The Warrior

by Victoria Scott

This has all happened too quickly. Paine was my friend. Or, he was becoming my friend. He moved around when he was young, and this was going to be the first time he had steadfast friends. He had horrible fashion sense and a kick ass British accent and he wore a fanny pack on the plane to make Max and me laugh. He hated lamps and light bulbs even more. And he cared about Annabelle. Enough so that he tried to talk her into changing sides and being with him. How could he have done this? Was he the one who lit the fire in the library? How much of what happened to us was Valery, and how much was Paine? Did they work together?

  Is he the one who stole the last part of the scroll?

  Digging my knuckles into my temples, I try and block the questions that clog my brain. My head hurts too much to think on these things. All I know is Paine is dead. He’s freaking dead and now he’ll spend an eternity in nothingness and silence.

  Gagging, I stride over to his corpse and search his pockets. The missing scroll piece isn’t there. I jerk away from him and feel Kraven fall in beside me. Together, we walk toward Widow’s Nest in silence. He has his arm around Annabelle, and every so often I check on her to see if she’s okay.

  “Are we just going to leave him out there?” I ask.

  Kraven doesn’t respond for a long time. When he does, he says only, “This is why I feel like I can’t trust anyone.”

  It doesn’t seem like he’s waiting for a comment from me, so I don’t give him one.

  Paine is dead. I try to accept this fact as we crawl inside Widow’s Den. I glance around as if I’m going to see Paine there, cozy in his flannel shirt, a ready smile on his face. I thought he was my friend. I thought he was my friend and now he’s gone. I want to go back out there and replay what transpired, but I know that’s ridiculous.

  Kraven pulls Annabelle between his legs and she lays her head back and closes her eyes. She shakes from the horror of what she endured, and Kraven attempts to sooth her. Lincoln wakes up and asks what’s going on, but Kraven doesn’t say anything.

  I tell him to go back to sleep. He studies me and then lies down. I’m sure he fakes returning to sleep, and I wonder how many of the others are wide awake, aware that something big has taken place. Maybe they’re too exhausted from traveling to question it, or maybe they spy the look on Kraven’s face and don’t voice their worry.

  All I know is that Paine is dead.

  Kraven killed him without a second thought, which makes me wonder how stable the liberator really is. I mean, Paine needed to be brought down. But we could have questioned him. I glance at Fart Stain, who’s sleeping in a tight ball near the back. He must have known about Paine. Maybe we can question him tomorrow.

  For the next few hours, as the sun rises, all I can think is—Charlie was taken, Valery betrayed us, Neco is gone, Paine is dead in the forest, his neck broken.

  And Kraven…Kraven looks like fury has eaten his will to play by the rules.

  I nod in his direction, a question on whether we understand one other.

  He pauses, looks down at Annabelle. Then he raises his eyes.

  He nods.

  41

  Do Not Be Afraid

  When the sun rises, Kraven explains why Paine isn’t with us. Well, maybe explain is too strong a word.

  “He was a traitor.” Kraven stomps out the smoldering embers from last night’s fire. “And we don’t allow traitors to go unpunished. Not when the safety of our people is at stake.”

  His statement sounds as much like a warning as it does reassurance. I grab Fart Stain by the elbow and pull him to his feet. “Now that you’re well rested, let’s have a chat.” I drag him after me as Kraven leads the way during our second day of walking. “Did you know about Paine?” I ask the siren.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “’Course you don’t,” I snap. “You didn’t know Valery would take the savior. You didn’t know there was a second traitor posing as a liberator.”

  The siren holds up his bound hands. “I knew about the one who would take the savior. But I didn’t know there was a second person working for us.”

  I slap him upside the head. “Lie.”

  He turns his head toward the chalk white earth. “I didn’t know his name.”

  “Seriously?” I stare at the siren in disbelief. “That’s how easy you folded?”

  “Said I was sorry for the things I done.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek as we walk and stare at the back of the siren’s head. His hair is thinning at the crown even though he’s way too young for that. Did Charlie truly change this guy?

