Echo City (60 page)

“I will return with you,” he said to the Dragarians, “and no one will try to prevent that.”

I’m losing him
, Peer thought.
He’s going
. She reached for his arm and he held her hand, squeezing gently.

“Doom hangs over the city,” Rufus continued. “As Dragar I return, and my blood is as it was five hundred years ago—rich with the way to Honored Darkness.” The few Dragarians muttered, shuffling their feet, glancing at one another. “But we will leave in peace. The city’s end-days are here, with no need
for us to hasten them. Our domes will close again, our warriors will be recalled, and there will be no more violence. This is no longer our home, and we have no more business here.”

Alexia was now standing close to Nophel, glancing around uncertainly. When she caught Peer’s eye, Peer nodded down at the short sword she held. The Unseen dropped the blade.

“Do you really believe …?” Peer asked, but Rufus leaned in close and took her in a gentle hug.

“To them, I’m their god,” he whispered, “and they’ll use whatever is in my blood—whatever was in
Dragar’s
blood—to help them cross the Bonelands. Honored Darkness awaits to the north. I find only honor in their desire that I lead them there.”

“But Echo City
needs
you, Rufus!”

“This is not my home,” he said, “and Rufus is not my name.”

“Dragar
is?”

He only blinked, and the Dragarians fidgeted.

“I don’t believe in gods,” Peer said. “We need your blood. The Baker needs it, and you can’t just turn around and leave with them.” She nodded at the chopped warriors, their blades folded and stained with drying blood.

“You’d fight them?” Rufus asked.

“Yes!” Alexia said, and she knelt to pick up her dropped sword.

“No,” Rufus said. “No.” He walked to Alexia and took the sword from her hand, and she did nothing to prevent him. He glanced down at Nophel, blood from the fallen man’s wound spreading on the chamber floor. Then he sliced the sword across his own palm.

The Dragarians gasped, but Rufus stilled them with a glance. He told Alexia to empty her water canteen, then squeezed his wound above the container’s neck, wincing, his skin turning pale as blood dripped. For a while it was the only sound in the huge chamber, and then Rufus swayed, and Peer dashed to his side to hold him steady. The Dragarians mumbled at her contact with him.

“This might not be enough,” Alexia said, but Peer cut her off with a glare.

“Thank you,” Peer said. Rufus nodded at her and let her bind the wound. “But you expected this?” she asked. “Ever since you arrived here?”

“I had …” Rufus said, frowning. “Feelings. And I had to follow them.”

“And they led you here?” Alexia asked. But Rufus ignored her, looking only at Peer.

“They called me Man from Sand,” he said.

“Who?”

“The people across the desert. Their world is called the Heartlands, and their Heart and Mind sees through me. It knows Echo City now. I hope it will welcome you.”

“Tell me more!” Peer said.

“It’s not for me to tell you,” he said. “And I have to go.”

“Please!” Peer said. She was pleading now, struggling to grasp the truth she had been seeking her whole adult life. “It’s everything I’ve ever believed in!”

“Then have faith,” Rufus said. He turned and walked to where the Dragarians stood in respectful, awed silence. They parted to ensure their bloodied weapons did not touch him, then followed him from that place without a backward glance.

The Bellower chamber fell almost silent; only Nophel’s heavy breathing whispered against the walls.

“Well, that was intense,” Alexia said. She stared at her two fallen friends, then knelt again beside the motionless Nophel, examining the injury.

“Is he …?” Peer asked, still not looking away from where Rufus had vanished.

“It’s not good,” Alexia said. “Missed the heart, but he’s losing blood.”

Peer turned and looked at the water canteen Alexia had placed carefully on the ground.
That’s the blood we can’t afford to lose
, she thought. “We have to get to the Baker,” she said. “As quickly as we can. We stop for nothing.” She glanced up at the Bellower. “I hope I can remember what he did to make this thing work.”

“I’m not dead yet,” Nophel whispered. “Help me … into the pod.”

“So she’s really your mother,” Peer said.

“My mother.”

“Talk about mixed heritage,” Alexia said.

And as she and Alexia lifted Nophel into the Bellower pod, Rufus’s parting comment imprinted itself on Peer’s mind forever.

Then have faith
.

He was pacing the vat hall, feeling helpless, silently exhorting Rose to acknowledge him again instead of just sitting on the vat, watching and stirring and watering, when she gasped and fell. She bounced from the shell of the vat, knocked her head against one of the large wooden uprights, and splashed in the warm pool around its base. The sound of her head making contact with the ground was sickening, and even as he ran across to her—fifteen steps, certainly no more—he was certain that she was dead.

He felt an impact through his feet, so powerful that he stumbled a little before regaining his balance. Accompanying it for the first time, a distant rumble … and a roar.

Oh, crap, oh, crap
—and he knew how great events often turned on the pivot of a minor, pointless catastrophe. Kneeling beside her, he dreaded what he would see. There was no blood, at least not at first glance. No dents in her head. Her left eye flickered slightly, splashing droplets of water from her eyelashes.

“Rose,” he said, reaching out but not quite touching.

Another impact, and dust came down from the ceiling. The vat rumbled and whispered, and he expected its sides to flex and burst at any moment.
What’s she making this time?
He had seen the birth of Neph, and then those three fighting things, and finally Rose, so now what could Rose be making to better that? What monstrous creature would she send after
the others to fight whatever was rising? It was like sending a bird after a spider after a fly …

“No!” she gasped. Gorham lifted her head from the water, and her eyes fluttered open. One was still pink and bloodshot, but they were both alert and conscious. She fixed her gaze on Gorham for a beat, then tried to sit up. He helped. She thanked him. Then she slowly lowered her eyes.

“She’s dead,” she said. “We don’t have very long.”

“Nadielle?”

