Bershad sighed. Ran his hands through his hair. “I never should have left her. If I’d stayed … I might have been able to stop this whole mess.”
“But you went to Deepdale and you saved all those people,” Felgor said, voice softening. “Look, there’s a lot of walking between here and the fifth bend of the Foxpaw river. Plenty of time to figure something out.”
Felgor started heading down the beach.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “Less moping, more walking.”
Bershad stewed for another moment, then he gathered the spear, shield, and dragontooth dagger, and followed.
* * *
They marched through the night. The cut on Bershad’s stomach stung with each step. His feet were torn to tatters. The world felt dead and cold and quiet to him. He missed the Nomad. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ashlyn. And he was so wrapped up in his own misery that he didn’t notice the woman walking toward them until she was almost on top of them.
“Vera?” Felgor asked. “Is that you?”
She was wearing a strange cloak made from what looked like raven feathers. There was seaweed in her hair and she was cradling one arm with the careful tenderness of someone with a bad injury. She gave them both a long look.
“Do either one of you have some water?”
Felgor reached into his pack. Held out the half-filled waterskin.
“I need some help,” she said, motioning to one shoulder with her chin. “This one’s dislocated.”
Bershad held the waterskin above her head and squeezed the balance into her mouth.
“So what happened to you?” Felgor asked.
“I got thrown off a skyship.”
“Why?”
“Long story.”
“How’d you survive?”
“An even longer story. And neither one matters right now. I need a way into Floodhaven.”
“So do we,” said Bershad.
“Guess that makes us allies again.”
Bershad nodded. Scanned the coast. “The sun’ll be up soon. We need to find some cover and deal with that shoulder of yours.”
Vera used her good arm to wave at the forest. “Lead the way.”
86
ASHLYN
Castle Malgrave, Level 60
Ashlyn woke up to the sound of something eating. Sloppy, loud, and greedy.
“How long is the hunger slaked after a meal?” someone asked.
Ashlyn’s head was pounding. She was on her knees. Both her ankles had iron manacles around them, which were bolted to the floor. The room was cold, but well lit. An acolyte guarded the door.
There were two men on the far side of the room. The first was sitting at a desk with his back to her. He had greasy gray hair. The second was Vallen Vergun. He was crouched beside the desk, tearing meat off a long bone with his bare fingers and then wadding the meat into his mouth. He barely chewed before swallowing.
“Doesn’t get slaked at all,” Vergun said between mouthfuls. “I’m hungry all the fucking time.”
“Interesting,” said the other man, scratching a few notes on a piece of paper.
That must be Osyrus Ward.
“Interesting?” Vergun asked. “You turned me into a monster.”
“That is a matter of perspective. Think of your predecessors, the feral models. They contained far more undesirable outcomes.”
“Fuck your perspective and your outcomes!” Vergun shouted. “What did you do to me?”
“Your condition is an unexpected side effect of the procedure,” Osyrus said. “Possibly caused by impurities from the Seed specimens we ran through the loom. It could have also been a splicing error of some kind.…”
Osyrus kept on talking. Ashlyn tried to get her bearings.
The room was round. The floor and ceiling were made from hundreds of carefully cut sections of dragon bones. It reminded her of Kasamir’s bone wall from Ghost Moth Island, but the arrangement of the slats was more functional than ornate. One entire wall was dominated by machinery—hundreds of different levers, dials, cranks, and gears ran from the floor to the ceiling.
Someone had cleaned the blood from her skin and hair. Her poncho and traveling clothes had been replaced with simple, white linens that covered her except for the left sleeve, which had been neatly cut away.
Her left arm was splayed out from her body, held and in position by scores of translucent wires that ran between her arm and the ceiling. It took Ashlyn a moment to realize they were dragon threads. There was a thread attached to each of her bands—even the thin ones at her fingertips. Mechanical spiders the size of coins were climbing up and down the threads. She could feel them probing her with tiny magnetic pulses. Probably trying to activate her system.
She took a small comfort in the knowledge that when that electrified whip had knocked her unconscious, her kill-switch had been triggered. Those spiders would never get her bands turning again.
Only she or Jolan could do that.
“Stop spouting nonsense!” Vergun snarled at Osyrus, who’d continued an esoteric rant while Ashlyn was looking around. There was blood dripping from Vergun’s chin. And Ashlyn could now see that he’d been eating a human arm.
“You asked for an explanation,” said Ward.
“And now I’m telling you to fix it.”
Osyrus stopped writing. “Once I am able to produce a pure form of thread for the loom, that will not be difficult to do.” He glanced at the half-eaten arm. “But I can see the value of an interim solution. As it happens, I have recently finished processing the Malgrave specimen’s steroids, and we have a small surplus. I’ll arrange to have a series of injections set aside for you. The steroid will temporarily cleanse your impurities and quash your undesirable … urges.”
“I want a permanent solution,” said Vergun. “How do you purify the thread?”
“The material has an extremely high decomposition voltage, which has been an irritating barrier. But our queen will help us hop over it.”
