered by a green forest.

  “Billos?”

  Wind kicked up a dust devil and sent it scurrying down the alley. Darsal stepped out and looked one way, then the other.

  “Billos!”

  The wind slammed the door shut behind her, and she jumped.

  Muffled voices reached her from down the alleyway. It took her only a moment to realize that an angry mob was prowling the streets out of her direct line of sight.

  “You see them, you kill them on sight!” a voice shouted. “Spread out!”

  The villagers are responding to Billos’s assault, she thought. And if she was right, she was one of them the villagers were after. She had to get out of sight.

  “In here!”

  Darsal spun to the sound of Karas’s voice. The young girl stood in the same doorway through which Darsal had exited the white room. But the space behind Karas wasn’t white.

  She leapt past the girl into a room with numerous shelves, each filled with supplies. Small containers made of metal and colored bags unlike any she’d ever seen. To her left stood a large cabinet made of silver with glass doors, behind which sat white containers that read MILK. The sign over the counter on her right indicated that this was a store named ALL RIGHT CONVENIENCE.

  Behind the counter stood Billos, dressed in a full-length black coat and broad-rimmed black hat. He was looking down the tube of a strange contraption, something like the gun he’d described. Several similar guns rested on the counter in front of him.

  Billos looked up as Karas shut the door. “Nice of you to join us.” He tossed the weapon at Darsal, who caught it out of the air. “Same gun I used to teach them a lesson the first time,” he said with a smirk.

  “What are we doing, Billos? There’s a mob headed this way!”

  “Battle, baby. Point and shoot.” He snatched another gun from the mantel behind him. “We’re going to kill them.”

  “Kill who?” Karas asked.

  Billos lobbed a gun at her, and she caught it clumsily.

  “Kill them all,” he said.

  his isn’t good,” Johnis said, staring at the dead Scabs among the boulders. “They’ve been tagged.”

  “And it’s clear that they were killed by Guard.”

  Rather than taking the time to bury their dead, the Horde sometimes—only when it was convenient—tagged the corpses with black feathers taken from the Dambu crow to speed their delivery into the afterlife. The feet that they were tagged meant they’d been found by the Horde.

  The fact that Darsal’s knife was still buried in one of their necks meant that whoever had found them knew they’d been killed by members of the Forest Guard.

  “This is way out of our territory,” Silvie said. “They won’t let it go.”

  Johnis scanned the horizon. “Hopefully they’ll just send a scouting party. How far did you say?”

  The Roush flapped to steady himself on one of the boulders. “Just past the rise. But they made it out. This killing was done after I left them.”

  “Do you see any tracks heading south from here?” Johnis asked.

  “None. They head only in the direction of this Black Forest no one has seen. They don’t see me either,” Hunter said. “Does that mean I’m not real?”

  Johnis wheeled his horse around and headed into the desert, north. Hunter landed between the animal’s ears and repeated the same lecture he’d offered a dozen times in the last day.

  “Remember—water, you have to use the water. The Shataiki are terrified of the water. And I can’t go. Not alone. They’ll rip my wings off and feed them to their young. We can’t have any young Shataiki growing up with Roush in their bellies.”

  “So we’ve heard,” Johnis said. “Isn’t that them?” He nodded at the horizon,

  “Where?” Hunter whirled around, saw the same black bat sitting as a mere dot on the rise ahead, and began to bounce on the horse’s head. “Okay, okay. That’s them, that’s them.”

  Silvie rode stoically by Johnis’s side, eyes fixed forward. Her wind-tossed tangles hung in messy but perfect symmetry. Fine features darkened by the sun betrayed her femininity, but a single glance at her ripped shoulders and you would know that this one had been born with a sword in her hands. She could easily put most men on the ground in a number of ways.

  She felt Johnis’s stare and looked into his eyes. He reached out his hand and took hers. Any ordinary sixteen-year-old girl facing the prospect of Teeleh’s lair, as she had only a couple weeks ago, might have reacted with the same reluctance that she had then.

  But Silvie was no ordinary girl. The last few weeks had reshaped her.

  She winked at him, then faced forward again.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll wait by the rocks. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Maybe Thomas is right.”

