They emerged from the darkness, soaked, bruised, and gasping in the bright light of the moon. Nina’s entire body felt as if it had been pummelled. The remnants of the baleen clustered in sticky gobs at the corners of her mouth. Her dress had frayed to nearly nothing, and if she hadn’t been so desperately, giddily happy to be alive and breathing, she might have worried about the fact that she was standing barefoot and practically naked in the gorge of a northern river, still a mile and a half from the harbour and safety. In the distance, she could hear the bells of the Ice Court ringing.
Kuwei was coughing water, and Matthias was dragging a limp, unconscious Kaz out of the shallows.
“Saints, is he breathing?” asked Nina.
Matthias flipped him onto his back none too gently and started pressing down on his chest with more force than was strictly necessary.
“I. Should. Let. You. Die,” Matthias muttered in time with his compressions.
Nina crawled over the rocks and kneeled beside them, “Let me help before you crack his sternum. Does he have a pulse?” She pressed her fingers to his throat. “It’s there, but it’s fading. Get his shirt open.”
Matthias helped tear the drüskelle uniform away. Nina placed one hand on Kaz’s pale chest, focusing on his heart and forcing it to contract. She used the other to pinch his nose shut and push his mouth open as she
tried to breathe air into his lungs. More skilled Corporalki could extract the water themselves, but she didn’t have time to fret over her lack of training.
“Will he live?” Kuwei asked.
I don’t know. She pressed her lips to Kaz’s again, timing her breaths with the beats she demanded of his heart. Come on, you rotten Barrel thug. You’ve fought your way out of tougher scrapes.
She felt the shift when Kaz’s heart took over its own rhythm. Then he coughed, chest spasming, water spewing from his mouth.
He shoved her off of him, sucking in air.
“Get away from me,” he gasped, wiping his gloved hand over his mouth. Kaz’s eyes were unfocused. He seemed to be staring right through her. “Don’t touch me.”
“You’re in shock, demjin,” Matthias said. “You almost drowned. You should have drowned.”
Kaz coughed again, and his entire body shuddered. “Drowned,” he repeated.
Nina nodded slowly. “Ice Court, remember? Impossible heist? Near death? Three million kruge waiting for you in Ketterdam?”
Kaz blinked and his eyes cleared. “Four million.” “I thought that might bring you around.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, wet coughs still rattling his chest. “We made it,” he said in wonder. “Djel performs miracles.”
“You don’t deserve miracles,” said Matthias with a scowl. “You desecrated the sacred ash.”
Kaz pushed to his feet, staggered slightly, drew in another shaky breath. “It’s a symbol, Helvar. If your god is so delicate, maybe you should get a new one. Let’s get out of here.”
Nina threw up her hands. “You’re welcome, you ungrateful wretch.” “I’ll thank you when we’re aboard the Ferolind. Move.” He was
already dragging himself up the boulders that lined the far side of the gorge. “You can explain why our illustrious Shu scientist looks like one of Wylan’s school pals along the way.”
Nina shook her head, caught between annoyance and admiration. Maybe that was what it took to survive in the Barrel. You could never stop.
“He’s a friend?” asked Kuwei in skeptical Shu. “On occasion.”
Matthias helped her to her feet, and they all followed after Kaz, making slow progress up the rocky walls of the gorge that would lead them to the other end of the bridge above, and a bit closer to Djerholm. Nina had never been so exhausted, but she couldn’t let herself rest. They had the prize. They’d got further than any crew. They’d blown up a building at the heart of the Ice Court. But they’d never make it to the harbour without Inej and the others.
She kept moving. The only other option was to sit down on a boulder and wait for the end. A rumbling began from somewhere in the direction of the Ice Court.
“Oh, Saints, please let that be Jesper,” she pleaded as they pulled themselves over the lip of the gorge and looked back at the bridge festooned with ribbons and ash boughs for Hringkälla.
“Whatever is coming, it’s big,” said Matthias. “What do we do, Kaz?”
“Wait,” he said as the sound grew louder.
“How about ‘take cover’?” Nina asked, bouncing nervously from foot to foot. “‘Have heart’? ‘I stashed twenty rifles in this convenient shrubbery’? Give us something.”
“How about a few million kruge?” said Kaz.
