fingers clutched threadbare rags covering a heavily muscled body. A fist came down and smashed into Leilius’ forearm.
“Ow! Damn it!” Cradling the injured arm to his chest, he elbowed Xavier.
“Sorry. I didn’t know that was you.” Xavier patted his shoulder. “The girls have gone. I lost them.”
Leilius put his hand to Xavier’s back and applied pressure, trying to get the big lug off to the side. “We won’t find anyone while we’re in the thick of things.”
“You created this, you know. Not that I blame you.” Xavier tried squeezing in between two women, but he didn’t squeeze so well. Instead, he jostled them out of the way. “Sorry.”
“Don’t say anything. You’ll give yourself away.”
“What are you doing, then?”
Leilius gritted his teeth. Suddenly the game where they tried to steal things without talking made a whole lot of sense.
Breathing heavily, they made it to the side then slid along the wall. As they reached a corner, a wave of blistering pain tore through their minds. Like acid poured down his skin, fire and agony blanked out Leilius’ thoughts. He looked down in panic, but all he saw was his clothes, perfectly intact.
“Inkna,” Xavier whispered painfully.
Everyone in the road groaned or cried out and sank to the ground. Children started screaming. Loud wailing sounded up the street in the way they’d come.
“We did this.” Xavier squeezed his eyes shut. “This is what happens when someone defies them.”
Leilius took a deep breath and let the pain consume him. He felt it tear through his body and drip down his middle, becoming a part of him. He gave a moment for total surrender before taking another deep breath, tolerating the agony.
Xavier stared at him with pain-soaked eyes, in the same frame of mind. Sanders’ training had come in handy.
“Let’s go.” Staying low, making sure not to raise any part of him above the cowering crowd, Leilius half crawled around the corner and away from that main street. The crowd immediately thinned and the pain subsided enough to where he was no longer in survival mode. Another deep breath and they were around another corner, into a narrower lane with broken-down shops and shabby buildings.
“That Inkna seemed pretty strong,” Xavier said, lifting a pant leg to check his skin.
“All Inkna seem strong to us. Let’s hope he doesn’t seem strong to S’am.”
“What do they do with female Inkna?” Xavier wondered as they straightened up to the height of those around them. Lowered brows over eyes tight with fear scanned the way ahead as people slowed in their progress. More than one person looked at Leilius and Xavier, clearly wondering what was happening up ahead.
“Go around,” Leilius said, shaking his head. He motioned away left in case they didn’t speak the traders’ language. “Inkna.”
A man’s eyes widened briefly. He glanced at the woman next to him, who was staring in shock. The man looped his arm around her shoulders and directed her away, both of them hunching as if they were walking in a hailstorm.
“I think Inkna women are breeders,” Leilius said as he took a small-scaled map out of his pants. He hunched against the wall. “And we probably shouldn’t talk to anyone from now on. These people don’t seem that friendly.”
“Big city.”
“Huh?” Leilius glanced up.
Xavier fished a small brown sack from inside his pants. He jiggled it and grinned. “Big city. People aren’t as friendly. Look what I stole.”
Leilius shook his head. “That was risky. You shouldn’t be trying to rob people. You’ll get caught.”
“You’re just mad because you can’t do two things at once.”
“Oh, you mean like find you in a crowd, make my way to you, rob someone of a bigger bag of coin than that, get us away again, and now plan our day? Yes, Xavier, you are a true marvel.” Leilius shook his head and pointed at their rough location on the map. He traced it back to where the girls separated. “Should we try to find them?”
The grin melted off Xavier’s face. “We planned to separate anyway. We have different tasks. Now is as good a time as any. My only worry is them getting caught. We might need to make sure they get away.”
“They didn’t get caught.” Leilius straightened and slipped the map back in his baggy clothes. “You don’t know Maggie. Seriously. That woman is crazy. No wonder she came up with that exploding thing—she is probably going insane after all these years without a proper way of working out her violence. Can you imagine what S’am