Sandstorm Box Set Page 19

  “I knew something bad had happened to him.” Samel’s gut wrenched as he surveyed his brother, who groaned incomprehensibly. “Can you hear me, Raj?”

  His brother’s response was indecipherable.

  “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get you a healer,” Samel promised, through more tears, even though he doubted his brother understood. “We’re going to get you home.”

  Chapter 2: Samel

  The wait for the healer felt like days.

  During that time, Raj mumbled, dipping in and out of sleep. Bianca dabbed at his sweaty skin, clearing some sand from his face. Once in a while she gave him water, when she could get him to cooperate. Raj rarely opened his eyes, and when he spoke, he made no sense.

  Eventually, four figures appeared through the glare of the sun, approaching rapidly. Samel squinted through his tears, noticing a bald healer with a backpack. Two other men flanked his sides—probably the Crop Supervisors. They carried a cloth stretcher between them. Marco followed.

  “I got help,” he said.

  Rushing over to Raj, the healer asked, “Can you hear me, son?”

  Raj groaned faintly, but he didn’t answer. The healer checked his pulse and felt his head.

  “What’s his name?” The healer asked Samel.

  “Raj,” Samel said.

  “He’s your brother?”

  Samel nodded.

  The healer pulled a cloth from his bag, wetting it and dabbing Raj’s forehead. Lifting his shirt, he performed a closer examination. “I see a few red marks on his chest.” He frowned and inspected them. “Thankfully, I don’t see anything broken, or obviously bleeding. But he’s been in the sun too long.” He looked at the two Crop Supervisors. “It’s possible there are internal injuries. We’ll have to be careful lifting him again. We should get him indoors, where we can cool him off, and assess him further.”

  The others nodded.

  “Where do you live?” the healer asked Samel.

  Samel described the location of Helgid’s house.

  “That doesn’t seem too far,” the healer said. “We’ll take him there.”

  Coordinating their efforts, the Crop Supervisors and the healer lifted Raj carefully onto the stretcher, carrying him from the graveyard and across the sand.

  Samel walked alongside, unable to stop his falling tears. “It’ll be okay, Raj,” he promised.

  Raj rolled his head, mumbling feverishly. Samel kept his eyes locked on his brother. He feared if he looked away too long, Raj might leave, like Mom and Dad, and then he’d never talk to him again.

  He followed the people and the stretcher across the bridge and over the water.

  Several people along the riverbank stopped to stare, holding their children close, whispering. A few asked questions that the healer answered briefly, but neither he, nor the Crop Supervisors, stopped. Most of the spectators were blurry faces to Samel, who only looked from the corner of his eye.

  Soon, they turned down an alley in the middle of the colony. Samel ignored a growing crowd of onlookers, keeping a fixed eye on Raj.

  Eventually they saw Helgid’s house in the distance. Relief flooded Samel as he spotted Helgid on the path between houses. She looked as if she’d been searching, too.

  “Samel!” she cried, hurrying up to them. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” Samel admitted through his tears.

  Her face screwed up with worry as she saw Raj in the stretcher.

  “By the heavens!” she cried. “Raj!”

  She asked the same panicked questions as Marco, Bianca, and everyone else, before realizing that no one had good answers. Unable to do more than follow, she joined the procession, wringing her hands. More and more neighbors watched from their thresholds, clustering in the alley, shaking their heads. Samel heard he and his brother’s name on more than a few tongues. It felt as if they were the center of their own ceremony. He wanted to get away from it all and to Helgid’s, where Raj could be helped.

  Finally, they were out from under the distracting stares and inside Helgid’s hovel.

  Helgid and Samel unfolded Raj’s bedroll, while the others placed him on it. The healer went to work, giving Raj more water and cooling him off. Marco, Bianca, and the Crop Supervisors watched helplessly.

  “Is there anything we can do?” asked Bianca.

  Feeling the weight of too many people in the room, the healer said, “I’ll take it from here. Thank you.”

