Of Dreams and Rust

  “I am being very clear,” I say, caressing his face with the back of my other hand. “And you can make of it what you will. But I am here tonight, and I am your bride.”

  “If this is because you think you must—”

  “It is because I love you, Melik, and it is that simple.”

  He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling of the cave, our shadows flickering in the lantern light. Slowly he takes my hand and lays it on his rough, stubbly cheek. He searches my face, and I smile, waiting for him, my heart skipping, until he seems to accept what I have said. He kisses my palm, then reaches into my satchel and pulls out the sleeping blanket. I scoot off his lap and he spreads the thick wool over the floor of the cave, then I kneel on it, already reaching for him. He pulls me into his arms, and together we are warm and whole, tentative but certain all the same. My hands tremble as I lift his tunic, as I touch the places I have healed and the places that I am claiming for my own.

  I know how these things go in theory. I understand how people come together, how they overlap. Until this moment, though, I did not understand what it could mean. Melik stares into my eyes as his fingers slip beneath the hem of my tunic, as I lift my arms and allow him to remove it. I have never willingly bared my skin for another person, and my cheeks blaze as his gaze slides over me. It is not a bad feeling, though. I am made of anticipation, so full of want that it overwhelms everything else.

  Melik knows how to touch me in ways that make my fingers dig into his skin. He is bold and curious, and I give myself over to him, craving every stroke. As much pleasure as it gives me, I sense he needs it as well, to numb the pain, to feel connected and loved, to be held to the earth. But when his mouth closes over my bare shoulder, when his hand slides along my waist and guides me down, when we are skin to skin, it is not a taking. It is a mutual offering, a gentle and complete surrender on both sides. It is frightening, and yet still I feel safe, because I trust him and we are in it together.

  Somehow, tonight, we have forever even though we do not know what tomorrow brings. We weave our future with our interlocked fingers and mingled breaths. We do not need the promise of another sunset. We are alive now, together now, fragile perhaps, but we will not break. I promise him with every kiss, as our foreheads touch, as our eyes close—I will fight for this until the end, and I know he will too.

  When we are spent, sapped of words and sighs and strength, Melik wraps us in the blanket and walks his fingers along the bumps of my spine while I close my eyes and listen to his heartbeat. I am sore and exhausted, but I am also warm and happy. It is not hard to drift into dreams, and when they come, I am on a high cliff above an endless ocean that shimmers and teems with life. Melik’s hand slips into mine. “Don’t let go,” he says, and then we jump.

  * * *

  I wake with a start, blinking and sniffing at the air, my heart hammering. “Melik?”

  “Hmmm?” he asks sleepily, winding his arms around my body.

  “Do you smell smoke?”

  He sits up quickly, his nostrils flaring, every muscle tensing. I wait for him to tell me it is just the scent of Dagchocuk in the morning, but after one or two breaths he curses and rises to his feet, yanking his pants from the floor. “It’s the signal fires.”

  “The soldiers said the machines would not arrive for two days.”

  He looks down at me, raw horror in his gaze. “I think they lied.”

  Chapter

  Twenty

  MELIK WRENCHES ON his tunic and ties his hair back, every movement a snap of frantic energy. “I’ll wait for you outside,” he says as he disappears through the passage to the ridge, leaving me to dress myself with shaking hands.

  When I make my way outside, the sun is high above us, and Melik is perched on an outcropping, looking toward the east, where wisps of black smoke stretch high into the sky from three distant points within the canyon, and from one just to the east.

  “I’m ready,” I say, because he does not seem aware of anything but the view.

  He tears his eyes from the horizon. “Would you consider staying here?” he asks quietly.

  “What?” I clutch the strap of my pack. “Why?”

  He jumps from the outcropping and lands on the trail next to me, scooping his pack from a boulder. “When this is over, you can find the soldiers. Tell them you were held prisoner. Tell them who you are. They will get you back to the Ring.”

  “Melik?” My throat is so tight that it comes out as a squeak.

