Desert World Allegiances Page 14

  “I could—” Shan started to say.

  “No.” Temar crouched down so his nightshirt would cover more. He knew exactly what Shan was offering, but he would wait until they had a knife sharp enough for him to cut the rope himself. He didn’t need any more pity out of Shan. And if Shan saw the belt marks on his back and ass, pity would fill those dark eyes.

  Shan sighed, but he didn’t say anything else. He leaned back against the boulder and pulled a pale pipe-trap leaf up. The plant was so young that it hadn’t yet developed its underground trap or started producing poison, so only a long, thin root came up with it. Shan started twisting it into knots.

  So far, no one seemed to be searching the valley, but Temar had to fight an urge to just flee at top speed. Or, since he didn’t have shoes, flee slowly by picking his way over the rocks. When the council arrested someone, they always took a person’s shoes, and after a day of trying to cover the two miles between the cave where they’d spent the night and this far edge of the Kelligan farm, Temar understood why. The lack of shoes was a larger handicap than his bound hands.

  Actually, he was starting to regret not taking Shan up on an offer to share his shoes, each wearing them for part of the day. However, once Temar had turned down the offer, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Shan he’d changed his mind. Temar rocked forward onto his toes to take his weight off his left heel, with its deep bruise. Maybe his pride needed to take a backseat to his abused feet. “If Naite doesn’t come out here—”

  “Then he’s not working this farm,” Shan said firmly. “He walks the perimeter every night. It’s a ritual with him, as important to him as communion.”

  Temar leaned against the warm boulder. His heel was slowly throbbing. Temar could really not imagine why anyone would walk the perimeter of a farm unless he had a slave owner standing behind him, making him. After working next to Ben and seeing how much workers had to do on a farm running at full production—something Temar’s farm had never done—Temar couldn’t imagine anything other than collapsing in exhaustion when the work was over. An unskilled worker’s life was hard enough without picking out more work to do on his own time, and even if Temar could figure out a way not to end up back in Ben’s bed, this was going to be his life. He had no training, and he had committed the crime of water theft.

  Shan made an unhappy noise. “I just really hope we don’t have to walk to the Sulli place. If we do, we’re going to get you set up back at the cave, and then I’ll run over there.”

  “Alone?” Temar got a firm hold on the fear that was suddenly rising. “No, if we need to go to the Sulli farm, we’ll go together.”

  Shan turned around and looked at him. For several seconds, Shan was silent, and Temar could feel his frustration rising. Yeah, he was being unreasonable. He’d never make it that far, but he had the right to try.

  It took some time, but Shan finally answered in a soft voice, “You don’t even have shoes.”

  Temar flinched back and let his gaze drift over to a spire of white rock that rose from the ground. He hated fighting… hated it with a passion. However, since being in Ben’s bed, he hated the idea of being told what to do. He hated the idea of going back to the cave and staying there alone. And he hated the idea of having to cross the wide valley floor to reach the Sulli farm. Actually, he hated a lot of things, which probably wasn’t all that healthy. He refused to say anything. Long seconds dragged past in silence.

  “If we cross at night, we can probably stay on the path, where you don’t need shoes,” Shan conceded. Temar nodded without answering. After that, the evening turned into a long, dusty wait.

  A buteo cried sharply as it circled and then landed on its nest in the cliff face, far above them. Even after it landed, Temar could hear its cries echoing against the rock, and he wondered if the bird was trying to find a mate or if it had come home to find sandrats had eaten the eggs. Temar was in such a dark mood that he could just picture the broken shells, the carefully tended nest slick and yellowed from the broken yolk. Eventually the bird quieted, and the air started to cool. The late winds blew sand over the wide mouth of the valley. The protective screen would catch any rare sand that managed to slip between the rock cliffs, so they were safe. However, the sandstorm blocked the dying rays of sun, so the night fell faster than Temar expected.

  “We could steal some water and head over to the Sulli place tonight,” Shan offered softy. They were the first words either of them had spoken in a long time. Temar shifted around to stretch a leg that had fallen asleep.

