Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  The old woman decrees that my next day will be spent soaked through, rain pouring directly from the sky into my hammock as Song Jie and one of the others carry me. My head is mostly clear by the time Song Jie gives a panicked command that sends us moving in a new direction just before twilight, landing us in a shallow cave with trees as cover. There are more Reds nearby, it seems.

  Song Jie and my other carrier—the big Baohujia, Telan, as I’ve heard Song Jie call him—set me down on the cold dirt floor, leaving me to extract myself from the hammock’s folds. I’m not shaking the way I was before, but my head still swims with the medicine Song Jie gave me, so I only sit up to take stock of our situation.

  The cave is only deep enough to shield us from the rain, the trees outside creaking and shifting. Every foresty moan has my good hand groping my side where a gun should be, but there’s nothing to grab. We’re shielded from sight for the most part, so unless the group left tracks deep enough to withstand this rain for the Reds to find, we should be all right. I hope.

  Reifa and Telan begin fussing with the bags, the portly fellow, Gein, sitting back to watch. Song Jie is the only one who seems to know how to do anything helpful, covering the entrance to the cave and pointing Telan to the bunches of wood they gathered throughout the day.

  I slide over to sit by Telan after he’s done stripping away the wet outsides of a few of the smaller branches and has begun piling the bits of wood into an unlikely-looking tower. Taking some of the smaller pieces, I start a new little tower on the dry, bare spot of ground, one that will actually catch fire. Telan watches me for a moment before he tips his own creation over in my direction, pulls a firestarter from the pack and places it near my feet, then gratefully backs away.

  Gein sits on the ground next to me as I set the firestarter to the kindling, pawing through the pack Song Jie carried throughout the day as if it is his own. Song Jie lowers himself next to Gein, speaking in quiet, respectful tones. I watch the two of them from the corner of my eye as I blow softly on the little flare of fire, coaxing it to catch onto the larger branches. Reifa’s in charge. Telan’s their muscle. Song Jie knows where they’re going and must have been the one who orchestrated that misdirection with the gore trail. Gein, though… There’s nothing wrong with him that I can see, only that he seems useless. I look down as he laps liquid from his waterskin like a puppy, spilling it all over Song Jie.

  Song Jie looks quite murderous but does nothing. He even cleans and stows the waterskin when Gein is finished, Gein hardly seeming to notice someone else is doing work for him.

  An interesting choice for this trek toward enemy territory.

  “Isn’t there any Junis out there?” I ask, pushing aside the pine twigs Telan left. “This’ll smoke.”

  “Junis doesn’t grow on this side of the ridge.” Song Jie pulls out a knife and begins carving away the wet outsides of some larger branches. “We’ll have to put it out before long so we don’t have a repeat of last night. Maybe move as soon as we’re done cooking?”

  “We’re sheltered enough here there’s a chance we’ll be safe. Maybe just post a lookout?” I pull the last of the smaller branches closer, though the wood I’ve assembled is already a good start for a cooking fire. Reifa sits next to Gein on the other side of my tower, the old woman not quite making eye contact as Song Jie says something to her in Port Northian. She pulls a handful of small metal-laced cloth packets from her pack—the ones they were cooking food in when I first discovered their camp—and shoves them at the tracker without even speaking.

  It’s almost… dismissive. Interesting. The one person here who can speak two languages, read a map, and lead them to wherever they are going is the worst-treated one of the bunch.

  Gein says something, punctuating the sentence with a grating guffaw. Reifa laughs too, and it seems genuine. I try to find some kind of resemblance between the two, because shared blood might explain his presence here, but all I can find alike are the Baohujia tattoos reaching out from under their ears.

  “So, tell me more about getting into the mountains,” I say. “How long it’s going to take. And…” I force my voice to crack, the very picture of a comrade contemplating treason. “And… this miracle you need.”

  Song Jie barely glances up from the packets, pulling things from his pack: crackers, condensed protein rations that are in packaged brown bricks, root vegetables still sporting a coating of dirt, and some long, flat-leafed onions I recognize from the animal trail we’ve been following.