A tank rumbled over the hill, dust and gravel spewing from its treads. Someone was waving to them from its gun turret – no, two someones. Inej and Wylan were yelling and gesturing wildly from behind the dome. Nina let out a victorious whoop as Matthias stared in disbelief. When Nina looked at Kaz, she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. “Saints, Kaz,
you actually look happy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. But there was no mistaking it. Kaz Brekker was grinning like an idiot.
“I’m assuming we know them?” asked Kuwei.
But Nina’s elation dimmed as Fjerda’s answer to the problem of the Dregs rolled over the horizon. A column of tanks had crested the hill and was crashing down the moonlit road, dust rising in plumes from their treads. Maybe Jesper hadn’t got the drüskelle gate sealed. Or maybe they’d had tanks waiting on the grounds. Given the firepower contained behind the Ice Court’s walls, she supposed they should count themselves lucky. But it sure didn’t feel that way.
It wasn’t until Inej and Wylan were thundering over the trestles of the bridge that Nina could make out what they were yelling: “Get out of the
way!”
They leaped from the path as the tank roared past them, then came to a gear-grinding stop.
“We have a tank,” marvelled Nina. “Kaz, you creepy little genius, the plan worked. You got us a tank.”
“They got us a tank.”
“We have one,” Matthias said, then pointed at the horde of metal and smoke bearing down on them. “They have a lot more.”
“Yeah, but you know what they don’t have?” Kaz asked as Jesper rotated the tank’s giant gun. “A bridge.”
A metallic shriek went up from the armoured insides of the tank. Then a violent, bone-shaking boom sounded. Nina heard a high whistling as something shot through the air past them and collided with the bridge. The first two trestles exploded into flame, sparks and timber plummeting into the gorge below. The big gun fired again. With a groan, the trestles collapsed completely.
If the Fjerdans wanted to cross the gorge, they were going to have to fly.
“We have a tank and a moat,” said Nina. “Climb on!” crowed Wylan.
They boosted themselves onto the sides of the tank, clutching at any groove or lip in the metal for dear life, and then they were rolling down the road towards the harbour at top speed.
As they roared past the streetlamps, people emerged from their houses to see what was happening. Nina tried to imagine what their wild crew must look like to these Fjerdans. What did they see as they poked their heads out of windows and doorways? A group of hooting kids clinging to a tank painted with the Fjerdan flag and charging along like some deranged float gone astray from its parade; a girl in purple silk and a boy with red-gold curls poking out from behind the guns; four soaked people holding tight to the sides for dear life – a Shu boy in prison clothes, two bedraggled drüskelle, and Nina, a half-naked girl in shreds of teal chiffon shouting, “We have a moat!”
When they entered the town, Matthias called, “Wylan, tell Jesper to keep to the western streets.”
Wylan ducked down, and the tank veered west.
“It’s the warehouse district,” Matthias explained. “Deserted at night.”
The tank clattered and clanked over the cobblestones, swinging right and left over kerbs and back again to avoid the few pedestrians, then sped into the harbour district, past taverns and shops and shipping offices.
Kuwei tilted his head back, his face bright with joy. “I can smell the sea,” he said happily.
Nina could smell it, too. The lighthouse gleamed in the distance. Two more blocks and they’d be at the quay and freedom. Thirty million kruge. With her share and Matthias’ they could go anywhere they wanted, live any life they chose.
“Almost there!” cried Wylan.
They rounded a corner, and Nina’s stomach dropped. “Stop!” she shouted. “Stop!”
She needn’t have bothered. The tank jolted to a halt, nearly flinging Nina from her perch. The quay lay directly before them, and beyond it the harbour, the flags of a thousand ships snapping in the breeze. The hour was late. The quay should have been empty. Instead, it was crowded with troops, row after row of them in grey uniforms, two hundred soldiers at least – and every barrel of every gun was pointed directly at them.
Nina could still hear the bells of the Elderclock. She looked over her shoulder. The Ice Court loomed over the harbour, perched on the cliff like a sullen gull with feathers ruffled, its white stone walls lit from below, glowing against the night sky.
“What is this?” Wylan asked Matthias. “You never said—” “They must have changed deployment procedure.” “Everything else was the same.”
“I’ve never seen Black Protocol engaged,” Matthias growled. “Maybe they always had troops stationed in the harbour. I don’t know.”
“Be quiet,” Inej said. “Just stop.”