  He grasps my shoulders. His eyes are red rimmed and bloodshot, shining with fear. “Wen, the machines will be here in a few hours at most.”

  I crane my neck to peer at the smoke. “How can you tell?”

  “The distance between the smoke puffs, and their number. There are nineteen headed this way, and they are past the point of the battle yesterday.” He swallows hard. “Which means my men destroyed one of the twenty—and are probably dead. And we have no reinforcements. I sent word with Commander Kudret yesterday, but even if the general decided to send anyone, they would not arrive until tomorrow.”

  I cover his hands with mine. They are cold and sweating. “What are you going to do?”

  He looks toward the east. “I will fight until I am dead, Wen, but we cannot stop them all. And even if I survived this attack, the soldiers would execute me on sight.” He bows his head and closes his eyes as my hands slide into his hair. “But I have to do what I can. Maybe if I could—”

  “And you would leave me behind?” I ask, choking on the idea of losing him now. He talks like it is a certainty.

  “I want you to live through this!” he shouts, his voice breaking.

  My fingers pull tight in his rust-colored locks. “But you can’t make me stay here while you go,” I whisper, standing on my tiptoes and drawing his face to mine. “Not now. I can help. You know I can.”

  Our kiss is desperate with grief and terror. “I cannot watch you die,” he breathes against my mouth.

  “And I cannot sit here and do nothing. You would never accept such a thing. How can you ask me to?” I step back and put my hand over my heart, then turn my palm to him. “You cannot keep me from this fight.”

  He stares at my hand outstretched, and then he takes it in his own. “Then we will go together.”

  He tugs me down the trail, and I jog after him. I savor every slide of his palm against mine, every time he steadies me with his hand on my waist, every exhaled breath. I stare at his broad back, his shoulders, his booted feet as he nimbly weaves through the passes and descends toward the village.

  When I was young, I sat at my father’s desk and played with an hourglass he kept there. I would turn the thing over and listen to the quiet hiss of sand as it tumbled down. As the bottom filled, the sand stopped falling in a steady torrent, and it became possible to spot individual grains. I feel like that now, examining each second separately, trying to memorize and hold it in my mind.

  As we reach the lower part of the trail, Melik turns to me. “Find my mother. Tell her what is happening.” His thumb strokes over the back of my hand. “See if the two of you can load the wounded onto a cart and head south. Warn the other villages on the Line.”

  “Focus on what you need to do,” I say to him, wishing my voice weren’t shaking, wishing we weren’t down to a few grains of sand, a few seconds before we reach our good-bye.

  He pulls me to him and flattens his palm between my breasts. “Mican tisamokye,” he whispers. “You carry my heart.” He kisses the top of my head and lets go of my hand. His face is lit with a ghostly smile. “So no matter what happens to the rest of me, it is up to you to take care of that.”

  He pivots on his heel and sprints toward the village, leaving me to scramble in his wake. The lanes are filled with scared Noor, pointing up at the smoke that signals the beginning of the end. As I run toward Anni’s house, I hear Melik’s voice, rallying his men. I place my hand over the spot he touched and pick up my pace. “Anni!” I call.

  She c
omes out of her cottage, her eyes going round as she sees the others pointing at the sky. Her face is puffy and pale after a night of crying, and she opens her arms to me. “You found him,” she huffs as I throw my arms around her waist and squeeze.

  “I found him, and he is with the other fighters.” I pull away from her. “The machines will be here much sooner than we thought. Melik asked us to take the wounded south.”

  Her eyes stray toward the center of the village, to the makeshift hospital within the wedding tent. “There are many more besides the wounded who must go south. Can you prepare the ones in the tent while I spread the word to the elders and the families with children? I will meet you with the cart.”

  I leave her to warn the others, and jog to the tent. Old Aysun is inside with the patients. Her eyes narrow when she sees me. “Kuchuksivengi,” she says.

  I squat in front of her and turn my palm up. I crab my other fingers like a spider’s legs and walk them along my open hand, then point in the direction of the canyon.

