Blood Binds the Pack

by Alex Wells

  They needed more confusion, more chaos, and she felt that element surging in her blood. Shouting with not effort, but some kind of wild joy because it was so damn easy, somehow, she felt almost drunk with the fire that surged at the hint of her calling, ripped a wave of fire up from deep beneath her feet like she was just the channel of it, not the source. White-hot flame burst into a halo around her hand, and she swept it across the distant tents like she’d wipe sand away from a window. The flame howled through the air, ropes of heat surging into shimmering being in a wave that flowed out from her. The people and tents directly in front of her smoked, sparked, burst into explosive flame. The osprey dove down over, Dambala shouting words in her ear when she couldn’t rightly understand words any more, its propellers ripping up whirlwinds of flame and smoke.

  A wave of howling boomed from helmet speakers beside and behind her. And ahead, a great gout of dust shot up from the mine pit as the ground below trembled. The dust curled and swirled around a lone figure standing still outside the wall, ignoring all that went on around him: the Weatherman.

  “They’ve breached the walls! They’ve breached–” the miner’s shout cut off with a gurgle, then a wet thud as she fell from Ludlow’s wall.

  Mag looked up, sluggish, her attention divided in a half dozen different directions as she tried to maintain control of the few greenbellies she’d found most vulnerable, to keep sowing chaos. One of them blipped out of her consciousness just like the miner had, felled by a bullet from his own side. “The walls?”

  Brother Rami – when had he gotten here? – dragged her away from the edge, toward the ladder. Only then did she notice how many around her were dead, sprawled and bleeding. One of the survivors gave her a push from the other side. “Move, move!”

  Her control on the greenbellies fumbled and unraveled. She felt slammed back into the confines of her own head, and it left her reeling.

  “Come on, Mag, one foot in front of another, down the ladder,” Brother Rami said, his voice urgent. “They’ve broken through on the west. We’re dumpin’ fire gel into the warehouses to slow ’em down, but we have to go.”

  Give them the walls? It was horrible, and impossible, and she didn’t know how they’d win if that was their only option. Something tickled Mag’s cheek, and she tried to ignore it as she felt her way down the ladder. Her head felt raw and stuffed with needles, but she wasn’t ready to stop. She couldn’t afford to stop. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to the churchyard. Omar got the area barricaded. We can try to hold out there.” Rami helped her down off the last few rungs of the ladder. Hand firm on her arm, he started pulling her down the street. The air was already so thick with smoke or perhaps gas that she couldn’t see more than her hand in front of her. Through the mask, every breath was acrid in her throat. And the cracking of rifle shot never stopped, nor did the sound of running feet.

  “Hold out for what?” Mag asked. They weren’t expecting help. She’d sent Hob away, to go look for Anabi. To find the Bone Collector’s Well. That had been the only way, hadn’t it? Her cheek tickled again and she swiped her free hand at it, her fingers coming away slick with blood. She’d taken a ricochet or a graze and not even noticed.

  “For a miracle,” Brother Rami said grimly.

  More running feet approaching, but Mag knew already that these were different, felt them, even as they burst out of the billowing smoke. Shields and armor and lights cutting beams in the dark. Their rifles came up, and Brother Rami shoved Mag behind him. She reached out a hand, like she’d grab the one in the lead, and yanked him to the side. The greenbelly lurched into his fellows. The volley of shots went wild, though Brother Rami grunted, something that sounded a lot like a curse.

  While Mag had the greenbelly turning and whipping his rifle to bludgeon at his fellows, Brother Rami all but picked her up and ran. She half-heartedly moved her feet, but didn’t get traction on the hardpan of the street until they were around the corner, out of sight.

  Once she was under her own power, Brother Rami sagged. Mag hurried to catch him, get herself under his arm. Her hand, against his side, came up sticky. He hissed between his teeth. And she had to focus, now, not on the greenbellies bearing down on them, but just putting one foot in front of another, remembering which street to turn at. She’d never been the churchgoing sort.

  “None of this,” she gasped at him, using the words to anchor herself here, and not have her reaching back to those small, petty minds behind them. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you bring us that miracle.”

