Flashtide

by Jenny Moyer

  Definitely more, I decide, as we forge our way through craggy tunnels reeking of termit scat.

  “This is mad,” I grumble, sliding past a trail of bones.

  “Right, and you’ve never done anything like this before,” Cora murmurs.

  I glare at her through my goggles. “How do you know my mother went this way?”

  “She and her Ghost marked it.”

  The light of my headlamp catches letters the length of my forearm. “What does it say?” I ask.

  “Conjies have five words for freedom,” Fern answers, her gaze trained on the wall. It’s the most I’ve heard her speak. The first four words inscribe the rock in bold, looping script etched with flourishes. The last is all raw, jagged lines, cutting across the stone. I can’t read them, but it’s like I can feel them.

  “How far does this passage go?” I ask.

  “Right up to the edge of a termit den,” Cora says. “No one has forged past it.”

  “They didn’t try?”

  “They didn’t survive.” She shines her light against the base of the wall, illuminating a dust-covered, cracked piece of tech. She lifts what looks like an old, shattered pulse transmitter and curses. “We need to replace the transmitters that were damaged here. This passage is probably overrun with gorge moles.”

  Fern freezes suddenly. She draws a handful of dirt from her pocket and shifts into the shadows.

  “What is she—”

  Cora clamps her hand over my mouth. The heat-sensing indicators to the right side of my goggles paint an object in orange light. A hulking body, shoulders packed with muscles that bunch and shift as the creature nears. The termit lifts its stunted snout and scents the air, rising onto its hind legs. It stands taller than a man. A sound—like a blade sliding from a sheath—and its claws extend.

  Fern presses her palms to the earth. A tremble of vibration and a wall of rock erupts before us.

  “Hurry, Fern!” Cora shouts. “It’s climbing!” She reaches for her rifle.

  Rock scrapes and clatters, meters above our heads, but the sounds of the termit are louder. A gorge mole suddenly darts from the shadows, and the termit lunges for it.

  “RUN!” Cora shouts.

  A tree bursts up from the stone, roots thrusting beneath our feet. Stone rains down on us, and I cover my head. A screech, a startled cry. I can’t see them, but their pain echoes back to me.

  The ground gives way. We cling to a ledge, our feet dangling near the gulf that’s opened beneath us. Cora’s sobbing, the sounds tearing from her lips.

  “How bad is it?” I call. I can’t see her clearly, but I know the sounds of a serious injury.

  “Glenting mole,” she bites out. “Conjured s-straight through us.”

  “Fire,” I breathe. I shove my goggles off my head and stare. A branch juts through Cora’s palm, splaying her fingers wide. But it’s nothing compared to the limbs impaling Fern. The girl teeters at the edge, half her body conjured roots and bark.

  “I’ve got you!” Cora holds tightly to Fern. “Conjure! Fix yourself!”

  “Can’t. Not … this.”

  “Orion!” Cora’s voice shakes more than her arms. “She needs the earth of the provinces. Find some!”

  I pull myself up and stagger over the crumbling ground. “Cora—”

  “You’re the glenting Scout—find some!”

  I crouch and grasp her arm instead, using my weight to anchor her.

  “Give me … knife,” Fern gasps. “Life … linked.”

  “Can you get the tech out?” I ask softly.

  “Yes,” Fern says.

  Cora sobs, her arms straining to hold on to Fern. I set the handle of my knife into Fern’s trembling hand. She digs the blade into her wrist and levers it beneath her skin, grimacing. She pries a narrow chip loose and says a word I don’t understand.

  “From the … wall,” she says. A chill spreads over me. Her accent strengthens around the syllables of another Conjie word, then another. Words for freedom my Ghost father conjured along this tunnel. “The last one”—she gasps—“wasn’t conjured. It was carved.”

  Carved. Ghosts don’t have knives. But Delvers do.

  I meet Fern’s eyes, and she answers with a sad smile.

  “Sarcoom,” Fern says. And I repeat it, like my voice can keep her in this life.

  Blood streaks down her arm, and the linktech drops from her fingers. She is gone when Cora lets go.

  * * *

  I leave the branch in Cora’s hand. She tugs at it, her face drained of color.

