“They told you about that?” I hadn’t taken Mar and Ram for the gossipy type.
“No,” said Stew, dropping his arm around my waist as he hemmed in my other side. “But we tend to find out anything worth knowing.”
“Ram writes down everything in that little book of his,” added Swan. “Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be organized.”
“I wasn’t bluffing,” I said as I tried to shake them off, feeling smothered between them as they bandied words around.
“Oh, you don’t think so?” Swan asked as they continued to pull me along the path. “Then tell Bardzecki the truth. Perhaps he’ll be so overjoyed at the prospect of getting his birdbane back that he’ll hand over your mirror.”
I hated to admit it, but they were right—I was bluffing. I’d kiss a hostile before I approached Bardzecki for any reason. But instead of admitting all that outright, I said, “Bardzecki wouldn’t reward me with my mirror. He’d punish me for lying.”
“This is the part where you thank us,” said Stew. “Because we are going to help you get your mirror.”
“Oh yeah, and how are you going to do that?” I asked, thinking they couldn’t help me at all.
“We’ll get you leverage,” said Swan.
“I had that with the threat” I countered. “It didn’t work.”
“But you didn’t have their greatest treasure—the birdbane. Think of everything they went through to get it, and then think of what they’d do to get it back.”
“They didn’t do anything,” I grumbled, “I did.” But I thought they might have a point, and probably a plan. “They showed you where they put it?”
“No, Frost, they did not. But we already discussed this, remember? Ram writes everything down, so we know it’s hidden with the rest of their stash.”
“And we know where the stash is because we followed them a while back,” Stew added.
“Where?”
Stew stopped, turning me away from the convene to point at the dunes behind us.
“I don’t understand,” I admitted.
“They hide their stash at the dunes. Everything they’ve ever won from gambling,” Swan answered.
“But how do they get there?”
“They walk,” said Stew.
Swan elaborated. “It looks far, but it’s only four miles to the dunes. A soldier could easily make the trip there and back in one night with a few hours to spare.”
I watched him blink, almost innocently, a few times, realizing he was completely serious. “I can’t go haring off across the sand!” I paused and took a breath, shrugging out of their hold before spinning to face them. “You know what this sounds like?” I asked. “It sounds like my conversation with Ram and Mar right before they convinced me to go along with their asinine plan. And guess what, I know how it’ll end, too. With extra chores!”
Swan was unperturbed by my rant. He seemed confident I’d eventually cave in and go. “There is always the risk of getting caught,” he agreed. “But I suppose that has its own appeal, or else why would so many soldiers do it?”
“Think about it and get back to us,” said Stew.
“But make up your mind by the next wind day,” Swan added.
“Why?”
“Because that’s when we have night-watch together,” Swan answered. “No better time for a midnight stroll across the sand.” They turned, melting into the stream of soldiers that were going up the stairs to breakfast. From behind I could no longer tell them apart, just two tow-headed soldiers amidst the crowd, blending in among the matching uniforms.
Before joining them I glanced behind me, taking in the dunes just south of camp. Were they really four miles away? If I did, by chance, agree to go, getting my mirror back would only be part of the reason. Mostly I was just curious. We didn’t have dunes back home, everything was flat. What would they be like? How high did they go?
I was afraid I might have already made up my mind, but I was hardly surprised. I was overly familiar with that old Earthen saying “Curiosity killed the cat.”
* * *
My first tutorial was weight training with Roth. Together we walked to the southwestern rec fields. I tried to pay attention as he went on about the importance of my diet, but he’d found the one subject I was uninterested in learning about and I couldn’t help but open my Shetheerie textbook and take a peek inside.
He must have sensed my wandering thoughts, because he asked, “What did I just say?”
I snapped the book shut, contritely echoing back, “That I should never ever eat fats and sugars together.”
“I don’t know how you always manage to do that,” he grunted, taking the book from my hand. “I know you weren’t paying attention. And you won’t need this,” he said, letting my book drop just outside of the weight lifting area.
The shed was open, inviting soldiers to use the equipment inside. A few had already dragged out the barbell to bench press. Another stood alone, stripped from the waist up, beefy and tan. He was using an impressively large kettlebell. I stopped being impressed the moment he swung it in my direction. I responded without thought, jerking to hide behind Roth.
Northward, a game of fracas was going on and the sound of cheering stretched all the way down field. Dr. Pruitt spent most of his time treating soldiers who’d been injured while playing the rough sport, or so it was said. Either way, I had no desire to play. Ever.
“Come on, Frost, we’ll start you off with some small dumbbells.”
Giving my book one last lingering glance, I followed him to the shed. After having me lift progressively heavier weights, I think Roth was surprised by how much it took to challenge my muscles. We all knew I couldn’t keep up in PT, but even so, I was strong for a girl. He pronounced that I was trainable, smiling to himself, inordinately pleased by the fact. He then put me through my paces, the mild-mannered Roth long gone as the strict taskmaster appeared.
