Chapter 5

‘What’s the damage?’ asked the warrior, eying his compatriots once they had put enough distance between themselves and the Scarabax swarm.

The remaining Vorox chittered in response, crowding round to investigate the injuries of the female clinging to his side. Her entire right arm was in poor condition, with great chunks of armor and flesh eaten away. Worse still, ugly red bite marks ran from her mottled fingers to her elbow.

‘Scarabax stings are weak,’ chirped one of the males, studying the wound intently.

‘She will live,’ reported another. ‘It will heal in time.’

“And if it doesn’t?” retorted Malum, lapsing back into the Agori dialect in a tone so cutting that it surprised even him.

The Vorox who had spoken gave him a grim stare.

‘Then we cut the arm off,” he answered, running his hand over the mottled flesh and marking the joint with a finger. ‘Below the elbow,’

“No,” raged the exile. “That would only make for a worse wound.”

‘You make it sound like we have a choice to be other than what we are,’ bristled the injured translator from her position on the ground. ‘This is our way of life, crimson one. This is why we are strong.’

Malum merely stared at her, alarmed. During their time together, he had tolerated her private, sharp responses, but her words now had an unexpected effect on him. Indeed, the words actually cut deep. She was, after all, one of the last members of his original pack and had been a constant companion to him over the last three months. It was her savvy and willingness to teach the language of the Sand Tribe that had paved the way for such a rapid and relatively bloodless unification of the Vorox. Of anyone Malum had ever encountered, she was perhaps the closest he’d ever come to having a friend.

‘You would be stronger with both hands,’ he finally said. ‘You must heal so you can continue your duties as my translator.’

‘This is the way of the Vorox,’ hissed another of the warriors. A quality in his voice made the fragmented statement feel inflexible and timeless. Malum knew that Vorox insurrection could be caused by leadership that was too strong as well as too weak. Resolving to reaffirm his strength in their eyes later, he conceded.

‘Bandage her arm,’ demanded Malum, kneeling to pat one of the nearby Zesk. ‘We carry on and hope this is the last we see of the Scarabax for the rest of our quest.’

Following his lead, the Vorox moved to continue their journey, knowing without a word being spoken that there was only a small chance that their trail would end in anything short of a red mark in the dust.

✴        ✴        ✴

Still nursing wounds from the encounter with the Scarabax, Malum spent the rest of the day among the Zesk, humbled by his previous error in judgment. Unwilling to repeat the blunder that had injured his aide and cost him two Vorox, he wasted no effort investigating any further curiosities of the desert. As the day wore on, Sand Fleas started to appear, until a swarm of insects surrounded the pack. The exile had no strength left to swat them.

Still some distance from Skrall River, the pack began to descend a particularly long dune, and the land flattened out. After stopping to reorient himself, Malum led his followers east, passing tall posts and remnants of worn fences, each leaning sideways, stooped with age. Farther on, a peculiar skeleton of metal rose proudly from the drifts, looping and whirling like the spine of the giant carcasses of Rock Steeds. Remarking the bleached husk of a dehydrated Agori, the exile was reminded that his muscles weren’t the only part of his body hardened by the past several months: his heart had hardened as well.

Dusk soon swept across the valley and the pack hurried toward a series of bleached white structures poking up from the ground like shattered teeth. Although their walls seemed sound, there were no roofs to the buildings, and the sand filled them inside.

‘Agori homes,’ observed one of the Vorox, flexing his stinger tail in mild apprehension.

‘We camp here tonight,’ ordered the exile, casting wary glances at the sand behind them. For some time now, he had sensed they were being observed.

At his command, the remaining Vorox and Zesk scurried towards a structure at the far side of the grouping, which sat higher than the rest. Although the building was clear, the rooms that had once been tall enough for Glatorian of their stature were so deeply filled with sand and debris that even they had trouble burying themselves for the night.

‘I will take first watch,’ grunted Malum. ‘We rest for the night, then we leave before sunrise.’

The former Glatorian sat outside the building, his back to the other wall. He spent his watch on high alert, scanning the horizon for any new sensation. As the sky grew red, he allowed himself to slacken. The only sound was the high keening of the wind and the soft shuffling of the sand. Whatever answers he would find in the east, he could only hope they were worth the suffering of his people, worth losing warriors and risking his position.

Alone with his thoughts at last, he found his gaze drifting up into the night sky, for Bota Magna could be seen clearly tonight. Though it was a curious sight for many Agori stargazers, the emerald moon was an auspicious omen for Malum. Remembering a time when the celestial debris had comprised an entire continent of Spherus Magna, he felt the fury of the Vorox in his gut, for its tantalizing green surface represented the plight of the Sand Tribe.

Sitting in a silent fury for several hours, Malum resigned himself once more to the simple truth that Bara Magna was a broken and stagnant world far beyond his capacity to fix. When his watch finally ended, the exile tore his gaze from the heavens and their abundance and instead moved to wake one of the other warriors, knowing he had only the sand for comfort.

