Chapter 29: Black Crow Blues

A demarcation line of white-painted rocks separated two halves of identical desert. Spring frost crusted the ground, and the air bit and dug its teeth in like a dog.

Lily couldn’t remember if she’d been here already. Probably not. The town straddled the border between the UT and New Columbia, which was memorable enough.

The southwest was overrun by interchangeable petty gangs. The controlling faction in this area wore reeking goat-skull helmets. A few of them loitered outside a well-lit shack that passed for a bar, and Lily kept her head down as she followed a few stragglers in.

The smell was indescribable, but at least it was warm. She breathed through her mouth and found a corner.

Looked like a fight was pending; volunteers cleared away tables and scrip changed hands. Lily settled in. After five months of luckless hunting she wanted to watch someone else have a bad day.

The competitors emerged: a lean, graying man with a hit-me grin and a statuesque woman with pale blond hair in utilitarian plaits. When she shed her stained coat the mob let out an appreciative yell at the muscle rippling on her bare arms and shoulders.

Lily’s stomach clenched. She felt for the gun tucked into her belt beneath her shirt.

She had to be sure. Her last lead had been a dead end.

This man ignored his opponent, calling for a drink, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His unlined face didn’t match his salt and pepper hair.

Across the floor, the woman stretched and rolled her shoulders. They both had the same air of casual violence, caution disguised as confidence.

It took Lily about four hits to figure out the fight was staged.

Neither of them pulled their punches, but the way they came together and sprung apart was theatrical. Almost playful. In spite of that, the woman fought like a tornado trapped in a bottle. Violence without malice.

The search was over.

She breathed through her mouth, to avoid the stench, and checked the pistol where it lay against the crooked scar on her stomach.

When the man went down for the last time and rolled dizzily onto his back, shaking his head in submission, the woman left him on the floor and shouldered her way through the crowd.

But Lily saw the subtle hand sign that passed from one to the other.

She fought her way to the bar, where the woman sat unwrapping strips of cloth from her solid hands. A scar like a jagged canyon curved across her throat.

Lily righted a stool and sat down. “I know you’re an Operative.”

That earned her a sidelong glance and a piss-off flick of the the woman’s fingers.

“Then you also know she’s a cold-blooded killer.” The man sat down on Lily’s other side, exchanging a mocking glance with his companion as he dabbed blood from his mouth. “She could eat you for breakfast and go back for seconds.”

Lily took the measure of him and found him full of empty bravado. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise,” he leered. His drawling accent made it sound like he was talking through his nose. “What makes you so sure, anyway? You meet a lot of Operatives in the Borderlands, or what.”

This was a game too, like the fight had been. They would parry and strike at each other until someone slipped. “Not here, no.”

“Wow.” Sarcasm made the word three syllables long. “We’re sittin’ with a world traveler, Anya.”

Lily threw her drink back and grimaced as it burned down her throat. “Three Operatives,” she said, plunking the glass back down. “That’s how many I’ve met.”

“Sure, ‘course you have.”

Lily drove 63’s knife into the bar between them. “Now it’s four.”

Anya looked up from unwrapping her hands. Lily felt her coiling, getting ready to strike.

Her friend tilted his head sideways to examine the blade. “Is that real?”

“Yes. I want to give back to him.” Preferably by driving it into his gut and twisting. “He’s in Delphi, and I need to find him. He took something from me.”

The woman’s jaw clenched as her hands flashed in intricate patterns, and as the man watched them he shook his head.

“He’ll say no,” he protested. “No. No. All right whatever, fine.”

He turned back to Lily. “Anya says you’re a suicidal idiot, but she likes those. She wants to take you to our people in New Dallas, maybe get you some help.”

All Lily needed was an Operative. “What kind of help?”

“I think you need the medical kind, because you’re insane, but this is a genuine offer,” he sighed. “The man we work for is a…he takes a personal interest in cases like these. Can’t hurt to use his resources.”

“How far is New Dallas?” Lily knew the answer; four weeks. She’d wasted enough time, and didn’t trust either of them as far as she could throw them.

“About three weeks ride.” The man scratched the back of his head. “Maybe four.”

Lily yanked the knife free. “Sounds fair.”

“Well then, you crazy son of a bitch, I’m Aiden. That’s Anya.” He thrust out his hand, waiting expectantly. “You gonna tell us your name, or do they have a different tradition in the hole you crawled out of?”

