The Sowing (The Torch Keeper)

  “Thanks.” I stare down at the metal disc embedded in a patch of dirt. “Looks like a manhole cover.”

  Digory kicks the earth and shrubs away from it, exposing a series of words surrounding a leaf design.

  CITY OF NEW YORK PARKS AND RECREATION.

  My forehead crinkles. “City of New … York. I guess the Lady’s city finally has a name.”

  We move on.

  So this wasn’t a natural forest after all. It was a park. There were once pathways cutting through the greenery, long ago. But in the years since the Ash Wars these paths have been reclaimed by nature, overrun with moss and earth.

  And the pathways aren’t the only sign of the city’s previous inhabitants. Every once in a while we come across the remnants of intricate cobbled bridges, now ensnared by twisting vines. And that looks like the remnants of a lamppost.

  Digory’s leg sinks into a pothole and he grunts.

  “I gotcha.” I hunch down and help free his foot. Something catches my eye.

  More writing. “There’s something here!”

  Digory stoops beside me, our hands overlapping as we clear the earth and leaves to reveal what’s left of a black and gray pattern, made up of tiny stone tiles, with one word at the center: IMAGINE.

  “Imagine what?” I run my hand over the missing pieces. Digory leans his forehead into mine. He closes his eyes and his lips mutter something undecipherable.

  When he opens his eyes again, he almost has a smile on his face. His eyes question me.

  “What did I imagine?” I ask. “If I tell you, it won’t come true.” But I can’t help but smile myself. “This way,” I say, pulling him through another clump of trees.

  After about fifteen more minutes of forging through the brushwood, we find the remnants of a statue. At first I think it’s a miniature version of the Lady, only without her crown or torch. But this is something different. A beautiful woman with wings—or at least one wing. The other has long since crumpled away. Even so, she retains her dignity, and in spite of her battered condition, she looks like she could still soar through the sky.

  An angel.

  Maybe she’s a sign that what I imagined is true. That Cole is all right after all, and he, Digory, and I will someday be together forever.

  We gaze at her for a few minutes, then trudge on through the thicket.

  “There it is, over there.”

  Just beyond another tangle of trees, puffs of dark smoke smear the sky.

  In spite of the uneven terrain, we pick up our pace until we’re jogging through the undergrowth and finally burst through the last of the trees.

  The lushness is gone, replaced by an endless horizon of hollowed-out structures that jut from the sludge of half-flooded streets.

  And directly ahead, the mangled carcass of a Vulture craft rests on its side like a felled beast, still smoking and sparking, halfway embedded into the closest of these structures.

  Only it’s not just any Vulture.

  My fingers dig into Digory’s arm. “Those markings on the tail end—it’s the regal seal. That ship’s carrying high-ranking personnel.”

  Before Digory can react, I’m running toward the Vulture, skirting chunks of debris, my hand over my mouth to avoid inhaling the thick smoke that’s already drawing burning tears from my eyes. I peer through the haze and into the Vulture’s belly. There’s a ragged gash there rimmed with twisted, melting metal, as if the craft’s been ripped open and eviscerated.

  Careful not to touch the smoking edges, I strain against the haze blanketing the passenger cabin.

  A shadow of movement inside. A low groan pierces the crackle and hiss of the flames.

  I cough out a lungful of smoke. “We got a live one!”

  Digory’s hand clamps on my shoulder and I turn to him.

  He points to me, shakes his head, then holds out a palm in a stop motion. Then he points to himself and motions in the direction of the moans.

  “It’s okay, Digory. I can go. You don’t have to protect me. I can handle myself. Promise.” I barely get the words out before I have to stifle another cough.

  The muscles in his jaws clench and he shakes his head again.

  I wink. “Trust me. I’ll be fine.” His grip relaxes, but the concern never leaves his face.

  I nod and slip from him, gritting my teeth when my skin grazes the steaming hull as I crawl through the opening. Between the gloom and the smog it takes me a few seconds to get my bearings. Then I spot the survivor’s silhouette a few feet away and crawl as fast as I can to the person’s side.