  Reifa swats at his shoulder when he doesn’t answer me, jabbing her finger in my direction. He bends his neck, voice respectful when he answers. A translation of my question, I assume, because Reifa turns back to me and speaks while looking me straight in the eyes, more acknowledgment than I’ve gotten from anyone since she ordered them to carry me like a fat pig on the way to its slaughter.

  “What did she say?” I look toward Song Jie.

  “She said we have another day or so.” Song Jie moves his knife to the onions and roots he’s harvested.

  “Ambitious.” By my count, at our pace, it should take nearly two months. Either Reifa knows something I don’t about walking or Tai-ge took the long way when we flew here in the heli. Which, as it happens, is not possible. Looking around, I take stock of what they managed to salvage from the camp. Three packs, it looks like. Some food, waterskins, extra clothes. My eyes go back to the gun tucked into Reifa’s sash, my insides like steel.

  I need to get to Sev now. Or as close to now as possible. The likelihood that this group is going to make it through the night regardless of how well sheltered this camp is seems abysmally small.

  I’ll need to take their things before I go.

  Gein abruptly stands, his voice too loud for the small space as he goes over to where Telan is sitting, and the two begin a game involving hand signs and loud grunts.

  Maybe when the sun’s completely down. They probably all sleep like the dead. Even if they set a watch like I suggested, it won’t be hard to sneak away with the tools to survive. And, if they wake up, I can make myself pull the trigger again. I think I can. I’ll have to.

  Setting the firestarter to a new spot in the branches, I watch as the flames take to the wood, slowly turning it to char.

  “Why do you want to get into the City?” I ask.

  Song Jie rolls his eyes but interprets. When Reifa speaks again, he keeps his attention on his knife and the vegetables as he speaks, shrinking away from Reifa even as he tries to ignore the fact he’s talking to me. “The Chairman’s son is what kept the balance between our island and your city. If we find him again, perhaps a peace can be struck again.”

  “Do you really believe the Chairman will stop his helis just for one boy?” It’s the question they must be expecting, the one I have to ask because it’s what any soul-sucking First would say. The beginning of an analysis of perceived value, actual value, cost, and potential gains. Reifa nudges Song Jie until he translates, her dark eyes glinting as I feed the larger pieces of wood Song Jie stripped of wet bark into the fire.

  “She says…” Song Jie clears his throat. “She says you know why. You have family or you wouldn’t have run.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s about more than war.” Reifa sits forward, Song Jie translating as she speaks. “My guess is you had someone taken from you. Or had to leave someone behind? You have to get to the mountains because if you don’t, something in you will break.”

  Something in you will break. Sev’s face wells up in my head like blood in an open wound.

  The old woman smiles, taking my silence for an answer. “If you have family, then you know what it is to fear.”

  It takes me a moment to find the right expression, the bland combination of words that won’t give me away. But my pause is enough to tell her I’m listening a little too hard. “I thought family is what makes you happy, not afraid.”

  “Family is what you hold deep inside you.” Song Jie�
�s translation dulls as he continues to assemble dinner. Reifa’s hand presses into her chest as she speaks, knobbly fingers tangling in her robe. “It’s your children’s faces you look for when the bombs start falling.”

  Gein lets out a loud guffaw, and Telan groans, the two ducking their heads when Reifa glares at them. They resume their game, casting furtive looks in the old woman’s direction.

  “I don’t have children.” I look down into the fire, the flames licking merrily through the wood, trying to hear in Reifa’s voice why she’s decided to share this with me. All I can see are her eyes, the way she leans forward, but Song Jie’s translation makes me feel deaf to all the cues I should be able to gather from the way she speaks. “I’m not old enough.”

  “Everyone has children.” Song Jie snorts at the words, as if they don’t translate well. “Reifa says she did not carry any little ones inside her, but when your life is filled up with another, their life takes the place of yours, and it doesn’t matter whose blood runs in their veins. They belong to you and you to them.”

