Water & Storm Country (39 page)

And then not.

In a split second she’s managed to whip out a
long blade, glinting in the sun.

“Now Skye,” the tall one beside her says, her
voice smooth and almost soothing. She reaches out a hand and
touches it gently to the middle girl’s arm. Skye, I assume.

“They’re
burnin’
Glassy baggards,
Wilde,” Skye says, her eyes darting between Tristan and me.

“We don’t know that,” Wilde says, a firmness
in her tone.

Shaking off Wilde’s hand on her arm, Skye
takes a step forward, spinning her blade casually. “Yer from the
Glass City,” she says. Not a question.

“No,” Tristan says.

“Yes,” she says. “Only the Glassies are
vomited from the earth.”
Welcome to Earth
, I think
wryly.

“No.” Tristan again, but there’s less
conviction in his voice now. This girl’s out of her mind, about two
pebbles short of a cave-in. She won’t listen no matter what we say.
She’s convinced we’re these “Glassies”. Whoever they are, they must
be her enemies.

For the first time, I’m thankful Tristan and
I thought to bring our swords to the surface, for protection.
Though I prefer to fight with my fists, or a staff, like my father
taught me, when facing the sharp-edge of a blade wielded by a crazy
woman, I’ll take my sword.

Before she can take another step, I reach
over my shoulder and slide the sharp steel weapon from the sheath
running down my spine. “Back off. We’re not who you think we are.”
My voice is a growl, rumbling from my chest.

The girl called Wilde—who, despite her name,
seems the calmest and most in control—steps forward, one hand
outstretched toward me and the other once more on crazy-girl’s arm.
“There’s no need for that,” she says to me.

“Tell that to Short-Fuse over there,” I say,
pointing the tip of my sword in Skye’s direction.

In the time it takes me to blink, I’ve got an
arrow aimed at my heart, nocked on the bow of the third girl, the
skinny one, who I’d almost forgotten about. From my training in
archery with the star dwellers, I can tell she knows how to use it.
I can’t count on her to miss.

“Whoa, whoa,” Tristan says, extracting his
own sword from his belt. “We all need to just calm down.”

“Then tell your Glassy friend to stop
pointing her searin’ sword at my sister,” the skinny girl says. So
she’s the sister of the crazy one. Let’s hope insanity doesn’t run
in their family.

I glance at Tristan and he nods. I lower my
sword halfway, but not enough that I can’t defend myself if Skye
takes a swipe at me.

“Good, that’s a start,” Wilde says. “Now you,
Skye.”

Skye flashes an annoyed look in Wilde’s
direction, but lowers her blade to the same level as mine. Despite
her more relaxed stance, the tension remains in her body, her
muscles taut, her knuckles splotched with white as they grip the
hilt of her weapon.

“And you, Siena,” Wilde says. Siena. The
sister. Wilde, Skye and Siena. Earth dwellers.

Siena continues to peer at me down the length
of her arrow and I can’t help but hold my breath. All she has to do
is release it and I’m dead. Whose stupid idea was it to come to the
earth’s surface anyway? Oh right, it was mine.

“Siena!” Wilde says sharply, and the skinny
girl lowers her aim, releasing the arrow with a dull
thwock
,
embedding it into the dry earth.

“We don’t want to fight,” Tristan says,
lowering his own weapon.
Speak for yourself
, I think. The
way Skye continues to glare at me makes me want to crack a forearm
shiver across her jaw. Why does she hate us so much? She doesn’t
even know us.

Skye shifts her death stare to Tristan. “You
shoulda thought of that ’fore you murdered our people, ’fore you
declared war on the Tri-Tribes.”

Murder? War?
The Glassies. “The
Glassies murdered your people,” I say.

“Don’t play wooloo,” Skye says. “You were
probably there with the rest of ’em.”

“We don’t even know who the Glassies are,”
Tristan says. “I swear it.”

“Swear on the sun goddess,” Siena says. She
pulls another arrow out of the pouch strapped to her back. Doesn’t
nock it, just holds it. Like a warning. Lie and die.

“I don’t know who the sun goddess is,” I say,
“but I’ll swear on her and my life and the life of my mother and
sister, too, if that’s what it takes for you people to listen.”

