Aliens: Phalanx E-Book

Scott Sigler

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Alien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 602

Beschreibung

An Audie Awards 2021 finalist, Aliens: Phalanx delivers medieval carnage as a pre-industrial society fights extinction at the hands of a massive infestation of Xenomorphs, from New York Times bestseller Scott Sigler.Ataegina was an isolated world of medieval castles and rich cultures—vibrant until the demons rose and slaughtered ninety percent of the planet's population. Swarms of lethal creatures with black husks, murderous claws, barbed tails and dreaded "tooth-tongues" rage across the land. Terrified survivors hide in ruined mountain keeps, where they eke out a meager existence. Skilled runners travel the treacherous paths between keeps, maintaining trade and sharing information. If caught, they die screaming.Ahiliyah of Lemeth Hold is an exceptional runner, constantly risking her life for her people. When she and her closest companions discover a new weapon, it may offer the one last chance to end the demon plague. But to save humanity, the trio must fight their way to the tunnels of Black Smoke Mountain—the lair of the mythical Demon Mother.Aliens: Phalanx TM & © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

The Complete Alien™ Library from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a review

Copyright

A Plea from Me, The Author, to you, The Reader — No Spoilers

Dedication

Map

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Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

THE COMPLETE ALIENTM LIBRARY FROM TITAN BOOKSTHE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATIONS by Alan Dean Foster:

ALIEN

ALIENS™

ALIEN 3

ALIEN: COVENANT ALIEN: COVENANT ORIGINS

ALIEN: RESURRECTION BY A.C. CRISPIN

ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS BY TIM LEBBON

ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWS BY JAMES A. MOORE

ALIEN: RIVER OF PAIN BY CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

ALIEN: THE COLD FORGE BY ALEX WHITE

ALIEN: ISOLATION BY KEITH R.A. DECANDIDO

ALIEN: PROTOTYPE BY TIM WAGGONER

ALIEN: INFILTRATOR BY WESTON OCHSE (FORTHCOMING IN 2020)

ALIEN: INTO CHARYBDIS BY ALEX WHITE (FORTHCOMING IN 2021)

THE RAGE WAR SERIES BY TIM LEBBON:

PREDATOR™: INCURSION

ALIEN: INVASION

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR™: ARMAGEDDON

ALIENS: BUG HUNT EDITED BY JONATHAN MABERRY

ALIENS: PHALANX BY SCOTT SIGLER

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 1BY STEVE AND STEPHANI PERRY

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 2BY DAVID BISCHOFF AND ROBERT SHECKLEY

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 3BY SANDY SCHOFIELD AND S.D. PERRY

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 4BY YVONNE NAVARRO AND S.D. PERRY

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 5BY MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN AND DIANE CAREY

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 6BY DIANE CAREY AND JOHN SHIRLEY

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS, VOLUME 7BY S.D. PERRY AND B.K.EVENSON

THE COMPLETE ALIENS VS. PREDATOR OMNIBUS, VOLUME 1BY STEVE PERRY AND S.D. PERRY

ALIEN: THE ARCHIVE

ALIEN: THE BLUEPRINTS BY GRAHAM LANGRIDGE

ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORYBY ARCHIE GOODWIN AND WALTER SIMONSON

ALIEN: THE SET PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIMON WARD

THE ART OF ALIEN: ISOLATION BY ANDY MCVITTIE

THE ART AND MAKING OF ALIEN: COVENANT BY SIMON WARD

ALIEN COVENANT: THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION

ALIEN COVENANT: DAVID’S DRAWINGSBY DANE HALLETT AND MATT HATTON

THE MAKING OF ALIEN BY J.W. RINZLER

ALIEN NEXT DOOR BY JOEY SPIOTTO

JONESY: NINE LIVES ON THE NOSTROMO BY RORY LUCEY

ALIEN: THE COLORING BOOK

A NOVEL BY SCOTT SIGLER

TITAN BOOKS

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ALIENS™: PHALANX

Print edition ISBN: 9781789094015

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789094022

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: February 2020

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

TM & © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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A PLEA FROM ME, THE AUTHOR, TO YOU, THE READER — NO SPOILERS

We live in an interconnected world. Everything you put online—from a blog post, to reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, to a YouTube comment, to a simple Tweet—is instantly visible to other readers interested in the same kind of books you are. I have worked hard to craft a compelling story with what I hope are some unexpected twists. If you choose to discuss ALIENS: PHALANX online, please be courteous to your fellow readers and avoid mentioning these surprises.

Those of us who love reading know there is only one chance to enjoy a book for the first time. Those of us who adore the ALIENS franchise get precious few moments to discover new elements of this enduring universe. Whether you love or hate this book, I encourage you to tell people how you feel about it, but please consider the enjoyment of others. Avoid posting spoilers, and let people experience this story for themselves.

Thank you.

Scott

@scottsigler

To Myke Cole, whose book LEGION VS. PHALANX was instrumental in the writing of this story. Thank you for answering my constant barrage of questions about ranks, spears and shields, thank you for your friendship, and thank you for your service to the United States of America.

1

Stillness is strength.

The black demon came closer.

Ahiliyah stayed strong.

She breathed slow, steady, deep. The way Aiko had taught her.

Ahiliyah moved nothing, save for eyelids; she even blinked slowly, making no motion that might draw the beast’s attention.

Her gloved hand gripped the handle of her knife, the kind called little friend. Not a loose grip, where the knife might fall and make noise. Not a tight grip, either, where her hand might tire, start to shake, make her breathe faster.

The demon’s rigid belly stayed low to the ground, its four backsticks reaching up to the noonday sun. Its tail—a black spine as long as its body, ending in a vicious blade of bone—twitched behind it. A long, thin arm reached out, spindly hand silently resting on a rock. The big body moved forward, a silent shadow.

The demon stopped, still as the mountain itself.

Black lips curled back. Sunlight gleamed off metallic teeth. The jaws slowly opened; the toothtongue extended. It, too, opened—the demon let out a low, barely audible hiss. It angled its long black head left, then right.

It was hunting. If it found her, she would die.

Had it seen her? Had it seen Brandun or Creen? Ahiliyah didn’t know where her crewmates had hidden. She dared not move her head, even a inch. If the demon spotted big Brandun or little Creen, there was nothing she could do for the boys.

If the demon saw them, they had their own little friends.

She’d observed the black beasts dozens of times, usually from a great distance. This was only the fourth time she’d been this close, close enough to count teeth.

The first time, she’d been lucky—her crewmates had survived.

The second time, Heyran Bouchard had died.

