We marched for hours in silence. Tyris tried to engage the girl more than once, but she was no more successful than me. I lost track of time, lost the ability to do anything but put one foot in front of the other. The moon had long since come and gone, and my aching body felt on the verge of collapse when we finally reached her camp.
Such as it was. I’d wondered if there might be others with her, but the campsite was nothing but a camo tent propped up in the middle of the darkness. No stove, no fire, no supplies except small plastic bottles of water. Nothing for Aleka that I could tell. I’d hoped there might be something to transport her, but there was no vehicle, either. I tried to see that as a good sign. Unless the girl lived out here, which I couldn’t believe, we must be close to whatever place she counted as home base.
Tyris busied herself with Aleka’s shattered arm. She’d had some luck stanching the blood on our way here, but I could tell from her face that the damage was too severe for her to repair. After she’d done as much as she could, she turned to cleaning and rewrapping Zataias’s chewed-up feet. He winced and tried not to cry as she removed slivers of glassy stone from his soles. I tried to inch over to check on her patients, but the girl’s rifle jerked to my chest the moment I made a move. She sat on a stone formation and handed a water bottle to Tyris, keeping the rifle trained on me. It seemed like a week since I’d tasted water, but my parched throat found nothing to swallow but burning air. At last, when the others had taken a drink, the girl tossed a bottle in my direction. My hands were so stiff and sore I could barely unscrew the cap, which I suspected she’d fastened extra tight. I finally got it off, resisted the impulse to pour water over my hair and face and instead let a trickle drip down my throat, too grateful for the relief it offered to care that the girl was sizing me up the way you’d look at a snake coiled to strike.
“Thank you,” I said when my throat felt supple enough to produce words.
The silence that radiated from her was as poisonous as her stare.
“Is your base nearby?” I tried.
Still nothing. Her hand went to her left arm and rubbed rhythmically as if it was itching her, but she kept the rifle leveled at me, as steady as her laser-sharp eyes.
“Look,” I said. “I’m asking you one more time. Take them to your base, but let me go.”
“Piss off,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere. And we’re only staying here long enough to give the little boy a break.”
I thought that was going to be the end of it, but then, with an edge in her flat voice that might have been curiosity or might have been simple disdain, she added: “So that’s the plan now, huh? Fake a sacrifice then jump us when our guard’s down?”
“Does her arm look fake?” I said, pointing to Aleka. “They were about to kill us. I assumed that’s why you stopped them. I assume that’s why you’re helping us now.”
A string of curses met my ears. I’d lived with soldiers as long as I could remember, but none swore as constantly or as creatively as she did. “I stopped them because every one of them I take down today is one less I have to take down tomorrow,” she said when she’d exhausted the possibilities. “And if you think I’m planning to help you, just wait until you see what Udain has in store for you.”
With that, she went back to staring me down. And though I tried to get her to explain what she meant, she wouldn’t say anything more.
The others settled down beside the stretcher, Zataias giving in to sleep so quickly he let Tyris wrap her arms around him and lay his head on her chest. I tried to fight off the urge to close my eyes, but with nighttime hastening to a close and my hopes of getting away pretty much vanished, I realized how utterly exhausted I was. “You going to sleep?” I asked the girl through a yawn.
She sniffed. “Fat chance.”
“Well, I am.” My words sounded hollow and far away. “Am I going to wake up?”
Her shoulders lifted in a slow, careless shrug.
“Fine,” I said. “But you’re making a terrible mistake.”
That was all I had left before my eyes closed. My final image before I fell asleep was of the girl’s hands still gripping the stock of her rifle.
I woke to the glare of daylight off black rock. I could tell from the position of the sun that I hadn’t slept long, but the fact that I’d woken at all gave me hope. When I rose and stretched my sore body, made even sorer by the jagged stone that had been my only bed, I realized two things: my strength had returned during my short sleep, and the girl hadn’t budged from her spot. It seemed as if her rifle hadn’t moved an inch from its target on my chest, though she’d packed her tent before I woke. She showed no signs of tiredness as she stood and reached into her pocket, coming out with a small, oblong shape covered in what looked like tin. She threw it at my feet, and I realized it must be food, wrapped in some kind of metallic paper. I bit the wrapper and tugged at it with my teeth, but it wouldn’t open.