  “Let us know if you need anything,” Bianca said. “We’ll check back on him.”

  “Thank you,” Samel mumbled quietly, as she, Marco, and the Crop Supervisors left.

  And then he and Helgid were alone with Raj and the healer. The healer took off Raj’s shirt, using wet towels to dampen his skin.

  “I’m going to elevate his legs,” he explained, propping up Raj’s boots. “That will help with the circulation. And we should watch for signs that he might vomit.”

  Helgid nodded as she got in a position to help. Raj rolled his head to the side, but he didn’t open his eyes. Samel flanked Helgid, feeling useless and scared.

  “How bad is he?” Helgid asked the healer.

  “He definitely has heat stroke,” the healer said. “As I told the others, I saw a few red marks on his stomach. I can’t tell what they’re from. We won’t know until he’s lucid enough to tell us.”

  “Where’d you find him?” Helgid asked, turning to Samel.

  “In the graveyard. He was alone, lying in the sand,” Samel said, tears streaming down his face. “I’m not sure how he got there.” He opened and closed his mouth, about to tell her more, but fear and guilt took away his words. “I just want him to be okay.”

  Pulling him close, Helgid said, “He’ll be fine.”

  Samel blotted his wet cheeks. The crack of emotion in her voice showed she couldn’t say, for sure.

  A footstep drew their attention behind. Turning, Samel found Amos, one of Helgid’s neighbors.

  “Can I speak with you alone, Helgid?”

  Helgid nodded. “I’ll be right back, Samel.”

  She followed him through the doorway and around the corner outside. New worry threaded through Samel’s stomach. What was going on? Were they discussing Raj?

  Private conversations always meant bad news.

  Taking a few furtive steps toward the doorway, Samel crept close enough to hear the hushed whispers. He missed the first few sentences, but he caught the end of the conversation. What he heard filled him with a new dread.

  “Are you sure it was Neena?” Helgid asked, clearly in disbelief.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Amos said, with grim severity. “She just got back to Red Rock. The Heads of Colony have jailed her.”

  Chapter 3: Neena

  Neena peered through the metal bars and down the end of the dirty annex. Dusty, squalid cells lined either side of the hallway. At the corridor’s end, a small window revealed a sunny sky that she might never see again.

  She shuddered and looked down at the scuffed floor, empty except for rat feces and scattered dirt.

  Fear, confusion, and pain coursed through her.

  The Watchers had dragged her as if she were a carcass brought in from the desert, paying no attention to her shouted warnings. The few sentences she’d gotten out had seemed like the words of a lunatic, sending the crowd back in fear, shielding themselves as if she had the death’s plague. More than one had grabbed their children, hiding them behind them. The people had looked at her as if she were a monster, worse than the one she came to save them from.

  The Watchers had stifled the majority of her message.

  Neena’s lips were chapped and cracked from where they’d clamped their sweaty hands over her mouth. She’d had no opportunity to explain herself, nor had Kai, as The Watchers pulled them through the enormous main room of the Comm Building, dragged them to the annex, and tossed them into cells, where they were left to rot like buckets of waste.

  Now she was alone, sav
e the man she’d come here with, a man she could no longer be certain she trusted.

  She peered toward the only other occupied cell, three down from her own. Kai found her eyes in the gloom, snaking his scrawny arms through the bars. When they’d first arrived, the Watchers had let another man out of one of the cells, releasing him.

  His time must’ve been over.

  Or was it?

  She had no idea what happened to him, just as she had no idea what would happen to either she or the stranger she’d brought from the desert.

  Through the light from the small window, she saw the markings on Kai’s face, and the pale, grimy skin beneath. She swallowed, unable to stop thinking of the words Gideon had spoken before unceremoniously ordering them away.

  “That criminal doesn’t deserve to walk among us.”

  Not for the first time, Kai insisted, “I’m telling you, Neena, this is a mistake.”

  “They called you a criminal,” Neena said, repeating Gideon’s shocking pronouncement. “Why would they say that?”

