The Farwalker's Quest Read online

  She expected to be dragged across the desert, kicking. Instead, the group settled on the downhill side of the snag. The torches they bore soon set it ablaze, lighting a half circle in the sand. Ariel and Zeke were dropped at its center. Nobody bothered to tie them.

  The man who’d struck Scarl kicked him in the back of the knees. Scarl dropped to the sand with a grimace. Anger flared in Ariel’s chest.

  “Take a rest,” the man sneered. “We’ll deal with you later.” He jerked his head at one of his comrades, who approached to guard Scarl.

  Ariel surveyed the remaining faces. One belonged to a woman. She wore men’s garments and her narrow face was weathered, but a long gold braid fell from under her hat. This woman took the water jar from Zeke, drank, and then passed it around to her friends. Ariel’s dry tongue, which felt too big for her mouth, clicked in dismay. She and Zeke might as well have finished the water themselves.

  “So.” The leader approached Ariel and Zeke. His broad nose and doughy face reminded her of an old classmate’s grandpa. If she hadn’t just seen him kick Scarl, Ariel would have thought his round eyes looked kind. “My name is Gustav.”

  “Tell them the whole thing,” Scarl called. “It’s Gustav Fool, if I remember correctly.” He paid for the words with another quick blow from his guard.

  “You can call me Gust,” the leader continued. “I understand you knew our friend Elbert Finder?”

  Zeke shrugged. Ariel made no response at all.

  “Where did you leave him?”

  Gust awaited their answer for only a moment. Ariel saw the blow coming and ducked. Gust’s palm grazed the top of her head to slap Zeke’s ear. Zeke yelped.

  “Perhaps that will quicken your tongues,” Gust said. “If not, I can do it again.”

  “We got away from him in the mountains,” Ariel said.

  “You must be clever,” he replied. “And you’ve come far without him. Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. We were just running away.”

  Gust turned a small circle in the sand, pursing his fat lips. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “Elbert and Scarl are pretty poor friends. But there are others who would like to help you, you know. I think we can help you, in fact.”

  “How?” Zeke demanded. “By drinking our water and beating us up?”

  Ariel fought a crazy impulse to laugh.

  Gust’s fleshy lips found a smile. “I apologize,” he said. “I spend too much time around unpleasant men. No,” he continued, sinking to one knee. “I think we can lighten your burden. One of you has a telling dart, do you not?”

  Uncertain of a safe answer, they merely returned his stare.

  Quick as a snake striking, Gust clamped a hand on Ariel’s ankle and jerked her forward. Sand plowed up the back of her shirt. She couldn’t muffle a squeal.

  “Answer me.”

  “It’s not the girl, Fool.” Disdain filled Scarl’s voice. “It’s the boy. The girl is a Finder.”

  Gust froze. His eyes slid between Ariel and Zeke. His hand still tight on Ariel’s ankle, he rose, arm extended, until she dangled upside down. Her hair swept the sand. Petrified he would swing her into the flames, she wrapped her head with her arms and tried not to struggle.

  “A Finder?” Gust repeated.

  “How do you think she followed us to help him escape?” Scarl grumbled. “I’m not as incompetent as you’d like to believe. She wears her glass on a string around her neck.”

  Gust shook Ariel as though pepper might fall from her head. The blond woman moved in, fumbled at Ariel’s collar, and drew out Bellam’s bead. Its green glass caught light from the fire.

  Gust released Ariel’s ankle. She dropped painfully in a heap.

  “The dart’s in that pack,” Zeke said quickly.

  Ariel rubbed her neck and wondered how things could possibly get worse. The telling dart was in her pack. They were fooling Gust about small things, but the big things mattered more. She was terrified she might have to watch him hurt Zeke, which would be worse than bearing pain of her own. And Scarl could do nothing about it. In fact, Scarl was the one who had put Zeke in her place.

  While one of the men rummaged through her pack for the dart, Gust pulled her to her feet. She cowered as he fingered her bead on its ribbon.

  “Not much of a glass,” he muttered.

  “She’s not yet thirteen, what do you expect?” Scarl said. “That little vixen works on raw talent, not training.”

