[story] the sun roads

[ib_archive]

author: pei yi
email: dreamsmoke [at] gmail.com



The spire that marked the centre of the city was a streak of white against the bleached blue sky. The library's sole surviving tower, Oran had been told, one small marker of the massive catacombs and palaces of knowledge and lost learning buried beneath the foundations of the city.

But Oran had no use for the Ancient knowledge that Anansis was famed for. What he needed was passage back to Sangre. In two days, he had crossed the city three times, and he was no closer to finding it. The road to Sangre was long, and the traders who would take the risk were little. Passing through the stables and yards along the city outskirts towards the south, he'd found few traders happy to talk and even fewer willing to give passage to a boy with few skills he could lay claim to (and too many talents he was too wary to reveal).

The byways here were not as crowded as the roads the caravan had taken when it had first entered, but the sense of life and noise filled the air like so much static anyway. Oran rubbed his eyes with an absent grimace. Even now, the city stood out in too-sharp relief - the colours too bright, the voices too loud. He hadn't thought that his sharpened senses would be so acute in the congested confines of the city.

From the street, he ducked into the shade of a tarante, a larger one where traders and captains were known to gather. The air within was close with the cloying scent of cipiate smoke, so thick as to be almost visible, the poor light a welcome relief from the glare of the afternoon sun. Low fans shifted the air in vain - the heat here was little better than the fever outside.

It was early enough; the tarante was not deserted, but it had not yet found the crowds that came with evening. Men with sun-leathered skin and hard eyes clustered the place, speaking in low voices.

Oran found a spot by a window. The drink here was black and bitter and flavoured with barley wine; it burned your throat and set fires behind your eyes. Sitting, quiet, eyes seemingly fixed on the empty street outside, he picked through the talk that filled the room in murmurs.

Rumours of war among the vicious fae tribes that infested the northern Dead Seas. Desert pirates had attacked a caravan carrying a trade of Ancient scrolls to Oala. A failed hunter attack on the same band of pirates.

No news of Sangre. Not a surprise - pirates were a known threat among the sands, and it was well believed that they kept spies in the cities, tracking trader routes, laying ambushes too well planned to be coincidence. No caravan captain would speak of his routes in a place like this.

He tapped the table, frowning down at his untouched caffe, feeling frustration eat him. If he wanted, he knew, he could go back to Ferin, beg his way back into the caravan. It would be something to do, a place to go, and at least he would be sure that Ferin would eventually return to Sangre, even if it took him half a year to do it. But Ferin knew too much. The odds were just as high that he would refuse to bring Oran with him.

Two men coming in the door caught him by the corner of his eye. He watched them for a moment, but they wore the white robes common to most of the Dead Seas, and there was nothing to set them apart from anyone else he had seen here. They passed him and he stiffened.

They smelled like blood.

He didn't look at them, but he could trace the scent as it moved to the back of the room. He glanced out the window, then finally let his eyes scan the room, disinterested.

They looked no different than they had on first glance. Then one of the men gestured, and Oran caught a glimpse of the bandage that wrapped his hand from palm to wrist. That explained the smell -- he turned away.

An oath, sharp and angry, broke through the talk that filled the room. Oran started and glanced at the men again - he was not the only one in the room. Aware of the audience around them, the man who'd cursed subsided, settling back into his seat - though not before Oran saw the knife on his hip. Though he looked away again, his attention was fixed on the two men now.

In the midst of the Dead Seas and its killing sands, the people of Anansis were part of the desert; violence and blood would have been a familiar face to anyone in the tarante. It was also a city of scholarship and trade - once the caravans had entered the city's confines, the guards and captains put away their weapons, gave over for the time to the unspoken neutrality that ruled them.

For these men to carry weapons so openly into the tarante - But it wasn't Oran's business to care. Better, safer to leave now, and seek Ferin before he left the city. He swallowed the last of his caffe with only a faint grimace and choked.

" - there's no way we can make the journey to Sangre like this."

He'd snapped around to stare at the two men before he could stop himself.