  She clenched the bars with shaky hands. Kai’s ragged breathing filled the space between them.

  “I’m not sure,” Kai said again, “but if I knew, I wouldn’t come here to be thrown in jail, would I?”

  Neena couldn’t doubt the validity of that statement. But Gideon had sounded so certain. Neena couldn’t help feeling as if the man she’d grown to trust—the one who’d saved her from the monster, the one with whom she’d shared a journey and many stories—kept secrets. She stared at Kai, wishing she could see past his shadowed gaze and to the truth beneath.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen to you.” Kai retracted his arm. She could still see the bandage she’d put on his wrist after the wolf attack. “If we’d parted ways in the desert, this never would’ve happened. This is my fault.”

  Neena frowned, recalling more of those frantic, fear-filled moments when they’d returned. She’d never forget Gideon’s words. You should’ve let him die, he’d said. To Kai, she insisted, “You must know something.”

  Clearing his dry throat, Kai said, “I’ve never been here. You have to believe me.”

  Neena swallowed. Truth or fiction might not matter for long. They might kill them both before she had a chance to determine one from the other. She wiped some sweat from her face with her sleeve. She could still smell the sweat of The Watchers who had dragged them away, leaving their stink on her clothes.

  “What are they going to do to us?” Kai asked, bringing up more immediate concerns.

  Neena looked down to the door at the opposite end of the hallway, where muffled, indecipherable words spilled from the other side. The Heads of Colony, Gideon, and The Watchers hadn’t returned since they’d thrown them in the cells.

  “I’m not sure,” Neena said.

  “What happens to the people they keep in these cells?” Kai asked.

  A shimmer of fear coursed through Neena. “People who steal are kept here for days, sometimes weeks. One time, a man stabbed another for some food.” She paused as she recalled the frightening rumor. “They say he was exiled.”

  “Do you think they’ll kill us?” Kai grabbed the bars, staring at her with intensity.

  “I-I don’t know,” she said, hating the uncertainty. She had never seen The Watchers or Gideon so hostile.

  She immediately thought of her brothers in their hovel, receiving the news of her capture. Or perhaps they had been in some part of the crowd she hadn’t seen. What would happen to Raj and Samel, if she never came home? They’d already lost two parents, and now they might lose a sister, too. Guilt overtook Neena’s fear. Her actions would affect everyone she loved.

  And on top of that a monster was coming, a monster that would—

  The door burst open.

  Three muscled Watchers stood at the threshold.

  Neena backed away from the bars, her heart knocking against her ribs. She retreated until she was against the rear wall of her jail. The cell suddenly felt like a cocoon of safety that she didn’t want to leave. The Watchers advanced, their hands by the hilts of their knives, looking between her and Kai as they stepped further into the shadowed hallway.

  She could no longer see Kai, but she heard his anxious steps backward.

  Neena swallowed. If The Watchers meant to kill them, she wouldn’t give up. She’d fight for herself, so she could get back to her brothers. The thought was foolish. Even if she managed the impossible and bested the guards, she had nowhere to run and seek refuge. There would be no heroic, fireside story of escape, no teary-eyed reunion with Raj and Samel.

  She’d die before she made it a few steps further than the Comm Building.

  The first Watcher stared into her cell with cold, expressionless eyes, a key in his hand. She waited for the key to hit the lock and for the others to come in, stick their blades in her gut, and put an end to her short life. Or something worse.

  The Watcher kept going.

  The others followed. They went for Kai first.

  Neena’s relief didn’t last.

  Whatever happened to him would most likely happen to her.

  “Please!” Kai said frantically, from somewhere in the shadows. “Release me in the desert, and I won’t come back!! Let me back to my people!”

  A surge of sympathetic fear hit Neena as they unlocked his cell and dragged him out. He dug his heels into the smooth floor, grabbing for the bars on either side of the hallway, but the men around him were bigger and stronger, and they hadn’t spent several exhausting days in the desert. They kept control. She had a moment to see the terror in Kai’s eyes as The Watchers dragged him past, and then he was through the threshold, screaming.

