Chương 7: Part 7 - The Ashen Way

Sjan Saal is the end of many things. Not even the road has the endurance to continue far past the old wall. Lyneje Di Sazhocel Ciqi, unpublished letter. Royal archives, Ce Raedhil. Mark grunted with effort as he hauled another crate up into the truck, the hard plastic sliding grittily inside with a push.

"I don't like it," he muttered.

"Moving shit back and forth, telling us not to spend too long by the trucks. They're not telling us everything."

"Is that strange?", Jesse asked, deadpan.

"Oh, sure," Mark muttered, leaning against the rear bumper.

"Now you've got jokes. Ten words a day and you're using a third of them to fuck with me." He sighed, rubbing dust away from his eyes.

"You know it's different this time."

"Kindly shut the fuck up, Private," Roth drawled, wandering around from the front of the truck.

"The way I see it, we're in the desert with some unfriendlies taking shots at us - just like everywhere else we go. All the rest is just places and names, doesn't change a goddamn thing." Mark snorted.

"Roth, you don't believe that shit. We've got no resupply, we're-" The breath went out of him as Roth slammed him against the side of the vehicle, rocking it slightly with the force of his impact. Mark's eyes flew wide as Roth pressed a forearm over his throat to pin him against the hot metal. Jesse moved closer to hover uncertainly, looking around but finding no others near them.

"It's Sergeant," Roth said in a low voice.

"And that means you don't tell me what I think. I tell you what you think. And right now, you think that you'd like to shut the fuck up and move some crates. You think that you actually don't like talking. You think nobody cares what you think." His eyes narrowed, meeting Mark's.

"Am I understood?", he rumbled. Roth's arm eased its pressure on Mark's windpipe and the younger man gasped, his face red.

"Yes," he rasped, glaring at Roth with watery eyes. The arm came back up, and Mark's eyes bulged once more.

"Yes, Sergeant," he choked. He slumped to the sand as Roth stepped back with an impassive look.

"I don't mind if you're worried, Private," Roth said levelly.

"But if you're worried about our resources, be a fucking resource." He turned to leave, his gaze briefly drifting over Jesse's expressionless face before he turned and walked back towards the main camp. Mark looked up at Jesse, his face still ruddy from the confrontation.

"You got something to say too?", he muttered, glaring angrily.

"Nope," Jesse replied, turning to lift a crate from the stack beside him. He pushed it into the truck wordlessly, then went back for another. Mark blinked, then shook his head and laughed weakly as he stood upright to knock the dust from his clothes.

"Shit, you really are smarter than me," he chuckled.

"My dumbass mouth. Let's finish this up." The two men finished the load of crates before sealing the truck and turning to head back towards the tents. The sun was approaching its zenith, baking the sand and sending a shimmer of heat to roil the air ahead of them. Tents and soldiers seemed to ripple and dance over the pale ground as they walked. There was a surreal quality to watching the distorted figures move silently about, too far for the noise of movement and conversation to carry.

The silence was shattered by a gunshot, then several. The blurred figures at the camp broke into frantic motion. Mark and Jesse had raised their guns by reflex but saw no obvious threats in the panicked rush. One of the leading figures resolved itself into Sergeant Roth, running full-out towards them over the sand.

"In the truck!", Roth yelled, breathless from his sprint.

"Get in the goddamn truck!" Mark shot a bemused glance at Jesse, but Jesse was staring transfixed at the camp. Bodies continued to pour from the tents, too many bodies. Floods of indistinct running figures swarmed towards them, and to their horror the two men saw that more of them were issuing from the ground itself - clawing their way up from the sand or simply bursting free in a spray of obscuring dust.

The gunfire was constant now as fleeing soldiers turned to fire upon the oncoming tide, but those who stopped running to fire were quickly swarmed by dozens of attackers. Individuals run down by the mob disappeared under a thrashing chaos of limbs - and then the heat seemed to stir the air, and there was only desert remaining. Neither man spoke - they simply turned and ran, Roth's stream of invective following them as they raced back towards the waiting trucks.

There were no more gunshots; only those who had determined to run were left. They reached their truck's rear hatch at last and flung themselves into the back. Mark barreled to the front as Jesse spun to level his weapon at the onrushing tide. He could see Roth approaching along with Lieutenant Boynton. The distinctive silhouette of the Captain was missing, although a handful of the civilian scientists had managed to keep up with the mad pace of their escape.

