Chapter Text
There was a caravan on the road, Khat dedeuced, from the actions of the pirates. He was not foolish enough to get anywhere near the action, knowing both sides would be perfectly eager to kill him, but he settled on a promontory and watched, waiting for the pirates to come back with prisoners to their camp.
It would be nice if they didn't come back at all, he let himself think for a moment. Let this caravan be better-guarded than they think, and lure them in and trap them all. But it didn't matter; there would be only a little respite for Khat, and then he would surely find another band of pirates, hopefully not the hard way, and his work would start all over again. There was never, ever a shortage of pirates.
A finger of rock jutted up behind him and kept him from being silhouetted against the sky, and kept most of the sun off him. He leaned against it and dozed lightly.
It wasn't long before he heard the distant shouts of an attack. He listened more intently, but the wind swept most of the noise away unpredictably. He scented at the wind but there wasn't anything decisive on it. He could tell there were no steamwagons with the caravan, but they were so unusual it hadn't been likely anyway.
He flattened himself to the rock as he saw motion, then leaned down to watch better. Pirates were moving through the midlevel. Khat squinted intently, trying to discern any prisoners. Sure enough, there were two pirates carrying a body between them-- was it a prisoner, or one of their own? It was too far away for him to tell.
He would have to wait for nightfall anyway. Another pair went by with a body. Khat watched them, unmoving, tracking their progress through the gaps in the stone. They were headed for the gorge, he decided.
Khat leaned against the stone, watching the last of the pirates slip over the lip of the gorge. Then he closed his eyes and dozed until the sun set.
As the last glimmers of dusk faded, he surveyed the pirates' camp, stalking stealthily through the midlevel maze, knife drawn and ears straining. There had been three captives, he supposed. One was gone, just a few bones remaining. One was in the process of being butchered. And the third was alive, alert, and staked in the shade on a ledge, struggling at his bonds, ignored.
Khat knew better than to try for him while any light remained, but he took a moment to study the man. He was middle-aged, perhaps, sturdily built and tall, dressed in desert robes and a tousled head scarf. He didn't look much wounded. There was no blood visible, and he favored no limbs, nor did he seem to have any trouble moving. The pirates had surely saved him for last because he was the least injured of their captives. Khat tried not to think about what else they might have saved him for, but he knew better than most living how nightmarish well-fed pirates could be when they felt they had leisure to amuse themselves at length.
The position wasn't safe, so Khat withdrew into the midlevel and waited for the noise to die down entirely. They hadn't learned yet to post sentries in pairs, so he would just have to wait until the sentry took up his post, and then he could kill him, just as he had killed their sentries every night for the last several days. He didn't imagine it was a popular job, at this point.
This sentry was paranoid, terrified, and worse than useless. He was huddled at the top level, trying to look everywhere at once. Khat tossed a pebble a little distance, and waited for the man to panic, then stepped in and had cut his throat before he'd even thought to turn his head.
They'd have a second sentry to check on the first in a little while, Khat thought. If they were smart. Which this group wasn't. But Khat knew not to assume. So he carried the body with him back into the midlevel maze, left it there, and found his way down to the ledge where the captive was huddled.
Be smart, Khat thought, and don't make a sound, but he didn't dare even breathe a word to the man. He was just going to free him, drag him towards the road, and point the way. This fellow looked sturdy and sensible enough to work the rest out himself.
All it would take was for him to be smart enough not to make any noise. Khat crouched behind him and put his knife to the rope around his wrists.
The man froze, holding his breath. Smart fellow, Khat thought warmly, and sliced the ropes at his ankles. The man moved his arms, then his legs, and turned to look up at Khat. Khat was silent a moment, terrified the man would speak, but he simply stared mutely.
Khat turned, and heard the man follow him. Good. He was walking sound on both feet on his own. Also good. He seemed to have some idea of how not to clatter blindly in the midlevel, which was extra good.
He heard the man pause as they passed the sentry's body, but then he hurried on after Khat. Khat thought of making a sarcastic comment-- did he regret the pirate's death, perhaps?-- but they were still far, far too close to risk any sound. And anyway, it was never any good trying to talk to city folk. Which this man almost certainly was. It had always suited Khat better to pretend he didn't speak their tongue, whatever their tongue happened to be, and let them assume he was just an animal.
The Waste rock opened out into an expanse of toplevel rock, solid and free of sand. Khat had come this way because of that-- he knew he couldn't take a Survivor-born human over sand at night and not lose him to a predator. It was open and exposed, and Khat paused, listening for any outcry at the camp. But the pirates seemed to still be asleep. It was a risk, crossing open ground, but any other route would either take them far out of their way, or require a slog through deep sand that would undoubtedly prove fatal to his new friend.
The man stood beside him, looking out at the expanse of rock, then glanced over at Khat questioningly. Khat gritted his teeth, expecting that the man would unwarily speak, but he didn't, merely shrugging. Khat looked back out at the expanse and sighed, collecting himself. He grabbed the man's hand, which surprised him, and tugged him out, and broke into a lope to cover the ground as fast as he could.
The man took only an instant to catch on, before he hit his stride and caught up. Long-legged, he kept pace easily enough with Khat, and Khat had an instant to think how nice it was that for once his luck was holding before sudden shattering pain sent him sprawling to the ground.
His thigh felt like it had exploded, and he knew instantly that he'd been shot; the pirates had air guns, two or three of them, and they must have had a second sentry posted after all. He bit his lips savagely so as not to cry out at the pain, his body twitching at the intensity of it.
The man didn't let go of his hand, but dragged him along for several steps, before pausing, clutching at Khat. The man was big enough that he managed to haul Khat's arm over his shoulders and drag him upright by main force, and stagger onward. Another bullet cracked against the stone, but the man didn't falter.
Khat stumbled, trying to move his feet. He found out the hard way that his left leg couldn't hold even the tiniest bit of weight, and nearly lost consciousness. The man kept dragging him along, doggedly, and as another bullet cracked, Khat pushed off with his right foot and staggered gratefully into the shelter of another midlevel tunnel.
The man dragged him a good distance further along before finally collapsing. Khat curled into the pain, shuddering and twitching, clutching at his leg. It was all he could do to keep silent. The man knelt beside him, breathing hard. "Where is it?" the man asked, in clear, well-educated Tradetongue. "How bad is the wound?"
Khat growled, baring his teeth at the man as he came too close. The man backed up, holding out his hands palm outward. "Peace," he said. "Be easy. I just want to help."
Khat kept his teeth bared, watching him warily. The man extended his hand toward Khat again, as if to touch him, and Khat growled again, guttural and low. The wound was bad, blood coming fast from it, and Khat thought grimly that it might prove fatal in relatively short order. He wasn't about to spend his last living moments being molested by some city-dweller.
The man tried one more time, and Khat snarled, snapping his teeth as if he would bite the outstretched hand. The man recoiled, and sat down hard a few paces away. "I see," he said, but he didn't sound angry.
Khat curled his body around the pain and rocked back and forth, hissing as he tried to catch his breath. He was light-headed, and he could feel the blood coming fast and hot from his leg. The pellet had gone through, so there were two wounds, both bleeding heavily.
The man was watching him calmly, with some concern. "Let me bind that up," he said, his voice mild, as if it were merely a suggestion. Khat stared up at him blankly through his disarranged hair, as if he didn't understand Tradetongue.
Didn't this man understand? Khat was an animal, a feral animal, more dangerous when wounded, and beyond reasoning with at the best of times. He knew firsthand that was what city dwellers believed. This man needed to take the hint and leave Khat to finish bleeding to death in peace. Darkness pressed in at the edges of Khat's vision and he bared his teeth, not sure whether the man would notice and press his advantage.