  “Keep going,” I mutter as we crawl through bones and scat. She mumbles beneath her breath, a litany of senseless murmurings.

  Before we left, I secured the passage with every pulse transmitter we had. And I drew a chalk circle with Fern’s name beside the words for freedom. Cora moans her name over and over, but she didn’t see the girl’s eyes at the end. The relief there.

  I haul Cora to her feet and stagger toward the tunnel entrance. I sense the solid cirium of the Box and direct my steps toward it like a beacon. Fern’s prison.

  Not anymore. She’s free now. Sarcoom.

  We collapse into the port, and I direct it to the infirmary. The physic settles Cora onto a gurney, and I numbly recount the events of the past hour. Meredith grows still as I reach the part of the story where we got between a gorge mole and a termit. She shakes her head in disbelief when I tell her that Fern is not locked in her cell. That she never will be again.

  “You secured the passage?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we continue to move forward.” She thrusts Cora’s bloodied chain into my hands. “You’re Prime now.” As if to further her point, she drapes the Prime’s cape over my shoulders. “I’ll send Val to acquire a new Delver.”

  “No,” I say, securing the clasp. “I’ll go.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  6.9 km from flash curtain

  THE STEEL DOORS grind on hinges that sound like they’re a hundred years old. I race toward them, my boots kicking up trails of sand. Since Delvers don’t wear neck cloths, I press my glove over my nose and mouth so I don’t inhale emberflies. They illuminate the darkness, twirling on drafts of air like the fireflies Mom once told me about.

  “Wait!” I shout. The doors are halfway closed. “I’m going in!”

  “No Delvers with Brunts,” the Strider says. He braces his legs apart and crosses his arms, but makes no move for his weapon. I think he’s curious to see how far I’ll actually go.

  I sense the shift in the curtain, like a nocturnal beast stirring to the hunt. Over his shoulder, orange bands ripple down from the cloud cover. I’m dead if I don’t get belowground. I sprint forward, and the Strider reaches for his gun, uncertainty flashing across his face. Shooting Delvers is not something he’s been trained for.

  “You can’t—”

  “Flashtide!” It’s all I have time to say as I drop and skid beneath the lowering door. I hear the man curse and the sounds of his footfalls as the metal seals shut above me. I stagger in the darkness, tripping down the first few stairs carved into the ground. My eyes adjust to the frail light. Old-fashioned bulbs drape the perimeter with just enough energy to reveal that there is nothing down here but desperate humanity and dirt. I descend, and hundreds of eyes follow my progress as I make my way to the rectangular pit below. The air is stale, but free of ash and dust, and I take cautious sips of it as I search the dirty, battered faces for Dram’s.

  Brunts watch me, hungry—not for me, but for the protective suit covering me neck to ankle. I’m a fool to come down here like this, practically flaunting my good fortune. If I don’t find Dram soon, I might end up a dead fool.

  A boy leans against the dirt wall, Tempered appendages crossed over his chest. He’s the only one not eyeing me like I’m a flash wand that just rolled into camp.

  “I need to find Dram Berrends,” I say softly. “Do you know where he is?” He tilts his head, and my heart sinks. I know why he didn�
��t notice me before. I’m not sure he’s aware of anything at all. He stares over my shoulder into space. “Sorry,” I whisper. And I am sorry. He’s just a boy, a little younger than me. I look around and realize at least half the Brunts wear the same glazed expression. Their bodies are here, but the rest of them checked out a long time ago.

  “Dram!” I call his name, no longer caring how much attention I draw. I trip over arms and legs, sprawled bodies of people who just collapsed on the ground. I hit a wall—no, a man. He reeks of stale sweat. He grabs my arms. For a second I can’t think, can’t understand why the wall is holding on to me. Then the Brunt beside him—flash me, is that a woman?—cracks a light stick—mine, she pulled it off my belt—and I see that Wall Man is missing half an ear, and the smell is coming from his broken-toothed mouth.

  “Delver,” he says, and the way he draws it out makes shivers ripple along my skin. I pull away, but he squeezes tighter. I reach for my knife, and a hand grasps mine, twists until I drop the blade.

  “She’s still got all her parts.” The voice belongs to the man still twisting my knife hand. His Tempered metal hand pinches my skin.

