Dustborn Read online

  He wanted to stand and shake off what felt like an awful fall.

  But the leg was gone.

  Just like his eye.

  Just like his colony.

  Flashes of memory came back to him through his excruciating headache. He recalled that final gathering on the podium, with his people before him. When he closed his eye, Gideon could still see Wyatt’s grave face, and the panicked expressions of his other Heads of Colony. He recalled the rumbling that shook the ground, sending the people into a crazed stampede. He recalled the shadowed form of the monster coming toward him. And then he remembered a pain unlike he’d ever experienced.

  The rest of the time was a blur.

  He only had a foggy recollection of crawling through the blackness that felt like it never ended, pushing through the pain to get to the light, and then a faint memory of hands pulling him from the pit, after which he’d collapsed for the last time, before he woke up here.

  If not for his instincts, he would’ve died in the monster’s dank hole, alone.

  The healer said adrenaline had carried him.

  Gideon thought it was stubbornness.

  He was just like his father.

  He blinked through another stabbing pain in his head.

  The words of the healer and The Watchers echoed through his mind. The monster had destroyed everything he’d worked so hard to maintain. It had taken his father’s legacy and shattered it. If not for the beast, he would still be whole, and his people would have survived.

  The monster had ruined both Red Rock and his body.

  It had killed each and every one of his Heads of Colony.

  Or was it the monster’s fault?

  Gideon reconsidered that.

  The monster was a creature, as instinctual and primitive as any of the other creatures that hunted or ate. For generations, he and his forefathers had had no trouble keeping it away. Another wave of pain washed over Gideon, so fast and so strong that he felt a shiver in his arms.

  That pain solidified into two faces.

  Neena and Kai.

  Was it the monster’s fault, or theirs?

  They’d brought the monster here.

  They’d lured the Abomination to Red Rock and ruined his body. They’d brought death to his colony, after generations of peace. Maybe it was their fault, not the monster’s.

  The more he considered it, the more he was certain.

  If not for Neena and Kai, six hundred men, women, and children of Red Rock might still be alive. And the old man, Darius, who helped them, was at fault, too.

  The suffering of Gideon and his people wouldn’t go unpunished.

  The three of them would pay, and Gideon would restore Red Rock to what it was.

  Riding out another wave of pain, Gideon closed his remaining eye, falling back asleep.

  Chapter 10: Kai

  The morning sun gleamed off of the faces of the seventy-five volunteers as they alternated their gazes between Kai and the destroyed colony below. Together, they stood in rows, on one of the only broad, flat surfaces on the edge of the cliff at the end of the eastern formation, a precipice preceding the long, winding trail descending to Red Rock. Neena and Bryan stood next to Kai; the remaining young Watchers filed behind. Off to the side, Darius, Amos, and a handful of other volunteers held The Watchers’ horns.

  “Most of you are familiar with the warnings I’ve given in the cave, or from passing conversations,” Kai said, “but some of you might not have heard this information before.” He looked at a handful of widowed women standing among the men, holding the spears of their dead husbands, and some men beside them. “Those who hunt will know the best means to stay quiet. The rest of you should follow your neighbors’ lead.”

  Beside him, Neena and Bryan nodded knowingly.

  In more detail, Kai described how the creature attacked, things to watch for, and the best ways to react. “Once the creature surfaces, quiet will only go so far. If you are able to get into a hovel, you might have a chance at safety. Of course, there is always the possibility it will collapse, or the monster might burst through it.”

  The volunteers lowered their heads. No one needed to remind them of those who died under gruesome avalanches.

  Kai gestured for Neena to speak.

  “As The Watchers have suggested, we will work in teams of five, scavenging through the rubble and looking out for one another,” she said. “We will fill our bags with as much as we can. The team of Crop Tenders will head immediately to the vegetables and assess them, take what they are able, and make a determination on the rest for later discussion.”

  No one debated the plan they’d solidified in the caves.

  They understood.

  When Neena was finished speaking, Kai beckoned closer to the cliff’s edges, where Darius, Amos, and the other volunteers stood with the Watchers’ horns.

  “We will use the horns in the way with which you are familiar. A single, urgent note means a severe sandstorm is coming; two mean a lesser storm.” He paused for emphasis. “Three, rapid notes mean the Abomination is near.”

  The people murmured quietly. Hearing the name of the beast that had haunted their nightmares sent prickles of fear through them.

  A short, tense silence fell over the group.

  The time for speaking was done.

  The time for action had arrived.

  Kai sucked in a breath. “Does anyone have any questions?”

  The people shook their heads, adjusting their bags.

  Without another word, Kai gripped his spear and turned to face the long, winding path that descended from the safe, high perches where they’d been living.

  Then he beckoned for the others to follow.

  Fear laced Kai’s eyes as he led the group with Neena. The Watchers followed in twos, reinforcing the marching pattern and motioning for the others to fall in line. Together, they and the seventy-five volunteers crept down the long, narrow pathway, holding their bags and their spears. Kai looked over his shoulder, up to the precipice. The people they’d left behind shifted nervously, horns at their sides. Darius stood in the middle, leaning on his cane.

