The Dirt Eaters (10 page)

That your light burn bright in my heart

I stay behind.

I stay behind and imagine your flight.

Then it's time to walk.

All that day, and the next, and the next, Roan stops only to eat, drink, or relieve himself. When he sleeps, he dreams of the drowning sand and his sister's anguished cries. Always, he is consumed by dread.

At the eighth sunset, he reaches the end of the grasslands, glad to see the sun go down. He's been told that once autumn days were cool, leading into winter. But since the Abomi­nations, the climate's unpredictable and extreme. The heat often continues late into fall, making first snow impos­sible to predict. Today the sun burned hot. But the weather is bound to turn. Roan squeezed out the last of his water this morning, his food the night before. A sudden blizzard would finish him. He wonders how long he's got.

He's been using meditation to control his thirst, but Roan is grateful to arrive at a low, moss-covered stream with a few trees growing at its banks. The water runs a little, a promising sign. Roan puts his nose close to the surface and smells. Fresh and delicious. The luscious water is just a trickle, which is good, because he's parched and might drink too fast. He rests his face on the muddy bank and sips, luxuriating in the cool liquid's flavor. Better yet, he sees it's safe to rest here, hidden by the sloping banks.

In this tranquil state, Roan loses track of time. He's dozing when he feels the first bite. He bolts upright and slaps his neck hard. An insect tumbles to the ground. Roan looks down. A black-winged fly, its wings still beating. He groans with pain as he feels another bite, on his hand. Ten more bugs swoop down on the same spot. He's being swarmed. Hun­dreds, thousands, of slow-flying, black-winged flies.

Roan runs, flailing at his ears, his eyes, but there are too many of them. Biting and biting again. Half-mad with pain and fear, he trips, landing in the stream. Mud fills his mouth, and he gasps for breath. Then he realizes the mud is his salvation. Frantically digging into the bank, he covers himself with it. It soothes his wounds, stops the biting. And when the hole is big enough, he crawls inside, burying himself until only a bit of his mouth is exposed.

Cocooned in his mud tomb, Roan worries about the snow cricket. He thinks he feels it wiggle in his pocket, but can't be sure. It could be one of the black-wings that got into his clothes.

Roan guesses where the flies have come from. The out-of-season heat probably hatched them from eggs in the stream that's protecting him now. They emerged at dusk to feed. Roan's timing couldn't have been worse. His only hope is to wait it out until morning.

Willing himself to stay relaxed, he sips the air slowly and counts each time he inhales. His heart rate descends, and he drifts.

THE MOUNTAIN LION LICKS ROAN'S FACE. ITS SANDPAPER TONGUE IS WARM AND DAMP.

“
WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MY SISTER
?
WHY DO YOU KEEP ME FROM HER
?”

“
WE KEEP HER FROM YOU. IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN REMAIN SAFE.
”

“
THE CITY WANTED US BOTH, SAINT SAID. WHY
?”

“
THEY HAVE THEIR REASONS.
”

“
WILL THEY KEEP HER ALIVE WITHOUT ME
?”

THE MOUNTAIN LION IS SILENT.

“
WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER ME
?”

“
ALIVE, YES. THEY WILL KEEP HER. ALIVE.
”

Roan gags suddenly. A fly is crawling into his mouth. He coughs and spits it out. Have they found a way in? Is he being swarmed again? He listens, trying to hear through the caked mud. Nothing. He calms as he senses there are no others. What would Stowe think of him now, buried alive, stalked by raiders and flies? He falls back to sleep, dreaming of fire and insects and red skies.

LUMPY

THEY WILL RUN TO YOUR GATES. KEEP THEM SHUT. THEY WILL PLEAD FOR YOUR MERCY. DO NOT RELENT. AND IF THEY EMBRACE YOU, BUILD THE PYRES HIGH.

—
THE WAR CHRONICLES

T
HE SUN BEATS DOWN
on the creek, and Roan bakes inside his mud encasement. Aching from lack of movement, he listens for sounds, but all he hears is an angry stomach. His.

Without warning, he's jolted by something leaping onto the surface of the bank. Sharp claws dig into the clay. Roan bursts out of his cocoon with a shout, hoping to scare whatever it is away. He scrapes at the dried mud in his eyes, and in the blur he sees a brown mangy dog.

“Go!” Roan commands. The dog bares yellow teeth, snarling.

Eyes darting, Roan sees his pack and hook-sword are out of reach. A long branch is closer at hand. He feints, grabbing the branch as the dog leaps. With a twist, Roan catches the dog on the side. The animal lands hard on the ground. Before it rises, Roan scrambles up the bank, hoping his one blow is enough to dissuade the animal. The dog barks, a hard yelp that tears through Roan's ears.

Roan speaks firmly to it. “I'm going now, friend, so stay put.” He slowly steps backward, his heart pounding, hoping the worst is over. But in an instant, five other wild dogs appear, snarling around him.