"If we don't get it back to them before it rots we'll never get the money. You know how they are about their gods-cursed authenticity."

"We could make better money trading the rest of the stock in the slave markets at Sirias. That dragon alone -"

"Have you forgotten what happened the last time in Sirias?"

"If we're careful -"

"Careful! One man less is too much to risk a crossing but not the king's men in Sirias?"

With another oath, he struck the table and stalked out of the tarante. His companion, the man with the wounded hand, snapped at his back but made no move to follow.

Oran made himself wait long enough to pay for his caffe, then left the tarante himself. He lost his quarry for the moment, but found it again by the faint scent of blood and anger. He ducked through the crowds, searching, down the length of the street and then into an alley of shallow stone cut steps, back onto another street. A wide road, packed with animals and people, so that he lost the scent in the wave of animal and human smells that swamped him but -

A man, almost familiar, moving into another alley with the long, swift steps

He couldn't let himself run, but he came close, rounding the corner into sudden shadow, and then he found himself slammed into the wall, a knife at his throat. He barely had time to curse his own carelessness - he should have known better than to fall for a trick like this.

"Who are you?" the man pinning him face-first into the dirt wall demanded.

He didn't sound as angry as Oran would have expected, a small relief. He tried to catch his captor from the corner of his eye, then gave up. "No one. My name is Oran. I only arrived here two days ago."

"Why are you following me?"

"I wasn -" The knife bit into his skin just enough to hurt, if not draw blood. He went very still. "I didn't mean anything by it. I heard you speaking to your friend. You mentioned Sangre. I'm looking for passage there..."

"Eavesdropping?" But the knife at his jugular eased back just enough so he could breathe some ease again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Oran said quickly. "it's just that -"

The arm holding him pressed to the wall released him. "Why Sangre? Not much of a place for a boy."

"I have family there," Oran said. "I left them to try my luck with the traders, but it's been almost a year now and I'm looking to return again. My old captain isn't looking to go back for another year at least."

The man eyed him, then jerked his head to the mouth of the alley. "A bit young to be taken on by a trader. Get out in the light where I can see you."

"He needed the hands, and I showed promise," Oran said, smooth. "I'm a quick learner. My old captain will vouch for that, if you like. He should be in the city for a few days more."

He held his breath - it was one thing to lie, but another to gamble said lie on another man's word. Ferin had been paid to take him out of Sangre, drugged and unconscious. Oran had learned fast enough, and made himself useful on the journey, but vouching for his ticket back to the city he'd been forced to leave?

The man shook his head. "Never mind that. We're not as set on Sangre as you hope we are, and you're young for our trade. It won't be an easy crossing, and we're not easy masters," he said.

Oran grinned. "I'll stake my chances on that," he said and hoped his smile was eager but not enough to betray desperation.

"Oh, you will, would you?" The man smiled then, a quirk of his mouth revealing a flash of white teeth. "What was your name again?"

"Oran."

"My name is Gilar. Do you know where the Four Moon stables are?" Oran would have nodded even if he hadn't. "Look for me there this evening, after the sixth bell. If you're in luck, you might find your passage after all."

Three days later, Oran watched Anansis fade into the heat and sand of the desert, wavering in its final moments like a mirage imagined and never seen.

The caravan was small, much smaller than he'd realised most caravans traveled. Two wagons, six men and horses who acted as guard, drivers for each of the wagons. The first wagon was smaller, loaded with supplies and weapons like the heavy, crude rifles the men wore slung over their backs, and the swords they slung from their belts.

They'd given Oran a long knife, an unfamiliar weight against his hip. He would have preferred the dagger in his boot, but he left that where it was.

Perched on the back of the second, he watched the horizon recede, not letting himself think about what he knew was in the wagon behind him. Kaen, the one with the injured hand, rode in the rear. He made little attempt to speak to Oran - he seemed to think it was Oran's fault that they were heading to Sangre despite his protests.

