“Dinner,” Original Smith said. “It’s a deer.”
The deer glanced up from grazing and froze, perfectly still as it stared at them. But Dos didn’t let fly the arrow.
“Whoa,” Naz finally said.
It was indeed a deer, but the head was wrong. From the roots of its bony antlers sprouted two small, unfurled sparrow wings, a feathered crown.
“Don’t shoot it,” she murmured.
“It’s the same kind of thing as that weird rabbit-pig-frog animal,” Original Smith said as he lowered his own bow, even though it wasn’t. Those little creatures were funny, stupid; the deer, on the other hand, was not. The deer was terrifying, because it was almost beautiful.
“Fuck it, whatever it is.” Dos spat, and crossed herself. “There better not be another disappearing-reappearing lake nearby.”
“Enough.” Naz broke her stare at the strange creature, and swatted Dos’s thin arm with the tail of an arrow to draw her attention back to the path. It was newly made, the wood a lighter color. Each night when they broke for camp, she’d been teaching the soldiers how to make them. They needed all they could get. “Forget the deer. Let’s keep it moving.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t like it here. Something’s off.”
The deer started when the horses began to walk again, wings disappearing, folding tight against its head as it dashed into the underbrush. Naz saw Original Smith and Dos look at each other as the disturbed foliage where it had run grew still again. She could see they felt it, too.
THE ON-RAMP TO THE FREEWAY WAS DESTROYED, SO THEY stood in the parking lot of a ruined donut shop, staring out across the wreckage of the city. Tiny pieces of ash billowed in the air in front of them, even at such a distance.
“Anyone know what we’re looking at?” Naz asked.
“Downtown?” Dos offered. She shivered, even though it was much warmer there than it was in D.C. “The downtown is west of the I-24, right?”
“I’ve never been to Chattanooga,” Original Smith murmured.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Naz said.
It didn’t. It really didn’t. Chattanooga was on fire. As far as they could see, north to south, a raging blaze curdled the skyline, yellow and red flames spewing black clouds that spread for miles.
“How long do you think it’s been like that?” Original Smith asked.
“I have no idea,” Naz said. They watched it for a little while longer. “Maybe since the first day.”
She couldn’t imagine what could cause a fire that size, or cause it to burn so long. Whatever it was, there was nothing to do. There was no Chattanooga anymore.
“What do we do now?” Dos asked. “We can’t take the freeway through that. Can the carriages manage on terrain until we can find a smaller road around?”
“One thing at a time,” Naz said.
Somehow it was hard to look away. “Pretty,” Original Smith finally said. Somewhere just north of the last standing skyscrapers, an explosion sent a glittering wave of molten glass through the square maze of streets. “Is that a weird thing to say?”
Naz shook her head slowly, transfixed. She understood what he meant. “I wonder if it’ll ever burn out,” she said.
Just then a spear—painted red and adorned with crimson strips of fabric—punched itself through the front of Dos’s throat.
The One Who Gathers
WHEN HE WOKE, THE PAIN WAS NOT BETTER. IT WAS SO TERRIBLE, at first the amnesiac couldn’t even cry out. When he finally could, he bit his tongue instead, and tried to sense the state of things without his sight. Dr. Avanthikar and the shadowless were on the other side of the basement, where they could talk without disturbing him too much. He sat up as gently as possible. The pain whittled itself from acid into a spear in his skull. He squeezed the Gajarajan book in his hands to keep from moaning until the spear dissolved into acid again.
“—the pre-storm,” Marie was saying softly. “The hurricane is likely just beginning to touch down now.”
“It’s too late,” Downtown added. “Even if the facility upstairs has finished collapsing, we can’t cross the city. We’ll be swept away in the floods.”
“Damnit,” Curly growled. A hand smacked plastic, three sharp bursts. “Fucking—fucking things.”
“Flashlights,” Downtown said, filling in the word he’d lost.