“Call me whatever you want ’til we get to Dallas.” She wouldn’t get to know them. That way when they died or betrayed her she wouldn’t have to feel anything.

“Sure.” Aiden put his hand away. “How about—”

Three of the skull-wearers pushed off the bar and bullied their way over. The biggest one, by default the leader, beckoned to Aiden and Anya. His goat skull was fresh and gory. “Give us your money.”

“Naw,” Aiden drawled, as Anya made a gesture that needed no translating. “She says fuck off.”

“You cheated,” the leader said. “Hand over your winnings.”

“Don’t want to,” Aiden yawned.

They were immediately surrounded by a wall of body odor and rough weapons.

“Give it to me,” the leader growled, “or we’ll take it.”

“New deal, girl,” Aiden said. “Give us a hand—”

Lily started to tell Aiden he was on his own, but Anya shoved the man back, slamming her forehead into his and laying him out flat.

A machete lodged itself in the bar. Aiden barely dodged it, but he didn’t seem concerned. He brought his elbow down hard on the man’s outstretched arm, and the sharp crack and resulting scream were audible over the din.

Lily cut her losses as the whole bar chose sides, fighting the riptide of brawling drunks to the door, tumbling into the street, limping for her horse.

She’d give them sixty seconds. Then she was heading to Dallas alone. Out of charity, she didn’t start counting until she was in the saddle.

Aiden was thrown out of the bar with five seconds to spare, shouting at the top of his lungs as he rolled to a stop in the dirt.

He rose to his knees in the street, blood streaming from his nose. “Anya! Put him down, we’re leaving!”

Anya strolled out a moment later, wiping blood from her face. A man charged her with half a barstool brandished over his head, but Aiden fired from the hip.

He dropped.

Anya gave her companion a thumbs-up, and winked at Lily.

“I love the territories,” Aiden panted, holstering his pearl-handled revolver with a red-toothed grin. “Right, let’s get out of here before those assholes sort themselves out.”

They thundered over the line of white stones and into New Columbia, and the sound of conflict died out behind them.

Someone has drilled a hot poker into her stomach and poured salt on the wound. Her insides twist and burn.

Lily opens her eyes with a whimper.

Brenna snores in a chair by the bedside, hair fanned across her face, her blue dress wrinkled. She stirs. Her head snaps up.

“Lily!” Her joy is muted, her eyes red-rimmed. “No, don’t try to sit, you just had surgery. Do you remember what happened?”

Something is wrong. Michael should be here. Why wasn’t he here. He wouldn’t have left her hurt and alone, where…

No.

Brenna holds her as silent, quaking sobs threaten to tear her in half. Afterwards Lily’s hands press over her bandaged stomach as hollowness expands and devours her.

She tells them all what happened. They’re still convinced he did it. Michael. They think he killed Abbott and the caravan guards, and shot her, and fled, leaving her all alone…

She tells them the truth, over and over, but it falls flat…until Ethan confesses: Abbott sent him with the militia not to fight, but to seek out and bargain with the enemy before the fires could reach Laketown. Luke has him arrested. He hangs himself in his cell and Lily feels nothing.

Nothing at all.

As she heals, her tears dry up and the pain twists to cold rage. Burnett tells her it could be months before she’s out of bed, but she’s on her feet a week after opening her eyes.

They changed out horses in Bright Star. Lily’s mare had been skinny and limping, like her rider. Her new gelding was a walleyed piebald nightmare, all obstinacy and teeth.

She moved her foot out of range. “How much farther?”

“Few more days.” Aiden’s accent was more pronounced now that he was back in his homeland.

Anya signed something, and he laughed as she moved up to ride ahead of them.*

They were a strange pair. Aiden could speak out loud and with his hands simultaneously, and Lily suspected he was having one conversation with her and another with Anya.

She’d learned details of their lives on accident.

The jagged scar across Anya’s throat was a souvenir of the Border War, back when she’d had a number instead of a name.

Aiden had grown up somewhere he called The Farm, but he wouldn’t talk about it much; instead he ran his mouth about some Before place called Texas.

“We kept a lot of the old names,” he’d say every time they passed a little town, landmark, or river. He talked like he knew every stone. “We’re proud of our history.”