Behind them came death, a horde of withered and ragged bodies running in eerie silence but for the susurrus of leathery flesh displacing the sand. Their lack of individual stature and brawn did nothing to diminish the terror of them swarming in massed insectile frenzy. Dark eyes and yellowing teeth flashed against sun-weathered skin with the occasional bleached scrap of remnant cloth or leather providing contrast to the seething mass. Jesse began to fire where he had clear targets.

Threads of dark blood sprayed out as he hit and bodies dropped to be trampled by those coming behind - but the press of them was endless. Quick, muffled screams issued here and there from those caught out by the tide. Roth quickly found himself cut off from their position and made a beeline for a second truck, leaping in as Boynton took a position to guard their rear door.

Two of the civilian scientists were herded towards Jesse's door by a grim-faced Diaz, who spun to fire behind her as they clambered pale and trembling into the interior. She fired indiscriminately into the oncoming wall of dry flesh; there were no soldiers left to hit as their attackers crossed the final stretch of bare ground. Once the second civilian had entered Diaz spun and leapt into the truck, screaming for Mark to start driving.

Sand sprayed from the tires and the lurch of their acceleration nearly toppled Diaz back out of the hatch but for a steadying hand from Jesse. Dusty hands reached through the open door to snag her ankles, pulling her lower body outside as Jesse frantically grabbed her and braced himself against the jamb. The truck pulled away from the horde with a half-dozen grim assailants latched onto the rear or Diaz's trailing legs.

They clawed up her body towards the hatch, small and thin but stronger than they had any right to be. Jesse's kicks and Diaz's thrashing sent one or two rolling back across the sand even as the others pressed in with blank stares. They began to savage Diaz where they had hold of her, raking at her with broken yellow fingernails and rotten teeth. The medic screamed, bucking and twisting until another withered body crawled upward to jab a corroded shard of metal under her jaw.

She choked, wide-eyed, and a spray of arterial blood pulsed out as her attacker withdrew the shard to slash at Jesse. Jesse lashed out with a desperate kick. The small figure staggered backwards out the door even as the jolt cost Jesse's fingers their blood-slick grip on Diaz's arm. He saw a brief flash of her terrified face before her head cracked against the jamb and she disappeared behind them in a tangle of bodies. Jesse hauled himself upright and fumbled for his rifle.

The tide was still moving toward them, rapidly advancing on the small knot of figures clustered over Diaz. He could see Roth's truck still immobile with small bodies carpeting it, disappearing with eager frenzy into the open rear hatch. Seconds passed before Jesse shut the door with numb, trembling hands. The sound of their transit dimmed as he slumped against the rear wall and looked over the interior. Dr. Patel was insensate, wheezing on the floor with the effort of his sprint. Dr.

Hicks sat in shock against the sidewall, the stark white of her eyes standing out from the mask of Diaz's blood coating her face and chest.

"Jesse!", Mark yelled.

"Are we clear? Can you see the others?" He didn't reply, but after a long second he levered himself up to plod towards the front passenger seat. Mark glanced over as Jesse sat beside him, bloodied hands clasped in his lap.

"Two made it," Jesse rasped.

"In the back. Not Diaz." Mark's mouth set into a grim line.

"Roth?", he asked quietly. Jesse shook his head. The sun beat down outside, and Mark could hear gentle sobbing from the back of the truck.

"Jesus. Just us," he muttered. They drove in silence for a long span of minutes before he spoke again.

"Jesse," he said quietly, "I don't know where we're going."

"There's a city to the west," Jesse replied, keeping his gore-spattered hands grasped tightly in his lap.

"The merchants mentioned it."

"How far?", Mark asked.

"Any landmarks?" Jesse shook his head helplessly.

"West," he repeated.

"That's all I know."

"Great," Mark said, squinting up at the sun.

"West."

"Sun's... Rest?" Mark frowned for a second before nodding, keeping his eyes forward as he directed the chariot. The sun was indeed dipping as they approached Ademen Tacen, the top of the cerein poking over a near rise.

"Moving this direction, come to, ah, city?" Gusje's ears perked up at his question, although she remained slouched in the comfortable seat. Beside her, Jackie's terror had faded into a drained and fitful sleep while Arjun snored lightly with his mouth agape. She imitated their stillness - her father did not often talk of the lands beyond the desert, telling her they were a matter for when she was older. Mevi straightened up to listen, apparently more confident that their father would indulge his interest.