He could feel his eyes on him every now and then, glaring. Oran ignored it to focus on the distant horizon, scanning the ever shifting line of sand. When the sands began to blur in between the heat and his wavering attention, he looked away, fiddled with the knife, trying to learn its weight and balance. When their eyes chanced on each other, he grinned in what he hoped was an intelligent but harmless manner. Not that Kaen ever smiled back.

Hours after Anansis had vanished from view, a low whimper began from the cabin at his back, incessant but for the intervals of hiccupping sobs that interrupted it. It set his teeth on edge, though he kept his face impassive.

It hadn't been so hard to guess that the men were slave traders. In Sangre, the debates over the slavery laws had been going on for almost a century now. Slavers kept their head down, bringing their wares through the underground markets. Oran knew enough of the slave trade. And if it would get him back to Sangre, he'd thought, what did it matter if he had to play a slaver himself for a while?

He glanced into the shaded interior of the wagon, lined with iron barred cages just large enough to fit a small man. They didn't carry many slaves; from what little Oran had gathered, they dealt in what they called "special" wares.

A rows of baskets made of densely knotted barbed wire sat piled in the front of the wagon, each filled with a desert fae, tiny, vicious things with razor teeth and iridescent butterfly wings. They had been drugged to keep them from screaming or tearing themselves apart. One of the cages held a girl, white haired and crimson-eyed, who stared blindly into space. A gag had been wrapped around her mouth for no reason that Oran could see, and she sat a silent, wide-eyed ghost.

The whimper came from the cage closest to Oran. In the sudden darkness of the wagon after the blinding sun outside, he picked out the faint line of the figure that clawed at the bars. Bright eyes stared at him: wild, angry, terrified.

Narrowing his eyes, he said, "Stop that."

The dragon snarled through its gag and threw itself against the bars with a loud thud. The wagon shook and the driver looked back with a frown. "Shut that up! It'll spook the camule," he said, annoyed.

"What's this?" Kaen said, riding up.

"It's the dragon, it's - upset," Oran replied.

The older man made a derisive noise and glared into the wagon. Pitching his voice to carry, he said, "That won't get you anywhere. If you keep that up, we'll just drug you."

The dragon subsided, but didn't stop glaring. Kaen jerked his head at Oran. "Get in there and watch it for a bit. Kick the cage if it tries to fight or scream again. If it keeps it up, get Naal."

He wheeled away without waiting for Oran's answer. Oran climbed into the wagon's shade and kicked one of the empty cages just loud enough to be heard, then settled himself down. With the leisure to study it at will, he could see that the dragon was small - just a little smaller than him, heavily built, with black scaled skin and shorn hair. A male, he guessed.

He said, loudly, "He's right, you know. It's not going to help, fighting like this."

The dragon narrowed his eyes at him. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them and claws curled into fists. The chain at the back of the cage, pinning his tail down, rattled against the floor. Oran leaned in.

"Look, if you keep quiet, maybe I can get them to remove the gag or something." Watching the driver from the corner of his eye, he added, lightly, "Can't help you if you won't help yourself, you know."

The dragon met his eyes with an unreadable stare, then turned his back on him. But he stayed silent for the rest of the day.

Nightfall.

The caravan continued for some hours after sunset, but eventually, they set up camp. The men slept wrapped under the stars - there was little need for tents. A small fire burned, and two guards were on watch.

Oran took the first shift, sitting by the wagons. Above, the stars were beginning to show themselves, and for the moment, the desert was still. He could hear the guard at the other end of the camp hum to himself; in the clear, cool air, every noise carried like a struck bell.

Moving with the noiseless care of a lifetime's worth of practice, he left his post to climb into the wagon. For a moment, he paused, wondering if the captives were asleep, but then a movement in the larger cage and eyes that gleamed gold looked at him. He glanced at the girl, but she lay curled on her side, breathing evenly. Kneeling by the dragon's cage, he lifted his hands, hoped that he could see him.

"I'll untie you for a bit," he whispered.

He held still while he undid the gag, fumbling for a moment at the smooth scales under his hands - Oran had known dragons before but he'd never had cause to touch one. He'd never seen a dragon so young before either. The dragon made a faint growl in his throat, then stared at him.

