Nikaya’s eyes lit up as she entered. No doubt she had heard of this place. Now, with the end so near, she finally got to see it.
A hand grazed Falkirk’s elbow. It was D’Arc, leaning over him, her mouth agape at the sight of the matriarch. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“The beaver wishes to speak.”
Gaunt confirmed this with a squawk.
More wolves entered. Harrek the White and his entourage lined the walls. Grieve ordered his officers to the other side. Even on this imaginary landscape, the wolves would segregate themselves.
From her stretcher, Nikaya pointed to a cluster of wooden sculptures that straddled one of the rivers. A bridge constructed of sticks stood next to a waterwheel that someone had toppled over. Together, the models created a startlingly accurate depiction of Lodge City. The wolves placed her on the ground, spreading out the tarp. She reached out her hand and rested it on the waterwheel.
“What is this?” Harrek grunted. Falkirk shushed him.
Gaunt slid from Falkirk’s arm and crawled to Nikaya. Everyone leaned in closer to hear them as the beaver and the bat whispered to each another.
“We escaped from the garrison near Thicktree,” Nikaya said.
Gaunt said something else in her ear. She translated. “And you’ve heard the rumors about the Mudfoot being able to see the future. The rumors are true.”
“How?” Grieve said. Falkirk could hear the jealousy in his voice, the kind that only a person who has held power for too long would have. Despite his conquests, he still needed more. It was a permanent arms race.
More Chiropteran whispered between the bat and the beaver. The conversation grew heated. Nikaya emphasized a point by gripping the bat’s wing and shaking it while she spoke. Finally, the bat turned to Falkirk and D’Arc. As he approached, he reached under his wing and pulled out a metal canister no larger than his claw. He raised it to Falkirk’s chest. The wolves gathered around as Falkirk accepted it. Some of them huffed at the insignificance of this object—a little human bauble, another shiny object to distract a pet.
“This is what they call the rahvek,” Nikaya said before descending into a coughing fit. “It’s a truth serum.”
“It makes you tell the truth?” Grieve asked.
“It makes you see the truth,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “The truth about what is to come.”
Falkirk began to unscrew the lid. Gaunt stopped him by slapping his leg with his wing.
“Don’t,” Nikaya said. “Even a whiff of it will make you forget what day it is.”
Falkirk screwed the lid tight, then wiped his hand on his belt.
“You must have known about it,” she added.
Falkirk rotated the cylinder and found a serial number etched into the side. 120718. Only Hosanna would use something like this. The humans loved serial numbers.
“The flood,” Nikaya said. “The flood washed away a lot of things. It couldn’t wash this away.”
Falkirk felt all the eyes in the room watching him.
“There were some weapons projects,” he said. “I mean, I heard rumors.”
“Rumors.”
“Colonial biotech, they called it. Nobody knew how it worked.”
“Somebody knew,” a voice called out. The attention shifted to the door, where Mort(e) leaned on the frame. He looked frail, wobbly, with sagging eyelids, and patches of hair that needed some grooming.
Gaunt cried out a greeting in Chiropteran. Mort(e) nodded.
The beaver also recognized him, and a fire flashed in her beady eyes. It took a few seconds before she finally blinked away her rage.
Mort(e) eyed the canister. “A team of humans smuggled this stuff out of Hosanna last month.”
“Ah,” Nikaya sighed. “That’s the best part.”
Breaking into a strange, jerky dance movement, Gaunt flapped his wings and snapped his jaw open and shut. Startled, the wolves backed away to give him space.
“Whatever this biotech is,” Nikaya said, “the Alphas are searching for it too.”
“Alphas?” Grieve said. The wolves murmured.
“I’ve seen them,” D’Arc said. The room quieted as she explained that her ship had been tracking Alphas in the Atlantic. Nikaya described her own encounter with them in the mountains, while Gaunt acted out the attack by flapping his wings and pouncing on the ground. He must have thought that this made it sound scarier, as if anyone needed the reminder.
“I’m supposed to believe that the ants can smell this stuff from miles away?” Grieve said.
“The Queen could see outside of time,” Mort(e) said. “Everyone who comes into contact with her gets a taste of it. When someone enters that world, it ripples outward. They’re drawn to it. Like I was. It’s the reason why we’re all here.”
“So the ants think the Queen is calling them.”
“It’s worse than that.” Mort(e) turned to D’Arc. “You said they had wings.”
“Yes . . .” A wave of horror washed across her face as she spoke.
“They think it’s mating season,” Mort(e) concluded.
“The Mudfoot would not bring the ants back,” Grieve said. “They’re bastards, but they’re not that crazy.”
“They don’t know,” D’Arc said. “The human who’s with them—Augur, from the Toqwa pack. He tells them that the Mudfoot will rule again in peace. But he never said anything about the Colony.”
“Suppose we tell them.”
“It won’t do any good. They don’t trust you. Why would they?”
Grieve paced the room. His skull necklace clacked when he stopped at the model of Hosanna, where the sticks in the ground represented the troops protecting the city.
“Let’s get to the point,” he said. “Where do the Mudfoot attack?”