  “She’ll get a chance to test herself, then.” Gust shoved Ariel into the dark, where she stumbled to her knees on the sand. “Go on,” he ordered. “Find your way home. If you can.”

  “She’ll die, Gust, before she reaches the edge of the Drymere,” said the woman.

  “You think so? Too bad. The world can be harsh.” Gust returned to the fire.

  Ariel jumped up and ran before he changed his mind. She headed straight away so they’d think she was gone, and then she circled around to sneak up from the same direction they’d come. Dropping to the sand just below the top of the rise, she slithered like a snake to its crest. With the snag between her and most of the flames, she could spy down on them from the darkness.

  Yet she was powerless to do anything but watch. At the center of attention, Zeke looked forlorn. Scarl huddled at the edge of the light. All control seemed to belong to the captors. Gust paced, twirling the dart in his fingers.

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t just get rid of him,” he was saying.

  Ariel strained to hear Scarl’s reply.

  “I told you. I thought Mason would want to talk to him. Test him. Maybe keep him a while, see if he could be turned to some use. A Farwalker must be good for something.”

  Gust veered in his pacing to stand over Scarl on the sand.

  “Your assignment was to collect the darts and make sure nobody fretted about what they said,” he reminded Scarl. “You realize that by bringing this particular receiver with you, you were risking the exact thing Mason wants to prevent?”

  “He’s a kid,” Scarl sneered. “He can’t even understand the dart that found him. What’s he going to accomplish?”

  Gust kicked him. “He accomplished escaping from you.”

  “He had help.” Pain tightened Scarl’s voice.

  “So did you. Where is Elbert now, anyway?”

  “When the boy disappeared, we separated to cover more ground,” Scarl said. “Thought we’d snare him faster that way. I haven’t seen Elbert since.”

  “If that’s true, he must be somewhere nearby,” said the woman. “But we can’t—”

  “Only if you think he was any good as a Finder.” Scarl snorted. “I don’t.”

  “I may have to agree with you there,” Gust said. Tucking the telling dart into a pocket, he moved to loom over Zeke. Flames reflected in the Fool’s dull face. He added, “Elbert would be just the man, though, for the job that needs doing now.”

  Ariel moaned. She had a pretty good idea what Gust meant, and she’d rather die herself than lose Zeke. She’d better think of an alternative fast.

  “Misha, can’t you help us?” she whispered. Instantly, a hand fell on her shoulder. She whipped around on one elbow. No friend of Gust’s lurked beside her. Still, neither a spectral touch nor dimples in the sand could help Zeke.

  The faces around the fire all focused on him. Gust unsheathed a knife much thinner but longer than Scarl’s. Zeke drew himself into a crouch, ready to run. With adults poised around him, Ariel didn’t think he stood any chance of slipping past them all.

  One of the men cleared his throat and said, “I wouldn’t be here if I’d known this would get so rough, Gust. Do you really want a boy’s blood on your hands?”

  “No, I don’t. That’s why Matthias is going to do it.” Gust reversed his knife and thrust its handle toward the man standing nearest him. “He understands the value of Mason’s favor. As well as the pinch of his anger. Don’t you?” He leered.

  The man Gust had appointed
nodded, but he shifted, uneasy. “We could just tie him up and leave him to thirst and the sun,” he suggested.

  “And sit here for a week, if it takes that long? Some of you might leave the world before he does. No. Quick and certain.”

  “Let me do it.” Scarl pushed himself to his feet. “You’re right, I should have seen to it sooner, and now he’s caused me a fair bit of pain. At this point I’ll be happy to cut that brat’s throat.”

  “You?” Gust turned to appraise Scarl. Ariel’s heart battered itself against her ribs. If Scarl could be untied, perhaps all was not lost. Yet a tinny voice in the back of her mind shrilled that with her free, the Finder might be willing to sacrifice Zeke to satisfy Gust and escape.

  “I might actually have to respect you for that,” Gust told Scarl.

  “Don’t get carried away,” Scarl said drily. “You could just return my gear and let me go about my business.”

  Gust debated. Ariel twitched, barely keeping herself from tearing down the slope shouting the truth.

