by Stacey Berg
“Is that why you left me with those men in the warehouse?”
“They were just supposed to keep you safe until I could take you away.” He drew a ragged breath. “You get down on the ground. Now.” Hunter didn’t dare disobey, not with that weapon next to Lia’s face and Loro’s control faltering. “All the way. Lie on your face, in the dirt. That’s better. That’s where you all belong. Taking our girls. Our grain. Pushing us until we’re so desperate that we turn on each other when you’re the real enemy.”
Hunter turned her head to keep him in view, ignoring the stones pressing into the side of her face. He still held tight to Lia. She needed to separate them somehow.
“You win, Loro. You’ve got me, now let Lia go.”
She rode out his kick to her ribs, ignoring Lia’s cry of dismay. “I’m not stupid,” he snarled, pulling back for another blow.
Lia pushed back against him, clutching at the arm that held her. “Please, Loro, stop. This doesn’t help anyone.”
“Don’t worry, Lia, it will be okay. I’ll get you away from here, someplace we’ll be safe. From her, and all of them.”
“No!” Lia’s voice rose near a shout. “Saints, everyone is trying to get me away. I just want you to listen.” She caught her breath, and her voice softened. “I’m sorry, Loro. I should have told you a long time ago. I just didn’t want to hurt you any more, I didn’t want you to lose another sister, or . . . I’m sorry. I can’t go with you. You know I’d never leave the city.”
“But you could go with her?” Loro’s voice turned soft, dangerous. He tugged Lia around to face him. Hunter twisted her neck to keep them centered in her vision. Her palm closed over a handful of dust and grit.
Lie to him, please. For the Saint’s sake, please lie just this once. Lia stared at him a minute, breathing hard. Then her face crumpled. She shook her head.
And then she hit him hard in the chest with both fists, and flung herself aside.
Loro cursed, whirling on Hunter, two shaking hands clenching the weapon aimed straight at her. The bones of his fingers showed white. Hunter jerked her torso off the ground, twisting and flinging the handful of dirt underhand across her body with a tearing effort.
The stinging grains caught Loro in the face. He jumped back with a reflex shout, pawing at his eyes for the critical seconds it took Hunter to jackknife to her feet. She closed the body-length gap between them in one long step, right hand reaching for his throat while her left clamped around his wrist, forcing it up and out before he could bring the weapon to bear on her or Lia, who still lay on the ground, seeming stunned. “Move!” Hunter shouted at her, but had no time to look for a response as Loro fought back with wiry strength. His free hand pummeled her head and shoulders, blows she had to take, nothing for it but to tuck her chin into her chest and shrug her shoulders up around her ears while she tried to get a better grip on his neck without letting the weapon come into play. She was still weak, she realized with the first real stab of fear. The struggle was more evenly matched than it should have been. One, then another sharp pop sounded close to her left ear, projectiles sent harmlessly astray as his hand jerked on the trigger. She had no idea how many times it could fire without having to be rearmed.
Loro rammed his weight forward unexpectedly, forcing her to back a step for balance. Her rear foot tangled with Lia, and for a precarious moment Hunter struggled to balance herself and Loro before they both fell atop the med. Then Lia rolled out of the way, scrambling off to the side on all fours. Hunter took one more step backwards, dropping almost to one knee as if she could no longer hold Loro’s weight. As he fell forward into the gap the feint created, she straightened her leg with all her strength, reached her front foot behind his heel, and twisted, pushing him backwards with the hand still on his neck. He tried to jump away but his leg caught on her hooking foot. She jerked the foot up and gave one last hard shove, and Loro hit the ground flat on his back, too fast to brace for the fall. The impact drove a harsh whoop of air from his lungs. The weapon bounced away somewhere out of reach.
Hunter followed him down, knee in his chest, both hands closing around his throat. He hammered at her with his fists, panic giving him a burst of strength. He must have gotten hold of a rock; something gave with a sickening crunch in her side as he struck. She felt the blows only vaguely, a minor annoyance while she concentrated all her effort on choking the life from him. Lia was shouting something, but she couldn’t make out the words over the thunder in her head. Loro’s face grew mottled, struggles subsiding into irregular reflex jerks. Strangulation was not the cleanest method, but it would suffice. At least, she thought dimly, he deserved it, unlike so many of her victims.
