by Ann Denton
At the edge of the clearing, half-colored by the blazing firelight, Mala stood with her back against a tree. A group of hulking Erlenders stood around the fire, primitive guns in their hands, firing at will. Mala flinched. Tremors seized her body, and when she looked up, her brown eyes were glazed like river ice. She was terrified.
The Erlenders stepped forward as a group. In seconds they would see her.
Mala’s mother jabbed an elbow into Lowe’s stomach. He dropped to the ground. She leapt to her feet. Her wild scream streamed through the night like a banner. She ran straight at the gun-wielding Erlenders.
The Erlenders unleashed their ammo. The bullets burrowed through her skin; red flowers blooming in their wake. She held up her hands, thumb and forefinger forming a V—for victory.
She collapsed into the dirt, and the Erlenders started arguing over who would claim the kill.
“It’s my sorrow!” a scrawny one spit at his partner.
“Ain’t,” responded a bigger one. “You couldn’ broadside a boat if you was tryin’.”
Before fists started flying, an older soldier stopped them. “Infants. Both of ya. That there is a person. Enemy, yes. But that was a lady. Now y’all simmer down. You don’ want more sorrows on yer soul. Makes it heavy.”
Lowe slowly lowered himself to the ground, trusting the brush to cover him. There wasn’t enough room for him to run as the enemy approached. He held his breath, tried not to make a sound.
The youngest Erlender shot a scowl. “You just want it fer yerself.” That earned him a wallop on the side of the head as the soldiers tromped into a circle surrounding the body.
“Git all the stripes you want, boy. I ain’t gonna stop you. But there ain’t much lefta’ this world. And it’s a right shame we’s at each other over it.”
“Well if they’da jus’ lissen to our messengers—” the big man chimed in as he hauled Mala’s mother onto his shoulder.
“People only listen when you says what they wanna hear,” the old man said, and Lowe saw he was missing four teeth. In addition to stripes on his nose, there was a circle under the old man’s chin. It denoted his township.
Wilde Township. Lowe processed this as the men tromped off. Raiders. Collectors.
“I still want da’ stripe,” the young one whined, voice disintegrating in the distance. He ran a finger across Mala’s mother’s torso. Then he painted a solitary red line on his nose. A temporary marker.
Lowe held his position until he couldn’t hear them anymore. Then he brushed himself off, wondering what in father mucking hell a group of poor-as-dirt raiders would want from a group of poor-as-dirt guards like Bara’s. Neither had the food or weapon stores to make an effort like tonight worth it.
Lowe took a step forward. Into a puddle of blood. The sensation triggered memories. The forest disappeared, and suddenly he was on a boat. Above him, thunderheads black as industrial smoke sped through the sky, guzzling up the burnished orange sunset. The wind smacked his face until he crouched. But crouching brought him closer to the salty puddle of blood from his mother’s mouth.
She coughed again, splattering Lowe’s bare feet.
“Take him away,” Gera begged her husband. At first, Lowe’s father balked. But then she said the words no Senebal wanted to hear. “I got too close to the border. I’ve been exposed.”
Stark stared at her a moment.
Lowe remembered that stare in minute detail. It was the first time he’d realized his father wasn’t all-powerful. His dad had scooped him up and walked to the edge of the boat. Stark turned back as lightning flashed in the distance.
“When you get better, meet us at Aufertown.”
A look passed between them. And then Stark had jumped.
No. Lowe forced the memory away. His back was drenched with sweat. His whole body was rigid, his nails dug into his palms until they bled. His body warmed and pulsed—he was dangerously close to a meltdown. Not here.
Lowe took a deep breath of the fall air. He smelled his own sweat, grass, and the rot of forest soil. The rage and fear ebbed out of him like a retreating tide, and he was calm. Until he looked up.
Mala stood frozen in place, still hidden by a large tree. In the clearing behind her, lit by firelight, Lowe saw a man.
Thin and tall and blond. Bald but for a buzzed stripe of blond on the back of his head. Spear in his hand. He turned. Three red, wet stripes ran across his nose … just like an Erlender.
