Remnants

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  He turned to face us, hands on his hips. Half a block down, over his shoulder, I could see the rest of our group stopping the men with the child.

  “You there,” the soldier said, “be on your way. This is no business of yours.”

  “I disagree,” Niero said, leveling him with a swift punch across the face. The man spun away to the ground.

  Ronan ripped the man from the doorway, away from the mother, and rammed him across the narrow alley, into the other building’s wall. I flipped the third man as he tried to grab me, and Niero leaped on top of him. I turned to the woman, who stared at us with mouth hanging open.

  “Quickly,” I said. “Gather a change of clothes for each of you and anything of value. You must flee now, before the others learn of what’s happened here.”

  She turned and moved, as if in a daze. Raniero brought the father inside the tiny apartment, his arm draped around his shoulders, and set him on a chair. “I don’t know …” he said, lightly slapping the man’s cheeks, trying to revive him. “He doesn’t look ready to move”

  Through the doorway, I saw another soldier charge down the alley, probably at Ronan.

  “I’ve got him,” I said, bringing a cup of water to the man. “You go and help the others.”

  Raniero was out the door again, even as Tressa arrived, carrying the baby. She handed the sobbing child to her mother, who let out a strangled cry, and then joined me with the father. “Can you do anything for him?” I asked Tressa. I bit my lip. We had to get this family up and out of here. Now. Before an alarm sounded, and all of Pacifica’s troops descended on us — for more reasons than one. If the father didn’t come-to quickly …

  Tressa knelt in front of the man and held his face between her palms. “Brother, brother! Awake! By the power of the Maker, I command you to awake!”

  The man lifted his chin and blinked rapidly, focusing on her.

  Vidar was in the doorway then. “With us making such a ruckus, that tracker is likely to turn back our way.”

  “Come,” I said, helping Tressa bring the man to his feet. “We need to go.” I looked over to the woman, still running around, stuffing things into her bag. “Leave it or you will lose your greater treasures!” I reached for her hand.

  She hesitated, and in that moment, I felt her fear of the unknown, her attachment to the comforts of this town she’d called home.

  “It’s changed,” I said. “What you had here. There is nothing but loss ahead for you if you stay. You must run.”

  Her wide, haunted eyes met mine, and then she nodded once.

  Outside, Azarel gestured for us to follow and we ran down a street, then down an alley, then through a tunnel to another street. We climbed one set of stairs after another. Killian and Vidar came up and took hold of the man, carrying him between them. Behind us, we heard whistles. Shouts. Apparently, the bodies of the battered soldiers had been found. Or one had roused enough to call for help.

  Worse, our arm cuffs continued to grow colder, proving Vidar’s assumptions correct. The Sheolites were coming for us. Or worse, we were heading toward them. “This is the only way out for this family? With us?” I whispered to Azarel, pulling to a stop.

  “Yeah,” Vidar said, casting a long, unnerved look down the alley. “Because I sure don’t think they’ll like these guys in red …”

  “It’s their only chance, yes,” she said, looking furiously around at us. “I told you this isn’t a battle we can win. Now if they find us, we’re all lost.” She clamped her lips shut and whirled, waving at us to follow. We turned left and went down a set of stairs, through another tunnel, and then up two more flights. We stopped by the well where we’d filled our buckets. Azarel turned to the mother. “Do you know how to swim?”

  The woman shook her head, panic of a new sort rising within her. I looked down into the dark well and I could hear rushing, sloshing water, as if through a confined space. But there was no way to tell how deep it was. This was Azarel’s plan? To send a family who couldn’t swim out through an underground waterway? With a baby in their arms?

  She met my gaze. “One way in or out of this city, and that’s through the gates,” she said. “I imagine there will be a few of our friends from Pacifica waiting on us there. The only other way is this,” she said, nodding over the well wall.

  I winced. Raniero and Ronan stepped closer as the whistles got louder. All of us felt our armbands begin to vibrate, and not with the deep gladness of approaching Ailith or angel, but with the cold, warning alarm of approaching demons.