She stared into his dusky face, gave a last squeeze, lifting his head off the dirt and slamming it down, then sat back on her heels astride his chest, disgusted and sick.
His breath rattled a few times irregularly, then caught a rhythm, rasping in and out with a dying-engine wheeze.
Hunter’s own breath came in harsh sobs of exhaustion. Every gasp stabbed white with pain, and one ear burned fiercely where a fist had crushed it against her skull. Arms came around her shoulders, not an attack, but Lia, kneeling alongside her, murmuring something wordless, trying to help her up. She straightened a little, struggling to find room for air. She needed to restrain Loro before he regained consciousness, but for the moment she could only sit there, trying to rub her vision clear and wondering what she was going to do next.
Lia’s face was a mask of grime, tears washing down in two clean tracks. It reminded Hunter of something she had seen once, a long time gone, she couldn’t recall what. Lia pulled back with an abrupt flinch. Remembering what she held, Hunter thought wearily, but then she realized the med’s wide eyes were focused over her shoulder.
“Finish the task, Echo Hunter 367.”
Hunter rose with a dizzying effort. “Run, Lia,” she said flatly. She knew the med would not. It didn’t matter anyway; there was nowhere for her to go. Hunter tasted defeat, sharp and metallic, more bitter than the blood in her mouth. She took a last look past the forcewall at the desert stretching empty out to the edge of the world, then turned to face the city again, and Gem.
They were not mirror images any longer. Gem stood easily, weight balanced on her toes, shoulders loose and arms free, the stunner in her hand held relaxed and ready, Hunter and Lia both comfortably in its range. Despite the heat her face was barely flushed, only a faint patch of sweat darkening the immaculate cloth of her shirt. By contrast Hunter felt old and shabby, hair full of dust and scratched face stinging. She took a step forward, and her bones creaked. Gem leapt lightly down from the outcropping, gesturing at Loro with the stunner. Hunter had no doubts whatever that it had been altered to kill, and not by any accident of the wiring this time. “He is dangerous, to you and to the Church. You defeated him; why would you not finish the task?”
She could barely explain it to herself, let alone Gem. Instead of trying, she just shrugged. The motion hurt the shoulder she had strained throwing the first handful of dust. Perplexingly Gem nodded, seeming unsurprised. Perhaps she expected Hunter to fail by now. Hunter felt too weary even to be insulted. The girl’s sharp gaze moved on to Lia with a mixture of curiosity and respect. “You were taking her the long way around to the Church.”
Lia spoke for the first time, eyes locked on Gem as if she’d never seen a hunter before. “We weren’t going to the Church.”
Gem cocked her head. “Ah. You haven’t told her, have you?”
“Told me what?” Lia asked sharply. Hunter’s stomach tightened in the certainty of a coming blow. She could not meet Lia’s eyes.
“It was sensible not to,” Gem said thoughtfully. It was the exact tone Hunter used to take analyzing the actions of a juvenile in a post-exercise debriefing. “Especially if you knew that boy was following you. She might have resisted, and you would have had to fight both of
them at once.”
Gem walked closer to the med, at an angle that kept Hunter fully in the stunner’s field, and Lia between them as well. Gem studied Lia frankly, seeming satisfied overall with what she saw; but when she moved away, there was a question in her eyes. “I never saw the Saint before she ascended. Is this what she looked like, Echo Hunter 367?”
“No.” That girl had been frightened, haunted by the duty she ran away from. By Hunter, who had stalked her through the desert, just as she had Ela, and dragged her back from the tiny camp she had made, so desperate to escape Sainthood that she would rather face a painful death in the desert than life on the altar. Even confused as she was now, Lia had nothing in common with that girl.
Except dawning in her eyes was the same certainty that had been the Saint’s, in the end, of a duty that could never be forsaken. “Echo, what lie did you tell them?” Lia whispered.