"What's your name?" Oran asked.

"Naryas," he said, voice raspy and dry so the words came out louder than they should have.

"Are you hurt?" He shook his head. "Where did they take you?"

Oran didn't know why he was doing this - if the other guard caught him, they would at worst kill him and at best leave him in the deserts to die. He knew that the men who traveled the Dead Seas were hard by nature and experience, but something about the men of this caravan left Oran on edge, wary. He was lost and afraid and a long way from home but whatever happened, he couldn't let anyone guess it.

"They took me from Riska and everyone. We were making our way to Irisin when they attacked us," the dragon said.

"Riska?"

"My - caravan. They must be looking for me."

Maybe they were, but what were the odds they would find him? He wondered if Naryas was telling the truth. Would slavers, however, desperate, attack an entire caravan just for one dragon? Dragons were rare and guarded their own fiercely, but he couldn't see -

A noise from the camp, a murmur - he started and was out of the wagon before he could let himself think.

Gilar's voice, quiet. "Boy?"

"I'm here."

"Shift's over, I'm taking over. Go get some sleep."

It wasn't until he'd rolled himself into the blankets that he realised the dragon's gag was still in his pocket.

Oran had thought he'd understood the dangers the Dead Seas offered well enough from his first crossing - he was beginning to know better now. The sands themselves shifted between storms, rewrote themselves into new terrain; there could be no comprehensive catalogue of their perils and inconveniences. Whatever else Oran might have thought of the men, they knew their trade well. Even Ferin, who had crossed the sands for twenty years and counting, could not have navigated the sands with their dexterity - the real reason for the caravan's small size.

Six days.

The taste of sand and grit in his mouth was almost familiar again, clogged in his throat and around his tongue. Oran had little enough trouble following the wagons' progress - he knew how to tread carefully when needed. Kaen swore under his breath but followed close. The larger wagon did not have as easy a time of it. The camule bucked instinctively at the sight of the black sands, and had to be whipped hard before it would move. The driver swore quietly.

They were almost two thirds of the way across when the sand caved under the weight of one of the wagon's back wheels, and it lurched with a creak of the strained wood and a sudden scream from the animal. It tried to bolt, only to stumble and find itself floundering on treacherous ground that burned with acid and threatened to suck it under.

"Tesar!" Kaen shouted. "Get it back on the path of cut it loose from the wagon!"

"I know that!" was the driver's terse reply. "Watch the wagon!"

Oran caught the wagon's frame by the side closest to him in a vain attempt to stop it sliding any further into the sand. He scraped his knuckles on the wheel hard enough to draw blood, but clenched his teeth and kept his grip.

Behind him, he heard Kaen snap, "Boy! Don't waste your stre-" He stopped and swore, and a moment later, he was beside Oran. This was impossible, Oran thought wildly, scrambling for firmer footing. His heel caught against some buried rock, and he drove his weight on it and felt - finally - the wagon's descent slow and then stop. For a moment, they held their breaths -

Shouts broke the bubble and then the world snapped back into focus. He hurt in places he didn't know could hurt, he could feel his hands rub raw, and even his jaw ached. The other men had turned back, were dragging at the wagon with them, and as the driver dragged the camule back into submission, it eased from the sand to firmer ground.

A rough voice in his ear, "Boy? Oran! It's done, let go, it's done." He staggered back and looked wildly around. Suddenly, his head was spinning; he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but his lungs felt too shallow, and the world swayed.

And then he fell.

Rough linen under his cheek and a hard wood floor swaying beneath him. Oran woke, opened his eyes and bit back a groan. Maybe if he pretended to be unconscious he could stay there for the rest of the journey. A hiss made him open his eyes again.

"Oran? Oran!"

He turned to see Naryas' watching eyes. The cages - he was in the wagon. They must have loaded him in and set off; at least they weren't going to be trapped in the sand marshes when the sun set.

"Ow," he said, and winced.

