by J. C. Staudt
“Why?” Barlyza threw her hip as she said it, drawing out the one-word complaint.
“I don’t know. I just want to see.”
“See what? Everyone’s dead. I’m not staying here. I can’t deal with this.”
“Then don’t,” Stevrin said, glowering.
Barlyza’s expression darkened. “Really? You’re staying here with the parikua? Fine. Let’s go, Krinica.”
Krinica looked from one to the other, hesitating.
Barlyza blinked. “Are you actually thinking about staying too?”
Krinica was stumped. Lizneth could tell she didn’t think for herself very often. “I…”
“Alright then. If that’s the way you feel about it, just go. All of you, wade through your dead bodies and have fun. I’m going back to Molehind.” Barlyza left the cart where it stood and stomped off toward the tunnels.
“Barlyza, wait…” Stevrin and Krinica ran over and flanked her with comforting arms and soft words.
Lizneth scented the air and looked across the river. She thought she’d heard something on Tanley’s main avenue. She definitely smelled it. There was a flicker of motion, too far to make out and gone before she could try. Something was alive among the dead. An animal, or a scavenger, she told herself.
Stevrin and Krinica returned, arms linked with Barlyza between them. By her resigned look, Lizneth knew they’d convinced her to come along after all. Why couldn’t you just let her go? she wanted to say. Why don’t you all just go?
“Everything’s fine,” Stevrin was saying. “Barlyza is staying.” He said it as though he expected Lizneth to be happy about the news.
“Great,” she muttered.
Stevrin took Barlyza’s hand and led her past the first body, a calai warrior whose chest was caved in like an overripe bittermelon. Barlyza shuddered, playing it up. Lizneth found herself wanting to push the doe into a cluster of corpses just to hear her scream. She should be happy none of them are alive. If they met with any real danger, Lizneth’s dagger was the only weapon they had.
“Are we just leaving the carts here?” Lizneth asked.
“Nothing’s going to happen to them,” said Krinica. “No one’s around.”
Lizneth considered pointing out that anyone could come down one of those tunnels at any time and take the carts before they could get back across the river, but she refrained. The bridge was in no shape to bear the weight of the carts, and the river was too high to cross. She brushed past them and strode through the minefield of bodies, making it to the bridge well before them.
The bridge’s wooden planks were badly burned, but its stone arches looked sturdy. Lizneth put a foot on the first plank and leaned forward to test it. The plank gave a loud creak, but that was normal for this old thing. “The river’s moving fast,” she told the others when they came up behind her. “I’m not sure how safe this bridge is. We’d better cross one at a time.”
The others agreed.
“Who’s going first?” asked Krinica.
Lizneth looked at Stevrin. She had assumed he’d volunteer, being both the heaviest and the most eager to prove his bravery to the does. He gave a quick shake of his head to remove himself from the running. Lizneth studied Barlyza and Krinica. “I guess I am.”
She considered her options. The river was too deep and fast to swim across. That left her with pick your way across, avoiding planks of dubious stability, or hightail it and hope you’re lucky. If she’d been by herself, she might’ve opted for the latter. But since she needed to find a safe path for her companions, the former won out in the end.
She scooped up two handfuls of dirt and started across, marking each safe plank with a few crumbs. She made it nearly halfway across before she encountered her first problem. One of the planks bowed so severely when she put weight on it that she lost her balance and slipped to the next one. That plank was even weaker.
She heard it snap, and then the floor was rushing up at her, her right leg plunging through the hole. She found herself staring through the gap between two planks, watching the broken pieces splash into the river and disappear beneath the churning current. Placing her hands carefully, each on a different plank, she pushed herself up and pulled up her leg. She tested the next plank with her knee, found it stable.
The dirt was gone. She’d opened her hands to break her fall and lost the rest. She’d have to use her dagger to score each safe plank from here to the bridge’s end. There were dozens more between her and the opposite shore.
