Of Dreams and Rust (30 page)

Anni makes a choked sound in her throat and puts her arm over my shoulders. I put mine around her waist. “I will never forget that,” I say to him.

Bo turns away and strides to the back of his hijacked war machine. “Now, Red. The carrier will be here in a few minutes, and we have to make it past the downed machines.” He gestures at the perforated war machine several yards away. “Their guns can penetrate our armor.”

Melik half limps, half hops to the rear of the machine. “And the carrier?”

“Heavily armored. Our guns are nothing to it. We will have to either access its kill switch or take out its pilot.”

Melik frowns. “Both of those involve climbing on top of the machine.”

Bo gives him a grim smile. “Obviously.” Together, he and Melik peer into the boiler chamber of the war machine. “You're a little big for this space, Red.”

“I'll fit,” Melik says, his voice strained. He accepts Bo's arm as he climbs into the back. As Bo explains how to work the boiler, I turn to Anni.

“We must go,” I say to her. “If the fighters can get the crews out of the machines, they will not be able to shoot at this one.”

Anni casts an anxious glance at Melik, who has folded himself into the boiler chamber of the war machine. My stomach clenches. So many horrible things could happen to him in that tiny space full of fire and smoke. Bo slams the hatch and strides over the top of the machine. He looks down at me. “I'll try to keep him safe.” He closes the plate over his face, becoming all steel.

I take Anni's hand. “We have to warn the fighters so they don't try to stop Melik and Bo.” I squeeze her fingers as the giant metal spider carrying two men I love lets out a hissing groan and rises from the ground. Anni calls out to Aysun, who sets out with the cart, heading south. A string of Noor are already ahead of her on the Line, moving as quickly as they can away from the danger that Anni and I now run toward. We weave our way past the stone cottages and press ourselves to a low rock wall. Maybe a hundred yards beyond it is the battle, and we can see only a small part of it, where the canyon opens to the west. Gunfire is constant, both from rifles and from the heavy guns of the war machines. The ground shakes as the hijacked machine trundles past its dead brother and makes its way toward the fight.

From our vantage point I can see a few Noor peeking around the low hill and firing at something deeper in the canyon. One war machine lies silent right near the path. A few Noor are peering into its rear hatch as smoke rolls from it. “I think we can go,” I say to Anni, and together we scramble over the wall and sprint for the hill. My boots tangle in the scraggly weeds and a cold wind whips at my hair, but I am strong with desperation.

Anni begins calling out in Noor before we reach the hill, and the fighters turn to her and listen, their gazes darting toward the hijacked war machine bearing down on them. Once she explains, their mouths twist into bemused smiles and they shout to their brethren—hopefully, telling them to hold their fire. Anni turns to me as I press myself against a boulder when more gunfire erupts. “They said there are many injuries. They are trying to silence the guns on all the machines now.”

By killing the gunners, I am sure. I poke my head out and crane my neck to see deeper into the rocky canyon. It is littered with the corpses of giant spiders, and Noor swarm over them like ants, pulling gunners from their perches and yanking pilots from their cockpits. As I watch, several charge from between the legs of one machine and attack the pilot's hatch with a wrench. I tear my eyes from the sight and search for the fighters who need my help.

I find Baris easily. He lies bleeding near the trail, his thick fingers clutching at a wound in his side. With a quick scan of my surroundings, I dart onto the trail and run to him. “Melik?” he says when he sees me. “Melik?”

I point to the hijacked machine. Bo is skillfully piloting it past the sleeping war spiders, maneuvering its heavy legs as if they were extensions of him, delicate and nimble. He must be so happy. The thought comes and goes quickly, but I smile as I turn back to Baris. I lift his tunic to see that the large bullet has gone right through him, and only time will tell if it destroyed something vital inside him. I squeeze his hand and pack the wound with cloth, trying to stop the bleeding.

The ground beneath my knees trembles in jolts out of time with the pounding of Bo's spider feet. I squint at the place where the canyon bends to the east and my breath catches. The carrier spider is twice the size of the war machines, with thicker legs and a body two stories high. It has two cannon for fangs. When its pilot sees the carnage in front of him, he halts the giant machine.

