Another hundred yards distant, partly obscured by a row of houses, a group of captives knelt, clustered together against a wall. They’d been bound and gagged, and many were injured. Effectively managed by four armed guards. Two axes, a spear, a long junk-metal blade.
The prisoners’ own confiscated weapons had been piled a little ways away. Clubs and slings and spears, and the heavy hacking scrap-made blades carried by the Waste-road guards.
“Assuming the ones on the ground are yours,” Foster whispered.
Sairy nodded. “That pale girl dressed like me is Meg.”
“She can fight?”
“Cut her loose and see.”
As if on cue, Meg tried to struggle to her feet and was bashed back into place. She sat there, nose obviously broken, drilling holes in her captor with her eyes.
“I’m going in,” Foster said, shoving up off the wall. “Stay close but don’t engage.”
“The hell I won’t,” Sairy said, but Foster had already closed the distance. She fell on the four guards like a hawk on mice. Not even bothering to draw her sword, she clotheslined the first guard on the edge of her hand with the force of a controlled explosion, crushing his windpipe and snapping his neck simultaneously. Chooser knew what she did to the next two guards, but it was too fast for Isabel to figure out. Only that one of them went down with the whole side of his skull caved in like a stomped windfall plum, and the other one was sliding on her own red trail down the rear wall of the house across the road. The fourth she dropped to the ground with both collarbones broken and both ankle tendons ruptured. When Sairy caught up with her, Foster was half-kneeling on that last guard’s chest, smiling serenely at him as he blinked up at her in shock and terror and something almost like recognition.
Before the pain kicked in and he started screaming, Foster reached in and gave him a tap on the side of the head that put him straight to sleep. She got up neatly, brushing off her sleeves, and strolled over to retrieve the captives’ weapons from where they’d been seized and piled.
“What—” Sairy was panting— “in—the absolute—shit.”
“Triage the prisoners,” Foster told her. “First untie the ones who can untie the others.”
“I am.” Hands shaking, Sairy drew one of her knives and cut Meg free.
“Oh,” Meg said, eyeing Sairy. “There you are. Who’s your friend?”
“I’ll explain later,” Sairy said. Cutting the others free as they shoved their bound wrists at her. The fruit-preserver and his daughter. One of the yarn-spinners. Three Waste-road guards. “You seen Lissa and Jen?”
“Not lately. We were holding the street in front of the meeting-hall. It was bad. We got separated.” Meg nodded toward the freed captives. “They’re doing this all over town. Taking prisoners.” Grimly: “I guess the stories are true, huh?”
“Yeah, well.” Isabel watched as Sairy shook off the image of the captives being sorted. Too easy to play that guessing game: who’d be raider army material, who’d be food. “Their mistake.”
Two of the freed Waste-road guards grabbed their weapons back from the pile and didn’t return with them to the fight. Instead they pointed them at Foster. If Isabel was in the business of naming fighting stances the way Lissa did in training, she’d be calling this one Terrible Idea.
Except that Foster was really starting to not feel so great. She wasn’t exactly out of breath, and not exactly sick, or tired, because she was dead and that was not possible. But Isabel had seen upstarts bleed out before, seen their eyes go glassy as their hearts faltered to a stop, and that was what Foster put her in mind of now.
“So this is Foster,” Sairy was telling the two guards. Loud and clear. The others needed to hear it too. “She’s here to help us.”
Half a dozen people started talking at her at once. Which was six more than she had time for. Where’d she come from? She’s not one of ours. Where was she when the fight started? She come with the raiders? She’s playing both sides? What the hell is she wearing? What the hell is she carrying? We’ve never even seen her before and we’re supposed to trust—
“You’re supposed to trust me,” Sairy said. “And trust Isabel. Or how about just trust your eyes. Were you not paying attention when she got you out of this? Didn’t see any of you getting out of it yourselves.”
“Whatever she is, for now, I’m with her,” Meg said. Fishing her knives out of the pile, jamming them into the sash at her waist. “Explain it tomorrow. Today I’ll take what keeps me alive.”