"Yes," Tesvaji replied, nodding.

"The desert stretches a long way, but at its end there is Sjan Saal. Its great wall marks the border between the low desert and Tinem Sjocel. I don't know if the Sjocelym can help counter the threat to the stones, but if any living man knows the answer he will be in their lands." Jesse leaned in pensively.

"Do you think it's likely? Would they even want to help?", he asked.

"Perhaps," Tesvaji allowed.

"They will have to believe there is danger first, danger that threatens their lands. I didn't believe even when Mosidhu's dying words and your warning about the silent ones should have been enough. The stones have always stood immovable, and the silent ones have never ventured in force from Asu Saqarid into our lands. Something has changed, and I can't say what it might be." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Will you travel there soon?", Mark inquired. Gusje felt a fluttering thrill in the pit of her stomach at the thought. Her eyes locked on to her father, but Tesvaji only shook his head slowly.

"I cannot leave Ademen Tacen for so long," he demurred, "not when it is under threat. First the Aedrem, now this new horror... If an answer can't be found before this danger comes to the cerein then they will need me." He looked suddenly apologetic, a wry grin quirking the corners of his mouth.

"It's presumptuous of me after all you've done for us, but I was intending to ask you to bring word of the threat to the Sjocelym on our behalf. Your appearance and your chariot may make them see the truth in your warning even if they are as skeptical as I was." Mark and Jesse exchanged a look, their eyes flitting over the two sleeping in the back. Now that the topic was well and truly broached, Gusje sat upright to listen in earnest.

"We want to help," Mark said haltingly, picking his way through the words with deliberation.

"This is a big… big danger. We also need to find people that know many things, to help us. I think maybe the same people you need." He paused, and the chariot rumbled on for a few pregnant moments.

"We will go to Sun's Rest, to Sjan Saal. We will ask, for you and for our path home. We have no… other path, so we will go and speak for both of us. I think… we do not know this place," he continued bitterly.

"People, places, words." Mark slowed the chariot a bit and glanced over at Tesvaji, his eyes suddenly looking very tired.

"We have only tools for travel and death, no tools for knowing and speaking. Less danger if we had someone to speak and show paths."

"Let me go," Mevi said excitedly.

"Father, I will take them to Sjan Saal if you ask it of me." Tesvaji gave him an appraising look.

"Would you?", he rumbled, not sounding pleased.

"Son of mine, you are the strongest arm in the village aside from my own. You must stay for the same reasons I must." He stared at Mevi until the younger man dropped his gaze, dejected.

"We will of course find someone to send with our friends, but we can't spare a warrior."

"I am no warrior," Gusje said quietly, her mind blanking in astonishment even as the words left her mouth. Had she said that? They turned to her - Mevi's gaze was sullen and Jesse's unreadable, but the eyes she met were her father's. Flickers shone through the stoic Madi's mask - pride, sadness, a whisper of fear. He inclined his head slightly, motioning for her to continue, but she found that the words had fled her mouth.

"I can't forage with the Aedrem so close," she stammered, resisting the urge to avert her gaze.

"I'm too small to fight well. I can speak, though, and I saw the threat with my own eyes." With an effort, she squared her shoulders and lifted her head in what she hoped was a confident manner. Tesvaji mulled over her words, his eyes opaque to her.

"And you want to go, daughter of mine?", he asked softly.

"Not for me, not for them. You wish this?" Behind him, through the front windows of the chariot, she saw the cerein come into view as they crested the final rise before its great, verdant basin. She bit her lip, thinking of the terror of the last few days, blood on the sand and bloodless bodies rising from it with empty eyes. If she was being honest, she had a strong urge to follow her father home and hide behind him in the comfort of the longhouse. Only a small, unsure sliver of her being objected.

It had watched the life leave broken men, it seemed to say. It had seen clouds and felt the wind in her hair. It knew that death would come for her even at the longhouse, and that her father was a mortal man like any other. Its words were insistent, fearful and correct beyond her ability to deny.

"Yes," she whispered. Tesvaji nodded solemnly.

"Then you shall go with them," he intoned, somewhat spoiling the gravitas of his pronouncement by smiling ruefully at the end.

"On the condition that you be the one to tell your mother. Unlike me, you may actually survive." Gusje blanched. The ancient thoroughfare carried them away from Ademen Tacen for only a short while before it disappeared beneath covering drifts of sand and ash. They were forced to swing wide of its path by the broken terrain and quickly lost any hope of finding it as they pressed deeper into the badlands.