Lowe sucked in a breath. Blut hadn’t gone crazy.
He’d gone rogue.
Chapter Fourteen
He lost Mala in the water. They’d been running from the fight, planning to swim out together. But he lost her. He swam and searched. He looked everywhere. Between the boats as Erlenders swarmed them. He turned over corpses, fearing he’d find her face. He didn’t. But he didn’t find her alive, either. She was gone. She’d disappeared.
He looked longer than he should have. Longer than he would have for anyone else. He called it precaution. Suspicion. But he couldn’t get the smile on her face out of his mind. That sweet little grin she’d given him when she’d said she hated everything about him.
Sploosh. Bullets pelted the water. He dove.
He was out of time. So he swam until his lungs burned, surfacing alone on the far shore. He dragged himself onto the bank and into the safety of the trees.
The fall wind whipped his face, chilled his hair. An owl hooted. Lowe looked back at the fires. At Bara’s boat, aflame. He felt a ping of regret. And the sharp teeth of guilt. He pushed them away and turned.
He made his way through the forest. He tromped through the underbrush, to the dark house on a hill. He found Stelle leaning against a pine tree with her arms crossed. Eyes of fire bored into him as he stepped into view.
Lowe stared at her for a long moment. “What happened?”
Stelle’s expression was grave. “You tell me,” she said, pushing herself off the tree. She strode forward, taking slow, deliberate steps. Something about her made Lowe uneasy.
“What are you talking about?”
“The island,” she said softly, daggers on her tongue. “The Erlenders. They knew.”
“I know.”
“Your job,” Stelle said curtly, “was to give me serviceable military intel. Not to tell me about some party at a lake.”
Lowe stopped walking. His brow creased. “What?”
“You mucking told me …” Stelle bit her knuckles. She shook her head, taking a deep breath. “You told me too much. You told me something unnecessary, and now all those people are dead.” Her eyes were red, puffy—like she’d been crying.
Mucking hell, she blames herself for the massacre. There were bags under her eyes. She’d never looked so tired. Military missteps were one thing, thwarted raids and unblown bombs, but the decimation of an entire outpost …and the children. It was too much.
Lowe took a cautious step forward, holding out his hand. “Stelle, it wasn’t your fault,” he said. “We knew from the beginning this would be dangerous—”
“It’s your fault,” Stelle snapped, recoiling.
Lowe’s heart stilled. “What?”
Stelle’s eyes watered. “It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d heard about the mine, that was … but this, she knew, she heard the location because you said it! Why would you tell me this, why would you think this was …” She slowly balled her hands into fists. “Why would you think this was something I could use?”
“Stelle, what the hell—”
“I didn’t tell my contacts about the—the mucking celebration,” Stelle said, her voice quivering. “I got halfway to the border and I saw the Wilde Township Erlenders sneaking south. The woman who got away—she heard you, Lowe. She saw us! And if she made it to the Township, Deadwater only knows who else she’s talking to, what else she knows. Mucking sludge, how the hell did you not notice you were being followed?”
Lowe said nothing.
Stelle looked ready to scream. “Don’t you
get it? What if that woman saw what we look liked? What if she described us, described me? What if they know who we are? I’m dead if anyone knows, Lowe. Do you know what Troe does to spies?”
Lowe knew. He’d seen it himself, every variation of the mad king’s wrath. Rows of heads impaled on spikes, staring across the water. Eunuchs with blue tongues. Criminals herded with spears and spells past the orange-ribboned border into irradiated hell, where the Erlenders believed demons rendered justice.
“Calm down,” Lowe said. “We don’t know if—”
“What? If we’re flooding doomed?” Stelle shouted. “Troe is on the edge of his mucking throne. He’s paranoid, Lowe, comically paranoid. People are going missing—people close to him, people he trusts. He doesn’t trust me yet. And if she makes it back to the compound before I can, if she tells anyone, if she tells Troe that I’ve been getting my ‘prophesies’ from some schmuck across the river because you couldn’t watch your mucking back—”
Lowe couldn’t stop himself. He grabbed her by the shirt and pushed her up against the tree—not hard, just rough enough to get her attention.
