The Drowned Cities

  Ocho pressed his hand to the bullet in his thigh, praying that it hadn’t hit an artery. Fates, it hurt.

  Suddenly, he felt something big rush past him, wind and movement. Ocho whipped around, but it was already gone. Before him, chains lay abandoned. Unlocked. The half-man was running free.

  A roar reverberated through the crypt, a challenge that penetrated Ocho’s bones and made him want to piss himself for fear. Gunfire chattered. Screams, high-pitched and terrified. More gunfire. The soldiers were trying to get a bead on the half-man. Ocho could barely keep track of the monster as it ducked between columns.

  More gunfire. Six shots, fast and even. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Six electric lights shattered, plunging the place into gloom. The monster was taking out the lights now, too. Ocho thought he caught a glimpse of the half-man moving again. A shadow of death, there and gone. Someone was shouting orders, trying to get rallied, and then the man just started screaming and screaming. Another bestial roar numbed Ocho’s ears. Fates, it was loud. Louder than war.

  Mahlia wasn’t paying attention to any of it. She was down on her knees beside Ghost, sobbing. Cradling her warboy to her.

  “Mouse,” she said. “Mouse.”

  The boy wasn’t going to make it. Ocho didn’t even have to look close to know it, but still she held him to her, his blood all over her arms and legs and body.

  Ocho dragged himself over to them. He grabbed a dead Eagle’s pant leg and slashed it with his knife. They had real uniforms, he thought inanely. He’d never had a real uniform. More gunfire echoed distantly, followed by the cries of soldiers begging for help.

  “We got to get out of here,” Ocho said. He cut another strip of cloth and bound up his bleeding leg. When she didn’t listen to him, he tugged her shoulder.

  “We got to get out, before they come back.”

  Mahlia whipped around, her face a mask of rage. “You did this! This is your fault!”

  Ocho held up defensive hands. “He was my boy, too! We were brothers.”

  “He wasn’t anything like you!”

  Ocho started to stutter out an apology, but then a wave of his own anger engulfed him.

  “None of us asked for this!” he shouted. “None of us! We were all just like him. Every maggot one of us.” He dragged himself up against a marble column, set weight on his leg, wincing. “None of us were like this,” he said again. “We aren’t born like this. They make us this way.”

  Mahlia opened her mouth to retort, but Ghost coughed and she turned her attention to her warboy. Ghost’s eyes were glazing, but he reached up to her. Pulled her toward him. Mahlia sobbed and cradled him close. It looked to Ocho like Ghost was trying to say something to her, whispering and coughing blood as he tried to talk.

  Ocho turned away. What was he doing? He needed to get the hell out of here. Once the Eagles rallied, he was dead meat. He scooped up another abandoned rifle and started hunting for ammunition. He doubted the half-man—

  A shadow fell over him.

  Ocho looked up and gasped. The half-man loomed over him, his bestial face a mass of scars and battle lust. Blood drenched the monster’s features. Ocho was suddenly aware of how many bodies littered the command center. How quiet everything had become.

  The half-man had killed them all. Every last one of them. The ones the monster hadn’t shot, he’d torn to pieces with his bare hands. Ocho had known the half-man was dangerous, but this was beyond anything he could have imagined.

  The monster growled at Ocho and kept moving, dismissing him as unimportant, even though Ocho held a rifle.

  What had he unleashed?

  44

  “MOUSE,” MAHLIA WHISPERED.

  She cradled him in her arms. He seemed small. He’d always been small. But now, broken and torn, he was tiny. And pale. Much paler…

  Blood loss, some part of her doctor’s mind told her. He was losing all his blood. She kept running through procedures that might help, trying to find some solution to the pool of ruby that spread all around them, slick and sticky.

  Direct pressure, surgery. Plasma. IVs that she didn’t have. Painkillers. Raise the legs. Treat for shock. Airway, breathing, circulation. Stabilize. Operate.

  All of it useless. She didn’t have the tools. All of Doctor Mahfouz’s teachings were useless.

  Mouse reached up and touched her face. “How come I always got to do the rescuing around here?” he whispered.

