“Now!” Marco’s voice boomed down from the roof of the tower above, and the men and women waiting for that command swung down with torches to light Baina’s series of devices.
“But there’re still people coming,” I said to Tain, and he shot me an agonized look.
“Marco has command,” he said. “It needs to blow before the rebels reach the tower.”
But he gripped my hand as we saw three more of our people emerge over the high peak in the middle of the bridge. Then their pursuers plummeted into sight, too, thick and fast toward us.
I couldn’t even breathe, hoping the collective will of those of us watching could somehow spur the last of our people across to safety.
But the last few runners were finally outpaced by their pursuers. I felt the strikes at their backs as if I’d been struck myself. A woman beside me screamed, and the smell and sound of vomit assaulted us as the sight proved too much for a man a few paces over. Even after all we had seen over the past few weeks, this was somehow worse.
And still, the bridge stood. “Is it going to blow?” I asked my brother in a whisper.
The gate clanged shut behind the engineers as they scrambled inside. “I don’t—” he started, but broke off as a massive crack split the air, then two, three, five in succession, a hollow boom. Black smoke and rubble blasted through our vision, and in the background howls rose like a siren. Tain’s grip on my fingers turned to a vise.
“Did they—are they—?”
It took forever for the smoke to clear, and all the while the ringing in my ears lingered as we peered desperately through the mess.
“It didn’t work,” Jov said in horror. “Tain, it didn’t work.”
The bridge path remained; whatever the devices had done, it had not been enough. The rebels realized it, too, and charged again, but Marco was prepared. “Full might!” he shouted, and the archers on the roof and behind the wing walls responded with gusto: a forest of arrows flew at the bridge. The rebels were unprepared; this annex of their army had perhaps become caught up in the pursuit and had not contemplated the fortifications of the Finger.
They pulled back out of range in a hurry, fleeing in a disorganized rabble back across Trickster’s. “They’re in full retreat!” Marco called out, and people around us let out a halfhearted cheer. One or two people simply sobbed.
Ultimately, though, it was the rebels who had the victory. Their force, growing by the moment as more of their army emerged from the city, spread out across the opposite bank, a crude mirror of ourselves. Cheers and jeers echoed across the water.
I turned away, bitterness rising in my throat. They were right to cheer. Whatever happened from here, they had taken half our city, and we were penned in, missing most of the facilities we needed to properly defend ourselves. If we didn’t find some way to negotiate with them, the city was lost and us with it.
Lockwort
DESCRIPTION: Attractive climbing plant with small red leaves and dark, indigo flowers, growing primarily in extremely moist conditions. Flowers are toxic if consumed over time.
SYMPTOMS: Over time, mood alteration and depression, tiredness, weight loss, and muscle wasting, visible broken capillaries on the skin above waist level, liver damage.
PROOFING CUES: Fresh flowers smell sweet but are very bitter to taste. Lose taste when dried but retain pleasant aroma.
17
Jovan
The hospital was my first stop after it became clear that the rebels would wait to regroup and strategize. It teemed with people: confused, grieving, terrified, displaced. Only the physics in their blue sashes were easily identifiable, darting from pallet to pallet and in and out of the surgery rooms.
Our injured numbered easily in the hundreds, and that was only those who had been lucky enough to make the evacuation. The fortunes only knew what had happened to those left injured at the breach or on the wall—would the rebels care for them, or leave them there to suffer and die? Or worse, mutilate and desecrate their bodies as they had done with our messengers? As I moved through the hall, assisting where able, searching for familiar faces, a thickset man with tear-reddened eyes jostled past, muttering under his breath. Something about “bloody traitors.” I followed his trajectory and moved to block his path.
“Here, take this to the cleaning station, please,” I barked in my best physic tone, and shoved a bucket of blood-soaked rags into his fists. While he was distracted I made haste to the physic tending a bleeding woman whose simple armor over country-style pants and shirt easily identified her as a rebel. “This is going to get ugly,” I told the physic. “We need to get the rebel wounded into a different part of the hospital. There are grieving people in here spoiling for a fight.”
She gave me a cool look. “And compromise their care and our efficiency? It is part of the honorable code of physics that we treat all persons who need it. Should that not be a matter of everyone’s honor, not just the physics’?”
“I agree,” I said. “But you can’t watch everyone in this room and care for your patients, and someone is going to get hurt if we don’t do something.” I followed her pointed glance down at the stomach wound she was compressing. “More hurt.”
Her mouth twisted, but she nodded. “I’ll arrange it.”
I found Pedrag eventually—he still hadn’t regained consciousness, and a young relative of his told me tearfully that the physics weren’t hopeful. I hadn’t known the old man well but had grown to like him these past few weeks, for what that was worth. “May the fortunes be with him,” I said, and meant it. “He was brave. And surprising. He’d a good sense of humor.” Not to mention, he was the only Councilor injured, and the only one who had fought with our men and women on the front line. But the dead and injured weren’t confined to the lower born. I imagined that none of the Families had come through this unscathed.
* * *
Several days passed in a rush of reorganization as we set new priorities. Battle lines were redrawn since the rebels had only one narrow approach path now, and both sides were hastily reworking their respective attack and defense plans. We focused on increasing the fortifications on the Finger and developing ways to make the long descent from the peak of the bridge deadlier for the rebels to attempt. The fortunes only knew what was being cooked up across the lake. Most of their force had moved into Silasta to occupy the lower city, though a contingent remained outside the external perimeter to the north and south, still guarding against any attempts to send messengers out from the upper city.
We had earned a short reprieve, but things were worse than ever, with too many people crammed in too little space, and internal tensions rising. It seemed certain something would break.
Evening on the second day after the lower city fell, I found myself dawdling on my way to the Manor to join Tain and Marco for a pre-Council strategy meeting. I had a new portion of safe food for Tain, but the truth was they didn’t need me to plan logistics of our defense. It wasn’t my strength. And what is your strength, then? My mocking inner voice asked me. You can’t even get the proofing right. You’re a failure at the only thing you need to be good at. I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts before the loop of obsessive self-judgment and speculation could start again.