The smoke north of Chakal Square was black as the inside of a mouth, and thick. Sharp winds parted it like curtains to reveal buildings burning. Glass in a high window shattered and shards fell into the inferno. Heat surrounded Chel. The curtain closed again and night returned, swirling and absolute.
“Who sets a godsdamn building on fire in the middle of a heat wave?”
Tay, beside her, shook his head. “The Major’s people?”
“I’ll open him like a tin can.”
A large man barreled toward them out of the darkness; Chel jerked Tay to one side and the runner swept past. Screams rose with the smoke. She recognized one voice: “Gather close!”
The Major. “Come on.”
She choked on smoke, and so did Tay. The crowd thinned as they ran north. Most of those still standing were the Major’s troops, their faces smeared with ash.
The Major stood among his followers, armored despite the heat. His men crouched around him like sprinters, grim and tense, aimed toward the flames that consumed tents and buildings at the Square’s northern edge. “Charge!”
“Hells’ he doing?”
“I have no idea.”
The Major and his people sprinted toward the blaze. Chel tried to follow, but could only guess their paths in the billowing black. Smoke scraped her eyes.
Shapes approached: inhuman silhouettes first, red-lit lurching ghosts, many-armed and triple-backed. No. Not ghosts. Human beings: the Major’s people returning. They bore others across their backs, wrapped their arms around limping women and unconscious men, old and young alike, hobbling out of the fire.
The Major came last, slower than the rest. One man over his left shoulder, a woman under his right arm. His armor glowed in places, and not with sorcery.
They helped him: Chel took the fainted woman, and Tay the man, and together they ran for safety, or at least for air.
They found an empty space to set the wounded down. The Major knelt. His armor pinged and hissed as it cooled, and the man inside that armor hissed too, from pain. He could speak, though his voice was tight: “Thank you.”
“What happened?”
“A camp near the northern border. One of the tents caught first.” The Major pressed his gloved hands against the ground, but could not force himself to his feet. “Or maybe the buildings caught first, I don’t know. Bad luck either way.”
“You didn’t do this?”
“What kind of person do you think I am?”
She didn’t answer that question.
“My people are in the fire, helping those who can’t escape. Where are yours?”
“Getting folks out of the border zone,” she said. “Breaking down camps to keep this from spreading.”
He panted. “And the others?”
“Wardens are pressing on the eastern front. The Kemals’ people ran to the Skittersill for supplies. Bandages. Medicine.”
“The resource war,” he said, and she heard his scorn.
“Their medicine will save lives.”
The Major heaved himself to his feet, and staggered north.
“Where are you going?”
“Back in.” The smoke parted again. Flames shone off his homemade armor. “Come with me if you’d like.”
Then he was gone.
“Dammit.” She stood. Tay grabbed her hand. She pulled away, but he didn’t let go. “If there are people there—”
“We go together.”
“Fine.”
They ran north into a foreign hell.
* * *
The next several hours melted into a slag of memory: heat and sweat and heavy breath through wet cloth, the weight of unconscious human beings, gods!—flesh could drag you down—straining muscle and the sting of hot metal against skin. She coughed ash and spat black. Shouted directions. Cried for aid. Unfamiliar faces took shape from the smoke, a new pantheon of gods and saviors forged in this dark hour.
Someone contained the northern blaze: Wardens, maybe, or the fire department. Tents near the border burned until they scarred the stone beneath.
When the camp was safe, Chel and Tay collapsed side by side. Neither spoke at first. Breathing was enough. Somewhere, the fight continued. Wardens circled, wingbeats heavy.
“We can’t do this,” Chel said. “Not alone.”
“We did it,” Tay replied.
“This time. Things will only get worse—the Major saying the Kemals let people die, the Kemals claiming he set the fire. And we still have our hostages.”
“Who do you think started it?”
“I don’t care. We need to pull together, and we can’t do that alone.”
Tay’s hand fell onto her stomach. She held it in silence. Overhead, smoke and sorcerers’ clouds closed out the stars.