“Same,” Sairy said.
There was a pause while the others chewed this over.
“How many of you can still fight?” Foster asked them.
Several nods, a few raised hands. Some more tentative than others. “Good. Grab your weapons and get back to it.” She tilted her head down toward the unconscious guard. “He’ll wake up in a second. I wasn’t sure if we were taking prisoners.”
“No,” Meg said, hefting the spear he’d dropped and driving its point through his throat. “We’re not.”
One of the Waste-guards spoke up. “You said you’re looking for Lissa?” he asked Sairy.
“And Jen,” Foster said. “I’m escorting Sairy to them so she can relieve them of command.”
Meg was staring at Foster like she was a talking tree. “How the hell do you know Lissa and Jen?”
“I don’t,” Foster replied.
“Let’s move out,” Sairy said. “Meg, stick with us. Foster leads. We shadow her close and we—” Sairy trailed off. “Foster?”
“I’m fine,” Foster said. “Let’s go.”
Easy enough for Isabel to read the creeping doubt in Sairy’s face. She’d know quite well what it looked like when someone felt like shit and was trying to tough it out. And if Foster were alive, Isabel would’ve bet a week’s chores on her either puking or passing out in the very near future.
Isabel could see the moment Sairy put it together.
“Where’s the worst of it?” she asked Meg.
A despairing little laugh. “Everywhere. Look around. It’s all gone to shit.”
“So point us to where it’s deepest.”
“I don’t know. Outside the meeting-hall was still really ugly when we got grabbed.”
“Then that’s where we’re going. We need the shortest path between here and the meeting-hall. All the ghostgrass between here and there needs to go.”
“What? With all this blood around? That’s suicide. Why would you even…” Meg paused. Really took in Foster’s uniform, her sword and gun, the sudden queasy-looking wooziness that had her very nearly leaning on a wall. She seemed to finally notice the pale twist of threads, invisible in certain light, emerging from the front of Foster’s jacket. “Ragpicker slag me. She’s a ghost?”
“Whatever happened to answers tomorrow, stay alive today? Right now we clear a path.”
“Okay, but let’s get back to the part where she’s a ghost?”
“Okay. She’s a ghost. I don’t care if she’s the Chooser Herself. We lose her, we lose the town. You think Lissa can do what you just saw?”
Silence.
“We clear a fucking path.”
* * *
“What do you mean, they’re in trouble. Define in trouble. Define they.”
“Ghostgrass,” Isabel said. “The town is covered in it. What the hell was I thinking letting her go up there.”
“I wonder how you think you’d have stopped her,” the ghost rejoined.
“Not helping.”
“Give your subordinate some credit. She’ll figure out the problem.”
“She did. That is the problem.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“They’re going to try to take down the ghostgrass to help Foster fight. Which they need if they want to win without a whole lot more casualties. I just saw her rip into a bunch of raiders like nothing. They need her. What they don’t need is—”
“—more ghosts to wander up from the facility,” the g
host finished, understanding immediately. “You never planted ghostgrass outside that second hatch. You didn’t know it was there.”
“And in the town,” Isabel added, “there’s blood everywhere.” She shook her head, remembering. “Everywhere. It’s going to draw them. All of them.” She glanced down at the thread. Bright as ever. “She’s still powering these. She doesn’t have the strength to spare. Not surrounded by ghostgrass. She’s weakening visibly. But she’s not cutting the threads. She needs to, but she’s not.”
“And this surprises you,” the ghost said drily.
“She wants to help the ghosts and the town,” Isabel said. “And me. I get that. But at this rate, this is going to end with some very powerful Latchkey ghosts coming up out of the tunnels and Foster powerless to stop them. They get much stronger, that little bit of ghostgrass she locked them in with won’t even slow them down. So either the town gets overrun by raiders or it gets overrun by ghosts.”
“Or both,” the ghost pointed out.
“Still not helping.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “The funny part is, right now, the people I left down by the first hatch are the safest people in town. And that’s with Salazar and a cave-in right beside them.”