Lizneth did the work. She carved a tiny X into each plank that didn’t bend or break beneath her weight. The ironwood was so old and dry and dark that the markings were hard to see, but they were better than nothing. When she came within a few feet of the end, she leapt over the last several planks and landed on hard ground.
Her companions were less than enthused about coming across after her. Barlyza, in particular, looked more frightened than ever.
“You go on without us,” Stevrin said, shouting to be heard above the rapids. “She’s too scared to try.”
So are you, Lizneth wanted to say. But alright. At least I’ll have a clear path on my way back. She left them standing there and headed into the village.
The mulligraw fields were an unkempt knot of overgrowth, choked with weeds and strewn with battle-debris. Lizneth passed them without a second thought, these acres where she’d spent countless hours of her life. That life was gone now. Her family had nothing left, not even a cottage to come home to. It was the nightmare she’d always feared, and now it was real.
Every structure in Tanley was a black ruin. Though the fire was days old, its smoky essence still hung in the air, clinging to everything. The bodies here were so badly incinerated as to be indistinguishable. No one was even around to sift through the remains, to search for survivors or clean up the mess.
Krinica had been right, though. There was a river, and so there would always be zhehn living nearby. When the last of Tanley’s detritus had returned to the earth and new homes had sprouted here, it would be a different place. A different village, with different ikzhehn, and maybe even a different name.
Lizneth heard a noise in the rocky crevice behind where the old inn had stood. A whimpering sound, pained and pitiful. When she scented the air, the haick was hard to distinguish above the smoky stench, but there was something familiar about it. Taking no chances, she drew her dagger and advanced through the inn’s charred remains.
When she poked her head through the opening, she saw a gray ball of fur shivering in the dark. It wasn’t ikzhe fur, though; the scent of it was too strange. An animal, maybe. She spoke a warning to let it know she was coming. The thing turned toward her, and from the shapeless ball appeared a thin snout and two glowing eyes.
Lizneth started, brandishing her blade. The mouth peeled open to reveal rows of sharp pearly teeth and a lolling pink tongue. It yipped at her, giving her another fright. It wasn’t a threatening sound, though, and neither did the little creature seem intent on doing her harm. It limped to a stand, and she finally saw it for what it was: a jackal pup. Its left foreleg was bloody, but it didn’t snarl or bare its teeth in self-defense.
Remembering her walk on the cliff with Kolki, Lizneth recalled the strange figure that had appeared below them in the valley and the slender, four-legged creatures encircling him. A harbinger, Kolki had called him. Now here was one of those same creatures, and the Dead-end Door looking as though something had tried to tear it open. The harbinger had come through Tanley in the wake of the fighting, then. And those other dead, fresher than the rest… what did it all mean?
There were unburned foodstuffs at the rear of the crevice, some of which bore teeth marks and missing chunks. Lizneth sheathed her dagger and knelt. When she held out her palm, the pup came to her. The animal did not nip or growl when she ran her fingers through its fur. “What are you doing here, little thing?” she asked.
The pup only cocked its head to look up at her through curious eyes.
The jackal gave only a brief growl, then lost interest.
Lizneth filled her knapsack with as much of the intact food as she could carry, then stood to leave. “Fates guide you, little pup,” she said, exiting the crevice.
Halfway through the burned wreckage, Lizneth heard a noise behind her. She turned to find the tiny creature limping after her, whining as it tried to keep up. It slipped while attempting to surmount a charred beam that was a bit too tall for it.
“Hello again,” she said.
The pup scampered over the beam and stopped at her heels.
“What do you think you’re doing, huh?”
A whine.
Lizneth continued through the wreckage, her forepaws and legwraps blackening with soot. The pup followed, finding openings to squeeze through whenever it met an obstacle too high to climb. Every few fathoms, Lizneth turned to find the animal right behind her. “You should’ve stayed back there, with the food,” she warned. “I can’t take care of you.”
