by Carrie Patel
“– keep out of the nearest communes and wait until we’ve made some distance.”
“Great,” Jane said, speaking a little too quickly.
He’d realized it, too. “Something’s on your mind,” he said, a sly smile playing at his lips.
She tried to deflect. “You’re right. They’re likely to search the nearest communes first.”
He wasn’t fooled. “We said no secrets.”
But wondering about Malone’s fate felt like ants crawling under her skin. She couldn’t bring herself to talk about it, much less to add it to Roman’s worries. Not when he looked like he’d been starved and beaten for a week straight, not when he finally seemed so hopeful and purposeful.
“It’s not like that,” she said, searching the fallen leaves for words. “The last few days were strange. I just need time to sort out what happened. What it means.” She looked up at him. “Do you understand?”
Roman nodded quietly and said no more about it.
They stayed just out of sight of the train tracks, hiking until their feet were sore and until the evening dark forced them to stop. Neither of them dared start a fire, so they nibbled stale crackers and cheese and unfastened their bedrolls with fingers tingling from the cold.
They huddled together for warmth. “I’ll take first watch,” Jane said.
“We should both rest.” His voice was already thick and slow.
But try as she might, she couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she only saw Ruthers. Or Freddie.
Or Malone.
Dawn found her just as exhausted as when she’d first lain down. Still, she was eager to move on.
They took the first few miles as fast as they could. The ground was reasonably level and the undergrowth light. The crisp morning air and Roman’s easygoing irreverence made for an invigorating combination.
As the day wore on, Jane’s legs grew heavy and her feet sore with blisters. Biting flies stung at her neck, and the pack left her back sweaty and aching. It felt like a penance.
With darkness came howling winds. They spent the night in the lee of a rock, but it did little to shelter them from the cold. Jane sat up to watch the forest – she still didn’t expect to fall asleep any time soon.
The next day was worse. Jane’s exertions left her legs knotted and spasming with cramps by noon. She didn’t want to slow them down, but Roman was looking pretty ragged, too.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“Wishing I’d brought a bottle of Petrosian’s finest,” he said.
The mention brought back uncomfortable memories of the darkened bar and the secrets she’d traded there.
Some of her unease must have shown on her face because Roman cocked his head at her. “Everything all right?” he asked.
“Just tired,” she said.
He nodded, but he didn’t seem to believe her. “Let’s take a break,” he said.
Jane set her pack down. Her muscles shrieked with relief, even as she lowered her aching body onto the hard ground.
“We’re far enough away that Recoletta will have to make a wide sweep – and some good guesses – to find us,” Roman said. Jane noticed he’d simply said “Recoletta,” because of course there was no telling who was leading the city right now. “Been thinking we’d spend the night in the communes. A real bed and a full meal would do us both good.”
“What if the farmers report us?”
He shook his head. “They prefer to keep the cities out of their business. But we’ll keep our heads down.”
Jane didn’t really want to argue against a hot meal and a soft bed. After they’d massaged some feeling back into their muscles, they angled over to the train tracks, where the ground was more level and their passage quicker. They only encountered a couple of trains, but the columns of smoke and the distant rumbling gave them time to duck into the bushes.
No need to take unnecessary risks.
The sky was just beginning to darken when the forests flattened into fields and the loose contours of a commune appeared on the horizon. By happy accident, they reached town under the cover of early evening dark. Jane hoped that made their approach less conspicuous.
Of course, their first order of business was finding room and board for the night.
The commune looked different from those she’d passed through months ago on her journey to Madina. It was busier. Livelier. As she and Roman followed the crowds to a cluster of buildings and a cobblestone plaza, she could have sworn she heard a Recolettan accent once or twice. She kept her head down.
“Big crowd,” Roman muttered.
“These places get busy after sundown,” Jane said. “Like Turnbull Square, except the whole town gathers in one place.”
Roman raised his head, craning his neck around for a few quick seconds. “Looks like more than the whole town. Like more people than this town was made to hold.”
The thought of another night outside made Jane’s back ache. “Could make it hard to find a room.”
“But easy to blend in,” Roman said.
They wandered until they found a two-story building that was taller and wider than the rest. From what she remembered, it was like the kind of place with rooms for travelers.
In the underground it was hard to get more than a vague sense of a place’s size and shape just by seeing it from the outside. In that regard, at least, the communes were much easier to assess.
Inside was a dining room with long wooden tables, about half full with laughing, talking patrons. On the right, a hallway and a staircase led away – to guest rooms, she supposed.
And from the left came a smell, rich and savory, that woke a rumble in her stomach and moistened her parched mouth.
Roman was already heading toward it.
He ladled a dark, rich-smelling stew into two bowls and nodded to a quiet table in the corner. Two men and a woman, their faces pink with sun and their rough clothes mottled with dirt, crowded around one end, but there was room at the other for Jane and Roman both to sit with their backs to the wall.
And no sooner did they sit than they tucked into their bowls, heads down and silent.
The stew was delicious. Each spoonful was as thick as gravy and rich with the salty flavors of some kind of game meat. Jane was eating so quickly that she nearly swallowed a chunk of potato, but the morsel melted into pulp on her tongue.