The third time, Admar Polous had been carried off.

The demon started moving again, stop-starting its way across the fallen, bleached trunks of alkan trees, through the thick, crimson leaves of the caminus bushes, over the rain-streaked, moss-spotted grey boulders and jagged piles of broken stone.

She silently wished for the beast to move faster, to rise up on two legs the way they sometimes had when she saw them from far away, in the night when there were no clouds to block the glow of the Three Sisters. But this one, moving in daylight… so rare.

That was how it almost got them. They hadn’t been expecting it. She couldn’t say that Brandun and Creen had grown careless, but she could say they hadn’t been as careful as they should have been. Brandun had stepped on a stick, broken it, a noise so loud it echoed lightly off the mountainside. He and Creen had kept walking. They’d stopped only because Ahiliyah ordered them to follow Aiko’s rules: hide, listen, wait.

Brandun and Creen had both groaned. Creen complained that he’d been walking for days, he didn’t want to wait. It was daytime, and the demons rarely came out during the day. Brandun complained too, which he only did when Creen was around.

As the crew leader, Ahiiyah had pulled rank, threatened them with punishment if they disobeyed. They’d listened. Because of that, hopefully, they might survive.

Of the three, one had to make it back.

The demon crawled, stopped, crawled some more. Death, silent and sure. Not coming directly at her, but moving in her direction. They looked different in daylight. It wasn’t shiny, like getum bugs were, but sunlight did gleam from various areas. At night, the demons merged with the dark, were nearly invisible against a rock face or in the trees and bushes. In the day, though, they were far easier to spot.

For three years, with her first run coming at dawn on her sixteenth birthday, Ahiliyah Cooper had done her duty, making the long walks between the holds, always in daylight. While those hikes frightened her—frightened everyone with even an ounce of smarts—it was the long hours between sunset and sunrise that brought true terror.

Because the demons mostly came at night.

The black beast stopped again, sinuous left arm paused in mid-reach. The long head slowly turned her way. No eyes on that curved surface, but… was it looking at her?

A light breeze blew in, carrying its scent to her, strangely similar to the richness of damp moss peeled back from a wet rock. She could smell it—could it smell her? Two days since she’d last bathed, hiking and sweating during every minute of sunlight, sleeping in her unwashed clothes. She stank.

If the breeze changed, if it smelled her, would she die?

Ahiliyah realized she was clutching the knife handle too hard. She forced herself to relax, settling into that perfect balance between too strong and too loose. In that moment, the knife truly was her little friend.

If the demon came for her, would she have the will to use the blade?

In Heyran’s moment of truth, he’d done what Aiko had trained him to do. When the demon had come for him, Heyran drove the point of his little friend deep into the right side of his own neck, just below his jaw. He’d sliced outward, away from his body, worsening the cut.

Then, as now, Ahiliyah had been hiding. Hiding and watching. She’d seen Heyran’s blood spray across the demon’s horrid black head. In death, Heyran had helped his people by depriving the demons of one more crawling black spot of evil.

Heyran Bouchard had been strong—Admar Polous had not.

Admar ignored his training. Instead of using his little friend, he’d drawn his spearhead from its back-scabbard and tried to fight. She didn’t know if Admar had landed a blow or not. If he had, the spearhead hadn’t slowed the beast in the slightest. Black talons sliced through hidey suit, clothing and skin. Admar had screamed, just once, then the demon had carried him away, never to be seen again.

Would it soon be Ahiliyah’s moment of truth? If this demon came for her, would she be strong like Heyran, or weak like Admar?

It was only ten steps away now.

Moving, looking, hunting.

Eight steps.

Her breath came slightly faster, perceptibly shallower—fear, taking control.

Silence is strength.

Ahiliyah forced herself still. All the training she had endured to learn how to control her breathing—Aiko screaming at her, beating her, drilling the mantras into her head—preparing her for a moment just like this.

Her breathing slowed, deepened, even as the demon crawled closer.

Six steps.

The beast hesitated, lowered the hand to the ground. Its head angled left, then right.

Had it heard her breathing? Was that what it had been homing in on?

Aiko wasn’t her only teacher—there was also Sinesh.

Sinesh Bishor never hit her, but his lessons were just as exhausting.

When death comes, see the beauty in life.

How many times had Sinesh told her that? How many times had he told her stories of his days in the shield line, of standing face to face with men who were trying to kill him, so close they could touch, so close they could kiss?

See the beauty. Ahiliyah did as Sinesh had taught. She widened her vision, took in all before her. The tans and grays of the mountain’s endless stone. The bleached tans of old logs. The deep crimson of the caminus bushes. The brownish-yellow moss. The pale green-white pokey plants that had managed to find a patch of soil. The blue sky. The mountain’s rich fragrance.

She felt… calm. Death was a few steps away, one sniff or one cough or one whimper away, and she felt at peace. It took another step toward her—her time had come.

In her mind, she walked through her training: lift her little friend, turn the blade, stab hard, not at her neck, but through it, then pull the blade out while pushing it forward. There would be pain—pain that would not last long.

Another step. The mouth opened again…

The rustle of distant trees. A breeze pushed her hidey suit netting up against her face.

The demon’s head slowly turned. The beast stayed motionless for a long moment, then scurried away, faster than the shadow of a flying bird.

The breeze blew harder. Ahiliyah closed her eyes, listened to that glorious sound. Had the sound of blowing trees and bushes and grass saved her?

She counted as Aiko had trained her to do, breathing steadily, concentrating on the numbers. When her count reached two thousand, she finally allowed herself to move. Little friend held in her gloved hand, Ahiliyah stepped out from the bush.

Wind caressed the mountain, rustling through the bushes, making the pokey plants bend. A rattlewing launched from a tree, fluttered noisily through the air and flapped off into the distance.

As if that flight had been a signal to the world, the sounds of the mountain animals returned. The high-pitched chirps of getum bugs. The piercing vin-DEEE, vin-DEEE of a vindeedee, hidden somewhere in a clump of pokey plants. The deep goon-goongaaaahn of a nearby humped gish that was probably hunting the vindeedee. The throaty voot-voot-VERT of a vootervert, once again happily digging away at a burrow.

The creatures always knew when a demon was about—their silence was as deafening as any alarm. When they again let loose with their music, the demon was almost assuredly gone.

Almost assuredly.

Relief flooded through Ahiliyah—she might live to see another day. Glancing up, she saw that the sun had moved farther in the sky. How long had she stayed hidden? Two hours? Perhaps a little bit more. Ahiliyah slowly turned her head, searching the mountain face, the bushes, the trees… she couldn’t see Brandun or Creen.