Bo marches his spider straight toward it. Baris asks me a question that includes the word “Melik,” but I don't know how to answer him. And even if I could, I might not. I'm too busy praying that the carrier spider believes Bo is a friend, because if those cannon blaze, Bo and Melik are dead. They have no chance.

I look over my shoulder and see Anni coming up the trail. “Take care of Baris? Move him carefully.”

She nods, her mouth tight as she watches the slow, careful progress of the hijacked spider toward the massive carrier beast. I slide along the rock wall, heading up the trail to where Bajram lies dead, huge holes ripped right through his chest. His death came quick, at least. I close his eyes and keep moving, knowing I am creeping closer to danger but needing to keep the battle in sight.

I kneel next to a woman who is curled onto her side. Her hand has been shot off, leaving her with only a stump. I whisper to her as I tie the tourniquet, and stroke her hair as I push san qi paste into her mouth, but my attention is on Bo and Melik.

The two spiders are only a hundred feet away from each other in the dry riverbed. I am only a hundred feet behind them.

I am close enough to see the moment the cannon swing toward the hijacked spider. Perhaps the pilot sees the rope dangling from its middle. Perhaps they have a radio signal that Bo is not answering. Whatever it is, they know they have an enemy now, and they are going to destroy it.

The first explosion shatters a boulder next to the spider's legs, and Bo jerks his machine into action. It moves like a real animal, changing directions before spinning and charging at the carrier. As the cannon swing heavy and slow toward it, Bo darts across the front of the machine.

When the pilot realizes he is being flanked, the carrier spider charges forward along the riverbed, firing its cannon. It lands a direct hit on the war machine where several Noor are standing, and the air fills with smoke and screams and flying bodies. I dive behind a boulder and reach out to drag the Noor woman with me. She shrieks and whimpers, tears streaming down her face as the big guns boom.

I have trapped myself here, so near the danger that rocks rain down on our heads and heat from the machines fans across my cheeks. I stare at the carrier spider as it stalks past my position, wondering where Bo and Melik are, if they were hit, if their machine lies dead near the bend in the canyon.

I do not have to wonder long.

With thundering footsteps, Bo's war machine barrels up behind the carrier spider. Just before it crashes into the colossal machine's abdomen, Bo's spider rears in the air and pounds its legs onto the carrier's back. Metal tears and squeals as the war machine's front legs tangle with the carrier spider's rear legs. The carrier's rear hatch opens as the massive arachnid drags Bo's machine along the ground. I cry out, imagining coal raining out of the firebox onto Melik, trapped in the tiny chamber at the back of the war machine.

Bo emerges from his cockpit, his metal mask gleaming in the light. He hurls several of his small spiders at the carrier's fireman and then jumps onto the back of the carrier spider, crouching near the open rear hatch and listening to the screams coming from inside. Smoke puffs and billows from the opening, but the carrier continues to move. It is nearly to the downed spiders now. The Noor have scattered, running for the village, but several wounded men are lying amidst the metal carnage.

Bo leaps from the carrier's abdomen to its thorax and hunches over the cockpit hatch. Perhaps alerted by the sounds of Bo's machine hands hard at work, the pilot inside halts the carrier. And then, just as Bo opens the hatch, the massive spider makes a violent right turn, heading straight for the opposite canyon wall, dragging the hijacked war machine behind it.

“Bo,” I whisper. “Melik.”

Before I can think about it, I have climbed out of my rocky hiding place and am running toward the dry riverbed. I can see what's going to happen, what this carrier machine is doing, and the scream unfurls from my throat, savage and agonized.

Bo dives into the open cockpit hatch as the carrier barrels forward. He yanks the pilot up. A man of flesh is no match for one of metal, and the pilot shrieks as Bo ends him with a wrenching twist. But the machine still moves, running across a short open space before ramming into the rocky canyon wall at top speed. Bo flies into the air, his steel body spiraling across the sky before colliding with stone and dropping to the ground three stories below. The hijacked machine with Melik in its belly slides heavily over the top of the carrier and collides with rock too.