He should sit up, he knew, and find out what had happened when he'd blacked out, but when he tried to lift his hand to his face, it shook. Oran rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"What happened?" he asked, looking at Naryas.

The dragon shook his head. "Something broke but the wagon's okay. Look behind you," he said.

Oran turned and - well, if he'd had the strength to, he would have leapt out of the wagon and yelled. He jerked upright with horror and threw himself against the cages behind him.

"Hells!"

A long, narrow box of thin planking had been left beside him, the wood splintered and broken. But what made Oran stare was the dead, half-mummified face that stared at him through the long cracks - was it grinning at him?

"What is that?!"

"I don't know," Naryas began when a shadow at the back of the cabin made Oran start and turn again.

"I see you're up," Kaen said.

Oran looked at him and gestured weakly. "Yes, don't know how I blacked out like that, what - what is that?"

Kaen looked at the coffin. "Gave you a start, did it? It's the cargo. We slung under the wagon so it wouldn't get in the way, but the straps broke in the marsh. Nearly lost it - not that that'd've been much of a loss."

"It's dead."

Kaen snorted. "Never seen a dead body before? It's a vampire. Wouldn't even be going to Sangre at all if it weren't for this bastard."

Oran felt the world freeze, and swallowed. "A - a vampire."

Kaen glanced at him, eyes sharp. "A vampire. Said you were from Sangre, didn't you? You must know them."

"I've never seen one dead," he snapped. Oran had seen dead bodies, and he had grown up in a city where vampires walked the streets and you couldn't have told them apart from anyone else. Waking up by a dead body was something else. And a dead vampire...

"You're Hunters."

Kaen's eyebrows narrowed. "Oh, so you've heard of our kind. What of it?"

"N - nothing. I thought you were just slave traders," Oran muttered. He jerked his chin at the coffin. "I just got a bit of a shock."

He could have sworn Kaen's face cracked in the semblance of a smirk. "Must have been," he said.

Oran eyed him, wary, and glanced past him at the light outside. "How long was I out?"

"A couple of hours. What happened there? Took ill? You had Gilar worried for a bit."

"I - I don't know. Maybe it was the marsh fumes, or the heat."

"That was good work you did out there, by the by," Kaen said. "Could've sworn we were going to lose the wagon, but you as good as pulled it out yourself."

Stiffening, Oran stared at him, at his suddenly expressionless features. His almost pleasant manner.

When had the wagon stopped moving?

"Oran!" Naryas shouted from his cage, when he should have known better than to speak out when the men could hear him.

The cabin filled with shadows as the men swung themselves up onto the wagon, blocking out the light. Oran spun to see Gilar advance, knife in hand, and ducked his first lunge, diving under his arm to come up behind him. Tesar filled the gap in the tenting that led to the driver's seat - if Oran made a run for it, he could maybe knock him out of the way long enough to get out, grab a horse, run -

He had to duck again as Gilar made a second swing at him. His long knife was missing - not that he could have used it, not here. In the confined space, Gilar's size hindered more than helped and Oran, who'd been tending the live cargo in the wagon, knew how to use it. But he couldn't hope to keep this up forever, and his head was starting to spin again.

In a desperate move, he threw himself at the back of the wagon, where Kaen waited, slamming his shoulder between chest and throat hard enough to throw them both out into the sun. They wrestled, and Oran caught a glimpse of Kaen's face, grim with an incandescent fury. He couldn't reach for the knife in his boot and he couldn't - a blow to the side of his head, and he yelled and saw stars. He could feel his grip weakening the harder he fought.

"Don't kill him!" a voice in the distance snapped.

He got a mouthful of sand as too many hands shoved him down and pinned him to the ground and gagged, and for a moment it seemed to filled his nose and lungs and this was where they killed him--

And for the second time, the world went black.

For the second time, he woke.

The world had somehow become a strangely small and cramped place - he opened his eyes, tried to move and realised that they'd put him in a cage. He swore and sat up, ignoring the throbbing ache at the back of his head and the warning sense of giddiness that hovered.