I couldn’t talk for a while. I was too exhausted. My arms, legs, and back felt like jelly, and the air smelled faintly of sweat. When Roth finally allowed me to stop and get a drink from the waterskins, I got the chance to bring up the subject that had been haunting me the last few days. “Roth, do you remember when I told you what happened with Ram and Mar, and you said I should have talked to you first?”
Having allowed me a moment of freedom, he was now focused on his own muscles, a massive dumbbell in each hand as he worked both arms. “Sure,” he agreed, mildly distracted.
“Well, I’m asking now.”
“A little late for that,” Roth responded, still distracted with counting reps.
“No, I mean about something else.” Halfway through telling him about my conversation with Swan and Stew, he had put down the dumbbells and was listening intently. Upon finishing, I asked, “So do soldiers really sneak off to the dunes?”
“They do,” he confessed. “Camp routine can get boring after a few months, and the dunes offer some entertainment.”
“You’ve been.” I could guess by his tone.
He looked almost sheepish. “Most soldiers have. Winslow even went a few times, but that was only so he could drag the rest of us back to camp.”
“So do you think I should take Swan and Stew up on their offer?”
He mulled it over, face wincing up at the thought.
“You think it’s a trick? I’ll admit, I have a hard time believing anyone wants to help me after what Ram and Mar pulled.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Frost. Those two are always trouble, but the thing of it is, they never get caught. So if the offer is a trick, then I’m not sure how because going to the dunes is like a right of passage here at camp. It’s not really a big deal.”
“So what entertainment do the dunes have to offer?” I asked, having already made my decision.
He smiled while leaning down to retrieve his dumbbells. “You’re just going to have to find out for your
self.”
Chapter 20
“Then the hostile lifted one massive hand, his black talons filed down and razor sharp. They easily ripped through the captain’s tender neck, splattering blood on the bulkhead and control panel. The grindt turned to find his next victim, a young mother and her baby, not even a month old—”
“Ugh, would you shut up?” I groaned. I’d listened to Swan tell horror stories for the past two hours. I couldn’t take anymore. “You shouldn’t make light of the hostiles. Most people on Little Red have lost someone to their attacks, haven’t you?” I asked pointedly.
“Well, jeez. You’re as bad as Winslow.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“The two of you sure know how to put a soldier in his place. Where do they teach that, anyhow? I’d really like to learn,” Swan said, not the least bit perturbed.
“No, you don’t do direct,” I replied. “You prefer to play mind games.” I knew he’d been filling my head with scary stories so I’d be terrified while going to the dunes in the dark. He and Stew seemed to find the most perverse satisfaction from causing discomfort to others.
“Our shift just ended. Do you want to go to the dunes? Or would you prefer to keep talking about me for the rest of the night? I’m not opposed to either—”
“How do you know our shift just ended?” I cut in.
“The last time we walked by the convene clock we had twelve minutes of our shift left. It takes thirty-eight and a half minutes to do a complete circuit around camp. Dividing the distance by time means our shift was over when we reached this spot.”
“This spot exactly? You can’t be sure.” But I thought he might be. He and Stew were frighteningly smart.
Swan ignored my question, deeming it insignificant. “I’ll wake up the next pair of yoohoos unlucky enough to get stuck on night-watch. You go get Stew.”
I turned, heading for our format’s hut, but he grabbed my arm to stop me with one last command. “Do not wake up Winslow.”
“Or Ram and Mar,” I added. “I know.”
A light was mounted over the entrance of every hut. One had even been installed on the front of my shed. They were dim, yellow, and thready, but having spent the last two hours roaming the dark, my eyes were fairly adjusted. I slipped through the hut, stepping over shadows nimbly. I knew where each soldier dropped his tunic and trous from my time on laundry duty. Not that it mattered; Dutton’s snoring would have drowned out any noise I might have made.
I prodded Stew until he sat up and then moved to the doorway to wait outside. What would my mum think if she saw me sneaking through the dark of night, past a dozen soldiers in their undergarments, sometimes less? She’d be beside herself, that is, until she wondered if I was just compromised enough to get myself a husband. Did my parents hope I’d meet someone here so they wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with me when I returned home? Winslow brushed through my mind, but I quickly banished the thought.
Swan was already waiting behind my shed when Stew and I arrived. “Did you bring the hoods?” he asked Stew.
Hoods were essential on Little Red. Mum and Lizzie preferred to wear the more fashionable bonnet to keep the sand out of their eyes. But nothing worked better than a hood. Made of a thick canvas, they fit around the head, hanging low over the face to lace around the neck. Stew tossed us each one by way of answer.
Tomorrow it would rain again, and soon the clouds would gather in preparation. But for now the only sign of an impending storm was the vicious wind. The air was restless, picking up sand and whipping it in waves. Camp was an oasis of sorts, staving off the worst of it. But out there the sand had teeth. Already it bit, sweeping across my exposed cheeks and hands to grind at the skin. I hurried to put on the hood, grateful they had thought ahead.
“Go get an extra jacket,” Swan told me. “It’ll get cold.”
From their preparations it was obvious they had done this before. When I came back out, armed with another layer, Stew was asking, “Are the night-watch occupied?”
