Captives (43 page)

Mauser flicked his thumb at his forehead, as if he were snapping it into the brim of a ten-gallon hat. She winked and dug in her heels, nudging the horse east.

Not wanting to spill Fred, she was content to let the animals settle into a trot. She didn't spur the animals any faster until they cleared the corner of an office and the culvert came into sight. Only then did she break into a gallop, keeping close enough to the second animal to keep hold of Fred's collar.

"Barbarians!" she yelled, hoarsening her voice. "Barbarians to the west!" Eyes snapped to her. She charged in, slapping the other horse on the flank, sending it surging forward. Somehow, Fred's body stayed seated. "Fifteen of them at least. We have to cut them off! For the Sworn!"

Soldiers were shouting, throwing themselves into their saddles. As Fred's horse neared them, he slumped loose, dashing to the street. Mia turned awkwardly and headed back to the west. Before she angled from sight, she glanced back. A large group of men was headed after her. A smaller band had split north along the culvert. As the river disappeared behind her, the thunder of hooves followed.

Mia urged the horse to a full gallop. A rifle boomed from ahead. As she neared an intersection, it went off again. She cut north one block, then swung east and stopped. To her south, hooves romped past, chasing the source of the shots. Once they faded, she headed north again, meaning to intercept the river—and the other group of riders.

Behind her, guns continued to echo through the street. Not all of the reports were the same tone. Not a good sign for Mauser. She dodged around abandoned vehicles, taking to the sidewalk when necessary. Blocks ahead, something white flashed across the street. She urged her horse on. For now, it maintained a gallop. She reached the artificial river and followed its course northwest. They were now headed more or less straight toward the Heart, but the foothills remained miles away. Her horse began to flag. She swore and let it slow. If she pushed it too hard now, all would be lost.

She heard them before she saw them. And then there they were, six white-cloaked riders, already slowed to a trot. Mia raised her binoculars. The horse's motion jarred her field of view savagely, but among the uniformed knights, Raina stood out like a black pawn surrounded by white rooks.

Mia put away her binoculars just as one of the Sworn turned and noticed her. She was still dressed in one of their white cloaks, smeared with blood. The others slowed slightly yet maintained a brisk pace. Mia's heart rapped her ribs. She had the dead man's pistol, but to use it effectively, she'd have to get close enough that any of them might see through her threadbare disguise. And then there was the matter of aiming well enough, while riding a trotting horse, to take down six targets with however many bullets she had in her magazine—between ten and seventeen, probably—before any of them had the wherewithal to start shooting back.

If seeing Raymond's bones had taught her anything, it was how to separate hope from truth. This was as much as the world was going to offer her. She could recognize that and make a grab, or she could wait for more and watch slip away what little was there.

She pushed her abused horse to run just a little faster.

The riders were arranged two abreast. Raina was in the middle row, seated in front of a man who only had eyes for the hills. Mia eased her pistol from its holster and checked the safety. She closed to a hundred feet, fifty. She thought she might be able to trust her aim if she got within twenty.

A heavyset man in the back row twisted in the saddle. "You all right?"

"Fine," Mia said.

"You got blood
all
over you. Like on your face."

"It isn't mine."

The man laughed, but it dried up quickly, the corners of his mouth turning down. "What's your name?"

Riding ahead of the heavyset man, Raina turned, profiled. A smile cut across her face. The man riding behind her in the saddle turned for a look at what she was grinning at, craning his neck. Raina lunged at his throat and bit down.

The heavyset man shouted wordlessly. Mia leveled her pistol. The cantering horse bounced her hard; her first shot flew over the man's shoulder. The second struck him in the chest.

Raina pulled away with a mouthful of larynx. She spat it in its owner's gargling face. Hands tied behind her, she groped for his belt, homing in on the handle of a knife. As she flipped it out and went to work on her cords, Mia gunned down the other man in the back row and turned her weapon on the woman riding nearest to Raina. The woman was able to get out her pistol before Mia put two bullets in her and two more past her.

The two men in the front row peeled away, one right, one left. The one on the left put Raina between himself and Mia, unloading his gun in their direction. Raina's hands burst free of their bonds. She grabbed the man behind her by the hole in his throat and yanked him in front of her. Bullets hit his back with meaty thuds. Mia opened fire on the man curving to the right. He got off three rounds before Mia knocked him from the saddle.

