REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness

21

STAVE 11

Things were cadavered across the plain where death had claimed them. Sunken and leathery husks calcified under the hard sun, picked clean of their organs by beak and talon. A monstrous array of scavengers skeltered across the barren ghostscape and sailed its featureless skies and even worse than the sight of such lifeforms were the tortured sounds they issued forth. A host of nightmares called madly in the stygian night, striking chords of terror in Tusk's heart as he traveled on the back of that stolen hofru with his improbable savior Aoh. Many of the natural inhabitants of this creeping beyond were alien to the animalist despite his instruction in all things zoological by none other than the esteemed Anatoli. Humanity had cocooned itself within its natural boundaries of mountains and thickwoods and crouched behind great walls as it licked ancient wounds. In that time the world beyond went changed. Quickened and mutated and worsened.

Aoh told Tusk of her life as they went through the arid hours like wayward ghosts. For her there was before and there was after. Before the Zhjaki imperialists came from the inner wastes and snatched her from her tribe and after the conquerors enslaved her in something more powerful than runery, and that was belief. Aoh's sisters in training had all been ready to die for their god and she came to hollowly embrace their ways but a small part of her soul remembered her birth-people and clung to their teachings. She had been gifted as a child and knew how to listen. Sat in the shadow of the elders when they gathered among the stone-ringed fires to adjudicate and prognosticate. Aoh remembered their words, kept them locked in her heart. She was gifted in her own tongue and was quickly grasping that of man's. Bloodnurses and painsmiths were allowed to study the languages of foreigners so that they may better interrogate and torment their subjects. This gave Aoh insight that many others of her kind never enjoyed. While the painsmiths were devoted to cultivating anguish and injury, the bloodnurses were taught to heal and even empathize. The intent was in the spirit of bolstering their captives for the taking on of yet more suffering, and to monitor their states of misery—but this new strategy had backfired with her. Aoh and Tusk combined had sparked a feeling she had never experienced. It was as if she had been waiting for this human to come from that faraway land to rescue her and not the other way. The truth was that they had each saved the other. Aoh expressed a readiness to abandon those dogmas and practices that had been forced on her. To now embrace the other ways of the world.

Their hofru stumbled. A spike of agony shot through Tusk's frame. He feared he would forever be broken after the tortures he'd withstood at the hands of Thajh's painsmiths despite Aoh's caring ministrations in the aftermath of those less tender. The Reaper could bear the road's abuse no more and begged his companion to stop the runed beast. He needed to stretch, work his muscles, get some rest. The horizon had grown pale with the promise of sunlight. Morning would soon come. Better to hide and sleep at day and travel under the cover of night. They hid behind a bank of stony coral. The land was flat with little cover. Aoh gave Tusk a skin of water that hung from the gruff beast's saddle. "We should keep riding," she said. "I am sure by now my masters know we're gone. There are lands toward Xul's Fall where there will be better places to hide."

"Xul's Fall," Tusk said, unsure what she meant. "What is that place?" He uncoupled the skin's lid.

"No one place," Aoh said. "Xul's Fall is always where the sun descends, wherever you are." She pointed. "So, that way."

"Ah," Tusk said. "We call that 'West.'"

"West," Aoh repeated, looking off.

Tusk drank and gasped. Whatever juice it was that Erumanir had kept in that vessel—or that Aoh had stashed in preparation for their escape—it was awfully foul and bitter. Like bile spiced with hell-peppers. Every sensation for these people was thorned in some way. But in his state Tusk could act no beggar. He drank and fought down the stuff and was thankful for the replenishment it indeed gave him. The Reaper realized upon a flood of new energy that the mixture probably had restorative properties not unlike his or Shroomer's own elixirs despite its disgusting taste. He handed the vessel to Aoh and she drank without a wince. Tusk had the skills to collect water in his own lands and knew the means to purify it. But he had not a clue whether a clean drop could be wrung from these parched and poisoned lands.