“Aster, where did it get you?” Tansy asked urgently.
“My left leg,” she said through her teeth.
“Are you losing much blood?”
“No—I don’t know—I can’t tell. It’s going numb.”
“You’re going to be all right,” Mallow said, her gun cracking as she opened it and reloaded it with iron shot. “I survived these bastards, and so will you.”
By now Eli had managed to fumble the matches out of his pocket. He set it to the kindling, guarding the little flame desperately as he tried to breathe life into it. Weak, thready light flickered up around them, casting exaggerated shadows over their frightened faces.
“By the Veil, they’re coming back,” Aster said sickly. She couldn’t see the dead, but she could hear them gathering their strength, could feel the wind licking at her skin as they circled once again.
“It’s all right, the fire’s almost ready—”
Eli was suddenly thrown against the side of the tunnel, tackled by a screeching vengeant. He let out a grunt of pain as he slid to the ground, and again as the vengeant’s claws raked his chest, sending up a flash of unearthly sparks as they met iron. Tansy shrieked. Aster took a lurching step towards him.
“NO!” he gasped, his face concentrated in anguish as the vengeant attacked him again. “The fire—don’t let them put it out again—”
Tansy hesitated, then dashed to the fire, feeding it with more wood and grayleaf until it burned so brightly that Aster had to squint. Mallow ran up beside her, firing with her shotgun just above Eli until the terrible force pinning him to the ground finally fled. The other vengeants were retreating now, too, their wails growing fainter and fainter as they were repelled by the stench of the grayleaf. Aster finally let herself fall to the ground beside the campfire, stretching her injured leg out before her and clutching her calf. Tansy and Mallow ran over to Eli and helped him over next to her. Not a moment after they dragged him away from the side of the tunnel, the wall fell in with a sound like thunder. Aster’s heart jumped and she feared a collapse of the whole tunnel, but after a breathless moment, the earth seemed to settle.
“Ripping hell!” Mallow swore. “What was that about?”
Eli winced, his breathing labored. “All our shooting must’ve disturbed the tunnel. We’re lucky it was only a partial collapse.”
“Save your breath,” Tansy ordered, concern wrinkling her brow. “Mal, can you fetch the med kit? I saw it in one of the crates over there.”
As Mallow hurried off, Aster wincingly removed her mud-caked boots and rolled up the left leg of her waders and denims. The cuts on her calf were long but shallow, the blood already congealing on her skin. There was still a deathly cold to the injury, though, as if she’d been frostbitten.
“Aster, I’ll be with you in just a second,” Tansy promised, sounding harried.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m fine,” Aster said with a groan. Eli was the one who’d been attacked head-on. If it hadn’t been for Tansy and Mallow’s quick acting …
Aster didn’t want to think about that. Instead she used her canteen to pour water over her wound and wash it clean. She watched Tansy work from the corner of her eye. Tansy was removing Eli’s coat and shirt so she could tend to the injury underneath, his thickset chest striped with the same ragged cuts that tore down Aster’s leg—but his looked deeper, the blood almost black in the half shadows of the firelight. Aster looked away immediately, queasy and, absurdly, ashamed. She felt as she had when Eli had been helping to outfit her, as if she’d crossed some line of intimacy by seeing him like this. To Tansy, an undressed man was just a body to be tended to. But to Aster, there could be nothing so innocent about it.
“Here, let me help,” Mallow muttered, crouching next to Aster with bandages in hand. “I’m not so useless that I can’t take care of this wound for you.”
“Thanks, Mal,” Aster said weakly. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Well, where the hell else do you think I’d be?”
Mallow finished cleaning the wound, rubbed it with whiskey, and wrapped it with clean white cloth. The dressing of the wound almost hurt as much as the wound itself. Aster wriggled the whole time like a fish on a line. The pain finally subsided, but the chill remained. Meanwhile, Tansy stitched up Eli, who set his jaw against the pain but never said a word. What a fine pair they made, she thought grimly, neither of them willing to admit just how hurt they were.
Finally Tansy finished, helping Eli sit up.
