A towering man runs through the gate, an armless child on his shoulders, dark eyes intent on the burning gallows. Three bolts pelt into the man’s chest, flinging him backward off his feet, the child crashing to the ground behind him and squirming like a pale snake to the wall’s edge. Not twenty paces from me, he lies on his side, heaving, dark curls half hiding his drawn face, no hands to brush the blood running in his eyes. I see his hatred as if it flares from his skin in a red halo, his gaze reflecting the scarlet flames. Wherever he focuses his desperate eyes, soldiers explode into bright brands of fire, their voices rising above the clash of steel in a shrill scream of agony as their bodies burn.
“Priest,” I beg. “Can you stop him?”
“I won’t kill,” he replies with such moral agony I can’t ask again. He pushes himself up and stares at the boy who blinks wildly, squirming in fear. The fires cease as the child shuts his eyes. “He can’t see,” Priest whispers, so softly I’d miss the meaning if not for the way the boy’s body sinks to the stone. A woman sees him, runs toward him, a blade flashing in her fist.
“No!” Priest yells as she squats over the child, rams her blade into his throat and stabs him in the chest. The woman runs on into the fray, slashing until one of the People crushes her skull with a club. The child writhes, blood gouting, and then lies still, floating in a crimson pool.
Priest sags, his mouth slack, eyes closed in unconsciousness. He may not kill, but I’ll honor no such compunctions. I’ll build my own bone wall to save his life. I grip Rimma’s knife, my hands shaking, heart racing, a pale phantom ready to defend against a certain death. I’m unsure where I stand, except in front of him.
3
3
~Rimma~
The Fortress square feeds my eyes with visions of Hell, wraithlike smoke thick and drifting, throttling me until I bend over coughing. Where buildings burn it glows eerily red. The wall is a shadowy silhouette again a blazing sky. Men and women burst into screaming torches of flame, swirling and writhing a demon’s dance as they howl.
My back to the burning gallows, every twitch sends a river of pain coursing through my body. On one foot, I’ve no path into the thick of the fight, but I slash and stab, rip my blade through flesh, pound between bones whenever the enemy nears. I battle my pain, lose track of minutes. How much time has passed? Mere heartbeats since the gate fell?
I’m back at Heaven when the Biters first ran howling through our Garden, demanding we kneel as they murder and rape. I’m pulling my bow’s trigger in the shepherd’s yard, slaying a bound man, ambushing Biters in the ravine as they tend their stolen goats. Chantri kneels at the stream, washing her face as my arrow seeks first the Touched. I’m surrounding the families gathered at the bone wall of Sanctuary, slaying my sister’s father, my mother’s lover. Can I tell us apart, friend from foe, from myself? Could this be the war to end wars? Or, will it never end, our souls too broken, our vision too blind, will too weak, hearts flooded with cataclysmic fear?
On my knees, I awaken, disoriented, blood in my eyes. I scramble to my feet, realizing I’ve been hit, my head splitting, lightning in my eyes. I wipe my face with the back of my blade hand. Major Javlan grabs me by the arm, thrusting me stumbling behind him as a spiked cudgel rips apart his goateed face, jawbone flying with his teeth and blood across the battle. His body spins, face gaping open, smashed skull white against exposed flesh, staring at me with shocked eyes before he falls. I lunge forward into the Biter whose body torques for a backhand swing of his club. My ankle fails me, my body falling against him. I scream into his shoulder, stabbing his groin, his belly, ripping as he spins, roaring, flinging me aside as his guts spill over his trousers.
My knees hit hard, fingers pinched beneath my hilt as I stop my fall. Overhead a sword flies, striking a metal bar. The cries and grunts of battle, the clash and crack of steel, of wood, of bone assault my ears. No new fires spring to life in the smoke. I glance up, and seeing an opening, I struggle to my feet.
Not far to my right, Cullan fights, his clothing burned, hair singed and skin red with heat. He wields a sword, blocking and parrying the thrusts of two Biters who snarl as they advance. His blade scrapes across a sharp-tipped pipe, pressing it aside, but not far enough, the point catching on his clothes and preventing him from turning. The other Biter sees his opportunity, iron blade rising above his head to cleave the man in two. I scream a needless warning, but attract the Biter’s eyes as I lunge into him, driving my dagger up under his chin, back into this throat. The man grabs my head, bleeding into my hair, trying to twist my neck with a giant hand as he falls and crushes me beneath him.