Swanson smiled, playfully malicious. “They shouldn’t sleep in the buff. They’ll be searching for their skivvies all night.” He pointed toward the convene where something had been raised up the flagpole and was flapping in the wind. It was too far to make out, but I could guess.
Knowing it wasn’t likely we’d be caught by the night-watch (as they were busy searching the dark for their underwear) we didn’t have to worry about being quiet as we set off.
Swan pointed to a star above our heads. “That’s called Fria. Follow it and it’ll lead you straight to the dunes. And that,” he said pivoting to point behind us, “is Caliente, which will lead you back to camp.”
“No, that’s Shaltoe and Hablla,” I corrected. “The Shetheerie named them, and most of the other stars in our system.”
Swan seemed impressed, but only said, “Yes, well, try telling that to Ram and Mar. They were the first ones to sneak off to the dunes, so they named their guide stars.”
“So they used the navigation techniques they learned at camp to help them sneak out of camp?” They had some gall. “And those names don’t even make sense. Shaltoe is a blue star, which means it’s hot. It should be named Caliente, not Fria. And vice versa since Hablla is red. They mislabeled them.”
Swan seemed miffed by my observation, but admitted, “That’s what we said.”
Stew whistled and dropped his arm around my waist as we crunched our way across the sand and stone. “What a giant brain!” he said, pretending to examine my head. “You might be our kind of gal after all.”
I sort of wished I’d never said anything.
The closer we got to the dunes, the noisier they became. The wind whistled over the peaks and valleys of sand, screaming and wailing an angry tune—it was eerie. I’d never heard anything like it. The wind seemed angrier here too. It showered off the side of the dunes in sheets, sweeping down on us. Swan and Stew found the assault as unpleasant as I, and we jogged the rest of the way. I jogged each morning at PT and sometimes did sprints, so I could have gone on longer, but we reached the dunes fairly quick.
At first they were small, just little hills of sand standing no higher than my head. But those were nothing to the dunes of our destination, just ripples in comparison. We stopped at the foot of the first towering mountain of sand. I asked, “How tall do you think that is?”
“I’d say it’s as tall as the convene stacked up nine times, so 180 feet, give or take a few.”
“Do we climb up?” I asked.
“Rot that! We’d be climbing all night,” Stew answered.
“Come on,” Swan said. “There’s a way around. It’ll lead us to Ram and Mar’s stash.”
We jogged along the base of the dune, and despite my earlier thoughts about being able to go further, my calves were burning. Running on sand was harder than running on a walkway.
We circled around until we came to a second dune, the valley between them opening up for us like a giant door. And when we stepped through the wind died down, blocked by the looming hills. After that it was a maze, Swan and Stew leading me down looping paths that snaked through the valleys.
“Looks like the party’s already arrived,” observed Swan, stopping abruptly. Light flickered off the next dune over, voices and laughter echoing out. “We’ll go there after we dig up their stash,” he added.
It wasn’t far after that, though I had no idea where we were. A small part of me panicked, admitting that we had gone deep in the hills and I didn’t know how to get back out. But then I remembered the stars, wondering if Swan had showed them to me for just this reason. So I wouldn’t worry. Doubtful. Those two didn’t have a sympathetic bone in their bodies.
“Here!” Stew crowed. There was nothing where he pointed but a swath of flat sand. They knelt, scooping out armfuls of sand by interlacing their fingers. I followed suit, feeling sweat gather
on the back of my neck where the hood chafed. It was a matter of seconds before we hit something. Carefully we brushed off a bundled up piece of fabric.
“Have you looked at this stuff before?” I asked them as they began to unwrap it.
“Not since the first time we followed them here,” Stew answered.
“They’ve buried more stuff since then,” Swan said. He began to rummage through the pile. It was hard to see in the dark. I squinted down at Ram and Mar’s treasure.
“Maybe my mirror is here,” I said, unable to disguise the hope in my voice.
“Is this it?” Stew asked, holding something out to me.
I took it, feeling it in my hands before holding it up to catch the moonlight. It was flat and gilded like my mirror, also crusted in gemstones of some sort. The center was smooth and cool, but made of glass. I thought I could see a girl’s smiling face. I handed it back, unable to hide my disappointment. “It’s a picture of someone’s girlfriend.”
Stew took it eagerly, holding it up and shifting it back and forth. “Ugh,” he said giving up, “I can’t tell if she’s pretty.”
“It doesn’t look like your mirror’s here, Frost.” Swan poked at a few things with his finger. “Just a few thick rings with insignias, some other family heirlooms, anything made from precious metal or stone, and a lot of IOU’s.”
“IOU’s?”
He dropped a stack of papers into my lap. “A formal acknowledgement of someone’s debt, signed and dated. Ram and Mar are ambitious.”
“What do they use them for?”
“Right now? Nothing. But they intend to make it to the top, high-ranking military positions, so they’ll be calling in these favors, and doing whatever else they have to, to get there.” He put something else in my hand. “Is this the birdbane?”
I rubbed the thin waxy envelope between my fingers, recognizing it immediately. “Yes.”
“Awesome!” Stew grabbed it from my hand. “I want to try some.”
“What? You can’t!” I said, trying to wrestle it back from him.