  It’s Prime Minister Talon herself.

  She’s barely conscious. For a split second I’m tempted to leave her behind to burn. But she might be able to provide me with useful information. Maybe she knows where I can hitch a transport back to the Parish. And she’d be a valuable hostage if we run into any Imps.

  The smoke and heat start to get to me. I hoist Talon’s arm around my neck and lift, half-carrying, half-dragging her to the opening where Digory’s waiting to receive my burden.

  “Don’t let this one out of your sight,” I tell him.

  “Wait,” she rasps into my ear. “There’s someone else … ” She lapses into unconsciousness.

  Shoving Talon into Digory’s arms, I spin and rummage through the flotsam and jetsam of twisted safety harnesses and toppled supply containers, slinging an emergency medical backpack over my shoulder before finding the other survivor.

  Even before I reach him, the sight of his outline lying still strapped to a seat makes me feel like I’ve been shot by a flare gun. It’s not an Imp.

  I kneel by the body, grip it roughly, and flip it over.

  “Cassius … ” I can barely pull the name from my burning throat.

  Blood trickles from a gash just above his eyebrow, past a cheek that’s already swollen and purple. At first I think he’s already dead. But a quick feel of his wrist confirms that there’s still wretched life wriggling through his veins with each weak beat of his pulse.

  His eyes flutter open. There’s a few seconds of blankness as he struggles to focus. Then recognition dawns on his face, and his smile turns my stomach.

  “Lucky … you came back for me. You saved me … ”

  He reaches up for me, and I recoil. It’s so easy to place my hands around his slimy neck …

  “Can’t breathe.” Cassius’s fingers claw at my hands, snug around his throat. His eyes widen, sprouting thin red blood vessels like a road map to his fear. “Please … ”

  I squeeze his throat tighter.

  “Lucky … I know … where there’s … another ship … ”

  Cursing myself, I release my stranglehold and lift Cassius into my arms, dragging his dead weight past Digory. Once I’ve exited the Vulture, I hurl him to the ground.

  Unslinging the medical backpack from my shoulder, I rifle through it. Aside from basic first-aid supplies, there are also some ration bars and a nav-glove that plots coordinates on a small screen embedded in its palm. That might come in very handy. I set it aside for now and pull out one of the first-aid kits before tossing the pack to Digory. “Can you check Talon out? Make sure she’s okay? You remember our Recruit training, right?”

  A look flits across his eyes. Sadness? Pain? Then it’s gone, replaced by blue steel. He takes the bag from me and sets to work without so much as a glance my way.

  Pushing thoughts from my head, I leave Digory with Talon and kneel beside Cassius.

  His eyes flutter open and he tries to sit up. “You couldn’t …

  do it … could you?”

  He’s wrong. I could have finished him off if he didn’t have something I needed. After everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve seen, I’m almost immune to death. Hell, I killed Renquist with these same bare hands.

  I shove Cassius back against the g
round.

  His body spasms as he coughs, his fingers rubbing the welts on his throat, tears streaming from his eyes. “Maybe you still have feelings for me?”

  For a split second, the cockiness in his eyes flickers, replaced by something … else. Then it’s gone like so much static.

  And it’s my turn to laugh, a hollow sound that echoes through the wreckage before it’s strangled by the wind. I lean in close. “The only feelings I have for you are disgust and pity.”

  The look on his pale face shows I’ve scored a direct hit.

  Digory’s shadow falls over us. He’s staring at Cassius, and the look on his face is one of pure hatred.

  Before I can stop him, Digory lunges.

  “Wait!”

  Cassius tries to pry Digory’s fingers away, but I can tell it’s a lost cause. Digory’s eyes are blank slates. I definitely get his rage. But we still need Cassius.

  I sidle up to Digory, touching his cheek, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “Please. He can get us back to the Parish. I need to get to Cole. For me.”

