The Fifth City (6 page)

Eight

It was dawn when a strange feeling made Sylvia wake.  With her heart inexplicably racing, she opened her eyes as she unsheathed the dagger she had held while sleeping.

Neve was sitting rigidly against the tree, her eyes so wide that her
eyebrows were halfway up her scalp.  The haze of sleep fell off Sylvia so quickly at Neve’s expression that she was wide awake immediately.  Her heart thumped against her chest as she sought the danger.

Slowly, ever so carefully, Sylvia turned her head in the direction Neve was staring.  In the deepest recesses of her heart, she already knew what it would be.

Toward them stalked a sinewy wolf, its fur black as night, with a few white markings on its ears.  Its lips were curled up to reveal sharp, white teeth, and a growl reverberated from between its jaws.

Sylvia’s stomach turned to stone.

The creature moved with sinister grace through the trees.  Past it, Sylvia could see that the Scout camp was empty.  They had moved on, but this wolf hadn’t.

Sylvia twisted into motion just as the wolf did.

The animal aimed for Neve, since she was closer.  In a flash, Sylvia’s shoulder rammed into its flank, knocking it away from Neve, who had scurried backwards on her hands and feet, finally unfrozen.

Teeth bared and dripping saliva, the beast now faced Sylvia, but she wasn’t afraid—after months of training with her own wolf, she knew these animals inside and out.

But the Scouts trained their beasts in their own way, and the dark wolf lunged for her knife hand, clearly knowing it should disarm its opponent first.  Sylvia flung herself backwards, pivoting on a heel to keep the beast in front of her.  It skidded past her, then whipped itself around, having missed its mark.

Sylvia darted in, the dagger a lethal extension of her arm, sailing toward the wolf’s side.

She would have to kill it, because if it returned to the Scouts with human-made wounds, they would know there was an enemy out in the wilds nearby.

Her slash missed by a hairs-breadth as the animal dodged and rolled away in an impressive and unnatural move.  It had been trained well.

But Sylvia realized too late that it had rolled back toward Neve’s direction.  She had a wild thought that it could sense Neve was the weaker target.

The Lightcity girl had the borrowed knife in her grip, but merely stared, eyes wide, as the animal approached.  The girl was completely frozen in her tracks, terror written across her face.

Without a thought, Sylvia hurtled herself at it, throwing her whole body onto the animal, her arms flung wide.

She collided with the furry beast, knocking them both into a tumble in the dirt.  Sylvia barely registered kicking Neve as she and the wolf toppled to the ground, with Sylvia fighting to keep away from its snapping jaw.  She inhaled a whiff of its wolfy scent as she struggled to retain her grip on the beast, now fighting to free itself.  Sylvia buried her dagger in its side.

Wounded, the beast fought harder under Sylvia’s weight.  With a final jerk of her arm, she sunk the dagger deep into its chest this time, ending it.

Sylvia’s veins sang with energy as the adrenaline spent itself.  She pulled herself up off the beast, heart racing as if she’d just been running, her hand sticky with blood.

Neve stared down at the dark wolf, still clutching the knife.  The girl blinked several times.  Sylvia looked away from the dead wolf, for once feeling sorry for one of the beasts.

The Scouts had made it this way.  She had been
forced
to kill it.  To protect Neve, and herself.

Her own Luna had a wild side, but Sylvia had trained her wolf to protect her, and obey; not to attack and maim like the Scouts had done.  They were much worse than the wild wolves, who only sought to protect themselves and their territory.  Sylvia shook her head in disgust.

She could tell Neve needed a minute; your first wolf encounter wasn’t something you just shook off.  And Sylvia had a feeling Neve would be embarrassed, having frozen like that.  So she wiped her bloody hands on a patch of moss, brushed the dirt from her clothes, and waited.

While scanning the woods around them for any sign of movement, Sylvia took deep breaths to calm down her pounding heart.  The forest was quiet and still, and the morning sun filtered in warmly through the bare trees, shining down on their camp; the site spoiled only by the dead wolf laying there.