  I decide once again that I don’t care. There’s no such thing as being resolved of your sins, regardless of what his soul light says.

  Today’s walk feels even longer than yesterday’s. We reach the outskirts of the battlefield at dusk, and Kraven asks us to huddle close. He explains the plan of burrowing ourselves into the ground, and as expected, there are more than a few people horrified by this idea.

  “Can’t we just be there when the sun rises and wait until they come,” a man who looks to be in his early thirties asks. He has enormous nostrils that flare when he gets excited, and right now they look as though they might swallow me alive.

  “They will be here tomorrow if they’re not already,” Kraven explains. “We can’t be left out in the open.”

  “What about our packs?” Polly, the girl with peach colored hair, asks. “What about the food and water and blankets?”

  “We’ll leave them,” I say. Kraven glances at me, and I raise my chin. “You chose to come and fight, and this is the first step. We go under the earth where we won’t be seen.” I think of what my father said in my dream last night. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “How will we breathe?” Blue rubs a hand down Annabelle’s back as he asks this. He knows something happened to her last night, but Annabelle hasn’t spoken to anyone all day so he doesn’t know the details. Thinking about those details, I consider returning to Widow’s Nest and kicking Paine’s corpse. Any remorse I had for losing him last night vanished the moment I saw the bruises on Annabelle’s arm in the light of day.

  Kraven references my pack, and suddenly I understand what the metallic tubes are for. I zip it open, retrieve one, and hold it up so the others can see. “We’ll breathe through these.”

  “And when the enemy is upon us, Lincoln will signal you with a trumpet,” Kraven adds.

  Lincoln swings the long black bag off his back that I saw him with last night and produces a silver instrument to Kraven. He couldn’t be more proud if his prick grew three extra inches.

  “When we reach the field, we’ll crawl out onto our bellies.” Kraven motions to the Quiet Ones. “Each person will receive a hand shovel. It will take many hours, but the point is to conceal yourself as best you can.”

  Kraven raises his head and examines the lot of us—three trained liberators including him, one collector, two Quiet Ones who’ve recently broken their silence, one old man with a freaky spin cycle, thirteen jackrabbits, and forty-eight humans. He seems like he wants to say something, but saying something, anything, is not Kraven’s forte. “Let’s move out.”

  “Wait.” My voice is louder than I intended it to be. Sixty-eight heads turn in my direction. I’m not sure why I ever imagined we were small in number. Look at us. We’re sixty-eight strong. But the fear on their faces is palpable. It’s so thick, so alive, I can almost taste it.

  I think of Charlie.

  I think of what my father said.

  “We will not be afraid,” I say. “Beyond these woods lies a field of tall grass. It’s called the Lion’s Hand and soon it will fill with blood. My blood, yours. But we will not be afraid. There are humans who are prepared to kill you, collectors who want nothing more than to complete their final conquest.

  “They stole our soldier. They kidnapped our savior. They came into the Hive and they murdered your friends. They’ve taken everything, and yet steady we stand. We will defeat our
enemy because we are stronger, we are braver. We’ve prepared for this moment, we’ve stayed focused.” I glance at Kraven. “And all the while, they did nothing but watch on. All this time, all our training, it has led to this. They believe they will win because they took what was ours, but I tell you this now—let them have our soldier, let them keep our savior.”

  Blue startles at this, his eyes widening.

  “I’ve counted their hours, and there were plenty. But now they are depleted. Tomorrow morning, when the sun rises, we’ll tear our enemy limb from limb. We’ll swallow their courage and feast on their fear. Many of us will fall, but do not be afraid. For at the end of the day, we will be triumphant. We will take back what belongs to us. We will drive our enemy back into hell. We will teach them what it means to rise up against those who stand for the heavens. And we will dance for those among us who lose their lives, for they will be the heroes rewarded in the life after this one.”