She forgot about Roman, forgot about their flight, forgot about why they’d come here. For a few moments, she lost track of everything and everyone but the bowl and spoon before her.
Until she looked up and saw a pair of legs in grease-spattered trousers, standing on the other side of the table.
The woman wore a coarse and unfortunately pale shirt flecked with bits and blobs of what appeared to be stew. Her light hair was tied back in a messy but effective ponytail, and her folded arms were red to the elbows – the way Jane’s used to get after working over a tub of hot water.
The woman was looking at Roman, and Roman was looking back at her, his face carefully blank.
“Just passing through,” Roman said. “Need to stay the night.”
“One room?”
“Yes,” she and Roman both said. They regarded each other and shared a quiet chuckle. Jane felt heat in her face and saw it in the tips of Roman’s ears, too.
“No trouble here, got it?” the woman said, pointing at the mottle of bruises on his face. “But I’ll see if we got something.”
“Busy night?” Jane asked.
Suspicion flickered into her gaze. Then, a loud crash from the kitchen jarred it loose. The woman spared a backwards glance before turning back to Jane and Roman.
“Committee from some of the other communes. Working through some new deal with the cities.” She shrugged, as if the political business was beyond her.
Roman looked to Jane, his alarm only visible in his eyes. He raised his eyebrows a fraction of a degree. The woman hovered over his shoulder.
“You gonna pay or not?�
� she finally asked.
“Sorry, how much?” asked Jane.
“Six grays. Room and meals.”
Roman pulled a ten-mark note from his pocket and held it out to the woman. She examined it without taking it.
“That’s no good here,” she said.
“It’s city money,” said Roman.
“We aren’t in the city.” She pointed to the door before Roman could argue. “There’s a whole caravan of farmers and city folk in town. Either find someone to trade out your money or I’m giving the room to the next one of them comes asking.”
The woman turned to go, and Jane felt the cold and aches of another night outside creeping into her bones. Of course, trading Recolettan marks would draw the very attention they were trying to avoid. That was certainly how it had played out months ago when she and Freddie had fled to Madina.
Then she remembered the coins she’d found at Roman’s. She found one and slapped it on the table.
“Will this do?” Jane asked.
The proprietress picked up the coin. She ran her fingers over the boxy symbols.
“Where’d you get this?” The question came from the proprietress and Roman at once. The former was watching Jane with careful calculation, the latter with blank horror.
“Does it cover us or not?” Jane asked.
The other woman tucked the coin away and produced a large brass key. “Second floor, third room on the right. No trouble.” This time, she directed the comment at both of them.
As she left, Jane regarded Roman. His face was ashy beneath the bruises. “What was that about?” Jane asked.
But Roman kept his head down and his eyes on his rapidly dwindling stew. “I’ll tell you later. We should get to the room soon.”
Jane ate quickly – that was easy enough.
Their room was small and sparsely furnished, but it had four walls, a roof, and a bed, which was enough. Roman latched the door and wedged one of the two chairs beneath the handle. The lamplight from the plaza outside was bright enough to reach the room. Jane drew the curtains, then settled into one side of the bed.
All of her illusions of a long soak in a hot bath vanished in a mound of cotton and feathers.
She turned to wish Roman good night and saw him sitting in the other chair, facing the door.
Sleep was already weighing on her eyelids and thickening her tongue. She considered the tiny, hard chair beneath Roman with dread. “We trading watch?” she mumbled.
He shook his head.
Jane sat up and saw that he was pointing a gun at the door. “What are you–?”
He held a finger to his lips. “Waiting.”
“What for?”
There was a knock. Roman stood and backed away, his footsteps careful and silent. Adrenaline and urgency jolted her awake. She slipped out of the bed and tiptoed toward the window, pulling back the curtain.
On the ground below was a woman holding a torch and looking back up at her. The woman waved.
Jane gasped and backed away.
“I just want to talk,” called a voice on the other side of the door. It sounded vaguely familiar, but Jane couldn’t place it.
Roman was as grim and still as stone.
The knock sounded again. “Come on, let’s do this face to face.”
Whoever the stranger was, he knew they were in here. If he’d wanted trouble, he probably could have gotten a spare key. Or come in shooting.
Whatever this was, they might as well get it over with.
Jane put her finger to her lips and motioned to Roman for calm. He pressed his mouth into a hard line but nodded back.
Jane moved the chair, unlatched the door, and opened it. The face on the other side was just as familiar as the voice, with a thick, black beard and a penetrating stare.
“Salazar,” she said.
He didn’t seem surprised. Just tired. He jerked his thumb at the door. “Your man’s on the other side with a gun pointed at my head, isn’t he?”
Jane nodded.
The farmer rolled his eyes. “Come downstairs when you’ve got him settled. We’ll talk somewhere we can have a drink.” He turned to head down the stairs.
Roman lowered his gun as the footsteps retreated. “How well do you know him?”
Jane shrugged. “He didn’t kill me the last time I wandered into one of his communes.”