  Aysun squawks, “Devi!”

  At that word the patients begin to rouse. Their chalky complexions tell me of their pain, and I take a few moments to distribute my jie cao, because this trip will be bumpy and unpleasant even for those who are not desperately injured. With Aysun’s help I change bandages and adjust splints, speaking soothing words despite the terror inside me. My knees are flat on the sparse grass floor of the tent, and when I feel the first vibration in the ground, I go still, hoping it is a trick of my mind. It is too soon, far too soon. We will never get these people to safety in time. Surely I am imagining the tremor. . . .

  But another comes a moment later, and another, and Aysun tears open the tent flap and screams Anni’s name. I push past her and exit the tent, needing to escape the enclosed space for a moment, hoping to see Anni rushing toward me, because I cannot drag some of these patients all the way to the carriage by myself—some of them weigh twice as much as I do.

  It is strangely quiet in the square as the ground trembles beneath my feet. At the south side of the canyon mouth I hear a shout in Noor, and it draws my eyes along the ground to a spot at the base of a low hill. Melik is there, rifle over his shoulder, holding a long, thick coil of rope with a hook at one end.

  In his other hand is a wrench.

  Several men, including Baris and Bajram, stand around him, equipped in the same manner. They are going to try to take down the machines the way Bo and Sinan did. They are pointing into the canyon, and I swear I see the stark shadow of a spider leg against the cliffs, the metal gleam of a steel body under the glaring sun.

  “Wen!”

  I spin around to see Anni waving to me from the front of a large horse-drawn farm cart. She steers the two horses down the lane as we hear the first clatter of heavy gunfire echo against the rocks. My ears roar with the knowledge that these might be the last minutes of our lives, and I look over my shoulder to find Melik staring at us.

  He puts his hand over his heart and extends his palm to us before loping out of sight. Anni’s hand is still held out when I turn back to her. “We must load them quickly,” she says to me as I climb onto the side.

  “Aysun can help us,” I tell her as she guides the animals into the square. My shoulders are hiked to my ears as I jump off the cart. The ground shakes with the horde of approaching killers, and the air splits with the boom of gunfire.

  I will fight until I am dead. That is what Melik said. Not until he is wounded or tired or too scared to go on. Until he is dead. And that is what I will do too. Until I am no longer breathing, I will move and I will help. Anni rips the tent flap open and issues a stream of instructions. She disappears inside. I go around the back of the cart and imagine who should go where. The injured more at risk for bleeding should ride at the front, where there will be slightly less jostling, and—

  Panicked shouts and crashing metal footsteps steal my breath. Heavy fire shatters the rocks all around the fighters, and they scatter in search of cover. Except for one. As the first machine lumbers into view, Melik runs straight under it, ducking between the columns of its legs. Its front guns are silent and its top gunner slouches limp in his seat, already dead. Even if he weren’t, though, Melik is out of the reach of the machine’s guns.

  But not out of the reach of the guns of the war machine behind it.

  Melik throws his rope straight up, and when it catches, he leaps onto it as bullets strafe the ground at his feet. The machine stalks forward quickly with him dangling from the coupling of its thorax and abdomen. It stomps out of the canyon and into the village with the other spider on its tail, the front guns swinging this way and that, trying to get a good shot without damaging its brother. Steam and smoke roll out of the backs of the machines and billow into the air. All I can see is Melik’s legs now, the rest of him obscured by the massive body of the monster coming toward us.

  Hands close over my shoulders. “We need your help to—” Anni screams when she sees the war machine astride the lane, its massive feet collapsing the cottages on either side as it roars forward, with another right behind it.

  I am prying her fingers from my body when Melik is shot.

  Blood spatters around his leg and he falls, landing on his back with the legs of the enormous machine caging him. His wrench lands several feet away. His face is a mask of pain. It is one of those grain-of-sand moments, tumbling through the air and allowing me to see every facet. The swell of Melik’s chest as he draws a labored breath. His hands reaching for his rifle as blood streams from his leg. The big gun that took him down, dipping to take another shot.

