Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (48 page)

Her expression vacillated like that for a while, moving
between rage and panic and despair. In the end she settled into a stolid, numb
whimpering. Merrick tried to console her a time or two, but all she did was
curse him.

He was about to try going inside—to see whether she would let
him pass without issue—when several of the doors opened. Out poured a handful
of gangers. Tattoos covered their bodies in patterns of colored ink, much like
the woman’s. Several of their faces were carpeted with them.

“You got a shit-ton of nerve, coming here all lonesome,” said
one of the gangers, a towering man with rings through his ears and spiked studs
along his lips.

“Who leads this gang. Is it you?” Merrick asked.

The ganger smirked. “Yeah, that one’s me. What all this shit
is right here? You—” He looked at the woman’s nub, then at the remains on the
ground.

“Your girl here tried to get rude with me.”

“Oh, you think you a real hard coffer.”

“I am,” Merrick said. “I’m as hard as the coffing rock you
must’ve been living under if you haven’t heard of me.”

The ganger shared a glance with his compatriots. “That right?
Who the coff is you?”

“I’m the healer.”

He gave Merrick a skeptical look. “You? The dway they
back-fence being some miracle-maker?”

“Yeah.”

He laughed. “Okay, miracle-maker. Make us one.”

“I just did. She tried to take a swing at me and got hurt
pretty bad. I healed her.”

“What this ass-bagger saying, Gweina?”

The female ganger was massaging her stump with her good hand,
shaking her head, dazed and staring. “I dunno.” She swayed side to side. “I
dunno.”

“What you did to her, miracle-man? What you did?”

“I told you already, I—”

The ganger shoved Merrick so hard he stumbled back a few
steps. The others advanced, circling him. Merrick heard the clinking, scraping
sounds of metal as the gangers drew chains, knives, and irons.

“I’m warning you,” Merrick said. “Stay back, or I’ll have to
hurt you.”

The tall ganger laughed again and gave him another shove.

Merrick was ready this time. He caught himself on his back
foot and stood his ground as the taller man bumped him, chest to chest. “This
is your last warning,” Merrick told him. “Take me to the dway in charge of the
Klicks, or I’m going to hurt you. All of you. And I won’t heal anyone this
time.”

The ganger paused a moment to study him. Merrick heard the
leather creak on the handle of his makeshift hatchet, a sliver of sharpened
street sign wedged into the forked end of a shortened broom handle. He prepared
to ignite, recalling what Raith had taught him.
Your gift is powerful beyond
what any normal person could expect. If you’re assaulted by someone who’s never
seen our kind before, chances are he won’t have the psychological fortitude to
process what you’re able to do. You owe it to him to offer a truce before you
resort to physical harm
.

Something in Merrick’s look must’ve made the ganger uneasy,
because he moved away and said, “Back off, dways. Let this limp-gut show us his
going. Make one, limp-gut. Show us.”

Merrick breathed a sigh. There was a moment where, had he
ignited his shield, he would’ve slashed three or four of the gangers to pulp.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll show you. Throw something at me. Something you don’t
want back.”

The ganger picked up a pebble and tossed it in Merrick’s
direction. The shield flickered to life. The pebble bounced away in a splash of
molten stone. Merrick held up the shield, gritting his teeth with the effort.
“Throw something else,” he said. “Something bigger.”

The gangers looked around. One found a loose brick in the
side of the building. They all backed away to watch him lob it full-force at
Merrick from several fathoms back. The shield flared as the brick turned to
liquid. The splash fizzed on the pavement, burning deep gouges into its
surface. The gangers laughed, entertained by the display.

Merrick snuffed his shield. “There. Will you let me talk to
your leader now? It’s important. I need the Klick’s help with something big.
Are you the dway in charge?”

The tall ganger thought about it. “Isn’t no dway in charge
here, assbag. Come with.” He waved Merrick forward. Then, to the others, “Watch
him.”

The doors opened into the school’s lobby, an expansive
narthex with staircases at both ends and a high ceiling whose skylight windows
glared on the bland epoxy flooring. The front office was little more than a
tall box of shattered windows. A stepped semi-circular stage jutted from one
wall, flanked by built-in planters full of dry, barren soil.

They ascended the far staircase and took the upper hallway
into a pod lined with classrooms. There, in a common room where tables and
cabinets and desks were stacked up like privacy walls, lounged a woman with
coffee-colored skin who Merrick thought looked a lot like a barbed-wire fence.
Spikes and rings pierced her face and ears. Her earlobes were gauged with rusty
metal discs as big as bottle caps. Like others in her gang, she’d amassed a
formidable collection of tattoos. In her case, the inked graphics covered
nearly every inch of her skin from throat to forehead.

