Storm of Locusts

Chapter 21

We head through the gate in the Wall about an hour before nightfall. Ben rides with me, and Rissa on the bike with Mósí’s sidecar. The darkness Mósí and I saw through the gate turns out to be more of an accident of the Wall’s height throwing shadows into the canyon beyond and not something ominously supernatural. A hundred yards out, we leave the deep shade of the Wall behind, and a gray winter sky reveals itself—blotchy clouds scuttling high and thin across a fading evening sky. Sunlight, or at least a weak semblance of it.

The path we are on curves through high sandstone walls, striped white and orange and brown by the shifting desert. Sand eddies in pools under a seemingly constant wind that howls low and mournful through the rocky canyons. No signs of life here, not even the dull hum of insects. Which, after our encounters with the locust, I don’t mind as much as I probably should.

A deep uneasiness settles over me as we enter the Malpais. Leaving Dinétah feels like ripping something vital from my body, something I need to keep breathing, keep my heart beating in my chest. Maybe it’s sentiment, but all my life I’ve believed that the Diyin Dine’é put us between the four sacred mountains for a reason. That we Diné are part of this land as much as any mountain or valley or stream. We are it, and it is in us, and out here, in this wasteland, none of that feels true. Mósí said being Diné is a constant, something that cannot change. That one cannot stop being Diné, even in a place where Dinétah cannot be reached. So maybe if the Bik’e’áyéeii can do it, a simple five-fingered girl like me can too.

I shiver, cold. Huddle down on the bike and try to ignore the uneasy feeling, the sense of being forsaken. But it’s not easy.

We follow the dirt path for half an hour as it wends its way out of the cliffs until it dead-ends into a four-lane highway. The blacktop on the highway is still smooth in some places. Worn but whole. In others it’s gutted, broken up to rubble like some massive hand came down and smashed the earth. The god-size potholes make for slow going. Better on our nimble bikes that can thread through breaks in the road than in wider, four-wheeled vehicles that will have to find more difficult ways to get around. We know from the surveillance tape that Gideon is in a car or truck of some kind, so maybe that works to our advantage. A thin hope, but that’s all I’ve got.

There are signs other travelers have passed this way. That smell of oil, for one, thick in the air. And the graveyard of abandoned vehicles around us, some left in the middle of the highway, most pulled to the side before they gave out in the heat of the day or ran out of fuel. But no people.

“Where is everyone?” Ben asks through her commlink, clearly thinking the same thing.

“Most travelers settle in somewhere safe once the sun starts to set,” Mósí says. “Probably in the cliffs around us, out of sight. The Mother Road is not safe in the dark.”

“Now you tell us,” Rissa quips, but she’s not serious. We already know. Danger flavors the air out here. We know something will come for us. We just don’t know what. Or when.

“If Mósí’s map is right,” I say, “we’ve got a couple of hours until we hit Joseph City. We should be able to rest there. Refuel. Maybe someone there’s heard of Amangiri.” Amangiri, the place where Caleb said we should bring the Godslayer, which, for now, I admit must mean me. We looked over the map but couldn’t find anywhere called Amangiri along Route 66, so for now we head west and hope the place reveals itself to us somewhere along the way.

“What’s in Joseph City, again?” Ben asks.

“It’s a Mormon settlement. There’s a handful of independent wards scattered through the Malpais, separate from the Kingdom. Joseph City is one of them. My brother used to go there sometimes to trade.”

“Clive?” Ben asks, sounding curious.

“My older brother,” Rissa says. “Cletus.”

“Oh, I didn’t meet him. Was he at the All-American?”

“He’s dead,” Rissa says, voice sounding normal enough, but over the static of the wind in the earpiece, it’s hard to tell.

“Oh . . . sorry, Rissa,” Ben says.

“It was a while ago.”

Silence falls around us, just the sound of engines and wheels over gravel. It lasts a full two minutes before Ben says, “So, are we there yet?”

“Stay off the commlink, Ben,” I tell her, tired of her nervous chatter. “And keep your eyes open. When it comes for us, we won’t have much warning.”

“It?” she squeaks, shifting on the seat behind me. She moves closer to me, wrapping her arms tighter around my waist and leaning against my back.