Gaunt shuffled over to the model train sitting at a station near the western frontier. He rolled it along on its tracks, through the dead towns, and straight into the heart of Hosanna. Returning the train to the city was part of the peace agreement. It would show that the Mudfoot spoke for all the wolves now.
“It’s a Trojan horse,” Nikaya said.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Falkirk said. “Even if they made it into the city, what would they do?”
“Kill the Archon,” Grieve said. “Seize the capitol.”
“No,” D’Arc said. “They don’t need any of that. They’re bringing our son. When the dogs see him, they’ll rise up.”
“Exactly,” Nikaya said. “We have to stop them now, before they take the train line!”
Everyone went silent. One by one, the wolves looked to Grieve to respond.
“Oh, you poor thing,” he said. “You’re too late. They already captured the train line.”
Nikaya glanced at Gaunt. Falkirk expected them to speak in Chiropteran. But the gaze they held said everything.
“It’s not too late,” Falkirk said. “We still have the Vesuvius. If we can get word to them, we can . . .”
He stopped talking when Gaunt plucked the model of the airship and tossed it into the blue part of the map. Right in the middle of the Atlantic. It lay there like a dead fish.
“Vesuvius is gone,” Nikaya said.
“What do you mean it’s gone?”
“Went out to the ocean. Never to return.”
“How do you know that?”
Nikaya translated as the bat spoke in her ear. “The wolf packs have wanted to destroy the Vesuvius for years. Take that off the board, and it’s a fair fight.”
A few of the marauders nodded. It made sense to them. It was all part of a military calculation, a fresh movement of chess pieces. Falkirk nearly dropped the canister as he recalled his first officer, Ruiz, calling him a traitor with what may have been his last breath. There must have been other traitors onboard. And now the ship
could be at the bottom of the sea for all Falkirk knew, while he stood here, so unworthy and scared and small.
D’Arc placed a gentle hand on his elbow. It stopped him from screaming. “Can we get word to Hosanna or not?” she said.
“What good would it do?” Grieve said. “The Mudfoot have already tricked us into attacking once. For all we know, they’re using the train as bait.”
“You lose one battle, and you quit!”
A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. Enraged, Grieve reached over his shoulder to pull the scimitar from its sheath. D’Arc gripped the handle of her katana. No one moved. A smile stubbornly stretched across Grieve’s face. He pulled his hand away from the sword and tiptoed to D’Arc, holding his hands out. She let go of her own weapon.
“Mort(e), you sure know how to pick ’em,” Grieve said, still staring at her.
“My son is out there,” D’Arc said.
“I know. I got lots of sons out there myself. Some of them I never even met.”
D’Arc refused to crack a smile.
“You call it quitting,” Grieve said. “There’s no quitting. No victory, either. For us, there’s only survival. We pick up what’s left after each battle and we carry on. Like it was before the Change.”
“You created this mess,” D’Arc said. “The Mudfoot asked you for help, and you turned them away.”
“Hosanna created the mess. Ask them how the occupation went. They thought they could choose what kind of blowback comes next.”
“You did their dirty work. You turned on your own people.”
“Of course I did.”
D’Arc looked around, to see if anyone found this honesty shocking. She was alone.
“I am no human,” Grieve said. “You do not have to read between the lines with me. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Why do you think your government chose to work with me?”
Grieve surveyed the map, all the mountains and valleys of the known world. “The Mournful will go west in the morning.” He turned to Nikaya, who no longer had the strength to sit straight. Instead, she lay on her back, ready to sleep.
“I thank you, matriarch,” Grieve said. “You saved us.”
Nikaya tried to swallow. Some spittle gathered at the corners of her lips.
As the Mournful filed out, the Earthblood began to argue among themselves, their voices echoing off the walls. Harrek tried to calm them, though Falkirk could tell that the old wolf would eventually choose to follow the Mournful. This was what they knew. And Hosanna hardly gave them a reason to risk their lives again.
With the canister in one hand, Falkirk peeled away from the crowd and walked over the Vesuvius model, sitting only a few feet from the island of Golgotha. He considered plucking it from this painted ocean and taking it with him. But he did not know where he was going. And besides, this ship no longer belonged to him.
Chapter 18
The Lodge at the Edge of the World
A pair of young Mournful carried Nikaya across the campus, past the chapel and the parking garage and the remains of the stadium. D’Arc and Gaunt followed, the bat barely able to keep pace. It was midday. No shadows. Moss covered every structure, turning everything so green that it hurt to look at it.
“Water,” Gaunt said in his high-pitched English. “Water! Water!”
“We heard you,” one of the Mournful said. “We’re almost there.”
The water they hoped to find trickled out of a concrete drainage pipe. In the warmer months, after the snow melted, it would become a creek. For now, it produced a sad little stream in the grass. Gaunt had requested a river. The matriarch deserved to die beside one. The Three Goddesses would use it to carry her spirit away.
“This is all we have,” the Mournful said. “Unless you want to walk another four miles.”
The bat’s face became a mask of teeth as he screeched every foul word that his language could produce. As the wolves set the beaver on the grass, Gaunt demanded that they lift her again, and take her to the river. The wolves began to lose their patience with him. The younger one barked at Gaunt when the screeching got too loud. D’Arc prepared to get between them if a fight broke out.