It dawned on her even as she said it. “So we leave them exactly where they are.” She turned on her heel and started tearing ass back to the second hatch, the ghost walking easily beside.
“I thought,” he said, “the plan was—”
“New plan.” Counting on her fingers. Here’s a list for you, Sairy. “The people we put down here have a solid ghostgrass perimeter. They have supplies for a few days. And now we know the route to get them out when it’s clear topside.”
“You’re still leaving them unattended. Your subordinate was already attacked. She almost lost that hand. I have nothing left with which to heal the next one who picks a fight they shouldn’t.”
“She didn’t pick a…never mind. We cut Foster’s threads, we don’t just help protect the town, we also clear up the possibility of any more ghost situations in the tunnels. Cutting Salazar’s thread stopped her dead in her tracks.”
The ghost raised one skeptical eyebrow at those four upheld fingers.
“Well, it’s a longer list than what Sairy and Foster have right now. I’m cutting those threads and then I’m going up there. I’ll help Foster link her ghosts back up after but for now I have to take them out of the picture. We just—”
Isabel broke off, skidding to a halt in a sudden cold patch in the hall. Frostbite-and-vertigo, blasting up from the depths. Disorienting as opening a door in the middle of summer and walking out into the snow.
She turned to the ghost, wondering if it could be coming from him—and from somewhere deep down the hall there came a sound, huge and metallic, a grinding shriek followed by a dull distant whump.
Isabel couldn’t see what was up there. But the ghost could. Already he had drawn his sword, had stationed himself between whatever was down there and her.
“How many?”
“Two.”
Whatever—whoever—was down there, they were between Isabel and the hatch. Which meant they were between Isabel’s knife and the bundle of Foster’s threads.
Ghostgrass in one hand, knife in the other. Only block, she told herself, tensing for the attack. Block and ghostgrass. Box them in like Salazar and slash the threads. Don’t cut the ghosts. You cut them, you black out, you die.
“You get the threads,” the ghost said, low and steady. “I’ll cover you.”
“If I accidentally cut one—”
“I know. I’ve got you.”
Isabel drew in a deep breath, held it, slowly released.
“Say when.” Then, remembering her mistake earlier with Ayres: “Don’t mention their names.”
He glanced back over one shoulder. “That won’t be a problem.”
“Well. Finally that crappy memory of yours is a help to us.”
But almost immediately she wished she hadn’t chased the Chooser’s cape by saying anything, because the ghosts had approached close enough that she could make out which Latchkey operatives they’d been. One, a girl with a cloud of frizzy dark hair, was Martinez. The other, a tall boy of maybe fourteen, was Tanaka. From Foster’s memories, from the ghost’s, she recognized them.
Both had died younger than Foster or the ghost, younger than Isabel was right now. Compared to her, they looked like kids.
She knew better.
We’re not special. Martinez was special. Tanaka was special. Salazar was special.
And here they were. Both visibly stronger than Salazar had been when Isabel had taken her on. There wasn’t a lick of silver to either. They moved smoothly, not with the stuttering here-and-goneness of a typical ghost, but with the graceful proficiency of a Latchkey operative. Their threads were bright enough to notice the whole way down the hall.
They looked convincingly, terrifyingly alive.
And this close to the blood above—
“Don’t underestimate them,” she blurted. “I’ve seen them in Foster’s memories. They’re two of the top Latchkey operatives.”
The ghost blinked, then looked the ghosts up and down with renewed interest. “Really.”
“I mean it. They’re dangerous.”
He readied his sword and, Ragpicker slag him, actually smiled. “Excellent.”
Isabel decided to ignore this. “They’re getting too close to the hatch,” she warned. “We need to intercept them before they—”
“Let them come. The closer they get, the more room you have to get behind them safely. I’ll keep them busy. Cut the threads at the source. Don’t engage.”
Tanaka and Martinez reached the place where the hall T-junctioned out to the second hatch. They stood there a moment, scenting at the air, wreathed in their own silver light. They can smell that blood from here, Isabel realized with a chill.