Raw escarpments and crests of jagged rock broke through rolling dunes as they traveled, forcing detours that made Mark grumble with the travellers' sharp words if it was his turn at the front. They traveled at night and in the low twilight until the sun came up behind them. During the day they paused to sleep and to let the chariot drink the merciless sunlight through shading panes of dark-patterned glass.

Several days had passed in this manner since Gusje set out with the travelers and yet she still grappled with a pulsing tension in her chest. When she closed her eyes she saw the cerein blazing like a torch while dry and dusty hands clawed up from the fields of Ademen Tacen. Her sleep was fraught with screams and blood, the glassy eyes of her family staring sightless and cold in the ruins of the longhouse.

So she slept little and busied herself with small matters like examining the intricacies of the chariot or practicing speech with Arjun and Jackie. Jesse had proven to be a poor distraction despite his fluency, his taciturn nature making it difficult to pull him away from his tasks. He had taken to working in the back compartment of the truck to fiddle endlessly with a black, glassy, rectangular object that was apparently not working as it should.

He had once tried to describe its purpose to her but she had come away more confused than enlightened - she supposed this was yet another instance where she did not have the proper words. This was another source of headaches for Gusje. There were many instances where she had several words that all seemed to mean the same thing in their speech, but she quickly realized that the reverse was more often true.

Attempts to determine a precise meaning often descended into maddeningly incomprehensible arguments between Arjun and Jackie about which of a dozen similar-sounding traveler words was a better fit. Their speech was improving quickly, though. Jesse explained to her that in his land there were hundreds of different ways of speaking and that they had all undertaken a similar process of learning before.

In fact, Arjun had mentioned offhandedly that he was from a different village than the others and had to learn their words in the same manner - and knew four other ways to speak besides. Her head spun at the concept. To think she had considered herself well-traveled simply for having roamed over the desert!

Frequently she found herself feeling like a lost child among them, dreaming at night of a scowling Mark shouting that there had been a mistake, that they must take Gusje back and find someone more qualified to help them. She missed her family terribly. Slowly, though, the days slid by and they drew closer to Sjan Saal. The scarps mellowed, dunes fading into scrubby brown badlands that stretched out in their bleak vastitude.

Their wheels crushed over dead brush as they drove while a telltale dust cloud fountained up behind them to mark their passage.

"I wish there was wind," Mark grumbled, his speech accented but clear. Complaining remained his favorite way to practice.

"That dust makes us too easy to see." Gusje was taking a turn in the front seat next to him, her feet kicking high over the floor of the cab.

"Nobody lives in the land between the wall of Sjan Saal and the high desert," she said confidently, repeating words her father had once spoken to her.

"It's easier land than our desert but no cereimyn grow here. That means no water."

"I thought you said a cerein could grow anywhere," Mark frowned. She gave him a somber look.

"They can," she replied.

"They used to grow everywhere, but the Sjocelym like the wood. Father says he saw buildings with their walls and floors covered in carved sacerein heartwood," she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the thought.

"They mostly leave the trees in the high desert alone because they're settled and very far away from their cities, but I've heard stories about raiders trying to drive people off for a chance at their tree."

"Does that happen often?", Mark asked. Gusje couldn't tell if he was genuinely interested or just supremely bored.

"It's very rare," she replied.

"Killing a cerein is the worst crime. The village lives and dies in its shade, and the tree can't be regrown. The last people that tried, in the time of my father's father - they were flayed alive before being smothered by hot sand." She shuddered, shaking her head.

"Nobody would dare."

"That would stop people from trying again," Mark agreed wryly. They rumbled forward in silence for a few more minutes before he turned his head to look at her.

"Gusje," he mused, "do your people fight with the Sjocelym often?" She paused, considering.

"We don't see them often," she replied.

"I have never been to Tinem Sjocel, but I hear it is a fine land full of water and food. They have some strange customs, but mostly odd rather than harmful. They're preoccupied with scheming against each other, there are few reasons for them to come out and bother us in the desert."

"Hm," Mark grunted.

"And when your people visit them, how is it? Are you friendly with them?"

"My father is the last from Ademen Tacen to travel this way," she said, "and that was before I was born. I've only heard stories. He said the people in Sjan Saal were a little formal and stiff - polite, but not friendly. They like it when we come to trade desert herbs for metalcraft and they like it even better when we leave again." Mark raised an eyebrow at her.