✴        ✴        ✴

For the duration of Kyry’s story, Ackar’s expression remained grave and featureless while Raanu paced furtively across the chamber, muttering and cursing to himself. The Fire Agori recounted the circumstances that had led to his capture, the death of his caravan escort and details of the Bone Hunter camp, but such topics were of little interest to the Chief of the Fire Tribe, whose thoughts seemed to linger solely on the stolen Thornax supply.

“Forty cases of Thornax Fruit,” he repeated aloud in disbelief, resting his hand on the hearth of his chamber and staring into the fire. “Not only does Malum now possess enough ammunition to reignite the Core War, but now we must dig into our own supply to appease the Rock Tribe.”

“Failure to deliver the spoils of the arena match to Roxtus will surely bring the full might of the Skrall to our door,” murmured Ackar in agreement, though his thoughts lingered on the fallen caravan escort. She had been a promising student, whom he had been preparing to become a fully-fledged Glatorian.

“Do you at least know the location of their camp?” asked Metus, leaning forward in his chair, a hungry twinkle in his eye.

Kyry shook his head and fiddled with the cup of broth he had been given, feeling the need to occupy his hands.

“I was captured somewhere to the west of Creep Canyon, in one of the central valleys,” he explained, as though issuing a report to his watchmaster. “The Vorox blindfolded me then left me in the open desert with only a sword and shield.”

“He’ll have moved on by now,” sighed Ackar, his brow knotted. “Besides, even with an army of Glatorian, we couldn’t take that camp back from the Sand Tribe or reclaim the Thornax. It’s nothing short of a miracle he managed to liberate it himself.”

Raanu and Metus exchanged glances, which confirmed their growing doubts that Ackar was continuing to soften in his age. The Glatorian chose to ignore them.

“So Malum has fully embraced the Wastelands?” mused Raanu, changing the subject briskly. “Keeping company with Vorox and raiding Agori caravans… I had hoped it would not come to this, that perhaps the elements would have granted him a merciful demise by now. But he has become a fugitive element of our own making.”

“I did warn you banishing him would leave loose ends,” mused the Ice Agori, reclining back into his chair. “It’s never sat well with me, knowing a Glatorian of his temperament is out there in the world.”

“Exile is the punishment for dishonoring the Glatorian Creed,” snapped Ackar in a tone so frosty that it should have silenced anyone on the receiving end. “That has been our way for thousands of years. We do not execute our own.”

“You just let dehydration do that for you,” countered Metus sharply, gesturing a hand towards the window. “Until the social system ejects one Glatorian too stubborn and cunning to roll over and die, that is.”

Kyry huddled deeper into his blanket and took a long sip of his broth. He had his own opinions on Metus, but he wasn’t about to challenge the second most powerful Agori in Vulcanus. His words were too pretty. Ackar did not respond.

“Keeping our hands clean comes at tremendous cost,” murmured Raanu in tentative agreement. “Malum is out there now, against all odds, armed with our Thornax and amassing support in the Sand Tribe. Even in exile he taunts me.”

“This is a position of your making,” added Metus, his eyes lingering on Ackar a moment too long. “Do you think the other tribes would be so forgiving if his Vorox claimed a caravan from Tajun instead? What if this were to become a repeat occurrence?”

“Or worse,” lamented Raanu from his position at the hearth, “what’s to stop him trading his knowledge of Vulcanus’ defenses to our enemies? He certainly owes us no further allegiance, and with the Rock Tribe so hostile of late…”

“I know Malum,” invoked Ackar, cutting the Agori off before he could finish voicing his anxieties. “He would never sell us out. Raid our caravans for supplies, perhaps, but there seems to be no shortage of Thornax these days. He took only what he knew we could spare.”

“I knew him too,” murmured the Fire Tribe Chief ruefully. “Or at least I believed I did. He fought faithfully under our banner and won us valuable supplies in the arena, but that aggression inside him never cooled, and now it points our way.”

Ackar shook his head.

“And yet, Kyry sits among us, a living testament to the contrary: that there is still mercy in Malum’s heart.”

Both Raanu and Metus turned to look at the sentry as though they had forgotten he was present. An uncomfortable silence came coupled with the revelation.

“No exile has ever survived alone in the Wastelands,” said Raanu, more pondering his thoughts aloud than addressing the chamber. “Malum was a powerful ally for a time but, under his rule, the Sand Tribe grows overconfident. As Kyry has proven, he is an indiscriminate menace to villages beyond our own.”

Ackar’s features grew gaunt. It seemed Raanu had made up his mind.

“I must decree, therefore, that Malum the Exile is to be branded an enemy of Vulcanus we can no longer afford to tolerate. His crimes cannot go unpunished and we must make an example of him. I trust, Ackar, that it is within your skills to eliminate this new threat as our Prime Glatorian?”

Ackar sagged deeper into his chair, the weight of his grim duty dawning on him.

“For Victory. For Glory… For Vulcanus.”