“Don’t you put this on me,” he growled. But part of him knew she was right. He let her go.
Stelle closed her eyes, collecting herself. When she opened them, she was looking through him, as though he were no more substantial than a ghost. No more human than a box radio.
“Get me something I can use. I don’t care how.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lowe stared at the radio for a long time, silent. He blinked at it, and the little red lights blinked back at him expectantly.
Just a debrief, he thought. Nothing special.
Nothing special about Bara’s guard being slaughtered, wiped out; the only reminders of their existence were streaks across Wilde Erlender noses.
Nothing special about losing Mala, the first girl he’d been drawn to in a long time. He let out a sigh.
There was something special about Stelle’s accusations. But it wasn’t something he could report to anyone but Tier. About his muck-up.
Lowe leaned forward and spun the dial. The little radio at the Sonne Pointe outpost clicked and buzzed, humming like a swarm of bees. Sadness settled on Lowe’s skin as he waited. It felt like a film, an itch, daring him to scratch ... to experience the grief, to indulge just for ten seconds …
“Center,” said Dez.
“Still on phone duty, I see,” Lowe pushed his voice to be chipper.
“Still on phone duty. You alright Lowe?”
Lowe took a moment to reply. “Yeah.” He didn’t sound convincing even to himself. “Fine. I’ve got news.”
“You’re not dead, are you?”
Lowe gave a bitter laugh. “Not yet. I found Blut.”
The radio made a strange fizzing sound as Dez dropped something. “What? Where? Is he alive?”
Lowe bit his tongue, hard. “Yes. Bara’s guard was ambushed on an island in Heil Lake by Wilde Township Erlenders. Blut was with them.”
Dez hesitated. “POW?’
“No. He was with them.”
The radio crackled ominously. “Are you sure?”
“Dez, he wore stripes.”
“Shit,” said Dez loudly. “Hang on. I’m gonna send this up the ladder.”
There was a scraping sound from the other side as Dez stood and left the communication center, presumably to get an Ancient on the line. Four minutes passed in silence, the box radio spitting and stuttering in impatience. Lowe tapped his fingers on the table, following the shallow white grooves in the wood with his thumb.
The box radio coughed. “Lowe?”
Lowe recognized his Recruiter, Fell. He pictured her solemn face, big afro, mouth pursed in concentration. He sighed in relief. At least she took him seriously. “Here.”
“Tell me about Blut.” Fell wasn’t much for pleasantries.
Lowe sighed and ran his hands over his face. “Bara’s guard was ambushed on an island in Heil Lake.”
He heard papers rustling. “I don’t see an island—”
“Nobody’s supposed to know that island even exists,” Lowe stated. “At least that’s what Bara said.”
“How’d they find it?”
Lowe shrugged. “I think Bara watches the tides, rainfall. I think it’s normally submerged—”
“Not her. The Erlenders.”
Lowe bit his lip. I ran my mouth. Wait. Was Sorgen … taking info to Blut? “I dunno.” The lie wasn’t smooth and he winced.
“Go on.”
“I fled the scene with a woman and her daughter. Potential recruit. Ran into the Erlenders. It was Wilde Township—”
“Wilde Township?” Fell said. “Damn. I thought they mostly did raid-n-trades. What would make them interested in Bara’s? They take anything?”
Lowe swallowed. “No. They killed everyone I saw. Piled the bodies along the shore. Picked pockets but didn’t strip the clothes.” Though they could have used them with winter coming.
“They take the boats?”
“Burned Bara’s boat, with her on it.”
Fell hissed. “This is not like them. General Keptiker is typically strategic. Not big on bloodlust. Not wasting the best boat in the mucking contingent.”
Lowe swallowed against a sudden urge to vomit. “Blut was with them. Helping. Helping them.”
Fell was silent for a long moment as she considered this. “You’re certain it was Blut?”
“Yes.”
Fell cursed quietly. “Was he giving orders?”