  Light from the fire crawls up the side of Song Jie’s face as he speaks, leaving his expression dark. Reifa, though, is watching me. “You ran from your own people,” he says. “That is why Reifa let you come with us. Not many leave what they know unless they mean to save what they love. Was she wrong?”

  “That I left the army to… to save my children?” Thinking of Sev as my child, even with Reifa’s justification, is just a little too messed up for me. Smoke from the fire stings my eyes, only rain covering the sight of it from predators out there. The way Reifa looks at me crawls under my skin. It’s too calm, too earnest. She’s handling me, just like I’ve handled so many people over the years.

  My eyes catch on the bulge in Reifa’s sash. The gun.

  She points at my shoulder, Song Jie translating. “I’ve never seen anyone survive a bite like yours, slaver. There’s a lot in you that wants to live. But there’s even more that wants someone else to keep breathing.”

  The words hit me in the gut as I she says them. It’s a change, having more than just me I’d prefer to keep alive. It’s easy when it’s just you because you can control where you are, what you say, what you do. Surviving is a matter of making the right decisions at the right time. Adding other people… The thought of Sev, wherever she is—not knowing where she is. It’s like a physical ache in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “I hope whoever it is you’re looking for is dead.” Song Jie’s voice surprises me from my thoughts, not a translation from Reifa. These words are his and his alone. Gein and Telan’s game begins to get loud again, and Reifa hisses at them in Port Northian.

  “I hope your whole family has been killed, just like you’ve killed so many of us,” Song Jie continues. “Reifa doesn’t believe me, but you know and I know. I can smell the dead all over you. You’re a killer just like everyone else who came on the helis.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone from your island,” I reply.

  “I would have been your first murder?” Song Jie cocks his head to one side, his mouth hard as he waits for me to confirm it.

  Only, I can’t, and it echoes inside me. Like the argument I had with Sev in the cave. Asking me how many people I’ve killed, that awful fear in her eyes as she watched the knife in my hand. “Look.” My lips feel dry, and licking them doesn’t help. “I’m sorry about what happened when I first found you guys. With the knife. It wasn’t personal.”

  Song Jie’s face creases into an enraged silence that conveys his thoughts without a single word.

  Death is always personal when it’s happening to you.

  “You are only still alive because I can’t lead them as far as they want to go.” Song Jie can hardly breathe through each word, each one whispered louder than he could yell. “I hope Reifa sends you in first when we get there. I know what City-folk do to traitors.”

  “What my people do to traitors?” I wait until he looks up, his face murky. “How’s it feel to lead this group? Feeding them, keeping them”—I shrug—“mostly safe, I guess. And still Reifa and the others treat you like something smelly they stepped in.” My eyes find his naked cheek. “Is it because you aren’t Baohujia?”

  He picks up a waterskin, taking a long drink. “My father was a hostage from the City. Sorry, a diplomat.” The word feels arched and venomous, a scorpion about to strike. “My father is the reason the island started requiring hostage trades be younger. Father was old enough when he arrived that he felt like a hostage, like an outsider. Old enough to hate living on the island. To hate the language, the people. Everyone knew.”

  “And you don’t feel the same way?”

  “I am my own person. I’m an Islander.” Song Jie glances toward Reifa and Gein. “But not everyone sees things that way. Every raid that happened, every time we saw red stars, their perception of me got worse. I hadn’t set foot on the island for years, until the invasion.” He drinks again, dribbling water down his chin. “But I’m not like him. I’m not a slaver like you.”

  So, Song Jie is a puzzle piece that wants to fit, that would do anything to prove he belongs, even enduring Reifa’s distaste, the other’s eyes skating over him as if he doesn’t exist. I can understand the disgust in Song Jie’s eyes as he looks at the City mark on my hand. Hatred, the need for revenge… It’s like looking at myself three years ago.

