by Beth Cato
Thank the Lady, she thought out of habit, then felt a turn of disgust. Miss Percival’s betrayal stung, but this turn by the Lady hurt far worse.
Will Alonzo even know what happened to me? Or will it seem to him that I left his mother’s house, left a body behind in a bakery, and vanished?
By evening they glimpsed flatness beyond the Pinnacles. Clouds crept in to steal the starlight. The mare’s hooves clattered into the hills. Ice crusted the gray stone fortifications of Caskentia’s final encampment. There were buildings and tents, the most bodies they had encountered since leaving Mercia. My skills are even stronger if I can detect their songs at such a distance.
With a start she jerked her hands from the reins long enough to touch the top of her head. The headband was gone, blown off somewhere in the pass.
DAYLIGHT FOUND THEM IN the Waste.
The yellow plains stretched out to the dull gray of the horizon. Snow hid in shadows and dips. Compared to the Pinnacles, it was warmer here in the place of her childhood nightmares, but still cold enough to kill. The Waste. A place described as a living hell. Dry, due to the rain shadow of the Pinnacles; cursed by Caskentia, so the Wasters claimed, to make the dry soil all the more infertile. Oh, how everyone used to make a mockery of that curse—“the only curse is their lack of farming skill!”
To think it had been real all along, and Mercia’s blight all the worse.
Their horse abandoned the road and leaped over gullies—no, not gullies, abandoned trenches. A downed airship lay in a black scar. Ribs of framework jutted into the sky. Not far away lay another airship. The conflagration had been so intense that the metal had collapsed inward.
Hydrogen. An older model, likely an older crash. Exhausted as she was, she didn’t even flash back to the conflagration that seared her childhood.
Strange holes punched into the dirt, as if oversize gophers had been at work. The pits ranged from five feet to twenty feet in diameter, each round.
“Wyrms,” King Kethan said by her ear.
Another native peril of the Waste—creatures that burrowed through the earth and swallowed entire ranches—entire troop divisions—whole. She had known other children in her old village who had been threatened at bedtime, “Go right to sleep or the wyrms will get you.” Octavia had always thought that threat was excessively cruel.
Southern Caskentia had been the sort of wilderness that inspired the soul. The Dallows was the sort where you wondered how you would die, with the sad awareness that no one would find your bones.
And yet people settled here, determined to make new lives for themselves. A sinuous line of smoke curled into the evening sky. Octavia reined up. A settlement at last.
“I still don’t see the Tree or any new mountains in the distance. We’re out of food and almost out of water.” She dismounted, holding on to the gnarled wooden lines of the horse to keep her upright.
“Any homes closer to the Pinnacles were likely obliterated by Caskentia.”
Octavia nodded. “We have to take the risk of asking for hospitality. Maybe, if we’re lucky, they won’t shoot us.” She granted him a quick glance as he hopped down. His current clothes draped in mere tatters. His long hair hid his face as he turned away. “I’ve worked in the wards, Grandfather. I’ve seen it all.”
“That does not mean I wish to be seen in such a way by my granddaughter.”
This kindness—this willingness to love—is why people loved this man in turn. It’s why Mrs. Stout still guards her memories of him with such tender ferocity.
Octavia pulled out spare clothes for him that she had brought for this reason; she still had a gown for herself, just in case. She dug deeper in her satchel and found an old pair of black gloves from Rivka. The sight of her skin in broad daylight forced her to swallow down hot bile. She jerked the covering over her hands, aching to call out to the Lady. Instead, she seethed.
Octavia looked to the dome of the sky; it seemed strangely larger here. Leaf was nowhere in sight, nor anything else in flight. Trees had been scarce, and what they had passed had been bent and twisted, like men who had spent twenty years hauling coal by a yoke.
“Horse,” she said, holding the thickened muzzle between her hands. The muscle beneath had not started to rot—perhaps due to movement, cold, or the strange nature of its magic. “I avoided a name for you, thinking that I might spare you. Shows what a bunch of superstitious tosh that was. I’m sorry.” Grief weighed on her chest. “You need to wait for us, out of sight, and come when I call.”
“Ridemeridemerideme?” The query returned for the first time in days.
“We will ride again, but the Lady knows all about the dangers of starvation and dehydration. You won’t have fulfilled your duty if I arrive dead.” Or so I think.
The horse seemed to consider this, and walked away.
Octavia and King Kethan staggered through limp grass over a small rise. She studied him. He looked ill, but not dead. Their time in the warmer weather of the Waste had allowed his skin to recover from frostbite.
A ranch sprawled out before them. Brown fields consisted of tidy furrows, corrals beyond. She was puzzled by how the smoke directly rose from a hill, and it was only as they drew close that she realized it was a sod house. The nearby barn was likewise carved into the Waste itself. Yellow-gray grass furred the roofs. To a far side was a dirt road, one of the few they had seen that day.
Tall poles with bells were spaced out along the fringe of the field. With no other trees about, they truly stood out.
King Kethan followed her gaze. “Wyrm alarms. Earthquakes will set off the bells.”
“What good would that really do?”
“Would you rather die fighting with a gun in hand, or while you sleep in your cot?”