Sure enough, as his vision cleared the man was closer. Khat snarled at him as fearsomely as he could manage, and the man retreated. "I only want to help," he said, but there was no anger in his voice, only worry and patience. "Please, I only want to help you."
Khat glared at him, but the man sat back patiently on his heels and watched from a safe distance. "The pirates may come after us," he said. "Even if they don't, I don't know where the trade road is. If I let you die, I will also die out here. Even if you can't believe I would help you simply out of gratitude, surely you could believe I would help you out of self-interest."
Khat growled again. His vision was going black again, and the man wasn't going to give up. He fumbled at his boot sheath and pulled out his knife, settling his back against the rock wall and doing his best to look menacing.
"Come now," the man said, dismayed, "do you really think I'll hurt you?"
Khat was panting and hissing against the pain now, the cold seeping through his body in waves as his blood seeped out. He had never been shot before, had never been quite so dramatically wounded, and he was increasingly certain that he was dying. If only he could die in peace, it wouldn't be so bad.
The man crouched just out of reach, watching him. Khat narrowed his eyes against his darkening vision, watching back. The man had been right. If Khat died here, the man would die too. Survivor-born had no innate sense of direction.
"Road," Khat said in Tradetongue, and pointed westward, toward where the road lay, with his free hand, the one without the knife.
The man blinked at him, astonished. "Did you say road?" he asked.
"Road," Khat repeated, and pointed again. "How far is it?" the man asked, looking sly. He suspected that Khat understood, and quite obviously wanted to draw him into conversation. Khat gave him his best feral savage stone face, pointed again, and repeated his only word.
"Road," he said. The world was increasingly far away, and he panted helplessly for air. It was perfectly possible that this was it, that he was bleeding to death now. He wiped his finger through the blood on his trousers and drew an arrow on the rock, pointing west. "Road," he said again. His head lolled back against the stone, and he tightened his grip on his knife. It was like falling asleep, but more abrupt and inexorable. Khat dimly heard the knife clatter out of his grip, but couldn't fight his way back enough to move his arm to retrieve it.
He hadn't expected to wake up. The pain came back first, pounding in his leg. His head pounded too, with the dull fierce ache of blood loss. He was moving, somehow, and profound disorientation left him limp and befuddled for a moment. At last he oriented himself enough to figure out that he was slung over someone's shoulder, and that person was slowly trudging his laborious way in a vaguely south-western direction through midlevel rock, leaning heavily against walls.
Memory returned suddenly: the rescued city-dweller, the pirates' air gun. Khat wrenched his arm free from the man's grip and punched him squarely between the shoulder blades, unable to reach his kidneys at this angle. The man let out a startled cry and overbalanced, dropping Khat and falling awkwardly. Khat landed badly, his body unresponsive; he rolled to his good side but couldn't get up into a crouch. Instead he went for his knife, but it was gone.
The man scrambled back, getting awkwardly to his feet and working his shoulder with a grimace. "What is the matter with you?" he demanded crossly.
Khat scrabbled to a half-crouch, growling savagely and shaking his hair out of his face. He couldn't get up, and now he was disarmed. He wasn't dead, but he was horribly weak. And his leg was alive with pain, running in hot and cold waves through his body.
"I'm trying to help," the man said. "You could have just asked me to put you down."
Khat displayed all of his teeth. This fellow was tiresomely obtuse. Khat wondered if it would just be better to sit him down and calmly explain that he was a savage krismen incapable of reasoning who couldn't speak any civilized languages and was best left to the mercies of the Waste. It would suit this man's style better.
The man sighed, setting his back against the wall and sliding down to sit. He looked tired. Khat realized it was coming on toward dawn, that he could see the man that well. He was a pleasant-looking man, dark-skinned and even-featured, with dark sensitive eyes. He wasn't young, but he wasn't old either. He looked like a teacher or a scholar, certainly not the sort of fellow who should be running around the Waste.
"Am I at least taking us the right direction?" he asked. Khat tried again to push himself up, and made it this time, setting himself against the wall. It hurt worse than anything to move his leg, but he managed to get it to lie in front of him. He realized it was bandaged, heavily wrapped in strips of torn fabric.
The man sighed again, pointed southwest, and said, "Road?"
Khat pointed west. "Road," he said.
The man noted the correction. "I see," he said wryly. "I hope I haven't strayed too far. I'd ask how you know so surely where it is, but I don't have much hope you'll answer."
Khat thought of asking for his knife back, but he supposed admitting he knew two words was pushing it. Best to stick to one word. The request wasn't likely to be granted anyway.
The man rubbed ruefully at his shoulder, then pushed himself slowly to his feet. He looked very tired indeed. Khat didn't suppose it was easy to carry an unconscious krismen. He knew he was bigger than it was normal for a city-dweller to be, and heavy besides.
Khat watched him warily, teeth pre-emptively bared. The man must have bandaged him; as he moved, his robe came open, and Khat could see his shirt was gone. That was what was wrapped around Khat's thigh now.
They were in a relatively open latticework of midlevel tunnels, in a bit of a depression; there must be a reasonable amount of moisture here because there was a fair bit of vegetation. The man stood and surveyed the area, then looked back at Khat, who displayed his teeth again.
He looked weary. "Is it that I'm a stranger?" he asked, leaning against the wall and looking down. "Then let me introduce myself. My name is Sagai. I am a scholar from Kenniliar. I study Ancient relics. I have a wife, Miram, and two daughters. We are moving from Kenniliar because it is too expensive to live there, and heading for Charisat, where there is money to be made in the relic trade, so that I can support my family."
Khat did not waver, but continued to show off his teeth. Sagai stood for a moment, then shook his head. "All right, that didn't help. Do you really not speak Tradetongue?"
Khat glared at him, baleful and unchanging. Sagai came a little closer and crouched down, and Khat snarled at him, but was too weak to make any threatening moves. Sagai waited until Khat was quiet, then said, "Sagai," and pointed at himself. Khat didn't react. Sagai repeated the name, and pointed at himself again. Khat stared at him, then pointed west.
"Road," he said.
Sagai sighed, exasperated, and pushed to his feet again. "Fine," he said. "How about water? Do you know that word? Water?"
Khat didn't have to feign blankness. We're in the goddamn desert, he thought. And you must have searched me while I was unconscious. Do you think I can magically make the stuff appear? His vision had started to go a little gray, and he closed his eyes, gathering his strength. Leave me alone, he thought. Leave me alone. He pointed west, gritting his teeth, and said, "Road."
Khat kept his eyes shut for a few moments, and heard Sagai shift his weight and sigh. After a time, the man walked away. Khat sneaked a look. He was wandering through the open area, looking intently at the plants. Khat took the opportunity to investigate his bandaged wound. It was well-wrapped; the man seemed to have some idea what he was doing, and had packed it well with wadded pieces of cloth before wrapping it. Blood was dotting the top layer lightly, but it was dried blood; it looked as though the bleeding, formerly copious, had slowed or nearly stopped.
Khat might live. He thought about that. He hadn't expected it, last night. But if the bleeding had stopped, then the great leg vein must not have been split. And... perhaps the bone wasn't broken. He gritted his teeth, and tried to move his leg. It hurt, it hurt a lot, and biting his lips against the pain still couldn't keep the strangled exclamation from forcing its way out. His vision grayed out and he blinked furiously against it, trying to breathe deep, trying to push it back, but black followed the gray.
