Reclamation(11)
Eric lunged. His hands clamped down on the nearest guard’s outstretched arm and swung him around. The guard crashed into his comrade and they both reeled against the wall. A taser clattered to the floor. Eric slammed the edge of his hand against the first guard’s throat. The man gurgled and collapsed. The second guard reached across the fallen body and grabbed Eric’s shoulders, effectively blocking the woman’s aim. Eric flung himself sideways. He and the guard both hit the deck. With a wrench, Eric rolled them over until he came out on top. He shoved the heel of his hand against the man’s nose. Blood spurted across his palm and the guard went limp.
Eric flung himself across the floor and rolled again. Above him, the woman took fresh aim. Eric kicked both legs out and caught her ankle. She crashed against the floor. He hauled her shoulders up and cracked her skull against the deck plates. She grunted and sagged in his arms. His fingers found the catch on her bracelet terminal and snapped it loose.
Eric scrambled to his feet. He shoved the plug from the stolen bracelet into the socket beneath the warning light and twisted. The light blinked from red to green and both sides of the airlock hatch swished open.
Something sharp slammed between his shoulder blades and Eric sprawled across his own deck, pinned down by a weight that squirmed. Reflexively, he rolled, ready to swing his fist out, but the weight had scrambled out of the way. Arla towered over him for a split second. In the next, she bolted down the short hall toward the common room and the view wall.
“Cam! Get us out!” Eric shouted without even trying to stand up.
The engine’s hum became a rumble. Over its noise came a scream of pure terror followed fast by the sound of a body hitting the floor.
The Notouch had looked out at open space, and had passed out, as Eric had known she would.
It was, after all, what had happened to him.
Relief and exhaustion blurred Eric’s mind until the world took itself away.
2—Painted Canyon, the Realm of the Nameless Powers, After Dark
The Nameless Powers walked their Realm and spoke among themselves. They named the Walls, and the Walls grew strong. The Nameless spoke of the people then and each life they named became True and took up its place in their Realm.
From “The Words of the Nameless Powers,” translated by Hands to the Sky for all who follow.
BROKEN TRAIL DENA RIFT in the Clouds, don’t do this.”
Trail ignored Cups’s urgent whisper. She kept on looking toward the darkness that hid the walls of Narroways city. The wind blew hard, brushing her cheeks with warmth from the dying fire at her back. Thankfully, it was a dry night and she could sit outside with nothing worse to worry about than cold. Around her, the tents flapped and creaked in the wind that whistled down Painted Canyon. A baby whimpered from the left and someone, it had to be Yellow Stones, snored loudly enough to call back the Aunorante Sangh. No one had woken up when she crawled outside. No one, of course, except Empty Cups.
“She’s been gone too long.” Trail pulled her poncho around her. “I am going to find out what happened to her.”
Cups sighed and crouched beside her. “She wouldn’t thank you for it if you did. I saw her face when she left. No interference, that’s what she wants. Let her be, wherever she is, Trail.”
“No.” A lump of wood broke apart in the fire, setting loose a shower of sparks so, for a moment, Trail could track the wind with her eyes. “I am going to find out what the Skymen have done with my sister. I’d be going even if Mother didn’t tell me to, that’s the whole of it.”
The baby’s whimper became a wail and groans arose from all around as tired women tried not to wake up.
“Trail”—Cups laid a hand on her head and shook her gently—“think, would you? We need your hands in the pens tomorrow. I’ve got a promise of two bolts of whole cloth and three new pots if we get …”
Trail jerked her head away. “You’ve got the brains of an ox, Cups. The Skymen are here. They’re trying to win over King Silver. The Nameless know why and we need to find out.”
“As if it’ll make a difference.” Cups gouged a fistful of dirt out of the ground and held it up for Trail. “As long as there’s mud we’ll be sitting in it”—she threw the lump down again—“be it owned by the Nameless, the Heretics, or the Skymen.”
“Haven’t you heard the story about how, after the Servant moved the Realm, the power-gifted started taking lives on their own authority, not the Nameless’s, so the Nameless Powers allowed the People to raise their hands against the Teachers for a time.”