He tilted his head in question.
“Before. On the way to Madina,” she said. “Freddie and I ran into him in a place called Meyerston.”
“Then he’s a long way from home, too,” he finally said.
“Probably here working through that new deal.”
Roman grudgingly tucked his gun away. Jane let out a sigh of relief she didn’t realize she’d been holding in.
There was still a lively crowd in the dining room downstairs, which was comforting. Salazar was sitting in the same corner she and Roman had occupied, and the other patrons had left a wide ring of privacy around him. That was comforting, too.
Before Salazar were three glasses of a coppery brew. Jane took a seat across from him and accepted one of the glasses as he pushed it toward her.
“Wrong season for cider, I’m afraid,” he said. “But lucky for you, the proprietress brews some of the best ale in any of the communes.”
Jane sipped hers appreciatively. Roman sat down next to her and peered into his glass as if expecting to find a fly in it. He folded his arms on the table.
Salazar tilted his own glass toward Jane. “The last time I saw you, you were fleeing Recoletta. Headed toward Madina.” He took a drink. “What are you running from this time?”
Roman grunted. “Who says we’re running?”
Salazar frowned, eyeing Roman’s bruises. “That face-painting of yours, for one. So, what is it this time? And what’s it got to do with this?” He laid the strange coin on the table like a bad hand of cards.
Jane felt queasy. She was beginning to regret digging through Roman’s things.
“What do you know about it?” Roman asked.
Watching the two men trade questions and stares was like observing a poker game in which each player raised the ante to determine what the other already had.
Her money was on Roman.
Salazar folded his hands on the table. “I know men from the east carry them.”
“Other farmers? Or citizens?” Jane asked.
Salazar shrugged. “Folk that bring strange devices and strange tales.”
“What kinds of tales?” Jane asked.
“About the end of the world,” said Salazar.
Jane wasn’t sure what to make of this, or even if Salazar was being serious.
Roman, apparently, didn’t think much of it. He snorted. “How many of these ‘men from the east’ have you seen?”
“None,” Salazar said. “But they’ve seen a dozen, all told.” He gestured behind Jane and Roman. Jane turned and looked at the other patrons, noticing the furtive whispers and nervous glances the other men and women cast their way, as well as the expanding perimeter around them. She could have drawn a line across their toes and it probably would have formed a perfect half circle. She suppressed a shiver.
Even if this sounded like nonsense, they believed it.
Salazar continued. “They slip among some of the communes every few years. Usually demand some sort of tribute – food, leather, fabric, maybe. But the farmers that meet them say these men watch us. That they’re searching for signs of our doom.”
“Why didn’t you say something to Recoletta?” Jane asked.
“Oh, we did. Generations ago. Whoever was on your Council then thought we were just trying to dodge our quotas.” He shrugged. “Besides, these people only robbed a few of us once every few years. Recoletta was robbing us all the time.” His voice was raw and sharp with irritation. Even the new deal hadn’t healed all the old wounds just yet.
“But if they’re taking goods from you, where are they coming from?” Jane asked.
“From th
e edge of the earth,” Salazar said.
Roman thumped the table and burst out laughing.
Salazar glared at him in irritation. “You citizens think we’re a bunch of sun-addled clodhoppers, I know. But you’re the ones living with your heads buried in the sand. There’s something foul out there,” Salazar said, gesturing toward the door. “You all hide from it, but that doesn’t make you safe.”
“What is it?” Jane asked. Even if he was spinning her a yarn, it was an interesting one.
“All I can tell you is what I’ve seen,” Salazar said. “The rusted bones of dead cities rising from the ground. A great, poisoned lake washing over them.”
“You make it sound like a children’s story,” Roman said, derision curling his lips.
“Then tell me one I can believe,” said Salazar
Roman was silent for a long time. He took the first sip from his ale. “Is that why we’re here? So we can invent a new superstition around the Catastrophe?”
Salazar gritted his teeth. “We’re here so that you can tell me whether my people are in danger.”
Roman took a longer drink. “You’ve more to worry about from the cities and their scheming politicians than whatever devils rise from the east.”
Salazar was watching Roman, trying to discern whether he really meant this, and Jane was watching Salazar because his expression was a little easier to read.
“Suppose that answers what you’re running from,” Salazar finally said.
Roman raised his glass in toast. “Way I hear it, they’re your problem now.”
But Salazar was onto something, and he wasn’t letting go. “Because if you came from Recoletta, you’re heading away from any other city you might find shelter in. You’re heading east, and there’s nothing out east.”
Roman waved his hand like someone conducting a familiar chorus. “Except poisoned lakes, ghost towns, and strange men. Tell me, when did your people last see one of these strange easterners?”
“Two days ago.”
Roman’s face went slack.
“They went sniffing around the Library after the bodies got cleared out,” Salazar said. “Folk spotted them again a few days ago, almost directly east of here.”
Salazar’s mouth twisted into a smirk, but there was no humor in his eyes when he turned to Jane. “You brought war the last time we crossed paths, Miss Lin. Are you about to plunge us into the fire again?”