  “I’ll take your weapons and lights,” Wall Man says. He nods to the woman. “She’ll take your clothes. And your chain. Payment. Then we’ll take you to Weeks.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “And you’re dead if we don’t help you.”

  “Help me? I can’t give you my Delver’s chain!”

  “Nothing is free, here, Subpar. Especially not protection.”

  My gaze shifts to the shadows, to the pairs of eyes gleaming. I can’t believe what I’m considering. A trade. Then Wall Man will take me to Dram, and when he does, I’ll be alive instead of dead.

  “Fine.” My heart hammers in my chest so hard, I’m sure the woman can feel it as she unbuckles my suit with greedy hands and peels it off my body. I drag on her dirty, shredded rags and follow them into the dark.

  The Scout who can find anything would not have found Dram. I’m forcing myself to move—one foot in front of the other—beside Wall Man when I walk right past him.

  “That’s him,” Wall Man says. He’s pointing at a hooded figure leaning against the wall with his eyes shut. The Brunt is covered in filth and dried blood—and the twisted gray spines of a cactus. They cover his arms like a deadly warning.

  “That’s not Dram,” I say. My voice sounds strangely monotone, as if I bartered my emotions along with my clothes.

  “Subpar,” he says. “From the outposts.” He lifts the Brunt’s arm and peels up the cactus armor enough for me to see a Radband with a familiar amber indicator.

  I shake like I’m crying, but no tears come. “Dram.”

  The Brunt doesn’t move. I kick his foot, the only place he’s not studded in thorns and gull feathers. He cracks his eyes open and stares at me without reaction.

  “It’s Orion,” I murmur, feeling suddenly as if I’m drowning.

  He closes his eyes.

  I’m speechless. I’ve found Dram—bartered myself to get to him—but he’s already gone.

  “Why doesn’t he know me?”

  Wall Man shrugs. “I doubt he even knows himself. He’s been here longer than any of us.”

  My legs give up, and I sink to the ground.

  “Keep your back to the wall, Subpar,” Wall Man says. “This is the Tomb, not a Delver’s pod.” He sits a few meters from me.

  My defenses are broken, worn away by the horror of the past hours. I curl onto my side, draw my knees to my chest. Dram hasn’t moved from where he leans against the wall. He’s barely blinked. I have never felt so alone.

  “Sleep,” Wall Man says. “I’ll make sure you’re not harmed again tonight.”

  A frayed laugh bursts past my lips. “You’re protecting me? From what, exactly?”

  “From him.” He nods toward Dram.

  Dram’s hollow gaze lands on me. His stare is like a flash vulture’s. Curious. Feral. He lifts a spear into view, the metal tip gleaming in the sparse light. I shift closer to Wall Man. Dram turns and melts into the shadows. He draws something from his pocket.

  “What is that?” I ask Wall Man.

  “Venom spike,” he says, “from the tail of a cordon rat.” I peer closer and see the fluff of tail and fur. “The toxin paralyzes, but in small doses it can be used to numb the mind. Many Brunts do it.”

  I thought everyone was dazed from exhaustion. Maybe there was more to it. I can’t tear my eyes from Dram, hunched in on himself. Tremors rack his hands as he tries to bring the pointed spike to his forearm.

  “Stop,” I order. Nearby, Brunts lift their heads. But not Dram.

  Anger erupts from someplace deep inside me—a place torn open and exposed. It floods me from the inside, this rage born from pain. It engulfs me, so that I’m kneeling, then leaping to my feet, striding toward Dram like he isn’t some broken thing ten steps from death.

  “Subpar,” Wall Man cautions, “you don’t want to start a fight with him.”

  “Yes, I do.” I feel hot, then cold. Maybe it’s shock; maybe it’s this storm of hate rising in me. Whatever its source, I embrace it, because for the first time in an hour, I don’t feel the imprint of metal tines on my skin.

  “Get up.” I stand over Dram, daring him to give me that vulture stare again.

  But he doesn’t even look up. He presses the venom spike into his skin.

  There is a sound I have never made bursting from behind my clenched teeth. In my periphery, Brunts stir, some jolt to their feet. I’m not afraid. I’m a banshee, screaming into the face of death. I have joined their ranks of dead things in this Tomb, and they should be afraid. Of me.