“Thank you,” he murmured, looking at Aster to see if she was okay. His dark eyes shone with apology. “I’m sorry I got you all into this.”
“More like we got you into this,” Mallow said with a snort. “Don’t worry, we’ve been through worse, and I reckon you have, too.”
Eli let out a thin chuckle. “Well, we should try to get some sleep now all the same. Tomorrow’s hard going, too.” There were audible groans all around, and Eli turned his cautious smile to Aster. “So … um … how do we want to split up in the tents?”
Uneasiness crept back up Aster’s neck in a flush of heat. From any other boy, she would have interpreted this as an unwelcome proposition. But she could see the childlike fear behind Eli’s forced indifference. He was distraught by what had happened, terrified to be alone down here. Perhaps there was even some part of him that thought he’d gotten what he deserved, being savaged by the hungry ghosts of people he felt like he’d failed. He would want to talk about these things with someone he hoped would understand, take comfort in the nearness of a living person who cared about him. Aster wanted to give him this. She wanted to be able to rest next to a man without her chest seizing up or her mind shattering like fragile glass. She hated being this way.
And yet, still, she put on her own fake smile and said, “I reckon I’ll bunk in with Tansy and Mallow. They’re used to my snoring by now.”
Eli’s eyes dropped, but he swallowed and nodded.
“Of course,” he said roughly. “I’ll take the first watch.”
* * *
They reached Camp Deathstalker early the next afternoon, washing up like mud-covered earthworms after a rain. Aster was able to walk well enough on her injured leg, though it caused her much discomfort, but Eli was much worse off, having to stop every few minutes to catch his breath. He didn’t talk much to Aster, though whether that was because he was feeling awkward around her after she’d avoided him last night or because he simply didn’t have the energy, Aster couldn’t tell.
Sam had sent them with a letter explaining their business, and it was this that they showed to the guards to be taken to see Sidney Miller, the captain of Camp Deathstalker. Unlike Camp Red Claw, this was built more like the Lady Ghosts’ headquarters—since there was no natural cavern in which to build an underground city, Deathstalker was made up of several large rooms branching off from a main corridor lit with mining lanterns. But, much like Camp Red Claw, it was clear that this place was overcrowded with hotfoots being shepherded towards Ferron. People slept fitfully in hallways under threadbare blankets. The sound of ragged coughing echoed down the passageways, and the smell of sweat and unwashed skin hung thick and heavy in the air.
What must they have been through to get here? Aster wondered, still rattled from her own journey through the tunnels. And how much farther do they have to go?
At last they reached the end of the main corridor.
“Sid’ll be in there,” their guard said, nodding at the unlabeled door that stood before them. “That’s his office—and he don’t much care for unexpected guests, I’ll warn you.”
“Well, I don’t much care about his feelings on the matter,” Aster muttered. They’d come too far to be denied now. The guard shrugged and left them to it. Aster exhaled, raised her fist, and knocked on the door.
Sidney answered almost immediately.
He was taller than Sam Daniels, and he looked older, too, with rosy brown skin, black hair shaved close to the skull, and a sharp, narrow face
. Her wore a bright red stripe of paint across his dark eyes, but otherwise was simply dressed. While Sam was fastidiously formal, wearing fine clothes even when he got his hands dirty, Sidney wore the grubby work clothes of a man who had no patience for pretense. He considered the four of them, his gaze lingering on Aster’s, Tansy’s, and Mallow’s favors.
“And just who the hell are you,” he said, with a voice that slid over its words like gravel.
Aster exchanged a glance with Eli, who hesitated and handed him Sam’s letter. Sidney muttered an indecipherable curse as he snatched the half-folded piece of paper, opened it, and scanned its first few lines.
“Come in,” he said with a heavy sigh, motioning for them to follow him as he walked behind his desk and took a seat. Behind him hung the flag of the Nine, a black wheel with nine spokes against a sky-blue field. And on the desk’s surface, along with a mess of ledgers, calendars, and newspapers, was a real-life deathstalker scorpion in a jar. Mallow leaned forward to tap the glass, eyes wide, but Tansy stopped her.
