Storm of Locusts

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  I scan the sky, searching the clouds, but I can’t see Kai anywhere. I know he must be there, embraced by the storm, controlling the flow of water with whatever supernatural powers he’s harnessed from Tó’s pot and his own power.

  The rain is steady now, a cold curtain of a downpour that’s already starting to chill. It’s been so long since I’ve felt rain, I can’t help but turn my face upward, let it wash over me. Ben’s not as charmed. She’s running to the nearest shelter, the guard tower. I take one last mouthful of rain and then hustle after her.

  Ben’s rattling the doorknob, trying to open the guard tower door. “It’s not locked,” she explains, “but there’s something heavy blocking it.” She leans in with her shoulder. “If I could just . . .”

  I add my shoulder to the push, and together we open the door a foot. Ben peeks in the narrow opening. “Maggie, wait!”

  “What is it?”

  “There’s somebody there. Blocking the door. A body.”

  I look in, and sure enough, there’s someone lying on the floor, blocking the doorway. I see long legs sheathed in familiar brown leathers, big biker boots, and the edges of two thick red braids.

  “It’s Rissa,” I say, voice grim.

  I move Ben back and reach through the opening. Try to push against Rissa’s shoulder to get her off the door, but I can’t muster enough power to move her, and she only flops forward at the waist before she falls back again.

  “Is she dead?” Ben asks, her voice scared.

  “I . . . don’t . . .” I sit down, stick my foot through the door and kick Rissa in the side. This time she stirs, and I think I hear her groan. “She’s alive,” I tell Ben. “But hurt.”

  We need another way in. There’s a window on what looks like the second floor. Narrow. Too narrow for me, but not for a sixteen-year-old Deer clan girl. I explain what I’m thinking to Ben. “Can you make it?”

  She nods, eager. I position myself under the window, and Ben steps back about ten feet to get a running start. The rain is quickly oversaturating the parched earth, turning the ground to mud. I plant my feet wide, brace my back against the tower wall, bend my knees, and cup my hands in front me. Give Ben the go-ahead nod.

  She doesn’t hesitate. I grunt as I take her weight in the makeshift steps my hands make, then I lift and push. Her foot on my shoulder is surprisingly light, as if she’s suddenly weightless, and she scampers up the wall. Grasps the windowsill with ease, flipping herself over, and kicks through the glass in one smooth movement. After a moment she leans out the open window to give me a thumbs-up, and then I can hear her quick footsteps on the stairs as she makes her way to the front door.

  “Careful,” I warn her as she grabs Rissa by the armpits and drags her out of the way. Once she’s moved, I join them both inside.

  “Her pulse is good,” Ben says, relief evident in her voice. “And I don’t see any wounds.”

  “Check her neck.” I have a suspicion.

  Ben gently turns Rissa’s head, lifting her hair out of the way. And sure enough, there’s a small needle prick at the base of her neck. Ben frowns. “Gideon got her?”

  “Or Aaron.”

  She sucks in a breath. “Do you think he betrayed us?”

  I motion for her to be quiet and I sit back, listening. I can’t hear much over the steady pounding of the rain. I walk over to the winding staircase. Take a few steps up, straining. And there is it. Dim but definite. Voices.

  “Stay here, Ben,” I say as I start to shed myself of metal weapons: Böker, gun. I even unbuckle the scabbard and lay my sword near Rissa’s feet. The only thing I keep is my obsidian knife. “Watch Rissa. My guess is Aaron wanted to have a little one-on-one talk with his brother.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I start up the stairs. “Interrupt them.”

  “Maggie,” she says, her voice soft but urgent. I look back. “You don’t have to kill him. I know before I said . . . but it’s okay. I’m okay.”

  The truth is that Gideon is going to be hard to kill. Conventional weapons won’t work, and the lightning sword is too dangerous and my control too erratic to wield it in such a small space. I’m just as likely to burn everything to ash—guard tower, Gideon, and everyone else inside.

  “What about your purpose, Ben?”

  She places Rissa’s head in her lap, cradling her gently. Her eyes are downcast. “I don’t know. I know before I said I thought it was my purpose, but I think I’d rather just get out of here and go home. With you and Rissa both alive. So if it means you could get hurt . . .”