  Brother Rami gasped out something like a laugh. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  The buildings on either side gave way, just as a dark barrier loomed up in front of them. Despair clutched at Mag’s heart – had she taken a wrong turn, distracted and disoriented? Then there was the scrape of furniture being moved, and familiar hands took hold of her and Brother Rami and dragged them inside.

  “See to Rami,” Mag gasped, slapping the helpful hands away. She reeled back around to get up against the barricade and stare out into the smoke, waiting to see light beams cut through it. “I’ve got this.”

  And then she waited in silence, listening to the miners around her cough and murmur, the sound of rifle fire coming ever closer. There wasn’t anything else to do. This was their last stand.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  A bullet ricocheted off Hob’s helmet, slamming her head sideways. Ears ringing, Hob got herself straightened. She drew one of her revolvers, keeping one hand steady on the handlebars. Most of the balance was in the legs anyway. “Scatter! Use the mine works for cover!”

  The Wolves’ line broke, weaving to put the mine structures and the security wall between them and the south part of the camp. Hob’s attention fixed on the Weatherman, so damn near. She dimly heard the Bone Collector shouting behind her, but couldn’t make anything useful out. She raised her revolver and tried to use the trick she’d pulled on Mr Green – there was so much fire all around her, just waiting to be born boiling in her blood. She pulled and pulled that power and packed it into one bullet, aimed at the Weatherman’s back, and fired.

  Light exploded around that thin form, swirled and mixed with the dust whirling around him, and fountained away. And the Weatherman did not move.

  Another bullet screeched across her helmet. Hob darted out for a quick loop, taking aim at one security guard in the harsh floodlight and squeezing off a round. Flame spat toward a guard in green. They screamed as they started to burn. Bullets spit up chunks of more salt around her tires as she gunned it away. “Hati and Lobo, get us–”

  A strangled scream over the radio, and she looked around in time to see a motorcycle spin out, the rider tumbling like a ragdoll with a crooked neck: Raff. The first to go, but not the last, Hob knew, if they didn’t get the Bone Collector into the mine. And even then, who knew what would happen. They might all be sprawled out on the saltpan before dawn.

  So she kept going, because that was all she could do, “–a hole in that wall. Top priority. Everyone else, keep movin’, keep ’em confused. And watch the goddamn Weatherman!”

  “’m at the wall,” Lobo said. “Northwest, you can see one of the drive chain housings peepin’ up. Get me covered. Hati, get your ass movin’.”

  The low hum of the osprey got loud again, too loud, wind whipping down over them as Hob turned her motorcycle toward Lobo’s location. She could drop the Bone Collector off, and be able to move better after. Do some more damage, she figured. She hazarded a glance up to see the osprey going in low, bright orange flame licking out of two of its engines. She clutched at that flame with her hand and ripped it down out of the sky, driving it into the ground and the greenbellies nearest like lightning. Fire bloomed around more screaming, but that couldn’t fix the damage done to the machine overhead.

  The osprey aimed nosedown right at the cluster of tents on the south side, where the greenbellies were regrouping. People scattered away from it as with a ground-shaking crunch and tear
, it plowed into the salt, flattening tents in its wake. The osprey’s fuselage, already riddled with scorch marks and bullet holes, crumpled and tore like paper.

  Hob had the presence of mind to keep her motorcycle steady, and even to take a wild shot at movement she saw from the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t look away. “Dambala. Coyote. You there?”

  Nothing. Dead, or their radios busted. Either way, Hob was sharply reminded as a shot grazed her arm in a line of fire, she didn’t have time to think about it. Had to rely on blood and luck. Had to drop the Bone Collector off and then really wade in. She aimed toward where that shot had come from, and saw the black line of what might have been the barrel of a rifle, peeping around some crates. She kept her hand steady, feeding heat into the crates until they started to smoke. “Just show me your goddamn face…”

  The air suddenly tasted of ozone and electricity, her mouth full of metal. The wall around the mine swirled black and inky with auras that sucked at her brain, emanating from – fuck, she’d forgotten about that, hadn’t had a chance to look in the mess of equipment, she was a fucking moron–

  Her last coherent act was to lay down her motorcycle, because that was better than letting it fall on her and the Bone Collector. The machine skidded across the salt on its side, Hob and the Bone Collector tumbling after it, but she didn’t feel the rough surface tearing at her leathers, because she didn’t feel anything but the knives in her brain.

