your da now, Flower?”
“Over there,” the girl said, voice cracking. “With th-the others.”
Teardrinker looked to the fresh-dug graves. Maybe three feet deep. Dry sand. Desert heat. No wonder the place stank so bad.
“And the slavers?”
“I buried them, too.”
“And now you’re waiting out here for what?”
The girl glanced in the direction of Dustwalker’s ironsong. This far south, there wasn’t much risk of sand kraken. But ironsong meant wagons, and wagons meant succor, and staying here with the dead didn’t seem to be on her mind, buried da or no.
“I can offer you food,” Teardrinker said. “A ride to the Hanging Gardens. And no unwelcome advances from my men. But you’re going to have to put down that sword, Flower. Young Luka is our cook as well as a guardsman.” Teardrinker risked a small smile. “And as my husband would tell you if he were still among us, you don’t want me cooking your supper.”
The girl’s eyes welled with tears as she glanced to the graves again.
“We’ll carve him a stone before we leave,” Teardrinker promised softly.
The tears spilled then, the girl’s face crumpling as if someone had kicked it in. She let the sword drop, Luka snatching himself loose and rolling up out of the dirt. The girl hung there like a crooked portrait, curtains of blood-matted hair about her face.
The captain almost felt sorry for her.
She approached slowly across the gore-caked earth, shrouded by a halo of flies. And taking off her glove, she extended one callused hand.
“They call me Teardrinker,” she said. “Of the Seaspear clan.”
The girl reached out with trembling fingers. “M—”
Teardrinker seized the girl’s wrist, spun on the spot and flipped her clean over her shoulder. The lass shrieked, crashing onto the dirt. Teardrinker put the boot to her, medium style—just enough to knock what was left of her fight loose from her lungs.
“Dogger, set the irons, there’s a lad,” the captain said. “Hands and feet.”
The Itreyan unslung the manacles from about his waist, bolted them about the girl. She came to her senses, howling and thrashing as Dogger screwed the irons tighter, and Teardrinker drove a boot so hard into her belly she retched into the dirt. The captain let her have another for good measure, just shy of rib-cracking. The girl curled into a ball with a long, breathless moan.
“Get her on her feet,” the captain commanded.
Dogger and Graccus dragged the girl up. Teardrinker grabbed a fistful of hair, hauled the girl’s head back so she could look into her eyes.
“I promised no untoward advances from my men, and to that I hold. But keep fussing, and I’ll hurt you in ways you’ll find all manner of unwelcome. You hear me, Flower?”
The girl could only nod, long black hair tangled at the corners of her lips. Teardrinker nodded to Graccus, and the big man dragged the girl around the ruined wagon train, threw her onto the back of his growling camel. Dogger was already looting the wagons, rifling through the barrels and chests. Luka was checking the cut he’d been gifted, glancing at the girl’s gladius in the dust.
“You let a slip like that get the drop on you again,” Teardrinker warned, “I’ll leave you out here for the fucking dustwraiths, you hear me?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” he muttered, abashed.
“Help Dogger with the leavings. Bring all the water back to the train. Anything you can carry worth a looting, snag it. Burn the rest.”
Teardrinker spat into the dirt, brushed the flies from her good eye as she strode across the blood-caked sand and joined Graccus. She slung herself up onto her camel, and with a sharp kick, the pair were riding back to the wagon train.
Cesare was waiting in the driver’s seat, his pretty face sour. He brightened a little when he saw the girl, groaning and half-senseless over the hump of Graccus’s beast.
“For me?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have, Cap’n.”
“Slavers hit a merchant caravan, bit off more than they could chew.” Teardrinker nodded to the girl. “She’s the only survivor. Graccus and Dogger are bringing back water from the wreckage. See it distributed among the stock.”
“Another one died of heatstroke.” Cesare motioned back to the train. “Found him when we let the others out to stretch. That’s a quarter of our inventory this run.”
Teardrinker hauled off her tricorn, dragged her hand along her sweatdrenched scalp. She watched the stock stagger around their cages, men and women and a handful of children, blinking up at the merciless suns. Only a few were in irons—most were so heat-wracked they’d not the strength to run, even if they had somewhere to go. And out here in the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, there was nowhere to get except dead.
“No fear,” she said, nodding at the girl. “Look at her. A prize like that will cover our losses and then some. One of the Daughters has smiled on us.” She turned to Graccus. “Lock her in with the women. See she’s fed a double ration ’til we get to the Gardens. I want her looking ripe on the stocks. You touch her beyond that, I’ll cut off your fucking fingers and feed them to you, aye?”
Graccus nodded. “Aye, Cap’n.”
“Get the rest back in their cages. Leave the dead one for the restless.”
Cesare and Graccus set about it, leaving Teardrinker to brood.
The captain sighed. The third sun would be rising in a few months. This would probably be the last run she’d make until after truelight, and the divinities had been conspiring to fuck it to ruin. An outbreak of bloodflux had wiped out an entire wagon of her stock just a week after they left Rammahd. Young Cisco had got poleaxed when he slipped off for a piss—probably took by a dustwraith, judging by what was left of him. And this heat was threatening to wilt the rest of her crop before it even got to market. All she needed was a cool breeze for a few more turns. Maybe a short spell of rain. She’d sacrificed a strong young calf on the Altar of Storms at Nuuvash before she left. But did Lady Nalipse listen?
After the wreck years ago that had almost ruined her, Teardrinker had vowed to stay away from the water. Running flesh on the seas was a riskier business than driving it on land. But she swore the Mother of Oceans was still trying to make her life a misery, even if it meant getting her sister, the Mother of Storms, in on the torment.
Not a breath of wind.
Not a drop of rain.
Still, that pretty flower was fresh, and curves like hers would fetch a fine price at market. It was a stroke of luck to have found her out here, unspoiled in all this shit. Between the raiders and the slavers and the sand kraken, the Ashkahi Whisperwastes were no place for a girl to roam alone. For Teardrinker to have found her before someone or something else did, one of the Daughters had to be smiling on her.
It was almost as if someone wanted it this way …
The girl was thrown in the frontmost wagon with the other maids and children. The cage was six feet high, rusted iron. The floor was smeared with filth, the reek of sweating bodies and carrion breath almost as bad as the camel corpses had been. The big one named Graccus hadn’t been gentle, but true to his captain’s word, his hands had done nothing but hurl her down, slam the cage door and twist the lock.
The girl curled up on the floor. Felt the stares of the women about her, the curious eyes of the boys and girls. Her ribs ached from the kicking she’d been gifted, the tears she’d cried cutting tracks down through the blood and dirt on her cheeks. Fighting for calm. Eyes closed. Just breathing.
Finally, she felt gentle hands helping her up. The cage was crowded, but there was room enough for her to sit in