  “I’m up for a swim,” Vidar said.

  I considered him and then looked to Raniero. “Listen,” I said. “You, me, Ronan, Vidar, and Bellona are all of the Valley. We are comfortable in the water. You and Vidar can take the parents. Ronan and I can take the baby. Bellona can lead the way and clear any soldier from our path, should the waterway be guarded. Good?”

  “It’s as good a plan as any,” he said. He looked over to Tressa and Killian. “Do you two swim?”

  “Somewhat,” Killian said. “But we’ll manage, together.”

  “Stay close to me,” he said. A whistle blew, this time just a block away. We looked at one another in alarm.

  Bellona leaped over the side, and we heard her hit the water a second later. We leaned over, waiting for a report. “It’s pretty deep,” she called up, “and moving fast. Going with the current” She was clearly ten feet downstream already. The well was little more than a funneling of the river that ran through the canyon, a place for the people of the post to dip in their buckets and carry water to their homes.

  I turned and faced the mother, still holding her baby. “Give him to me,” I said. “I’ll keep him safe.”

  As she passed him to me, the babe curiously calm and quiet, I felt his mother’s dread, her fear. I wished I could do something. There was nothing more dangerous than a person who was in full panic, believing they were about to drown. On impulse, I reached out and grabbed her arm, and focused on all the power of the Maker in me. I concentrated on hope. Faith. Belief. Peace.

  She gasped and took a step away. “How did you do that?”

  I smiled, opening my eyes. “You felt something?”

  “Felt something? Y-yes.” She took Raniero’s hand and he helped her to the well wall, next to Vidar. “It’s as if I believe I can do this,” she said in wonder, looking down into the dark abyss.

  “Uh, people,” Vidar warned, thrusting his chin in the direction of the alley.

  I saw the men pass the mouth of the well alley at a sprint, capes flying, soldiers in gray behind them. But, thankfully, they didn’t see us.

  Vidar and the mother dropped in, and the baby in my arms began to cry, reaching out for where she had been a second ago. I glanced back at the alley, scared the wailing would bring the guards. Raniero picked us both up, placed us on the wall, and grunted, “Go, Andriana. Be safe.” My last view was of Ronan and the father climbing the well wall even as we dropped.

  I pinched the baby’s nose and covered his mouth as we fell. My feet touched the bottom, and I shot up as I heard somebody else plunge in behind me. I shoved off, floating down the tunnel with the current, aware that the baby was trying to get enough breath to scream. I could feel his rage building, getting ready to bellow with everything in him. But a screaming child would bring the soldiers down upon us. Or worse.

  I floated on my back and put the baby on his back against my chest, trying to calm him as I had his mother, concentrating on hope, assurance, peace.

  I held my breath and grunted as I cleared the last post wall and entered the wider river, where a passing guard might spot us. But the baby stayed silent. I smiled in amazement. I exulted in the gift of it, then worried that the child was unwell. Choking on water, perhaps. I lifted him up, wishing I could see his face, and felt him wriggle and thought I heard him coo. As if we’d simply taken a bath. Played.

  I laughed, lost in the wonder of it. What was happening here? Yet another rendition of my gift
unfolding?

  I could not only read emotions, but I could cast them too? As Niero seemed to?

  CHAPTER

  21

  We washed out along the canyon a few minutes’ walk below Georgii Post, her walls rising high above us like a black behemoth bent on chasing us down. Coughing and sputtering, we made it to the rocky riverbank, gasping for breath.

  The mother, clearly half drowned, pulled herself away from Ronan and crawled over to me, reaching for her baby. “Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you,” she said.

  “Thank the Maker,” I said, sitting up and panting. “He delivered us all.” The baby giggled, and I smiled and closed my eyes, rolling on to my back and putting a hand on my head, panting.

  Raniero came out of the water behind me, practically hauling a bedraggled Killian and Tressa to the beach. After he caught his breath, he turned to Killian and Vidar. “What were you doing back there?” he thundered, grabbing hold of Killian’s shirt in his fists, then casting a fierce stare at Vidar. “You could’ve killed us all, going after them!”

