As we draw nearer, I can tell that the falls spill past residences that are built directly into the mesa’s rock face. The smooth stone façades practically gleam in the sunlight.
This must be Bedrock.
The place looks like heaven. A sanctuary. An answer to the dying state of the land.
Is this the Verdant?
Surrounding the settlement and stopping the flow of water from traveling into the wastes is a towering stone- and mud-packed dam. Like a corral, it runs around Bedrock in a half circle. Only a stream of water breaches the barrier, drying long before it can reach the Barrel. The rutted trail our wagon follows leads to a ramp that climbs to the top of the dam, where a guarded entrance allows access to the fortified settlement beyond.
One way in, no way out. He controls everything.
I realize suddenly why Asher looked so terrified. Even with his warning, he fears I won’t survive this.
II
Bedrock
Chapter Nine
Before we reach the ramp to the dam, a cloth sack is thrown over my head and I’m left leaning against the side of the wagon’s bed, trying to make sense of things as Bay squirms in my arms.
The wagon pitches during the climb, is momentarily level, and then pitches again as we descend into the space beyond the dam. Once on flat ground, the mule’s hooves clomp over hard earth. A few instructions are spoken to our driver, but despite Bedrock’s scale, the place is eerily quiet. No voices or laughter. Just the distant roar of the crashing waterfall and the creak of the wagon’s wheels.
Despite the sack blocking most of my light, things suddenly go darker still. The mule’s hooves echo—we’ve rolled into an enclosed space, a large stable of some sort, if I had to guess—then lurch to a stop. I’m pulled from the wagon.
“Those three go to the fields, the girl straight to the General’s meeting chambers. And the baby goes to the nursery.”
Bay is lifted from my arms. “No!” I grasp blindly for her, tugging against my escort, but I can’t see anything, and I feel like an empty husk of myself. My limbs are heavy, my head clouded. Any fight I had in the Barrel scudded off when Bain tackled me. If the person holding me now let go of my arm, I might topple over.
They push, guiding me roughly, and like a particle of dust in a storm, I’m swept away.
* * *
I’m sitting in a chair, hands bound in my lap, when the sack finally comes off my head.
I blink, momentarily stunned by the brightness of the room. The ceiling is too high, and the weathered table stretching before me is massive. It could easily seat twelve. Guards line the perimeter of the room, yet the place doesn’t feel crowded. It’s unnatural. Too large. Too open.
Candles and torches burn throughout the space, casting the stone walls in flickering shadows. To my right there’s a window framed with thin curtains, but from where I’m seated, all I can see beyond it is sky. At the far end of the table is the room’s only doorway. A curtain of beaded ropes hangs from the top frame.
The beads part without warning, and a man steps through. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wears pale garments and a sleeveless leather robe that falls to his heels. A chain of metal pendants hangs around his neck, and a falcon is perched on his shoulder. Its plumage is sandy, like the bird belonging to the gunner from the Barrel, but this creature is larger.
The guards along the walls stand straighter as the man approaches the table.
This must be the General.
I steel my expression, raise my chin.
“Delta, was it?” he asks, as though he doesn’t already know. As if his men hadn’t attacked my home. “Of where?” Two additional guards enter behind him, both wearing ram-skull masks like the gunner from the Barrel, and position themselves on either side of the door.
“I didn’t say.”
The General smiles as if I’ve made a joke, and it causes thin lines to appear around his eyes. He’s Ma’s age, probably, perhaps a bit younger. “Please, have something to drink.” He motions to a clay pitcher on the table and the small cup beside it, but I don’t miss that there is a second pitcher at the General’s seat. Two pitchers. Two different drinks. Asher’s warning echoes in my mind.
When I don’t move, the General’s eyes drift to my hands. He waves for a guard. “Cut her bindings, won’t you?”
“I’m not thirsty.” Even as I say it, my voice, parched and dry, cracks on the words. I can practically taste the cool relief the drink will provide.
“Cut her bindings anyway. She is no prisoner here.”
A guard moves forward and severs my ties with an Old World knife. I rub my wrists as the General sits opposite me.
His face is youthful, almost handsome, but I imagine it’s easy not to get beaten down by the land when you rule from a sheltered paradise. Dark hair is cropped close to his head, and a beard obscures most of his mouth, which makes me wonder if he’s smiling at me or sneering. The clothes he wears are impeccably clean: a spotless pale shirt tucked into neatly tailored pants. The long, sleeveless robe is the only article that has a patch—a strange faded symbol sewn over his heart. It’s an odd place to need mending. Seams tend to give out first, or holes find their way into the elbows or knees, none of which the long vest-robe has. He’s clearly never seen a day of work in his life—or at least not since he rose to power within Bedrock.
“It’s Delta of Dead River, sir.” A face pokes through the beaded curtain door—the gunner from the Barrel who brought me in. “The man trading her confirmed it.”
“Thank you, Reed. That will be all.” The gunner named Reed disappears, and the General’s eyes slide back to me. “Welcome to Bedrock, Delta of Dead River. Now please, have some water. You must be parched.”
I stare at him, unblinking. His falcon stares back with a beady, glass-eyed gaze. I pour myself a drink and raise the cup to my mouth. I fake a sip—feel the heavenly wetness on my lips—then swallow to sell the act. The General smiles.
“You must have many questions, such as who I am and—”
“You’re the General,” I spit out, “and I want to know why your men attacked Dead River and abducted my pack.”
He puts a hand to his chest. The slender, thumb-size pendants on his chain clink beneath his palm. Some are rusted, but newer additions gleam in the candlelight. “I would never authorize such actions,” he says. “You saw this happen?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “Old Fang did.”
“I believe my troops were near Dead River during a silent storm. Is this Old Fang elderly? Is it possible the storm influenced his grip on reality?”
“He’d been shot,” I practically snarl. “Silent storms don’t shoot bullets. And our midwife and her son were killed too, had their skulls smashed in.”
The falcon hops onto the table, and the General strokes the bird’s cream-brown feathers. “There’s been a misunderstanding, clearly. Come. I’d like to show you something.”
He stands and moves to the window.
This is the General. His men attacked my camp, killed some of my pack. I should want to claw his eyes out. If I had my knives, I’d be throwing them into his back, but I lost them to Bain days ago and all I can do is stare at my cup of water, thinking about how good it would taste. Because I don’t trust myself to sit within an arm’s reach of it any longer, I stand wearily and join the General at the window.