Osyrus waved a hand at Ashlyn. Vergun’s red eye shifted to her.
“She’s awake.”
Osyrus twisted in his chair. “Ah. Good. You may leave us, Commander Vergun. I will have Engineer Nebbin bring your injections to you as soon as they are ready. Until then, please stay in your quarters. I’ll ensure there is plenty of food there.”
Vergun left through a large door on the wall to Ashlyn’s right, taking the half-eaten arm with him.
Osyrus picked up his notebook and approached Ashlyn.
“Ashlyn Malgrave, at last we have a proper introduction. Our discussion through Acolyte Three-Nine-Eight was interesting, but far from an ideal platform for conversation.”
“This situation isn’t exactly ideal for me, either.”
Osyrus shrugged. “Perhaps not. But you destroyed a significant amount of my resources with your apparatus. Scores of ships. Thousands of crewmen. I’ve been forced to empty Floodhaven to fill the gaps, which has been an unpleasant distraction from my real work. You are lucky that I haven’t simply killed you.”
“You won’t do that,” Ashlyn said. “You need me to break that irritating voltage barrier.”
Ashlyn was familiar with the basics of purifying metal through electrolysis: run a strong enough current through a substance, and the impurities were pulled away from the raw material. Whatever Osyrus planned to purify, it seemed to work under the same principle.
“I need the apparatus attached to your arm,” Ward corrected. “The rest of you is useless to me.”
Ashlyn didn’t say anything.
“I don’t suppose you would be willing to save me some time and unlock your security mechanism so that I may continue?”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
“Suit yourself.”
He started scratching more notes.
“Where is my sister?” Ashlyn asked.
Ward ignored the question.
“What about Jolan?”
Again, nothing.
“I am curious how you were able to worm your way so deep into my systems with such limited resources,” said Ward.
“You left a lot of your precious notes lying around Ghost Moth Island.”
“Who told you about the island?” Ward asked, distracted.
“You know who.”
He stopped writing. Looked at her. “Okinu was always a cunt. I could have made her a goddess. But all she wanted was a pile of dragon bones to bolt onto her silly water-bound ships. She had no vision.”
“Now you’ll make yourself a god instead? Is that what the loom does?”
“The concept of divinity is a weak abstraction for my work. But I will create a better world.”
“By destroying the people and creatures living in this one.”
“And what would you have done instead, oh righteous protector of the great lizards? If you were to follow your plans to their logical end, you would arrive at a world that is devoid of humans and ruled by dragons.”
“There is a balance to strike between the two. A harmony.”
“Harmony?” He said the word like a curse. “That is a child’s dream. This world is perpetually hamstrung by the chaotic, animal struggle for resources. One must make dramatic changes to fix that.”
“The same way you’ve fixed Vallen Vergun?”
“True progress has a cost. Few are willing to pay it.”
“You’re insane.”
He shrugged.
“I must commend the resourcefulness of this apparatus, crude as it is. Your use of salvaged ballast pins was messy, but admittedly inspired. I expanded your work while you were unconscious. The extra stability will be necessary once we begin. The purification process is extremely taxing.”
Ashlyn looked at her arm. Ward had drilled a trio of holes in each of her bands and added a platinum stabilizing pin into each one. That would increase her stability by several orders of magnitude. Ashlyn couldn’t fathom what he would need that level of power for.
“What are you purifying?” she asked.
“Your method for treating the dragon threads to restore their potency was rather simple to replicate,” Ward said instead of answering her question. “However, I found your method of activation undesirable. Relying on a single specimen’s blood is not scalable. And anything that is not scalable is not useful. I have implemented a more elegant solution.”
Ward opened a metal box that was full of gray rings. He spent nearly a full minute putting them on—three to each finger. When that was done, he pressed each thumb and forefinger together, which caused the rings to click into a magnetic lock.
He snapped them apart in the same motion you’d use to spin a top.
The spiders twitched into action, moving up the dragon threads with a synchronized alacrity. The movement generated a controlled current within each strand.
Ward admired his spiders for a moment.
“They are the perfect servants. Decentralized. Tireless. Expendable.”
“If they were perfect, you wouldn’t need me.”
He turned to her. “I will admit that the decentralization comes at the cost of raw power. The potency you’ve achieved by fusing the thread to your muscle and bone is as remarkable as it is difficult to replicate. I’ve destroyed seventeen specimens thus far. I am curious how you survived the process.”
“You haven’t heard? I fuck forest demons and bathe in infant blood.”
Ward frowned. “This conversation has been civil so far, and it can stay that way if you will deactivate the locks on your arm and allow me to continue with my work.”
“No.”
Ward seemed to have expected that response. “If you will not open the locks willingly, I will break through them.”
Ashlyn smiled. “Give it a try.”
“As you wish.”
Another snap of fingers. The current that was stored in the threads cascaded into her bands. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the things that Ashlyn had done to herself.
“That it?” Ashlyn said.
“Hardly. I just don’t want to accidentally kill you with too strong a charge. We’ll do this in very short, increasingly painful chapters.”