She made the sound of a vootervert. From higher up the slope came an answering voot-voot-VERT, as did one from a bush a few yards away.

“Come out,” she said.

Brandun stood first. He’d been higher up the slope, his hidey suit thick with fresh moss and threaded with dead sticks that helped break up his outline. He was only fifteen. He should have had another year in the hold, but he was so big the council had started him early. Already six feet tall, weighing over a hundred bricks, if his growth spurt continued his size would soon make him a liability on runs.

The bigger you are, the easier it is for the demons to see you.

“I thought you were dead,” he said softly. “I almost peed myself.”

This was his second run. He’d made his first with her as well; on that run they’d seen a demon, but only from a great distance.

He came closer to her, until his wide shoulders blocked out the sun. Ahiliyah didn’t know if he stood so near because he was afraid, and took comfort by her, or because he just didn’t understand the concept of personal space. So big, and only fifteen—someday, he might be the biggest person in Lemeth Hold.

“The world went quiet,” he said. “Does that always happen when a demon comes?”

“Yes, but don’t count on it. Sometimes they hide. They can stay still for a long time, long enough that the animals forget they are there and start making noise again. That’s why you have to use everything—your ears, your eyes, even your nose. Did you smell it? A smell like rock when you peel moss away?”

Brandun shook his head. “No, I didn’t smell it.”

“I can sure smell you, you giant stinky fuck.” Creen Dinashin stepped out from the bush. He was a head shorter than Ahiliyah, just as Ahiliyah was a head shorter than Brandun. Creen’s hidey suit was so stuffed with caminus leaves he couldn’t put his arms all the way down. So many leaves threaded into his gloves she couldn’t make out his fingers. He looked like a walking crimson teddy bear. He flipped his face netting up on top of his head, revealing his ever-present sneer and his blazing orange-yellow eyes.

Creen’s nose wrinkled with a theatrical sniff. “I smell shit. You shit yourself, Brandun?”

“I did not,” Brandun said. “But I wish the demon had taken you, so I wouldn’t have to listen to your mouth anymore.”

“Fuck off.” Creen glanced to the sky. “We lost time. I don’t want to sleep outside for another fucking night. I want to be home with a big, hot mug of tea. The wind’s getting stronger, Liyah—can we double-time it? We can use our torches, we might make it back before nightfall.”

This was his third run, yet still he hadn’t learned. As smart as Creen was—smarter than anyone Ahiliyah had ever met—he liked to cut corners, try to take shortcuts.

“Wind is a double-edged blade,” she said. “They can’t hear us, but we can’t hear them. And torches? Do you want the demons to find us?”

Creen patted the sides of his hidey suit. “We’re required to carry three torches on every run, plus matches—why do we have them if we never use them?”

“They’re for emergencies, you know that,” Ahiliyah said. “We’re not making it back tonight. With the wind blowing, be sure you’re looking all around you, not just straight ahead, got it?”

Both boys nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Now, come look at this.” She moved to where the demon had been, knelt next to a half-footprint left in the dirt. “I’ve been learning how to track them.”

Creen blinked, shook his head. “You’ve been working on what?”

“How to track them,” Liyah said.

Creen reached into his hidey suit, drew his little friend, held the blade point near his throat.

“I should just kill myself now and save time, because my crew leader is fucking insane. We want to stay the hell away from them. Why would we want to track them?”

Sometimes, she hated Creen Dinashin with all that she was.

“So we can know our enemy,” Ahiliyah said. “That’s why.”

Brandun knelt, touched the footprint. “Because, someday, we’ll hunt them instead of them hunting us.”

Creen slowly pretended to slice his own throat. “We all know I’m smarter than both of you, but you don’t need to find ways to make it so glaringly obvious. Can we go now?”

Ahiliyah walked back to the bush that had hidden her from the demon. She retrieved her heavy, overstuffed backpack. That was part of the training—once you find a place to hide, drop your pack. That way, if a demon took a runner, one of the runner’s crewmates could make sure that the letters, medicine, and other precious cargo might still make it home.

“Get your packs,” she said. “Let’s get as far as we can before dark.”

2

Never the same route twice.

One of the running mantras. Ahiliyah followed it religiously. She’d learned it from Aiko, who’d learned it from Colson Yinnish, who’d learned it from Olliana Ming.

Demons tended to avoid dense underbrush, loose stones, anything that might make noise to alert their prey. But no one knew if they could identify foot-worn trails through those same areas. No one knew if they could track people. No one knew if they might quietly follow a runner, hoping to discover a hold. Because of these things, runners needed to reconnoiter a new route every single time they traveled from hold to hold, including the trips home.

Home. After a grueling, nine-day run, with the sun nearing the horizon, Ahiliyah and her crew finally saw the familiar slopes of Lemeth Mountain. They’d be safely inside before daylight vanished, but they couldn’t rush things now, because, here, demons weren’t the only danger.

Traps of all kinds lined the winding climb to the ridge, to the entrance of Lemeth Hold. Traps that would kill demons, raiders, war parties and—unfortunately—runners. Subtle markers showed the only safe route up: dead trees with intentionally broken branches pointing inward toward the path; bushes with crimson leaves partially stripped on one side; broken rocks with the less-weathered, lighter part facing in.

The winding approach was thirty feet wide in most places, offering enough space that runners didn’t have to follow the same path every time. Ahiliyah, Brandun and Creen worked their way up, choosing the firm, print-less surface of rocks or boulders whenever possible.

Long ago—well before the Rising, even—Lemeth Hold had been part of King Paul’s Crown of War, a series of fortresses carved into the mountains themselves. In those fortresses, so the story went, King Paul the Unifier had garrisoned troops, troops ready to march down the mountainsides and attack any lowland cities that might rebel against his rule. When King Paul died, the fortresses had been largely abandoned. They’d lain unused for a century.

Without maintenance, Lemeth’s outer wall had become little more than a ruin. Huge stones had come loose and tumbled down the slope, leaving gaps that made the wall look like the rotted brown teeth of someone suffering from weakling disease.

There were places where the wall still stood, secretly maintained in a way that ensured it didn’t look maintained. Vertical slots lined the stone every five yards. Long ago, those slots allowed archers to launch death down upon advancing troops. Now, though, the slits were useless—demons were so fast they were hard to hit, and a single bolt barely slowed them down.

Above the old wall ran a thick stone lid, once meant as protection against showers of rain, or of arrows. Much of that lid had long-since collapsed, either because of natural forces or through the efforts of the hold’s stone-masons, to help make the place look even more abandoned.

