I pull my hand from behind him, lower him softly to the ground. He smiles up at the stars, those indifferent bastards, the gods who abandoned us. He looks at them as though they mean the world, when really they mean nothing. They have brought us loss and misfortune. They have sat idly by my whole life, watching our earth die, refusing to help us.
They’re not coming back. I realize this with a certainty I’ve never experienced before. It’s undeniable. The gods abandoned us eons ago, and they have no intention of returning. Curse what the stars say. Damn those stories of rebirth. It’s not coming.
“Where’s . . . Indie?” Old Fang manages.
“Dead.”
His brow wrinkles, and a tear breaks down his cheek.
I shake my head, worried that if I cry too, I’ll never stop. “Her girl lived, though. Here.” I lift Baby from the sling and lower her onto Old Fang’s chest.
Baby squirms and fusses.
Old Fang manages a smile.
I think about what Zuly said, about one life leaving and another taking its place. But that’s not what happened here. Three people are dead, four if I count Indie. Everything is dying, even the cursed cycle of life. Death outweighs birth.
“I don’t know what to do,” I tell Old Fang. “What am I supposed to do?”
He wheezes, struggling to raise his arm. He puts a pinkie beside Baby’s flailing fists. Lets her fingers curl around his.
“Fang, where am I supposed to go? There’s nothing here. I can’t take care of Baby. I need to know what to—”
His hand falls away, hitting the lakebed with a muted thump.
“Fang?”
His blank eyes still stare at the stars.
“Fang!”
Baby starts crying. This time I cry with her, and the stars watch.
* * *
I make a pyre for the deceased and send them back to the sky.
Even after everything, I can’t bring myself to surrender our traditions. Rotting beneath the sun feels incredibly cruel—more suffering after a life of it—so I send their souls to the stars.
Standing upwind to avoid the worst of the smell, I watch the flames devour the corpses. When they are nothing but ash, I finally speak.
“Rest easy.”
It is what we say to all our deceased. One final prayer that, in the afterlife, they will suffer less than they did in the wastes.
The only structure the raiders didn’t bother to set ablaze is the now-empty stable. They’ve taken my pack and our livestock. I know I need to move. I won’t last more than a handful of days here on my own, but I can’t travel at night. Even with the lodestone directing me, I wouldn’t be able to see the ground beneath my feet. The moon is currently weak, and a torch will only alert raiders of my presence. They’re out there somewhere—the party that attacked Dead River. All serving some man known as the General.
I’ll have to salvage what I can and move in the morning, follow the river to Powder Town. I can leave Baby with someone there and set out after Ma and the others. Try to find where they’ve been taken.
If only we’d moved to Powder Town in the winter, none of this would have happened. According to Flint, they have defenses there. He’s never heard of a raiding party coming within even a stone’s throw of the place.
I sleep in one of the stable’s empty stalls with Baby—or I try to. She wakes constantly, wailing and crying for milk. Each time I have to milk the goat, fill the feeding pot, hold it while Baby guzzles.
She’s a damn drain, a nuisance, a leech.
I hate her.
I hate that she lived while Indie died.
I hate that I had to trek to the Ark instead of being here with my pack. If I were here, maybe it would have turned out differently.
You’d be dead, like Astra, for fighting back, or you’d be in chains alongside the others, wherever they are now.
I know it’s true, but logic doesn’t make the pain or guilt lessen.
* * *
Come first light, I gather what I can save from the huts. Any fresh food’s been ruined, but there’s a decent number of jarred dry goods I can take. Of course, those are heavy, so I only put five into my pack. One salt, two flour, and two baking soda. Astra’s home yields a metal box she must have picked up from a trader. Inside is a piece of flint rock and Old World steel, along with an Old World knife. The handle is perfectly contoured to the shape of my palm, complete with grooves for each finger, but it’s not made of wood or bone. The strange material is an unnatural color—bright orange, like a hot flame. There’s a small sheath with it, and I add it to my belt. I can carry the Old World knife on one hip and my trusty bone blade and wood-handle knife on the other. I snap the tin shut and pocket that too.
I get really lucky in Old Fang’s hut, where flames never made it into his cellar. There I find preserved jerky and three empty waterskins. The skins will kill my back at the beginning, but I’ll be draining them during the trek, and I know better than to venture out for any type of extended travel without a fair amount of water on hand.
I plod out into the lake and gather a haul, letting the water boil over the central bonfire while I feed Baby. Again. Because the rusted child does nothing but eat and sleep and cry. The clean water goes into my waterskins. I use the smallest amount to bathe, wiping sweat and dust from my limbs with a rag before loading everything into my pack.
I consider burning Indie’s clothes on the coals from the burial pyre, but they might come in handy if I need to trade with anyone, and I’ll need more wrappings for Baby when the rags from Zuly run out. So I just stand there a moment, looking over Dead River for the final time while Baby hiccups against my chest.
A knot scratches my throat.
I feel like I should say something, but don’t know what. I head north and don’t look back.
Chapter Six
The heat is driving me mad. It’s even making Baby crankier than she typically is, which doesn’t seem possible. Carrying her in the sling is like wearing a hot waterskin, and I’m sweating horribly within a half click of leaving home.
I glance over my shoulder to check on the goat. She’s pulling the dragger, which is loaded with all my gear. If I’m jumped by raiders, my rucksack will be the first thing they snatch, but it seems a better fate than collapsing from exhaustion. To keep my mind off the heat, I think about what Old Fang said.
Raiders . . . the General . . . They were looking for something.
The lodestone weighs heavily on my chest. Anyone in their right mind would want it, but it can’t be what they’re after. I’ve told no one about it, not even Ma or Indie. It stays hidden beneath my shirts, and when I bathe, I make sure to bunch it up in my clothes so no one sees it lying about. The trader who gave it to me is the only person who knows I have it.
I’d been ten, checking for quail beyond the camp perimeter. The man startled me so thoroughly, I tripped on my own trap. He was lean and tall, as silent as a breeze, and when he stepped from behind a crop of boulders with a mare’s rein in his hand, I thought maybe he was a god.
Then I noticed the wares slung over his steed, the state of his attire. Fancy Old World goggles like mine, but threadbare, fingerless gloves. Pale wool shirt, scarf, and leather vest, all beaten and patched. Old World rifle, but modified to shoot black powder because the Old World ammunition is long gone. If he was a god, he wouldn’t need to modify anything.