  The cold-eyed Watcher turned, momentarily meeting her eyes while reaching for the door handle to close the annex.

  Gaining a momentary dose of courage, Neena yelled, “Let me speak with Gideon! I’ll explain everything! Please hear me out!”

  The man looked at her, expressionless.

  Then he shut the door.

  Chapter 4: Helgid

  Helgid hurried through the busy alley. Too many problems seemed to be escalating at once.

  She needed to find out what was happening with Neena.

  Forcing her feet faster, she passed clusters of staring people, ignoring the aches and pains in her old bones. A few neighbors asked about Raj, but she didn’t stop to talk for long. She had little information, and not a moment to waste. Soon, she made it out of her alley, veering north onto the main path.

  Clusters of people filled the streets ahead, alongside, and behind, all heading toward the colony center. Unlike the people near her hovel, none of these paid her any specific attention. Something much bigger than Raj’s injuries was happening.

  Amos was right.

  A feeling of dread crawled up Helgid’s spine as she merged with the crowd of whispering people. Old and young colonists bumped elbows. Parents herded children. A few people hastily tucked their belongings in their houses before leaving.

  She moved with the flow of the crowd up the path, not stopping to ask questions, but hearing plenty of whispers as she passed row after row of hovels, knowing she’d see the answers with her eyes soon enough.

  The Comm Building loomed in the distance, its domed roof rising above the rows of mud brick hovels preceding it, and after. It seemed as if most of the colonists crowded before the curve at the end of the path circling around it in two directions. A few trickled down the outskirts of the path going left and right, lining up, but keeping a careful buffer from the building. Others hovered in the last houses on the path’s edge, holding their relatives, as if another awful storm lingered on the horizon.

  Helgid threaded her way through the crowd, pushing her way to the last rows of people. She fixed her gaze on the round, massive structure. Two-dozen Watchers stood guard in front of the thick doors, clutching their spears and eyeing the colonists warily. No one needed a verbal warning. The message was clear: stay away.

  Someone hi
ssed her name. Helgid looked right, recognizing one of her neighbors, a middle-aged woman named Sandy.

  “What’s going on?” Helgid asked.

  Sandy looked around furtively, as if someone might drag her away. “They captured a stranger on the edge of town. He was with Neena!”

  A sickly ball of fear settled in Helgid’s stomach. “What did the stranger look like?”

  “He was a few years older than her,” Sandra said. “He wore strange clothes. He had markings on his head.”

  “Markings?”

  Sandra nodded emphatically. She stuck a finger along her cheek, pointing at her hairline. “Dark markings, like black stains, that came down from his temples.”

  “Where did he come from?” Helgid asked.

  “No one knows.” Sandra shrugged, her eyes wide with curiosity and fear. She nodded carefully to the front entrance and The Watchers. “They pulled him and Neena into the Comm Building a while ago. No one’s seen them since.”

  Helgid swallowed and looked past The Watchers. Of course, she couldn’t see inside the closed, guarded structure.

  Another neighbor on the other side of Sandra, a man named Stanley, said, “I was near the tithing buildings when it happened. The Heads of Colony called the man a criminal. And Neena was screaming things that didn’t make sense.”

  “Like what?” Helgid asked, a deep fear taking root in her stomach.

  “Most of her words were unintelligible,” Stanley admitted. “But I was in the front of an alley when they dragged her past me. I heard her say the word ‘monster’ before The Watchers stifled her.”

  “Monster?” Helgid repeated, furrowing her brow.

  Stanley said, “She must’ve been delirious. She didn’t seem herself, that was for certain.”

  Helgid shook her head. Picturing Neena screaming deepened her sick feeling. “I have to get to her,” she said, taking a determined step in the direction of The Watchers.

  Sandra grabbed her arm. “Wait! You can’t go near them.”

  “I need to speak with them,” Helgid argued. “I need to check on Neena. I need to make sure she’s all right.”