“About fucking time,” Creen said. “This pack is killing me.”

Ahiliyah could sympathize. Beneath her hidey suit, her shoulders were rubbed raw; nine days with the heavy pack had taken their toll.

“I’m glad to be home,” Brandun said. “So glad.”

His pack was much larger and heavier than Ahiliyah’s or Creen’s, yet the big boy didn’t complain, didn’t lose focus. He remained cautious and alert; Ahiliyah could see it in his actions, hear it in his voice. That was good. This close to the end of a run, some people got careless. If Brandun kept up his discipline, he might survive long enough to become a slash.

If he reached that mark, his running days would end. For most boys, five runs completed their obligation. That was how it would work for Brandun, certainly; as big as he was, the warriors couldn’t wait to get their hands on him. There was even a rumor he was already being considered for the Hold Guard, the protectors and enforcers of Margrave Aulus Darby.

Five and done for most boys—but girls had to do ten.

From the age of sixteen to the age of thirty, women were obligated to serve the hold as runners. There were only three ways to get out of that duty: death, complete ten runs and become a double-slash, or get knocked up.

Those with child, or those who had given birth in the last six months, were exempt from runs. Because of that, most of the girls who got pregnant stayed pregnant, as often as they could, until they reached their thirtieth birthday.

“I don’t feel so good,” Creen said.

Ahiliyah shook her head. “I told you to go easy.”

“But we never get berries below,” he said, groaning in discomfort. “I can’t wait to get inside and squat on a real toilet. I’m so fucking sick of wiping my ass with bush leaves.”

Ahiliyah heard Creen’s anger and frustration. The constant fear of a run caused some runners to become quiet, trembling things, scared of every shadow. With other people—people like Creen—that fear manifested in a slow-burning rage.

Admar had been like that. Admar died on his third run.

Halfway up the approach, they reached the signaling point. Ahiliyah stopped there, stared up at the steep incline. Dozens of traps lined the ruined wall. Boulders, blocks and piles of rocks were precariously held in place by linchpin stones; kick the wrong branch, step on the wrong stone, use the wrong root to pull yourself up, and death would tumble down far faster than you—or even a demon—could move out of the way.

If the demons finally came calling to Lemeth Hold, many of them would be smashed flat.

“Creen,” Ahiliyah said, “call up.”

Creen made the vindeedee’s high-pitched call. Brandun’s voice was already too deep to make the sound. Ahiliyah could make it, but Creen was better. It was impossible to tell the difference between his call and the real thing.

Moments later, an answering, higher-pitched vindeedee call, followed by the low croak of a humped gish—goon-goon-GAAAAAN. Ahiliyah reached through her hidey suit netting into her thigh pocket, felt for and found the preserved gish throat-box with its tanned air-bladder. She blew into the throat-box. The bladder filled with air. She slowly squeezed it, matching the rhythm—goon-goon-GAAAAAN.

Up on the ridge, a tiny, hidey-suited head peeked over the old wall. The voice of a little girl called out, a practiced whisper-shout that would not carry, would not echo across the mountain.

“Ahiliyah?”

The lovely sound of a familiar voice—the sound of home.

“It’s me, Susannah,” Ahiliyah said. “Brandun and Creen are with me.”

“Okay! Come up!”

A wall watcher’s job was boring, yet critically important.

Always alone, watchers often stayed on the stone deck for days at a time, waiting for runners to return. Only the wall watcher on duty could call for the hold’s heavy door to be opened. In theory, that prevented raiders from capturing runners, then using the runners to gain access to the hold.

Ahiliyah and her crew ascended the final thirty feet, where the incline grew so steep they had to climb on all fours. Going up that slope, her backpack somehow felt lighter. It wasn’t light, not at all—it was more than half her weight—but soon she would be free of it. At least until the next run.

She was almost home—almost safe.

A snorfling sound, followed by the rattle of dirt skittering across rock. Ahiliyah held up a fist; the boys stopped instantly. Probably just a vootervert, but this close to home she wasn’t taking any chances.

The snorfle again—she turned her head, trying to locate the source of the sound. There, at the base of the wall, a white paw flinging dirt out of a hole.

“Dammit,” she said. “We have to kill it.”

Creen shot her a dirty look. “It’s just a vootervert. It’s not hurting anything.”

Did he have to fight her on everything?

“Where there’s one vootervert, there will be a dozen,” Ahiliyah said. “They can set off traps that take months to make. This is part of our job.”

“Fuck our job,” Creen said. “Nobody asked me if I wanted this job.”

Brandun reached to his back, gripped the handle of his spearhead, thinking.

“I’ll do it,” he said. He sounded sad.

Ahiliyah nodded. “Go ahead. Use your spear—vooterverts are strong, and they kick.”

It didn’t matter if he was upset about it, as long as he did it. This kill would protect the hold, and would provide around twenty bricks’ worth of meat—a rare thing indeed.

Like all runners, Brandun wore his spearhead scabbard on his back. If a runner needed to move fast, one could drop the pack to shed weight, yet not lose one’s weapon. He shrugged off his pack, set it down quietly. From the bulky leather holster lashed to it, he drew both of his tapered, yard-long halfstaffs, along with the the metal coupler, and set them all at his feet. He then removed the heavy butt-spike and stuck the metal point in the ground. He jammed one end of a halfstaff into the butt-spike’s socket, twisted the wood hard to make sure he had a tight fit. He then put the coupler onto the halfstaff’s open end, twisted it, put the other halfstaff into the coupler, twisted that as well.

Finally, Brandun reached to his back and drew his two-footlong spearhead free with the soft whisper of bronze against leather. He slid the halfstaff’s tapered end into the spearhead’s hollow handle, twisted until his gloved hands shook.

He spun the assembled, six-foot-long weapon once, gave it a hard shake, then stalked toward the vootervert hole.

“Figures he’d kill it,” Creen said under his breath. “The wannabe warrior.”

Brandun moved so smoothly, so silently, that he reminded Ahiliyah of a demon. She shivered, imagining Brandun sneaking up on her, to bury that spear in her back. As attuned as she was to the sounds of the surface, she doubted she would hear him coming.

The vootervert kept kicking dirt out of its hole, unaware of the threat.

Brandun reached the hole. He raised the spear, crouched low. He waited.

After a few minutes of kicking dirt, the vootervert finally turned around and poked its long, narrow head out of the hole, perhaps to look for threats, perhaps to sniff for more of its kind.

Brandun drove the spearhead through the animal’s neck. One strike, one kill—the vootervert didn’t even have time to let out a squeal of pain.