  Mahlia clutched him to her. “I’m so sorry.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Mouse tried to talk. Coughed. “Can’t believe you followed me.”

  “I had to.”

  “No.” He shook his head, smiling tiredly. “That’s how I do.” He trailed his fingers through her tears, pushed at her chin, joking like he always had. “You’re supposed to be the smart one.” He coughed again, and blood stained his lips. He grunted in pain. “Should’ve listened to you, huh?”

  A shell came down, shaking the building.

  “I’m going to get you out,” Mahlia said.

  “If you knew what I done, you wouldn’t say that.”

  “I don’t care what you done. I’m getting you out of here.” She tried to rise, but Mouse reached up and pulled her close, surprisingly strong. Holding on to her like a vise as he stared into her eyes.

  “You got to get out,” he whispered fiercely. “Get out and don’t ever come back.” His expression was fiercer than she’d ever seen. “You got to promise me not to die,” he said, and then he smiled at her, and his breath went out, leaving Mahlia clutching an empty body.

  Tool crouched down beside her. “It’s time to leave. Long past time.”

  Mahlia didn’t look up. She just held Mouse. “He’s dead.”

  The half-man was silent for a moment. “I lost all of my pack as well. Remember him. Tell his story.”

  “That’s not much.”

  “It’s nothing. It’s what we have.”

  The soldier sergeant, the one called Ocho, limped over. Mahlia could feel him looking down on her. “Get up, girl. You don’t get up, you die.”

  “What do you care?” she said. “You’re the one who was trying to kill me.”

  The soldier gave an exasperated sigh. “And now I’m the one that’s trying to save your maggot ass.”

  The building rocked with another explosion. More followed. The ceiling rattled as shells crashed down in quick succession. Ocho and Tool looked up at the ceiling.

  “Damn,” Ocho said. “That’s starting to sound serious.”

  “The Army of God will be preparing an assault,” Tool said.

  Ocho laughed at that, his expression grim as he scanned the command center. “They don’t need to bother. It looks like you just about killed every single one of the command staff. They can roll in anytime and we won’t know what hit us.”

  Tool growled agreement. “The UPF is headless. I left no commanding officers.”

  Another artillery round hammered into the building. Masonry fell from the ceiling.

  “I got to get to my boys,” Ocho said suddenly. “They’re dead if they don’t got someone to tell them what to do.”

  “Indeed,” Tool rumbled. Mahlia was surprised to see the half-man hold out a huge hand to Ocho. “Thank you,” he said.

  Ocho looked at the half-man with an expression of shock on his face. For a second, Mahlia thought he was going to flinch away. But then he took the offered hand, his own smaller one disappearing in Tool’s grip.

  The sergeant looked down at Mouse, then at Mahlia again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,” he said. “I tried. If I’d known what they were going to—” He broke off, took a ragged breath. “Anyway, I’m sorry.” He turned and limped toward the door.

  Mahlia watched the sergeant go. He was just a kid. They were all just kids. All of them waving guns and killing one another, while a bunch of men who claimed they were older and wiser pushed them around. Maggots like Lieutenant Sayle and Colonel Stern and General Sachs.

&nbsp
; He was just some kid who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A kid who turned out to be useful to men who didn’t give a damn about him, except to make sure he did what he was told. Just like Mouse.

  “Hey!” she called to him. “Soldier boy!”

  Ocho turned. “Yeah?”

  An idea was forming in her mind. A gamble. A big one. It wasn’t the way she’d imagined it, but she thought it could work. She could make it work. She just needed to believe, and reach out to this soldier boy.

  “You want to get out?” she asked. “Get out for good?”

  She held her breath, praying that she wasn’t just some civvy to him. That he didn’t see her as a peacekeeper castoff or a traitor, any more than she saw him as a soldier. They were just two people, victims of something bigger than either of them. There weren’t any sides, and there weren’t any enemies.

  She just needed to make him believe it, too.

  “Out of here?” The sergeant smiled. “No way any of us is getting out. There’s nowhere to go, and no one to take us. Blockades all around. AOG gunning for the triple hash.” He touched his cheek. “There’s no way out, not for any of us.”