It must have only been a moment that he was out. He blinked himself awake, sucked in a breath, and pushed himself up on his elbow. He'd slumped over sideways. Sagai had wandered back, and as Khat struggled to sit up, Sagai crouched down on his heels to regard him.
Khat bared his teeth feebly at him. If this was the best Khat could do, he wasn't likely to live, damaged bone or not. The muscle was certainly torn, and he couldn't walk or crawl. And Sagai had his knife. And he had no water. He'd lost too much blood.
He couldn't sit up. His vision grayed out again, so he let himself back down, arms bent under his chest, forehead resting against the cold stone. He breathed, as deeply as he could manage, for a few moments. His hearing was muffled but he could hear a faint scuffing as the man drew closer, and he managed a growl.
"I can't even tell if you're growling at me, or at the pain," Sagai said. Khat turned his head, blinking hard through the tangled curtain of his hair, and made out the scholar, sitting on his heels a little more than arm's length away. Khat bared his teeth, and growled again. "Me, I suppose," Sagai said. "You didn't seem this feeble when you hit me just now."
It was taking far too much breath to growl. Khat panted instead, trying to get his vision to come back. The pain was alive, zinging up and down his body, making it hard to breathe. After a few moments he thought grimly that perhaps his earlier assessment of this as survivable had been overoptimistic.
But the gray faded, and after a moment he pushed himself cautiously upright. Sagai was still sitting just out of arm's reach, watching patiently. Relic dealer, Khat thought. Well, a pristine collection of fresh kris bones would certainly be a good start at establishing a business. Khat doubted he'd survive this anyway, but he wasn't eager to make a donation of himself either.
His head was pounding. He needed water badly. It took a few minutes for him to make his way upright, propping himself against the stone. Sagai was still crouching a few feet away, but had turned his head, and seemed to be absorbed in looking at his hands.
Sagai glanced over and saw that Khat was upright, and grimaced in what might have been sympathy. He'd been waiting, Khat thought, and wondered what the man would have done if Khat hadn't regained consciousness.
Sagai stood and moved away, heading with some purpose toward a stand of ithaca plants. Khat watched him, wondering dimly what he could possibly be doing. Did he want to build a fire? But the sun was up, and the day's heat would be upon them soon. Sagai fumbled at his belt, and pulled out Khat's knife. He crouched down and sawed through a stalk of ithaca, held it up, and looked into it. He stood, discarded it, and walked away. Khat watched him in bewilderment.
He moved around the edge of the open space, avoiding the deep sand, and approached a lonely scrub bush. He bent and cut off a branch of it, and investigated it. Khat realized suddenly that he was looking for pulp water, and snorted. What an idiot. There were three jumtrees sticking up out of the sand in the middle.
Sagai looked back at Khat, and Khat pointed at the jumtrees, forgetting to bare his teeth. He realized his mistake instantly when Sagai smiled, but it was too late. Khat just shook his head and pointed again.
Sagai stepped out carefully onto the sand, edging his way tentatively across it to the nearest tree. He cut into it and made a comical squawking sound as water began to drip out. Khat shook his head again, and looked away; the man must not know much of anything about the Waste, if that had been such a surprise to him. At least he'd known plants had pulp water, even if he had no idea how to harvest it.
Sagai scraped the thorns away and licked at the tree gleefully. Khat wished he could stand up, and walk over, and knock the man on the head and do it properly, but while he was wishing, he could just as well wish to run away. He pulled his good knee up and leaned his arms on it, and leaned his head on his arms, and watched Sagai ineptly butcher the tree.
Sagai stuffed a handful of dripping pulp into his mouth, but then hit upon the idea of cutting a piece of bark to lay more pulp upon, which was the traditional method of collection. Perhaps he wasn't a hopeless fool, Khat thought.
But to his surprise, Sagai immediately brought the piece of bark, heaped with wet pulp, to Khat. Khat was too astonished to show him his teeth. The man couldn't have even begun to slake his own thirst, after a day's captivity and a night of lugging Khat's heavy body.
Sagai came within arm's reach, cautiously, watching Khat, who simply stared at him. He put the piece of bark down, next to Khat's hand, and backed away. Khat still stared, utterly taken aback.
Sagai stood and went back to the tree. In an instant, without conscious thought, Khat had picked up the bark and shoved a big handful of the jumtree pulp into his mouth. The moisture was sublime, heavenly; he closed his eyes and let it trickle into the parched tissues of his mouth and throat. He sucked it down and finished the rest of the portion on the bark in a few scant moments, then set the piece of bark down and licked his fingers. The moisture had made an immediate difference to his body; he could breathe easier, he wasn't so dizzy, and the pounding in his head subsided somewhat.
In a few moments Sagai came over again with another piece of bark laden with pulp, and took away the old piece of bark. Khat took the new piece warily, and tilted it to drink the water that had already leaked from the pulp. He took his time a little longer with this batch. Sagai was trying to keep him alive. He had already known that, since the man had gone to such lengths to bandage him. He needed Khat so that he could find the road, certainly. Was there more than that? He surely knew that letting Khat die now would mean he'd have to lug the dead weight a fair distance if he wanted to keep the bones, but Khat dead and gutted would weigh much less than Khat alive and injured to the point of helplessness.
But Khat was too badly injured to survive on his own. And Sagai seemed to be too stubborn to abandon him. So he wasn't sure he had much choice in this matter. So far Khat's greatest virtue and greatest sin were the same: he seemed not to know when to give up and just die. He'd have to make the best of still being alive. There seemed to be no other way for him to be.
They spent the day's heat in the hollow with the jumtrees, slowly working their way through more of the pulp in the one Sagai had butchered. Sagai fell asleep, curled on his side. Khat thought to crawl to him and steal his knife back, but was unable to even get to his knees, and instead eventually fell asleep, trying to keep a wary watch but defeated by exhaustion and the lingering effects of blood loss.
He woke suddenly. It was afternoon. Sagai was kneeling beside him, within arm's reach. Khat showed his teeth at him, shoving himself upright and shaking his hair out of his face.
"Easy," Sagai said. "I just wanted to give you more water before we move on."
Move? Khat wasn't going anywhere. But Sagai had another portion of jumtree pulp for him, and backed away, leaving it there. Khat could see now that the man had been trying to figure out a way of transporting the stuff; there were discarded bits of bark wrapped into all sorts of improbable shapes piled on the rock ledge where Sagai had been sleeping. He was reluctantly glad to see that the man still seemed to be wary of walking on the sand, as he should be. It would just be awkward now if the man he'd rescued was killed by one of the poisonous Waste predators that haunted the sands.
Khat didn't need this last helping of water, but he ate the pulp anyway. Sagai hadn't figured out a good system to transport the pulp, and it never lasted long anyway. You could squeeze it into a waterskin, if you had one, but Khat had nothing of the sort with him, and hadn't the wherewithal to improvise one.
Sagai came over and crouched beside him, a little farther off. He pointed. "Road?"
Khat nodded. "Road," he said. Sagai was right, and was pointing nearly due west. The man didn't need him, then. But of course, he wouldn't be able to withstand the sun on the top level, and in the midlevel, would be disoriented by the tunnels.
Sagai stood, and held out a hand to Khat, as if to help him stand up. Khat regarded him dubiously, and pointed. "Road," he said again.
Sagai just stood there, patient as a stone. Khat regarded his hand with distaste. Sagai wouldn't be able to find the road on his own. Not from here. He still needed Khat. Which meant he would still keep Khat alive. The krismen wasn't quite sure what he felt about that prospect, but had to admit that being alive was still something he was interested in.
