The Fire and the Free City

by Eric Wood

  Sam shook his head in frustration. His eyes found Abigail momentarily, and she felt a flash of nerves and immediately turned her attention to her own feet.

  “Why don’t you explain the intricacies of long versus short range combat to me, Roach,” Rend said, gesturing for her to walk ahead with him.

  “The what, of what combat?” Roach asked. With a tilt of Rend’s head, she seemed to read the meaning behind his request, and jogged over to him, leaving Abigail a few steps behind with an awkward looking Sam.

  Her first thought was to leave him there, but Rend’s words from earlier stopped her short. She’d fallen back into old habits, imagining the worst in people, and assuming without evidence that their every action was somehow taken at her expense. There was no real reason to think that Sam was taking her for granted, even obsessed as he seemed with first recovering that stupid data drive and now with helping this foreign city. If she really thought he cared so little about her, then she wouldn’t still care what he thought; he wouldn’t be worth it. Like Rend said, he was trying his best, in his own sheltered, idealistic way, to do the right thing.

  And it wasn’t like he wasn’t making efforts to reach out to her.

  Maybe what bothered her was that her survival was linked with his and she needed to trust him rather than remaining separate and alone. It was unfamiliar position for her, but not an entirely unwelcome one. She was part of a group now, strange as it might be. Despite her best efforts, she was settling into this city, despite her original misgivings and damnit, despite everything ahead of them, she felt happy.

  It had been her own fear, more than anything else, that made things so difficult. And she had control over that fear. She couldn’t force Sam to widen his perspective, but she could try and widen her own. She could let go of her fear.

  So she did. She let it all go. She met Sam’s eyes and she smiled.

  “Sounds like things went well with the Ravager,” she said.

  “Well, she’s not going to be worth much in providing sniper support anytime soon,” Sam said. “She’s still good at smashing things, which is worth something, I suppose.”

  “Things are probably going to be needing smashing in the days to come. That kind of thing never seems to go out of fashion.”

  Sam laughed, weakly. “No, no it does not. How did, um, things go with Rend?”

  “They are going,” she said. “He’s going to meditate on it, whatever that means.”

  “Right, right.” They walked for a while, in silence. Sam looked like he was trying to put something into words, and not having much luck. She wanted to say something to him, but she couldn’t think of the right words.

  Finally, he spoke. “I’m sorry, Abigail. For all of this. For…I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re doing your best,” she said, hoping it came across as sincere, and not as patronizing as she feared it might. “I know that. I’m with you.”

  He smiled, then looked back at the ground in front of him. “I never doubted that, I just wish I deserved it.”

  “I don’t know what we’re doing either,” she said. “But we’ll do it together, if that’s what you want.”

  “But is that what you want?” He asked.

  “I want…I don’t know what I want, Sam, but I want to do it with you.” She felt herself blushing. She felt weak, and for once she didn’t really care. She nudged her shoulder into him, met his eyes, and smiled.

  “That’s all I want, Abigail,” he said. “I just..”

  “Sam,” she said, cutting him off. “Just shut up and walk with me.”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  It was nearly fall now, and the evening air was cold. She knew that, but still, in that moment, she finally felt warm.

  Abigail sat again on the same roof she had ran off to on the first night they had arrived at Jacinta and Michelle’s farm. It was difficult to imagine, now, just how angry and lost she had felt that night, and that realization struck her like a Ravager’s right hook. How angry she had felt, how lost--how sad she had been—that wasn’t shocking. She had felt that way her whole life. No, what so stunned her tonight was that she had somehow let all that pain go.

  She felt like she was right where she was supposed to be. She knew she would see this through, that she would fight and even perhaps die to save this city. No, not to save this city. To save her friends. Even though there was nothing stopping Rend and Roach and even Sam from betraying her, from leaving her alone, she knew they wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t leave them. She was part of something, and that should have terrified her, but it did not. She almost smiled, thinking what Solomon would say if he could see her now. Almost.

  Movement below caught her eye. Approximately two hundred yards away, the watcher she had earlier identified exited the building they had been holed up within. She marked the time in the small notepad, below the other records she had been keeping these past nights, and she got to her feet. This particular watcher had arrived at the same time and left at the same time each evening like clockwork.

  Enough waiting around. It was time to see who this particularly studious watcher reported to each night.

  Sam had just flopped down on the couch, exhausted from a day’s worth of farm work, expecting to have his dreams haunted by visions of cauliflowers when the apartment door burst open. It was Abigail. For a change, she didn’t look upset to see him. If he didn’t know her better, he’d say she almost looked excited.

  “I’ve found our window,” she said. “I’ve found our way out of the city.”

  34

  Abigail was the last to take her seat at the table. She had just gotten done with her daily five-mile sprint and was barely beginning to sweat when she returned to the farmhouse. Sam had known better than to try and keep up with this part of her daily routine, and Roach had no interest in running if she wasn’t chasing something. Rend had offered to run with her, once.

  Rend fancied himself something of a long-distance runner, based on his previous Howler hunting experience. Sam wagered he wasn’t and bet a full week of chores if he was able to best Abigail. He lasted a little more than half a mile at Abigail’s pace before collapsing in exhaustion.