  “Scavenge companies go in and out,” Mahlia said.

  “We ain’t scavenge.”

  “What if I know where we could get some?” she said. “Rich stuff. Can you get us to the blood buyers? Can you get us and some scavenge to the docks?”

  “That treasure room of yours?” Ocho hesitated, then said, “I can’t leave my boys.”

  Mahlia almost gave up on the idea. The thought of all of Ocho’s other troops scared the hell out of her. She swallowed. She was gambling, again. Gambling big.

  “Can you lead them?” Mahlia asked. “Can you get them to follow you? To follow me? Can you give us protection?”

  Tool looked at her with sudden surprise and respect as he figured out what she was planning. Another rumble of artillery rocked the building. Ocho looked up at the cracking ceiling, then at Mahlia.

  “They’ll follow me,” he said. “If they’re still there, they’ll follow.”

  Mahlia’s heart was beating faster. She was going to do it. For real. She was getting out. She hugged Mouse close, one last time, and let him go.

  45

  CHAOS REIGNED IN the palace. Artillery fire rained down. Soldiers milled in groups, unsure of what they were supposed to do.

  A few Eagle Guards were still around, trying to organize, but it seemed that Tool had destroyed everyone who had witnessed what had happened in the command center. And now, under fire, people were scrambling, more concerned for their own skins than anyone else’s.

  Ocho led them into the rotunda, leaning against Mahlia and limping. His soldiers straightened and started to raise their weapons when they saw the half-man and the girl, but he waved them down.

  “Where’s the LT?” they all asked, staring.

  “He’s replaced,” Ocho said.

  “By who?” Stork asked.

  “Me,” Ocho said. Then he pointed at Mahlia and Tool. “And them. We’re all together now.”

  There was a long silence. Ocho held Stork’s gaze until the taller boy nodded acquiescence.

  “Good.”

  Ocho started outlining orders to the platoon, organizing them all. He sent some to gather ordnance while he had someone strap his leg better, and then he had them all moving, a gathered knot of protection with Mahlia and Tool at their center.

  Mahlia watched in awe as his platoon marched them right through the heart of the UPF. Soldiers ran hither and thither, preparing for a final battle that they couldn’t win, but no one had time for an armed platoon that seemed to have orders. They made it outside, squinting in the bright sunlight. Down the length of the lake, Mahlia could see the mouth of the river and the sea. Her goal, beckoning.

  Another artillery round came screaming down. The dome of the palace shattered, crumbling inward. Soldier boys screamed and scattered in all directions, but Ocho kept his command, ordering them all down the stairs for the water. Ahead, Mahlia saw blood buyers struggling to load scavenge into their zodiac rafts.

  She pointed at them, and Ocho nodded and shouted more orders. Everyone changed course, preparing for a fight, but then Tool pushed into the lead.

  It was like watching a hurricane. One moment he was with her, the next he was among the blood buyers and their guards, hurling them aside. By the time Mahlia and the soldier boys reached the rafts, guards and blood buyers were thrashing in the water or running for their lives, all of them disarmed and harmless.

  Mahlia and the soldiers piled into the zodiacs and fired them up. Tool leaped aboard. Mahlia’s zodiac tipped threateningly under his weight, but then it was upright again and they were buzzing up the length of the lake, following Mahlia’s directions, then cutting off into the canals.

  All around, the city seethed with movement. People preparing for the Army of God’s assault. Civvies running for cover, grabbing last belongings. Soldiers setting up defensive positions.

  To Mahlia, it was so much like the last time the warlords came, when they’d swamped the place that she’d grown up in, that she couldn’t help but feel terror at the approaching violence. She remembered troops storming from building to building, hunting every single person who had collaborated. Dragging people out onto boardwalks and executing them. Her mother trying to help her hide before the soldier boys burst in on them.

  And now it was going to happen again. Another wave of violence as the UPF collapsed and new warlords rushed to fill the vacuum.

  Ahead, her old apartment came into view. Mahlia pointed. Ocho nodded. “Yeah. I thought so.”