  With a flick of his hand, Gust signaled that the prisoner should be unbound. He held his knife ready in case Scarl moved without warning. First the blindfold came off, then the rope tying Scarl’s hands. Holding her breath, Ariel willed him to jump for the knife, swing a punch, or grab Zeke and run. Scarl only rubbed his wrists, glanced at Zeke, then fixed his gaze firmly on Gust.

  Gust’s eyes narrowed. Tension outlined nearly every form at the fire. Two other men gripped the hilts of their own knives. His lips twitching in wry amusement, Scarl was the only one who looked relaxed.

  He shifted his weight, waited a breath longer, and then turned up his palm.

  “Are you going to give me that, or did you change your mind?” he asked mildly. “There’s no point in waiting till morning. I could use a good sleep for a change.”

  Slowly Gust reversed the blade and extended the handle. Scarl stepped to it casually, as though offered a cup of tea. His fingers brushed the knife’s handle, then drew back.

  “Actually, I don’t suppose I could use my own knife?” he said. “It’s done a similar job for me before. And it’ll make a better keepsake—since I’m sure you’ll want yours back.”

  Relaxing slightly, Gust jerked his head toward the woman. She bent to a pack and soon held out the sheath with Scarl’s knife.

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Scarl took it. When he straightened, a blade Ariel recognized glinted in the firelight. Her breath caught.

  “All right, you little cur,” Scarl said softly to Zeke. He raised the knife. “You remember what I told you before?”

  Zeke’s crouched body looked tight as a spring. His voice only achieved a hoarse whisper. “I remember, scum.”

  In three strides Scarl was on him. He grabbed Zeke’s shoulder and yanked him to his feet.

  Ariel lost all control of her body. It leaped up and flew down the slope toward the fire. Her screams of denial split the darkness. Sand that she’d clenched, unaware, in her fists sprayed out toward the light. Startled faces turned her way. Her stumbling feet churned up more sand around her.

  Perhaps Ariel needed to provide that idea. Perhaps ghosts just have excellent timing. As she swooped down the slope, a rush of wind hit Ariel’s back. She nearly tumbled onto her face at its force. It lifted sand from the dune so the swirling air filled with grit.

  Ariel saw Scarl fling Zeke over the burning snag toward her. Then a billowing curtain of sand blocked her view.

  “Zeke!”

  The wind stole her cry and whipped sparks from the fire into the frenzy. Ariel’s eyelids clamped tight against flying grit. Still running, she banged her shins into some unknown bulk and tripped hard. Sprawled on the ground, she raised one hand as a shield. The other tried to pry open her eyelids. Her watering eyes could see nothing.

  A hand clutched her calf. She jerked it away.

  “Ariel!” She could only just hear Zeke’s voice above the scream of the wind and the skitter of sand lashing wood. They fumbled into each other and clambered together to their feet.

  “Run!” Uncertain by now where the snag lay, the sand in the air was so thick, they clasped hands and struck out randomly. Their feet floundered in the soft dunes. They coughed, inhaling sand with the air, and stumbled over unseen rises and dips. Their legs slipped, then caught and drove on, lungs and muscles burning with effort.

  Abruptly they ran beyond the edge of the sandstorm. Beneath stars once more, they risked a look back. Misha’s whirlwind formed a large sandy blot on the otherwise crystalline night. The only sign of the fire was a slight glow in the haze. Everything else had been swallowed by the suffocating cloud.

  “Scarl?” Ariel whimpered.

  “He’ll escape. He’ll find us.” Zeke’s voice shook, though. He spat grit.

  “I thought for a minute he might really kill you, Zeke.”

  “I—” Zeke swallowed. “So did I. Because you were already safe. Until he said that about remembering. Then I thought, ‘Maybe not.’ But five against one …”

  He shuddered. Sand cascaded out of his hair. More clung to his eyelids, his ears, and the rims of his nostrils. Ariel wiped sand from her own eyebrows and lips.

  “I wouldn’t have been so brave,” she said. “I would have run as soon as Gust pulled out that knife.”

  “What are you talking about? You actually ran toward the danger.”

  She couldn’t deny it. They’d resumed walking before Ariel had found any answer.