  I snap my black wings open and Kraven follows suit. Then I flip on the humans’ and jackrabbits’ soul light, one by one. I meet Kraven’s gaze and then together with Blue and the Quiet Ones, we release liberator seals onto their souls, destroying any sin seals they may have harbored. It takes some time, and when the Quiet Ones explain gently what we are doing, those receiving our seals begin to weep. Even Lincoln, who seems conflicted by what’s happening, doesn’t ask us to stop.

  When the last soul is clean, I turn to the siren. “Fart Stain, are you truly sorry for the things you’ve done?”

  “I am.” His voice quivers.

  “Are you so changed that you’re prepared to join us on the battlefield?”

  He turns his face from mine and sucks on his bottom lip. “I won’t be afraid.”

  “That’s good.” I unknot the ropes that bind his wrists. “What’s your name?”

  “Frank,” he says.

  I slap his back. “Oh, man. That’s incredible. It’s so close to fart.”

  “It’s not really that—”

  “It is, Frank,” I say. “If you think about it, it really is close.”

  Oswald seems pleased by this turn of events. He strokes his purple velvet robe, which makes me all kinds of nervous.

  “Let’s roll out,” I instruct.

  As I pass by Kraven he says, “Thank you.” Then he strides forward like he doesn’t want to dwell on his inability to rally his troops. I’m not sure I did the job either, but I do feel fired up.

  Too bad this pep talk ends with us digging ourselves into the dirt.

  …

  As we approach the field, I see what Kraven meant by tall grass. It easily stretches to waist level, and a terrifying thought occurs to me: what if the enemy has already done what we plan to do? What if they are already out there, lying in wait?

  Kraven gestures to two corners of the field. “Jackrabbits, split into two teams. One team take the right corner, one team take the left. After you sound the trumpet, count to a hundred and sound the trumpet again. At that time you and the humans will show yourselves and join the battle. The rest of us will set up on the other side of the field, liberators and Max in front, and humans behind us.”

  “Do we have to crawl across this entire field,” the older of the Quiet Ones asks.

  “It won’t take as long as you think it will,” he answers.

  He’s wrong. It takes four times as long as anything in the entire world takes. Crawling across a field, wondering if you’re going to happen upon a collector, or in a good scenario, a snake, is something I want no part of. My skin opens on small stones and my face is covered in sweat and grime as I drag my body across the Lion’s Hand.

  The Lion’s Hand.

  More the Lion’s Nut Sack.

  When we reach the opposite side, I pick a place and pull out the hand shovel that’s stuffed in my back pocket and begin to dig. It’s an absolutely ridiculous task, and I can’t imagine how long it’ll take me to make a hole deep enough for me to lie in. After a few minutes, I hear someone close by swearing.

  “Who’s there?” I hiss.

  Nothing.

  “It’s me, Dante,” I offer, wondering if saying my name is the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

  The person sighs. “It’s Blue.”

  “And Max!” someone else whispers loudly.

  “You’re here, too, Max?” Blue says quietly.

  “We’re all here!” I laugh at how excited I am that I’m not digging in the dirt alone.

  “This is a bunch of bullshit,” Max says. “But I’m going to do it anyway. Because I can’t wait to knock that redhead around.”

  “You’re not really going to do that,” Blue says. I can envision his brow pulled together though I can’t see him through the tall grass and night sky.

  “She was confused,” Max mutters. “He’ll forgive her.”

  “I’m thinking about napping down here while the rest of you fight,” I yell-whisper.

  Blue laughs.

  Max does, too.

  “Can the three of you please be quiet?” Kraven’s hushed voice snaps. I know Annabelle is next to him, otherwise he would have sounded much more Unabomber.

  We stop talking, but I feel the grass nearby flutter and realize that Blue is edging close so that his hole is nearer. A smile plays on my lips.

  “We’re going to be okay,” I whisper. Then I dig my hole. For hours on end, I dig. I scoop away piles of dirt with the shovel and with my hands. When I’ve made it down about two feet, I lie down in the ditch I created. I lift my ass up and retrieve the metal tube out of my pocket and lay my weapon next to my left thigh. Then I start pulling the dirt back over my body.