  Kai forced his attention forward, placing one careful boot in front of the other. A few hundred feet down the steep slope, the first of the crumbled hovels on Red Rock’s eastern side grew closer. The fallen piles of mud brick and stone looked as if they’d been that way for years, instead of two weeks.

  They followed several turns, dipping behind walls of rock that temporarily barred their view of the colony, before passing them and seeing the colony again. The Comm Building rose high above the other structures, a constant reminder of the dead leaders who resided there, and whom had once ordered Kai’s death.

  Kai blew a nervous breath.

  He never would’ve predicted how his life was turning out. If not for his escape from New Canaan, he would’ve rotted in a cell. He would’ve never met Neena. The past few weeks had been a dangerous storm of coincidences and events, but there had been some good in there, too.

  Over the past few weeks, Red Rock had become less and less strange. It wasn’t quite home, but it was the best home he’d had. And for that reason, he’d protect it. He’d do what he could to make the trip successful.

  He moved instinctively closer to Neena, clutching his spear.

  His arm brushed hers.

  Continuing down the path, they passed several branching, dead-end trails that forked off from the main one, where The Watchers rested or relieved themselves, in normal times. A few times, they walked past old, spent torches. Once, they came across a flask that looked as if someone had dropped it in a place they couldn’t reach. Kai remembered some of the curves and landmarks from the way up, when they’d made that long, initial trek from Red Rock to the cliffs.
/>   The last conversations faded. The tread of boots on rock, dirt, and sand became the only sound.

  Following the well-trodden trail, Kai thought of the many Watchers who had used this path for generations. Those old, dead men felt like ghosts, watching over them, whispering warnings.

  They walked for a long while, heading toward the empty patch of desert that separated the eastern cliff from the colony, a patch that instilled an ominous fear in all who followed.

  Finally, they reached the sand.

  Kai swallowed as he took the first steps off of hard ground, leaving the safety of the cliffs behind.

  Chapter 11: Darius

  Darius stared out over the ruined colony. The people crossing over the desert below looked like a line of insects, crawling toward the remains of Red Rock. He couldn’t make out every detail, but he knew Neena and Kai were in front. He kept his eye on the head of the line as they traversed the dangerous sand, feeling a tinge of guilt. He wished he were with them. But he knew that, logically, that would be a bad idea.

  Leaning over to Amos, he said, “At least the heavens spared my eyes.”

  Amos laughed—a nervous sound that echoed everyone’s sentiments. “If not for this old body, I would’ve gone with them, too. But we are with them in spirit.”

  The men and women with the horns shifted anxiously. A few spoke quietly on the precipice while keeping an eye on the ground below. All kept a safe buffer from the cliff’s edge. Darius wasn’t fond of standing so close to the drop-off, but he wouldn’t let his friends out of his sight.

  He’d already lost too many.

  Like his good friend Elmer.

  His eyes wandered to the section of homes on the eastern edge of the colony, where Elmer had lived. Those rubble-strewn, cracked homes reminded Darius of the time he’d spent with the survivors in the lower cave, when he’d watched the monster destroy them. Shortly after leaving the lower cave, before coming up to the cliffs, he’d found Elmer’s body. He still felt guilty for being unable to save his friend. Of course, he wondered how it could have gone differently.

  Hopefully, Elmer was with his ancestors.

  Akron’s parents were there, too.

  After discovering Elmer, Darius had gone searching for the people with whom he had shared another loss, but they were dead and buried, as well. He’d never even had the chance to tell them about Akron.

  He shook his head.

  He still had questions about the boy’s death—things he wanted Gideon to answer. The Watcher who had held Akron’s knife was dead, as were most of the veteran Watchers. The young Watchers seemed uninvolved. But he still wondered who had given the command to kill Akron. Was it Thorne, or Gideon? And how much did Gideon know about that monster’s carcass, deep in the lower caves?

  Did he know anything more about the miners?

  Those answers—buried deep in Gideon’s injured brain—might give them hope for killing the monster in the desert, or give him closure about Akron.

  Watching over the people below, Darius prayed that they’d be able to scavenge the food safely. Later, when Neena and Kai were back, he’d talk to them about confronting Gideon again.

  Chapter 12: Neena

  Neena’s heart pounded as they reached the end of the patch of desert at the bottom of the eastern cliffs. Before them were the first of the colony’s buildings. Looking up at the cliffs, she spotted the tiny figures on the horizon they’d left behind. All faced in their direction, watching with fear.

  No one made a sound as they entered the colony, listening for rumbles, screams, or a horn that meant someone up above had spotted something. Walking the familiar ground gave Neena a shiver she couldn’t erase.