She sniffed, almost a laugh. “Here.”
Rifle still aimed at my chest, she pinched the wrapper and tore it open. The food inside, a crumbly brown bar, tasted like dirt, but it revived me an amazing amount after more than a day on empty. Tyris and the others, I noticed from the wrappers sprinkled around their feet, had already eaten. They resumed their places at each end of Aleka’s stretcher and hefted her from the ground. This time, the girl gave me a brief moment to check on Aleka, whose waxy face and mutilated arm looked neither better nor worse than the night before. Then she dug her rifle into my back, said, “Let’s go,” and continued to march us east across the stone wasteland.
All attempts at conversation failed this time. We marched until midday, when I was relieved to discover she was human enough to stop and rest in the relative shade of a large stone. We sat through the worst of the day, the whole time spent with the rifle lined up on my heart and her right hand straying periodically to stroke her left arm. We drank when she offered us a fresh water bottle, ate another of the bars when she handed it to us or, in my case, shoved it under my nose. She showed no overt hostility to Tyris or the others, watching silently while our healer went through the ritual of dressing Aleka’s wound. But me she continued to regard with anger and distrust. I looked for opportunities to open a conversation, but there were none, much less any chance of distracting her so I could get away. When we resumed our march, I tried repeatedly to catch her eye, without success.
Evening had come again when a black wall of polished stone blocked our way. The girl signaled with the rifle and led us around the wall. Only then did she say curtly, her first word since morning, “Stop.”
We did. We stood on a margin where the black rock came to an abrupt halt, the glassy surface giving way in a perfect arc to the familiar dusty landscape of the desert. The wall of volcanic stone at our backs cast feeble evening shadows down the slope, but they were blotted out before they reached the valley floor by something so bright it took my eyes a second to figure out what it was. When I finally did, I drew in a breath and blinked in wonder.
Nothing I’d seen or heard prepared me for the sight of the fenced compound that spread out before us. Pale yellow light poured from a palisade of metal posts at least twenty feet high, the same light that had defeated Asunder’s warriors except on an immeasurably larger scale. It wasn’t torch or lamplight, wasn’t even, from what I could tell, like the electric lights that had beamed from Survival Colony 9’s trucks, back when we had trucks. It seemed to be a field of energy that either enclosed or was emitted by the fence, as if the metal was a body and the light its blood flow. Within the fence, white spotlights illuminated every inch of the compound’s perimeter, spilling over squat white buildings, blinking from a guard tower double the height of the surrounding palisade. The compound was small, probably no more than a mile square, but I was convinced no city from the time before could have been this imposing. Together with the rhythmic pulse that emanated from the whole, the glowing compound seemed so otherworldly I could do nothing but stand and stare.
I took a step, stumbled as my maimed feet touched soft, hot desert sand. She laughed, the same short sniff from breakfast.
“Athan’s getting sloppy,” she said derisively. “Sending a pipsqueak like you on one of his precious missionary runs.”
Athan. The name Aleka had given Asunder. “Who’s Athan?”
The girl didn’t answer for a long time, and I figured her one outburst was going to be her last. Then she swore under her breath. “I beg your pardon. Asunder. The king of—what’s he call it?—the Shut-In Lands?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you,” I said. “I’m not one of them.”
“No?” she said. “You’re sure as hell not one of us.”
Her voice sounded so furious I almost felt sorry for her. But I’d had enough.
“Listen.” I stopped and turned, holding my hands in front of me. “For the last time: I’m not what you think.”
