Mia tried not to talk much. She didn’t want to grow too close to the other captives, knowing what was coming at the Hanging Gardens. But she watched how they cared for each other, an elderly woman comforting a lass crying for her mother, or a girl giving her own meager ration to a boy who’d puked his own meal down the front of his rags. Little kindnesses that spoke of the biggest hearts.
Mia wondered where her own might be.
No place for it out here, girl.
Her captors were a motley bunch. Their captain, Teardrinker, looked to be bedding her second, Cesare, though Mia had no doubt who’d be holding the reins on that particular ride. No woman got to lead an outfit of cutthroat slavers in the Ashkahi wastes unless she had the sharpest of teeth.
The Itreyans, Dogger and Graccus, both seemed the typical brand of bastard you’d find in any one of a hundred fleshpeddler outfits operating out of Ashkah. As per Captain’s orders, they didn’t lay a finger on the women. But from the hungry looks they threw her way, Mia imagined they resented it no end. They spent their downtime playing Spank with a dog-eared set of playing cards, betting with a handful of clipped beggars.fn3
The big Dweymeri, Dustwalker, seemed a more careful sort. He played the flute, and he’d treat the captives to a melody when he had no other work to do. The last of them was Luka—the young Liisian Mia had kicked into the dust. Short locks and a dimpled smile. The slop he cooked tasted worse than a pig’s arsehole, but Mia had seen him sneak some extra bread to the children at evemeal.
And that was it. Six leather-clad slavers and a row of locked iron bars between her and the freedom any of the captives around her would have killed to taste. All was sweat and puke. Shit and blood. At least half the women in her wagon cried themselves to what little sleep they could find. But not Mia Corvere.
The girl sat against the door and waited. Ragged bangs hanging in deep, dark eyes. The reek of sweat and filth was inescapable, the press of the bodies around her enough to make her ill. But she swallowed her vomit along with her pride, pissing in the road when commanded and keeping her mouth on the right side of shut. And if the shadow pooled beneath her was too dark—dark enough for two, perhaps—then the covered wagon’s innards were too gloomy to notice.
It was only four more turns to the Hanging Gardens. Four more turns of this awful heat, this godsless stink, this sickening, trundling sway. Four more turns.
Patience, she’d tell herself, whispering the word like a prayer.
If Vengeance has a mother, her name is Patience.
It was maybe an hour ’til nevernight’s end, and the caravan was pulling over to the side of its long, dusty road. Peering out through the tear in the wagon’s canopy, Mia could see a tumble of sandstone bluffs throwing shadows on the desert sand. It was an obvious—and therefore, dangerous—spot to shelter, but best to stop here in shade than press on for another hour and spend the entire turn baking in the suns.
Mia heard Dustwalker in the supply wagon as always, banging out an occasional peal of ironsong to scare off any sand kraken daring enough to travel this far south.fn4 She caught a glimpse of Graccus, scouting the rocky outcroppings from atop his snarling, shit-machine of a camel. He looked salty, face dripping as he squinted up at the suns and cursed the Everseeing for a bastard.
The first arrow took him in the chest.
It whizzed out of the sunslight, piercing his jerkin with a thud. A stupid frown darkened Graccus’s brow, but the next two arrows flying out of the rocks wiped it off his face, sent him tumbling backward off his beast in a spray of bright red.
“Raiders!” Teardrinker bellowed.
The women in Mia’s wagon screamed as a hail of arrows rained down on the caravan, punching through the canopy. Mia heard a gasp, felt the flesh around her shift. A young lass sank down in the crush, an arrow in her eye. One of the sprats took a shaft to the leg, started howling, the entire mass of bodies around her shifting like the sea in a storm and crushing her against the bars.
“’Byss and blood …”
Mia heard galloping hooves, the sound of black-feathered rain. Somewhere distant, Dustwalker was roaring in pain, Teardrinker shouting orders. The ring of steel rose over the bellow of wounded camels, the hiss of spraying sand. Mia cursed again as she was shoved face-first against the bars, the folk around her boiling to a panic.
“Right, fuck this,” she spat.
Reaching down to her boot, Mia twisted the heel, retrieving her trusty lockpicks. In a moment, she was free of her manacles, reaching between the rusted bars. She set to sweet-talking the lock, tongue poking out in concentration. An arrow sheared through the canopy just shy of her head, another thudded into the wood near her hand.
“… you may wish to hurry …”
The whisper was soft as baby’s breath, intended for her ears only.
“You’re not helping,” she whispered back.
“… i am offering moral support …”
“You’re being an annoying little shit.”
“… that too …”
The lock sprung open in her hand and Mia kicked the door aside, tumbled out in the blazing light. She rolled beneath the wagon as the other women realized their cage was open, falling over themselves in their bid to escape.
Mia could see a half-dozen raiders circling the caravan. They were clad in dark leather and desert colors, a mix of sexes and skin tones. Cesare was dead, punctured with black-feathered arrows. Mia saw no sign of Luka, but Dogger was crouched behind the aft wagon, Dustwalker’s corpse beside him. Teardrinker’s camel had taken an arrow to the throat, and the captain was hunkered behind its body, crossbow in hand.
“Stinking whoresons!” she roared. “Do you know who I am?”
The riders only jeered in response. Riding in that incessant circle, driving the escaping women back toward the wagons, and the captives in the other cages into a frothing panic.
“Diversion,” Mia realized.
“… from what …?”
Dogger ducked out from cover, loosing a quick shot with his crossbow. From somewhere among the rocks, a black-feathered arrow flashed, striking him in the chest. Dogger fell, scarlet bubbles bursting on his lips.
“From that sharpshooter up there,” Mia muttered.
The girl reached out to the shadows beneath the wagon, gathering them up like a seamstress pulling thread. It was so bright out here, so different from the belly of the Quiet Mountain. But ever so slowly, she stitched the shadows together, weaving them into a cloak. And beneath it, she became little more than a smudge, like a greasy fingerprint on a portrait of the world.
Of course, she could barely see a bloody thing. She’d always thought it cruel that the Goddess of Night would give her the gift to remain unseen but make her almost blind while doing it. Still, blind was better than butchered.
Mia crept closer to the wheel, moving by feel, preparing to dash from cover.
“… try not to get shot …”
“That’s excellent advice, Mister Kindly. My thanks.”
“… moral support, as i said …”
Then she was moving. Crouched low, hands out before her, away from the wagons and toward the outcropping ahead. All the world was a blur, coffee black and milky white. The dark shape of a horse and rider loomed out of the nothingness, clipped her hard as it rode by. She staggered, wobbling blind until she hit a low outcropping of rock with her shins and tumbled into cover with a curse.
“Ow, fuck it.”
“…