Iron shackles around his wrists and ankles; he studied them with narrowed eyes and reached down to check his boot. The knife and lock picks he kept were still there - careless of them, he though with grim satisfaction. But then he leaned against the bars of the cage, trying to look out, and felt the satisfaction drain away.

If they hadn't killed him yet, they couldn't be planning to kill him anything soon. But it was at least four more weeks to Sangre - four weeks when anything could happen.

And he needed blood.

"Naryas," he said.

"You're up!" Naryas' voice came from a cage to his left. "What happened? Why did they lock you up?"

"I don't -" He grimaced. "They found out that I'm Blood. I don't know how, but -"

"A blood?"

"A vampire. Like the thing in the coffin there. They're hunters, they get paid to find and kill illegals. Vampires that shouldn't be vampires. Like me."

Stunned silence. "You're - you're a vampire? But how - why -"

"I'm not even supposed to be!" Oran exploded and hit the bars of the cage with a fist. "I - My friend and I, we were thieves. We tried to rob this place and I got hurt and... I don't know what she did but she got a master to turn me so I wouldn't die. They sent me out of the city so I wouldn't get caught. I'm going to kill her when I get back," he said, then remembered that as the odds stood now he wasn't going back. Not alive anyway. El was going to kill him.

Out of all the caravans in Anansis, he had to find the one made up of Hunters.

Looking down at his hands, he realised that the cuts and scrapes from the accident were already half healed and covered in pink, raw skin. He hadn't thought about how much strength he'd used trying to stop the wagon falling into the marsh - he'd slowly gotten used to the sharpened senses and reflexes but most days he still barely remembered that he was supposed to be stronger now.

"Looks like I'm not much of a help after all," he said out loud to Naryas.

Even if he got them out of the shackles and cages, freed the fae as a distraction, the two of them couldn't overpower eight men on their own. And even if they could, where would that leave them? Trapped in the middle of the Dead Seas with no idea how to return to civilisation.

"You did help. And Riska will find me. She always does."

A slim hope, Oran thought, but didn't say it out loud. Naryas' faith was the only thing that kept him cheerful; if he was going to lose it, better later than now. He closed his eyes and fell half asleep to the rocking of the wagon, trying not to think about how if he didn't get the blood his body so obviously needed now, he might not live long enough to have to worry about what happened to anyone.

When the wagon stopped again, he opened his eyes. The cabin was dark. Lamplight glimmered just then, and someone swung himself into the cabin. Gilar, Oran recognised, and stiffened when he stopped in front of his cage and knelt.

"Awake, are you?" He didn't look at Oran, only held out something that gleamed crimson- a syringe, the glass vial filled with blood. "Take it."

Oran stared and after a pause, took it. "You're not killing me," he said.

"They like the illegals alive when they get them. Wouldn't have killed that one either if he hadn't fought us so hard."

"Alive? Why?"

"So they can find the vampire that turned you. You'll wish we'd killed you, once they're done." There was a vein of anger under the words - of all the men, it was Gilar who had almost been friendly, that Oran almost trusted. Oran could see the reason for his anger. It was going end with him dead.

"I don't know who - Gilar!"

The light vanished as he left the cabin; he did not stop or turn to look at Oran again. Staring down at the syringe he'd been left with, surprisingly heavy and still warm in his hands, Oran resisted the urge to throw it away.

He didn't know how many hours passed after that while he stared sleepless and grim, the empty vial beside him. The cage was too small for him to lie down, and he could feel his muscles and shoulders begin to cramp, though the giddiness had finally faded. For lack of anything better to do, he picked the locks on his shackles; they clicked open easily enough. He did not try the cage's lock - Naryas didn't know, but he'd already broken the lock on one of the empty cages.

He snapped the shackles back onto his hands for the time, afraid that the men would notice he'd removed them.

When the sound came, he had grown so bored he thought he'd imagined it. Then it came again. Far in the distance, too far for it to be one of the caravan's own sleeping horses, a whinny and the faint thump of an animal (animals?) galloping.