The rifle dug into my stomach. “Keep moving.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “At least not as your prisoner. We’ve got the same enemy, all right? Athan, Asunder, whatever you want to call him. I get it. He’s raided your colony too. Now he’s stolen half of mine. If you won’t let me go so I can find them, maybe you’ll work with me to put him out of business.”
She grunted, her eyes never leaving mine. I had the uncomfortable feeling she was deciding whether to pull the trigger.
But at last her gun relaxed ever so slightly, dipping toward the desert floor.
“All right,” she said. “But I swear to God, if this is another of his tricks, you’re going to pay.”
“It isn’t,” I said. “Trust me.”
“I don’t trust anybody who tries to take my gun,” she said. “Speaking of which, I can’t very well walk you into camp without it. If you know so much about the survival colonies, you have to know that.”
I nodded.
“After we get your friends taken care of, I’ll talk to the commander,” she said. “Tell him what you told me. That’s the best I can offer.”
“Fair enough.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “I’m not exactly on his good side.”
“All right,” I said. “But can you tell me one more thing?”
“We’re persistent, aren’t we?”
“Your name,” I said. “If you’re going to help us out, I’d like to know who to thank.” I held out my hand. “I’m Querry. From Survival Colony Nine.”
She ignored the hand, but a look of surprise crossed her face. It was followed by the first hint of a smile I’d seen. “Mercy,” she said, her black eyes gleaming wickedly in the compound’s glow. “But don’t get the wrong idea about me from that.”
We marched down the slope to the desert floor. Mercy let me relieve Zataias at the stretcher, which was a good thing, because he was dead on his feet. As promised, she held her rifle at the ready but refrained from nudging me in the back.
The front gate of the compound rose before us, bathed in the eerie yellow light. Two guards in camouflage uniforms stood before the gate. Both appeared young, not much older than me. They held weapons identical to Mercy’s, which looked similar to the rifles we’d once owned in Survival Colony 9. I wondered how they’d been doctored to produce the energy beam.
The guards raised their rifles as we approached. Then one whose cheeks and forehead were scarred with pimples let out a laugh. “Well, look who’s back.”
“What’s the matter, Mercy?” the other taunted. “The giant scare you away?”
Mercy marched straight up to them, ignoring their gibes. “Delivery for Udain,” she said. “Found them in the impact zone.”
“Doing what?” the pimply-faced guard laughed. “Taking a walk with their mommy?”
“Stick it, Geller.”
The guard’s eyes widened in fake alarm, then he and his partner gave in to laughter. “He one of them?” the second guard asked between snorts, pointing his rifle at me.
“That’s for Udain to decide.”
“What about Athan? You bring that little bastard in too?”
She paused, and for a second I thought she was going to tell them the whole story. “He got away.”
“What?” The guard named Geller was laughing so hard he could barely control his voice. “Whatever happened to, I’m gonna waste that ugly son of a bitch if it’s the last thing I do?”
Mercy gritted her teeth. “You letting us in?”
Still chuckling, Geller waved us through. The gate swung noiselessly open, then closed behind us with the barest clang.
Mercy led us across the paved courtyard. I could hear the guards laughing behind us, but she stared straight ahead, her face composed and flat.
We approached one of the squat white buildings. Nothing marked it on the outside, but I hoped Mercy was true to her word and that it was the infirmary. She tapped a code into a keypad beside the door, and a minute later, a crackling voice made me jump. Mercy leaned close to a mesh circle embedded beside the door and spoke a few words, then the door slid open and a man dressed in a spotless white uniform appeared. His eyes went wide when he got a look at Aleka. He ushered us into a room as white as his clothes, and after a few minutes’ consultation with Tyris, he led us to a back room where we laid my mother in a bed with sheets the same perfect white. I leaned over her, avoiding the sight of her arm, silently willing her eyes to blink or her breathing to return to normal. When nothing happened, I touched her cheek, stroked her hair. Then the man shooed all of us except Tyris out of the room and closed the door behind us. We were left standing with Mercy in the main room. Though it struck me as a hopeful sign that she’d been willing to go behind her commander’s back to aid someone she didn’t know, I couldn’t help wondering if I would ever see my mother again.