“Stop,” Nikaya groaned. “It’s okay.”
The wolves left without a word. Gaunt continued to yell at them, screaming a new sound that barely registered in D’Arc’s ears. The bat scrunched his nose as he tried to figure out how to say it in English. Finally, he shouted, “House!”
“House?” she asked.
“Beaver house!”
Nikaya started to cough again. As D’Arc knelt beside her and stroked her coarse fur, the bat waddled over to a tree and broke off one of its branches. He carried the branch in his mouth and dropped it beside her.
“More!” he shouted. “Beaver house!”
By then, the Mama wolves had arrived. Like good dogs, they sensed that someone among them had fallen ill, and gathered around for comfort. D’Arc had never seen a wolf do this. But she had no business acting surprised. She did the same thing when her own master took a sick day or broke up with a girlfriend and spent the weekend on the couch. All her people did this because that was how they stayed alive.
One of the Mamas, a very old wolf with white fur around her eyebrows, carried a bowl of broth. She knelt beside the beaver, lifted her head and tried to get her to drink. After a few sips, Nikaya turned her head away.
The entire time, Gaunt strutted around, repeating his demand for a beaver house.
“What are you talking about?” D’Arc said.
“He wants a lodge,” the old wolf said. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Nikaya said.
The wolves gathered sticks from the nearby clutch of trees. First, they layered them on the dirt near the stream. Then they gently lifted Nikaya and laid her on top. Even in her weakened state, she reached for the closest branch and began chewing on it. Working around her, the wolves propped the other sticks so that they leaned against one another, forming a cocoon around the beaver. The wolves were so patient they let Gaunt act as if he directed the entire operation, because they could sense that he needed this even more than Nikaya did. Their good will rubbed off on Nikaya. She weakly smiled at what must have been the saddest excuse for a lodge she had ever seen.
When Falkirk arrived, he asked them what they were doing.
“Beaver house,” D’Arc said.
More of them gathered, including a few Earthblood marauders, painted from head to tail and armed with knives and clubs. It was probably everything they owned, all that they would carry with them into the west. Gaunt hummed a song and Nikaya matched the tune with her raspy voice. Soon the Mamas began their own music, a low-pitched growl that D’Arc could feel vibrating in her guts. She tried to join them, but her throat could not create the sound.
An Earthblood commander walked by and saw what the soldiers were doing. He chastised the younger wolves and ordered them to get on with preparing for the march. Then he turned to the Mamas. “And who said you could waste time with this beaver? She’s a war criminal!”
“So are you,” the oldest Mama said.
“We don’t take orders from you,” another Mama said as she placed a branch over the lodge.
The commander walked away without saying another word.
There was nothing left to do but sit and wait. Gaunt lay beside Nikaya with one wing wrapped over her chest. The wolves waited at the mouth of the lodge, continuing their song. They made space for D’Arc and Falkirk.
“I don’t deserve this,” Nikaya said. She started coughing again. The bat squeezed his wing around her, pleading with her to be quiet.
The wolves kept singing. They were not here to judge.
“I told myself for years that I regretted nothing,” she said. “But the Three Goddesses . . . they humbled me.”
A twig broke somewher
e behind them. D’Arc turned to find Mort(e) approaching.
“Is my son still alive?” Nikaya said.
“He is,” Mort(e) said.
“They’re rebuilding the dam in Hosanna,” Falkirk said. “Beaver-style.”
Nikaya turned away from them so she could picture it.
“I never thanked all of you,” she said. “For saving my people. I thank you now. They will be worthy of it. Even if I’m not.”
She blinked a few times. Then she began a new song, whispering it. D’Arc leaned in to hear, but could not make out any of the words. The bat sang along in Chiropteran, while the wolves continued to moan in a lower pitch.
“Gotta get ahead of those wolves,” Nikaya said. “Stay ahead of ’em.” She drifted into her delirious song again.
Falkirk tapped D’Arc’s arm. “She’s right,” he whispered. “We need to get moving.” D’Arc waved him off. She wasn’t there when they buried the Chief. They could stay a few more minutes.
It happened quickly. The beaver wheezed out each line of her song, softer each time. The animals around her, sensing the end approaching, lowered their voices to match the volume of the trickling stream. Nikaya got stuck on the last line: “You and I will be the only light.” She repeated it again, each time throwing in names of her people. Castor. Tracer. Kerdigan. Nikki, little Nikki. People who needed to forgive Nikaya. People who would one day meet this bat she saved, a mortal enemy turned into a friend.
Finally, the beaver tilted her head upward. Her jaw relaxed, and her lips peeled away from her giant orange buck teeth. Her eyelids fell shut. The only sound remaining was the bubbling water.
D’Arc leaned against Falkirk’s shoulder. He rested his snout on top of her head, between her ears.
(unofficial) Logbook of the SUS al-Rihla
February 18
WEATHER: Overcast. No breeze, but damp.
Personal health: Too tired.
Wolves are leaving. The Earthblood have agreed to take Gaunt to a nearby bat cave on their way west. We are among the last ones left.
Malefactor Page 29