“Sometimes,” Creen said quietly, “Brandun scares the living fuck out of me.”

Brandun hauled the limp animal out of its hole. The vootervert was almost as big as Creen. Filthy yellow fur, thick with dark dirt. Long nose with a pinkish snout, which was the most delicious part of the animal. Big paws with four long, brown claws that fit together like the scoop of a single shovel. Someone would make scrapers or jewelry out of those.

Liyah reached into an inner pocket of her hidey suit, pulled out a coil of twine. Brandun set the dead animal on his backpack.

“I’ll tie it down,” Ahiliyah said.

Brandun started disassembling his spear and putting the parts back in the holster.

Creen waved his hand in front of his nose. “Wow, that animal stinks.”

Ahiliyah sniffed. “Um… I think that’s mostly us, Creen.”

He sniffed his armpit. “Ugh. Too many days away from the river, eh, Brandun?”

When the bigger boy didn’t answer, Creen leaned closer. Ahiliyah saw Creen’s smile, a smile that always seemed to precede an insult or a snotty comment.

“Hey, Dumbdun,” Creen said, “are you crying?”

Ahiliyah glanced at Brandun. Sure enough, tear trails lined the big teen’s cheeks.

Creen laughed. “You’re so sensitive, Dumbdun! Crying over a stinky chunk of meat? What a big, tough warrior you’ll make.”

Ahiliyah stood, stepped close to Creen.

“You wouldn’t go near that animal,” she said, her voice low and cold. “Say one more thing to Brandun, and next reservist training you get to spar with me.”

Creen’s smile vanished. “I’ll shut up.”

Ahiliyah patted him on the shoulder. “See? I knew you were smart.”

Everyone in the hold between the ages of ten and fifty had to train as a reservist every month. Those who could hold a shield and spear practiced phalanx tactics, those who could not trained with longbow, crossbow, or sling. As a senior runner, Ahiliyah could make junior runners put in additional work—which included hand-to-hand combat training.

Creen did not enjoy hand-to-hand combat training.

Brandun shrugged on his heavy pack. The vootervert’s stubby tail flopped back and forth with his every movement.

“Let’s get inside,” Ahiliyah said.

They each fastened a rope to their backpacks. Tying the other end around their waists, they carefully scaled the wall, using the edges of the old stone blocks as foot- and handholds. As far as overall strength went, Creen was by far the weakest of the three, but when it came to climbing he moved with the speed and grace of a hookarm closing in on trapped prey—he was up and over before Ahiliyah and Brandun had reached halfway.

Ahiliyah was slightly faster than Brandun. Exhausted, breathing hard, she slid over the top, under the overhanging lip, and dropped down lightly to the flat stone deck on the other side. Creen was already pulling hard on his rope, hauling his heavy backpack up the wall. Ahiliyah did the same—the sooner this was done, the sooner she’d be safe inside.

“I knew you’d make it,” Susannah said. “I knew it!”

Aliyah smiled at the gangly fifteen-year-old girl. Susannah had yet to fill out. All knees and elbows, she beamed with unabashed hero worship.

Susannah laughed and pinched her nose. “Oh, my goodness, you guys need a bath. Everyone will be so happy to see you back—the flu outbreak got worse while you were gone.”

Worse? Ahiliyah’s heart sank. The powder she and the others had brought from Keflan Hold would save lives, but with more people infected, would it be enough?

“Let me help,” Susannah said. She grabbed Ahiliyah’s rope and pulled.

Creen hauled his pack over the wall. He glared at Susannah.

“Why didn’t you help me?”

“Because no one likes you,” Susannah said.

Brandun dropped down to the deck. Without a word, he started hauling up his pack. His reached the top at the same time as Ahiliyah’s did.

“I’m in runner training now,” Susannah said as she set the pack at Ahiliyah’s feet. “Someday I’m going to be just like you. And I’m fast! Faster than most of the boys, even.”

When Ahiliyah had been that young, she’d said almost the same words to Danielle Sanyan. Ahiliyah had been the wall watcher when Danielle went out for her slash-plus-two run. Ahiliyah had been the wall watcher when Danielle had returned, had hauled Danielle’s pack up the wall just as Susannah had done. Ahiliyah had also been the wall watcher when Danielle had left for her slash-plus-three run.

Danielle had never returned.

Ahiliyah chased the thought away. She reached into a side pocket of her hidey suit, pulled out a stick of millasis wrapped in a grass leaf—she offered it to Susannah.

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, Liyah! Thank you!” Susannah unwrapped the grass. The translucent brown candy had snapped in half.

“Sorry it’s broken,” Ahiliyah said.

“Don’t care!” Susannah shoved a piece into her mouth, smiled wide. “It’s so good!”

“If you’re done stuffing your little mouth,” Creen said, “can you signal for them to open the fucking door? Do you think I want to stand here and watch you eat?”

Susannah’s smile faded. She looked down, spoke around the candy.

“I already signaled them.”

Ahiliyah turned to Creen. “Do you always have to be such a jerk?”

He glared back. “I don’t have time for children’s games.”

Creen was sixteen—only a year older than Susannah.

Ahiliyah heard the telltale grinding of heavy stone. To her left, the deck ended at a wall of blocks, each bigger than a man. The center block slowly slid backward. Most of the time the big block opened or closed without a problem. Sometimes, though, the men moving the tons of rock would lose control.

Sometimes people got hurt. Sometimes people died. That was the price of an entrance that could not be opened from the outside.

To the right, spaced out along the abandoned deck, were two ancient, traditional doors, the kind that, once upon a time, had swung inward.The first was only partially visible, forever sealed when the thick roof lip above it had collapsed. The second door not only went nowhere, it was rigged as a trap—whoever opened it would be instantly crushed beneath a ton of falling rock.

The big block stopped sliding backward into the thick wall, started sliding sideways. In that dark space, the pinkish light of a glowjar, then the face of Cadence Barrow. The older woman blinked against the light of early evening, even though the stone roof kept the deck in permanent shadow. Her hair and her skin were the pale white of those who never saw the sun.

“Brandun.” Her smile seemed to split her face with deep lines that ran from the corners of her eyes to the bony point of her jaw. “I was so worried.”

“Hi, Mom,” Brandun said. He stepped to Cadence, hugged her. He was already much taller than she was, and outweighed her by five or six bricks.

“For fuck’s sake,” Creen said. “Can we please fucking get inside and deliver this shit?”

Brandun turned and glared. In that instant, Ahiliyah saw the man he was becoming—he would be a giant, one not constrained by the fears and anxieties of an inexperienced teenage boy.