“They’re not going to come to us,” she said in a rush. “They’re locked onto the blood. They get out that hatch it’s too late, I’ll never catch them up over open ground, we have to take them out now.”
The ghost nodded once.
“Stay behind me,” he told her—and vanished.
Chapter Sixteen
Foster, Sairy, and Meg emerged into the grassy area around the meeting-hall, into a solid wall of sound. Within a split second, Foster had it parsed and decoded into individual events.
Three of the Clayspring raiders, disarmed and chased down the street by five townspeople wielding heavy sticks.
A woman who almost fit Sairy’s description of Jen, grabbing a kind of makeshift axe from a fallen body and rushing at someone or something down an alley out of sight.
Another group of prisoners, smaller than the first but under heavier guard. “Where are the children?” one of the raiders was screaming at them, his knife held to the throat of a woman Isabel barely recognized as the high seat Yulia. “Go fuck yourselves,” she shouted, and the knife flashed, and down she went.
A pair of men carrying torches and running between houses, setting roofs alight. Already the meeting-hall was lost to the flames, door boarded shut, high windows vomiting oily smoke. If anyone was in there, they’d long since stopped screaming.
A slight figure dressed all in black, fighting dirty with knives strapped to its wrists, wearing a bizarre crown-like thing that shed feathers as its wearer wove and slashed between three Waste-road guards. It dropped one guard and darted away to the east, the remaining two guards giving chase.
The grassy area itself was strewn with bodies, dark and slick with blood.
“I just watered those flowers,” Meg said, dazed. “Six buckets of lakewater me and Kath carried up, and now look at it.”
The air was full of smoke here, not just from the meeting-hall, but everywhere. Foster could pick out the individual smells of scorched rusted metal, woodsmoke, burning flesh, singed hair. Also something she couldn’t identify, the spicy-sour green scent of it needling through th
e other smells of burning, blood, shit, and sweat. Whatever it was, it lifted from the rooftops, blanketing the town.
It hit Foster like a sledgehammer. Her skin was on fire. Her whole body fizzed with pain. Her veins ran poison. She hadn’t felt this awful since—she couldn’t remember exactly. Something bad had happened to her once, some deliberate, methodical infliction of damage. She knew it had happened. She just couldn’t remember. She thought it must’ve felt something like this. She—
“It’s burning,” Sairy said, her voice gone high and tight with dismay. “The ghostgrass. It’s in the smoke, it’s airborne, we’ll never—that’s why you—Foster, look out—”
Someone ran at Foster, knives flashing. By sheer force of will, Foster shoved herself into motion. Before Sairy could so much as blink, Foster had disarmed her attacker and was holding her up off the ground by a fistful of shirt-front. “One of yours, I think,” Foster gasped at Sairy, letting go and stumbling, dropping the knives in the grass.
Sairy took in the attacker, the scars and long red braid and blood-drenched upstart garb, the pair of little knives. “Kath!”
“Sairy? I thought you were dead, I didn’t…”
She trailed off. Smart enough to not let go of those knives once she’d retrieved them, Kath still looked like she wanted to run at Sairy and hug her until her ribs cracked.
Her guard dropped for a second too long.
A Clayspring raider came at her from behind, whirling his club. Another couple of steps and he’d be sinking the spikes of it into the back of Kath’s head.
Foster tried to move, but her body wouldn’t listen. She shot upright and flopped back listlessly, totally spent.
It was like a spike of ice in Isabel’s spine. She’d never seen Foster this thrashed. Not after she’d marginally survived the illness that had killed Salazar and Ayres and so many other operatives, not after she’d been tortured by Latchkey.
Move, Isabel thought at her fiercely. You have to move.
Foster couldn’t. But Sairy did.
Seeing one of the ex-upstarts in trouble—true immediate life-threatening deep shit, for the first time since the Catchkeep-priest was alive—seemed to snap something in her. Like something broke open in Sairy’s mind, cracked like an eggshell, and pure molten rage poured out.
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