The sun inches steadily downward, the darkness growing. There’s no moon, and what stars there should be are lost to thickening cover. The only light for miles is a narrowing band on the far horizon and that’s fading quickly. Rissa flips on her headlight, and I follow her lead. I lean into the headlight almost instinctively. But I can tell immediately that the bright light compromises my night vision, and if I want to see more than fifteen feet in front of me, I’m going to have to lose the headlight. So I flip the switch to kill it. And in that split second between light and dark, I see it.

A flash of movement high and to my right.

I whip my head around, but my sight hasn’t recovered. A strong breeze passes close to my face, a feeling of a presence. The wind screams in my ear. I instinctively swerve.

Ben shouts behind me, her grip tightening.

“Maggie?” Rissa’s voice is high and worried.

“Did you see that?” I shout.

“See what?”

I strain through the darkness, searching for whatever came close to my face. Nothing. “I felt . . .” But what did I feel? The wind? A bird? No. It’s dead out here. No birds in this wasteland.

“What was it?” Rissa demands.

“I don’t know, but—”

Rissa shouts, and I hear her tires slide on the asphalt. She recovers and accelerates back up to come parallel to me.

“Something’s out there, flying around,” she says, voice grim. “I can’t see it, but it’s out there.”

Of all the things we considered, an assault from the air was not one of them. I search the tops of cliffs, looking for motion, a shine, anything that may give away the location of whoever’s got eyes on us. But it’s just black, as the last of our sunlight dies.

“Should we stop?” Ben asks anxiously.

“And make it easy for them?” Rissa says “Hell no.”

“You see anything, Mósí?” I ask the Cat, the one with supernatural senses. But the Cat is asleep, curled up in an uncomfortable-looking ball in her sidecar. Impossible. “Will somebody wake that damn cat—”

“What is that?” Ben shouts. She’s behind me, so I can’t see where she’s looking. But I don’t have to. I can feel it. A thrust of air so strong that it catches my bike and sends it sideways. I wrench the bike upright against the sudden gale. Ben clutches my waist and presses her head into my back.

Sweat breaks out on my forehead, sudden and cold, and I tighten my grip. I’m well aware that if I lose control out here, going this fast, we’re both roadkill.

Ben hammers on my shoulder, frantic. She points up.

“Is that a . . . ?” Rissa’s voice trails off.

The airplane buzzes low, feet from our heads, a dense winged shape in the dark. We can sense more than see it arc wide, turning to make another pass. The roar of a propeller’s steady tap, tap, tap fills the air. And behind the plane, small dark shapes trail like ducklings. Battery-powered drones, the eyes on the Malpais, waiting for travelers like us.

“They’re going to try to run us off the road,” I yell, searching for somewhere to take cover. I spot a narrow entry, a path snaking between a break in the canyons. It looks wide enough for the bikes but impossible for the plane’s wingspan. The drones will follow, but the twisting canyon will make us harder to target. “There!”

“Do we take it?” Rissa shouts. “It could be a trap.” The plane has completed its turn and is coming in fast, the trajectory of its dive putting us directly in its path.

“It’s going to try to bring us down. We either run for the canyon or we’re road splatter.”

The rumble of the engine permeates the sky, the turn of the propeller filling my vision.

“Maggie?!”

“Wait for it. . . . Wait . . .” And when the plane is so close that I can see the pilot briefly illuminated in Rissa’s headlight—a hunched figure in a leather aviator cap and googles—I yell, “Now!”

I wrench the bike right, barreling off the road and onto the rocky terrain. Bounce hard and come down, teeth rattling. Ben’s arms crush my ribs so hard I can’t breathe. I hear Rissa’s wheels hit dirt behind me and we haul ass for the crevice. The plane buzzes past, the wind from its passing pushing against my back.

We hit the canyon at full speed, walls closing around us immediately. Rissa kills her headlight too, and we fly blind, inches from the rocks on either side. Honágháahnii flares, and my vision improves, but the night is dense, almost a physical thing, and we’re moving fast. I squint into the darkness, clocking cliffsides and looming boulders as we speed past. My arm catches a jutting rock. Pain rips across my biceps, bright and hot. I bite my lip to keep from crying out, let off the throttle instinctively.

A wall comes up fast. I slam the brakes, dirt flying. Make the turn and keep going.

“You okay, Ben?” I ask, panting through the stinging pain on my arm. I reach back to feel the spot, and there’s a rip in the leather, and under that, wetness.

“You’re bleeding!” Ben says.