  There was a place beyond exhaustion and into numbness, mental and physical. Anabi knew it from her escape from Harmony, and she’d never wanted to feel that way again. But twelve lightless hours, fumbling at being a miner while just waiting to be prodded with a rifle for being too slow or too clumsy, day after day, had done it. All that sustained her now was anger, and that iron will to survive that had kept her feet moving as she climbed from Harmony’s green, irrigated valley and out into the sands while a wildcat’s scream tore ceaselessly at her lungs.

  She hadn’t given up then, when she’d had no promise ahead of her, and she wasn’t going to give up now. Not with Mag waiting. She had to be waiting, because she wasn’t here, and she couldn’t be dead.

  Anabi lay on the board of the lowest bunk bed in her assigned tent, listening to the sounds of misery around her. The tent stank of sweat and burst blisters beginning to go wrong. She mulled over the presence of Mr Rollins, Mag and Hob’s government man, in the camp. She didn’t think for one moment that he was looking for her, but she could threaten him, maybe. She knew who he was. Maybe he could get her out of here. She’d just need to find something to write with. After the attack on Ludlow, the greenbellies had searched her. They’d taken everything, even her slate. If she got desperate, she could draw words on people’s hands, and there were some things that gesture was easy for. But she felt like she’d had her voice stolen all over again.

  The low hum of an osprey coming in close filled the air, buzzing in the flimsy furniture and tent supports. One of the few people awake muttered, “Ain’t they already come in tonight?” Another person shushed him. Deep in Anabi’s throat, the wildcat’s scream, which had been sullenly dormant for so long after she’d ignored it, stirred and scratched for a way out. Maybe she’d let it out, she thought. She was tired of having no voice to call her own. But she wasn’t so angry yet, that she wanted to destroy everything.

  Then the shooting started.

  They were used to a few isolated shots here and there, now, in a horrible way. Every day, a miner or two got dragged out and shot. There’d been a few this evening, after they’d been put down in their tent, echoing across the camp. But this was different, many of them, in constantly popping volleys, cascades, clusters of shots with a few cracks at random between them. The hum of the osprey went on and on, and there was a rumble deep below. Something was happening.

  Anabi slid from her bed. She wasn’t the only one. It was enough of a ruckus to wake even the most exhausted prisoners. Miners piled in at her back, confused murmurs giving way to grim silence. They must all feel the same thing as her, Anabi thought. Whatever attack was happening, whether it was friends or foes or strange creatures from campfire stories that would turn on them and eat them, now was the moment to fight back.

  “If I end up as eagle food, least I’ll be free,” a woman muttered behind her.

  Anabi pushed the flimsy door of the tent open. The guards normally standing on either side, ready to harass anyone who dared need the latrines in the middle of the night, had moved, drawn toward the other end of camp. They turned at the sound behind them, rifles coming up.

  Two shots sounded sharp, and the guards dropped, one spraying blood and bone from his head, the other from her throat. Anabi cringed back, unsure of what was happening, then saw behind them the familiar shapes of two motorcycles. She recognized the helmets, the way they’d been painted. She stumbled forward, waving frantically.

  Diablo stopped in front of her, so fast his rear tire lifted off the ground. The other – Conall, she thought – swerved around him and came to an uneven halt. Diablo shoved his face plate back. “Anabi? Shit.”

  She wished she had something to write with. Instead, she simply pointed toward the mine. Hopefully it was enough of a question.

  “Rest of the Wolves are doin’ their best,” Diablo said. He looked at the miners, flooding out of the tent around her. “Y’all in for a fight?”

  Two miners scrambled to pick up the rifles belonging to the dead greenbellies off the ground. “Hell fuckin’ yeah,” one said.