When Lizneth mounted the pile of stones which had once formed the inn’s front wall, the pup got its paw caught as it tried to follow her. “Here, let me help you,” she said, going back to pick up the animal and carry it across. “There we are,” she said, putting it down on the far side.
Lizneth searched the village, but there were no survivors to be found. The pup trotted beside her, limping all the while.
“I told you not to follow me,” she said. “There’s barely enough room for my family where I’m staying, let alone food and space for a growing pup.”
Lizneth had never owned a pet, nor had she heard of anyone in Tanley keeping animals for anything besides meat or milk. When she returned to the river bridge and the pup was still beside her, she decided she might as well bring it across in case its mother was somewhere on the other side. She would keep the animal with her for now, until she could find its family. “Are you a kecu or a lecu?” she asked it. She had always thought Ryn was a good name, and it would work either way. “That’s what I’ll call you, then. Your name is Ryn.”
“What is that thing?” Barlyza asked from across the bridge.
“Her name is Ryn,” Lizneth said. “She’s a jackal.”
“Where did you find it?”
“She was in the village. She’s hurt.”
“Find anything else?” asked Stevrin.
“Nothing. I’m coming back across now. Come on, Ryn.” Lizneth gathered the pup in her arms and picked her way across the bridge, using the markings she’d left earlier.
“What do we do now?” Stevrin asked when she was safe on the bank.
“First things first. I’ve got to clean and dress Ryn’s wound. After that, I’ve decided I’m going to the rime caves. If Sniverlik still lives, he must be there.” So must Raial and Thrin, she thought. And Deequol, and the rest of our lost ones.
Stevrin twitched his whiskers. “Sniverlik?”
“The stronghold is where we’ll find out what’s being done about the calai invasion. My Papa says villagers from all around are amassing there.”
Barlyza shook her head. “The Marauders are cruel and scary.”
“Are you scared of everything?” Lizneth asked, too irritated to be polite any longer. “I have family there. You all must have family there too…”
“The Marauders have taken three from my litter,” Stevrin admitted. “Two brothers and a sister.”
“I have three brothers and two sisters there,” said Krinica.
“A sister and a brother,” Barlyza added.
“Let’s go, then. Don’t you want to see them again?”
Barlyza shook her head. “I don’t want to go. The Marauders will take us too, and make us fight.”
“No, they won’t,” Lizneth insisted. “They don’t usually make the ledozhehn fight.”
“Great,” said Stevrin.
“Take the carts back to Molehind then,” Lizneth said, irritated. “There’s no one to sell Uncle Enzak’s goods to here. If you won’t fight for your homes and your families, I don’t want to be around you anymore.”
The others were silent.
“I think we’d better go home,” Stevrin finally said.
The does agreed.
“Fine. Go. I’m not stopping you.”
Lizneth watched them disappear down the tunnel, carts trundling behind them. She supposed it didn’t matter to them that half the reason they’d been sent here was to keep an eye on her. She was glad they didn’t care. She wanted to be on her own anyway. She wasn’t quite on her own anymore, though. Now she had Ryn to keep her company.
CHAPTER 28
Brother
Jallika Weaver could wait no longer. She swung down from her saddle and pressed her palms to the flat black pavement as the shapes rushed toward her through the darkness. If this tunnel had ever collected the desert’s leavings—if ever a vehicle had shattered a bulb or windshield, or a drunkard had dropped his bottle—she would find what was left of it.
Gunshots flashed in the tunnel, Lokes’s silvered revolvers dancing in his hands. To Gish’s credit, the horse stood firm between his legs even as the gun blasts thundered through the darkness. Lokes’s fiendsight was his best-kept secret; a deadeye who could see better than a fox in the dark didn’t want that information getting around.
A breeze woke in the tunnel as Weaver called upon every grain and shard. The effect would never come close to what she could achieve on the wastes, but she could do more with a few grains of sand than with the knife she’d given the shepherd. Even as her wind began to howl, she heard the screams of Lokes’s victims, felt the bodies thudding to the pavement.
