58 - In the Open

“Ky!” It was his father, in the open, bare-faced, even his beard caked with filth, yelling in Milari, waving them over to where he could help them to more solid ground. “This way! You can get down much faster this way!” The edge of the slide was like an oozing wall at his head height, stones locked tight against the ruined baffle wall. He picked Jashi right up off the edge, setting him down. Kyrus slid down into his father’s frantic one-armed hug, Haraklez taking his other hand. 

Werfas's feet hit the ground a bare fraction later.

The toxic underlayer of dirt was still roiling through the air, filling lungs with choking, settling more slowly than the heavier clay that had fallen off the mountainside.

My da is out. In the open where everyone can see him. “Ilax was supposed to be at the Unity,” Kyrus Sr. said. “We have to get people out, fast. Did you see how many houses were inundated?” Haraklez and Werfas and Jashi barely glanced at him, a muck-caked scarecrow, they didn’t recognize, as they ran down the mountainside.

“Don’t know,” Ky said. There was another rumble and with a single sweep of his arm Kyrus shoved all of them into the lee of the last baffle above the town, crouching with them, obviously hoping it would hold, hoping the mud would flow somewhere else. There was another slide, but east, not a direct threat. Ky could feel tears running down his face, though the dirt, could hear the others sobbing, even as they waited, in agony to find out if their families were all right.

“Werfas! Your house is still standing, I can see it,” Ky said through chattering teeth. And Jashi’s place is right near the Hall... Your parents would all be at the Unity.” There was dirt between his teeth, on his tongue, gulped in, breathed in. He spat and spat again. He didn’t even notice the ferret’s claws dug into his neck he hurt so much all over.

“And Maks and Ilia would likely be in class.”

“The school is under the mud,” Haraklez sobbed. “I saw… I saw…”

The rumbling, hissing snake voice of the slide subsided again and they emerged from their dubious shelter and ran once more. Ky’s lungs burned and his heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest. He tried to rub the grit out of his eyes but there was just more grit on his hand. Only tears helped. 

“We need to go to the Unity first,” the elder Kyrus said. “We need to be organized to save as many people as we can.”

The crowd of Viltarians milling around the Unity were being formed up, starting to move purposefully when they came pounding up to the steps where Ilax was snapping out orders. 

“Manders, Cliners to the fore, we don’t care if you’re a bare Ahy, you can help.”

Haraklez thew herself into her father’s arms and he folded them gratefully around her. “Oh, my Ancestor’s ghosts, I thought I’d lost you.”

The Ambassadors from Rumon and Nadumar, normally so tense and prickly, stood side by side, unnoticing. The Charnan Ambassador had thrown off her Robe of Ceremony and she and her entourage were helping hand out shovels and probing sticks. All ceremony was set aside as far as she was concerned.

Werfas scanned the crowds, looking for his parents. “Ma! Ma! I’m all right!” He obviously saw them, jumped down and went pushing through to reach them.

“Jashi, stay here,” Ilax commanded. “Your parents will come to you. Don’t run off.” This without letting go his eldest. “Oh my dead and ghostly ones, Haraklez, I thought I’d lost you.” Then his head snapped up. “Inamor! What? Why?—“

“—We can explain everything later. I had to. We need every hand now to get everyone unburied.”

With a snap of a nod Ilax went from father and lover to commander once more. "Grab those poles. There are shovels enough. Let’s go.” In the sea of faces, some muddy, all distorted by fear, by concern, by hope and despair both at once, no one looked twice at another warrior rushing to help, first to the mandery school, to rescue their children.