  His eyes shift toward mine and thaw. He nods and releases.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I understand.”

  Cassius hawks up a wad of nasty from his throat and spits it on the ground beside us. “I suppose you know he used to work for me.”

  Digory takes a step toward him, but I hold him back. “He never worked for you.”

  Cassius nods. “Right. A rebel spy. But not a very good one. I found out what he was up to—”

  “Which is why you had us both recruited that day,” I finish. “A lot of good it did you.” I grab Digory’s hand. “We’re both still kicking.”

  Cassius stares at us. “Yes. I see you two have found your way back to each other. Touching.”

  I shake my head. “Looks like you’re just not having a great day, Cassius. First you lose your installation. Then you crash in this dump. And finally I find out that Digory isn’t dead like you led me to believe.”

  He glances at Digory. “Who says the Digory Tycho you knew isn’t dead?”

  His words hang in the air like a heavy cloud.

  I turn to Digory. “How’s Talon?”

  He shrugs.

  “Assuming Cassius is telling the truth about there being a ship that can get us out of here, we can get Talon into a bio-scanner and check for internal injuries. For now, we’ll assume it’s just a concussion.” My eyes probe the bruising horizon. “Time to be on our way.”

  Digory rummages through the medical pack and pulls out a pair of restraints, which he tosses over to me.

  I smile at him. “Thanks.”

  Cassius strains to sit up. “You won’t need—”

  “Shut up.”

  Ignoring Cassius’s protests, I cuff him before proceeding to give him a basic med exam. In spite of multiple lacerations and a sprained leg, he seems intact. Good.

  I pull him up by the collar. “You’re good enough to walk. I’m gonna need you to help carry your fearless leader here.”

  With Digory’s help, we use pieces of debris to fashion a crude travois made of two metal struts from the Vulture wreckage joined by torn fabric from the remnants of a seat’s upholstery. In no time, Digory’s carried the Prime Minister over and settled her onto the stretcher as I use some torn strips of seat belts to strap her down securely.

  “Be careful,” Cassius warns. “She shouldn’t be moved in her condition.”

  “She’ll live.” I glance up from Talon. “Besides, you’re the one who’s going to need to be careful.”

  Then we’re strapping the makeshift litter to Cassius’s back, as if he were a caballus or some other beast of burden.

  No. That’s insulting to animals.

  I nod to Digory. “Let’s go.”

  “Which way?” I bark at Cassius.

  He shakes his head. “If I tell you the way, you’ll have no more need for me and will probably leave me to die.”

  Digory and I exchange glances. There’s no use pretending Cassius doesn’t have a point.

  Cassius clears his throat. “I’ll give you coordinates for the first leg of our journey. There’s a beacon not too far from the landing strip that my Vulture was headed to.”

  He mumbles a few coordinates, which I program into the nav-glove. I decide to tuck the tiny transceiver into the lining of my pants for safekeeping. Can’t risk Cassius getting ahold of it and contacting his superiors.

  With Digory bringing up the rear and Cassius hauling Talon between us, I lead the way through the ruined city.

  twenty-nine

  The remnants of half-buried buildings reach up from the earth like the fingers of a giant that’s been buried alive. Part of what looks like it might once have been a bridge lies collapsed in a tangle of pylons, whatever water it was meant to traverse long dried up.

  I turn to Cassius. “Who built this place? And how was it destroyed?”

  But he only shakes his head.

  For the next couple of hours we trudge along in silence, the only sounds our feet crunching against the rubble, our heavy breathing, and the ever-intensifying bleeps of the nav-glove. We eventually come to a pile of debris that’s just impossible to skirt.

  “The beacon signal is close,” Cassius grunts.

  A soulless eye stares at us from the wreckage, large and unblinking—what’s left of a stone statue of a wild beast,

  surrounded by toppled pillars with vertical grooves cut into their surfaces. The creature’s remaining eye is separated from its crumbling mate by a prominent ridge that flares into a pronounced snout, set into a grand jaw.