She held out her hand to Neve, who took it and rose.  The girl let out a shaky breath as she fumbled to return the knife to her belt.

“Was that—was that one of the Scouts’ beasts?”

“They’re odd fighters,” Sylvia said with a nod.  “They know how to disable a person, to go for the weakest target—” she winced, as Neve ducked her head.

“Would you teach me how to fight?” the older girl asked abruptly.

Sylvia raised an eyebrow.  “There’s a lot to learn,” she hedged, but then had an idea.

“But in Meadowcity, we’re training even regular citizens to fight, to join the guard—Defenders, we’re calling them.  My friend Ven is doing the weapons training.”

Neve smiled weakly.  “I’m not very good at much at home.  I’m always breaking things in my uncle’s shop.  I don’t know if I would be any good.”

Sylvia shrugged.  “Well, you won’t know if you never try,” she said, realizing as the words came out of her mouth that it was something her mother would say.  She smiled, allowing herself a brief moment to think of home.

After a minute, she dutifully turned her thoughts back to the journey at hand, and told Neve that they would be leaving shortly.

She made quick work of hiding the wolf, using fallen branches and brush to cover it.  It would be better to burn it and get rid of it completely, but they didn’t have the time.  She didn’t know how early the Scouts had left their camp, or how far their ultimate destination was.

So she and Neve erased all traces of their campsite, which wasn’t much, and headed south.

Nine

As she walked a few paces behind Sylvia, Neve pictured again and again the wolf’s attack this morning. 
Had she
wanted
the beast to kill her?

She had frozen completely.  The knife Sylvia had kindly given to her lay useless in her hands, her fingers stiff and unmoving, refusing to defend herself.

Neve had been unable to sleep their entire journey, ever since she had heard what the explosives—
her
explosives—were being used for.

She couldn’t begin to fathom the depths of her idiocy.  She should have
known
Skycity was doing something wrong.  Why else would that enormous man have been seeking something so destructive, weeks before Lightcity had even been told of the war?

The false war that Greyling had fed them, as he coerced Governor Estella into selling them out.  Neve felt sick again.  She took a few deep breaths and focused on the path, watching Sylvia’s feet as the Rider forged a path through the trees.

“You’re very quiet,” Sylvia said, glancing back.

“I’ve just—got a lot on my mind,” was all Neve could think of.

Sylvia chuckled.  “No—I meant, you’re very quiet in the woods.  I’ve traveled with others before, and it’s hard to stop from yelling at them to quit stomping their feet or snapping every twig on the path.  It’s not really something you can teach.”

An unexpected smile rose to Neve’s lips, but then she forced the corners of her mouth back down.  She didn’t deserve to smile; not yet.

They trekked on through the afternoon, steadily covering ground in a dense part of the wilds, the forest spotted with evergreens.

“Maybe you should consider training to be a Rider,” Sylvia mused after a long space of silence.

Neve couldn’t stop the slight smile at that.  “My father was a Rider.”

“Well, there you go,” Sylvia said, as if that settled it.

They walked on for the rest of the day, following the Scouts at a distance so great Neve couldn’t even see them.  But Sylvia appeared to be following subtle indications on the trail.  Neve couldn’t help but constantly check the woods around them for any sign of another wolf.

Another night on the ground came and went.  A root had dug into her hip when she lay down to pretend to sleep, but she didn’t move, didn’t find a more comfortable patch of dirt to lay on.  She still didn’t deserve it.

But when the sun finally rose, Neve found herself being shaken awake by Sylvia.  Sleep had finally caught up with her, and she was reluctantly grateful for the rest.

As they took to the trail, she thought of her father, and what he would think of her becoming a Rider.  And then her mind was flooded with bitter relief; relief that he would never know what his daughter had done, what she had let happen to Arcera.

*   *   *

Neve nearly refused to believe her eyes.

They had reached the edge of the wilds, and the Scouts had finally stopped.  Sylvia had wanted to get closer, so they had crept through the forest, deadly silent, until they were close enough to see what the group was up to—so close they could even see their faces.