  That’s what I was before. An empty vessel with no family, no friends. Willing to do anything to tip the world a little in my favor. And Song Jie can see it because it’s in him, too.

  Have I changed? How long did it take before I found all the weapons, before I decided my life was more important than any member of this group? Even now I can feel the gun in Reifa’s belt calling to me. And, next to it, I can feel the warm blood of a little girl, the doll in her limp hands.

  Song Jie goes back to staring at the fire, his last words muttered. “I hope everyone you have left is dead. That everyone in the City rots from the inside for what you’ve done to us.”

  That isn’t who I am anymore. Someone who hurts other people.

  Or is it?

  When the fire dwindles and Song Jie goes out for the first watch, I lie down on the hard rock. And, though I know I should pull myself up the moment Gein starts snoring, that I should take the gun, the food and water, that I should put a bullet in Song Jie’s forehead because he’s the only one capable of following me, I don’t.

  Because I don’t want Song Jie to be right.

  CHAPTER 13 June

  “YOU’RE COMFORTABLE ON A BOAT, I assume?” Luokai steps up to the craft, throwing one of the bags he brought over the railing, which makes it bob unsteadily in the water. Another pack full of food and two sleeping bags we dragged through the tunnels above sit next to him on the worn planks of the little dock. He turns to me, toeing the water-worn wood when I don’t answer, the clammy smells of cave and salt water and resin dripping into my nose.

  He says he can keep me safe from compulsions. Teach me to let them pass. I don’t believe that really. The important part is Luokai knows where Howl and the others were planning to go. If I get to them, then I’ll be safe. They can take care of me until all that cure stuff is figured out. Until then… I clench my fists, holding my breath as if I can hold in the stuff that made my dad bad.

  “You haven’t ever been on a boat?” Luokai asks, studying my face.

  I know boats. Every time me and Tian and Cas and Parhat and Dad went anywhere, it was either on our feet or in a boat. Just not one like this. This one has a high back as if it means to keep its hindquarters dry, and there’s a woman painted there, her hands raised to keep the water back. I step closer to run a finger across the hem of her robe, curls of paint crinkling off to fall in the water. She looks like the rock lady up in the cave, just peelier.

  Long poles are tied to the side of Luokai’s boat, one of five moored in this cave. There’s a long metal thing that extends into the water at the back, making the boat tip and sigh with the
weight. The middle of the boat is covered with a metal canopy bent into a tube, the end plugged with a rusty wall and a door. Past the covered part, there’s enough space to walk a few steps, and then two benches to sit on at the boat’s pointed nose.

  “You don’t need to know about boats. Just stay back from the edge and you’ll be safe. We’ll take it down the coast to a river, then cut inland,” Luokai says, throwing another bag over the railing, then climbing in to stow it through the door of the enclosed portion of the boat.

  I pick up the sleeping bags one by one and throw them in. The boat looks easy enough to escape from if I need it. Except boats sit on water, and water is an enemy I can’t afford to forget. This close to the water, the gore inside me whimpers, ducking his head. He remembers why we don’t like water even better than I do.

  “I’m sorry for what happened before with Jiang Sev and Howl.” Luokai’s voice stalls. “I didn’t want to infect you. But silence won’t change the past or that we’re working together now.”

  I gnaw on my lip, petting the boat’s nose, as if it will sprout fur and lungs and ears to scratch like one of those pet rats people had in the south. Giving the boat one last pat—and offering a silent plea for it to stay above the water rather than underneath—I close my eyes, lift a leg over the railing, and spill myself into the boat.

  Luokai sighs, a frustrated thing that tells me he’s used to being obeyed. The meat on his bones is enough to tell me what sort of life this man has led. “I just want to get you back to your family. To Howl and Sev and… I’m trying to make up for what I did, even if it was necessary.”

  My nose wrinkles at the lie. Some lies are like food—you live off them. This lie doesn’t help anyone but Luokai, maybe to feel better about himself. We both know he just wants to keep me close by so Sev and Howl will give him the cure.