Listening, frozen, he waited for the guards to hear it and sound the alarm. Silence. They'd stopped, the guards continued, unheeding - they couldn't have heard it, he realised, and wondered if he was dreaming.

A crack shattered the desert's unnatural stillness, and a man screamed. Oran swore and reaching for his picks, removed the shackles around his legs.

"Naryas!" A scrabble told him that the dragon was awake. "They got one of the guards, we're being attacked!"

Around him, he could hear the camp explode into life, the men waking, swearing, gathering their weapons while the horses bucked and screamed at the scent of blood in the air.

"It must be Riskas!" Naryas said a little too happily in Oran's opinion, when they still had no real idea what had happened. "We have to get out and help them!"

Oran nearly snapped a pick on the cage's lock in his urgency. He set his teeth and made himself close his eyes, shut out the shouts outside, then tried again. The lock finally clicked and he rolled out of the cage. He was half done with the lock on the second cage when someone shouted, "The wagons!"

He swung Naryas' cage door open just as someone swung up into the cabin, rifle swung over his shoulder, short sword in hand.

"You!" the man snarled. "What did you do?"

Oran didn't waste any breath, dragging his dagger of his boot. Naryas screamed and managed to get half out of the cage before his shackles dragged him back. He threw himself at the man, tossing him off balance and raking his claws against his leg. The man swore, and a kick sent the small dragon reeling, the guard swinging his sword down. Oran kicked his sword arm, hard, and he turned his attention to the boy instead.

Naas fought better in close quarters than Gilar had; with nothing but a short dagger, Oran was driven back to parrying. From the corner of his eye, he saw Naryas sit up again, wiping at the blood on his face, straining at the shackles that held him back. In a reckless move, Oran switched to the offensive, trying to drive the guard back, and barely managed to duck a blow to his side.

A wild slash opened a gash in his right and he almost dropped his sword with a yell but by then he'd done enough. Wrapping his arms around the man's leg, Naryas sank his teeth and claws in Naas and the man stumbled back with a howl.

Oran hurled his knife his knife at his throat before he could somehow throw the dragon off or regain his feet - the man's second scream died and Oran looked away, though not quickly enough. He was breathing heavily, but the blood drumming through his veins felt inexplicably alive.

Naryas sat up and spat blood on the floor. "Quick, get me out!" he said. Oran unshackled his hands and tail and tried to warn him.

"We don't know who attacked the camp, don't be too sure it's your caravan. Help me get the fae!"

While the dragon struggled with the barbed wire baskets and tried to assure Oran and no one else could have launched an attack on the hunters, Oran unlocked the cage with the white-haired girl. She shrank back when he reached for her gag, and he realised that hey hadn't even shackled her. He wondered, briefly, how they'd fed her and why he hadn't thought to ask what she was.

"I won't hurt you," he said, and gestured at his own mouth. "I'll just take that off."

She stared at him, eyes disconcertingly red and bright in the darkness, and then lifted her hands to the gag, uncertain. When he reached out again and began to undo it, she dropped her hands to her lap.

"Do what you want," Oran said, when he was done, and eyed her warily. She made no move to leave her cage, and he turned his attention back to helping Naryas with the fae, waving them off with his dagger when they shrieked and tried to attack them.

When they stumbled out of the wagon, the fae scattering to add their battle cries to the chaos and swoop down on the wounded like vultures, the first wagon was on fire, and three more dead bodies lay on the ground, together with a horse thrashing wildly as it died. The remaining guards and one of the drivers had drawn themselves into a tight pack, mounted on the few horses, wheeling and fighting off the black clad riders that circled them, slashing and attacking.

Oran watched the fight warily, and then jumped and nearly screamed when something - someone - dropped from the sky to land behind them with a cry.

"Naryas! You got free!" The dragon leapt at the figure who stood grinning at them and would have knocked her over if the newcomer hadn't braced herself. "Watch the equipment, stupid!"

"Arin!" It didn't stop the dragon from wrapping himself around the smaller girl in an alarming manner anyway.

"You ass, how could you let yourself get captured? Riskas is going to feed you to the serpents herself."