  Ben runs a hand over Rissa’s head, smoothing her hair down, and says, “Your life means more to me than his death. Does that make sense?”

  A warmth spreads through my chest, that same feeling I got back at Twin Arrows when Rissa offered me her friendship. “It makes a lot of sense.”

  “Okay, then.” She presses both hands over her heart, something I remember Hastiin doing with the Thirsty Boys before a bounty hunt. A blessing he learned on the frontlines of the wars.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “It means come home safe. It means we’re family.”

  Chapter 44

  The staircase winds up through an opening in the center of the tower. I’ve never been in a lighthouse, but I’ve seen pictures, and I imagine the inside is a lot like this. I move silently upward, any sound I might make drowned out by the thunder outside. Each step seems to take me deeper into the storm. The rain that was a steady downpour now slashes violently against the windows, demanding to be let in. Lightning streaks across the sky, followed quickly by the boom of thunder.

  Kai’s out there somewhere, the living heart of this tempest.

  I have to trust that he will be all right, that he knows what he’s doing, or at least that he can take care of himself. And I have to trust that when this is over, I will see him again. Touch him again. I have to believe that.

  The voices reach me now, barely loud enough to be heard over the growing gale. Gideon and Aaron, but mostly Gideon. Aaron’s voice is weaker, only a whisper compared to the roar of his older brother.

  “Do you know what the locusts did to me?” Gideon shouts. “Out there in the desert? I was lying there. Within feet of the Wall. Covered in my own blood. Blood drawn by the hand of my own brother. And all I can think about is what that social worker said. That my mother was Diné. And if I was Diné, then why wouldn’t they let me in? Why couldn’t I get past that monstrous Wall?

  “And then I feel this . . . pinch. Amid all the other pain, all the razor cuts you gave me. It was nothing. But then there were more, Aaron. And more. And then I realize they’re coming out of the ground. Insects. Hundreds of them. And they’re biting me. Attracted to my blood and eating me alive. And I’m so weak and so tired that there’s nothing I can do about it but lie there and let them.”

  “I’m sorry,” I hear Aaron sob, barely a whisper.

  Gideon moves, footsteps across the room. “I experienced a miracle that day,” he says, voice filled with wonder. “I suppose I should be thanking you. If you hadn’t betrayed me to Bishop, if you hadn’t given in to your baser impulses . . .” His voice rises, his emotions barely contained. “If you hadn’t murdered me!”

  Silence, and when he speaks again, his voice is back to controlled, civil.

  “A locust crawled into my mouth,” he says, “and I couldn’t stop it. I could feel its feet on my tongue, the flutter of its wings against my teeth. Their incessant chatter in my ears. Inside me. And I knew it would devour me . . . if I didn’t devour it first.”

  A sound like a chair being dragged across the floor.

  “Did you know that the Diné traditionally considered the locust a messenger? He led the way into the next world. And as I was lying there dying, Aaron, the guts of a half-chewed locust dripping from my lips, I realized I, too, could be a messenger. That I didn’t have to die. The locust could eat away that which was rotted and old and make way for the new. The n
ew that was me. I could live. And if I lived, I could take you and Bishop and the whole of Dinétah down with me. I just had to have the will, the desire, the goddamn fortitude to persevere.”

  “But why destroy it now, Gideon? We can go home.”

  Silence, like the room is holding its breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “I made a deal, and you can come with me. We can start again, in Dinétah. Prodigal sons, like you used to say.”

  I risk a peek around the corner. Gasp silently in horror. Aaron is nailed to the wall. Metal spikes through his shoulders, same as Caleb. Another through his abdomen, and he’s bleeding freely. Two more through his upper thighs, blood pooling under his feet. Gideon sits in front of him like a man studying a particularly fine painting hung on a wall. There are locusts in his hair, crawling on the collar of his metal vest. More on his hands, circling his wrist, climbing his arms. Boiling out over his bare feet.

  Thunder booms outside, the rain still pelting the windows in a constant steady beat, the storm rattling the walls. So loud I almost miss Gideon’s words.