“Are you the head of the Klick?” Merrick asked.

She sniffed, staring at him. “There best be a good coffing
reason you all bringing this shitkicker down here to cut in on my time. What is
you, a lost dog?”

“No, Peri. He’s this miracle-maker we hear us about.”

Peri stood, midriff bared between a short leather corset and
a pair of patchwork denim cutoffs. She came forward, giving Merrick her best
intimidating stare-down. Merrick wasn’t intimidated, though. He’d faced the
savages before he had any idea what it meant to be a blackhand. Now he was
trained. Ready for danger. He was the most powerful being in this city. As Peri
circled him close, bony fangs tinkling at the end of her necklace, spikes
protruding from her skin and clothing, Merrick reminded himself of that.
She
can’t do a thing to me. None of them can. All they can do is help me, or stay
out of it
.

“You a idiot, mister? Or you just pretending to be?”

“I need your help,” Merrick said.

“Help dying? I got plenty where that’s from.”

The others sniggered.

“Help killing,” Merrick said. “Killing Scarred Comrades.”

“Klicks kill us plenty of Scarred,” Peri said.

Merrick knew that was a lie. Bravado. “Good, then you’ve got
some practice. I want you to kill more. For me.”

“The Klick work for the Klick, jackhole. Nobody besides.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” He glanced at Gweina the
one-handed woman. “I’m not asking you to work for me. I don’t have the hardware
to pay you if I wanted to. What I want is for you to be my allies.”

“We our own allies.”

“Alright, yeah, I get it. You’re tough and independent.
That’s fantastic for you. Who puts food on your table? I’ll bet you’ve got some
garden around here, or a couple of rooftop farmers who give you a cut in
exchange for you not beating the shit out of them once a week. I thought I
smelled animals when I came in. You got a flock somewhere? Maybe you manage
some fresh meat and a thimbleful of milk every now and then. Am I right?”

“Who give a rat-man’s shit ‘bout food? We talking friends and
enemies, isn’t we?”

“Yeah, we are. And you’re no different from every other
half-starved souther in this Infernal-forsaken slagheap of a city. You live on
what you can forage in the ruins, hunt in the wastes, or grow yourself. You
catch crows and songbirds, because even one bite of meat is better than nothing
at all. You want to know who eats well? Who gets three meals a day and has food
leftover to toss out the window for those same crows to peck over? The city
north.” Merrick pointed off in a random direction. It probably wasn’t north,
but it served his point.

“Northers got it soft and simple, only way they good for.”

“That’s what I’m saying. They don’t deserve it. They just got
lucky. I think they ought to share the wealth, so I’m going to be the one to make
them do it.”

Peri laughed her derision. “You. I hope you got you-self a
lot of guns, ‘cause they Scarred gonna open you up, you don’t.”

“I don’t have a lot of guns,” Merrick said. “I’ve got
something better than guns. People. Thousands and thousands of people. They’ll
fight for me. Some are willing to die. But we all have one thing in common.
We’re all sick of having nothing… and of being treated like we
are
nothing. I know you don’t like this, Peri. This life you’ve got. You may have
it better than some, but in the end you’re the same as we are. Tired. You want
things to get better? You want to be there when the walls come down, and the
two halves of this city become one again? Join me. Be my ally.”

Peri lifted her chin to study him. “You mean it, or you just
some big-jawing kid with a head full of talk and a heavy wanting to get
you-self dead?”

“This is the real thing,” Merrick said. “This is what I’ve
been working toward for months. I’m going to open those gates and let all the
people of the city south through them.”

“What you need from us, then?”

“Most of my followers don’t know how to fight. They don’t
have weapons, and they wouldn’t know what to do besides run if someone made a
threatening move toward them.”

“You want I teach a bunch of hog-neck sandholers to fight?”

Merrick shook his head. “I don’t need them to be the best
fighters in the world. I just need them not to run away at the first sign of
trouble.”

“How you figure on doing that?”

“That’s where you come in. I want you to show them what it means
to be fearless.” This was a role Merrick had once hoped the Gray Revenants
would fill, but since the Revs had made their stance clear, the Klick would
have to do.

“You want we fight for you,” Peri said.

“With me,” Merrick corrected her. “I’ll be right there beside
you on the front lines. If you can bring every cell of the Klick together, plus
any other gangs you have a trading relationship with, I’ll make you all part of
my new city. You’ll have all the food and supplies you need to keep yourselves
fed and clothed for the rest of your lives.”