Hunter shook her head helplessly, mute. Lia turned to Gem, demanding, “Tell me what is going on.”
“What do you know about the Saint?” Gem asked in that same dispassionate tone, as if it were no more than a classroom exercise.
“The Saint preserves the Church, and the Church preserves the city,” Lia began by rote, but Gem interrupted.
“No, I don’t mean that. About the Saint herself, the one on the altar now?”
Confused, Lia pursed her mouth as she cast back in memory. “I saw her once,” she said slowly. “That night . . . We knew the old Saint was dying, of course. Sometimes the grid flickered, or the water pumps cut on and off. But that night . . . the lights went out, and stayed out. I was sure the forcewall was out too. I didn’t know what would happen. Then something exploded, and a little boy was killed. I was in the street, by chance, and I heard the noise, and ran to help, even though I could see that it was already too late. But before I could do anything, this woman—a child, really—stepped forward and laid her hand on him. Then I knew, and the crowd knew, who she was.” Lia’s golden eyes grew luminous, and the hair on Hunter’s neck prickled, just as it had that night. “For just a minute, I thought—everyone thought—that she was going to bring him back. I felt it, something in the air, like the feeling when you stand near the forcewall, something so real. . . . But then she didn’t.” The med paused, then went on in a more normal voice. “The crowd turned ugly then. If they had caught her they would have killed her, I’m sure of it. I don’t think she would even have tried to escape. But there was a hunter there who—”
She stopped, a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Echo. It was you.”
Hunter couldn’t find words.
“You saved her.” Lia’s face lit in the beginnings of a smile. She cupped a hand to Hunter’s aching cheek. “You saved her.”
Hunter’s voice finally tore free. “I took her to the Church. She didn’t want to go, and I made her. I let them—” She broke off, choking down dust until she could speak something closer to sense. “She’s dying now. On the altar.”
“Already?” Lia’s eyes flicked from Hunter to Gem for confirmation. That tiny betrayal stung.
“Yes,” Gem said gravely. “Much sooner than expected.”
“But I thought . . . Doesn’t making a Saint take a long time? How can you have another one ready so soon?”
The silence hanging in the air answered her. “Saints,” Lia whispered. “There isn’t another one, is there?” She looked at them both, really frightened now. “What are we going to do?”
Hunter leapt at Gem. The stunwand brushed her ribs long before her hands could reach their target, and she crumpled at Gem’s feet. Lia flew to her side, kneeling, skirt whitening in the dust. Darkness circled Hunter’s vision, but she was still conscious, barely. “No,” she wheezed, struggling to reach the stunner in Gem’s hand. Her flailing arm, nerveless, only struck the med instead. She lay still then, worse than useless. “Gem, please.”
Gem seemed to look at her from a long way above. “I’m sorry, Echo,” she said, “but there is no point trying to escape the truth.” She turned to Lia, and her voice grew soft. “I never saw the old Saint, before she ascended. I have heard the story, of course, and to be honest, I doubted her worthiness. A Saint who tried to run . . . I’ve begun to see, though, why Echo Hunter 367 believed in her.” Gem smiled a little, oddly sad. “And why she has done as she has done. But that doesn’t matter. You see—” She broke off, cocking her head again at the med. “What is your name?”
“Lia,” the med replied, startled.
“Lia,” Gem repeated. “I’ll remember.” She bent down, helping the med to her feet tenderly. “You see, Lia, the Church hasn’t made a new Saint. But we’ve found one.”
And as Hunter made one last desperate effort to rise, writhing in the dust, Gem looked down, a strange expression on her face. Respect, Hunter realized dimly. After all this time. Then Gem knelt, and pressed the trigger, and the darkness closed over everything.
CHAPTER 25
She woke abruptly, facing a wall. Every part of her body hurt, so much that she could barely draw breath. Her hands were bound with a length of old cable twisted around both wrists and wrapped around her waist so that neither hand could quite reach the other. Gem’s doing, no doubt. She struggled frantically for a moment then stopped. You’re a hunter. Act like one.