He pushed himself up against the rock wall instead, struggling to get up on his one good foot. He'd need Sagai's help to walk, but he wasn't going to reach out and take the man's hand. Sagai watched him, then gingerly reached out and took his arm as Khat wavered and nearly fell over.
Khat managed to turn his growl into a sigh, and let Sagai pull his arm over his shoulders, and put his arm around his waist. Sagai took a step, and Khat staggered, hissing in pain. It hurt to hold his leg up.
Sagai waited a moment, and Khat pointed, to their left. They were facing slightly the wrong direction. "Road," he said.
"Road," Sagai echoed, and leaned his body against Khat's to help him hop-shuffle forward. It was not going to be easy.
They didn't make it far. The pain rose quickly to a level that blocked out everything else; when Sagai stopped to ask if they were still headed the right way, it took Khat several minutes to clear his vision enough to see the man's hand, and another few to collect himself enough to raise his hand to point westward. They stopped to rest for a little while, but pressed on as the shadows lengthened. The krismen had almost immediately overcome his reluctance to touch the man; now he clung to him like creeping devilweed to a rock. For a time the only thing Khat was aware of was the burning effort to hop one more step, and the salty taste of blood as he bit his lips bloody.
After a time Sagai was dragging him. A brief absent eternity of that, and Sagai paused and bent to lift Khat again. Khat hung limply, not quite unconscious, gasping for breath, as the man shuffled laboriously along. He was strong, Sagai was, and bigger than Khat, which was unusual, but it wasn't easy for him to carry the krismen.
Sagai was still trudging gamely along when Khat came to himself enough to notice that the light was fading. He freed one hand from Sagai's grip and patted the man's shoulder. Sagai flinched, expecting a blow, then staggered, then carefully bent and set Khat on his feet. Of course, Khat couldn't stand, but Sagai carefully let him down to the ground.
"What," Sagai said. He was sitting very, very close to Khat, but Khat couldn't summon the hostility to get him to move away. Instead Khat rubbed at his face, pushing his hair back, and pointed at the sky, then down to the horizon.
Sagai stared blankly. No, Khat thought, he's not getting me to tip my hand. Come on, even someone this ignorant must know better than to travel the waste by dark.
Khat sighed, and looked blearily around, getting his bearings. He pointed west, almost by reflex. "Road," he said.
"Road," Sagai echoed, nodding. "I know. We're going that way."
Khat pointed at the sky, then gave up and rubbed his face again. He was dizzy and felt sick, and the pain was really terrible. They were in a midlevel tunnel, and he craned his neck, looking both ways, and scented at the air. He hadn't any real sense of the terrain here.
Now would be a good time for him to be well enough to walk. He could set a trap and as the predators came out for the night, kill them so they'd have something to eat. But his whole left leg was a white-hot lance of pain, and he knew even attempting to move was beyond him.
Finding another stand of jumtrees would be the second-best thing. Khat needed water again, even though he'd had so much of it today. But to do that he'd have to climb to the top level and look around. Which he could no sooner do than fly.
Sagai pointed west. "Road," he said hopefully.
Khat shook his head. He pointed east, then drew his finger across the sky in an arc to the west, and stopped at the horizon, and shook his head. Sagai stared blankly. Khat put his hand down to the ground, then mimed a pair of snapping jaws coming up out of the rock, then looked at Sagai.
Sagai looked uncertain, but retreated slightly out of Khat's personal space, and took off his robe and shook it out. He looked resigned to spending the night here, and Khat nodded approvingly.
He struggled out of his own robe and folded it into a pillow, then curled up on the stone and fell instantly asleep. Let the man do what he wanted. Khat hadn't the energy to be vigilant against it any longer.
He woke in the middle of the night, and sat up stiffly. His leg was agony. Sagai was breathing, deep and regular, about two feet away. He sat stock-still and listened; surely something had woken him.
In a moment there was a soft scrabbling sound against the rock, down near Sagai's feet. Something was there; in the faint indirect starlight from the tunnels above, something glinted in the dark. Khat sat frozen, mind racing: a crawler, one of the more upwardly mobile of the bottom-level predators. Sagai had Khat's knife. Crawlers, like most Waste predators, were deadly poison to Survivor-bred humans. This thing had teeth, though, and could do a fair bit of damage even to a kris resistant to its poison. It was spider-like, with articulated jaws and a tail with a vicious stinger. Khat hadn't scouted this tunnel to make sure there were no easy passages to the bottom level. That had been a mistake.
"Sagai," Khat hissed. Sagai's breathing hitched.
"Mm," Sagai said, and sighed, rubbing at his face. Khat shot out a hand and grabbed Sagai's wrist, risking the movement to stop Sagai from unwarily rolling over. Sagai blinked up at him, freezing obediently.
Khat held out his other hand. "Knife," he hissed. It was time to know a second word; he would rather tip his hand than get savaged by a crawler. "Knife!"
"What is--"
"Knife," Khat demanded, not daring to take his eyes off the crawler. Its tail had come up, visible against the rock. There was no time. It was about to attack, and it was going to attack Sagai.
Sagai fumbled in his belt. The crawler darted forward, whipping its tail at Sagai's leg. Khat shoved himself down and kicked it with his good foot. "Knife!" he said, and Sagai finally saw the thing, finally understood the danger, and flailed his way upright.
The thing's stinger sank into Khat's leg and he bit down to muffle a yell at the searing pain. He kicked again, harder, and the thing ricocheted off the tunnel wall. "Knife," he panted, scrabbling to his knees-- his bad leg hurt so badly he couldn't support himself, but now his good leg stung too. The poison wouldn't do him any good, but if it had stung Sagai instead, the man would be dead already.
To Khat's immense relief the weight of a knife hilt smacked into his outstretched hand. He lunged just as the crawler sprang forward, and shoved the knife clumsily between its jaws. It hissed, and he wrenched at the knife, snapping off one of the creature's jaws and cutting the back of his hand in the process. He stabbed at it again, and this time got it in the joint where the head met the body. The tail whipped again, leaving a stinging score mark down his arm but not sinking in this time. He jerked the knife out and stabbed it back in again, and again, and finally felt the chitinous plates of the creature's body separate.
He bodily threw the thing across the corridor and heard it strike the other wall, flailing and thrashing in its death throes. Panting, Khat listened; he wouldn't put it past the creature to still reflexively attack one more time.
"What the hell was that," Sagai said, from the opposite wall.
Khat let out a long hissing sigh and eased down to sit shakily on the floor. Crawlers were edible, at least. And now he had his knife back. He wiped it off on his robe and stuck it back into his boot sheath, and bent to investigate the stinger wound in his good leg.
In the dark he couldn't tell much. It was sore, a great big hole in his skin. He pressed on it, trying to push the poison back out. His arm stung but he knew with such an indirect blow there wouldn't have been much poison in it. The cut on his hand was ragged and bleeding but not deep.
But they had to move. They couldn't stay here. If one crawler could get up here, others could, and they'd be drawn by the smell of Khat's blood. Reluctantly Khat stripped off his robe, hauled himself to his hands and one knee, and dragged himself across the corridor. He found the crawler's body, made sure it was really dead, and wrapped it in his robe.
"What are you doing?" Sagai asked.
Khat dragged himself back across the corridor, pausing in the brightest spot, where starlight came in through a chimney that went straight up. In the darkness he could just see the glint of Sagai's eyes. He unfolded his robe and showed Sagai the crawler.
It would be easier if he let on that he knew Tradetongue. Khat considered it, staring at the darkness where Sagai was sitting. He had his knife back. But he also had a leg full of crawler poison, which wouldn't kill him, but in his weakened state would probably make him pretty miserable for a little while.