Falcon was with them.

Neve watched as he tossed a scrap of food to his beast, a muscled mountain lion with a gleaming tan coat.  It’s clawed paws were as big as his hands.

Of course he’s with them
, she thought,
he was never anything but a damn Scout.

A flash of anger surged through her, feeding off nearly a week with little sleep.  It was just her luck to witness his further betrayal of her.

She had no more room in her heart to mourn their friendship.  It was already overfilled with such intense regret and guilt, that she just swallowed it down, thinking it was just what she deserved.

The Scouts lurked on the edge of the wood.

“They must be spying on the city or something,” Sylvia whispered, so quietly that Neve had to read the Rider’s lips to understand.

Neve could only see a swath of open water past the trees where the Scouts had stopped, so the city must be further out on the water.

The trained wolves and lions were on tethers now, and Neve sincerely hoped none were out roaming the woods nearby.  She slid her knife out of its sheath, as Sylvia had done, and waited.

The men took their time unpacking various instruments and tools, and then even more time fiddling with them.  Neve watched with narrowed eyes as Falcon held a telescope to his eye while maintaining a monologue with the Scout next to him, who made notes in a little book.

They all stayed within the safety of the trees until the late afternoon began to fade into night, then they packed their tools and hid their gear in the brush under the trees.

Neve watched incredulously as Falcon pulled off his heavy leather vest.  The rest of the Scouts, too, were removing their boots, weapons and belts; and hid them along with their gear.  Neve exchanged a look with Sylvia, her brow creased. 
Were they going in the water?

As the sun dipped below the horizon, erasing all shadows, the Scouts emerged from the trees and onto the low stone cliff that separated the woods from the water.  They left Sylvia and Neve’s line of vision and Sylvia cursed under her breath.  They rose to follow them.

They had to make a wide arc around the lions and wolves, left tethered to trees by the Scouts’ gear.  Neve hoped the beasts didn’t catch their scent.

Sylvia began to jog, and Neve followed suit, concerned they were going to lose the Scouts.

It soon became impossible for them to stay in the woods, which had become tangled with brush.  They extracted themselves from the snarly vines and bushes and stepped onto the shore.  They were hit with a stiff wind, cold enough that it bit through Neve’s many layers of clothing.

The Scouts were running, tucked in an awkward crouch, and moving quickly toward one point on the shore.  It looked like they were heading for a low spot in the short cliff, where the rock was cracked and eroded away.

Neve was a silent shadow on Sylvia’s heels as they sped along the shore on the edge of the trees.  They were exposed, but none of the Scouts had even bothered to turn around and watch their backs.  Perhaps they had gotten too complacent with their animal counterparts guarding the woods for them, Neve thought.

The first Scout reached the crack in the rock, and the others gathered around him, all of them looking eager to get out of sight and off of the shore.  Sylvia stopped running and they edged out further onto the shore, staying low.  Neve came up beside her and sunk down, her feet silent on the white stone, and watched, wondering what the Scouts would do once they got into the water.

Out of the corner of her eye, Neve saw a small black bird soar by.  Suddenly her body was struck with wracking pain—all over; her chest, her fingers and toes, her legs had frozen with constant, pulsating pain.

She could not move.

By her side, she saw that Sylvia must have been hit too; and far in front of them, the Scouts had all frozen in place.  Their groans reached Neve’s ears, which were throbbing in pain.

Her head began to ache fiercely as her whole body was wracked with the sharp pain.  What felt like thousands of needles stabbed through her bent legs, which were suddenly spasming at random. 
Was it getting worse?   What was happening to them?

She wished it would stop; wished she could close her eyes, wished she could bring her hands up to her head to protect it from the current that seemed to flow painfully through her.

It wove through her veins, vibrated through her bones, and sank into her gut.  The agony went on for an eternity, and she was trapped, drowning in pain forever.  Her eyes weren’t shut, but she could no longer see anything of the twilit shore.

Finally, she let out a moan and sunk to the ground as something released her.

Before her eyes closed she saw the small bird flit toward the island.