“Just because your parents are dead doesn’t mean you can be mean to mine,” Brandun said.

Creen fumed. He’d been very small when his parents had died of forgetter’s syndrome. He didn’t like to be reminded that he was an orphan.

“Leave Creen be, Brandun,” Cadence said. “He’s obviously tired.”

Being kind to Creen only made things worse. “I’m nicer underground. You know, that place where demons can’t get us? And I know Ahiliyah wants to steal off to the armory with Tolio and touch uglies, so why are we still up here jabbering?”

Ahiliyah flushed with embarrassment. “Fine. Let’s go. Susannah, want to come with?”

“I can’t,” she said. “Aiko was due back yesterday from Vinden. Gotta wait for her.”

Vinden was a safer run than the Dakatera/Keflan/Lemeth route Ahiliyah and the boys had just run, but it still had its share of danger. Aiko was the most experienced runner in Lemeth, having continued serving long after her obligation had been fulfilled. One day overdue wasn’t great, but where Aiko was concerned, it was probably nothing to worry about.

“Liyah, come on,” Brandun said. “The Margrave will be expecting us.”

Ahiliyah stepped into the opening. She waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light of the glowpipes—she’d escaped injury for nine days on the surface and wasn’t about to slip and fall on the stone steps—then started down. As she did, she heard Brandun, Cadence and Creen following her, and the grinding of stone as men slid the stone block back into place.

3

It was a hero’s welcome.

Lemethians packed into the stone corridor, all trying to get near her, Brandun and Creen, trying to see the trio for themselves, as if the word that they had survived might somehow be a lie. People cheered. They hugged her, kissed her, threw so many pink flowers at her the petals caught in her hidey suit, hung in her hair, stuck to the filthy sweat coating her face. The sweet-smelling flowers were always part of the coming-home ritual, helping to mask the stench of people who had spent days hiking hundreds of miles, never changing their clothes or even taking them off—on a run, constant camouflage was of the utmost importance.

The flowers weren’t really pink, they just looked that way in the reddish light of the glowpipes that ran along the corridor’s arched ceiling. The glass tubes channeled the river’s luminous water all through the hold. In pure sunlight, the imbid flowers blazed white as snow.

Bodies and faces pushed in all around her. The women dressed simply, in plain shifts of different colors, because Lemeth Hold was too hot to wear much else. They used jewelry to create their individual style, with vootervert-claw hair pins and combs, necklaces of copper, bronze and iron, copper nose-rings, the occasional gleaming bit of bloodglass shining from a leather bracelet or a metal necklace. The men wore pants, but no shoes. Most didn’t wear shirts. A gleam of sweat always seemed to glisten from arms tattooed with heavy black lines.

Hands patted her shoulder, tousled her hair, pulled her in for hugs. People she had known all her life smiled and laughed and praised her. They shouted questions, asking about loved ones, about life in the other holds. Ahiliyah answered what questions she could.

“You brave dear,” said old lady Yuzuki, her wrinkled face split by a smile. She kissed the dirty, smelly, unwashed skin of Ahiliyah’s forehead. “Do you have a message from Cireno?”

“He told me to make sure I tell you he loves you,” Ahiliyah said. “And that the gloves you made will help him with the iron powder harvest.”

Instant tears in Yuzuki’s eyes. Those words were more powerful than food, than medicine, than drugs. The old woman hadn’t heard from her son in months. The last set of runners sent to Dakatera hadn’t made it. All three had been lost. This time, though, with lives on the line, the Council had sent Ahiliyah.

People hugged her, kissed her, threw so many imbid flowers at her that they coated the stone floor. So many questions, shouted by people desperate for information.

“Did you see Usko?”

“Did Fabinin get my letter?”

“Is gramma Danise still alive?”

After the endless quiet of the surface, the shouts and laughter and questions and screams of joy felt overwhelming. Ahiliyah knew her people meant no harm, but she didn’t like how they packed so close, and she couldn’t help but feel anxious at how loud they were.

People, everywhere. Adults, teenagers like her, but also the elderly, and children and babies. So many children. Some standing by themselves, with wet noses and wide eyes. Some weaving between the legs of the adults, chasing each other in a game of demon gonna get ya. Some carried in the arms of mothers who were three, four, even five years younger than Ahiliyah. Some holding the hands of women Ahiliyah’s age or older.

The adults were loud; the children were deafening. Their excited shouts bounced off the walls. Their laughter filled the air. Their playful shrieks sounded far too close to the hunting noises demons made in the night.

Ahiliyah pushed her way through the crowd, trying to be nice, trying to understand that everyone was excited by her return. Still they shouted questions at her—so many questions.

“Did those Keflanian bastards give us the medicine?”

“How much do they have? Are they really hoarding it?”

“I hope you kids steered clear of those Dakaterans and their messed-up religion.”

Sounded like her people’s distrust of other holds hadn’t ebbed during her run. Maybe the medicine she brought would help that. Maybe not. Ahiliyah couldn’t control that.

The crowd quieted, parted. What had seemed like an impenetrable mass made way for three men—three large men—dressed in the sleeveless white shirts of the Margrave’s personal guard. Rinik Brennus, with his droopy eye and big nose, blond-haired Shalim Aniketos, who thought he was god’s gift to women, and—worst of the three—Drasko Lamech. Brennus and Shalim wore spearhead scabbards at their hips, not on their backs like runners did.

Drasko didn’t carry a blade. He didn’t need one—the often-used wooden billy club sticking out of his leather belt was threat enough.

“Welcome home, runners.” Drasko had a voice like a tumbling boulder.

“Thank you,” Ahiliyah said. “It was a close thing.”

Dark-haired Drasko wasn’t tall—he was the same height as Ahiliyah—but he was wide, easily more than twice her weight. Scars lined his exposed arms, scars earned fighting the Southerners, Islanders and various raiders.

Without taking his eyes off Ahiliyah, Drasko held his hand back to the younger and taller Shalim, who gave him a cloth sack. Drasko opened the sack, held it out.

“If you brought back capertine powder, let’s have it.”

Ahiliyah glanced back at Brandun, but the boy had already slid off his pack and opened it—he was so eager to impress these men.

“We usually take capertine powder to the hospital,” Ahiliyah said. “We’d be happy to drop it off there. No need to bother yourself with it.”

Drasko smiled, showing the missing teeth he’d lost in one of his many fights.

“Margrave’s orders, my girl. People might try to bribe you with a gift of this or that. After another successful run, we wouldn’t want you beset with temptation, would we?”