“So,” Sidney said, looking up at them. “You want our voltric weapons, is that it? Think I’ll just hand them over because you asked nicely?”
Aster curled her lip, already tired of his dismissive attitude. They’d been through hell to get here. She opened her mouth to speak, but Eli touched her wrist gently.
“Those weapons belong to all of us,” he said in a low voice.
“They belong to the Scorpions,” Sidney corrected him. “I won’t have you leaving our own people defenseless for the sake of this—this farce,” he said, tossing the letter away.
Aster was not doing this again. “This isn’t a farce,” she snapped. “These are my friends’ lives we’re talking about. These girls—”
Sidney held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there, because I promise you I’ve heard this all before. The rousing speech, the call to action. I have been on the front lines of a revolution, and I watched it crumble. I thank the dead every day for the cooler tempers that kept me from throwing my life away for a lost cause. I’ll be that person for you.”
If there was one thing Aster could not abide, it was being talked down to. She let out a hissing breath through her teeth, lacing her fingers behind her head and staring up at the low ceiling as she tried to swallow back her anger.
“Hold up—you say you’ve been on the front lines of a revolution before,” Mallow said, stepping forward. She gestured at the flag behind the desk. “You’re talking about the War for the Nations, right? Cutter told us you were in the fighting.”
Sidney narrowed his eyes. “What of it?”
“I’m a descendant of the Nine, too, on my dad’s side,” Mallow continued.
Sidney glanced up at her headband, seeming to hesitate, but then he crossed his arms. “And why should that make a difference to me? That doesn’t make us kin,” he said. “Look, everyone’s ancestors intermarried. Most Arkettans have blood of the Nine running through their veins. But this obsession with ‘blood,’ it’s old Empire rot. The rich use it as an excuse to say they have a right to the lands they’ve stolen. To speak for us, over us. That logic won’t work here. Your countrymen aren’t the ones you share blood with, they’re the ones you share tradition with.”
“Well, I’ve been learning the traditions,” Mallow insisted. “Or trying to, at least. It’s not my dad’s fault he couldn’t teach me, or my grandparents’ fault they couldn’t teach him. Not all of us grew up in rebels’ camps.”
Sidney’s face flickered with regret, and he sat up straight, his gaze sliding away from Mallow’s. “My apologies, sister, for assuming. It’s rare I meet anyone who makes that argument in good faith. But I’m afraid it doesn’t change anything—in fact, I feel that much more responsible for keeping you all safe.”
Aster, Eli, and Mallow looked at Tansy. It was her turn. She sighed, taking a seat on the edge of the desk.
“Well, I don’t know anything about this war, so would you be willing to tell me more about it? What happened that made you so reluctant to fight again?” she asked.
“What happened?” Sidney laughed humorlessly. “What didn’t happen? You all are too young to remember, clearly, but for a full year there were bloody battles erupting all over the Scab, rebels of the Nine trying to seize forts from the Arkettan army. This is occupied land, all of it, and we wanted to attack those occupying forces directly. But there simply were not enough of us to see it through. For every fort we seized—and we seized many—the others sent reinforcements to drive us back out. Finally, we felt we had no choice but to surrender, and we invited the commanding officer of the operation to our base camp to negotiate. We turned over our weapons, signed the treaty … and then he and his troops opened fire. On our unarmed men, on their wives, on their children—” Sid stopped short, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard. He took a steadying breath before he continued. “Most of our soldiers were killed in the massacre, and those of us who survived ended up scattered all across the country. My cousin escaped to Ferron, and he’s the one who smuggles us voltric weapons, when he can. I consider myself fortunate to have landed here, where I can still do some good. But it’s with open eyes. I know now that the enemy does not play fair.”
Aster felt her anger drain away, leaving behind the sickening kind of sympathy that can only be shared between those who have suffered the unimaginable. Her hands had balled up into fists at her side, but they now relaxed. “I’m so sorry. I … I never knew about any of that,” she said quietly.