Peri considered this. She went to her lounger and sat down,
then lay across the pillows and gestured toward a one-piece student desk across
from it. “I’ll listen to you, shitkicker. You tell me what you gonna do, how
this gonna work. Then I tell you if we’s in… or we’s
out
.”

When Merrick squeezed himself into the desk and found his gut
wedged between the backrest and the desktop, the gangers chuckled. He felt
uncomfortable; lampooned. He adjusted himself and started in with his plan.

By the time he was done, Peraluu Zalva and her gangers were
fully invested in the endeavor. In guaranteeing them food in exchange for their
help, he had promised something he wasn’t yet sure he could deliver. He would
worry about that later, though—if and when the invasion was successful. Before
he parted ways with them, they agreed to meet with the Rowdies and the Tribe,
two other gangs they had allied with in the past and maintained loose ties to.

Merrick returned to the townhome to find it empty. A few
telltale scraps were the only signs anyone had been there in the last ten
years. Part of him wished the Decylumites hadn’t left so quickly; he would’ve
enjoyed browbeating Raith over his successful negotiations with the Klick.
Merrick was proud of himself for refusing Raith’s poor counsel, and for braving
the encounter without Decylumite bodyguards.
I’m done suffering the
criticisms and second-guesses of a bunch of dways who’ve spent the last fifty
years underground. It’s about time I started doing things my way. Things are
going to start getting done a lot quicker around here
.

Merrick could’ve sworn he was starting to get tired. It was a
distant feeling, though; the start of a faint headache, and the periodic twitch
of his eyes going briefly out of focus. Now that there were no prudish
Decylumites to look down on him, he might as well keep himself occupied while
he was awake. He told Boke to wait up for him, then went next door. He’d seen
several women there he hadn’t met, and he was sure at least one of them needed
healing.

CHAPTER 40

Her Children

The sky was darkening toward nightfall, golden
afternoon light tinged with the starwinds’ green. Sister Bastille was feeding
the chickens in the south courtyard when she heard a shout from outside the
basilica walls. The rains had prevented her from observing the usual feeding
times, so she’d taken the opportunity between afternoon classes and dinner to
see that the livestock were taken care of. The shout was nothing to be alarmed
about; crazed heathens came around to scream obscenities at the Cypriests often
enough. It was the way the Fathers were gathering at the parapet above the gate
that made her drop her pail and run for the west wall.

Could this be another attack?
she wondered, heart
racing. She began to make out the words as she came closer.

“I’m not going to hurt anybody,” called a young male voice.
“Just want to talk.”

Bastille reached the gate and peered through the narrow
opening between the doors. She saw a man on horseback, coming toward the
basilica at a slow walk. Above her, the Cypriests lifted their crossbows and
took aim. The man didn’t stop.
Another corpse for Brother Travers to drool
over
, she thought with disgust.

Then she noticed the man was holding something in one of his
upraised hands. The object caught the light and glinted metallically.
It’s
an Arcadian Star
, she realized.
Why is he showing it to them?

The man didn’t appear hostile, but if he came any closer the
Cypriests would dispense with him, regardless of his intent. Father Xan was
perched on the parapet above the gates. Bastille made to get his attention, but
the flutter of crossbow strings interrupted her.

The rider lurched in his saddle. Bastille saw him drop the
Arcadian Star, heard it clatter to the ground. He slipped sideways and crashed
down beside his horse, riddled with quarrels.

Bastille heard the first gunshot before she saw where it came
from. Further back, another man emerged from behind a building, revolvers
blazing in his hands. He made a zigzag advance, steady and purposeful, ducking
and sidestepping the Cypriests’ bolts on his way toward his wounded friend.

Father Xan toppled backward and crashed to the yard beside
Sister Bastille. Above her, Father Boudreaux’s head tore open in a scarlet
mist, and he followed Father Xan to the ground. The other Cypriests took cover
and reloaded their crossbows.

There was another cry from beyond the gate, an animal scream
that pierced the evening air. When Bastille looked out again, the rider’s horse
was galloping toward the walls with a crossbow bolt in its chest. The man with
the guns stood staring up at the parapets, watching for any sign of the
Cypriests. Behind him, a woman was dragging the wounded rider away. On the
street beside them lay the Arcadian Star, reflecting the dim green light.

Bastille wasn’t sure what to do. Were it not for the Arcadian
Star, she would’ve let the Cypriests deal with these heathens like any others.
If she ran for help, the Cypriests might kill the strangers before she
returned. No doubt the other priests inside the basilica had heard the gunshots
by now; perhaps they would emerge to investigate the commotion.