  “No.” It comes from me quietly, but as it does, I sprint forward, my hands up. “No!” My feet pound the dirt and my ears roar as I barrel toward my death, unable to watch Melik shot to pieces in front of me. The machine above him steps over his body but by some miracle does not crush him with its enormous feet. It strides along the path as I approach from the other side, screaming and waving my arms.

  Melik rolls onto his stomach, and his jade eyes meet mine as the hulking spider that shot him approaches from behind. I run straight toward him while the other spider, the one with the rope still hanging from its belly, makes a turn toward me. Melik heaves himself onto his knees and swings his rifle up. He fires past me at the machine he tried to climb, then pivots, aiming for the other.

  “Melik!” I dive for him and grab his shoulders as he fires a few futile shots at the metal beast coming toward him. I drag him backward even though I know it is hopeless.

  “No, no, no,” he says, his fingers clutching at my arm. He’s been shot through the right calf, and blood soaks his trouser leg. “Run, Wen. Go!”

  But it is too late to run. The machines are on either side of us, and as the battle rages in the canyon, we are here, the sole focus of these two monsters. As the guns swing down toward us, I step around Melik and take his face in my hands. “Don’t let go,” I say, echoing his words from my dream. I press my lips to his forehead.

  “I will never let go,” he says, his voice shredded with pain.

  The world explodes with gunfire, deafening me. Melik twists over me, crushing me to the ground. My arm coils around his neck and I press my face against his chest. It goes on and on and on, and I know I am screaming, but I can’t hear myself. Melik is a fierce and relentless weight, every muscle trembling as he tries to shield me.

  Metal crashes against metal, shrieking and whining. I open my eyes to see Melik’s face above mine. He blinks and rolls off me, and we turn to see one of the machines, the one that shot him, crumple slowly to the ground, smoke blooming from its back end. There are large-bore bullet holes across its spider face and along its sides. We twist to look at the other machine, the one with the rope hanging from it. Its front legs are planted on either side of the lane, and the front guns are smoking. With a hissing hum the body of the spider moves lower until it is resting on the lane.

  Its top hatch opens.

  The pilot’s helmet reflects the sunlight as
he climbs onto the top of the machine. Melik grabs for his rifle, but as he does, the pilot leaps from the war spider and lands in front of us with an unmistakable metal clank and hum.

  We stare into his face as he slides half of his metal visor to the side.

  Bo looks at Melik’s leg and then at me. “Can you fix that? Or at least make it stop bleeding?” he asks me.

  My mouth opens and closes a few times before I manage to say. “I think so?”

  Bo nods, quick and matter-of-fact. “Perfect. Because I need him.”

  “What are you doing?” Melik asks, grimacing as he holds himself upright.

  Bo tilts his head, looking for all the world like a sentient machine. “I’m delivering you eighteen war machines, Red. Do you want them?”

  Melik gapes at him.

  Bo’s mouth curves into a smirk. “Good. Get on your feet and come with me.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  “WHAT HAVE YOU done, Bo?” I ask as Anni races over to us, offering forth my satchel and then hovering over Melik, who speaks to her in rapid-fire Noor.

  “I created slow leaks in the water tanks and sabotaged the gauges in all the machines except the one I was piloting,” he says, nodding at the small puddle of water forming beneath the downed machine behind us. “They’ve been slowly draining since we set out this morning, but the firemen have no idea. I calculated the rate of water loss, and . . . ah. Yes. Look.” He points his spindly metal finger at the mouth of the canyon, where one of the war machines slowly sinks until its abdomen and thorax hit the dirt. “If you patch the holes and refill the tanks, they will be fine, but only if they are not destroyed.” He watches the Noor fighters rush forward with their rifles raised before he swivels his head down and looks at Melik. “Which means you have to call your men off. Get them to capture the crew, but tell them not to hurt the machines.”