Shadowkill

3

The lurching, the rattles, the bone-jarring vibration went on and on, bad roads and almost no springing. Tinoopa slept through all of it, adjusting to the bumps with an automatic ease.

Kizra didn’t. Despite her determination, the stale dusty air, the constant and punishing vibration and the pain from the binding seams of the coverall brought her out of her first heavy sleep and kept her dipping in and out of a nightmare-ridden doze until she couldn’t stand that any more and stayed awake.

She glared at Tinoopa. People who were too adept at adapting themselves to circumstances got annoying very fast.

Jassy was awake and talking. “Eh, Eeda, y’ getta look at what Missus was wearing? Homespun or I’m a three leg kumis. Dewi Baik, y’ know what that means. An’ looka this truck. No ottolooms where we goin.” The skinny little woman’s voice rumbled loud enough to drown the other women talking together and the three girls giggling in a corner near the back.

“ Eh-ya, Jass, “ her sister shrilled back at her. “But’s better’n hoein rocks.”

“Betcha we do that, too, huh. Evathin, Eed. Wan’ it, y’ make it. Djauk! ’Tis worse’n Overbite.”

“‘N Overbite were worse’n Kacsa Kypsa.”

“‘N Kacsa Kypsa were worse’n Maoustie. -

They stopped their chant and giggled, then dropped into silence, bored with games they must have played over and over again.

Kizra stared into the dusty twilight and brooded over the bits and fragments she was dredging from her ravaged memory. She got feelings about things and those feelings had to come out of past experience. The experience was no longer there, but it’d left something like a ghost behind. And she knew things. She knew what a world was and that she’d come from another one than this. She could recognize and name a truck, a pellet rifle, all kinds of things. She knew about pregnancy and contract labor, and… gods knew what else. It was confusing and hope-giving, because there was the implicit promise that more and more would come back to her, though she knew enough about mindwipe to understand that absolutely shouldn’t happen. But then something must have gone at least a little wrong in the process because she shouldn’t have known anything at all about mindwipe.

The truck slowed, turned onto an even worse road; clouds of dust came up around them.

The sound of the tires changed. The dust fell away. They were on stone.

The truck stopped.

When the back flaps clashed open, the sun glared in; it was low in the west, maybe an hour from setting. The guards standing in the gap were dark pillars with melting outlines.

One of them banged against the side of the truck. “Out,” he bellowed. “Night stop.” He banged some more and kept on yelling. “Houp houp houp, out you napanapas. On your feet. Shithouse round back, got a hole waiting for your dirty asses.”

A limber stick slapped against his arm.

He yelped and swung around.

“The Matja Allina does not permit.” It was a rough, ruined voice, but pleasant despite that, calm and mild. The speaker was a long lean man with a badly scarred face.

“What you on at?”

“Go home, Knarkin, you and your cadre. We are all the guard that Matja Allina alka Pepiyadad needs.”

The guard glowered up at him, hating his need to bend his neck. Standing in the opening at the back of the truck, Kizra cringed as the man’s spite and petty fury came blasting at her. “Wasn’t you hired us, P’murr, was the Artwa.”

“Then you can go lick his boots until your time is up, tirghe. You leave now, you can make the aynti 1pirra before midnight. This aynti is hired to the Matja exclusive. Your choice. Under a bush or 1pirra.”

The guard glanced around. He had his four, but there were at least a dozen men standing relaxed and casual between him and the main house. Three of them started for the truck. He shrugged, hitched up his pants and walked off, his men trailing after him.

His long thick plaits slapping against his back, scarface P’murr swung around, waiting for his men before he spoke. These were very different from the city guards; except for P’murr they were a stockier, hardier breed; only one of them was blond, the rest were a mixed lot of browns and brunets. They wore thick gray homespun trousers stuffed into heavy handmade boots and elaborately smocked shirts. They all carried pellet rifles, ammunition in crossed bandoliers, handguns in holsters on leather belts.

Kizra and the locals stared at each other a moment, then P’murr brushed loose hair from his eyes and smiled at her. “Come on out,” he said, “we’ll be spending the night here.”