Skye suddenly stabs her sword into the
ground. Chews on her lip. Sighs, as if exhausted. “If yer not
Glassies, who the scorch are you? Yer as white as the snow-capped
mountains of ice country, but yer not Icers—not dressed like that.
And yer not Soakers, ’cause yer not freckly and don’t smell like
the big waters. With yer pale skin, you can only be Glassies. And
what in the big-balled Tug are you wearin’ over yer eyes and on yer
heads? Looks like somethin’ them Glassies would wear, ain’t no
mistaking.”

“Dammit!” I say, shoving my own sword into
the ground. I’m angry and the sun isn’t helping—it’s hotter than I
ever could’ve imagined, drawing sweat out of my skin like I’ve been
running laps around the girls in front of us, rather than just
standing here across from them. “We’re not freaking Glassies!” I
rip my sunglasses off, but the light is so bright I have to shut my
eyes, so I put them right back on. The brim of my hat casts a
shadow down to my chin. Amidst the confrontation, I’d forgotten we
were wearing them until Skye pointed it out.

“Adele, stay cool,” Tristan says, sliding his
sword into his belt. Turning to our adversaries, he says, “Forgive
us, we’re not used to the heat, the sun. We just came up here to
have a look around. We don’t know who the Glassies ar—” He stops
suddenly, like he’s been slapped. “The Glassies…” he murmurs,
almost under his breath, trailing off.

“Tristan,” I say. “What is it?”

“Adele and Tristan,” Skye mutters, “what
kinds of names are those?”

I ignore her, my attention fixed on Tristan,
whose eyebrow is raised to the red sky. “Oh no,” he breathes.

“What?” I ask again.

“I think the Glassies are the earth
dwellers,” he says.

I
don’t know what it
is, but I like something about this girl, Adele. She doesn’t look
like us, certainly doesn’t talk like us, but the way she didn’t
back down from Skye, never so much as looked away, reminds me so
much of my older sister I can’t help but like her. If there’s one
thing I learned from all my ’xperiences, it’s that you can’t judge
people until you get to know them. The Icers, who I thought were
the baggards of the earth, turned out to be mostly okay, ’cept for
mad King Goff who was leading them. And the Stormers, who at first
I had hated hated hated, were really the ones trying to do the
right thing. Even the Soakers—despite their roughness and somewhat
creepy lust for war ’n blood—weren’t so bad once the
devil-reincarnate Admiral Jones was dead. Scorch, my sister, Jade,
even has a thing for one of them, and she was a slave for six
years, so she would know the good from the bad.

Now Adele is staring at the guy, Tristan she
called him, with such intensity I almost wanna laugh. But I also
wanna know what they’re talking ’bout. “What’s an earth dweller?” I
say, thinking of Perry right away. My prickly friend is most
definitely stuck in the earth, so I suppose you could call him an
earth dweller.

But Tristan doesn’t seem to hear me, or if he
does he ignores me, ’cause he and Adele are staring at each other.
Adele says, “President Lecter is slaughtering their people?” like
it’s a question, but the look on her face tells me she’s not
looking for an answer. She’s gone even paler, her cheeks a white
sheen even under the shadow of the ridiculous piece of stiff cloth
on her head.

“Who the scorch is President Lecter?” Skye
asks.

Adele and Tristan both turn sharply toward
us, like they’re only just remembering we’re here. Tristan’s hands
are tightened into fists, which are turning slightly pink under the
hot sun, like he wants to punch someone. If he tries anything, I’ll
feather him with arrows quicker’n he can say sunburn.

“He’s a person, like us,” Tristan starts, but
then stops suddenly, shaking his head. “Not like us, not really. I
mean…” He’s having trouble explaining, which isn’t helping the
tension in the air. I see Skye pull her sword outta the ground
slowly. Just in case.

“Let me,” Adele says gently, placing a hand
on Tristan’s arm, which is now trembling slightly. A simple touch,
but it speaks so much to me. It’s the way I would touch Circ—the
way he would touch me. More’n a touch—a feeling. These two mean a
great deal to each other, that much is as clear as the cloudless
sky above us.

Fingers brushing Tristan’s skin, Adele says,
“Do you know of the people living underground?”

Wilde looks at Skye. Skye looks at me. I
shake my head, say, “All we know is that one day the Glassies
popped from the ground. Only they weren’t the Glassies, not yet.
They were just white-skinned people, like you, trying to build
shelters. It was a long time ago. They didn’t last very long. They
weren’t used to the air. It’s…not good air.”

