“Who were they anyway?” he asked at last, after Ahmadi had settled back onto the grass beside him, hat pulled low over her eyes. “Not the Reds. The other ones, in white.”
Malik sighed. “We’re not sure yet. Still working on making the one we captured talk.”
“We have a hostage?” Zhang asked.
“You need to take it easy,” Ahmadi started, but Zhang was already up, stumbling toward the carriages.
BEHIND THEIR WAGONS, SEVERAL SOLDIERS STOOD GUARD around a small, crumpled shape beneath a tree. The man had been forced into a sit with his back pressed against the bark, and then a rope looped several times around both him and the tree at chest level, binding his arms to his sides. Two bare feet stuck out from beneath his robes, resting limply in the grass. Below them, a shadow lay.
“The hostage,” Malik said when they reached him.
The captured man looked up at Zhang with exhausted, defiant eyes. He was covered in so much blood from the fight that his once-white clothes were red.
“Do you have a name?” Zhang asked.
“Truth,” the man replied.
Zhang sighed. “Fine. All of you, in the white clothes—who are you with?”
“We are all truth.” The man coughed, and recovered. “Truth is Transcendence,” he said grandly. A grin spread across his bloody teeth as he waited for Zhang’s reaction. After a few moments, it began to fade. “A shame that you have not yet heard the news of the joy our enlightened future will bring.”
Malik spat into the grass, near the man’s foot.
The hostage’s eyes narrowed. “Denial of the truth does not stop the truth.”
“Forget truth for a moment,” Zhang said. Terrible images from the fight flooded over him—the Reds, their own desperate sprint to escape, seeing an army of alabaster robes appear on the horizon, hoping for help, and then the horror of realizing they were sweeping down to attempt the exact opposite. “Why did you attack us?”
“Because you were attacking the Transcended.”
Zhang blinked. He looked at Ahmadi, then Malik, then back to the hostage. “You mean the Reds? The crazed shadowless horde that chased us across the countryside to murder us?” He checked again, in case he had been mistaken, but he had been right—the hostage still had his shadow. “Why would you try to kill shadowed survivors?”
“We do not kill shadowed people,” the man said. “We welcome them to journey with us toward Transcendence. We only kill enemies of the Transcended.”
Malik breathed out, a long slow gust. “These guys are the real deal,” he said.
“Insults from the ignorant mean nothing.”
Zhang shook his head. “You all . . .” It sounded too crazy. “You all are trying to lose your shadows? You’re trying to forget?”
“We’re trying to transcend,” the hostage said.
For a moment, all of them were too stunned to speak. Finally Ahmadi crossed her arms. “Well, if the Red King is what transcending looks like, count me out,” she said.
“The Red King?”
“A violent, terrifying shadowless that took over D.C. and made all those others,” Zhang answered. “Don’t worry about it now,” he added when he saw the thrill in the hostage’s expression overwhelm his exhaustion. “No point to head north to swear fealty to him. He’s dead.”
“Sacrilege,” he hissed.
“Should have told him the Red King was still alive and kicking so they’d leave their stronghold and run off to their deaths,” Malik smiled at the hostage.
“This isn’t our stronghold,” the hostage said. “Transcendence’s spread is unstoppable. But our forces are far beyond our currently settled borders. We’ve been traveling south for months, after an omen told us to go. A perversion of the Great One’s work—shadowless that betrayed us. The false rumors have gone on long enough, and something must be done about them. We march for salvation.”
“You mean war,” Zhang said. Again.
“I mean salvation. The last showdown.”
“Do all of your people so easily reveal your battle plans?” Ahmadi asked. “We didn’t even have to hit you yet.”
“Oh, I’m not revealing anything,” the hostage said. “It’s obvious we’re heading to the same place. Where else could any of us be going this far south, except New Orleans?”
Hearing him say the name made Zhang shudder.
“What should also be obvious is how much more quickly we’ll reach the city than your massive, slow force,” Ahmadi said. “And how much forewarning that will mean for them.”
The hostage shrugged as best he could with the ropes around him. Pain lined his face for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. If this false prophet is even half as strong as the lies claim, they already know we’re coming. There’s nothing they can do to stop Transcendence. When you see what they’re doing there, you’ll understand. You’ll beg to join us.”