  I wipe the dampness from my brow, unable to look away as I trace its flanks. “Not sure how we’re gonna get past this … ”

  When I kick the nearest column, my foot throbs upon impact. The stone didn’t even budge an inch.

  Digory grabs hold of my arm, gentle and firm all at once, and pulls me over to a small crater that was partly obscured by debris.

  “You found something?” A hint of excitement creeps into Cassius’s weary voice.

  But Digory ignores him. His shoulder muscles tense as he shoves a clump of stone aside and shines a flashlight inside.

  I smile at him. “You just may have found a way through.”

  He squeezes my hand.

  “We’re going in.”

  It takes a while, but between Digory and me we manage to roll one of the pillars into the opening and set it at an angle, at the rim of the crevice, so we can all slide down it. Digory straps Talon onto his broad back and ambles down with ease.

  “You know,” Cassius mutters, “this would be a hell of a lot easier for me if my hands weren’t bound.”

  I shrug. “Too bad I don’t give a damn.” I shove him through the opening and he shimmies down, cursing me all the way, before Digory plucks him off and tosses him to the ground.

  Then I’m sliding down after them, hopping off near the base and into Digory’s waiting arms.

  “Thanks,” I whisper into his ear. We hold each other tight for a moment, then let go.

  The tunnel we’re standing in branches off into several different dark channels and multiple platforms. A conduit of rusted pipes twists through the ceiling, and on either side of the trench are raised platforms lined with steel columns. Underneath us, thick metal slats line the ground.

  “Looks like some kind of track system.” The sound of Cassius’s voice echoes eerily throughout the tunnels, then fades into the dark. “The builders of this place must have used it for transport under the city.”

  “The beacon’s close,” I say. “This way.”

  We make our way through the tunnel under the dimness of the flickering light, following the tracks, skirting heaps of stone, climbing over piles of rusted and mangled metal. It’s slow going, and having to maneuver Talon’s st
retcher isn’t helping.

  The pathway ahead of us is moving. For a second I think we must be on some sort of conveyor belt. Until the sound of claws scratching the steel tracks, mixed with high-pitched squealing, makes my skin crawl.

  Rats. A horde of them.

  Digory’s fingers slip between mine, gripping my hand tightly.

  I swallow hard, eyes glued to the sea of vermin. “Reminds me of our first date in the sewers.” Eventually, the filthy layer of vermin thins out, scurrying into the cracks in the walls until they disappear.

  GONG!

  The familiar sound petrifies every hair on my body.

  “The Fleshers,” I whisper. “The must have followed us from Infiernos.”

  “Looks like we’re not the only ones using these tunnels,” Cassius says.

  We sprint down the tunnel to our left, leaping over rusted pipes and concrete debris, stumbling in the gloom as fast as we can to get away from that horror. I almost stumble. “The signal’s coming from just up ahead!” I yell. “You’d better be right about a ship waiting for you there, Cassius!”

  Digory pulls me along faster. We barely avoid crashing into a long, cylindrical vehicle resting on the tracks like a dead behemoth. It’s covered in slimy strings of goo.

  I tug Digory’s arm. “The signal’s coming from inside.”

  He resists, shaking his head.

  I whip around to face Cassius. “I should never have listened to you. Tell me where you’ve brought us or I swear I’ll kill you right now.”

  The platforms on either side are crumbled heaps that’ll take precious time to surmount. I stare through the dark gap that might once have been this transport’s cockpit, while the Fleshers’ unearthly wail echoes behind us.

  “Inside! ” I scramble into the opening, pulling Digory along with me, Cassius dragging Talon right on our heels.

  My feet crunch against bone and I freeze.

  The interior of the vehicle is a fetid pit jammed with more bones. Only these have been picked clean. Most are intact skeletons wedged into seats, while others lie in heaps along the aisle, or hang from bars jutting from the ceiling.