  Compared to the chill of the early-autumn air outside, the interior of the farmhouse, with its large central woodstove, was pleasingly warm and strangely comfortable. In the kitchen, Rend, Sam, and Roach were sitting at the large wood-slab table joking with each other while Michelle and Jacinta stood at the counter, finishing the last of the dinner preparations. Abigail stood just beyond the room’s threshold for a few moments, taking in the scene. The three younger ones were laughing and smiling, the married couple standing off to the side, shoulder-to-shoulder, leaning almost imperceptibly toward one another. Roach said something that elicited a surprised bark from Rend, followed by Sam lightly tossing a dinner roll at her. Jacinta looked back toward them and shook her head before returning to her cooking; Michelle wrapped an arm around her wife and then leaned in an gave her a kiss.

  Abigail almost didn’t want to disturb the group-everyone seemed so content, despite the danger ahead of them—and she worried that her presence would just ruin things. At that moment Roach caught her eye, followed by the rest of the group, and they beckoned her in to join them. Abigail did; after all, this was where she belonged.

  Sam’s eyes followed Abigail as she seemed to glide around the table and into the seat next to him. Her face was full of color, and her dark hair was slightly mussed from her run, and she was smiling. He was struck once again by just how beautiful she was. He reached over and took her hand, and she squeezed his hand back.

  Roach was finishing a story that she seemed to be making up on the fly about a duel between Sam and a feral dog that was both thoroughly unflattering and completely untrue when Jacinta and Michelle came over with the food. They set down a bowl of mutton stew and a huge loaf of freshly baked bread in the center of the table, then took their seats. The four of them looked on in silence, th
eir gazes alternating from Michelle to Jacinta and back again. The quiet was broken by someone’s stomach growling loudly.

  “Well, what are you kids waiting for,” Michelle asked. “Dig in already.”

  All at once, everyone went for the food.

  Sam watched as everyone filled their plates and bowls, and he tried not to worry that he and his plans might get everyone in this room killed before the week was out. Things were a lot easier, he thought, when he was on his own.

  Of course, he had never really been on his own, had he? First there was Vincente, and then Abigail, and now the rest of this group. Maybe things would all go south, and maybe he would make all the wrong decisions, but then again, maybe not. He reminded himself that everyone here had chosen to be here, or at least chosen to be together, and to face what was coming together. Sure, things would be simpler if he was on his own, but right now, he was certainly glad he was not. This might not be the people he expected to be with, but he was certainly happy that he was. And now that he thought of it, it had been his stomach that had been growling. He reached for the stew and filled his bowl.

  Roach tried to compare this meal to the last one she had eaten with her fellow Ravagers, and she found that she could not. It wasn’t that she couldn’t visualize the many differences –eating at a table, with dishes and silverware, for one—but that she could no longer remember the person she had been. She’d always been her, of course, but the her she was now was so different from the her she was that it felt like another life. Another group, another goal, another whole way of life—she would have never guessed that this was something she had, on some level, even at her most vicious, always wanted. A group that wasn’t constantly trying to establish status, establish dominance, over one another. A family that wasn’t looking for the first chance to backstab one another, often literally.

  A family. The thought brought a rueful bark of laughter to her lips. It was so sappy that if someone had described this to her back at Deacon’s camp, she probably would have looked for the closest heavy object to smash them with. But that’s what this felt like, sitting at a table with five other people that somehow not only didn’t want to kill her but didn’t even seem to dislike her. More surprising still, she didn’t want to kill any of them.

  A family: it was so ridiculous. But she didn’t hate it. Rend nudged her and pointed toward the bread; his mouth was too full of stew to ask for it with words. She laughed at him, and then she handed him the bread.

  No, she didn’t hate it at all.

  Rend took the loaf from Roach, pulled off a piece for himself, and then handed it back. Here, even with a roof over his head, he felt at home. It had felt like home for a while now, and these people felt nearly as much like his pack as the ones that he had lost. Rend liked to think that he knew himself well, and he knew that he’d always been able to accept people how they were. They would never be the family that raised him, but they were a family he could be content with, despite their many differences. Because, despite how they might each think about themselves, they were good people. And despite what they might think about each other, they were all trying.

  They had all been fighting their feelings and he knew that was natural. Even better, they all seemed to have let go of their many worries and demons, sensing how lucky they all were to be here, together. He took in the glow and the warmth and the company of his friends, and he felt content. And he knew that he wasn’t the only one. He knew the moment wouldn’t last, and there was certainly more fighting of all kinds ahead of them, but he knew they would face it together. He took in the glow and the warmth and the company of his friends, and he felt content. And he knew that he wasn’t the only one.

  The stew wasn’t bad, either.

  35

  It was barely mid-morning and Cheyenne's central market was already bustling. Hundreds of people, many wearing robes, heavy coats, and cowls in a kaleidoscope of color that seemed to be the common dress of the city's common folk. It was a dancing mass of shifting shades and hues, constantly moving in swirling, chaotic eddies of humanity.

