“There is much that is misunderstood about the Torrent, Luca,” Ula said. “Those who pay their tax and live alone are let be.”
Luca had so much to ask but didn’t when Dunixi confounded him further with what he did next. The leader dismounted and handed his reins to Urtzi. “You know the drill. Come for me with your daggers in five if I’m not out.”
And then the Eritrian walked toward the compound, alone.
“Why five minutes? Why aren’t we just going in there with him, daggers drawn now?”
“You ask too many questions,” Urtzi answered, one hand snaking into Dunixi’s saddlebags. He pulled out a palmful of dried meat made from an animal Luca could not identify and stuffed it straight in his mouth, as if he believed that eating it before Dunixi came out would prevent the boy from noticing that it was missing at all.
“You don’t ask enough,” Ula shot back. Rather than grumble at her, Urtzi laughed. It was true—from what Luca had seen, the Myrcellian took orders without ever thinking them through. He just collected them like sips of water—or pieces of dried meat—until there was a break in action, and then he did it all over again. Ula shifted so that she could look Luca in the eye. “He’s getting us a spot for the night.”
“And we’re not in there because … you showed me off in my restraints at the river but don’t want to do so here?”
“Not everything is about you, Luca,” Ula replied with a smirk.
“No, it’s all about me,” Urtzi crowed over his chewing, delivering the full-mouthed words with some sort of faux self-disparagement that didn’t work with his overconfident nature. At all.
Ula ignored him and the boy seemed to shrink a little when she didn’t punctuate his answer with her bell-like laugh. “You outsiders see the Torrent as this lawless place, but the truth is it has more rules than the rest of the Sand and Sky put together.”
Luca cocked a brow. “And what rules live here?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Ula turned away from him, trying to play coy. She wasn’t very good at it. He’d spent a little more than a day with her, and he’d learned she was one who loved to tell it like it was, and loudly. Making someone work for her thoughts was not something she was terribly gifted at.
So he waited. There was a sign several yards from them, but he couldn’t read it with the lack of light. And even if he could, a conversation like this was one way to keep in her good graces.
As she began to turn, Urtzi swallowed the last of his pilfered snack. “I’d like to know. All I know is that I hold the horse here.”
Ula sighed. “The key words when I described this place were ‘tax’ and ‘alone.’ The proprietor pays his taxes on time and the Warlord turns a blind eye to the fact that he lets people congregate—renting rooms or campsites at this place. It looks like a compound, but it’s technically an inn. The key is that one must enter the main structure alone to purchase a night’s stay.”
Luca’s eyes fell to the leader’s saddlebags. He hadn’t rummaged through them before he dismounted. If Dunixi had gold pieces in his pockets, they were small in number—there’d been no telltale jingling as they rode together. No bulges in his pockets to account for larger bars tendered in troy ounces either.
Urtzi, though, did not have this information. “But we don’t have any gold. We never have any gold. That’s why we have him.” The boy nodded at Luca.
Ula pursed her lips. “This man takes more than physical valuables—if you have useful information, it’s as good as gold.”
“That’s quite the business model.”
“He’s survived on it for many years. I wouldn’t disparage it, Luca.”
Just then, Dunixi returned, a key dangling from his hand, the metal catching the starlight with a blink of shine as he walked.
“That one nearly cost me a dip in the compost.” It was a funny thing to say, but he delivered it with a tic of nervousness and something in his eyes that made Luca believe that there actually was the possibility of him becoming worm food, though it didn’t make much sense.
Dunixi relieved Urtzi of his reins, mounted his horse, and made another announcement as he led the way to the compound’s east gate. “I’m off watch tonight, folks—I’m spent. Ula, you’re set until midnight. Urtzi, until sunup. Then we push on.”
* * *
THEY settled in a camp on the northeast edge of the property. The key went to a gate to the fence that surrounded them, and then again to their lodging. Somehow, Dunixi had secured them a spot surrounded by a privacy fence tall enough that the horses couldn’t peek over. They lit a fire, feasting on pistachios, dates, and dried meat—taken from Urtzi’s saddlebag, interestingly. Ula fed Luca a handful from her stash before Dunixi caught her.
“No more, Ula. He doesn’t need to be plump, just alive.”
Then the leader draped a wet scrap of linen over his burnt skin and turned over for the night. Urtzi did the same minus the cloth. Within the space of just a few minutes, both boys were snoring. Ula stayed seated upright and awake—on watch.
Luca lay back and attempted to join them in sleep, but his mind was racing. Trying to make sense of these land pirates, where they were headed, and who exactly had come up with the plan to use him to coerce Amarande’s hand to begin with. Moreover, there was the fact that for the first time in his life since his mother left this place with him lashed to her back, he was in the Torrent. He’d thought many times of what it would be like here, fed on stories from the childhoods of Maialen, Abene, and Zuzen, not to mention the more recently wrought tales of King Sendoa and General Koldo.
He lay on his back, watching the stars. The pirates had left the fire going. Luca had thought this strange at first, but after the meal, with the sun fully devoured by the horizon, it was clear why. Because though it was summer, warmth here fled fast when the sun set, the heat evaporating from the parched ground, leaving it nothing but scorched embers, cold and dusty.
The winds picked up in the night, too, howling through the open spaces, between the boney plateaus, winding loose soil into flowing rivers of earth. The fence provided some insulation, but not much. Though he’d grown up in the mountains, Luca never knew summer could be so cool.
“Luca, shut your eyes and dream of your princess.”
Luca could feel his cheeks grow hot with Ula’s quiet suggestion, though in truth he didn’t need to shut his eyes to dream of Amarande. He sat up.
The pirate was sharpening that curved sword of hers, the gentle swish-swish of steel on the blade a complement to Dunixi’s pig-squeal snores. A bound journal and pencil sat half-pulled from her saddlebag, and Luca assumed that she was waiting for him to sleep before writing in it, preferring privacy for whatever she wanted to record. He spied the bald rope of the oat bag, a few fat flakes escaped and clinging loosely to the canvas. Good.
“May I ask you something?” Luca whispered after a few moments of watching her work.
She didn’t say yes. Didn’t say no. Didn’t tell him to shut up. So he continued, mindful of his volume with Dunixi and Urtzi snoring in the shadows.
“Did you grow up there—here, I mean?” He still couldn’t believe he was actually in the Torrent.