Octavia was quiet for a moment. “There’s no right answer. I’d prefer not to die at all.”
King Kethan inclined his head with a smile.
Dogs struck up a howling chorus and bounded out to meet them. The three scraggly mutts stopped cold about fifteen feet away and stared in utter silence.
A man stepped into the doorway of the sod house. He held a rifle with the grace of a person who knew how to use one.
“Greetings!” called Octavia. “We’re travelers in search of hospitality.” Please don’t shoot us.
“Good God, did you make it over the pass dressed like that?”
Octavia was taken aback—it was a woman’s voice. “We had more, but we lost some to soldiers, and our horse—”
“Needn’t say any more.” The woman in man’s garb whistled sharply. The silent dogs scampered back toward the sod barn. She frowned at the mutts, clearly puzzled by their behavior. “Soldiers take what they will.” She looked Octavia up and down, her already dark skin flushing more. “They didn’t—”
“No,” said Octavia. “I’m not hurt.”
“Small mercies. I grant you the hospitality of my house. My name is Bruna.”
Octavia stepped across the threshold first. She recalled that Wasters more readily accepted first-name familiarity. “I’m Octavia. This is my grandfather.”
“Mr. Everett,” said King Kethan, his voice raspy.
“The road has been hard for you both. Please, come to our table, we just began our evening repast.”
It was not difficult to find the table. The dugout consisted of one room. The table was in the center, formed of old planks. A woman and two children sat there. Octavia did not need to see below the woman’s skirts to know one leg was fully gone to midthigh, the stump poorly cut. The worst of the infections were past, but they had left a lingering strain on her song and in her young face. The two children looked almost like twins, though their songs differed slightly. Their eyes were wide at the shock of seeing guests.
“Pardon me if I don’t stand, I’ve been ill,” said the woman at the table. �
��I’m Farrell. Please share our meager feast and accept our salt, for we are glad for a wayfarer’s presence.”
That sounds like an old poem, the sort Father would have known.
“We wayfarers are glad to share in this feast, though we bring little more than our company,” answered King Kethan. Octavia looked at him with surprise. Farrell and Bruna smiled, each with a fist to their chest. After a nudge, the two little ones followed suit.
Here I thought they would shoot us on sight as obvious Caskentians, but then, so many Wasters came from Caskentia. Octavia sat on large rock that placed the table at about her chest height. The fare was indeed meager, but her mouth watered at the sight of roasted rabbit with root vegetables and a small stack of flatbread. Bruna split their portions onto two battered tin plates.
Octavia’s fingers shook as she attempted to grip a two-tined fork. Her thumb didn’t want to flex. She took small, precise bites and savored each taste as if it might be her last. It may well be. At the very least, her stiffened skin prevented her from shoveling in food.
“You are a medician?” asked Farrell.
Octavia froze. The query sounded innocent enough, but by this point, she knew better. “I am.” No point in denying it, with my satchel and full robes. “We’re on a pilgrimage to the Tree. Have you seen others?”
The two women shared a grimace. “A dangerous time for that,” said Bruna. “We’ve already been told to retreat further into the interior.”
“Stupid wars,” growled Farrell. She tore meat from the bone.
“We lost our husband last year,” Bruna murmured. She stretched down the table to take Farrell’s hand. “Now we have each other.”
“And me!” piped up a little girl.
“Yes, we have the four of us.”
“And a home we broke our backs to dig out of this goddamned caliche.” The Waste was known for its rocklike layers of sediment.
“Am I to understand,” said King Kethan, “you constructed this homestead just this year? Since armistice?”
The two women nodded, their faces hard. Everything about them is hard. They can’t be older than me—I’d guess them a few years younger. Most women here die by thirty. Most men . . . well.
The soft putter of an engine drifted overhead. Everyone at the table froze. “God, is it starting already?” asked Farrell.
“It’s just another airship flying to the Tree,” whispered Bruna.
“Just another airship. How many times are they going to simply fly over?”
Kethan walked to the door. He kept his body to one side. Habit of a soldier, with the wall to shelter him in case of gunfire. “Caskentian flags. ’Tis coming in lower, within firing range.” He didn’t need to say it; they heard and felt the increasing roar.
“Kids, to the cellar,” snapped Farrell.
“Can I take my meat?” said the little girl.
“Yes, take it all. Come on.” Bruna took the boy by the hand and guided them to a corner of the room. She lifted a hatch in the floor.
Octavia joined King Kethan. “Do you think they’re looking for us?” she whispered.
“We were seen all through the pass, and there can be but few homesteads here.”
Dread sank into her stomach. Please, Lady, no battles here. I’m so sick of people dying because of me.
“I will talk with them.” King Kethan walked outside.
“What stripe of fool is he?” snapped Farrell. She stood, reaching for a crutch made of bent metal. “A man can’t show himself to a Caskentian airship here, not unless he wants suicide.”
He’s doing it because he can get shot and revive. “Sometimes he’s more bold than clever.”
“We’re looking for an unusual beast and rider.” The words crackled through a megaphone. “Have you seen anything?”
She wondered where the horse was hiding; surely it couldn’t be far away.
