She manages it, somehow. The hunting packs come hurrying back to join the column, exhausted and bloodstained. I catch sight of Jack, still somehow with a spring in her step, and she gives me a jaunty wave as she bounces beside Thora. Meroe assembles them into a rear guard, protecting the column as it winds its way through the Upper Stations.
The crabs are coming. We’ve blocked off the stairs down to the Middle Deck and the Drips, but once the packs retreat from the walls there’s nothing to stop the monsters from wandering into the city. A few of them charge the rear guard, where Myrkai fire and Tartak force take them apart. I can see blueshells clinging to the First Tower, brightly colored in a shaft of sunlight, and a swarm of scuttlers working its way over Crossroads.
I don’t have to look at Meroe to know what she’s thinking. Not everyone joined the column. A handful were too hurt to walk; Sister Cadua had left each of them with a knife, for the crabs or for themselves. More had simply refused to leave, including several of the Butcher’s old packs. They’d holed up in the towers, or down in the Drips, determined to fight. Watching the crabs swarm across the city, I don’t think anyone has any illusions that we’ll be seeing them again.
Eventually, the head of the column reaches the barricaded door that marks the boundary between the Stern and the Center. Here the crew contracts to a dense huddle, reorganizing. I see Zarun and Karakoa for the first time since the Ring, particolored with the gore of a dozen types of monster. The two of them and the strongest of the hunting packs wait while we dismantle the barricade. I stand with Meroe, Shiara, and the Scholar by the door, listening to the sound of fighting behind us. The crabs are silent, as always. It’s the humans who blast them with fire, throw them against the deck with a clatter, or scream in agony.
Two Tartak adepts from Karakoa’s clade pull scrap metal out of the way, straining visibly as they wrap the barrier in blue light. As soon as there’s a clear space, crabs start to squirm through. Scuttlers, at first, and other small monsters that the hunters spear or fry. Then, once the gates open, larger beasts. A hammerhead, a pair of blueshells, even a shaggy. Others I don’t recognize.
I’d never seen a real hunting pack take on a crab. It makes me realize how makeshift Pack Nine’s efforts had always been, how much I’d relied on my own powers to handle things. Even tired, the packs operate with efficient teamwork, Tartak bindings holding their targets in place long enough for Myrkai fire to blast through their armor.
In places there’s a flare of green, a Melos blade, but not often. I’d always known Melos is one of the less common Wells, but I’d never really appreciated the difference it made, how it set me apart. Zarun and Karakoa are the only full-fledged Melos adepts apart from myself. They stride through the fight like glowing green gods, rending and breaking.
Eventually, the mass of crabs on the other side of the door thins out. The packs advance, pushing onto the long bridge that arcs into the great void of the Center, fighting their way toward the first of the big support towers. We follow in their wake, through a horrible landscape of twisted flesh and scorched chitin.
Most of the mangled pieces lying around us belong to crabs, but not all. A young man lies impaled on a blueshell’s claw, which in turn has been severed at one of its armored joints. The top half of a pretty young woman lies faceup, wearing an expression of blank surprise, her body below the hips trailing off into a red smear. I recognize Attoka, one of Zarun’s pack leaders, only by her white-blond hair; the rest of her is so tangled with the corpse of a many-limbed crab that I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Somewhere behind me, there are retching sounds. One of the youngest starts to cry.
Thankfully, we leave the mess of bodies behind as we make it onto the bridge. Only a few dead crabs line the way, and we push those over the side. The rear guard contracts as the last of the column pushes through the door. The entire population of Soliton, minus those we left behind and the bodies that line the way, is now trudging across the long, narrow bridge, hanging in the darkness above the Deeps.
* * *
“I’m telling you,” Zarun says, “I can’t ask my people to push any further. They’re barely on their feet as it is.”
“We’re all tired,” says Karakoa. “But—”
“We can’t stop here,” Meroe says.