Pain spasms through me. I can’t breathe, my breath pounded from my chest, the man’s weight suffocating, his neck bleeding into my nose and gasping mouth. I swallow or drown, sobbing and screaming. The body dragged off me, Cullan hauls me to my feet, but I can’t stand.
“You look like fucking hell,” he shouts at me, grabs my good arm and tries to drag me from the thick. We don’t get far before he lets go of me to draw his knife and stab a Biter backing into us. His sword swings in his right hand, parrying, long knife blade jabbing in his left as the fight sucks him back in like a ravenous beast still hungry for its fill. I can scarcely lift my dagger when I’m thrown to my face from behind, my cheek bouncing on the stone. I lay there too dead to fight. I surrender. I’d kneel to the Biters and pray to a forsaken God if I had the strength.
**
“Priest?” Cullan’s voice fingers aside the cobwebs in my head. “You need to be part of this.” The man sounds near, hovering over me.
“How is she?” Priest asks.
“I don’t know.” My sister’s voice, closer. A damp cloth presses to my cheek; cold water dribbles over my ear. She gently wipes my forehead. I know then that I’m alive, on my back on a hard floor. Familiar smells assault my nose, all overlaying the acrid scent of smoke: piss, shit, sweat, burnt flesh, and death. I hear no clash of battle, only the bitter, bloody aftermath of pain and tears.
“Stay with your sister,” Priest says.
My crusty eyes crack open as he shuffles to his feet. “No,” I murmur.
“Peace, Rimma.” Angel’s face appears over me, a vision, her gray eyes soft as summer clouds despite the sooty marks of tears on her cheeks and the dimness of the room we inhabit. “You need to rest. It’s over. There’s nothing left to battle.”
“No,” I argue. “It’s never over; it won’t be over until I’m dead.” My sister gazes up at Priest and Cullan as I roll feebly over and clutch at her arm, struggling to rise. Every inch of my body screams; my ankle throbs, my chest aches, arm stiff; my head pounds.
“Priest, let’s go,” Cullan urges as he steps gingerly along the narrow path between the wounded. He wears his singed clothes, but an arm of his shirt is missing, replaced by a bandage already stained with fresh blood, and he walks with a pronounced limp.
Priest shares a worried glance with my sister as he nods for us to follow. He staggers, barely able to stand himself, his clothes bloody and shoulder bound. I hobble after him, determined not to falter, ignoring the agony scouring my veins. Once outside, my sister holds my arm, and I’m grateful to lean on her. The fires smolder in the bloody twilight, continuing to exhale steady clouds of white smoke. The gallows are gone, a charred refuse of burned wood. The living drag the dead to carts where they’re loaded and hauled away for burning and burial along the bone wall.
“Who won?” I ask Angel, unable to tell.
“No one,” she whispers, and I suppose she’s right. “Captains Kalev and Markus folded their soldiers around the People in the outer city, pinning them. Major Gannon’s men surrounded their camp, holding their families hostage. They had no choice but surrender.”
“Where are they?” I ask.
“All herded south to their camp.”
I want to ask how many dead, of us, of them, all together, but it doesn’t really matter. That knowledge only leads to more questions, to more pain, and I haven’t the strength.
As we approach the stronghold, it slowly empties its contents of Forerunners: women and children, the old and ill, the skilled too valuable to waste on war. Some stand for a moment in the fading sunlight and stare at the plumes of smoke curling from the swath of blackened rubble. Others run frantically past us to seek loved ones among the living and dead. I suspect few will find their lives unchanged.
The march up the hill is almost more than I can bear, and the stronghold’s cool interior sends shudders down my spine. Though I linger in the shadows with my sister, my gaze roams the atrium. A twilit sky descends in long dusky rays through the glass wedges, bathing the floor six stories below in milky light. Torches flicker in darker corridors, and the balconies overlooking the central space waver on the edge of dimness. A dearth of light bears poor witness to the coming spectacle. Bodies line the rails on each level, faces angry and eager, voices rumbling like distant thunder.