"And these are the people we're going to ask for help?", he asked skeptically.

"It doesn't sound like they like you very much."

"They don't," she agreed.

"At least, that's what Father says. But he also says that the Sjocelym can tell the difference between a brother and an enemy no matter what they may think of us. They know the Madim keep order in the desert. Better a few Cereinem traders showing up at their gate than a band of Aedrem, and better either than what we saw on the old road that day. Father said that they've helped us in the past when it served their interest."

She got the distinct impression that Mark wasn't convinced, but he only shrugged and returned his attention to driving. Gusje had to admit that she only half-believed it herself. The most recent of the stories she referenced happened well before the time of her father's father and the circumstances were hardly comparable.

For instance, she was sure the old Madim who fought alongside Sjocelym forces against the Brothers of Sand and Blood had not sent a girl to solicit their aid in the company of four giants and a chariot.

"Huh, is that it?", Mark asked, jolting her from her introspection.

"I think I see something up ahead." Gusje peered through the dusty glass. There was definitely something flickering in the heat haze, but they had dipped down into a small hollow before she could get a good look at it. She felt prickling anticipation collect in her stomach as she waited for the chariot to roll back up the other side, straining to see beyond the dry brush stubbling the top of the ridgeline. All at once they came to a halt atop the ridge.

Gusje was immediately beset by a pang of vertigo as her eyes swept across the terrain, taking in brown and black and grey without truly seeing what the shapes represented until the sheer scale of it clicked in her head. Distant cliffs swept out to their right, rising tall and barren towards the dull sky. The curve of the stratified cliff face led into a valley where the dull red-brown of the rock was suddenly and violently replaced with verdant green that ran in messy abandon over its floor.

A thin band of midnight black stretched out from the cliffs to enclose the valley, arcing across the plains until it terminated in a field of slate grey- Gusje blinked back tears, rising to her feet and flinging the door of the chariot open. She stumbled out heedless of Mark's surprised shout to stand on the sandy crest and look at the ocean spreading darkly out from the end of the plains.

Even this far away she could smell a sharp note of salt in the air, feel the heady moisture as it washed over her skin in the afternoon breeze. She stood there watching the thin white lines of breaking waves for a long minute before she allowed her eyes to roam back over the valley. The impossibly green terrain behind the wall was only visible for a short distance, and it took her another moment of confused realization to see that the valley was capped with an impenetrable roof of woolen grey clouds.

Gusje had not recognized them as such right away, they were so different from the wispy pale things that sometimes clung around the top of the cerein. This was a cold massif of indistinct haze carpeting the land and cloaking the depths of the valley in shadow beneath its bulk. Eventually she realized that she had been standing on the ridge for some time. She turned back to the chariot and found all four of the travelers had come out as well to look over the valley.

Jackie clapped a hand on Gusje's shoulder and grinned, pulling her into a one-armed hug.

"Big water seeing!", she shouted, mangling her words enthusiastically.

"Ready go closer?" Gusje found that she was indeed. They piled back into the truck and began their journey down the long slope towards the valley. A thin strand of bare dirt snaked through the wall on the left side, and eventually Mark found his way onto a long-neglected road that curved towards a hulking gatehouse at the shore. The wall loomed as they drew close to it, resolving from a skinny band of charcoal into a monstrous structure with a smoothly sloping face twice the height of the longhouse.

Behind her she could hear Arjun and Jackie descending into excited conversation - they had lapsed into traveler words, but she could tell they found the wall fascinating. The chariot rolled to a stop a fair distance away from the monolithic arched doorway of the gatehouse, flanked on either side by low towers that jutted forward to bracket the entrance. Mark sighed and leaned back in his chair before looking over at her.

"You remember what to say?", he asked. Gusje nodded, and Mark shot her a grin.

"Stay close to us. I'll shout if I see them trying anything strange." Gusje nodded once more and stood, opening the door to drop down to the sand. The smell of the ocean assaulted her immediately, thick and briny, and she could hear the faint roar of waves grinding against the far-off coastline. The sound built in her head with intoxicating vigor, mingling with the brine scent to edge out all other sensation.

It was all she could do to keep her focus on the gatehouse as she walked to stand squarely in front of the chariot.

"Hail, gates of Sjan Saal," she called out, her voice high and clear.

"A daughter of the cerein stands before you."