The Union had been proud of its history too. All the city-states had been named after old world battles; something to do with an ocean. A beach. Their flags had been hand-stitched to match ancient images, just like the uniforms their little army wore…

And now it was gone.

At least when Aiden went on too long, Anya could be counted on to kick him.

Travel was easy in New Columbia. It was routine. The well-maintained roads even had designated places to make camp and water horses in the broad, flat country between towns.

Anyone could do it. A young family traveling to visit relatives, a wandering musician, a tin smith with his cart of pots and pans…they didn’t even have to bribe the soldiers.

The army was everywhere, and this too was a surprise: the soldiers who’d come to Omaha had been bearded, dressed in mismatched uniforms, with tally marks scratched into their rifle butts. Not so here. They were organized, disciplined, clean-cut in their tan fatigues. The flag on their shoulders was different too.

Lily wondered if anything or anyone in her life had ever been without duplicity. Then the answer came to her, and she resolved to never think again.

She ignored her companions. She spoke when spoken to, and slept just close enough to make sure they didn’t leave without her. When she caught whispers and muted sounds from their shared blankets at night she just curled up a little tighter.

After two weeks, Aiden finally asked. “So what’d this Operative take from you?”

“None of your business.” Lily jerked her leg out of the reach of her mount’s yellow teeth.

“I think it is my business if we’re gonna help get it back,” Aiden pointed out. “C’mon, now, I don’t think they understand personal ownership. So what’d he take?”

It felt like she’d broken every rib. “I’ll tell your boss.”

Aiden whistled, holding up both hands. “Ok, all right, fine. Tell the Old Man. Better be good, though.”

Lily had no reply. She’d had just about enough of old men.

It’s the hour of the wolf and she’s in the stable, trying to saddle a horse.

She’s not strong enough to lift the tack. Not even the bridle. The horse butts her shoulder and she almost screams.

Ten days. They would’ve passed Sierra Base. She has to find them before they leave the forest, because while they’re still in the trees they have to stay on the road. That makes them easy to track. After that…

She’ll catch up before then. She has to.

When Brenna catches her she’s two heartbeats away from riding out bareback into the night. Then Brenna catches her again, and eases her clumsily to the ground.

“I need to go,” Lily whispers as red flowers blossom on her shirt.

“What will you do when you get there,” Brenna asks.

Kill them all, Lily thinks, as tears spill down her cheeks. Destroy them. Burn everything. Rip them apart. Hold him close and never let go again. “What would you do if it was Luke?”

“I would bury them.” Brenna’s voice is full of iron. “But you can’t fight like this.”

After Omaha Lily swore she’d never be helpless again, never just lie down and take it.

“I have to go,” she chokes, trying to forget how to cry as Brenna holds her and strokes her hair. “Please, I have to go.”

After that there’s always someone outside the door of her hospital room, night and day. For her own safety, they say.

So she waits.

They passed through the gate into New Dallas, and Lily wondered if she’d also ridden backwards in time. The road was paved smooth, lined with electric lights on poles that gleamed against a twilight sky. A convoy of heavy vehicles crawled past them.

Flags flew from every building. The big white star reminded her of the Union, but there were no stripes, just divided red and blue. This was not the flag they’d brought to Omaha Base. Perhaps there had been a regime change.

Aiden’s laughter jarred her back to earth. He swept his hand across a distant crumbling skyline backlit red by the setting sun. “Welcome to the greatest city on earth.”

Anya signed at him, pink-cheeked with suppressed laughter.

“It’s not the only city I’ve been to, Anya, I’ve been all over and you went with me. No — the fuck you mean you like Austin better? Austin?”

A detachment of soldiers marched past in crisp brown and tan uniforms, perfectly in step, their boots gleaming. Not like the soldiers she remembered. All of this was different.

“How,” Lily asked lamely, as her companions argued good-naturedly. “How do you have all this?”

“Oh, uh…hard work, preparation, luck.” Aiden counted off on his fingers. “Oil. Decades of terrible war. More oil. There’s no place on earth like New Dallas. You ready to meet the Old Man?”

They rode slowly up a wide boulevard lined with vegetable gardens. There was not a single thing alive in Delphi, not even the people. Here they grew corn, beans, and summer squash in the streets.

“All right, so, couple things. One, everyone inside the campus is loyal to New Columbia. Second, you can’t go in armed. All right?”

Lily held the knife a little tighter. “What campus?”