Nina jumped as a voice echoed over the crowd. It spoke first in Fjerdan, then Ravkan, then Kerch, and finally Shu. “Release the prisoner Kuwei Yul-Bo. Put down your weapons and step away from the tank.”
“They can’t just open fire,” said Matthias. “They won’t risk hurting Kuwei.”
“They don’t have to,” said Nina. “Look.”
An emaciated prisoner was being led through the rows of soldiers. His hair was matted to his forehead. He wore a ragged red kefta and was
clutching the sleeve of the guard closest to him, lips moving feverishly as if imparting some desperate wisdom. Nina knew he was begging for parem.
“A Heartrender,” Matthias said grimly. “But he’s so far away,” protested Wylan.
Nina shook her head. “It won’t matter.” Had they kept him down here with whatever troops were posted in lower Djerholm? Why not? He was a weapon better than any gun or tank.
“I can see the Ferolind,” murmured Inej. She pointed down the docks, just a little way off. It took Nina a moment, but then she picked out the Kerch flag and the cheery Haanraadt Bay pennant flying beneath it. They were so close.
Jesper could shoot the Heartrender. They could try barrelling through the troops with the tank, but they would never make it to the ship. The Fjerdans would gladly risk Kuwei’s life before they ever let him fall into anyone else’s hands.
“Kaz?” called Jesper from inside the tank. “This would be a really good time to say you saw this coming.”
Kaz looked out over the sea of soldiers. “I didn’t see this coming.” He shook his head. “You told me one day I’d run out of tricks, Helvar. Looks like you were right.” The words were for Matthias, but his eyes were on Inej.
“I’ve had my fill of captivity,” she said. “They won’t take me alive.” “Me neither,” said Wylan.
Jesper snorted from inside the tank. “We really need to get him more suitable friends.”
“Better to go out with fists swinging than let some Fjerdan put me on a pike,” said Kaz.
Matthias nodded. “Then we agree. We end this here.” “No,” Nina whispered. They all turned to her.
The voice echoed out from the Fjerdan ranks once more. “You have a count of ten to comply. I repeat: Release the prisoner Kuwei Yul-Bo and surrender yourselves. Ten …”
Nina spoke to Kuwei rapidly in Shu.
“You don’t understand,” he replied. “A single dose—”
“I understand,” she said. But the others didn’t. Not until they saw Kuwei produce a little leather pouch from his pocket. Its rim was stained with rust-coloured powder.
“No!” Matthias shouted. He grabbed for the parem, but Nina was faster.
The Fjerdan voice droned on: “Seven …”
“Nina, don’t be stupid,” said Inej. “You’ve seen—” “Some people don’t get addicted after the first dose.” “It isn’t worth the risk.”
“Six …”
“Kaz is out of tricks.” She plucked open the pouch. “But I’m not.” “Nina, please,” Matthias begged. She’d seen the same anguish on his
face that day in Elling when he thought she’d betrayed him. In a way, she was doing the same thing now, abandoning him once more.
“Five …”
The first dose was the strongest, wasn’t that what they’d said? The high and the power could never be replicated. She’d be chasing it for the rest of her life. Or maybe she’d be stronger than the drug.
“Four …”
She touched Matthias’ cheek briefly. “If it gets bad, find a way to end it, Helvar. I’m trusting you to do the right thing.” She smiled. “Again.”
“Three …”
Then she tossed her head back and poured the parem into her mouth, downing it in a single hard swallow. It had the sweet, burnt taste of the jurda blossoms she knew, but there was another flavour, too, one she couldn’t quite identify.
She stopped thinking.
Her blood began to thrum, and her heart was suddenly pounding. The world broke up into tiny flashes of light. She could see the true colour of Matthias’ eyes, pure blue beneath the flecks of grey and brown she’d put there, the moonlight gleaming off every hair on his head. She saw the sweat on Kaz’s brow, the nearly invisible pinpricks of the tattoo on his forearm.
She looked out over the lines of Fjerdan soldiers. She could hear their hearts beating. She could see their neurons firing, feel their impulses forming. Everything made sense. Their bodies were a map of cells, a thousand equations, solved by the second, by the millisecond, and she knew only answers.
“Nina?” Matthias whispered.
“Move,” Nina said, and she saw her voice in the air.
She sensed the Heartrender in the crowd, the movement of his throat as he swallowed his dose. He would be the first.
