It’s quiet for a moment. What am I to him? Lost family? An old friend? Someone he simply feels guilty about trapping?
I wait for his answer, but it never comes.
“Eh, let him get all sentimental.” Bain spits into the fire. “I was only fooling. And I ain’t wasting meat on that scrawny thing.” His eyes dart my way. “I just wanna keep her scared.”
I wish it wasn’t working, but I look away, not wanting him to see the fear in my eyes.
They say little after that. I’m allowed to feed Bay but given nothing for myself, and by her second feeding of the night, my stomach is growling so fiercely, I nab a sip of goat’s milk from the feeding pot.
Someone’s always on watch, making sure I can’t break a bar on the wagon’s cage and slip free. When it’s Asher’s turn and the others are sleeping, he drops a squab wing at my feet. I eat like a heathen, then toss the bone into nearby scrub, causing the goat to bleat at me before she returns to munching on the greenery. I sleep eventually, exhaustion pulling me under.
We start moving again just before dawn. A headache throbs between my eyes. I haven’t had any water since before West Tower, I realize. Haven’t needed to pee either. I’m dehydrated.
I lie on my side in the bed of the wagon, curling myself around Bay, and try to ignore the scratchiness in my throat.
Chapter Eight
It goes on like that for another two days. Traveling across desolate land. Spending nights at camps the boys seem to be familiar with. I never see Burning Ground, so we must be staying well away from it. Asher says little to me, but he always gives me a bite to eat during his evening watch. In the worst heat of the day, Bain even allows me to have water. A corpse won’t fetch him much when we get to the Barrel.
To keep from going mad, I talk to Bay. I tell her about the dying earth and the deserting gods and the stars that judge us. I even sing her a lullaby Ma used to sing to me. It calms my nerves as much as hers.
By noon on the third day, the sun is high in the sky, red-angry and gleaming, and the land has changed.
Sand and dirt have all but vanished, giving way to hard rock. Not packed, dry earth like the land near Dead River, but honest-to-gods rock. Rock everywhere, rolling and bucking and spreading north, with shallow ruts worn into their surface. Ahead of us, a wall of it sprouts for the heavens, rock stretching east and west for several clicks, as solid as can be, save for one narrow pass.
“A mesa,” Asher says when he sees me staring.
“Huh?”
“That’s what you call a rock formation like that. A mesa.”
I wonder if he was as awestruck as I am when he saw one for the first time. I’m about to ask him where he learned the term, but Bain glares at us over his shoulder and Asher falls back.
Squinting, I can make out sun-bleached canopies stretching over the pass that cuts through the mesa and a series of wooden bridges snaking back and forth along the rim. Below, additional platforms and walkways seem to be built on top of one another, lining the sides of the pass like a skeleton stairway.
I blink, concerned that I’m seeing things. I’ve been feeling dizzy and feverish for most of the day, and I know I’m terribly dehydrated. But as we draw nearer, the image remains unchanged. I stare, slack-jawed, marveling at the ingenuity of it all. I’m not sure how people managed to raise these wall-clinging structures, but there’s no denying that it’s impressive.
Soon we’re slipping beneath idle flags that mark the mouth of the canyon and entering the pass. Just behind the flags is a raised iron gate, its post ends sharpened to spikes. I shiver when I picture the gate coming down, cutting off the passageway. This is not a place I’d want to be trapped.
Huts and shanties are built along the canyon’s base, serving as the foundation for the walkways that climb the surrounding walls. A blacksmith’s tool clangs somewhere in the distance. When I tilt my head back and look up through the wagon’s cage, I spot gunners along the rim line, scarves wrapped over their mouths and gunpowder satchels slung across their shoulders. Their modified rifles sweep the chasm as our wagon creeps forward.
I understand now why this place is called the Barrel. We are the bullet, moving through the barrel of a gun. There is only one course of travel, and it cannot be altered. I envy the falcon I spot flying high overhead, sunlight cutting through its wingtips.
The pass widens and eventually opens onto a bustling oblong clearing. Here, traders have set up a market, their wares spread over their mules and displayed in their rickshaws. There are more permanent structures too—booths and tables stocked with textiles, baking goods, leather. Pens of chickens and livestock. Pale canopies provide shelter for the sellers, who squabble with buyers over price.
I’ve never seen a settlement so big. This can’t have cropped up recently. The complexity of the walkways and the bridges that span the pass, the scale of the market, and the sheer number of wares . . . This place has been growing for years, and it seems impossible that our pack never heard of it.
Nestled in the shadows, behind the bustling market and against the mesa wall, sits a ramshackle shanty with a faded cloth door. A blitzed-looking man staggers from within, blinking in the afternoon sun, and I wonder if this place might be the Vulture’s Roost that Asher mentioned.
Bain and Cree set the yoke down across from the maybe pub, just outside a particularly unstable looking shanty. Like the Vulture’s Roost, it has a threadbare cloth door and leans into the rock walls like a weary vagrant. The uneven boards that make up the siding sport ugly gaps, and the roof is a series of decaying wooden planks that look as brittle as old cornhusks.
Asher hauls me from the wagon. Bay is secure in the sling, but I instinctively cup the back of her head to keep her from jostling. “Don’t fight them,” he whispers, pulling me close. “Speak only if spoken to, keep your head down, and don’t make a move until you’ve been assigned somewhere. You know where to find me when—”
A foreign set of hands grabs me from Asher and shoves me toward the doorway, where Bain is arguing about payment with a rotund, balding man. I get one final glance at Asher—standing in the market, arms at his sides and gaze rooted on me—before I’m yanked into the shanty and the cloth door falls back in place.
Fingers pinch my cheeks, forcing my mouth open. A woman with deep-set eyes and wrinkled skin examines my teeth. She pushes my jaw up, and I find myself staring at the sagging ceiling. Next, she pokes and prods, checking ears, eyes, combing through my hair. There are two other people being inspected in the hut, a boy and a girl, both around my age.
Heat laces my cheek, and my head snaps sideways. It takes me a minute to realize I’ve been slapped. “Only thing that should interest you is your feet.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and stare at the rock floor. I don’t have the energy to fight her. Even now, the room seems to be spinning.
The woman moves on to my neck, shoulders, ribs. When the sling gets in her way, she unfastens it and sets Bay on the floor, where the tiny girl immediately starts crying. I’ve never wanted to coddle her, but I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to scoop her up. The rock floor is hard and likely cold. The sling has fallen open. Bay should be in my arms, nestled against the heat of my body. Her little face wrinkles as she howls, and it takes all my effort to keep my mouth shut as the woman ignores the crying and continues prodding her way down my body. “Take this one to the wagon for Bedrock,” she says to another worker after no part of me has been left untouched.