“The old University.” Aiden pointed to a far-off group of crumbling edifices, ringed in a tall chain-link fence. “First crop after the Fall was planted on the lawn there, so everyone just calls it the Farm.”

It wasn’t a farm anymore; as they drew closer, Lily saw the grass was dead and untended. She also saw more guns. A boxy white building with dozens of narrow rectangular windows dominated the grounds.

Sentries waved Aiden through the gates. A horde of young people in blue uniforms were setting up tents on the wide lawn, laughing and shouting to each other.

Lily reluctantly passed her weapons to the woman in the guardhouse. The pistol was replaceable, but the knife…

“I’m getting these back,” she said.

“On your way out.” There was no malice in the guard’s voice as she tagged the weapons and stored them away. Just boredom.

“Miles!”

Lily heard a whoop of delighted laughter and turned to see Aiden embracing a solid white-blond man with a face lined by years. His eyes were sharp and blue, but they regarded Aiden fondly.

“I’ll come see you,” Aiden promised, shaking his hand. “I gotta do something inside first.”

“You know where I’ll be.” Miles took the reins, clucking softly as he led the horses off. His age and heavy limp barely slowed him down. He still moved like a wolf.

You know how much they pay for Operatives in Dallas?

Lily watched him go, arms folded.

“That’s Miles,” Aiden supplied.

“What was he called before? What number.”

Aiden laughed. “Shit, you really have met a few of ‘em. I’ll let the old man explain, he’s better at it.”

“I hope so.”

Aiden walked her to a long, rectangular building, its windows sealed with brick and whitewashed. Heavy double doors stood open. Inside, sunbeams filtered through narrow skylights. The myriad fissures in the walls and ceiling were lovingly patched, and coppery metal filled in long cracks in the stone floor.

“So, does he lead New Columbia?” Lily felt naked without her weapon, shaken by that Operative out in the courtyard. “Your old man?”

“Pfft, no. You should call him a spymaster, though. He hates that.” Aiden chuckled. “He delivers intel to Houston, and they let him gather dust here in the library.”

‘Library’ was an unfamiliar word, but they passed through another set of heavy wooden doors and Lily understood. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, burdened by countless books; old books, somehow spared from the firestorms and the long winter.

“We saved them,” he said softly. “Underground. Look around if you want, I’ll come get you when he’s ready.”

He disappeared through a side door before Lily found her voice again, leaving her alone in the forest of shelves.

Despite the shin-deep snow drifts half the town turns out to watch her leave. Some still think she’s a hero. Others know she’s a killer. Soon they’ll all forget.

So much time has been wasted. The year has turned, and beneath the snow the tracks are long gone.

Brenna’s warm-honey eyes threaten to spill over as they say goodbye. She’s only twenty. Still a child.

Lily regrets this as soon as she thinks it. Brenna is the intricate network of roots that holds up the oak tree. Without her help these past months Lily would have collapsed, rotten and hollow.

There are snowflakes in her eyelashes. She winds a scarf around Lily’s neck, undyed grey wool with a few thin blue stripes. “You’ll always have a place here, if you need somewhere to come home to.”

Luke holds out the reins. “Bring my horse back, General.”

She almost laughs. She almost weeps. Instead, she unbuckles 86’s knife — Michael’s knife, her knife — from her belt and presses it into Brenna’s hands. “Could you hold onto this for me?”

“Until you get back?”

Maybe saying goodbye would be better than lying. She wants to see Laketown in the summer, maybe learn medicine under Burnett and let her old wounds heal, but she will come back victorious or not at all.

“Yeah,” Lily says. 63’s knife, the one that matters, is rolled up in her blanket. “Until I get back.”

The horse carries her out the gate and down the logging road, bearing southeast. She doesn’t look back.

Aiden returned and beckoned for Lily to follow him into a little room, packed with mismatched shelves sagging under the weight of books in various stages of disrepair.

A man stood at the workbench with his back to the door, sewing a binding. Something about his stance, his shoulders, the way he held his head…

“Hold on, Aiden, I didn’t expect you to get her so quick.”

Someone had grabbed her lungs and squeezed. Lily knew that voice. It was colored by a faint New Columbian accent, but it was still…

He half-turned, hands still busy.

It couldn’t be, but it was. She knew that face better than her own. Grief pricked like a fishbone in her throat as the name was dragged out of her, one syllable at a time.

“Michael?”