Cullan sees Captain Khiry guzzling water in the foyer and calls him aside. “I want guards circulating on all floors, every bow confiscated. You have thirty minutes.” The captain nods and waves over a squad of men just entering the building.
When the soldiers move out with the captain, Priest slumps against the foyer wall, studying the commander. “What are your intentions here, Cullan?”
The man glances up from his thoughts. “To let you make your case if you can.”
“My case?” Priest’s dark eyes glimmer in the half-light. “Without limitation?”
Cullan nods. “Peace, unity, hope. A future beyond this insanity. I need your help to open eyes, to change laws. Convince them to give me time.”
“We just fought a war.” Priest lifts his gaze to the balconies. “I suspect many of them are thirsty for more blood.”
“You’ve got yourself an audience, though.” Cullan gestures with his head to a torch-lit corridor. “Gannon’s got a few leaders of the People stowed away. If nothing else, this is your chance to save their lives.”
“What about Rimma?” Priest asks with a glance at me.
“She murdered Mikel,” Cullan replies, his brow lined with impatience. “I can’t simply forgive that. It’s not in my power.”
“He would have murdered Priest!” My sister marches from my side to stand before the commander, her fists knotted, fearless in my defense.
“Our law allows it,” Cullan asserts, matching her angry tone. “His actions undermined the foundation of the Fortress, our mission.”
“Those were my actions, as well,” Angel argues, glaring at him. “Did he intend to hang me next? What about the infants murdered here? Who will hang for them?”
Her interrogation slams his mouth shut as he glowers at her, a filthy hand scratching through his singed hair. “Rimma can’t kill someone for what he might do.”
“Like Chantri?” she says. “Like all the Touched men, women, and children your men killed because of what they might do?” Cullan has no reply. They stare at each other until our time of waiting is up.
Major Gannon and a squad of soldiers appear in the corridor with three Biters, two men and a woman, hands bound behind their backs and leather hoods over their heads. Blisters shine on the officer’s face and his swollen nose looks recently smashed. We walk unsteadily into the atrium, down the steps to the sunken floor. “Kneel,” Gannon barks, and the Biters sink to their knees. The spectators on the balconies shout curses and howl their vitriol. A rock the size of a fist strikes the floor by one of the prisoner’s knees with an ear-splitting clap and bounces against the stonework wall where I lean, too tired and hurting to bear my own weight. Beside me, Angel yelps.
“Attention!” Cullan roars and the soldiers stiffen. “The next one who drops something off the balcony will find himself taking the short way down to pick it up. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” the atrium echoes.
His voice low enough to escape the hearing of those above us, Cullan leans toward Priest. “Are any of them Touched?”
“One is a light-bender,” Priest replies.
“With your powers?”
“I’m more than a light-bender. Your captives aren’t dangerous. If they disappear, I can reveal them.” Priest raises his eyes from the prisoners to address both officers. “Few of us have the power to manipulate heat. You’ve killed most of the Touched for nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Gannon hisses, his eyes narrowed.
“Enough.” Cullan raises a hand in warning. “Unbind them and remove their hoods.”
“I protest, Commander,” Gannon challenges. “Sir.”
With a nod of acknowledgment, Cullan concedes, “If they try to run, Major, certainly you’re within your rights to slay them.” He gestures to the guards who yank off the hoods and untwist the wires pinching the captives’ wrists. I recognize none of them, but know immediately which one is the light-bender. Her forehead bulges slightly forward over unnaturally wide-set eyes. She glances at all of us in the little well of light, but her eyes shift back and forth between Angel and me.
The men express less interest. The larger of the two, his graying hair bound in a long tail, stares straight ahead. What I see of his body beneath the grimy clothes is dark with purpling bruises, and pink spit leaks from between swollen lips. The younger and leaner man looks down, blood dripping to the floor in a steady beat from his torn eyebrow. Tucked behind an ear, his black hair shines with oil, and I’m reminded of Rune. My eyes water, and I press my lips between my teeth, afraid I’ll sob as a tear slides unwanted to the corner of my mouth. The Biter studies me, his eyes as summer-blue as Mikel’s. My face twists, a flood of pain belching up into my throat. Priest glances at me as Angel grasps my hand.