  “We had to do something,” Killian said.

  “We can’t help everyone we meet in need,” he said, shoving Killian’s shoulder. “We can’t! We have to keep our eyes on the greater mission! Now what do we do? We don’t even have our bags or the bikes!” He shook his hands in the air and stalked off a few paces. I knew he wore the remaining armbands in a leather bag at his belt, but I assumed our money was gone. As well as the bed rolls and provisions

  I looked over to the small family, huddled together, sorry they had to witness this, even as I shivered with a bone-deep chill. But they didn’t seem to care about Niero’s words — they were lost in relief at simply being together. It made me swallow hard, missing my parents, knowing that I, too, would give up everything to see them again.

  Raniero was calling out names in the dark, making sure everyone had made it. “Come,” he said. “Everyone get to the top of this bank. We need to put some distance between us and the post. It won’t take them long to search the river.”

  My teeth were chattering now in the predawn chill, and I wished we had time to wring out our clothes, wait for daybreak and maybe a little sun to dry them out. But we had no time. We had to be away in case those who chased us figured out how we disappeared.

  I shivered as I thought about the Sheolites reaching the well platform and finding nothing, but sensing us.

  “This way, Andriana,” Asher said, passing by me, little more than a dark form against a darker backdrop.

  “Asher! You came with us!”

  “Via another well. And it was far better than facing the Sons of Sheol on my own,” he said. He caught my hand and helped me up and over the rocks as if he’d walked them a thousand times in the dark.

  “What will happen to the other children?” I asked.

  “The couple across the alley will tend to them. The Maker has seen this day in advance. Let us find out together where he wishes for us to go next,” he said, sounding curiously assured, even though everything had just changed for him. Again. Just weeks after he’d arrived here. I wondered if I would ever gain a measure of his peace, his assuredness.

  When we reached the top of the rocks and joined the others, I pulled off my coat and wrung it out.

  “Now what? Anyone have any direction?” Raniero said, pacing back and forth. “Feeling clear on where the Maker is leading?”

  We were all silent.

  “Are we not to go after Kapriel?” I said. My voice shook with cold, and Ronan wrapped his wet coat around my shoulders. I didn’t know if it hurt or helped, but I appreciated the gesture.

  Azarel let out a scoffing laugh. “We’ve gone through this. You can’t simply walk into Pacifica. The way is long and difficult. And it doesn’t end there. Once we breach the Wall, we have to cross Pacifica, reach the coast, and then the island.”

  “I thought you couldn’t get near Pacifica,” Niero said. “That they know your face.”

  “She shouldn’t,” Asher said. “She’ll endanger you all.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly confident they can move on without us,” she said. “Look what just happened! We didn’t even have a night in Georgii!”

  “Azarel,” Asher said soothingly, with an edge of caution.

  “What?” she said. Even in the dark, I sensed her shaking her head. She sighed and sat down heavily on a nearby rock. “I’m sorry. This is simply … trying. How are they to make it without us? Beyond the Wall, especially?”

  “Because they travel with the Maker. If he wills the Ailith to enter Pacifica, he’ll make a way. Now, come. We know this much, yes? We must be as far from Georgii Post as possible, as soon as possible, yes? So that is our first step. Our best bet is to catch the daybreak trading train.”

  “But, Asher,” Azarel said in agitation, “the train will be heading to Castle Vega.”

  “We have kin at Castle Vega,” said the father of the little family among us. “They would welcome us and those who aided us.”

  “See there?” Asher said in delight. “Confirmation of your next steps. Let’s see it through.” His use of your wasn’t lost on any of us — he didn’t expect to be with us long.

  He moved out and we fell in behind him, all silently miserable in our soaking wet, squeaking, clinging clothes. The baby began crying; I glanced back toward the post, wondering if sound carried across the desert floor or if it would be muffled. To my relief, the mother soon soothed him, perhaps putting him to her breast. How else would a mother comfort a soaking, cold baby out in the middle of a desert at night if she didn’t have the high gifting of an empath? I had no idea. That could come in handy if I’m ever a mother

  I looked up and saw the clouds breaking here and there, stars peeking through. Ronan sidled up beside me, his presence instantly settling my nerves. It was almost as if I grew warmer with him around. Or was it just the walking?