“I’m fine. It just hurts like a sonofabitch. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. But I can’t see Rissa.”

I brake, the back wheel spinning. Brace my feet on the ground. Turn the bike until we’re facing back the way we came. She’s right. No Rissa. I wait a few minutes to see if she’ll appear, but nothing. Maybe she couldn’t make that tight turn with the sidecar.

“Hold on. We’re going back.”

I accelerate slowly, moving back toward the mouth of the canyon. “We’re headed back to you, Rissa,” I say through the commlink. “Eyes open.” There’s no answer. And that worries me more than the possibilities of a sudden collision.

“They couldn’t have just disappeared,” I mutter to myself. “Unless—”

Light bursts bright and blinding in front of me. I skid to a halt. Raise my hand to my eyes, trying to block the sudden flood of light and preserve my night vision.

“Turn off your engine,” comes a voice from somewhere in the brightness. Male, commanding. The kind of voice that expects to be obeyed. No way I trust that voice. I rev the motor, ready to make a run for it.

“I know you are considering disobeying. I would advise against that. Any lack of cooperation on your part won’t go well for your friend.”

He has to mean Rissa. Damn. I let the engine idle and think about making a run for it. Because it’s better if Ben and I make it out of here than if no one makes it out of here. I have no idea what to expect from this man hiding behind the spotlight. But this is the Malpais, and I’ve never heard anything good about the people who survive out here. Bandits, thieves, and worse. For all I know, Rissa and Mósí could already be dead. Surrender could do us no good, and there’s still a chance we could make it out, hide somewhere deep in the canyons where they can’t find us. And I could still make it to Kai. Or at least one of us could make it to Kai.

“Off the motorcycle, if you please,” says the voice again, the irritation ratcheted up a notch. “I must insist.”

“I can’t see!” I shout, stalling. And hoping to get a better look at our odds. “Turn off the light and I’ll turn off the engine.”

“If you run, I will have Aaron put a bullet through your friend’s head. Is that understood?”

Not dead, then. “Understood.”

The lights dim, enough for me to see the outlines of half a dozen vehicles, lights mounted on the roofs. Human figures, too, carrying weapons. I squint, looking for a rifle or other kind of long gun, but they appear to be armed only with blades—a man on the left holding a spear, the one next to him cradling a crossbow. All homemade, by the looks of it. No match for my guns at this distance and with Honágháahnii speed.

K’aahanáanii sighs, happy. A smile bleeds across my face.

“Maggie?” Ben’s voice, small and scared.

Ben. I’d forgotten about Ben, so caught up in K’aahanáanii. I refocus on getting us out of here in one piece instead of turning these men in bloody pieces. Remind myself that I vowed I wouldn’t kill anyone. And I won’t, at least not on purpose. But “kill” and “grievously wound” are different things.

“Remember how you promised not to argue with me?” I ask Ben, my voice a low whisper.

A soft exhale of acknowledgment in my ears.

“I want you to run. Use your clan powers and get the hell out of here. Find out where Amangiri is, what Caleb meant. Can you do that? And I want you to get Kai out, away from this Gideon person. Whatever it takes. Go back for Clive, bring the whole of fucking Dinétah if you have to, but you find him. You promise?” It’s a ridiculous thing to ask. But I have to give her a reason to run and keep running.

“And kill the White Locust. I promise,” she whispers. Touches her hand briefly to the wound on my arm, smearing my blood across her fingers and then sticking them in her mouth.

I kill the engine. Silence, sudden and stark, fills the canyon. I hold my hands high in surrender.

“Very good,” says the voice again, sounding relieved. “Now, if you’ll just step forward please.”

I swing my leg over the bike. Honágháahnii waits, alert and ready. And I move.

Pull my shotgun free in one smooth motion. Fire at the row of people, light flaring from my gun. And scream at Ben. “Run!”

She takes off.

I pump and fire. Wish for a moment for Rissa’s automatic rifle, but the scattershot of the shotgun is doing its job, spreading pain and chaos over the enemy. Shouting and panic. The lights pop on again, blinding. I shoot them out, bulbs breaking and glass showering down. Someone screams in the darkness. I take the opportunity to drop more shells into the double barrel. Shake it closed. Keep firing.