A familiar low hum, strong enough to send a tiny vibration through the stone floor, ran like a foundation under the intermittent sounds of motion, the light brush of cloth over limbs, the click of fingernails across boards and panels. She smelled warm stone cooling, priests, and the slight underlying taint of decay. And beyond that, the organic spice mix of the city, muted now by sweat and dust but unmistakable nonetheless.
Lia.
Gem had brought them both to the sanctuary.
No one seemed to have noticed Hunter’s panicked thrashing. Lucky, she told herself bitterly. Or maybe you’re no concern to them at all. She had to get free. She rolled slowly onto her side. Her head pounded so horribly that it was a moment before she could open her eyes.
The first thing she saw was Lia’s face, whiter than the dust that streaked it. That was all she had to see. Hunter knew they had told her. The med was leaning over the altar, doing something to the Saint. Her sleeves were pushed up and her eyes half closed in concentration, exactly as Hunter had seen her a hundred times in the clinic. A trio of priests worked around her, their hands busy with tools and wire. Nearby, the Patri and another handful of priests huddled in intense consultation over the main boards.
Hunter must have made some sound. Gem padded over, boots silent against the worn stone. She hauled Hunter up without apparent effort. When she let go, Hunter nearly fell, saved only by the young hunter’s quick grab. Humiliated, Hunter had to accept Gem’s help to stumble the dozen painful steps across the sanctuary.
Lia flung herself against her, wrapping her arms around her in a fierce hug, dropping her face into Hunter’s shoulder. Hunter’s bound hands could only reach to the med’s waist, resting atop her thin hips as if about to lead her in some twisted dance. For an instant the feel of Lia’s body pressed against hers was the only thing that mattered in the world. “Have they hurt you?” she whispered, ignoring Gem and the priests and the Patri.
Lia shook her head against Hunter’s shoulder. “No. Are you all right?” There were tears in her voice. Hunter held her as close as she could.
“I’m fine. Shh.”
“I made them let me see the children. The little boy is getting better. The girl made it, she wasn’t hurt. You were right, Echo, sending her here.” She tried to laugh, face still pressed into Hunter’s shirt. “She fits right in.”
They will make her into one of us. Foolish, the little twist of pain that thought brought. The girl would be safer in the Church than anywhere else. If any place were safe now: a faint tremor registered through the soles of Hunter’s boots, a distant part of the city trembling. The urgenc
y in the priests’ movements, their hesitation and sudden darting stabs at the dials, told her the danger was far from over. “What’s happening?”
The Patri turned. The sight of his face shocked her. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and the skin hung loose from his face as if the flesh had withered under it in the days since she had last seen him. He gestured at the lights dancing across the boards, the Saint screaming alarm. “Show her.”
Gem extricated Hunter from Lia’s embrace and half led, half pulled her up the ladder-like vestibule stairs that went up to the loft. Through the gaps between treads Hunter saw nuns and weanlings huddled beneath the staircase, the weanlings silent, the nuns weeping softly. Indine stood guard in front of them, solid as the Church doors.
One look through the rose window told Hunter everything.
The battle had boiled right up to the Church. Cityens mobbed the road and the ground along both sides, groups of them surging and falling back, clots breaking off into individual battles as they fought one another, then reabsorbing into the main body, the whole mass moving inexorably forward. Some of the cityens dragged carts or carried sacks over their shoulders. Even through the window Hunter could hear the shouts, the curses, the occasional sharp pop of a projectile weapon. Between the cityens and the Church doors, hunters had thrown up a barricade, barrels and refectory tables and all manner of debris. They crouched behind, projtrodes ready. Occasionally one would lift a head over the barrier, sight quickly on the nearest cityen, and fire. The mob would fall back, momentarily discouraged, then push forward again.
Gem said, “Their projectile weapons are making it difficult to defend ourselves without excessive casualties. I had some trouble to get through.” Her lips twitched. “I would have left you, but the woman would have none of it. She is very stubborn.”