  “Do you think it’s dark enough?”

  “Probably not for a while.” The silence came again, settling into the cracks and crevasses until Temar squirmed with a need to do or say something—he just didn’t know what. Shan sat by the rock, perfectly still. “I think someone’s coming,” Shan whispered.

  Boredom snapped into pure fear so fast that Temar lost his ability to breathe for a precious half minute. Moving slowly, he edged closer to Shan. Now he wished he had his hands free. It was stupid to leave himself helpless instead of letting Shan see a few whip marks. The man could certainly imagine what Ben had been doing, and the whip was the least of the humiliations.

  Shan shifted so his hands rested on the ground, and then he inched forward. For long minutes, Temar didn’t dare breathe as they waited. The wind groaned as it passed over the top of the valley, and Shan slowly got to his knees and leaned forward.

  “Stay here,” he whispered. Pushing himself up, he moved to the side of the boulder where they’d been hiding. Temar tried to curl into the smallest possible space as Shan took a step away from the boulder.

  “Naite?” he called. For a moment, there was only silence, and Temar was sure he was about to have a heart attack.

  “Shan? Shan! Oh my God. What in the name of the gods and stars happened to you?”

  Shan gave a dry and humorless laugh. “Had some trouble.”

  “So it seems. You look ready to fall over, and either you bathed in pipe juice or you’re so drunk you’re sweating the stuff.”

  “A bit of both. I walked off the desert, drinking water evaporated out of straight pipe juice, so I probably am sweating the stuff.” That brought a long silence.

  “Gods. You always loved the survival stories as a kid, but what the hell inspired you to try them out? What happened to your radio and your emergency rations? What happened to you?” Naite sounded friendly, and Temar took the chance of moving forward to the edge of the boulder, so he could see the two brothers.

  Naite had both his hands on Shan’s shoulders as he looked into his brother’s face. Seeing them side by side, Temar was suddenly struck by just how much weight Shan had lost. He’d never been anywhere near as large as his brother, but now he looked like an insubstantial shadow, compared to Naite. He reminded Temar of the abstract glass he’d seen Dee’eta Sun make. The glass had a colored center that mimicked the shape of the larger piece in which it was trapped. She was so skilled that the inner center was a faultless replica with only half the width, perfectly centered in the whole. That’s what Shan looked like. He was Naite with only half the width, and he looked ready to fall over.

  “We’re in a little trouble, Naite.” Shan looked over his shoulder at the boulder. With a deep breath and a quick prayer that the stars show him a little luck for once, Temar stood.

  “We?” Naite was asking as Temar stood. For a long second, Naite only stared. “Temar? Shan, what’s going on?” He turned back to his brother, and this was the moment when they discovered whether or not Ben had corrupted Naite. Only now did Temar remember that it had been Naite who had turned down Cyla’s request for a council hearing. He shuffled backward, well aware that if Naite wanted, he could physically overpower both of them.

  “We need help,” Shan said softly.

  Again, there was a moment of silence, where Naite looked from Shan to Temar and then back to Shan. “You need to get the boy back to his master,” he said firmly. Turning to Temar, he softened his vo
ice so that it had the same timbre as when he’d spoken to Temar in that shed where the council had first imprisoned him. Back then, the voice had been reassuring, but now, he could only feel cold, pure fear as Naite stepped toward him. “Temar, I understand the fear that comes with losing your control, I truly do. I’ll even go back with you and talk to Ben with—”

  “Look at him!” Shan snarled, grabbing his brother’s arm and pulling him to a stop. “Just stop and look at him before you start preaching about the wonders of slavery. Look at him!”

  Temar held his breath as the two brothers stared at each other in some contest of wills. He wanted to sink down and hide his legs, his bruises, the marks that proved how poorly he’d defended himself. He wanted to run before Shan could tell anyone else what had happened. He wanted to sink into the earth. Instead, he clenched his teeth and stood silent as Naite flicked on a flashlight and swung the beam over to him. The light traveled up his legs and hovered over the bruises. On his left leg, the bruise still had the shape of the hand that made it.