  “You child.” He leans in close to Aaron, caressing his cheek. “You think I want their pity? That I would return a puppet when I can be a king?”

  Gideon stands abruptly, and I drop back, out of sight. He strides over to the windows, throwing them open one by one. The storm roars in, sending papers flying. A bookshelf tumbles over loudly. Thunder cracks through the room.

  “Dinétah’s days are at an end!” Gideon shouts. “Once I have cleansed the land, I will challenge the gods themselves. I will take what I was denied, what should have always been mine.”

  He comes back to Aaron. Leans in and kisses him. Aaron struggles weakly, but Gideon holds him still. Gideon’s jaw unhinges and locusts pour from his lips, rushing down his brother’s throat, surging over his face like a shimmering black cloth. Aaron chokes on the insects, tries to scream, but he’s buried by the swarm.

  I yell his name, but my voice is lost in the roar of the wind through the open windows.

  “Good-bye, brother,” Gideon shouts as he backs away. I watch as he steps up on the open window ledge. His wings flare open, and I realize he’s going to jump. I take off running, and just as he launches into the air, I fling myself out the window after him.

  Chapter 45

  I catch him in midair. He grunts in surprise, and we tumble through the sky.

  I tear at his clothes, his metal wings, grappling for purchase. He screams incoherently and tries to pry me loose. We fall, spinning, unable to tell up from down, blinded by the torrential rain. It seems like an eternity until we slam into the earth below.

  The rain has turned the red dirt around the guard tower into a mudslide, and the once firm earth slips out from underneath us, sending us down the side of the hill, straight toward the dam and the drop beyond. We both fight to stop. Nothing is solid, everything is chaos, and we rush unhindered toward the edge.

  I can’t stop. I’m going too fast. I lose sight of Gideon as he tumbles past me. I try to scream, but my mouth is filled with mud. A river roars in my ears.

  Something strikes me across the stomach, and I grab for it. Cold metal under my hands. A pipe of some kind, planted vertically in the ground. I hold on tight, drag myself up, struggling to get my head above the mudslide.

  I’ve caught hold of the cross section of a guardrail, anchored down in the concrete observation deck. Another twenty feet and I would have slid right off the edge. I cling to the railing, wiping mud from my eyes and spitting wet earth. I look for Gideon.

  He’s at the edge, slowing pulling himself along the same metal railing farther down. His face and hair are slicked red, the delicate lace of his wings clotted with mud, and his white clothes are stained ochre. He hasn’t seen me yet. I check my moccasin wrap, and my fingers close around the obsidian knife still tucked between the layers of suede. But before I can draw it, Gideon spots me.

  His eyes narrow. He yanks at the air behind me, and the railing I’m clinging to rips free of its moorings. Metal piping slams into my back.

  I’m sliding again, more controlled this time, head above the fray. I’m barreling toward the edge . . . until Gideon plucks me from the river of mud. Tosses me against the netting behind him—the last hope for those unlucky enough to fall from the deck. The flow holds me pinned, dangling out over the edge. The structure moans under the pressure, threatening to break at any moment.

  “Where is the sword?!” Gideon shouts.

  “Somewhere you won’t find it!”

  He’s panting, leaning against what’s left of the rail. “Why are you fighting me, Godslayer?” He sounds truly bewildered. “Don’t you want to be out from under their thumb once and for all? Don’t you want to be free?”

  “No! Free is lonely. Free is having no one who cares for you, no one who will sacrifice their own lives to protect you. Free is no one having your back even when you’re a solid bitch. I don’t want that kind of free!”

  A vein throbs in his neck and his hand clenches. “Weakness. Dependency. Human frailty. Why wallow in your humanity when you can become a god?”

  There’s movement behind him, out over the open sky. Something coming in quickly, a dark smudge in the sheeting rain, blurred and indistinct.

  Gideon’s still staring at me, his breath coming is gasps, waiting for my answer.

  “Because I’m just a five-fingered girl,” I say finally. “And I need other people.”

  “They cannot make you whole.”

  “They don’t have to.”