And the road wasn't quite close enough for Sagai to easily make it there on his own. Khat licked the blood off his injured hand so it wouldn't land on the ground, and thought about it. For now, they just had to get out of here. The top level would be safer from predators, if they kept to rock, but up there they'd be easy prey for air spirits, against which there was no defense.
Blood was leaking from his arm, but he hesitated, wiping at it with a finger. Some of it was clear liquid-- poison. He didn't dare lick that; he didn't need any more poison in his body. He knew from experience poison absorbed faster through the mouth than through an injury. He wiped it on his robe instead, and wrapped the crawler back up, knotting the robe into an approximate bag and threading the sleeves around his shoulder as a strap.
Sagai was still sitting in the dark. Khat gestured at him, beckoning him over. He was going to get them both out of here, and then he was going to point Sagai in the direction of the road, and then he was going to die in peace. That seemed the best method to proceed by.
Sagai didn't move, and Khat sighed. Nothing for it but to try to walk. He struggled up to his knees, got his good foot underneath himself, yelped quietly at the pain in the stinger wound, and tried unsteadily to wobble to his feet.
Sagai caught him. "You can't walk," he said, but heaved Khat back upright and pulled the krismen's arm across his shoulders. "Where are we going?"
Khat hesitated, scenting the air. The smell of Sagai was the strongest scent, but there were predators' scents in the air. He could smell vegetation, though. He shuffled forward a step, and Sagai came with him. It was a dry, dusty scent, but there was sand and tree bark. Down the left-hand corridor, which was a little more northward than they needed to go.
"Road?" Sagai asked. Khat shook his head, then pointed, and they shuffled unsteadily together down the corridor.
Walking was agony. His bad leg throbbed and ached, familiar but horrible. And now his good leg stabbed him at every step. The wound was burning. It was distracting; Khat needed to be alert, and couldn't pay attention. He had to stop, in a little ways, to evaluate the scents. Sagai stood patiently.
Stronger-- sand and plants. Khat pointed. The corridor was uneven, rocky and difficult and narrow. Sagai had to laboriously heave Khat up over the uneven floor in places. "I wish," Sagai said, breathing hard, "I knew where-- where we were going." The last word was a grunt as he pulled Khat up.
Khat's foot caught on the uneven rock and he fell. Sagai tried to hold him, but wasn't strong enough, and landed in a tangled jumble with him. Khat couldn't help but cry out, then ruthlessly bit his lips against the whimpers that wanted to follow, twitching in pain.
"Sorry," Sagai said, rolling to a sitting position. Khat could smell human blood: he'd cut himself on the rock. That wouldn't help.
It took every ounce of determination Khat still had to get up. He would have new bruises all down one side, and there was a new cut on his already-injured hand. He licked at the blood, grimacing. Sagai helped him the rest of the way up, and Khat stood unsteadily, trembling, trying to summon the strength to take another step.
"Why can't we stop?" Sagai asked quietly, but he wasn't whining. He just didn't know their danger. Khat shivered, and pointed down the corridor, gritting his teeth. Sagai said nothing, but took another step, and Khat hissed in pain and hopped along with him.
The corridor smoothed out after an agonizing little while, and brightened into a more open area. "Ha," Khat said, triumphant. He was trembling with exhaustion and pain, and his good leg had started to go numb from the poison, but he could see, up ahead, the stalks of jumtrees, sticking up out of a sandy basin in an opening in the rock.
Sagai looked at him. "Ha?"
Khat pointed at the trees, and Sagai took another step, but Khat pulled at him. He couldn't see well in the starlight, and with both of them bleeding like this, it was imperative to stay away from the sand. He pulled his arm away from Sagai and eased himself, with Sagai still clutching worriedly at him, to perch awkwardly on a boulder. Sagai stood beside him, wisely choosing not to move, and Khat rubbed at his face, and unslung the makeshift bag containing the dead crawler from his shoulder.
The poison was moving through his blood now, chilling him and making him sweat. He considered that with some surprise. He might be weak enough that it would kill him. That was an unpleasant thought. Then he'd better make some alternative plans, and quick. Sagai had saved his life and while he didn't trust the relic dealer one bit, he also didn't want the fellow to die.
He pushed himself unsteadily up, waving off Sagai's assistance, and dropped to a knee so he could crawl out across the open floor, looking for where it turned to sand. He pulled out his knife and surveyed the sand's rippled surface in the dark. Sagai started forward after him, and he turned in annoyance and waved him back. This sort of hunting would go better without a man vulnerable to poison blundering about smelling of human blood.
Khat put his freshly-cut hand to his mouth and sucked out some blood from the seeping cut. As he collected a mouthful of blood, he waited, letting his eyes adjust and taking in any possible activity in the sand. He was looking for a bloater, to fashion a waterskin from; if Sagai was to survive the Waste, unable as he would be to locate jumtrees easily, he'd need one. The crawler had a stomach that could work in a pinch, but the capacity was far too small. The bloater would be bigger, and would leak less.
He saw a telltale depression a few feet out in the sand. It might be a bloater, it might not be. He used the tip of his knife to stir at the sand between himself and the bloater. Crawling out into it blindly was foolhardy at best. He found only a few small stones, and warily, unsteadily lurched out into the sand. With a quick gesture, he stabbed downward into the depression a short distance, so as not to cut through the bloater's stomach and ruin the point of the exercise. He was rewarded with its jaws snapping shut on the blade. He jerked it out of the sand, flung it upward, and killed it with a quick stab, then grabbed the carcass and scrabbled backward out of the sand.
He didn't need his blood for bait, so he swallowed it, and looked up at Sagai, who had eased over to sit on the rocks he had vacated. Sagai was watching in bewilderment. Khat wiped frigid sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and swiped the hilt of his knife across the rock wall to check it for predators. He found nothing, so settled his back against it, trembling with exhaustion.
The poison was certainly affecting him now. He shuddered, gritting his teeth, and set about butchering the dead bloater. A couple of cuts, and he held the back end in his teeth to hold it while he turned it inside out. He set the guts aside, pushing them back away from the sand so as to attract minimal predators. The meat he carved out and set aside. A knot at the rear end, and a strip of skin at the top, and there was a perfectly serviceable waterskin, albeit one slightly in need of rinsing. He blew into it to inflate it so he wouldn't lose it, tied it shut, and set it aside.
It was coming on toward dawn now, he judged, glancing up at the sky. Behind him, Sagai shifted, and cleared his throat. Khat shivered. He was feeling light-headed, more so than normal, and now he couldn't tell if he were too warm or too cold. He wiped sweat away again, reached over, and tried to reach his impromptu bag.
Sagai was in the way, and looked down at him. Khat gestured at the bag. Sagai picked it up and handed it to him, then pointed out at the sandy basin. "Trees," he said. "Water?"
Khat glanced over, then back at Sagai. The man didn't really understand about the dangers of loose sand at night. He knew to be cautious but he didn't know that the danger level was so much worse now. Khat reached over to grab a small handful of the bloater's guts, and tossed them out onto the sand. Sagai watched blankly. There was a moment's pause, then several different things churned violently under the sand, snapping and thrashing, and the guts disappeared.
"I see," Sagai said.
Khat had to work quickly. He was shaking uncontrollably now: the poison had spread through him. He dumped the crawler out of his robe and efficiently snapped open the chitinous plates. He used the wide flat expanse of plate that had protected the creature's back as a platter, and stripped out all of the meat and pulp from the rest of the exoskeleton. Normally he would just suck the pulp out and eat it straight from the animal, but he didn't expect a city-dweller to be terribly conversant with the concept.