  “We’re gonna clear–” There was the crack of a shot, and a miner dropped to her knees, clutching her shoulder. Diablo and Conall turned, drawing their guns. One of the miners beat them to it, firing the rifle and killing the greenbelly that had just come around the corner. “We’re gonna clear out the rest of this side, then get to the pit,” Diablo said, keeping his gun at the ready now.

  “The hell you want with the pit?” one of the miners asked. “It’s a fuckin’ grave.”

  “Don’t rightly know. But we got us a witch on our side, and the Ravani reckons he can put the screws to the greenbellies if we get him into the pit, so that’s what we’re gonna fuckin’ do.” Diablo pulled out a shotgun and offered it over, then a knife. Anabi darted in to take that. The blade was heavy in her hand, the hilt warm from sitting next to Diablo’s body. “Do what you can.”

  Conall finished handing out a few extra weapons to eager hands. He and Diablo kicked themselves rolling again, and moved toward the rest of the tents. As Anabi watched, Diablo retrieved a wicked-looking hatchet from the back holster of his motorcycle.

  No time to watch more. The crowd of miners began moving into camp, many of them breaking into a run. Anabi dragged her tired legs into a half-jog, wanting to stay behind the few people who had guns. She already knew how pathetic a knife was against all of that.

  Ahead, the camp was a mass of confusion, dust and smoke and fire, the small contingent of Ghost Wolves zipping around like heat-mad sand flies. Greenbellies massed on the south side, organizing themselves around barricades. Around her, miners tumbled and fell, taken with bullets from the right. More greenbellies here, hiding in the tailings piles, the equipment sheds.

  Anabi set her jaw and went for the wall. She saw straight in from where she stood, a couple hundred meters distant, a massive man that had to be one of Hob’s people. There was a trike near him. He attacked the wall near the drive chain housing with a sledgehammer. Anabi felt the wildcat scream churn in her chest and wondered if maybe, maybe…

  A massive cargo osprey buzzed the landing field, so low that Anabi and the people around her threw themselves down to kiss the salt. It knocked the breath out of her, and she gritted her teeth around the scream, holding it in. Something bright like lightning from the flood-storms cracked from the sky and more fire exploded to add to the confusion of screams and gunfire. The ground shook and she looked up to see the crumpled osprey sliding through more tents, bowling greenbellies left and right.

 
; Anabi scrambled to her feet and started running again, half aware of the others around her running, shooting, shouting and screaming. She saw the big Wolf with the hammer move to take another swing, and saw his head splatter out on the wall as he took a bullet that split his helmet in half. The air shifted, something distant and electric like the storms that blew from nowhere and rumbled across the farm valleys, and Anabi stumbled, feeling not quite right in her own skin. She felt sick, and like something she couldn’t quite hear scraped at her anyway. Near her, two miners fell, unconscious without a mark on them. And ahead, a motorcycle she recognized as Hob’s went down, the two people on it tumbling limply after the machine, coming to a stop. They must have been alive because they curled in on themselves, as if trying to escape an invisible beating.

  Something slammed into her shoulder, and she stumbled, falling to her knees. Blood washed down her arm in a red flow, followed by the red, internal crunch of pain. She saw the greenbelly who’d shot her out of the corner of her eye, training another shot, and she dropped fully to the ground like she’d fainted.

  The ground against her cheek shook and trembled with footsteps, with the endless growl of sand tires on salt flat. Anabi kept her eyes open, tasting blood from where she’d bitten her tongue, that pain somehow almost more present than being shot in the shoulder, and tried to breathe shallow. The scream boiled up in her throat, but she held it. It would do her no good now. The little tremor of nearby steps, and the barrel of a rifle prodded at her. She played dead. She felt rather than saw the greenbelly bend to look down.

  Teeth bared, she whipped her hand up with Diablo’s knife and stabbed him. Her first blow was glancing, a slice across his face. He jerked back, and she lunged to her feet, yanked up by the force she contained in her, and drove the knife into his neck. He fell, blood pumping out across her hand.