“Anni!” I scream. “Melik is in the back!” Smoke billows from the rear of the hijacked spider, where Melik is trapped inside. Sickness winds up my throat as panicked shouts rise from behind me, as Anni's tortured voice calls out to her elder son.

She has lost her husband and Sinan, and now she is losing Melik.

I scramble up the riverbank to the other side and follow the giant footsteps that lead to the collision. Spurts of flame, coming from the open hatch of the carrier beneath, rise around the body of the hijacked machine. The carrier's boiler has caught fire, and it will cook the smaller machine on its back in a matter of seconds.

I am almost there when the boiler explodes. I am thrown backward as a wave of heat rolls over me. My ears ring as I raise my head. All that remains of the hijacked spider is a burned shell that slides off the back of the carrier into a smoldering heap of rubble.

“Melik!” yowls Anni. She and several Noor rush past me, on my knees and staring, and run to the wreckage. But it is too hot to allow them to reach the dented hatch over the boiler, where my red Noor is entombed.

They keep trying. I watch, helpless and hopeless. Because I know. I already know. Melik is dead. He is gone from this world, to join his brother in the crystal sea of souls. I rise, my feet numb and my head throbbing. When I touch my fingers to my temple, they come away wet and bloody. How interesting. I am injured.

I stumble forward, but I do not stop at the blackened coffin where Melik lies. I do not want to see him burned and ruined. It will kill me. So I make my way around the wreckage, searching for the only other person I need to see.

Bo lies crumpled against the canyon wall, thrown clear of the burned hulk of the carrier. As soon as I find him, I regain my bearings and purpose. I run for him and crouch at his side. His chest plate is caved in, and the frame around his right leg is mangled and twisted. Blood seeps from it, red drops falling from ragged torn metal edges. “Bo?” I squeak, reaching for his faceplate.

I slide it to the side, and his brown eye meets mine. His lips move, and his metal hand scrabbles over his chest. My fingers fumble and shake as I follow by memory the set of steps required to open his metal suit. I loosen his right arm from the shoulder and gently pull it off, freeing his human limb. I open his chest plate.

His chest is dented and swollen. Broken ribs. Internal bleeding. And the severe injury to his leg. “You can't fix me, Wen,” he whispers.

I lean over him and pull his helmet off. His sweaty hair is soft beneath my fingers. “I can try.”

His trembling human hand covers mine. “No.” His gaze slides along my face. “You're bleeding. Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine.” A tear falls from my face and lands on his cheek. “You have done a great thing, Bo.”

He lets out a shuddering sigh and winces. “I have done many bad things too. So many bad things.” His voice is only a shadow of what it was. Every word takes effort.

My fingers entwine with his. “No one is good all the time.”

He smiles, but it twists into a grimace. “I wish Sinan could have seen this,” he murmurs. “He would have loved to pilot one of those machines.”

I ride a wave of sorrow. “Thank you for coming back. I thought I had lost you.”

He wheezes. “Remember the end of the story about the bandit and the princess?”

I sniffle and lay my head on his shoulder, ignoring the stabbing pain in my temple. “The bandit dies, and he is still doomed to haunt the princess.”

“That is not the end.” When I raise my head, he continues. “In the end the princess gives her necklace to her daughter. But the bandit ghost still haunts her. Do you remember why?”

My throat constricts as I think of it. “He loves her. He realizes that it was never the necklace that held him to her, nor any enchantment. It was his heart.”

“Very good, Wen,” he whispers.

“But I don't want you to haunt me. I want you to stay here.”

“That is a wish I cannot grant,” he murmurs. A tear slips from his eye as I lift his hand and lay it on my cheek. He swallows painfully. “Will you let me haunt you? I do not want to be alone.”

He has had no family but for me and my father. No ancestors to look forward to seeing. He does not think anyone will be waiting for him, wherever he is going.

“Mican tisamokye.”
I kiss his forehead and place my palm gently over the center of his chest, where his tender heart beats, weak but frantic, clinging fiercely to life but rapidly losing its grip. “You carry my heart with you, Bo. You will never be alone.”

Slowly I reach up and remove his mask, revealing his whole face, half beautiful and half ruined. He lets out a small, vulnerable sound as I lay the mask over his chest.