Those are valuable lessons to remember now. I might be walking with an axe against my neck, but I’m not going to fall to my knees and make it easy to take me down. To take any of us down.
The faint outline of a plan is taking shape in my head as the sun melts across the western tree line, and I start looking for a place to make camp. We’re still a day’s journey from Lankenshire. The path we’ve followed along the river is narrow, but fairly defined—worn down by regular trade missions or courier visits.
Drake walks beside me. “What’s the plan?” he asks.
I know he means the plan for making camp, but I have another answer for him. I’m not used to talking through my plans with anyone except Rachel. But in the aftermath of Sylph’s death, Rachel is a pale, silent shadow of herself, and while I’m not exactly sure how to fix it, I’m positive discussing worst case scenarios with her isn’t the answer.
“I need solutions to our problems.” The ground begins to rise, and ahead of us the path disappears down the other side of the hill we’re climbing. “To do that, I need to see every problem clearly.”
“Finding a permanent shelter, whether it’s with Lankenshire or somewhere else, seems like it should be a priority,” he says, huffing a little as the incline strains our legs. Behind us, the rest of the survivors climb in weary silence. Only the creak and groan of the wagon wheels and the faint shuffle of boots against the forest floor gives away their presence.
Even though Drake and I are at least ten yards ahead of the rest, I pitch my voice low. “Yes, that’s a priority. But the real reason we need shelter so badly is because we have human threats after us. Remove the threats, and finding a place to live isn’t as urgent.”
A crisp breeze tangles in the leaves above us, and Drake pulls his cloak close. “How’re you planning on removing the threats?”
“I’m nearly finished designing a piece of tech that will wipe out the Commander. If I take him out of the equation, the army will stop chasing us. The more immediate problem is that we still don’t know which one of us poisoned our people, and we have no idea how or when he’ll strike again.”
“We’ve checked everyone’s wristmarks and searched through every scrap of personal belongings. We didn’t find any evidence linking anyone in camp to Rowansmark.”
“I know.” My fingers skim the rough skin of a branch as I push it out of my way. “But someone who is skilled enough to kill like a professional isn’t going to be stupid enough to leave obvious clues lying around for us to find.”
Drake skirts a half-submerged rock. “Willow could question everyone. One at a time. I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t take her long to figure out every single secret any of us have to hide.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going to torture one hundred thirty-two innocent people on the slim hope that I can catch one man. Or woman. Whichever. Besides, even though I know Willow would be willing to interrogate everyone, what would that cost her?”
“So what will you do?”
“I’ll give the killer what he wants.” My voice is as hard as the stone peeking out of the ground beneath our feet. “I’ll publicly offer to exchange the device for his promise to leave the rest of us alone.”
Drake tugs on his beard. “If you do that and then don’t keep your word, more of us will die.”
“Oh, I’ll keep my word. I’ll give him the device. And I’ll make sure that the instant he takes it from me, he’s dead.”
“How will you manage that? He’ll be expecting a trap.”
“Then I’ll have to make sure to devise something that takes him completely by surprise.”
We reach the crest of the hill and stop.
Far in the distance, the white-gray stone of Lankenshire gleams in the fiery light of the setting sun. We’ve nearly made it. One more night of making camp. Building a perimeter. Watching for threats both without and within. One more night and then hopefully I can convince Lankenshire to help us.
Being so close to my goal lifts a bit of the pressure from my chest. I stare at the distant city-state and take a deep breath. Just one more day and I can deliver on my promise to get us to Lankenshire. I’m afraid to let the relief creep in yet, but it hovers at the edge of my mind, offering a small sense of peace.
Behind us, people shuffle to a stop. Some of them approach the top of the hill and gape at the sight of Lankenshire perched in the distance like a beacon of salvation.
“One more night,” I say, raising my voice so that those around me can hear. “We’ll arrive at Lankenshire tomorrow. Tonight, we’ll camp there.” I gesture to my left.
The patch of land I’m pointing to is twice the size of the meadow we camped in before. Once upon a time, it may have been a farm or a dairy. Now it’s a huge expanse of high grass and collapsing barns. It gives us enough space to establish a perimeter so that we’ll see any threats from the forest long before they reach us. I have no doubt that the Commander worked quickly to find another way across the river. At some point, he’ll catch up to us again. I just pray it isn’t tonight.
We follow the path down the side of the hill and then branch out toward the field. The wagons bounce roughly over the uneven ground, and we have to slow to a crawl to accommodate them.
Once we reach the grassland, I give the order to set up camp with the wagons and the weakest among us in the center, and the others arranged in circles around them until our strongest and most capable surround the camp, armed and watchful.
Then, because twilight is still nothing more than a smudge of gray in the early evening sky, I allow for a cooking fire to be lit so that Nola and Jodi can roast the pigs and rabbits Frankie and Willow caught during the day’s walk.
Frankie is a different man in the wake of Thom’s death. Subdued, introspective, and allied with Willow—something I would’ve sworn to be impossible two weeks ago. Having all of my inner circle at peace with one another eases the weight I carry, but I’d trade it all for Thom’s life in a heartbeat.