Susannah had said more people were ill. An understatement, apparently—things were so bad that Drasko had come to make sure people didn’t try to take the capertine powder out of turn.

Brandun dumped several tied-off cloth bags into Drasko’s sack. Drasko smiled at Brandon—Ahiliyah could almost feel the pride radiating off the boy.

“Well done, young man,” Drasko said. “Little Liyah here says your return was a close thing, but I know you would have protected her, right?”

“More like she protected me.” Brandun held his arms shoulder-width apart, palms facing each other. “She was this close to one, and she didn’t flinch!”

A murmur rolled through the packed corridor.

Drasko gave the bag a little shake. “Creen, Liyah, hurry it up. I’ve got better things to do.”

Ahiliyah shrugged off her backpack and opened it up. She dumped her six bags into the sack. Creen did the same.

Drasko looked into the bag, then at Ahiliyah. “That’s it?”

She nodded.

“You’re sure?”

As insulting as that was, she nodded again. Drasko wasn’t known for a sense of humor, or an ability to put up with backtalk. Not even Creen said something smart.

“Excellent job, young Brandun,” Drasko said. “I’ll be on the sand tomorrow morning at first sounding. Will you join me?”

Brandun’s eyes went wide. “Yes sir! I’ll be there!”

Drasko slung the bag over his shoulder. He and his two goons walked back up the corridor, the crowd again parting for them, closing in behind them as if to block Ahiliyah’s way.

Creen looked at Brandun, and smiled.

“Sir,” Creen said in a high-pitched voice. “I’ll be there to lick the sweat off your balls, sir!”

Brandun’s smile vanished. He said nothing, just walked down the corridor. He barely had to push to make room—people got out of his way almost as fast as they had for Drasko.

Creen cupped a hand to his mouth. “Your ball sweat is so tasty, SIR!” Ahiliyah cuffed the smaller boy in the ear.

He flinched, held his ear, sneered at her. “Don’t be such a jerk, Liyah!”

“Better I hit you than he does,” she said. “I swear, Creen, someday soon that mouth of yours is going to get your ass kicked.”

He glanced around, saw people staring at him, or making a point of not staring at him.

“Right,” he said in a low voice. “Like I haven’t got my ass kicked before.”

His words brought instant guilt; was she bullying him like so many others had? Maybe, but getting hit by people her size was one thing—Brandun was already big enough that his punches could cause real damage. There was a difference between getting hurt, and getting hurt.

Creen smiled wide and turned away from her.

“My lovely Lemethians,” he said, playing to the crowd, “kindly let us through. The Margrave desires an audience with us!”

Just like that, the awkward moment passed. The crowd parted just enough to let him through. Liyah followed him. On the surface, she always took the lead. In the safety of the hold, she didn’t mind bringing up the rear.

A flower hit her in the eye; she winced reactively, but it didn’t hurt. She laughed, wiping at the eye and continuing on after Creen. She found it ironic that her people used imbid flowers for celebrations like this. She and Brandun and Creen had carried half their body weight in those flowers to trade with the people of Dakatera and Keflan.

Those holds had tried for decades to cultivate their own imbid flowers, but had failed. Just as the capertine mold—which when dried and ground up produced the life-saving capertine powder—grew only in Keflan, imbid mushroom grew nowhere but Lemeth. Imbid soup countered weakling disease. In Dakatera and Keflan, imbid flowers were priceless; in Lemeth, they were so common they could be wasted at will, trampled underfoot and forgotten until someone swept them up and dumped them in the river.

Ahead of her, Ahiliyah heard Brandun laughing. He had forgotten about Creen’s mocking insult and was enjoying the attention, reveling in the moment. The people of Lemeth lavished him with praise and affection. More, she noticed, then she got, and she’d been the senior runner. But Brandun was a boy, and a tall, strong boy at that—people reacted to him differently than they reacted to her.

Such was the way of things.

Even Creen laughed a little, a rare sound if she’d ever heard one.

He deserved to be happy. So did she, and Brandun as well. They had returned, packs stuffed to breaking not only with the capertine powder and candy from Keflan, but also with sizzle spice, paper and iron powder from Dakatera, along with correspondence from both holds. After months with no contact, grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and friends could finally see the words of their loved ones. The celebration would go long into the night.

She and Creen endured the back-pats and well wishes. They caught up to Brandun just as he entered the Community Chamber. The Lemethians who hadn’t mobbed them in the corridors were waiting there, cheering loudly for their successful run. Some people were at the wooden tables spread across the stone floor. Others were seated on the four rows of stone steps that ran the circumference of the round room.

Ahiliyah followed Brandun and Creen out of the Community Chamber and onto the walkway that ran along the training pit. The wooden bleachers on either side of the pit were empty, but the pit itself was not. Down in the the wide, oblong, sand-filled space, she saw warriors practicing at the combat stations.

Will Pankour and Grian Yinnish stood in the archery range, practicing with the crossbows that fired heavy bolts the size of Ahiliyah’s forearm. Kadri Nemensalter and his brother Farid were working as a team, Kadri holding a spearman’s round shield, Farid behind him with a warrior spear, which was three yards long instead of the two-yard-long runner’s version. Kadri moved and turned, Farid staying behind him, jabbing the spear at an imaginary demon.

When men had fought other men, the shield had been an important part of war. Men didn’t fight men anymore. Not that often, anyway. Shields were a holdover from the past. They were big, bulky, awkward, and—against a demon—all but useless. Ahiliyah would rather put her faith in a hidey suit any day.

The warriors, though, did not share her opinion. Old ways died hard.

Brandun stopped suddenly—Creen bumped into him, Ahiliyah bumped into Creen.

“Brandun, you clod,” Creen said. “What the shit?”

Brandun stared toward the back of the pit—Ahiliyah saw what he was looking at and understood why he’d stopped short.

Near the far wall, a demon stalked three warriors.

Leonitos Lamech and Masozi Dafydd each had a shield and a three-pronged spear known as a demon fork. They were crouched, shields just below their eyes, demon forks held in their right hands, points and shaft above the shield, both aimed at a man dressed in the stiff shell of a dead demon, complete with the long, gleaming head. Behind Leonitos and Masozi stood Andan Gisilfred, aiming a crossbow between their shields.

“It’s not real, you dolt,” Creen said.

Of course it wasn’t. They’d all seen the suit a hundred times, a thousand times. It was part of their runner training. Until this run, however, Brandun had only seen real demons from a great distance. Seeing one up close had affected him, impacted his reaction to something as simple as a man in a costume. Ahiliyah couldn’t blame Brandun—an encounter like they’d had the day before changed a person.