The guy, Tristan, takes a step back out of
the sun, removes his eye coverings. Adele mimics his movements. Her
eyes are huge, as big as a full moon, but his are even bigger.
“What happened next?” he asks.

I shrug. They came back. Not the same ones,
of course, they were dead, but others. More prepared. Wearing funny
suits. Protected somehow. I wasn’t even born, but we all know the
history. Over many years they built huge structures, constructed a
glass dome over everything. Only once the dome was finished did
they stop wearing their funny suits. We don’t know for sure, but we
think the dome protects them from the bad air. They live longer’n
we do.”

“Why did they attack you?” Adele bursts out,
like the question’s been pushing against her lips for a while
now.

Wilde responds ’fore I can even begin to
think of what to say. “They’re scared of us. Because we’re
different than them.”

“They searin’ killed a bunch of us,” Skye
adds, “but not all. They underestimated us. Now we’re gonna kill
’em. Startin’ with you.”

I watch as Adele’s fingers tighten ’round her
sword handle. Her face hardens. It’s like watching Skye look at her
reflection in the watering hole.

“Skye,” Wilde says, “we should listen to what
they have to say.”

Skye doesn’t look convinced, but she relaxes
her body a little, as if she’s not looking for a fight. But I know
better. She’s still standing on the balls of her feet, still strung
as tight as a bowstring, ready to spring into action if she doesn’t
like what she hears. My fingers dance along the shaft of the
pointer I’m holding, too, just in case I need to use it.

Turning back to our visitors, Wilde says,
“Tell us again who you are, how you fit in with the Glassies. You
said you’re sun dwellers?”

“Yes.” Tristan nods vehemently. Says “Yes,”
one more time. “Well, I’m a sun dweller. We live underground. There
are three layers, Sun, Moon, and Star. Adele is a moon dweller,
from the middle layer. The deepest are the star dwellers. There’s
been a massive rebellion; our people have been fighting, because my
father was…not a good man…a tyrant.”
Don’t I know the
feeling
. Our father was a bad man, too, selling my younger
sister, Jade, to the Soakers in exchange for what he thought was a
Cure for the airborne disease killing my people. Only he didn’t
want it for my people. Just for himself and a select group of
leaders. Not a good man. I don’t cry when I remember his death.
Killing him is ’bout the only good thing the Glassies have
done.

“And the Glassies?” Wilde asks.

Tristan shifts from one foot to t’other. Is
he nervous? “They used to be sun dwellers—at least, most of them.
Some of them were moon and star dwellers too.”

“I told you!” Skye says. “They’re the same.
They’re the enemy.” The tension is back in her arms. She lifts her
sword.

“No!” Adele says, practically shouting,
speaking quickly. “None of us knew they’d gone aboveground. None of
us even knew it was possible. They—the earth dwellers, er, the
Glassies—have cut themselves off from us. We had no idea what they
were doing to your people. If you don’t believe us you can try to
kill us, but by God you might die trying.”

Things are escalating too fast and I know
that look in my sister’s eyes and ’fore I even know what I’m doing,
I throw down my bow and jump in front of her, grab her muscly arms,
so much stronger’n my own, but she doesn’t fight me, doesn’t try to
break through, almost like she knew I’d stop her and was only
moving forward ’cause she felt like Adele’s words required an
answer of force.

Behind me, Tristan says something I never
coulda predicted. “We killed my father because he was evil. If
President Lecter is as evil as you say he is, we’ll help you kill
him too.”

I
don’t mind the
deepening cold as we trek up the mountain. It’s familiar, like an
old friend, crisp and alive, even as it creeps through my boots to
my toes and reddens my nose.

“Do you think much has happened since we
left?” Buff asks.

It hasn’t been that long, maybe two weeks.
Despite the short length of our excursion away from ice country,
there’s only one answer to my friend’s question. “Yes,” I say. The
only question we asked Wilde before we parted ways was whether our
families were safe. Knowing that was enough. Now I wish I’d asked
more. Like “How is the new government coping?” and “Has King Goff
received his sentence yet?”

“Dazz?” Buff says, snapping me away from my
muddled thoughts.