  When he spoke, Naite’s voice had an artificial calm to it. “Temar? How bad? How far did this go?”

  “Do you need to ask?” Shan answered for him. “He wouldn’t let me untie him because he’s hiding the rest of the marks, so maybe you could lend him a knife so he can cut himself free.” Naite clicked the light off and reached for his belt. When he walked forward, knife in hand and held out, handle first, his expression was as neutral as his voice. He didn’t even glance down as Temar had to lift the bottom of his shirt to reach for the knife with hands half numb with being tied. He fumbled at the handle, not able to grip it right. It clattered to the ground, and Naite bent down to pick it up so fast that Temar didn’t have a chance to get the nightshirt down in time to cover him.

  Still crouching, Naite reached up with the knife and caught the rope with the blade, yanking at it so that Temar was pulled a step forward before the rope split. His hands were still tied, but they weren’t tethered to his waist anymore. Wordlessly, Naite reached for his hands and slid the knife under one of the knots, slicing it before he turned his back.

  Temar worked to shake the ropes loose, rubbing the newly freed ends against his stomach to unravel them as Naite walked back toward his brother.

  “I’m going to see that man exiled.”

  “Naite—”

  “I’m going to beat Ben Gratu until he begs for mercy, and then I’m going to see him exiled,” Naite corrected himself, anger now coloring his words.

  “Naite, wait a second.” Shan reached out and physically put a hand in the middle of Naite’s chest to stop him.

  Naite pushed Shan’s hand away. “I’m going to watch him. I’m going to go out there in a lifter and watch him as he lies on the sands and gets eaten alive by sandrats.” He started back down the path, and Temar struggled to get his arms into the armholes of the shirt before he joined the conversation. Shan grabbed Naite’s arm.

  “Naite, stop. You can’t do that.” Naite dragged Shan for several yards before he stopped and slowly turned toward his brother.

  “What?”

  “You can’t tell anyone what Ben did.”

  “You have two seconds to explain why you’re defending this piece of pig shit, and then I’m going to make some unpleasant assumptions about you, brother.”

  Shan took a fast step back. “You can’t think I would ever—”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever defend a man who did this,” Naite gestured toward Temar.

  “Now, as far as I’m concerned, defending a man who hurts someone is just as bad as being an abuser yourself, so no hiding behind your collar here, Shan. You explain why you want to keep this quiet, or I swear, you’ll be meeting your God sooner than you expect.”

  Reaching out, Shan rested his hand on Naite’s arm. From the way Naite slowly looked down at where they touched, he didn’t exactly welcome the contact. “This is about more than what Ben did.”

  Naite crossed his arms and didn’t look convinced.

  “His friend has my sister,” Temar spoke up for the first time.

  “Cyla? She was sold to Ista Songwind. She’s not even in Landing.”

  The disbelief cut at Temar until he wanted to simply be quiet and let Shan explain, but he wouldn’t put Cyla in danger, and right now, Shan was not having a lot of luck convincing his brother of anything. “I heard Ben talking to someone on the phone, telling them to buy Cyla, and he said if I told anyone that he’d have someone kill her.”

  The first moon was up, and the winds had started to quiet, so the glow filtered down into the valley. Even in the dim light, the look of pure fury on Naite’s face silenced him. The muscles on the side of his neck corded, and his fists came up like he was going to hit someone, but instead he dropped his arms back down to his side.

  “To hell with exile, I’m going to strangle him with my own hands. But, why?”

  Temar ducked his head. “This is where it starts to sound a little crazy.”

  “It already sounds crazy, I just… I know those bruises too well, and for all his many faults, my idiot brother would never lie about something like this.”

  “Thank you for that vote of confidence,” Shan said.

  Naite only shrugged before he took a step toward Temar, focusing his attention there. “He might hallucinate, and from the amount of pipe juice he’s been drinking, I don’t doubt he’s been talking to the pretty little elves following him around.”