  “Kai told me about you. How they treat you because of your power. You are a pariah. A monstrosity. They’ll never accept you!”

  “You’re wrong, Gideon,” I say, thinking of Rissa on a curb outside of the Twin Arrows, the two of us laughing over a shared cup of coffee. Of Ben, her hands over her heart, calling me family. Of Kai, who loves me broken, dark, exactly as I am. “They already have.”

  Gideon sneers at me. Raises his hand to rip the netting open and send me tumbling to my death. Behind him the figure in the rain solidifies. Jeans, Metallica shirt, eyes made of quicksilver.

  A bolt of lightning streaks from the sky, striking near Gideon’s feet. He stumbles back.

  Kai lands, putting himself between us. He lifts his hands, fingers pressed together, and then jerks them apart. The water crushing me recedes abruptly. I tumble to my hands and knees, exhausted. I want to rest, but I make myself move, crawling across the netting toward land.

  Gideon’s eyes light on Kai, and he smiles. “You’ve come back, my son. I knew you wouldn’t desert me.”

  “You’ve got to stop this, Gideon,” Kai says, his voice both storm-dark with power and full of pain.

  “No, Kai. No. Do you see what you’ve done? What you can do?” He lifts his face to the rain. “More power than I thought possible. My God, boy. You are magnificent.”

  “I don’t want the power,” Kai says. He drops his head, and when he looks up again, I know that his eyes have lost their uncanny glow.

  Gideon’s mouth turns down in disgust. “Then what do you want? Not more sentiment, like the girl.” He sneers in my direction. Kai looks at me too, and I’m close enough now that he holds a hand out to pull me up. I get to my feet and we stand together, side-by-side.

  “I want you to come back with us,” he says.

  “Kai . . .” I start, but he touches my wrist, a plea, so I hold my tongue.

  “This is your last chance, Gideon,” he says. “Terrible things have happened here. The Swarm, they’re all dead. And that can’t be changed. But it’s not too late for you. Come home with me. Meet my cheii. He can help you.”

  “Help me do what?” he sneers. “Become the father you so desperately miss? So that you can disappoint me, too?”

  Kai flinches, and a soft rage bubbles up inside me. “He’s giving you a chance to live. Take it.”

  “He can’t give me anything,” Gideon spits, “except failure.” He flexes his shoulders
, and his wings spread open behind him.

  “He can fly!” I shout to Kai, but Kai’s already moving. He covers the distance to Gideon in three long strides and wraps his arms around him to hold him tight. Gideon freezes in surprise. Kai whispers furiously in his ear, his cheek pressed tight against Gideon’s, skin-to-skin. His right hand grips the back of his head. The older man’s eyes widen, a look of pure wonder on his face. Tears gather in his eyes. Kai rocks him gently in his arms, turning Gideon until his back is to me.

  Kai’s voice has been too low to hear, but as he looks up at me over Gideon’s shoulder, I hear one thing, loud and clear. “Good-bye.”

  And I know that’s my cue. I throw my obsidian blade. It lodges into the back of Gideon’s head, at the base of his skull. He doesn’t even scream.

  Gideon slumps in Kai’s embrace, and for a moment, they stand together. And then the White Locust is melting, dissolving into thousands of locusts, all just as dead as their namesake.

  Insect carapaces strike the ground, the sound of them hitting the earth lost in the steady fall of rain. They are caught up in the river of mud, and they wash down the incline to plummet off the edge to the depths below. I step out of the way and watch them go.

  Kai drops his hands to his knees, head bent, dark hair dripping rainwater. I join him, bending to dig through the mess of bugs and mud to find my knife. I clean it and put it back where it belongs.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  It takes him some time before he straightens. He pushes his hair from his face. “It was too late for him. I should have seen it earlier. All this is my fault.”

  “No, Kai. He made his choice. We all have choices.”

  He nods, but he doesn’t look convinced.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him his clans. Who his parents were. I told him he was loved.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Gideon had his own birth records. He just refused to read them, always too angry or afraid of what he might find. I took the liberty of reading them.” He squints through the rain, looking out of Glen Canyon. “I wanted to give him some peace.”