  Sam walked alongside Rend as they weaved their way through the outer edges of the shoppers and sellers. Even more so than the storm of colored shawls and the mélange of smells — foods, spices, perfumes — the sounds of the market seemed to be its defining feature. The shouts of a dozen different merchants, the hum of a hundred different laughs, shouts, and conversations, and the discordant mix of at least three different musicians blended into a sort of heady stew of noise all around them. Even this far from the market's center Sam felt that the sheer scale of the chaotic activity threatened to overwhelm his senses. He kept his eyes peeled for Abigail and Roach, though it was difficult to pick out anything in the bustle of the market.

  Hopefully, their tails were having just as difficult a time as him.

  Bringing up the rear of their group, Sam focused on the four groups of watchers who were discreetly following their progress into the market crowds.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of one of the spies, a newsletter seller who was particularly uninterested in trying to move any of the bundled papers hooked underneath his arm. Sam looked away quickly, hoping the man hadn't noticed Sam's interest. No sooner had he turned his head than he saw another of the spies to their other side; a woman carrying a well-bundled baby that an astute observer would note hadn't moved in her arms once. He forced himself to look forward and tried to look natural, something much easier said than done when you know you're being watched.

  "Eyes forward," a terse and familiar voice said from just behind his shoulder. "Making eye contact with one of them is as good as waving hello."

  Abigail. She and Roach had fallen in beside him and Rend. She obviously had a much less difficult time picking him out of a crowd. A small smile formed on his lips, and he had to force himself to continue looking forward. He wasn't surprised that she was better than him at this. She was better at most things.

  He lifted a hand to itch his nose — and obscure his mouth, trying to look as casual as possible. "Time to move?" he asked, just loud enough for her to hear.

  "Not yet. They still think we're up to something. We need to convince them we're just out for a stroll."

  "I don't know, pretend to buy something," Abigail said.

  Ahead of him were three market stalls. The first offered a variety of spices sold by the scoop out of large canvas sacks. The second had an array of makeshift cooking pans, dented metal dishes, and crudely made ceramics set out on its counter. The third was selling a variety of simple, handmade jewelry.

  Sam stopped in front of this one, looked over the different offerings, and settled on a simple necklace, which he picked up and inspected. It was a single quartz crystal bound between two turquoise-colored beads, all strung on a thin black-leather cord. The milky white crystal of the quartz caught the sun and sparkled in his hands, casting off tiny glimmers of multicolored light as he turned it back and forth.

  "How much for this?" Sam asked the seller, an old, grizzled woman with weather-beaten skin who couldn't have weighed more than eighty pounds.

  "Four marks," she barked, not looking up from her single-sheet newsletter.

  "Two marks," Sam said. He had been told that market sellers expected you to barter, a prospect that both excited and frightened Sam. The only time he had ever seen negotiations like this were in Old World entertainments. Colony goods were the possession of the whole, and they were divided up by the Elders. Markets like this simply didn't exist where he had grown up.

  "Five marks," the merchant responded.

  "That's more than your first price," Sam said.

  "Fine, four marks."

  "Agreed, four marks." Sam pulled the roll of notes from his pocket and counted off four marks. He handed them to the merchant, who took them without looking up.

  "Pleasure doing business with you," she said. Sam sighed, took the necklace, and walked away.

  "I'm not sure you did that right," Rend
said. "I think the goal is to lower the price through negotiation."

  "Thank you, Rend," Sam said. Before the fear caught up with him, he turned to Abigail and held out the necklace. "This is for you," he said. "I thought it would...look nice on you."

  Abigail took the necklace, her face scrunched up in a mixture of surprise and fear. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but instead closed it and took the necklace without a word. She put it in her pocket and looked away, her eyes scanning the crowds.

  "How sweet," Roach said. She then mimed throwing up.

  "Alright, I think it’s time," Abigail said. "I hope all of you remember what you're supposed to do."

  "You just worry about you, miss Reaper," Roach said.

  The group stopped in the middle of a thick patch of crowd, opened the bags they had been carrying over their shoulders and got out their contents.

  Each of them had a set of three shawls, and each shawl was a different color. All four of them put on the shawls in the order they had planned: yellow on the inside, then brown, then a bright red on the outside.

  They sped up, walking fast and taking less care to avoid the people they passed. To the ones following them, not only would this catch their attention, but it would also make it nearly impossible to lose them in the crowd.

  Sam glanced right and saw that the suspicious newsletter salesmen had indeed taken notice and was discreetly but forcefully moving in their direction. A quick look the other direction showed him the other watcher was similarly moving toward them.

  He bumped into a tall man in a cowboy hat carrying a lumpy sack of potatoes. The impact knocked the man sideways, and Sam flashed out a hand to catch one of the falling vegetables before it hit the ground. He apologized to the irritated man and kept moving, picking out the next person to conspicuously run into. To his right and left, Rend, Abigail, and Roach were similarly bouncing off and apologizing to other members of the crowd. To the people watching them, the motion would hopefully look like the red hoods where being semi-randomly shuffled among the more drably colored heads in the scrum of the market.