But there was no time to think about that. Leaving Adem and Zataias under the watch of another teenage guard at the infirmary—Zataias wanted to come with me, but for once Adem muttered a couple words to hold him back—Mercy and I left and headed for the commander’s quarters.
I took my first good look around the compound, tried to make conversation. “Pretty impressive.”
“What is?”
“Everything.” I nodded vaguely, embarrassed by my own words. “Everything’s so—so perfect. So clean.”
Mercy sniffed. “Yeah. And there’s an ice cream social every Saturday.”
I looked at her, trying to see if she was joking. There was no telling in her black eyes, and I had no idea what an ice cream social was, so I left it alone. “With all this tech, why don’t you just storm Asunder’s base? March into the canyon and flush him out?”
She stopped walking. “You can’t be serious.”
I shook my head, more in confusion than answer. “I just . . .”
“Do you think we’re complete idiots?” I could read her expression now, and it was back to being furious. “Udain tried your suggestion already. Athan’s goons ambushed them at the rock city. Most of his troops didn’t get out of there alive.”
The rock city, I guessed, was the place where we’d been ambushed as well. “But at the altar . . .”
“I got lucky,” she said. “They were in the open and I had the element of surprise. And even so, I could have gotten a spear in the eye if I wasn’t careful.” She looked at me, a sneer curling her lip. “I thought you were some big survival colony expert. You never heard about home field advantage?”
I started to explain myself, but before I got a word out she cut me off. “The hell with it. You’re either the biggest fool I’ve ever met or the biggest fool that’s ever lived. Either way, you better get your head screwed on straight if you want to survive Udain.” She jerked a thumb. “Now move.”
I headed in the direction she’d indicated. My head buzzed from the constant light and vibration of the compound. Either that, or from what she’d just said. I had no doubt from our encounter with Asunder—and my persona
l encounter with his staff—that he was powerful. But I’d had no idea how powerful he was. There must have been hundreds of warriors I hadn’t seen in the canyon, enough to overwhelm her commander’s forces despite the fact that they were using Stone Age weapons against high-tech energy beams. What hope did I have of freeing Nessa and the kids from that kind of army? And what did it say about Mercy that even knowing what Asunder was capable of, she’d set off by herself toward his domain, intent on a confrontation?
We turned the corner of one of the compound’s buildings and I pulled up short, staring at the shape that sat in the center of the concrete yard.
“So you can’t fight Asunder,” I said once I caught my breath. “But you can fight that?”
Mercy said nothing. She didn’t have to.
I was looking at a cage. The moment I saw it, I knew it was where she would have put me—and maybe the others—if I hadn’t convinced her to appeal to her commander first. It consisted of the same metal stakes as the perimeter fence, though it stood only half the fence’s height and only four or five yards across. The energy flow washed it in pale yellow light, and a hum issued from it. Standing stark and alone in the expanse of cement, it drew my eyes to the thing huddled inside.
It was a Skaldi.
Not a Skaldi in human form. A Skaldi as they existed without a body to mimic, a Skaldi as I’d seen them the night I’d discovered their nest. Scrawny frame stripped of flesh, featureless face staring blindly into the night, open gash running the length of the torso, flat paddlelike tail instead of legs. It lay on its side, one arm extended above its head, seeming too exhausted to rise or move. But it was still alive, if alive was the right word for Skaldi. Its head bobbed and swayed rhythmically, and the edges of its scar waved as if stirred by a breath.
I sought Mercy’s eyes. She stared back without blinking. “You keep them caged?”
“Just this one,” she said. “But it’s enough.”
“But how?”
She shrugged. “That’s Athan’s department. Or was.” She paused, sizing me up in the yellow glow. “This little devil comes in handy in case one of his missionaries decides to pay us a visit. But don’t think for a minute I won’t feed your sorry ass to it if you so much as look at me the wrong way.”
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