Agatine (Terres book II)

Chapter One

The three of them huddled in the corner of the wagon, barely daring to breathe. Rannok could hear the sniffing of the reavers outside. It made his hands shake and his palms sweat. The camel, released from its harness for the day, had run off as soon as it got wind of them. He was glad he didn't have to hear it scream as they tore chunks from it with their teeth.

He clenched his eyes closed and folded his arms across his chest. His forehead broke out in sweat. All he could think about was how they'd ripped Griffon's arm off and started fighting each other for pieces of it, blood dripping from the stump. Of course, by then he'd been dead. He'd scarcely had time to scream before the one jumped on him and tore his throat out while Rannok and Gabriel watched helplessly from above. Two weeks' time wasn't nearly enough to dull the memory. He doubted even two decades would be.

The cart rocked back and forth as one of the reavers slammed into it and let out a screech. Rannok tried to steady his breathing as it rushed in and out of his lungs and fought the urge to cry. Wren and Elyn squished him into the corner, crushing one of his wings against the far wall. He stifled a yelp as the cart rocked back and forth on its base a few more times, then stilled. 

They sat in the dark, none so much as moving a muscle, and waited for the reavers' calls to quiet. He listened as they dimmed, then faded completely into the distance and all he could hear was ragged breathing as Elyn got up and popped his head out of the wagon.

"They're gone," he said. Wren scrambled away from him as if he was poison, lilac wings folding neatly onto her bag as she hopped down from the wagon and onto the dry, cracked earth. He followed and scooted off the edge, then around the edge of the wagon.

"I hope Jojo comes back," Rannok said as he examined the camel's broken lead. He stared off into the desert. The ground was too hard to have left good tracks, and there was no telling which direction the animal might have gotten off to.

"Sun's getting low," Elyn remarked. He shaded his dark eyes with his hand and stared out into the horizon. Rannok nodded. There was no time to go looking for him now. It would have to wait for the morning when the sun came back up, and by that time Jojo could be miles away.

The sound of Wren rustling around in the wagon stopped and she returned with the same bag of dried biscuits they'd been eating out of for days. She tossed it to Elyn and he took a few, then handed it to Rannok. He was sure they were all thinking the same thing.

"How far are we from the city?" Wren asked.

"Three days, maybe four," Elyn replied, and his face was all hard determination. He looked down at the ground. Rannok knew he meant with the camel. Without it they were as good as dead.

"Our water's running out," Wren said. There were bags under her eyes and in the last few weeks her forehead had begun to form perpetual creases of worry. Not that any of them were any better off. Two incidents with diggers--one of which had almost lost them the camel--and an attack by reavers all in the last two days meant that they were all tired. They'd learned quickly that it wasn't safe to pitch their tent on the ground, not when there weren't enough people to scare off diggers on top of the scorpions and snakes they already had to worry about. Instead they were all squished together inside the wagon at night, which was barely big enough to hold one of them, let alone three. 

On top of that, Wren had not spoken a word to him since they'd left the caravan, and he doubted she planned on starting anytime soon. Instead she relayed all of her communication through Elyn, as if they were schoolchildren who had gotten in a fight instead of reasonable adults who talked to one another. His chest got hot just thinking about it.

Rannok sighed and began gathering twigs and brush that grew dried and dead among the cracks in the ground. The horizon still shimmered with light as the heat dissipated and the sun reached the horizon. They still had an hour or so of good heat left before the moon rose and plunged them into cold. Rannok shuddered and wondered whether reavers came out at night, or if the fire kept them away like it kept away the jackals that stalked them from the shadows, just far enough that they couldn't be caught and made into dinner.

"Do you know where the flint is?" Rannok asked, and without another word Elyn disappeared and came back with it a few minutes later. He handed it over to Rannok and he flicked it at the small pile of brush. It ignited at once, crackling as he fed it dried chunks of plant root and pieces of grass.

"I wish we had something to cook over it," Elyn sighed as he took a seat by the fire. Rannok's stomach growled loudly in agreement and he nodded. Wren had already disappeared into the wagon and he looked after her with his eyes.

"You should ignore her," Elyn said. 

"It's not worth the trouble," Rannok replied as he turned his attention away from her and fed the fire another stick. It flared and he pulled his hand away. Ignoring her was just likely to make her more pissed off at him instead of less.

"She does it to you," Elyn said.

Rannok shrugged, wings rising up and down on his back. Having nothing to cook meant that Wren wouldn't be making any further appearance. The only time she did anything other than sulk in the evening is when they had fresh meat to roast. 

"What did you do to her, anyway?" Elyn asked. Rannok's face flushed. He stared intently at the fire. He remembered the way her face had looked. How it had cracked like an egg while he disappeared around the corner of a building and watched as the wooden stand collapsed around her. How tempted he'd been to confess, until he'd let the ruse go on for so long--for weeks--that the outcome seemed inevitable anyway.

It wasn't like the villagers didn't shun him already. It had been going on for a long time before then. Probably since Rannok's cousin fledged. Rannok remembered his agonized cries while they beat his face in until it looked less like a person than like a melon smashed upon the ground. Then the screams went silent.

The villagers had acted like they'd promptly forgotten, and Kana and Hael were too young to realize it, but everyone looked differently at them after that. Like they had some kind of disease. Of course it was all his mother's fault. The only reason his father hadn't left was that it wasn't an option. People didn't leave their wives in the village, not unless they died first.

Elyn didn't seem to mind that Rannok didn't answer. It was nice to have friends, ones that didn't hang around just because he was another outcast without any other options. Friends that didn't treat him like a savage because of things he couldn't control and that didn't saddle him with all the blame for someone else's decisions. He poked the fire with a stick and held his hands up to it as an icy breeze blew past them. Rannok glanced around as if it heralded danger but heard nothing.

The wind whistled as the sun finally crested the horizon and pinprick stars speckled the sky like paint. Rannok felt almost content, really, on nights like this where the moon was small and he could see every constellation. They still had a long way to go, but for a moment it let him forget about what he'd done, or what he'd seen, or why they were there.

In the morning he'd need to find Jojo, or find them a way to get more water, or both. Not that water would help. Without the protection of the wagon they were as good as dead. He stood without saying anything else to Elyn and hopped on board the wagon. Wren sat in a corner, turning a dagger over in her hands, brown eyes glinting in the dark. Her hair hung in fringes around her face. He hadn't bothered to ask when or why she'd cut it off, and he doubted she'd tell him anyway. She looked up at him, scowled, and crawled under one of the blankets, covering herself with her wings.

Rannok ignored her and settled into a corner, then pulled a set of skulldice from his bag. He would have done anything for someone to play with, but for now, staring at them would just have to do.

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Wren is still fighting, and Rannok is still sorry. If you were one or the other, what would you do? Share your thoughts in the comments!