  “Are you well, Dri?” he asked after a bit.

  “Other than my wet clothes chafing me in a hundred places, yes. I think so.”

  “Believe me, I understand. But Andriana … the Sheolites. They were close back there.”

  “Yes,” I said, a shiver running down my back when I recalled how cold our cuffs became. “Too close.”

  “But it didn’t … I mean, it wasn’t …”

  I smiled. “No, Ronan. No door opened. I think Asher taught me what I needed to keep it at bay.”

  “For now.”

  I considered his words, his tone. He didn’t want me to get overly sure of myself. And while it irritated me at first, I knew he had just cause for his concern. “For now,” I repeated.

  Just as the sky began to lighten in the east, I made out the trader train, heading west from Georgii Post. A half hour later, the convoy of overpacked trucks and trailers reached us, with armed men on motor bikes surrounding them. I looked at the bikes with longing, wishing we could’ve brought ours. But what would we have done with the family we’d rescued? And weren’t these people to provide us shelter in Castle Vega?

  It was as Asher said: It was all in the Maker’s hands. All we could do was take the next step.

  Raniero flagged down the train and spoke with a guard, then the driver of the lead truck for a long while, and finally waved us in. Somehow, he’d talked the man into allowing us to ride. We climbed up and into the back of the massive truck, sitting atop crates and bales of goods, leaving the most level space for the Georgii Post family. Atop the cab of the truck was a man with a massive gun, surrounded by sandbags. He barely acknowledged us as we searched for the seats that would stay the most stable on the rough road ahead. Behind us in the trader train was another truck — what they called a bus — filled with so many people they could not take another, and then three Jeeps, each fully loaded. We weren’t even all seated when the truck lurched forward.

  Azarel thought of it first — peeling off her outer layers and folding them over one of the crossbars to dry in the wind. The rest of us quickly follo
wed suit, we women ignoring the admiring grin of the driver behind us, who drew closer to get a better look as we were left in nothing but our T-shirts and long johns. I didn’t care, I decided, hunkering down to get a good grip as the truck lurched and swayed. All I wanted was to be dry. And warm. Not to mention the guy wasn’t getting a look at anything beyond what I would show in the bathing pools of any village of the Trading Union.

  Still, Ronan made his way over and sat down, arms folded, back to me, directly in the line of vision between me and the driver. He folded his own oilskin and outer trousers over the bar in front of him, further blocking the man’s view. I laughed under my breath. My protector and my guardian, in more ways than one. My heart swelled and I closed my eyes, experiencing all I was feeling for the guy. Day by day, there was a stronger draw between us. More connected. How was that possible?

  “Penny for your thoughts!” Azarel said, holding on to the crossbar above her, the wind whipping her shirt around the taut, muscular, flat belly above her low-hung long johns. She was fiercely strong, almost as strong as Bellona. But the way she was looking at me was … soft. Friendly.

  “What’s a penny?”

  “Sorry. It was a coin, back in the olden days — it’s an old expression. You look … happy. And that is funny. Here. Now.”

  “I am,” I said simply. “I’m surrounded by my people and not walking across this desert floor in wet trousers.”

  “Amen to that, sister,” she said, offering her left arm.

  I smiled and reached out my right, clasping her at the elbow as she did mine. She studied me, and in that moment I knew she knew that there were a few more thoughts beyond what that penny bought her. Her eyes flicked to Ronan and back to me, the wisdom in them making me look away.

  “There’s no time for that,” she said, leaning close, nodding over to Ronan and meeting my eyes with warning in her own.

  I glanced away. Was it really any of her business? It wasn’t as if I was going to kiss him. It was only fun thinking about it.

  “It could be used against you,” she said, no trace of softness left in her face.