“Yes.” He remembered the line of bodies on the beach. Blut showing a big Erlender where to dump a body. The moment Blut might have seen him. He shuddered.
“Had he cracked?”
Lowe clenched his fist. “He seemed … present. When I saw him.”
Five seconds passed in silence. Then ten, then fifteen. Lowe could hear Fell muttering to herself. He could practically see the woman wringing her hands, scowling at nothing and grinding her teeth.
Fell’s voice was gruff when she spoke again. “I’m declaring Blut an enemy of the state. His name and clearance are null and void.”
Lowe winced. It was the harshest sentence an Ancient could pass. “Verrukter said Blut went missing before he could complete his last assignment.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“If I see him again?”
There was a moment of taut silence.
“Kill on sight.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
Lowe signed off. He stood and stretched. He kneaded his neck as he walked. He tried to focus on the color of the sky, the red-grey and molten-yellow leaves.
But he couldn’t. What made Blut betray us? Why was he there? What made raiders into killers?
Lowe’s thoughts circled. And then they settled on Mala. First her eyes, so big and brown, and open. But snarky. She was a civilian. A suspect, even. He’d seen enough innocent bystanders killed before. It shouldn’t affect him. But it did. They’d had a connection.
His eyes fogged as he pictured Mala in the water. He’d tried to get to her last night. He’d swum with all his strength beneath the light of the burning boat, ignoring Bara’s glass-breaking screams—but when he’d surfaced, Mala was nowhere to be seen.
He’d come up near a lifeboat floating alone in the darkness. In it was a small girl—maybe six or seven years old—her expression frozen in horror. From the fire or frozen in death, he hadn’t been able to tell.
I had no choice. No chance to keep looking.
His eyes swiveled back to Sonne Pointe, to the radio. Thinking of Dez and Fell and the panic that was probably going on at the Center, now that the north was without watchmen.
Lowe’s mind drifted to Stelle. To her anger. Two months into this informant gig. And I don’t know if I’m cut out for it.
A piece of him wished for the simplicity of the boat assignment again. Find targets, blow them up. Even his intel-gathering in the past had focused on Erlender targets. Not Senebe
l citizens. Who may or may not have then been killed because of an idiotic slip of his tongue.
“Muck.” Lowe reached the bottom of the hill and walked into the trees. The grey waters of the Gottermund trundled by on a slow-moving current. He kicked a stone into the swell.
A voice tore him from his thoughts. An angry voice, coarse like gravel, broken by coughs. A female voice. A familiar voice.
“Never should have followed that idiot. He had no clue.”
Lowe stepped forward. He stopped for half a second, wondering if wishful thinking could cause hallucinations. Because there, under a tree, was Mala.
She was soaking wet and cursing his name to the high heavens. Relief coursed through him.
Lowe took a step. A twig snapped under his heel. Mala looked up. Those deep brown eyes stared into his.
“I hope you weren’t just calling me an idiot,” Lowe said, allowing himself a small smile. Inside though, his grin stretched ear to ear.
Mala whirled on him, instantly furious. “You left me!” She waved a trident knife in the air.
“I did not,” Lowe took a seat under a tree and crossed his arms. Mala’s face reddened. “I couldn’t find you.”
“Then you were blind, because I was right there in front of your face!”
“You weren’t. I swam the whole perimeter.”
Mala scowled, accusation and betrayal swimming in her dark eyes. “I was. You looked into my eyes. Then you were gone! You left me there for damn Erlender target practice!”
Lowe stiffened. He felt his blood freeze in his veins.
Mala kept on. “I mean, what the hell kind of stalker just leaves someone stranded like that? I’m in total shock, I can’t move, I look right at you and you leave. You’re a flooding coward! I mean, I know we just met”—Mala turned away and pushed back her hair—“or I just met you, but you have got to be the world’s most disappointing psychopath. You probably have a collection of my hair in your pocket or something, but you just”—she threw up her arms at this—“left me?”
Lowe’s voice was impossibly quiet. “Mala.”