He cracked open the tail and found the poison sac there. He pulled it out carefully, and flung it out into the sand. Something swallowed it immediately, then began to convulse and thrash, and from the sounds of it, several something elses began immediately to dismember the dying creature. It was too much to hope, Khat thought sourly, that they would all poison one another and die and leave them a clear trail to the jumtrees. They'd mostly go dormant during the day, sinking down a little deeper, but he was desperately thirsty right now. If he could walk, he would be safe enough, but he wasn't about to send a Survivor-born man, let alone a city dweller, out there in that melee. And on his hands and knees, he wouldn't fare too well either.
He piled the discarded pieces of the dismembered crawler corpse beside the remnants of the bloater's guts, and piled the meat from the bloater onto the impromptu plate. He found the crawler's stomach, turned it inside out, tied off the lower end, and blew into the upper to inflate it. That, he put beside the other waterskin. His hand was shaking badly, and he nearly cut himself while cleaning the blade of his knife on his robe. That was it, all the concentration he was capable of.
He worked the knife sheath out of his boot, put the knife back into it, set it down on the stone beside himself, and sat back against the wall, trying to breathe. He couldn't stop shaking. His good leg was numb, except for a burning sensation at the site of the stinger wound. His injured leg was shatteringly painful.
Sagai's hand on his shoulder startled him, but he was too weak to do more than flinch. "What's wrong?" Sagai asked.
Khat shuddered, and pulled the stung leg up to show Sagai the wound. He pointed at the dead crawler's exoskeleton. He would have tipped his hand, then, would have explained in Tradetongue, but his tongue was stuck in his dry mouth and he couldn't begin to summon the presence of mind to form a sentence anyway.
"Oh," Sagai said, dismayed.
The world seemed a little farther away, and Khat stared blankly up at the sky, mind racing but forming no coherent thoughts. The stars looked big, he thought. Perhaps they were closer.
A muscle spasm shot through his stung leg, and he screamed, but his throat was so dry the only sound was a hoarse, strangled croak. Another spasm twisted up his back, and he thrashed. He was dimly aware of Sagai's voice, the man's hands on his body, holding him in place. Time gapped, then; the sky was lighter, then lighter still, and he was aware of intermittent spasms that made him try to scream, interspersed with Sagai's hands and Sagai's voice.
He spoke to Sagai then, but in his native tongue, giving the man a long, rambling, disjointed dissertation on how to survive the desert. He didn't remember most of what he said, but came finally to himself to find that he was repeating the phrase "jumtrees have water" over and over in Old Menian.
The sky was bright: it was full morning now. Sagai had Khat's head in his lap. "Jumtrees have water," Khat said one more time, then blinked and looked around.
Pain was still zinging through all of his limbs, but the stinger wound no longer burned. Khat tried to swallow. He was badly parched. Even if Sagai understood Old Menian, he probably wouldn't have been able to follow Khat's words, blurred by his dry mouth and hoarse voice.
Khat rolled awkwardly over and pushed himself up on his elbow. Sagai caught at him in alarm, but Khat waved him off, and shoved himself to an unsteady sitting position. He was drenched in sweat, and trembled with weakness, but at least the spasms had stopped.
"Jumtrees have water," he said in Old Menian, and pointed at the jumtrees. This little stand had about five of them, two big ones, two smaller ones, and one very small.
Sagai sat beside him, close enough that his shoulder nearly touched Khat's, and looked. "Jumtrees have water," he repeated in Old Menian, but it was plain from his blurry inflection that he didn't have any idea what the syllables meant.
"Jumtrees," Khat said. He gathered himself. He didn't have much left.
Sagai looked out at the trees. "Jumtrees," he said. "Oh! Those things. They've got water in them."
Khat looked around for his effects. Knife, in its sheath. He picked it up. Stomach of crawler. Stomach of bloater. He picked them up, and untied both necks, deflating them. He handed all three things to Sagai, who looked moderately alarmed, then glanced out at the sand trepidatiously.
Khat hitched himself over, unsteady with exhaustion, and grabbed another little handful of bloater guts. He pitched them out onto the sand. They lay there, untouched. Sagai watched a moment, then looked at Khat. Khat pointed at the sky.
"Ah," Sagai said.
Just then, something tugged gently at a bit of bloater gut. It tugged again, more adventurously, then the bit vanished underneath the sand. The other pieces lay unmolested. Sagai looked at Khat again, then got to his feet. "I see," he said, and set out across the sand, walking carefully, and giving the bloater guts a wide berth.
Khat collapsed slowly onto his side, and lay with his face on the stone. The poison was gone, but he was weak now, terribly weak. The road wasn't far, surely; he didn't quite have his bearings, apart from his innate sense of direction, but he knew they hadn't wavered from the right course, so it would only be about an hour or so's worth of walking for a man with two intact legs and a supply of water. If the man's caravan had been bound from Kenniliar to Charisat, that would mean that Sagai's early straying southward from the course would bring them to a point on the road that the caravan would probably not have passed yet after only a couple of days. If the wagons were all human-powered, as Khat suspected.
Sagai didn't need Khat anymore. Which was just as well, because Khat's latest little adventures had more or less ensured that he wouldn't survive much more. So now he just had to convince Sagai to let him die in peace.
He wasn't sure, but Sagai seemed a decent fellow who would mean well, in his own misinformed city-bred sort of way. Speaking to him would only arouse further loyalty. So Khat would probably have to annoy him into leaving, or feign death.
The latter might prove easiest. Khat tried to turn his head to see what the man was doing, but couldn't muster the strength, and so kept his face pressed against the stone. Time blurred a little bit, and then Sagai was kneeling beside him, touching his shoulder.
Khat hissed at him, throat too dry to growl. "Drink this," Sagai said, rolling him onto his back. Khat bared his teeth, but when the water hit his face instinct took over and he couldn't help swallowing. Sagai patiently poured water into him, pulling his head into his lap and propping him up so he could swallow more easily.
After a few moments he pushed himself out of Sagai's lap and sat up, wiping his mouth. The water had helped him enormously, easing his trembling. But he was still horribly weak, and in a great deal of pain. Sagai stood, and went back out to the jumtrees. He had rinsed both skins, and now refilled the bloater skin from which he'd been giving Khat water, then made a bark platter and loaded it with pulp. He brought everything back over, and sat near Khat.
Khat pulled the crawler plate full of butchered animal pieces over and set it beside the platter of jumtree pulp. He pointed at it, then at his mouth, then pointed at Sagai's mouth. Sagai looked startled, then perplexed.
Khat wasn't hungry. He knew he needed to eat, but the poison had left him faintly nauseated. Still, in the absence of explaining, an example was best. So he took a fat chunk of crawler meat and bit it, chewed it, and swallowed.
Sagai looked horrified. Khat ate the rest of the chunk, reached over and took a handful of jumtree pulp, and stared at Sagai while he ate it.
He gestured at Sagai, who twisted his mouth wryly, then reached over and daintily selected the tiniest sliver of crawler flesh. Khat watched him, head cocked, as he put it into his mouth, grimaced at the taste, but swallowed it.
Khat ate a little more, then retreated to lie curled on his side with his back against the wall, staring listlessly out at the clearing. His whole body hurt, and while the food and water had helped, he knew he wouldn't heal soon. This injury was serious, and he could not survive the Waste like this.
Sagai ate quite a bit more, which boded well for his survival. He came and sat beside Khat after a little while.