  “Maybe that’s something Farwalkers do.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  Guided by moonlight, Ariel and Zeke headed for the distant stone outcrop and its hidden water hole that Scarl had been trying to reach earlier. They agreed that the Finder would expect that. Besides, they wouldn’t be able to rest anywhere less sheltered, knowing that Gust or his friends might still be hunting them.

  Although the pair glanced back often, not a single figure emerged from the sandstorm. When the knot of flying sand finally dissipated, the dark desert looked empty. Listening only to their own grinding footfalls, Ariel fretted about what to do if Scarl failed to appear. Home now seemed impossibly distant, not only in miles but in events and emotions. A cramp of hopelessness seized her heart. She reached for Zeke’s fingers, seeking comfort. He did not seem to mind.

  When they set foot on the bedrock rising out of the sand, Zeke dropped her hand and took over. He led Ariel between wrinkles of stone to a tiny puddle of rainwater at the base of a twisting stone bluff. Once they’d licked the pool dry, he sank to rest among the scattered boulders nearby.

  Still on her feet, Ariel looked up doubtfully. “Isn’t there anywhere better? Rocks might fall on us here.”

  Zeke shook his head. “If any were getting ready to jump, I could hear it, I’m sure. And this bluff will protect us.”

  “From what?” No clouds veiled the stars, but any rain that did fall would pour right down on them.

  “Anything—anyone—that would hurt us.”

  Ariel had trouble imagining how a rock could put up much fight. Sighing, she turned to gaze over the dark swells of sand they had crossed.

  “It’s a good place to keep a lookout for Scarl, I guess.” She dropped beside Zeke and pressed her body against the stone’s lingering warmth.

  Her watch was short-lived. A troubled, half-conscious doze overtook her, molding her limbs to the ground and gluing her lids shut with sand. She couldn’t move. When she moaned at the discomfort, hands came to pat her all over. The wind, or a voice, whispered jumbled syllables of her name at her ear.

  “Ariel.”

  At last she dragged her eyes open. A man crouched before her, shaking her soundly. Ariel gasped and cringed against her stone bed. Fear rattled through her before she recognized Scarl.

  He put a finger to his lips. “Careful,” he whispered. “Our voices will travel far here.”

  She blinked and sat up, her mind clearing. Zeke snored beside her. The sun just breaching the horizon showed Scar
l alone, his skin and hair yellow with sand. He’d lost his knit cap.

  Without thinking, she threw her arms around his neck.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered.

  She released him as quickly, stuffing her willful hands into her armpits. Her impulse to hug him both shamed her and made her uneasy. Trust was one thing, affection another. She wasn’t yet ready to forgive him for his part in the loss of her mother—a loss that had echoed when Scarl had stood in the firelight with a knife raised to Zeke.

  They woke Zeke. Without saying anything more, Scarl waved for them to follow him. That’s when Ariel noticed the sand-clotted slash across the back of the Finder’s coat.

  He led them deeper into the flowing river of rock. The stone rippled into folds and tight canyons where wind-driven sand slumped in the corners. The trio skidded down a slope and then clambered into a shadowy chasm. At the bottom, water bubbled up from a crack and filled a small pool fringed by ferns and green vines.

  Grateful, all three slaked their thirst. Zeke submerged his whole head.

  Giggling at him, Ariel turned to Scarl. Her grin faded. He’d removed his coat to rinse sand from his face and neck.

  “You’re bleeding.” Seeing his red-soaked shirt, she was loath to learn what hid beneath.

  “I know.”

  Zeke resurfaced with a jerk that sprayed droplets from his hair. “What happened? Did you kill all of them?”

  “I don’t know that I killed any of them.”

  The Finder may have misunderstood Ariel’s frown. He added, “Oh yes, I tried. I’m not going to protect you from that. If it bumped me, I put my blade to it. I just had to trust that both of you had stayed out of the middle. Or at least wouldn’t be jumping on me. But I couldn’t see the knife in my hand, let alone any work it got done.” He ran his fingers through his hair. Sand flew.

  “And the first clear air I spotted, I ran for it,” he added. “For all I know, there could be five corpses in the sand or five pursuers behind us. The truth is probably somewhere between.”

  Zeke got to his feet thoughtfully and moved off a short distance. Guessing Zeke wanted to be alone to speak to the stones, Ariel approached Scarl more closely.