Rose stood and held on to the wooden support. She wiped water from her face and looked at a smear of blood across the back of her hand. Her nose was bleeding.

“Are you sure?” Gorham asked.

“She tried to communicate with the Vex while her creations attacked it. Tried to reason with it. But it killed her. The chopped are still fighting it, but …” She shrugged. “Help me back up. I have to make certain the vat—”

“Don’t you care?”
It killed her
, he thought.
She’s gone—all that life, those gorgeous eyes glazed
 …

“She made me because she knew it would happen,” the girl said, confused.

“
I
care!” Gorham said.

Rose seemed uncertain, as if waiting for him to say more. When he remained silent, unable to speak, she turned away and looked back up at the vat.

Gorham walked away.
I ran over here to help her
, he thought.
And she never needed my help
.

“They’d better bring him soon,” Rose said. As if to illustrate her point, there was another impact that shook the ground and made him stagger against one of the ruined vats. His hand slid into a sickly, thick mess, and he wiped it on his trousers without looking.

“If they do, they do,” he said.
And if Peer is still with them, please, let her talk to me. Let her accept me
.

The distance roared, and he wondered what state Echo City was in.

*   *   *

The Bellowers bellowed, and Peer and Alexia traveled south in a pod with the injured Nophel between them. Alexia had administered brief first aid but thought it too risky to try removing the crossbow bolt.
At least it doesn’t seem to be poisoned
, she’d said, and Peer’s thoughts had gone back to Malia. It would be difficult telling Gorham about her death, but at least it had been a brave one.

And was I brave?
she wondered. Whatever happened in the immediate future, she would never forget the feeling of her sword ending that tortured woman’s life.

The journey passed quickly. At last they lifted Nophel between them and headed toward daylight, and he groaned as he walked, trying to help but losing a lot of blood. As they emerged into the dawn from the final Bellower basement—Peer welcoming the sunlight, reveling in the heat on her face, and yet convinced that something terrible was stalking them—the ground was shaken by an immense tremor. Peer staggered against a wall with Nophel, and Alexia went to her knees on the narrow path. Windows smashed, people screamed. The Unseen woman grasped the water canteen.

As the noise of the impact faded, a silence hung over the built-up area—a pause that invited more chaos. But none arrived.

“What was that?” Alexia asked.

“It’s getting close,” Peer said. “We have to hurry, Alexia. Fast as we can. We’ve got to get across into Crescent and down to the Baker’s labs, and that’s two miles away. And …” She looked at Nophel, with his head bowed.
We should leave him
, she thought. But he had helped them so much—the Unseen most of all—and before she could say more, Alexia had grasped his arm across her shoulders.

“Then we should go.”

Smoke rose in the distance, and voices rose in panic again. This was not the usual morning chaos. This was the sound of a rout.

“What’s happening?” Nophel asked.

“Come on.” Peer grabbed his other arm and they walked along the narrow alley. The smoke she’d seen was thick and rich; the stink of cooking meat hung in the air. And as they
rounded the corner and Peer looked down the sloping street, the chaos grew apparent.

The streets were thronged with people, carts, and tusked swine loaded with hastily tied packings, all of them flowing south. Arguments broke out here and there, fistfights flaring and dying out. Farther up the gentle hillside toward the looming Marcellan Canton wall, a building burned. Its windows gushed fire and the roof wore a head of flames, and from this distance it was difficult to tell whether the fire was being tended. One side wall had already collapsed, and burning brands were drifting westward on the breeze. Already there were smoke plumes heading skyward from a dozen secondary fires.

Someone called for their son. A woman screamed. An old man begged for help, somewhere out of sight. Children cried, men shouted, and a tusked swine was shrieking. It had fallen in the road, leg snapped where a hole had opened up in the paving. A family was hastily unloading the beast, and no one seemed eager to put it out of its misery.

Another jolt, and more glass broke and showered into the street.

“The moth said south!” a woman cried as she emerged from a building across the street. She was slapping at her husband’s hands as he tried to hold her back. “Come with me!” she begged. “Please?”

“Moth?” was all he said, and the woman held his coat and tried to pull him with her into the throng.

“Moth?” Alexia asked.

“I don’t know,” Peer said. She grabbed at a woman walking by. “Wait! What’s happening?”

“South to Skulk,” the woman said. “Haven’t you heard? That’s what’s best.”

“The Marcellans have ordered that?”

The woman had walked on, but at that she paused and turned back, barely sparing Nophel a glance. “Ha! The Marcellans? You’re joking, aren’t you? They don’t—”

There was another thud that traveled up through Peer’s feet and set her teeth ringing. Somewhere far away, something fell, heavy stones tumbling and crushing. The flow of humanity
paused for a moment, then continued on its way, voices a little quieter than before, a little more afraid.

“There’s another one,” the woman whispered. “If you’ve got your heads on right, you’ll come with us.”

“But who told you?”

“Who? People just … know. The terror is rising; go south to Skulk.”

“We can’t,” Peer said. The woman looked at Nophel properly then, a spark of interest in her eyes. Then she turned and went on her way.

“Right, well, that’s got me crapping in my trousers,” Alexia said.

“Easy … for you to say,” Nophel mumbled. “So are we going or not?”

As they set off for Crescent, across the flow of people, it felt as if Nophel was leading the way.

   Beside the street at a major crossroads lay the bodies of three Scarlet Blades. They had been dragged to one side and left there, food for rockzards and other carrion creatures. People poured past, heading south for the Tharin. Though Peer could not see that far, she knew that the river crossings would be thronged, and beyond there would be streets filled with panicked, desperate refugees. Nothing like this had ever happened in her lifetime. The whole city was moving.

The terror is rising; go south to Skulk
, the woman said, and it had echoed with the sound of something repeated.