We’re on the broad ring around the first support pylon. The entire crew doesn’t fit, of course, so they spread a little way back along the bridge. Packs watch the rear, and other bridges that lead from this circular platform off into the darkness. The officers, along with me and Meroe, are meeting on the far side of the pylon, out of easy earshot.
I can see the tiny flecks of gray light moving up and down, just under the metal skin of the pillar. Part of what the Scholar describes as a great machine, like a pipe for magic instead of hot water. When I put my hand against the metal, I imagine that I can feel the prickle of the energy on my skin. But it’s weak, here, not enough to try to contact Hagan.
“This is a fine spot,” Zarun says. “I may not be as well-read as our ‘military expert’ here, but I can see this place will be easy to defend.”
“It’s not about defense,” Meroe says. “It’s about water.”
They all look at her.
“We have maybe three days’ worth of water,” she says. “Here in the Center, there’s no way to get more.”
She’d explained the problem to me, before we left. Soliton’s crew collected water from where it gathered on the decks after rains, then strained and boiled it to make it safe to drink. Here in the Center, where there are no decks, only bridges and platforms, there’s nowhere for water to collect. Far below in the Deeps, we’d found a pool, but I knew better than to suggest we try to repeat that journey.
“So we have to reach the Garden before we run out,” Meroe goes on. “That means we have to push on as far as we can before we rest. There will be other platforms we can defend.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Zarun scowls. “We’re the ones going up against the monsters.”
“Zarun.” Karakoa puts a hand on his shoulder. “She is right. We can press on a few more hours. It will be easier, on the bridges.”
Zarun looks up at the big Akemi and sighs. The two of them turn away, and Shiara follows. The Scholar taps his cane on the deck, looking at me.
“At some point, of course,” he says, “you’ll have to direct us to the Garden.”
“When we need direction, I will.” I match his questioning stare. “For now, all we need to know is that we keep going forward.”
“As you say.” He rubs his bad leg and grimaces. “Don’t push too hard, Princess.”
When he’s gone, I lean back against the pillar. Meroe settles herself beside me, our shoulders touching.
“How are you doing?” she says.
“Keeping up, so far.” I put my hand against my bandages. “It’s not enough. I should be helping.”
“You know what Sister Cadua said,” Meroe chides. “This much walking is bad enough.”
“I know. Rot. I just feel … useless.”
“You’re not. You’re—”
“The Deepwalker.” I growl. “What good is that doing anyone?”
“They’re watching you.”
“They’re watching me limp along like an old woman.”
She turns to face me. “Isoka—”
“I know. I know.” I keep looking off into the darkness. In the distance, colored lights shift, ever so slightly, and flicker.
* * *
Meroe is going over some kind of plan with Shiara and the Scholar. I sit with my back to a support pylon, my breath ragged. I should eat something, but the thought is nauseating.
We don’t have a “camp” in any real sense of the word. No tents, no fires, just a mass of people stretched out on a hard metal deck. Myrkai adepts conjure a few lights. Some people chew on dried meat or mushrooms, but most are too tired to eat.
The rest of my pack have drifted in nearby. Jack, her dapper suit torn and bloodied, lies with her long limbs curled into a tight ball, her head in Thora’s lap. The iceling woman has a hand on her partner’s shoulder, stroking her with gentleness surprising for her size. Aifin sits down beside me, sweat running freely down his face. He takes a long swig from his canteen, then looks over at me.
I gesture, You okay?
He blinks, reaches for the slate that hangs at his belt, then thinks better of it and just gives an exhausted shrug.
I’m drifting into a doze when someone else sits down opposite. It’s Zarun, looking more haggard than I’ve ever seen him, dark bags under his eyes as though he’s taken a beating in a bar brawl. I watch him through hooded eyes, and wait for some banter, a superior grin, or a not-terribly-subtle double entendre. But he just stares at me, until I stir slightly.
“What?” I say.
“Your princess,” he says. “She doesn’t stop, does she?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Freeze and rot.” He lets out a long sigh. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.”