  “Maybe,” Johnis said. “We have water. We’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t think they don’t learn. You lose the water and you’re dead meat, as Thomas tikes to say.” Hunter hopped once, twice. “Okay …” He flapped into the air. “Remember the plan. Every detail. You have to get them back. Okay …”

  Hunter soared low to pick up speed, then flapped south, toward the boulders where he would keep watch as long as he could, as planned.

  “What details?” Silvie asked.

  “Exactly.” They had no details. This was entirely “ride where the horse takes you.” But Hunter seemed to find comfort in having contributed to a plan, which was really no more than Find them; get them out; water, water, water.

  Lines of black bats seemed to rise from the hazy desert as they crested the rise. Johnis pulled up. Ahead lay the hidden Black Forest, gouged from the ground by some unseen claw. It went underground, Hunter said. Abruptly, by the looks of it, not two hundred meters ahead.

  Johnis felt a shiver run down his spine despite the afternoon heat. This was the second Black Forest they’d encountered. Hunter didn’t know how many there were, probably hundreds if you went far enough. All hidden from ordinary eyes.

  Yet it had been here all along. Johnis wondered what would happen if a horse happened upon it. Would it fall in or walk over it as if it didn’t exist? He’d have to ask the Roush.

  “You ready for this?” Silvie asked.

  “No. You?”

  “Not really. But that’s never stopped us before.”

  He nodded. “Douse yourself in water.”

  They both withdrew leather bags filled with lake water and splashed it on their faces and chests. They would keep the bags as their only weapon from here in.

  “We go for the lair under the lake,” Johnis said. “Let the horse have its head once we’re in. Besides the water, we have only speed.”

  “This lair that not even Hunter can confirm,” Silvie said.

  “I was in Teeleh’s lair and felt his presence. I assure you, each forest has a lair.”

  She knew that he could not be so sure, but that, too, had never stopped them.

  “Then let’s go,” Silvie said, and kicked her horse.

  illos wanted one thing and one thing only. To kill as many of these crafty, double-crossing villagers as he could turn his suhupow gun on.

  It had occurred to him back in the white room that he was just a bit put out with Darsal for dragging the Scab she called Papa and the little piece of trash, Karas, into his world. In feet, he was bothered that she herself had managed to find him. He found it all oddly threatening.

  And he found the way she was looking at him now even more threatening.

  “Kill them all? We can’t just start killing these people,” Darsal said.

  “Oh yes, we can. And if we don’t, they’ll kill us. Think of them as th
e Horde. Kill them all; those are our orders.”

  “The orders of a man we’ve never met,” Papa said. “Who may be Teeleh for all we know,”

  “No one asked for your opinion, Scab, Doesn’t the Horde worship Teeleh?”

  Billos hurried to the front window and peeked past a drawn drape. Two uniformed warriors with silver badges on their chests were climbing out of a black-and-white buggy topped with flashing lights.

  The establishment in which Billos had dispatched Steve and his jukebox warriors was only a stones toss from here.

  “Billos?”

  He spun to Darsal, who was watching him with wide eyes. “What?” he snapped.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Are you deaf? I told you what’s happening! I suggest you snap out of it and make yourself useful.”

  “Is that what I mean to you? Just a tool to dispatch for your own purposes?”

  “What are you talking about? We’re in a battle. Are you blind as well?”

  Her eyes glared. He’d seen this look of defiance a thousand times, and he knew that his words would do nothing to win her over.

  “I’m talking about the way you look at me, as if my coming to save you means nothing. All you want to do is kill villagers. From the moment you climbed out of that chair in the white room, you’ve had nothing on your mind but flexing this new power of yours.”

  She was being about as logical as a stick of firewood. “I’m trying to save you!” retorted Billos.

  “Is now really the time for this?” Papa asked, parting the shade next to the rear exit. Several warriors ran past the window in the direction of the establishment where Billos had slain Steve.

  “Save me?” Darsal whispered harshly. “It’s always me, the poor little girl who’s being beaten by her uncle, that needs saving, is that it?”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t have saved you back then? You’d be dead now.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have. Not if you intended to make me your slave instead!”

  After Darsal’s parents had been killed when she was only eight, her uncle, Blaken the Blacksmith, who was too much of a coward to fight with the Guard but had proven his value by crafting metal swords, had taken her in. He used to beat her in drunken fits, but Darsal was too shy to confess her plight to anyone. Billos had witnessed such a beating late one night when he was out sneaking through the streets of Southern, looking for trouble. He had taken it upon himself to break into her room and introduce himself.