Mia swerved right, opening up a line of fire between herself and the sole survivor. She steadied her aim and pulled the trigger. It clicked dryly. The man's pistol bucked in his hands. Something nipped Mia in the left arm. The man braced his wrist with his free hand, sighting down his barrel.

Something silver glinted in the afternoon light. The hilt of a knife appeared in the hollow of the man's throat. Raina shoved the corpse sharing her saddle to the ground and veered her mount toward the man she'd just knifed. He fired woozily, the bullet passing over Mia's head. She flung the pistol at him; it sailed short, racketing against the street. Raina ducked his next shot, then vaulted from her saddle like a leopard, ramming her shoulder into the man's middle. The gun popped from his grasp. He toppled and hit the ground with the back of his head. Bones snapped.

Raina stopped the horse and dropped to the street, breathing hard. She retrieved her swords from the back of the man whose throat she'd bitten, then gazed down the trail of dead they'd left behind them. "We should run."

Mia shed her white cape and ran west on foot. Raina matched her. She appeared unhurt. They raced past two blocks of malls and parking garages. The neighborhood shifted abruptly to bungalows packed in as tightly as pins on a microchip. Mia hadn't heard a shot since their battle by the river.

"Mauser came with you, didn't he?" Raina said, as if reading her thoughts. "Where is he now?"

"Don't know. That was him shooting earlier, before I caught up with you. We're supposed to rendezvous at the South Bay Galleria."

"That is a stupid place to rendezvous. It's practically home. His idea, wasn't it?"

Mia smiled and ran on. With a rough knowledge of the Stars' zones, she thought she'd be able to steer the two of them away from the scattered civilians, but there was no telling where they might be out wandering, who might be watching from a rooftop.

Hooves stomped down the street. Raina swerved into a yard and flung herself behind a porchside shrub. Mia packed in beside her. Five riders zipped past, guns in hand, cloaks flapping behind them.

"The mouse is only found when he moves," Raina said once they were gone. "We'll hide here until dark."

The inside of the house was thick with dust. They locked the door and moved to the back bedroom. Mia peeked through the venetian blinds. Not yet two o'clock. At least six hours until sundown.

"I don't know what brought you to my people," Raina said, cross-legged on the bed. "But we are lucky to have you."

"Futility brought me here. Chasing something I should have known was gone." Mia closed the brittle, dusty blinds. "But sometimes it's good to be stupid."

The wound on her arm was bleeding, but it was no more than a furrow through the skin. After bandaging it, she managed to nap on and off. Once the sun was no more than a distortion of pink on the horizon, they returned to the streets, alternately jogging and walking, keeping watch for a source of water. A mile into the trip, they found an avocado tree. As they picked through the fallen fruit littered around its base, a gunshot split the night, but it was distant and didn't go repeated.

Around midnight, the Galleria rose before them, its windows silver in the light of the full moon. Trash crusted its horseshoe-shaped promenade. In front of the second-story bowling alley, a silhouette appeared behind the railing. Mauser lifted a hand and waved.

He'd found water somewhere. It tasted metallic, but Mia drank greedily. They got on the road and headed south. On their way, Mauser filled them in on what had gone down after he and Mia separated. He'd climbed to the sixth floor of an office to fire down on the Sworn. They'd searched the building room by room; he'd managed to hide inside the chaise of a fold-out couch. After the Sword gave up and departed, he'd biked to the rendezvous as fast as he could.

Mia shifted her bow on her shoulders. "How did you know it was a trap, Raina?"

The girl smiled. "I smelled it."

"Come on," Mauser said. "Not even you can believe it's possible to smell a
trap
."

"I didn't smell a trap. I smelled aliens. And I knew."

"Hard to argue with results," Mia said. "And after?"

"After they took me, they tried to frighten me," Raina said. "They said they would kill me and then they would crush my tribe into dust. I've done all I can to stave off war, but there is no shelter. There is only one option left."

"We could always sail away," Mauser said. "Start somewhere new."

"No. A turned back makes the most inviting target."