What puzzled Bastille most was how these strangers had come
into possession of the key. They obviously knew it belonged here, but not that
they could’ve used it to get inside without risking their lives against the
Cypriests. Maybe they had only come to return it to its rightful owners. They
could be caravan workers, come to report Brother Mortial’s death; or they might
be thieves who stole it from him and tortured him until he gave away the
basilica’s location. Whatever the answer, she wasn’t inclined to open the gate
and find out.

Several priests and acolytes were standing behind her when
she turned around, staring in horror at the bodies of the fallen Cypriests. She
took one last look through the gate and saw the gunman vanish from sight behind
a building. The horse was gone, but for the distant sound of its hooves on the
pavement. She stepped away to let Brother Liero have a look.

“What’s happening out there?” someone asked.

“Are the heathens attacking us again?” asked someone else.

“I don’t believe this is an attack,” Bastille said. “They
have…” She caught herself, realizing she had nearly revealed the existence of
the Arcadian Stars to a number of priests without the privilege. “Kind Brother
Liero, may I have a word with you in private?”

“Certainly. What seems to be the trouble?”

They stepped away from the crowd.

“There was a man out there,” she whispered. “He had one of
the keys. The… stars. He was holding it up, as if to show us. The Fathers shot
him before I could stop them.”

“Is this man still alive?”

“Doubtful. He was struck three times. You know how accurate
the Fathers are.”

“And the key?”

“He dropped it. If you’ll notice, it’s lying there on the
pavement.”

Brother Liero went to the gate for a look, then returned. “I
see it.”

“What shall we do, kind Brother?”

“Let me think.” He tapped his lips with his fingers, staring
off at nothing. “It’s getting dark. Perhaps we should send a force of Cypriests
to retrieve it.”

Bastille nodded. “I don’t think we can afford to leave it
there.”

“No, you’re right. The Order’s security is in peril so long
as there’s a chance it might fall into the wrong hands. How this key escaped
our grasp, who can say…”

“I think it may be Brother Mortial’s,” Bastille blurted
without thinking. “Perhaps these people stole it from him.”

Liero turned to the parapet. “Father Kassic, prepare to sally
forth.”

Watching the Cypriests assemble before the gates, Bastille
couldn’t help but think of Kassic’s grim prophecy—if indeed that was what it
was.
The Order will fall to ruin
, the Cypriest had said.
The Mouth
proclaims it. The Order will fall to ruin
. If the endangerment of this key
was the first step in the prophecy coming to pass, there was no question they
must retrieve it.

“All members of the Esteemed may remain outside,” Brother
Liero was saying. “Everyone else is to return to the basilica. Go to your
bedchamber and lock your door. This will not take long, but it’s best you
remain safe.” He waited until the building’s stained-glass doors had closed
behind the last of the lesser priests and acolytes, then continued. “Father
Kassic, your first priority is to retrieve that iron key in the street. You may
engage any heathens who stand in your way. As always, you may recover the
bodies of the deceased, so long as you do not put yourselves at further risk in
doing so. The Mouth guide you.”

Bastille wanted to know how the heathens had come into
possession of the key, but she doubted they would survive a confrontation with
the Cypriests. Their intent—and Brother Mortial’s fate, it appeared—were
destined to go undiscovered.

Following standard procedure, a pair of Cypriests opened the
gates while a second pair guarded the gap to let the excursion party through.
Father Kassic and his team fanned out along the street, ever vigilant for signs
of danger around them. Bastille stood with the other priests, leaning on their
tiptoes for a glimpse through the open doors.

Father Kassic reached the spot where the Arcadian Star lay in
the street and bent to pick it up. The other Cypriests advanced toward the
corner of the building behind which the three heathens had disappeared.
Bastille waited for the inevitable sounds of gunshots and crossbow strings, but
those sounds never came.

The Cypriests emerged dragging the body of the man who’d been
riding the horse. The crossbow quarrels in his chest were gone, though the
wounds remained. They brought him through the gates and dumped the body at
Bastille’s feet, then handed the Arcadian Star to Sister Gallica. The crowd
gathered around for a look at the mysterious stranger. Bastille thought he was
dead until she saw the knot in his throat move up and down.

“Toler?” Sister Dominique pushed her way through the crowd
and dropped to her knees, lifting the stranger’s head into her lap. His long
dark hair flowed over her robes; his leather clothing was soaked with blood.
Even in the darkness, Bastille could see his face turning an asphyxiated blue.

“Toler,” Dominique said again, as if to reassure herself.
“Brother Liero, get everyone inside. Everyone.”

“Yes, please. You heard her,” Liero said, waving his arms to
usher them all back. “Give them some space.”