Someone rushes me, just a bulky mass of human flesh in the corner of my eye. I flip my shotgun, catch the barrel in my gloved hand, and swing at his head. Impact, and a grunt of pain as the enemy goes down. Another one comes in fast, swinging a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. I duck, drop the shotgun, and draw my Böker. Slide under his guard and come up. Rip my knife across his stomach. Another figure, this one wearing some kind of animal mask. She swings a six-foot pike at my chest. I rear back, safe by inches. Spin and kick. Knock the weapon from her hands. Twist and land another kick to the back of her knee. And another to her head. And keep moving.

Two more attack, and I take them out too. But Honágháahnii will start to wane soon. I can feel the adrenaline dropping, the disastrous fatigue not far behind. I’ve got to stop fighting and get out of here. I scan the cliffs, looking for escape.

“Maggie! Help me!”

I freeze. Ben? Did she not get away?

I hear sounds of struggle, then a cry, abruptly cut off, and I know they have Ben.

With Honágháahnii still hot, I could run. Make it to the cliffs. Scramble up and maybe disappear. But I can’t leave Ben. I promised, didn’t I? Assured Rissa I was responsible for Ben’s life. And Tah said she was mine, my life to keep safe.

“Weapons! On the ground!”

A single light flickers on. A flashlight, bright and directly in my eyes. Only a dozen feet away. Too close to be the man with the voice.

I drop my Böker.

“Everything!”

I drop my throwing knives too.

A low murmur of voices in the distance and then. “Aaron, if you would.”

A man with the flashlight comes forward. He’s wearing a leather aviator’s cap like the pilot in the plane, goggles pushed up high on his forehead. A bilagáana face, long and gaunt, dominated by a large nose and startlingly white eyebrows. Tufts of bleached white hair escape his cap to fall down over pale eyes. He glances up at me. His brows and eyelashes are white too, and there’s a thick mess of scar tissue near his left eye, the result of a burn. Those eyes meet mine for a brief second before he quickly looks away.

He tucks the flashlight under an arm and bends to gather my weapons. Dumps the knives into a rucksack, retrieves my shotgun and tucks it under his arm before scurrying away. One of the bigger lights pops on, revealing another figure. A large man who swaggers forward, a clever grin splitting his face wide. Bilagáana too. Skin pale as milk and hair the yellow of chamisa blossoms. He wears a button-up white shirt closed tight all the way up to his chin, long sleeves and black suspenders over a wide chest.

“Good girl,” he says with an ugly smile that sends my stomach plummeting.

“Where’s Ben?” I ask.

“Ben?” He frowns like the name is distasteful, thin lips turning down. “What is a Ben?”

“Do you have her or not?”

“Ah,” he says. “The girl is Ben. We’ll have to change that name. What kind of name is that for a pretty little laurel? Well, thanks to you, the girl Ben is safe.” He grins, showing a mouthful of silver-capped teeth. “Unlike you.”

He gestures around us, taking in the injured warriors that surround us. People that I made that way. He looks pointedly at the fresh blood spattering my clothes.

“They’re not dead,” I say, a small protest, considering the situation. And maybe not entirely true, but I did try. That should count for something.

“So much violence,” he chides me. “I had hoped to spare you, maybe take you to auction, but you’re much too dangerous. Imagine the scandal if I sold you to a client only to have you . . .” His face falls, as if he’s truly disappointed. Shakes his head like I’ve let him down. “No, I’m afraid not. I hate to waste a breedable woman, but it’s the Harvest for you.”

He takes a step back, raises his hand and snaps his fingers. Rough hands grab me, force me down to my knees. A heavy strike between my shoulders forces me flat on the ground. I bite my tongue. Dirt and blood fill my mouth. Someone knees me hard in the back and grabs my arms, twisting. I feel the cold metal of handcuffs against my wrists before I’m dragged back up to my feet.

The man in the white shirt studies me for a minute. The hairs on the back of my neck rise under that blue gaze. His eyes linger for a moment on my face before traveling over my body. Evaluating. Like I’m something he’s considering buying. Or something he thinks he already owns.

On impulse, I spit my mouthful of blood on his shirt. His freezes, before his face purples in rage. He takes a cloth from his pocket and carefully wipes the mess away.

“Bag her,” he says tersely, already walking away. “And take her to the Reaping Room. And in the name of the prophets, fetch me a clean shirt!”

Someone pulls rough black fabric over my head, I feel a sharp sting at the back of my neck like a bug bite, and everything goes black.