  “Actually, it was you following me around. Even my hallucinations like to annoy me. However, that doesn’t change the fact that this is bigger than the evil Ben has done to Temar.”

  Naite didn’t turn to look at Shan or answer him, but he stopped. Temar watched the two brothers, and he could see Naite struggle with the need to do something. He could understand that, because every time he’d lain down for Ben, he’d felt the same thing. He’d known he should do something different, that he should have a better way to handle it, but he’d never been able to find any solution other than lying down and silently enduring. “Shan’s right,” Temar said softly. “It sounds crazy, but this is about more than what he did to me. What he did to me… it isn’t anything compared to whatever is going on in the valley.”

  “It’s enough to condemn him,” Naite said firmly. “But I’m listening. Let’s hear your crazy story.”

  Chapter 15

  NAITE sat on a boulder, his head in his hands, as Temar and Shan finished their story. “I still want to strangle him and let the sandrats have his body,” he said, but his voice had a weariness to it that suggested he wasn’t about to track Ben down at that exact moment.

  “I have first dibs at strangling him,” Shan said, and once again he was looking at Temar with guilt and despair. Temar didn’t say anything, but he thought he should get the first chance at Ben. He thought of his hands around Ben’s neck, but the fantasy quickly slid out of his control and turned into Ben’s hands on him. He shook his head and forced himself to focus on the present… on the cooling night air and the dust under his butt as he sat on the ground… on the two brothers who sat near each other on the boulder.

  “You’re a priest. You’re supposed to be turning the other cheek.”

  “I ran out of cheeks.”

  Naite snorted, but Temar had to smile at the joke. The smile chased away the last lingering wisps of the dark memory that had tried to catch him.

  “You can only plow a field one row at a time. So, we need to get you two somewhere that you can heal up some, we need to get Cyla out of Songwind’s custody, and we need to figure out what sort of games Ben is playing with water.”

  “Any ideas?” Shan asked. He finally looked away from Temar to really focus on his brother, and Temar shifted uncomfortably on the ground.

  “Fuck, no. You’re the grand planner.”

  “We could grab her.” Shan didn’t sound confident about that answer. As much as Temar wanted to just grab Cyla, he didn’t like the plan either. He’d been afraid t
o even tell Naite, so they didn’t know who they could trust. If they grabbed her, who knows how many people would accuse them of kidnapping, or worse. Temar didn’t plan to end up food for sandcats, not after everything he’d done to survive. They needed a reason to bring her back to Landing without letting anyone know that Shan and Temar were involved. If Ben smelled a plot, he could do terrible things before anyone stopped him.

  “Does anyone know I’m missing?” Temar asked. He got a leg under him and tried to find the pebble that was incessantly poking his thigh.

  Naite shrugged. “Don’t know. If I asked around, I could find out. Most of the workers talk to me, even when the landowners think they don’t.”

  Temar finally caught the pebble between his fingers, rolling it back and forth as he thought about the need to get Cyla out of danger. “If you thought I’d run away from Ben, what would you do?”

  “Congratulate you and gut that son of a planetless whore.”

  Temar shook his head. “No, I mean before. If you still thought Ben was as good as Tom Sulli, what would you do?”

  “There are other rumors,” Shan said, before Naite could answer. “The rumor is that Erqu Gazer abused Temar. Sua Smith told me that they’re all worried because Ben is having so much trouble keeping him from flying off into rages.” Temar could hear the guilt in Shan’s voice, like he had done something wrong by believing her, even though Temar had thrown enough fits to convince anyone that he was mad.

  “Temar? Rages?” Naite didn’t even try to hide his disbelief as he looked over.

  That made Temar blush, because he’d hated the public humiliations nearly as much as the private pain. “Ben ordered me to throw fits so he would have an excuse to tie me up and punish me,” Temar admitted. He threw the pebble as far as he could into the field. “But if you’d heard all these rumors and then found out I’d run away, what would you do?”