  The fetid odor of death washed over the air, seeping inside her nose, gagging her. The stench was worse than anything they’d smelled from the cliffs, and it reminded her of all those she’d lost, buried or missing, food for the monster’s vile stomach. A few people behind her coughed, covering their noses with their hands to protect them from the smell. Neena pulled her shawl over her face.

  Passing the tithing houses, they glanced over at the intact structures. The doors were shut and secured, just as they’d left them two weeks ago, when she and some other survivors had scavenged the last of the meat and vegetables before heading to the cliffs. The four hundred survivors were consuming those rations quickly.

  Too quickly.

  With a spear in her hand and a bag on her back, Neena walked next to Kai, past the storehouses, which had also been emptied, and down the main path of the colony. Without a word, ten Crop Tenders filtered past them, moving at a quick, quiet pace, heading for the river.

  Neena watched them go with a shimmer of unease. Hopefully they listened to Kai’s instructions.

  She and Kai kept walking, passing a handful of alleys, while the people behind them filtered into them. Neena glanced over her shoulder, observing a few Watchers stopping at a hovel on the path’s edge, quietly pulling aside the stones.

  The devastation in the colony still surprised her. The stomping feet and screams of her people had thrown the creature into a frenzy. She recalled those first warnings Kai had given her in the desert.

  Panic is the easiest road to death.

  If not for the chaos, more people would’ve survived.

  Three other volunteers accompanied her and Kai as they broke off down the fifth row. Together, they stepped carefully down the ruined pathway. Bones were strewn everywhere. Most were dug out by scavenging animals and picked clean. A few were wrapped in stringy garments, hiding last bits of blood and skin, awaiting scavengers’ mouths, claws, and teeth. Neena shuddered as a bird landed on the top of a collapsed hovel, opening and closing its beak on a scrap of a colonist’s flesh.

  It felt as if the winged animals had claimed the colony.

  At least the birds meant the Abomination wasn’t close.

  Yet.

  The three other colonists in she and Kai’s group moved for the first ruined building, and she went to follow.

  A touch on her shoulder startled her. She spun.

  “Are you all right?” Kai asked, his eyes filled with concern.

  “I’m fine,” Neena answered quietly.

  She looked away from the bones and up to the cliffs, high up on the horizon, where Darius and his group looked down on them.

  “I know this is hard for you,” Kai said.

  Neena took a shuddering breath. “I’ll get through it. We all will.”

  They joined the other three volunteers, picking through the rubble of the first hovel. Some of the bricks had cracked off completely, while others were still stuck together. They moved as many bricks as they could alone, before helping each other carry the larger pieces. After a little while, they uncovered some cookware, some crushed clothing, and a tattered bedroll. Neena felt a sting of disappointment until one of the colonists hissed, “I’ve got something!”

  She looked over to find a woman dusting off a small pouch of food. That small find gave Neena a big hope.

  Together, they moved through the row of homes, both ruined and intact, uncovering several more pouches and a few flasks, which they tucked in their bags, slowly building a store. More than once, they uncovered bodies, skirting around them, holding in their nausea and their grief. A hard, solid pit lodged in Neena’s throat. She reminded herself that they were doing this for the people who were alive, and not for the dead.

  Eventually, they returned to the main path and headed to a new row. Across the path, Bryan and some of his Watchers headed west. She noticed their bags looked heavier than when they came in.

  A good sign.

  Together with her group, they cleared several more alleys, working around the monster’s holes, before reaching an intact group of hovels.

  “We should double-check them,�
� Kai suggested. “We might’ve missed something.”

  Kai’s point was valid.

  “We’ll check the northern side of the alley, while you check the southern,” the woman colonist offered, walking off with the two others.

  Kai and Neena agreed. Together, they approached the closed door of an undamaged house. A scratching noise came from within. Neena stiffened. She held up her spear, looking from Kai to the door. Several times from the cliffs, they’d spotted roaming wolves wandering among the carcasses. Those feral creatures might provide an unexpected meal, but also an unexpected danger.

  Kai took a few steps back while Neena grabbed the door, ripping it open.

  She leapt back from the entrance.

  Rats scattered inside, weaving around the abandoned belongings and hiding.

  No wolves.

  They walked inside, looking around at a few empty bedrolls. Those might be useful, but food was the goal of the day.

  “Vegetables,” Kai said, finding a small pile by the hearth. Disappointment crossed his face. “They’re rotted and chewed. I see a few herbs that the healers might be able to use, though.” He tucked them into his bag.

  Neena looked around the bedrolls, finding a few shirts near a wall that they could repurpose later.

  Finished, Kai joined her near the doorway, ready to head to the next house.

  A cry shattered the silence.

  They broke eye contact.

  A loud rumble echoed from farther away. Neena and Kai froze. It sounded as if the commotion was coming from the western side of the colony.

  “Stay still!” Kai hissed.

  Neena clutched her spear. Cries echoed over the continuing rumbling. Boot steps hit the ground. Flashes of the bloodshed and panic from all those weeks ago came back to Neena with such clarity that she felt as if she was living them again.