  I tear the rat tail from Dram’s fingers.

  “What happened to fighting?” I shout. “What happened to finding a way out?”

  “Leave me, Brunt.” His voice sounds low, reedy.

  “I’m not a Brunt,” I whisper. But even as I say it, I know that’s what he sees. Just another shadow, pulled away from this place of darkness. Another nothing. Like him.

  Dram pushes himself to his feet. “Leave before I hurt you.”

  “Too late,” I murmur.

  He swings at me, and I duck. His cactus-barbed fist whiffs through the air above my head. Holy fire. He really is going to fight me. Other Brunts shuffle closer, forming a ring around us.

  “Weeks, Weeks, Weeks!” they chant. I glance at Wall Man, but he backs away, shaking his head.

  Fine.

  Adrenaline surges through me, and my instincts fire along my nerves. Flash bats, tunnel gulls, vultures, termits—of all the things I’ve fought, this is going to be a first.

  “Give it back,” Dram says.

  I follow his gaze to my hand, where I’ve clenched the damn rat tail in my fist.

  “This is what you’re fighting me for?” I’m wearing my Delver’s boots with the steel toes, so it’s with utter satisfaction that I fling the poison to the ground and pulverize it beneath my foot.

  His eyes narrow. In the dim light they appear orange, gleaming like orbie water.

  “Now give me the rest,” I demand.

  “You’ll have to fight me for them, Brunt.”

  “With pleasure.” I launch myself at him, ducking his barbed fist. He topples backward, and I follow him down, dodging his armor. I root through his grimy pockets, searching for more venom spikes. He nearly flips me over as we tangle on the ground.

  “I’ll kill you!” he growls. He doesn’t recognize me, his partner and best friend, and I’m struggling to see anything of Dram left in this shell of a person.

  It makes it easier to fight him. My hands are unprotected, so I use my legs, my heavy boots, landing kicks to his ribs, his face. More Brunts gather around, so close I can smell them. Some of them begin fights of their own, and the others make way, like this is a common occurrence. Maybe this is why Dram is so quick to fight me. Maybe he’s had to survive every night down here like this.

  I’m just another
brawler to him.

  I reach into the tangle of cordon brush at the top of his spear, heedless of the thorns, and grasp the dead rat. I throw it as hard as I can over the heads of the Brunts. Dram roars and dives at me.

  I block his attack, my arms straining. “I’m trying to help you, you idiot!”

  Dram would normally win this fight. He’s taller, and heavy with muscle, despite weeks in the Overburden. But his senses are dulled from the venom, his reactions delayed. Which is good for me, considering that Weeks, the Brunt, apparently has no conscience.

  “You want to cry about cordon rats?” I snarl. “Well I have glenting termits hunting me down!” I yank my hair free from his grasp and roll to my feet. “The Tomb is unbearable for you, I know. I have to delve tunnels where moles can conjure stone around me! I watched one of them turn a person into a tree!” I land a kick, and cactus barbs crunch beneath my foot. A tail rips from his pocket, and I grab hold of it.

  “Give it back!” Dram roars.

  “No,” I answer, bobbing away. “This place is hell! But we were supposed to fight it together!”

  Dram lurches toward me with his spear. His spear! Barbed with cordon brush and gull feathers.

  “Dram!” I choke out his name—my heart is in my throat.

  He whips it toward my legs, and I leap over it.

  “Dram Berrends!” But this isn’t the boy who etched step in my steps into our bonding cuffs. This is Weeks.

  “That glass around your neck,” I shout. “You remember who it’s for?”

  He catches me in the arm with his spear, and I cry out. The venom spur falls from my grasp as I set my hand to the stinging gash. He drops his spear and snatches the rodent tail off the ground.

  Blood streams beneath my fingers, and I lift my hand to check the wound. Dram lurches at me. He yanks my hair back, baring my neck to the stale light. I barely recognize Dram’s voice, laughter rumbling past his sneering lips.

  “You want a taste of this poison, Brunt?” he asks, sliding the venom spike along my throat. “A prick, and you’ll escape this hell for a while.” He presses it harder, and I gasp as it nicks my skin. “Any deeper, and you’ll escape permanently.”