"I didn't think so. But I wanted to get it out there, if only so I can say 'I told you so' in hell."

"We'll strike them before they can strike us." Raina turned to Mia. "You've been inside the Heart. Can you map it?"

"Not with any precision," Mia said. "But I can get you the rough strokes."

Raina smiled in the darkness. "Then the next stroke will be that of the knife."

They beat the dawn back to San Pedro. Sentries intercepted them, whooping when they saw that Raina had returned. Mia was exhausted, as were the two others, but they went straight to work, with Raina and Mauser hashing out strategy while Mia worked on a map. As soon as she finished, Raina bent over it, peering at it in the light of their candles.

Raina pointed to the ring around the entire reservoir. "This is a fence? What is it made of?"

"Wood. So are the buildings. I think they built most of it themselves."

"Wood," Raina laughed. "Why build out of that which burns best? Because it is easy? Then it is also easy to tear down."

Piece by piece, they built their plans. Runners tore across the Seat, passing orders among the warriors. As the sun climbed from the land, the three of them stood from the table, grinning at each other.

"I don't know what we're so happy about," Mauser said. "This is going to be as violent as a train crash."

"We are happy because we're like the trees," Raina said. "We've been given light. Now all we must do is grow toward it."

They went their separate ways. At her shack, Mia plunged into bed. The day felt as if it had been a thousand hours long. The events in the city felt like stories told to her by a friend she didn't entirely trust. Despite this distance between her and what she had done, she was proud of herself. She didn't feel so much like a tree given light. More like she'd been dropped into a dark sea years ago, and though it had done everything it could to drown her, she'd swum on, refusing to let her head slip below the surface. That morning at the park, her toes had finally touched bottom. The earth had returned beneath her feet.

Far too soon, the clanging of a church bell ripped her from sleep. She stumbled from her shack, blinking against the light and heat. Across the Seat, Henna raced down the hills.

"They are here!" she yelled. "The People of the Stars are upon us!"

The bell clanged on. Mia went inside the shack and took up arms. Outside, she ran to join those gathering in defense of San Pedro.

27

"Riders!" a man in the wagon called up to the carriage. "Riders behind us!"

Voices rang out from uphill and down. Ahead, Liss shouted at the carriage driver and the vehicle picked up speed. The wagon began to fall behind.

"This is fucked," Carrie said.

"Probably," Walt said. "Unless—"

"Halt!" a man yelled from below, his voice cutting across the bluster of hooves. "In the name of the People of the Stars!"

Inside the wagon, Liss' people drew their guns. Walt put his face to a gap in the wooden slats enclosing them. The riders were already within two hundred yards and closing. They weren't carrying lanterns and it was hard to get a reliable count, but he'd peg them around fifteen. Close to double his and Liss' numbers, then.

A shot roared from the back of the wagon and he flinched, bonking his forehead on the board. Muzzles flashed from the carriage. Below, a machine gun opened up, rattling across the night. Walt threw himself flat. Carrie fell beside him. Bullets whumped into the wagon, spraying splinters.

"They'll be on us in a minute," she said. "If we stay in this wagon, we're sitting ducks."

He bit his lip. In that moment, all that mattered was getting away with her. "Jump?"

"Definitely jump."

"I'll be right behind you."

At the back of the wagon, men slid rifles through the gaps in the boards, returning fire on their pursuit. As Carrie climbed up the side rails, Walt joined the defenders, spraying lasers at the riders down the road. The Stars fanned across the blacktop to make for harder targets but continued to gain on the two vehicles. The wagon was jolting horribly; the wild beams of Walt's laser were proving about as lethal as the ones at a Pink Floyd show.

The machine gun opened up again and Carrie pressed herself tight to the wall of the wagon. Intellectually, Walt knew the rider's aim would be as bad as his own, but it was hard to be intellectual about anything when you were getting blasted at with automatic weapons.

The machine gun went dry and the two sides returned to sniping at each other. Carrie climbed to the top of the wagon, swung over the side, and leapt to the shoulder of the road, rolling as she landed. As the wagon rattled away, she popped into a crouch and zipped behind a shrub. If Walt hadn't been looking right at her, he would never have noticed.