  The zodiacs slowed. Nearly two dozen soldier boys piled out and dashed into the building. Mahlia pressed the hidden places in the wall, praying to the Fates…

  It opened.

  Before her, the warehouse lay waiting. Her mother’s collection. Her father’s hoarding. All of it still there. None of it looted yet. Stern hadn’t had a chance to do anything with this news. Or maybe the lieutenant had never reported it. It was all here. Paintings and statuary and ancient books. The treasure trove of a dead nation.

  “Round it up,” Mahlia said. “Get as much as you can. Whatever fits.”

  They grabbed great armfuls of scavenge. Old muskets. Uniforms of blue and gray. Banners with circlets of stars on blue backgrounds. Yellowed parchments. Everything that they could find that was light and could be loaded into the zodiacs.

  “Is this going to work?” Ocho asked as they heaved more pieces of art and history into the zodiacs where they bobbed beside the boardwalk. “You think we can really buy out?”

  Tool answered for Mahlia. “With your soldiers to escort, and Mahlia to bargain with the blood buyers, it will. You will win free.”

  Mahlia looked over at Tool. Something in his tone worried her. “You will, too,” she said. “We can all get out like this. There’s plenty here to buy us all out.”

  “No.” Tool shook his head. “They will not welcome my kind. I must go another way.”

  “But…” Mahlia hesitated. “What will happen to you? You can’t stay here.”

  Tool almost smiled. “Let me be the judge of that. The Drowned Cities may not be a place for you, but to me…” He paused and sniffed the air. “This smells like home.”

  With a chill, Mahlia remembered what the Colonel had said when he had them trapped, about half-men not being able to live without a patron.

  “You’re not going to try to die?” she asked. “Like that other one? Like that other half-man? Keep circling back until you die?”

  Tool’s fangs showed in a feral smile, and he crouched beside her. When he brushed her cheek, it was surprisingly gentle.

  “Do not fear,” he rumbled. “I am no victim of war. I am its master.” He glanced to the canal and the civilians. The soldiers rushing about like an ant’s nest, kicked and frantic. His ears twitched, and his nostrils flared.

  “The UPF will die, but its soldiers will need safe
haven. They will hunger for a leader.” Tool’s low growl sounded of satisfaction. He looked at Mahlia again. “I have fought on seven continents, but never for territory of my own.” He scanned the buildings. “Where you see terror, I see… sanctuary.”

  He straightened. “Go. The Army of God is only blocks away, and other warlords are stirring as well. It will be a long time before you can return to this place.”

  “What are you going to do?” Mahlia asked. “You’re going to die.”

  Tool laughed. “I have never lost a war. I will not lose this one. These soldiers are wild and untrained, and they have never fought a true war. By the time I am finished with them, they will roar my name from the rooftops.” He gave another growl of satisfaction.

  Mahlia stared up at Tool. For the first time she thought she saw him true: not a mix of creatures, but a singular whole, built entirely for war. Entirely at home.

  Gunfire echoed down the canals. A few shots, then more. A cacophony of weaponry that broke her thoughts and sent the warboys all scrambling into the zodiacs.

  “Go!” Tool said. “Quickly! Before you lose your last opportunity! Go!”

  “Come on!” Ocho said frantically. “Come on!”

  When she hesitated still, Tool simply lifted her into the zodiac and set her amongst the troops. The soldier named Stork gunned their engine, and then they were speeding away from the half-man.

  Mahlia looked back. Tool held up a hand in farewell, and then he turned and plunged into the canal, disappearing entirely. Mahlia stared after his disappeared form, wishing him well.

  46

  THE ZODIACS RIPPED down the canal, leaving frothing wake behind. Ahead, gunfire echoed.

  “Here it comes,” Ocho muttered.

  “We going to make it?” Mahlia asked.

  “It’ll be close.” The zodiac’s engine whined higher as Stork ran the thing full out. Ocho pushed Mahlia down, covering her with his body. Bullets zipped and whined overhead. The UPF boys were all flopping down, lying low, returning fire. Shell casings rained down on Mahlia as guns chattered.