I pace through the camp while food is passed from person to person and conversations slowly flutter to life around me. Eloise sits with her back against a wagon wheel and eats with one hand pressed firmly against her bulging stomach. One of the older women who also rides in the wagon during the day sits next to her, talking softly and occasionally reaching out to pat Eloise’s belly.
I’m glad Eloise has a friend. She looked like a lost little bird even before receiving the news that her husband had died in the Wasteland. I’m also glad I chose to tell her nothing more than that he’d died trying to bring the device back to the Commander, and that Rachel finished the job for him. It’s the truth, if you take out the fact that Melkin tried to kill Rachel to get the device, and she took his life instead. And I did remove those facts. Because her husband died trying to save her life. Even if his methods were questionable, his love wasn’t, and she should be able to cling to that. Plus, Rachel doesn’t need Eloise to haunt her during the day the way Melkin does at night.
Moving on, I pass Adam kicking dirt onto the cooking fire to douse the flames for Nola and Jodi. The anger he harbors still simmers just beneath the surface, but he seems to have accepted my leadership now and is trying to make the best of it.
Or he’s learned how to lie, and I should keep a closer eye on him.
The people clustered throughout the field have become as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I can’t remember all of their names yet, but I know their faces. I know which ones will leap to lend a hand without being asked, and which ones will barely wait for my eyes to open in the morning before they bring questions and complaints my way. I know which ones are still in shock over losing their loved ones and their home. Which ones are angry at the Commander, the killer, or both. Which ones are angry at me. The sound of their voices, the shape of their thoughts, and the increasing trust they throw at my feet have become the fabric of my days.
So when I walk through the camp, nodding to this girl or clapping a hand on the shoulder of that ma
n, I’m doing more than making my way toward the guard post I assigned to myself and Rachel. I’m looking in their eyes. Letting them look in mine. Reassuring them that I know them, I see them, and that they matter.
I’m more than halfway between the center of camp and the outskirts when something tingles across the back of my neck. A sense that something I just saw is somehow . . . wrong.
Trying to make it look like I’m simply acknowledging another greeting called out to me, I turn and slowly scan the area I just crossed.
Eloise and her friend still sit against the wagon wheel.
Adam has joined Nola and Jodi for dinner.
A scattering of children play tag around clusters of seated adults.
Jeremiah and a few of the older men sit in a tight circle, heads together, playing checkers.
Behind them, close to the edge of the field, a man with black hair and olive skin stands beside the far corner of the aging barn, watching the camp.
He isn’t one of ours.
My hand is already reaching for my sword when the man meets my eyes for half a second before turning and slipping into the woods.
He’s wearing the uniform of a Rowansmark tracker.
Chapter Forty-Two
RACHEL
“Stop!” Logan yells, and runs toward the southern tree line.
“Logan?” Frankie asks, already running toward him even before he knows what’s wrong.
“Rowansmark tracker!” Logan tosses the words over his shoulder as he plunges into the forest.
I leap up to follow them when the concussive boom of an explosion tears across the field. Before I can turn to see what happened, another boom sends me to my knees. The explosions sound like thick rocks being torn apart. I skid forward on my palms, and a sheet of yellow-white flame blazes to life from the ground three yards to my left.
One second, there was nothing but grass and a flat, white stone I nearly tripped over when I took my place at the guard station assigned to me. The next second, the force of the explosion knocks me to the ground as a wave of voracious heat rolls through the air, sucking out the oxygen and leaving the exposed skin on my face and neck feeling crisp and tender.
Dense, white smoke pours out of the flames, and I cough in harsh, hacking sobs as I crawl toward the next guard post. Behind me, another explosion rocks the field, and another sheet of pale flame leaps for the sky.
People scream. Run toward the wagons or toward the forest. Fall down and crawl while others run past them.
It’s chaos. And chaos kills.
I struggle to my feet as another explosion rips through the air, this one closer to the tree line. Those running toward the forest skid to a halt and look around wildly for another plan. Before they can move, another piece of the ground bursts into flames, right beneath the feet of an older man I recognize as one who’d taken to sitting by Jeremiah every evening to play checkers.
He screams, a long, high wail of agony that tapers off into silence as his body twists away from the fire and falls to the grass in a smoldering heap.
A woman next to him leans over and vomits while another man grabs her around the waist and pulls her away.
I rush toward Drake, who stands ten yards from me at the next guard station. Another small slab of white rock, about the size of a loaf of bread, is hidden in the long grass. It catches my foot, and I fly into the air before slamming down onto the ground a yard from the stone.
The fall saves my life.
Behind me, the slab of stone sizzles for a second and then bursts into flame with a terrifying explosion of sound and heat. I press my face into the grass and start crawling as a thick cloud of white smoke pours from the fire. The smoke is bitter and leaves an acrid taste in my mouth.
Someone snatches the back of my cloak and drags me forward. My eyes are streaming as I look at Logan’s furious expression.
“He did this,” he says, and I know he means the man he chased into the woods. “We have to get everyone away from the fires.”