King Kethan held his arms up as he shook his head in an exaggerated movement. “No, we have not!” he yelled back, his voice carrying surprisingly well over the low roar.
The airship was similar to the Argus that she and Alonzo had ridden on. The hull was recessed into the underbelly of a great silver gasbag. Where the side windows had flanked the dining room of the passenger airship, this army craft boasted gunnery from most every window. Few guns aimed dead-on, but if the craft drew parallel to its target, the firepower was immense—even as it exposed the full balloon of the craft. A military rig such as this would have extra aether wards in place to toughen the skin against bullets and other missiles.
Something flew from the portside window and spiraled close to the barn. Octavia pulled the door to, throwing herself on the ground. Behind her, the other women did the same. They waited. No sound, no explosion, no hiss of gas. Octavia crawled to the door and cracked it open. King Kethan was walking across the grass to investigate. The airship hovered in place, silent but for the engine and rotors.
The King glanced back toward the house. “ ’Tis a piece of silver, an old serving dish,” he yelled.
“A silver dish?” Octavia echoed to the women, confused. Their murmurs reflected the same confusion. If Leaf were here, he probably would have gone for it, but why would an airship look for Leaf?
Bells rang along the periphery of the homestead. She thought she had imagined the sound, confused it with noise from the hovering airship, but seconds later, a bell on the dugout wall joined in.
“Oh God, the low airship must have attracted it. Kids! Out!” screamed Farrell.
“Attracted what—? Oh Lady,” said Octavia, remembering what Kethan had said before. A wyrm.
King Kethan ran back toward the house. Beneath the airship, dirt sprayed upward like a fountain. The craft reared as the wyrm emerged. The head—the visible body—was the size of train cars in sequence. Its skin was the color of dirt with a slight pink hue, like a common earthworm, and it had no discernible eyes. The wyrm lashed upward. The ship lurched away with the crackle of gunfire.
The wyrm roared. It was a strange, hollow sound. The head was a solid mass. The song—it had no song. Octavia had no time to puzzle over that now. Dirt shivered from the ceiling as the earth rumbled. The children screamed. The airship turned, exposing the far side of the craft. Bullets whistled and thudded into the dirt walls.
Cold, hard rage flared in Octavia. They didn’t miss the wyrm. They’re shooting at the house because they can.
Sprawled on the floor, she crawled to the children. They crouched to one side of the cellar hole. The little boy sobbed, a thumb wedged in his mouth. The little girl’s bushy black hair was powdered in brown.
“We’ll be buried alive!” cried Bruna.
Farrell crawled to them. “Don’t talk like that!”
“Do wyrms always attack airships?” asked Octavia.
“Loud noises pull them in, the vibrations. The wyrm will grab the ship if it’s in range,” said Farrell. Mud smeared her face. “Your grandfather . . . ?”
“I don’t know.” She crawled back to the door. King Kethan might not be able to die, but she still worried for him. The gunfire directed at the house had stopped, though shots still rang at a distance.
New shafts of light pierced the dirt front wall where it had been penetrated by bullets. The ground shook, hard. The wooden supports in the ceiling groaned. Dirt fell somewhere behind Octavia. The children screamed again. The wyrm roared. Each time it shifted, it was like a small earthquake. She looked outside.
The airship stayed just out of range as if toying with the beast, gunfire smattering into the exposed head. No blood screamed. Whirls of dirt created a brown fog across the yard; she couldn’t see King Kethan. Through the cloud, she heard a distinctive crackle and a blue flash. Octavia averted her eyes as the boomer exploded. The airship hovered closer, whirls of dirt choking her.
“Don’t,” she whis
pered to the airship, to her own countrymen, even as she already knew what they were doing. She slammed the door shut and threw herself down again. The boomer smacked into the roof of the house. Another cascade of dirt fell.
“What is that?” cried Bruna.
“A boomer,” yelled Octavia. “Used at the front to terrify horses, deafen soldiers—”
“They’re luring the wyrm onto us!” said Farrell.
The airship thundered close overhead, waiting. The sod house shuddered as the boomer exploded. The women and children continued to wait. Why isn’t the wyrm attacking? In response, another boomer sparkled as it flew past the window. The stench of aether-infernal magic blew indoors, the stink reminiscent of hot cooking oil. More dirt shifted from above.
The airship pulled away. A gunshot, two. They sounded distant, not like an automatic from the airship. Octavia pulled herself to the door, her satchel dragging beside her. More gunshots. She cracked open the door to see a large object on the rise just beyond the furrowed field—a mass of green and copper, metal wings flared out.
Her breath caught. Chi.
CHAPTER 16
The airship hadn’t missed the strange sight either. It circled around as more shots were fired from below. The airship was scouting for Chi, not us. That’s why they threw down silver as a lure.
The puncture in the airship’s gasbag appeared as a small black hole. Octavia couldn’t believe her eyes—an airship shouldn’t be that easy to shoot down, but then, Alonzo was a marksman and a trained Dagger. He knows its vulnerabilities as few would. In the space of several breaths, the hole widened to a rippling gap with a silver flap of skin. The ship angled hard as the nose smacked into the edge of the field with a violent eruption of dirt.