  I wonder again as I do all of this if the collectors aren’t already out there, watching, waiting. Perhaps they saw us scurry across the field like mice and slapped each other on the back at the humor of it all.

  I’m still not sure I understand what the scroll meant when it said, Two hearts that beat as one will make a great sacrifice. Or when it said, Unconscious words spoken on an unpracticed tongue will drive the beast down. Not to mention we’re missing a crucial weapon and the final piece of that ancient document. But it doesn’t matter. We don’t have a choice but to fight, with or without those clues solved.

  Tomorrow morning, war dawns. And we are ready as we’ll ever be.

  Ready in our graves.

  42

  The Dawn of War

  I always thought war would start with a cannon shot. At the very least, I figured there’d be a line of us, and a line of them, and we’d face off like football players at the Superdome. That’s not how it happens at all.

  It feels like early morning, my limbs stiff from lying in the earth, when I sense the ground moving. It’s a shudder that rocks me from head to foot and sets my nerves aflame. The exhaustion, the fear of losing Charlie, the worry over my friends’ lives, it all vanishes in a single moment.

  It almost seems like someone is walking beside me, or on top of me. I can’t stay down here much longer. I can’t wait to seek revenge on the man who kissed my mother, on the man who stole Charlie’s soul and tricked me into leaving Aspen behind and caused one of our own to turn against us. I want to squeeze his head in my hands like it’s a light bulb, until skull fragments slice into my palms.

  The trumpet sounds.

  The noise rips through my body like an electric shock and I’m moving. I’m digging through the dirt and pulling myself up like a zombie. All around me, others are doing the same. I spot Lincoln in the far corner, trumpet to his lips.

  The sun is quiet in the sky, awaiting its turn to fill our world with light and security. But it’s not quite time for that yet. A swatch of red-stained darkness lies over the battlefield. Across from us are the sirens and collectors. They are only steps away as if they walked over our bodies to arrive at where they are now.

  I race toward the first person I see.

  A siren.

  My battle cry mingles with others’ and the black wings on my back spring open.
I pull the left one across my body and whip it open. The siren flies several feet and then disappears in the tall grass as if swallowed whole. I do the same thing to another siren, and another. They go down easily enough, but there are so many of them. All around me I see other liberators fighting against sirens. They swarm over us like ants would a disruptive beetle. We are agile and better trained, but they have strength in numbers.

  I spot a collector, Anthony, and rush forward, pulling on my shadow as I race. The smell of turned soil and blood hits my nose as I run. I love the smell. Want to bathe in it. Anthony is the largest of the collectors, and when I slam into him it feels like diving in front of a semi-truck barreling down an interstate. He doesn’t see me coming. He’s orchestrating sirens, yelling orders, face darkened by the sleeping sun.

  He falls when I hit him, my shadow slipping away. I’m triumphant in this moment. I want to climb on his back and stab a flagpole into his spine and declare this land mine. But he rolls over and grabs hold of my ankle. One quick rip of his wrist brings me down with him. He scrambles over my body and throws his fist into my face. I swallow blood and beg for more. Using my wings, I shove my body away from the ground and Anthony tumbles to the side. I jackknife and shove my heel into his ribcage. A satisfying crack rings through the air. He groans and turns his face to the dirt. I remember the blade in my pocket, born of steel. After taking it in my hand, I raise it high over my head. I remember the last thing Kraven said to us during the training. The two things we are to do today if we are to stand triumphant.

  Take the collectors’ dargon, and destroy the sirens.

  Anthony’s ankle is exposed, his cuff poised for the taking. I bring the knife down.

  I’ve almost collided steel to gold cuff when I’m tackled. A siren tears at my face and neck, seeking purchase. I swing the knife wildly, and sense when it takes its first bittersweet taste of siren flesh. The siren falls back, screaming. I kick backward and get to my feet. I don’t see Anthony. I have to find Anthony. First though, I should kill this siren. He’s here at my feet, and we don’t stand a chance of getting to the collectors if we don’t dwindle the sirens’ numbers.