"They had dragon poison! And she always says that, she'll never do it. Where is she?"

The girl untangled herself from Naryas' enthusiastic embrace and gestured at the riders. "Over there. Riskas! "

Only two men still left of the guard, Oran counted, and felt a little sick, though not enough to try and stop the fight. One of the riders turned away from the bloody dance at the shout, and crossed the camp to pull up six feet away from them. The black-hooded figure dragged the scarf covering its head and face, and a female face, bespectacled and only a few years older than Oran, looked down at them.

"You got him out quick!" she said to the girl who had turned away to fold the enormous frame of silk and wood she carried with her.

"No I didn't," Arin said. "He was already loose when I touched down."

"Oran got me out!" Naryas said. He made no move to try and embrace the girl on her horse but looked unnecessarily pleased nonetheless. The girl turned to look at Oran, who returned her scrutiny with a stare of his own. She did not, precisely, smile, but she did nod.

"He owes you for that," she said, the words wry but cheerful.

"Not any more than I owe the rest of you for saving my life," Oran answered, and managed a grin.

"Riskas!"

The other riders were crossing the camp - Oran turned at their approach and glanced past them to the figures that sprawled, unmoving, on the ground. He looked away.

"The work's done?" she said to the riders, who were stripping the scarves from their heads, revealing faces the same age as Riskas'.

"The hunters can think twice before they try to attack us again. I see they didn't chop you up for lizard meat before we got here! More's the pity!" a fair-skinned boy jeered cheerfully at Naryas, who lashed his tail and stuck out his tongue.

The scene was so familiar it almost hurt. Oran rubbed his face with a hand and looked up to find Riskas watching him again. She turned to the others.

"Dawn's almost here, so we might as well start cleaning. They won't have much apart from the horses. Burn everything else. Arin, as soon as it gets light, fly back to camp and tell the others. It's time we headed home."

In the light of the desert dawn, Naryas' friends picked their way through the wreckage with a cool efficiency that told Oran that smouldering fires and dead bodies were as much a part of their landscape as broken locks and the rooftop roads of Sangre had one been his. He did what he could; mostly this meant lifting things too heavy for the others. His arm had stopped bleeding and barely hurt now, but Riskas hadn't even blinked when Naryas told her, in impressed tones, that Oran was a vampire. He supposed it was a good sign.

Anyone watching the scene would have called them unlikely pirates - but Oran didn't doubt that they were dangerously good at their work. He'd grown up in Sangre's largest thief gang - another rat in Mother Hubbard's army of lost children. Being small and young didn't make you any less vicious if you were also hungry or frightened.

He'd never thought he would miss it but lost in the desert a world away from everything he knew, he was suddenly, wretchedly homesick. El would laugh herself sick if she knew, he thought.

"So, going back to Sangre?" Riskas drawled from behind him. She pushed her glasses up her nose and stared at Oran when he turned to her.

"I was," he said.

Her eyebrows rose. "Not anymore? You're a long way from home."

"It's not - supposed to be my home. Not anymore. If I go back now I'll just get killed. Again."

And if he wasn't afraid of dying (he was), there was El, somewhere in Sangre, bound to the service of a Master, whatever that meant. But if the past week had shown him anything, if he went back to Sangre now when he barely understood what he was - it would be just as bad. Probably worse. El could take care of herself.

"Naryas likes you," Riskas observed. "Not that it signifies anything. He likes everyone."

He glanced at her expression of elaborate unconcern and almost smiled. "How did a dragon join a band of desert pirates?"

"If you would believe it, his mother let him. He wants us to bring you to Sangre. Ridiculous. But we can take you back to Anansis, or any other city in the Dead Seas you like."

"I don't think it makes any difference where you leave me. Anywhere that's on your road -"

"Our roads lie everywhere," she said, and there was a note in the words like the night wind, clear and sharp and almost glad. "You could also come with us."

Turning away, he pushed the hair from his face, staring at the distant horizon.

"Hells," he finally said. "Why not?"

the end