Osyrus snapped at the spiders to reset their positions and refill the threads with current.
The second shock did hurt a little more, but Ashlyn kept smiling anyway.
87
VERA
Atlas Coast
“So, the cloak makes you fly?” Felgor asked Vera, shifting positions in the oak tree, which shook the branches and would give their position away to anyone in the area with decent eyes.
“Stop fidgeting,” Bershad said.
“I wasn’t fidgeting, I was asking a question. Vera, can you fly?”
“If I could fly, Silas wouldn’t have popped my shoulder back into its socket two hours ago.”
“But if you couldn’t fly a little, you wouldn’t have survived jumping off a skyship at all.”
“I didn’t jump. I was thrown.”
“Whatever. Far as I’m concerned, you can fly.”
There was a silence.
“Did Osyrus Ward make that for you?” Bershad asked.
“Not for me. Someone else.”
“How’d you get it?”
“She gave it to me so that I’d have a way to kill him. Which I very much intend to do when we reach Floodhaven.”
“Good,” Bershad said.
After dealing with her shoulder, Bershad had told Vera about the Jaguar Army and the bombs they were supposed to have brought across the river. Vera wasn’t sure how much good that would do, but she knew she couldn’t get back to Kira alone. So, for the time being, she’d go with them.
Felgor shifted in the tree again.
“Stop moving,” Bershad hissed.
“I wasn’t.”
“Then who’s shaking the fucking leaves?”
“Squirrels?”
“Will you both stay still until dark?” Vera hissed.
It started raining. Skyships continued to come and go from the city in large numbers. Acolytes and Wormwrot moved through the forest below them in sporadic patrols.
“Awful lot of activity in Floodhaven,” Felgor said. “What’re all those skyships doing?”
“Ashlyn Malgrave destroyed half the armada,” Vera replied. “Those ships were the only thing keeping Osyrus’s grip on Terra. Now he’s scrambling to fill the gaps. The city’ll probably be half empty by tomorrow morning.”
“Interesting,” Bershad said, but didn’t elaborate as to why.
Darkness fell. When an hour had gone by without a patrol passing beneath them, Bershad started climbing down the tree.
“We need to reach the Foxpaw before daybreak,” he said. “Stay close to me.”
* * *
Bershad kept up a grueling pace, tracking along the bank of a shallow river and selecting the different branches they’d follow with the confidence of a veteran fruit merchant selecting good apples from the market.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Felgor asked when Bershad had them ford a knee-deep stretch that branched off the main current. He then started to scramble up a short, wooded hill. “They said fifth bend in the Foxpaw. That was the third bend, and now we’re following something else.”
“Shortcut,” Bershad grunted.
“But should we really be taking shortcuts we’re not positive about? Because you don’t have Smokey to help you out this time and—”
“Felgor, if I started telling you the proper way to pick a lock, you’d tell me to go fuck myself, right?”
“Well, you’re a lot bigger than me, so I’d be a little more polite about it.”
“All the same. Ease up on the questions. I’ve been through here before with Ashlyn. If we take the long way around, it’ll be midday tomorrow before we arrive. This’ll get us there before dawn. Just watch out for Lake Screechers. They like the ponds at the top of the hill.”
Bershad led them across another few leagues of
steep forest until they reached a flat area that was all sharp rocks and scattered ponds. Vera could see the glowing red eyes of dragons lurking in the shadows.
Bershad wove between their little territories, keeping just far enough away to avoid being attacked.
After spending the deep hours of the night cutting through the rough country, they reconnected with the Foxpaw river at a hard bend, just as Bershad had said they would.
“We’re here,” said Bershad.
“I don’t see anyone,” said Felgor.
Vera frowned. Scanned the riverbank. At first, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary—just weeds and sagging cottonwoods. But then her eyes caught a lumping arch that was a little too pronounced and uniform to be part of the natural landscape. She looked closer. The arch was caused by a deep tunnel dug into the shoreline that was about as wide as Vera was tall. Too big to be a fox or badger burrow.
“There. What is that?”
“River Lurker den,” Bershad said, heading toward it. “And it’s also where our friends are hiding.”
“If everyone’s in there, how come there are no tracks?” Felgor said, looking around the entrance.
“Because the Jaguars aren’t morons,” Bershad said before ducking into the gloom of the tunnel.
Felgor scratched his head.
“They entered during the rain, when the water was high,” Vera said from behind him.
“Oh. Right.”
The tunnel smelled like mushrooms and earth. The darkness was impenetrable, but Bershad didn’t seem to have a problem navigating, so Vera just kept a hand on his right shoulder to guide her. The tunnel sloped slightly upward for about ten strides—probably to prevent things like afternoon rains from flooding the main chamber—then dipped sharply for about a hundred winding strides. Vera got the sense they’d doubled back toward the river, then away again, but she couldn’t be sure in the winding darkness.
Eventually, they turned a corner and the soft, orange glow of a distant torch returned her vision.
There were bootprints in the mud. A lot of them.
They approached another corner. Bershad stopped. Sniffed. Then called out.
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