“Well, it’s not a part of history they like to teach. Wouldn’t want to give anyone any ideas,” Sidney said with a heavy sigh. He stood, smoothing his shirt as if it weren’t already wrinkled beyond salvation. “Anyway, to further prevent a revolt like ours from ever happening again, the government started their military recruiting program after the war, offering young dustbloods forgiveness of their debts if they joined up. So now they have more soldiers among their ranks than ever before … some of them even children of the Nine themselves. If we couldn’t beat them then, you certainly can’t beat them now.”
“But Sidney—Mr. Miller—” Aster said quickly, standing in his way so he couldn’t leave. “We’re not trying to go up against the army. We’re going up against the landmasters. This is an entirely different fight—one we can win.”
“No, it’s the same fight, and if you can’t see that, then you’re not ready for it.”
Aster stood her ground. He had felt the same passion she did now, once. “Those guns deserve to be put to good use again. Please. If nothing else, consider the shine we’re offering for them. From the looks of things around here, you could use it.”
Sidney scowled. He crossed his arms again.
“‘From the looks of things around here’? Do you really think it helps your case to insult the people under my care?”
“Not the people. The conditions they’re living in. And I don’t blame you for that. Camp Red Claw’s suffering, too—hell, the whole damn Scab is suffering—but don’t you have a responsibility to try to make things better for them? What do your people need more: those guns, or food and blankets?”
His mouth twitched, but he said nothing.
“And you saw the part about the theomite we’ll be collecting on this job?” Eli added, stepping to Aster’s side. “We’re about to make travel between camps much safer. It’ll be worth it for that alone.”
Sidney fixed his gaze on Eli.
“Cutter told you that, too, did he?” Sidney asked.
“He didn’t have to,” Eli answered. “But, yeah, he’s the one who’s been escorting most of the hotfoots underground. And personally, I’d feel much better about it if he had some theomite in his pocket.”
Sidney closed his eyes for patience. “That boy would love nothing more than to fight and die for the central tribe. I finally manage to convince him not to, and now he throws himself into the tunnels instead? I swear he is determined to see what’s beyond the Veil. Is it too much to ask for all y
ou youngbloods to just … sit still…”
“It might be,” Mallow said, with no trace of her usual humor. “Please, Mr. Miller. I can understand if you’re ready to lay down your weapons, but some of us haven’t even had the chance to fight for our people. Some of us didn’t even know we had people, not until we met them. And we—I—deserve to decide for myself when I’m done fighting for us.”
Sidney was quiet for a long time. Then, at last, he opened his eyes and nodded once.
“Very well, then,” he said softly. “I’ll take you to the armory.”
16
The return trip to Red Claw proved even more arduous. Aster’s injured leg was still tender and forced a limp, while Eli still struggled to breathe with his ravaged chest. They were also now dragging several crates of voltric weapons along with them—long guns, handguns, and even something called a crank cannon. It was no small effort to pull the wheeled crates along the uneven ground, and whenever the passage grew too small, Eli had to dig out more space for them. Sidney had at least sent them with a small pouch of theomite dust, on the promise that they were stealing more soon, so they were able to keep the vengeants away. Still—it ended up taking them three and a half days to get back. Aster was glad now she had told Violet to wait a week before staging the attack on the gambling hall. She would need an extra day to recover, physically and mentally.
Aster retreated to her cabin for the next twenty-four hours as the bloody scratches on her calf healed to a muddy crust. The others came to visit to congratulate her on the successful supply run and to share their excitement for the job ahead. Robbing a gambling hall was challenge enough, but “kidnapping” Derrick in the process—it would take all their skill. Raven went over her sketch of the building with Aster so they could discuss exit strategies. Tansy helped her stretch and strengthen her injured leg to speed its recovery. Mallow updated her on the progress being made with the new voltric weapons. And Clementine and Zee kept her steadfast company, the three of them doing their best to keep themselves—and Zee’s young sister—in good spirits. The little girl was still shy around strangers, but she seemed to have made herself at home here in their cabin, playing make-believe with the little dolls Raven had crafted for her out of hay and twine.
The Sisters of Reckoning Page 16