“Probably Benji Johnson in the demon suit,” Brandun said. “He’s the only one that tall. Sometimes they put me in it, when I’m not out running.”

Ahiliyah bit back instant jealousy. Brandun was only fifteen, four years younger than her. He got to train with the warriors—she did not. Because warriors didn’t take women.

“You’d look good in that demon’s suit,” Creen said.

Brandun grinned. “Thanks!”

“I mean,” Creen said, “anything that covers up your ugly face is good, right?”

One look at Brandun—face red, head hung—and Ahiliyah’s jealousy vanished. He was just a kid. He didn’t make the decisions in the hold.

“Don’t let Creen bother you,” she said to him. “You’re better-looking than that midget.”

Creen huffed. “Yeah, right.”

In the pit, the “demon” rushed at Leonitos, who extended his shield to meet the charge. The demon crashed into it, stumbled back. Leonitos stabbed with his demon fork—the point jabbed into the demon’s chest. The demon toppled backward, big hands and feet flailing about.

“The point is blunted,” Brandun said. “But that still hurts.”

Andan raised his crossbow and fired. Even from up on the deck, Ahiliyah could see the bolt’s padded end—which struck the demon right between the legs. The demon cried out, rolled to his side and tucked into the fetal position, long black hands clutching at its crotch. The narrow black head tumbled away, revealing Benji’s curly red hair and tightly squinted eyes.

Creen laughed so hard he hung over the rail.

“Ouch,” Brandun said. “Got him where it counts.”

The warriors were also laughing. They lowered their shields, gathered around Benji.

“If only the demons had balls,” Andan said, leaning on his crossbow, “we’d be fine.”

“Andan, you marksman,” Leonitos said. “Only a gifted sharpshooter could hit such a tiny target!”

Renewed laughter. Benji lifted one hand—a hand in a gnarled demon-skin glove—and extended his middle, talon-tipped finger.

Creen couldn’t stop laughing. He leaned over the wooden rail, slapping the flat surface with his palm. That drew the warriors’ attention. They looked up at the runners and cheered, thrusting their weapons into the air or clacking them loudly against their shields. Ahiliyah felt a rush of pride. Next to the Margrave, warriors were the most revered people in Lemeth.

“Hail, Brandun,” Farid said. “Did you kill a demon?”

Ahiliyah’s jealousy burned hot again.

“No, warrior.” Brandun shook his head. “I did not.”

“Because he killed two,” Grian said. “Isn’t that right, Brandun?” Brandun’s face turned red. He laughed, uncomfortable with the attention—but also pleased by it. And why shouldn’t he be?

Because he wasn’t the crew leader. Because he did nothing but manage not to piss himself. Ahiliyah shook off the thought. Brandun had done nothing wrong. He wasn’t bragging, or making up stories about his run. Her problem was not with him.

“We didn’t kill any,” Creen called down, “but we stood strong while one hunted us.”

The warriors nodded politely. They paid little attention to Creen—he was small and weak. He would never become a warrior. He was smarter than all of them combined, she knew, but these men respected strength, not intelligence.

“Come on,” Ahiliyah said to Brandun and Creen. “We have to see the Margrave.”

The mention wiped the smile from Brandun’s face.

Ahiliyah continued on past the training pit, and down the corridor that led to the hold’s administration section. Even before she could bathe, before she could remove the stinking hidey suit, she had to report to the men who ruled Lemeth.

4

Outside the Margrave’s Chamber, Ahiliyah, Brandun, and Creen sat on a bench below a map of Ataegina painted on the stone wall. They’d taken off their hidey suits, rolled them up into tight bundles that they’d strapped to their backpacks. It felt good to be out of the cumbersome collection of netting and vegetation. They still wore the same shirts and pants they’d worn underneath, though—the fabric had absorbed eight days’ worth of sweat, dirt and body odor.

Sitting there in the still air, waiting to be called in, Ahiliyah was acutely aware of how much they all stank.

“I really wish they’d let you two bathe first,” she said.

Creen huffed. “As if you smell like flowers and cake.”

The door to the Margrave’s Chamber opened. Thesil Akana, the Margrave’s assistant, stepped out, carrying a tray with three steaming mugs of caminus tea.

“Thesil,” Creen said, taking a mug, “I could kiss you.”

Brandun and Ahiliyah took a mug.

“Thank you, Thesil,” she said.

He said nothing, just tucked the tray, went back into the chamber and shut the door.

Thesil had been in the same grade as Ahiliyah. He’d been such a funny kid, always laughing and smiling. On his fifth and final run, demons had taken both of his crewmates. He didn’t smile anymore.

“I miss tea more than I miss bathing,” Creen said. “Even this crappy stuff. People don’t know how to filter out the bitterness like I do. Drives me crazy to have to smell caminus leaves the whole time we’re running and not be able to start one little fucking fire, you know?”

Ahiliyah did know. On runs, Creen complained about the lack of tea.

They sat in silence, sipping the hot tea. In moments, she started to feel the little kick that caminus tea always brought.

Brandun cleared his throat. He often did that when he was looking for the right words.

“For God’s sake, Dumbdun,” Creen said, “just spit it out.”

Brandun thought for a moment, then turned to Ahiliyah.

“That demon,” he said, his voice low, “do you think it was Vanessa?”

Ahiliyah didn’t want to think about that demon at all, but it was a good question. Vanessa had been in Mari Jolla’s crew. On a run two weeks ago, a demon had caught Vanessa and carried her off.

“I don’t know,” Ahiliyah said. “I hope not. And if you see Mari, Brandun, do not mention that to her, all right? Mari took her loss really hard.”

Creen rubbed his face. “You idiots—people do not turn into demons.”

Brandun leaned away from Creen, as if Creen had suddenly become toxic.

“Don’t blaspheme,” Brandun said. “Everyone knows that magic—”

“There is no such thing as magic,” Creen said. “That’s bullshit the preachers tell us because they don’t know what happens and they won’t admit they don’t know. It’s impossible for a person to become a demon. Isn’t that right, Liyah?”

Ahiliyah leaned away from Creen, realized she was doing it, stopped herself.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean… that’s what the legends say.”

Creen crossed his arms. “Right. The Demon Mother uses magic spiders, whatever the hell a spider is, to turn people into demons. It makes no sense. No one’s ever even seen a spider.”

Brandun’s mouth hung open. He was very religious, which Creen knew full well.

“No more talk of spiders,” Ahiliyah said. “Or Vanessa. That’s an order.”