“It’s the stones.” My voice is hoarse from the smoke, and I cough until I taste blood.
Another explosion. Another sheet of flames. This time to the south of us, putting another obstacle between our people and the trees. The fire licks at the grass and begins to spread.
“What stones?” he asks as he hauls me upright and looks around to assess the situation.
“The white stones. I just tripped over one, and a few seconds later, it exploded.”
Logan frowns and stares at the collection of fires burning with brilliant white-gold flames. “Light flames. Tremendous heat. Thick smoke that smells like . . .” He sniffs the air.
“Garlic,” I say, because the taste is scorched onto the back of my tongue.
He locks eyes with me. “It’s white phosphorous. We have to get everyone off this field now.”
“White phosphorous?” I jog at his side as he hurries toward Drake, who is busy shouting instructions and rallying people to him.
“Made by chemically altering phosphorous. Spontaneously combusts when it comes in contact with oxygen. He must’ve coated the phosphorous with something that would eventually let the oxygen through. Don’t get burned, whatever you do. The phosphorous keeps burning you until either you starve the wound of oxygen or you die.”
We reach Drake. Behind him, a thick white stone rests on the grass.
“Get back!” Logan shoves Drake away from the stone as it sizzles and then explodes.
By this point, no fewer than ten fires burn. The thick, noxious white smoke billows out, forming an impenetrable haze, and lines of flame snake away from their source like veins of brilliant gold spreading across the field.
Logan begins yelling instructions to Drake, Frankie, Ian, Willow, and Quinn. He wants Drake to recruit five others and drive the wagons back to the path we took to get to the field. Anyone close to the wagons can ride inside as long as no white stones lie in wait beneath the wheels, ready to turn the last of our resources into ash. The rest of us are to take quadrants of the field, shepherd the people there past any phosphorous, and meet at the path as well.
Controlling over one hundred panicked people isn’t going to be easy. I scan my quadrant, which stretches from the western edge of the forest to where I stand now. People race away from the tree line, which is almost completely obscured by smoke. Some rush toward the wagons. Others flee back toward the path we took to get here. They can’t go south or west because the fires burning along those edges completely cut us off.
Another stone comes to life, this time to the east, like another link in a bracelet of fire. Another board in a white-gold fence.
A fence.
“Logan, look!” I grab his arm before he can leave my side and point at the semicircle of fire. “We’re being fenced in.”
He swears, and yells to those closest to him, “Go north!” He points. “We’ll regroup a hundred yards up the path.” Then he looks at me. “I have to go redirect Drake and make sure the others know where to go.”
What he’s really saying is that he has to leave me alone and doesn’t want to do it. I don’t want to see him face danger without me by his side, either, but we don’t have a choice.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get my people there. Be safe,” I say, and race toward the group of terrified people milling around my quadrant, unsure where they should go.
The first trio I reach is a man and a woman who support a boy about my age. Burns cover his left leg, and he moans in pain.
“Get back on the path beside the river. Go north. Fast,” I say. “The fires are closing in around us. Once you get there, smother those wounds, or they’ll just keep burning.”
I don’t wait to see if they comply.
I run toward a man and his little girl who are doubled over coughing and choking. He presses his daughter to his chest, trying to shelter her from the worst of the smoke, while his eyes stream and his breath tears its way out of his lungs in harsh gasps.
As I close in on them, I
see a white stone resting on the ground beside the little girl.
“Get back. Get back!” I scream, but the smoke curls into their lungs and steals their breath. Even if he could hear me, he can’t move.
I’m less than two yards away. The stone starts to sizzle as I close in. I’ll never make it in time. Digging my toes into the ground, I bend my knees and leap forward, arms straight out.
My hands collide with the child, sending her flying backward, and I slam into the father as the stone beside us roars to life. Pain—searing, vicious pain unlike any I’ve ever felt—blazes a trail of agony down my right forearm. I scream and belly crawl away from the terrible heat that reaches for me. Ripping the remains of my sleeve away from my arm, I see a fiery trail of phosphorous eating through my skin and turning it black.
The man beside me snatches up his daughter and stares at my arm. “Water,” he croaks from a throat ruined by coughing, and looks around as if he can magically make water appear when none exists.
The pain is a white light blazing up my arm, digging into my shoulder, and setting my teeth on edge. I can barely think. Barely breathe.
Not water. I don’t need water. I need . . . something else.
The man hacks and chokes, and I realize the little girl is barely breathing. I have to get up. Have to move. Have to save us.
Another scream rips its way past my clenched teeth as I struggle to stand. There are more people in this quadrant. More lives to rescue. And I didn’t come all this way and survive every awful thing that’s happened in the last few months so I could die on a field at the whim of a madman.
“Go.” I wave my left arm north. “Get out of the smoke before you die.”
“You need help,” he says.
“Your daughter needs it more than me. Go.”
He obeys me, and I hold my right arm against my stomach as I stumble into the smoke, looking for more survivors. The pain is as sharp as a shard of glass slicing through my arm. I cover my mouth and nose with my cloak and try to ignore it. Every movement jars me, and I suck in little gasps of pain with each step.