The crowd lingered, Bastille included. Eventually Brother Liero
and Sister Gallica managed to herd them into the building. Bastille turned back
as the doors were closing to see a faint red-orange glow emanating from Sister
Dominique’s hunched form.
She’s using her powers. She’s healing him
.

Dominique had known the man’s name. Could this Toler man be
another one of the explorers, like Mortial? Had he found one of the catacombs
and returned with news of his findings? Why hadn’t the Cypriests recognized
him—or if they had, why hadn’t they let him pass? And if the man had once been
a member of the Order, why hadn’t he avoided the Cypriests altogether by
entering the basilica through the labyrinth? How many Arcadian Stars were out
there, in the hands of everyday people like him?

While the other priests took the left hallway toward their
bedchambers, Bastille hung a right toward the conservatory.

“Where are you going, Sister Bastille?” Brother Liero called.

“I was feeding the animals when all the commotion started,”
she said. “I fear they’ll starve if they don’t eat soon. Mouth forbid it the
rains come back and I’m unable to give them another meal before tomorrow.”

Liero blinked his bulging eyes and nodded.

No sooner was she out of sight than she was off at a sprint,
covering the stone floor as fast as her slippered feet would allow. She crossed
the conservatory, exited through the south courtyard door, and rounded the side
of the basilica for another look at Sister Dominique and the stranger. Pressing
herself tight against the building, she leaned out and peered into the west
yard.

To Bastille’s surprise, Toler was ascending the parapet steps
with the Cypriests. He leaned over the wall and yelled out into the city
beyond. “Lokes. Weaver. Hey, I’m fine. I’m okay. You can come out now. No one’s
going to hurt you.” He glanced down at Sister Dominique. “No one’s going to
hurt them, right?”

“Father Kassic,” Dominique said. “Stand down. Let the two
heathens through our gates.”

“Yes, Sister.”

The Cypriests arranged themselves around the gate, opening it
at Father Kassic’s signal. Toler descended the stairs as the Fathers pulled the
gates closed behind the other two strangers. Atop the parapet, the Cypriests
held their crossbows at the ready, watching for the slightest sign of foul
play.

The gunman was tall and strapping, clean-shaven and thick of
jaw. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a long duster over his holstered revolvers.
His dark-haired female companion’s knee-length boots, leather leggings, and
buckled jerkin clung to a shapely frame.

The gunman’s eyes went wide when he saw Toler. “What in the
light-star’s name happened to you, Shep?”

“We thought you was a goner,” the woman added.

“I would’ve been,” Toler said, now standing beside Sister
Dominique. “Let me introduce you to somebody. This is Victaria Glaive, my
brother’s wife.”

“The gal who run off on him?”

Toler gave an uncomfortable smirk. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“She know?”

Toler nodded. “I told her.”

Bastille seldom cared about the before-lives of the other
priests, but Sister Dominique baffled her. These powers of hers—the ones she
claimed were the source of her aches and pains, and which she never used
anymore except in dire need—could render Brother Reynard’s hospital obsolete.
If she could restore a dying man to perfect health as she’d just done with this
Toler Shep fellow, why hadn’t she done more to cure the ailments of the other
priests?

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” the gunman was saying. “I’m
sorry for your loss. Name’s Will Lokes. This here’s Jal Weaver. Now, what’s the
big idea? You let them dways shoot everyone who tries to stop in and say
howdy?”

“Letting outsiders near our walls is a danger to our way of
life.”

“Them crossbows pointed at my ass is a danger to my way of
life.”

Bastille recognized the man’s northern drawl. Plenty of
cattle ranchers used to come through Wynesring twice a year, retreating to
southern pastures as the short season started going long, and vice versa. This
one didn’t look like a rancher, though. He looked more like some wasteland
scavvy, and so did his female companion.

“You must understand,” Dominique said. “We are in a difficult
position here in the city south. Our internal resources are abundant, and we
share from our bounty whenever possible. But were we to share too freely, or
allow heath—outsiders to roam our grounds, this thriving little society we’ve
built would never last.”

“You sure that’s necessary?” Will asked, flicking a finger up
at the Cypriests.

“Rather necessary, I’m afraid. As I mentioned, our protocols
are nothing personal. They’re simply a matter of precaution.”

Will raised a skeptical eyebrow and rubbed his neck. “Say,
uh… speaking of them resources you was talking about. That there key we found…
we heard it’s awful valuable to y’all. Heard it opens some kind of hidden
catty-cooms or other. You wouldn’t happen to know what that’s all about, would
you?”

“I can’t say I do. Was that the reason you stopped by? To
search for these… catty-cooms, was it?”

“Yes’m. Figured it was worth a look. You mind if we take a
quick gander around the property? Reckon we could split the profits if we found
anything.”