It was only when she directed her senses toward what was below—resonating, the Guild of the Calsaires called it—that she felt the true rumbling. The tunnel had collapsed further on, or it was still collapsing. These shapes were not running toward them with violent intent; they were fleeing the devastation behind them. The starwinds were wreaking their revenge upon the city.
Another tremor shook the earth. Weaver could feel the faraway vibrations, though her senses were dulled given so little sand to carry them back to her. She was on her horse in an instant, yelling for Lokes, telling him to run, the tunnel was collapsing; telling him to stop being such a bullheaded brute and follow her out. She couldn’t protect him here like she could out there. Didn’t he know that? Didn’t he know he needed her protection?
A rush of thick air buffeted her as she wheeled Meldi around, and she was galloping back toward the entrance. The dust engulfed her and swept forward to eclipse the daylight.
She shot through the opening and crested the rise before stopping to look back. The highway above the tunnels was cracking and falling in like the shell on a burnt cream custard. People began sprinting into the daylight, covered in dust and carrying nothing but the ragged clothes on their backs. No horses came; no Lokes, and no Toler.
In the distance, a skyscraper shed ten stories of fragmented veneer from one side. A shorter building simply leaned over and collapsed in a cloud of dust. Weaver surveyed the buildings around her, dreading the same. She hated cities, even when they weren’t falling apart. Why didn’t we agree to meet the southerner in the outskirts? she wondered.
Long moments passed. Excruciating moments in which she wondered whether she could accomplish anything by going back in for them. Had they been caught in the collapse? Had one been trapped and the other stayed to free him? She spurred Meldi forward and reentered the darkness.
The tunnel ended in a heap of rubble. Daylight was streaming in now as the light-star beat its path into the morning sky. They didn’t hear me. They didn’t know I was trying to warn them. Probably didn’t know I was gone until it was too late. Sudden grief surged in her chest. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream or vomit. He’s dead. They�
��re both dead.
The words of the Calsaire’s oath echoed in her mind. For ere the world is ended, we will meet the fates as one. She would sooner have been inside that tunnel to meet the fates with Lokes by her side than to wander this life without him.
A voice called to her from behind, outside the mouth of the tunnel. “What in tarnation are you doin’ in there?”
She turned. Infernal wrapped their silhouettes in white, two gaunt men on two tall horses. “What in the name of—” She rode out to meet them, relieved but bewildered. “How—”
Both men were gray as ghosts, as were the top halves of Gish and Seurag. A sparse crowd of survivors was filtering out of the left-hand tunnel, coughing and shielding their eyes.
Lokes began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You look like you done messed your drawls, woman,” he said, his voice breaking into a high, dry cackle.
“I thought you were dead,” she shouted.
“I wasted a dozen of them beggars for nothin’,” Lokes said. “Poor dead saps might’ve made it out, too. I never gave ‘em a chance.” He seemed to find this very amusing. It was just the sort of thing Lokes would find amusing in the face of death.
“How did you get out?”
“There was an opening from one tunnel to the other. Saw people going through, followed ‘em. Left one’s better built than the right, turns out.”
Toler wiped his mouth and tried to spit the dust off his lips. “I don’t know how he saw all that in the dark, but he pulled me along with him. Next thing I knew, we were back on the surface.”
“You’re my cash cow, Shep. You ain’t getting left behind.”
“Now can we go around the tunnel?” Weaver said, not asking.
“Used to be we could follow the lay of the land. Seems to me the lay of the land’s changed. We gonna have to find ourselves a new route.”
Aside from the highway collapse and the structural failure of several buildings, the only significant destruction they came across on their way to the Scorpion’s Uncle was a man whose leg had been nearly severed by a fallen traffic signal. He was in shock by the time they found him, lying in the road, watching his blood flow over the asphalt and trickle through the holes in the sewer grate. Lokes shot him in the head.