"I am a scholar, you know," Sagai said pensively. "And my specialty is the relics of the Ancients. But I can't help but think, you know, that you are, in a way, a creation of the Ancients, if any of the legends are true. I don't know what the kris believe of themselves, but it is said in our academies that you were created painstakingly by the Ancients, who believed that the Waste would spread over the whole world, and the only way to ensure anyone survived was to adapt."
The man had either lost his mind, or something in Khat's behavior, possibly during his fevered ranting of the night before, had clued him in that Khat was not as unable to communicate as he pretended. Khat had to admit that if the man had ever encountered any kris before it would be evident that they generally knew how to speak civilized tongues.
"I have often wondered," Sagai continued, with the air of a scholar delivering a lecture to his peers, "whether the kris had any special insight into the Ancients, being so directly derived from their traditions."
Khat yawned, and sighed, and adjusted his position, acting disinterested. Sagai continued to discourse for a little while on the traditions of the ancients, laying out succinctly a summary of the different types of relics and what little could be surmised from their existence. Khat was fascinated; he had studied a great deal of this, in the Enclave, as a youth, but the conclusions Sagai was drawing were much different from the ones he'd been taught. But he pretended not to listen, closing his eyes, and as the day's heat began to draw up, despite himself he actually fell asleep, lulled by Sagai's voice.
He woke to find the sun high overhead, the heat blazing. This was a good spot, sheltered from any direct sun. Sagai had curled up against the rock a few feet away, but had put the waterskin close enough for Khat to reach. Khat sat up and drank deeply. With the jumtrees so close there was no need to be stinting with water. He also ate more of the meat he'd carved the night before. Sagai had eaten a fair bit of it, he noticed. Good. It wouldn't be enough to save Khat, but it might be enough to give Sagai the strength he'd need to make it to the road.
Sagai woke, and stretched. "Ah," he said, to Khat. "You're awake. Feeling any better?"
Distracted, Khat almost answered him, but caught himself, and coughed instead. He was feeling better, better enough to wish overwhelmingly for a bath. He stank of sickness and pain, and his bandages needed badly to be changed. His hair was a mess, filthy and tangled and itching. But there was no help for any of it. He grimaced sourly at Sagai instead, rubbing his face, and made much of investigating the stinger wound in his good leg.
It had healed somewhat, which was surprising. There was little heat remaining in the skin around it, and it had begun to close. The score down his arm and the cuts in his hand had at least scabbed over.
"I know my wife and children must believe me dead," Sagai said. "Have you a family? Do they worry about you, alone as you are in this dangerous place?"
Khat yawned and looked away, hiding how deeply the question hurt. No, no one worried about Khat, or wondered where he was.
"You seem young," Sagai continued. "I wonder if you are old enough to be married. Or is it your mother who waits for you instead?"
My mother is dead, Khat thought, studying the scab on the back of his hand with careful unconcern. I watched pirates kill her in the first ambush. And then I watched pirates eat her, later.
"Na," he said suddenly, making a closing gesture with his hand, and pointing at Sagai's mouth. He pointed at the sky, and drew his hand a little bit to the west. Sagai obediently closed his mouth, and watched with interest.
Khat retrieved his knife and sheath, and laid them next to the waterskin between himself and Sagai. He took his robe, which he had been using as a pillow, and folded it, and put it next to the knife. He bent and with some difficulty unlaced his boots, pulled them off, and put them next to the robe; Sagai's feet were a similar size to his, and the boots Sagai had were all right, but Khat's were better.
He pushed all of the items toward Sagai, then pointed at Sagai, then pointed west and now a little south. "Road," he said.
Sagai blinked. Khat repeated the sequence of gestures, pushing the items, pointing at Sagai, pointing at the road. "Road," he said again.
"I'm not leaving you," Sagai said, understanding and becoming offended all in one. "You've saved my life twice! I can't leave you here."
So you'll take me with you so my bones can be harvested, Khat thought bitterly. He bared his teeth, pointed, and said, "Road."
Sagai folded his arms and shook his head. "If I leave you here, you'll die," he said.
I'll have to be dead for them to take my bones, too, Khat thought, and it seemed to him infinitely preferable to die in the Waste and leave his skeleton intact until foragers ate his flesh, instead of being slaughtered like an animal, rendered down and sold. Khat turned his back on Sagai, curled back up, and lay down again.
He woke again and the sun was past its peak. Now was the time to travel. Sagai was propped against the wall, dozing, but woke as Khat retrieved the waterskin and drank again.
"You're not dying," Sagai pointed out. "I thought last night you were dying for sure, but you've recovered. I can't abandon you when you're obviously well on the road to recovery."
Khat was nothing of the sort. Several of the muscles of his thigh were obviously torn, and it would take months for them to recover. He wouldn't be fit for hunting for weeks. He wouldn't survive without someone caring for him, and there was no one to care for him.
He retied the waterskin and set it beside his boots and his knife, and again made the gesture of pushing them toward Sagai, then pointing toward the road. "Road," he said.
Sagai shook his head. "I will not leave you," he said.
Khat growled at him, showing his teeth. "Road," he said.
"No," Sagai said. The man stood, took the waterskins, and went to the jumtree to refill them. He brought over more pulp as well, and set it beside Khat.
"Road," Khat said insistently. "Road!" Now was the time to set out. There would be time for an hour or two's walking, and since Sagai had two working legs, he could make it to the road before nightfall, and wait there for his caravan in relative safety.
Sagai shook his head, put Khat's knife away in his belt, and walked away into one of the tunnels. Khat watched him go, wondering where he'd gone without bringing water.
It became plain that Sagai was just exploring, and Khat growled in exasperation, curled up, and went back to sleep.
Khat dozed fitfully, keeping an eye out for Sagai's periodic reappearances. The man found a way to reach the top level, and startled Khat by poking his head over the edge and calling out cheerfully. He had no right to be in such a good mood, Khat thought sourly, growling at him. It would just be the thing if the man fell down a sinkhole or something.
As dusk fell Sagai returned, dusty and a bit scratched, and sat down beside Khat. He drank deeply from the waterskin, stretched his shoulders, and said, "Fascinating terrain."
Khat rolled his eyes and sat up. Sagai had wasted the entire afternoon. It was like the man didn't even care if he found his wife and children and caravan again. Instead, he wanted to hang around with a crippled krismen in the middle of the Waste, surrounded by predators and utterly devoid of provisions.
"You know," Sagai said, "I was thinking. There's a theory--"
Khat groaned and pulled his robe over his head. Sagai ignored him blissfully, and began to expound upon the few things known about the construction of the Roads. The theory he was referring to do had to do with the directions the roads lay, as if there were some sort of underlying scheme to it, something to do with the Ancients' memories of the directions of currents in their vanished seas. Khat pulled the robe down to glare blearily at Sagai: the roads were very simply the straightest possible line between any two cities, and that was all there was to it. It was obvious Khat had traveled on them far, far more than Sagai, and it only made sense.
Khat realized just in time that saying anything to that effect was going to prove Sagai right that Khat understood Tradetongue. So, just in time, he pulled his hand out and made an open-shut flapping motion with his fingers and thumb. "Blah blah blah blah," he said.
Sagai laughed merrily. "Oh," he said, "you agree, then. I think the theory's a load of nonsense, but I was wondering what you thought. I'll have to take that back to them. I knew you'd have an opinion."
Khat pointed. "Road," he said. "Road, road, road, road."