One mongrel snaps at his feet. Roan kicks it hard, and as the dog comes back, Roan smashes its foreleg. Two others charge and Roan whirls with the branch, catching one with a glancing blow on the back and smacking the other on the snout. Then the biggest of the pack leaps, sinking its teeth into Roan's calf. He swings the branch, but there are too many of them, ripping at his coat, lunging for his gut. Soon he'll tire, and the dogs will leave no more of him than bones scattered across a wasteland.

An ear-piercing whistle slices through air. The dogs freeze. A cloaked, hooded figure appears, a silhouette before the blinding sun. The dogs snarl as the intruder lowers his hood and hisses. The leader of the pack backs up, then skulks off, and the others follow. That's the end of it. The dogs are gone.

Roan eyes the figure for weapons, but it's difficult to make him out in the glare of sun. All he can see is the outline of a big knapsack on the figure's back.

“Are those your dogs?” Roan asks.

The faceless figure laughs, then speaks in a deep, raspy voice. “Anything but.”

“I'm grateful. But if you have any intention of eating me yourself, that whistle of yours won't do you any good.”

“I don't eat humans,” says the figure and turns to go.

Roan calls out. “Are you traveling alone?”

“Always.”

“Maybe we can walk together for a while.”

The figure snorts.

“This territory's new to me,” says Roan. “I could use the help of someone who knows his way around.”

“You don't want my help,” advises the figure, lowering his hood and stepping out of the glare.

Roan gasps. He sees the face of a boy his own age, but this boy's face is covered with lumps and deep open pits, some of the edges rising an inch above the skin, with a thin green mucous seeping over. The boy's eyes are barely visible through the craters and mounds.

A crooked little half-smile quakes across the landscape of hills and pits. “You haven't run.”

“Should I?”

“Most people think I'm contagious, so they either run or try to kill me.”

“I owe you my life. Let me fight by your side.”

“I never fight.”

“Then I'd fight for you.”

The boy puts his hood back up.

“You don't have to cover yourself on my account,” says Roan. “I've seen too many dead people to be bothered by the way you look.”

The boy lets loose a wild giggle. “He thinks I look better than a rotting corpse!” He turns again to leave, but unaccountably stops, staring at Roan's chest.

“Where did you get that?”

Roan, puzzled, looks down to see the snow cricket perched on his top button.

“It's from my village. Way on the other side of Barren Mountain.”

“It stays with you?”

Roan nods. “It found me the morning after my people were killed. It's been with me for months.”

“Snow crickets don't take to people easily, but once they adopt you, it is said they never leave.”

In the silence that follows, Roan can see something's changed in the stranger's attitude toward him. After a moment, the strange boy speaks again.

“Any bites?”

It takes Roan a moment to understand what he's being asked. He'd almost forgotten the wild dogs. In that moment, the pain flares, coursing through him.

“Any bites?”

“My leg.”

The boy nods. “I can help you.”

He bends down, gathering a black moss growing along the stream bank. Roan winces as he crouches to join him, pulling up handfuls of the dry, springy turf. The stranger moves to a spot in the stream where the bank overhangs making a half-roof. He takes off his heavily patched knapsack and pulls out a piece of flint and a scrap of steel.

“My name's Roan, what's yours?”

“Lumpy,” says the stranger, lowering his hood. That odd smile again. Scraping the steel against the flint, he makes a spark that lights the moss. “It may not burn hot, but it makes almost no smoke. Which is good, if you're avoiding someone.”

Lumpy takes a small bowl and an old glass jar out of his pack. He places the bowl on the fire, heating it. Then, scooping the remains of a salve from the jar, he melts it in the bowl and dresses Roan's wounds with it until there's none left.

“Where did you get this stuff?” asks Roan.

Lumpy doesn't answer, just takes a small handful of what looks like dried meat out of his pack and gives a piece to Roan.

“Chew it slowly,” Lumpy says. “This is the end of it.”

Roan thanks him and chews. The burst of rich, spicy flavor makes him feel lightheaded.

“Where do we get more?”

“I was headed that way before you and the dogs distrac­ted me.”

“I have no food. I could use some.”

Lumpy lays a goatskin bag on the surface of the water, dipping the neck gently in. As Roan does the same, Lumpy warns, “If we don't leave this place before the sun sets, the black-wings will eat us alive.”

“I noticed,” says Roan. He grins, brushing off some of the crusted mud still all over his clothes, face, and hair.

Their water sacks full, they load their packs and set out, moving past the creek and grasslands onto a rocky terrain. The injury to Roan's leg seems superficial, and the salve has made the pain manageable. They walk for hours, staying close to the boulders for cover, neither one speaking. Roan is filled with questions about this strange, mutilated boy. Lumpy saved him, fed him, and salved his wounds. But Roan's been treated well by others who turned out to be anything but trustworthy.

After sunset, the two come to a stand of scraggly pines. The trunks are twisted and bulging. Lumpy takes off his pack and throws it on the ground.