Sagai shook his head, smiling sweetly. "I'm not going without you," he said. "I know I am but a poor scout, but it seems to me the road must not be very distant. I can see in that direction a few breaks in the rock that make me think the road must be close. We can make it in another couple of days, easily, even if I have to carry you the whole way. And since we only had man-powered wagons, I know the caravan will not have made it very far in that time. I can probably move as fast as they can even carrying you. Catching up to them will be no problem."
He was right, except for the part where he assumed Khat would want anything to do with a caravan of Survivor-born, city-bred people. It was a terrible flaw in his logic, and Khat began to seriously ponder the relative merits of pointing that out. Keeping silent didn't seem to be working; his unfortunate habit of repeatedly saving Sagai's life wasn't doing his attempt at alienating the man with his savagery any favors.
"At any rate," Sagai said, "the road theory is utter nonsense, and I'm glad you agree. Now, I was also thinking about kris. And you must forgive me, but I have had so rare an opportunity to study kris, or even make the acquaintance of any, that I admit there is very little real solid foundation to my theories about them, or those of my colleagues. So if I make some error, I plead ignorance and beg your tolerance and, perhaps, gentle correction. But it seems to me, and to some of my colleagues, that some of the adaptations of the kris are not simple practical adaptations to a new world overtaken by desert. For example, the legend holds that a krismen's eye color will change according to his mood, or fancy. The legend is unclear as to how much control the kris has over this change. I have been watching you, if you'll pardon me for doing so, and your eyes have not changed at all-- they have simply been dark the entire time I have known you, almost black. So it seems to me that this must be legend."
Of course they were, Khat thought. He was nearly dead. Distress darked kris eyes, and he'd been in enough of that to forestall any other colors showing through. He gave Sagai an annoyed stare, then pulled his robe back over his head.
"Oh," Sagai said, interested. "That look just now-- was that a trick of the light, or were your eyes lighter then? Did you do that on purpose?"
No, Khat thought, annoyed with himself. He must be feeling better. Which he didn't really need. This idiot had found the only way to make bleeding to death in the Waste more unpleasant than it already was.
"Hm," Sagai said. "Well, if it is true, then what possible desert-related purpose could it serve? It must be merely aesthetic. Which my colleague had argued was the case with a number of the modifications to kris."
Khat sighed, and flipped the robe back down. "It keeps us from fighting, ostensibly," he said. His voice was hoarse and rusty from disuse.
Sagai stared at him in utter shock, mouth open.
"Our eyes change color without our volition," Khat went on. "If someone is lying, you can tell by looking at his or her eyes. So we can't lie to one another. Which doesn't mean we don't fight, but it means at least we can't cheat or trick each other."
"Oh," Sagai said, attempting to recover himself, and failing. He hadn't really truly thought I would ever answer him, Khat thought, with a little regret-tinged satisfaction.
"Listen, friend," Khat said. "If you hadn't wasted today puttering around annoying me you'd be at the road by now, and probably within sight of your convoy, and your wife and kids would have stopped crying."
"I'm not leaving you behind," Sagai said. "You've saved my life over and over, I owe you--"
"You owe me at least the dignity of choosing the manner of my death," Khat said. "And I would rather die here, in a quiet spot in the Waste, than at the hands of some bonetaker."
"You don't have to die at all," Sagai said, eminently reasonable.
Khat snorted. "Everyone dies," he said.
"Well, all right," Sagai conceded. "But not now. Not soon. Your injury is serious, but with only a little care you should be able to recover fully."
"I don't need the sort of care your people would provide the likes of me," Khat said. Sagai, indignant, began to say something, and Khat said, "I've been to Charisat. I know. This isn't up for discussion."
Sagai sat thoughtfully. "I admit," he said, "I have never been to Charisat."
"There are bonetakers in it," Khat said. "Lots of them. I didn't get stared at as much there as I did in Kenniliar, but a lot more people tried to kill me."
"You were in Kenniliar?" Sagai asked, interested.
"Last year," Khat said. "The way they acted, it was like a kris had never been there before. I'm amazed your scholars have theories on them at all, as seldom as they seem to see them."
"We do see them but seldom," Sagai admitted. "But our academics are fond of theorizing about things they've little direct experience with, I will allow that. I do wonder, though, why so few kris visit."
"It's not exactly welcoming," Khat said. "The steel is good, though. That knife is Kenniliar steel. The one you have in your belt."
Sagai pulled it out, and disentangled the sheath from his belt, and handed both to Khat. "Here," he said. "You know better than I what to stab with this. I still haven't any clear notion what is dangerous out here, and what innocuous."
Khat didn't take them, so Sagai put them down on the stone between them. "You know enough to survive," Khat said. "If you are sensible and head straight for the road, and don't do anything stupid."
"I do a lot of stupid things," Sagai said ruefully. "It's how I ended up out here."
"I don't," Khat said. "I'm not in the habit of making mistakes. I'm not making one now. Out here you travel in the mornings and evenings. Stay clear of open sand after sundown, and be careful of it during the day. Take the waterskins and the knife, and maybe switch out and use my boots instead, I think they have thicker soles."
"I'm not leaving you here, and I'm certainly not stealing your shoes," Sagai said.
"I'll be dead," Khat said. "I won't need them. It's stupid to let them go to waste."
Darkness came down. Khat sat next to Sagai, drinking water, and argued. He'd expected the other man to storm off in a huff at some point, but he never even seemed to grow irritated; he was more animated, at times, but after a time Khat realized the man enjoyed the argument.
At that point, Khat would have stalked off, except that he couldn't even crawl. His leg had stiffened up and he was in bad pain again. "Hell below," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Shut up. Just shut up."
Sagai, who had been in the midst of a discourse upon the nature of trust, paused. "Really?" he said.
"Yes really," Khat said.
"Not until you agree to come further with me," Sagai said.
Khat rubbed at his face. "I had thought it might shut you up to answer you," he said. "Which is the only reason I did, because keeping my mouth shut wasn't working."
"Ah," Sagai said, "which reminds me of a question I'd had. You had said it was true, and kris eye color does change color. Why, then, have I never seen yours change color?"
"Because I'm dying," Khat growled. "When we're sick or hurt the color just goes dark. I've been hurt badly the entire time you've known me. None of the colors will show through."
Sagai was quiet a moment. "You're not dying," he said.
"I am," Khat said. "The muscles in this leg are torn. It will be weeks before I can walk properly. I'm no good for hunting. And the crawler poison didn't help at all."
"Is that what that thing was?" Sagai asked.
"Yes," Khat said, "and it would have killed you before you could take another breath. I wasn't being noble, I was being practical. I've some immunity to it, but you have none."
"But that doesn't mean you're dying," Sagai said. "I can keep you alive. All you need is a little time to heal, then you can be off on your way again, good as new. You're young, you'll heal."
"How do you know I'm young?" Khat said, then rolled his eyes at himself. He couldn't resist arguing either, and it was only adding fuel to the fire.
"You look it," Sagai said, frowning. "I had never heard that kris don't show age. Is that true?"
"Of course it's not," Khat said. "You shouldn't be so gullible. I am young, but that doesn't mean I can fight off bonetakers while crippled."
"The bonetakers won't get you," Sagai said.
"Forgive me if I do not immediately put all my faith in you as a protector," Khat said.
"I won't forgive you," Sagai said. "You don't know. I can handle myself."
"If it wouldn't defeat the entire purpose of this exercise," Khat said tightly, "I would stab you myself right now, to see how well you handled that."
Sagai laughed. "There is no need to get violent," he said. "Just agree to come with me, at least a little ways, so I don't die in the desert. That's all I'm asking."
Khat said, "I will consider it, if you will shut up."
"Done," Sagai said, and curled up under his robe. He was asleep within minutes.