“Cover,” says Lumpy. Yanking a blanket out of his pack, he plops down. “I love the smell of pine.” Lumpy shuts his eyes, and soon he is snoring.

Roan pulls out his bedroll and sits down, hook-sword close at hand. He is tired, but he's too dubious about this new acquaintance to sleep. Lumpy could be working for Saint, leading Roan into an ambush. He might have given him the last of the medicine to trick Roan into seeing him as an ally.

Determined to stay awake, Roan props himself up on his pack. He attunes his senses to the environment around him, focusing on every sound and smell, keeping his mind alert. But his fatigue prevails. Eyelids sag, head drops forward, and his body slowly folds itself onto the ground.

Roan wakes with a start to see Lumpy gone, as well as the packs. Furious with himself for falling asleep, he bolts to his feet. Too quickly. He feels the scabby tissue on his leg split apart. Ignoring it, he bursts out of the stand of trees, ready to hunt the thief to the ends of the earth.

Thump. Roan whirls at the sound. His pack is at his feet.

“I thought you'd never get up,” says Lumpy.

“What were you doing with my stuff?”

“Feel your face.”

Roan does. There's a spot of sticky-sweet sap on his cheek.

“It was getting on the packs, so I moved them. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” says Roan. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” replies Lumpy. “Let's get some breakfast. Fresh and delicious. C'mon.”

The terrain is dry, speckled with sparse stands of stunted hemlock. This was once dense forest, Roan guesses, but the Devastation and subsequent erosion wasted it. As he and Lumpy dart between patches of trees, taking whatever cover they can find, Roan's appetite grows from a whisper to a scream. The promise of a hearty meal has wrecked his ability to concentrate and his mouth waters in anticipation. Lumpy stops at a pointed mound rising six feet out of the ground.

“What's this?” asks Roan.

“Breakfast,” says Lumpy, giving the mound a hard kick. From a hole in the side, hundreds of two-inch termites rush out to defend their home. Lumpy grabs one, breaks off its legs, and pops it, still wiggling, into his mouth.

“Dig in,” Lumpy yells, grabbing another.

Roan stands and stares at the wriggling bugs. “This is the dried meat you fed me?” he asks, feeling queasy.

“Didn't you like it?”

“Yeh.”

“Even better fresh!”

Roan takes a breath, then plucks a fat termite off the hill and pops it straight into his mouth. Before he can bite down, the insect jumps out and scurries away on the hard-packed ground.

“Break the legs off first,” Lumpy advises.

The next termite squirms in Roan's grip, but he manages to break off the legs. The extra step means he has to look at the insect, which makes it harder to then put the bug in his mouth. But he won't back down under Lumpy's scrutiny. He bites, chews, and swallows. He doesn't exactly like the sensation, but it isn't as bad as he feared. And the live bug has the same rich, spicy flavor as the dried version.

“I thought the shells would be harder,” says Roan, grabbing another termite and gobbling it up.

“Best part,” Lumpy says.

After they've gorged themselves, Roan sits back and watches Lumpy pull the empty salve jar out of his pack. He's filled it since Roan saw it last.

Lumpy takes a flat stick and starts to trail the contents of the jar across the cracked clay to a clump of hedges against a stony rise, where he smoothes the bulk of the sticky treasure. “This sweet tree sap is their favorite.”

Within seconds, a worker termite crawls from the hill, goes to the sap, tastes it, and rushes back to the hill.

“Get ready!” shouts Lumpy. In a blink, a wave of termites explodes from the hill, pouring across to feed on the delicacy.

Lumpy starts squashing the bugs with his feet.

“What are you doing?” Roan asks, mystified.

“Making dinner!” he yells. Roan joins in, pounding the bugs tentatively at first, but soon smashing with gusto.

After a half-hour of this grisly work, Lumpy gathers up the dead. Under cover of the hedge, he shows Roan how to make dried “meat” by smashing the bugs into a paste with a little honey and molding it into strips. Taking some black moss out of his pack, he lights it and shelters it with his cloak, and then dries the jerky by the fire.

“Bugs eat us, we eat bugs. Nice balance, isn't it?”

It takes until well into the evening, but now they have enough food for a few weeks. Sitting in the hedge, the blue darkness closing in around them, Lumpy rubs a soft stone from his pack against one of the mounds on his face, massaging it. His dark eyes lock on Roan. “Who are you running from?”

Roan's stomach churns. “Why do you want to know?”

“I like to know who I'm up against.”

Roan hesitates, still unsure of Lumpy. He steels himself, then meets the other boy's gaze. “Saint.”

Lumpy lets out a low growl.

“Saint murdered my people,” Roan whispers. “And captured me.”

“You escaped?”

“Not exactly.”

Lumpy stands. “You were one of
them
.”

“No. Never.”

“Explain.”

“He had me read to him.”

“You're a reader? Where did you learn?”

“In my village. Longlight.”

Lumpy looks skeptical, but he sits back down. “Longlight?”

“You've heard of it?”

“You're telling me you come from Longlight?”