“ Then come with us,” Cross said. “We need your help.”
Cristena turned around, slowly, her boots sloshing in the muck.
“ I already told you,” she said quietly. “I’m not interested.”
“ Yeah,” Cross said. “I can see that. You’re busy trying to get yourself killed.”
“ Go to hell,” Cristena answered.
“ Look,” Cross said, and he stepped closer, leaving Stone and Graves so he could speak with her alone. “I get it. I really do. I’ve lost…everything…in the past few days. My spirit. My sister. My hope. But this has to be done. I don’t think I’m going to live through this.”
He hadn’t actually realized that until that very moment, and his insides coiled up like rope at having said it aloud, because he believed it.
Cristena regarded him stoically. She was strong, but he could see the strings that held her together coming unraveled. She was almost ready to die.
Almost.
“ If we have to die,” he said, “I want our deaths to mean something.”
Cristena smiled bitterly.
“ You’re such a romantic. I think I pity you.”
“ Look, enough, all right?!” Cross said. “Just cut the crap. We need your help. I’ve needed your help. Remember when I asked you to be our tracker back in Thornn? Well, my sister became our tracker instead, and now…she’s gone. We have no chance of finding Red unless someone helps us, and right now that someone has got to be you. Maybe you’ve given up on living, but there are a lot of people who haven’t. If you’re too selfish to see that…” Cross took a breath. “Then I don’t know what to tell you.”
They stood silent.
“ Nice speech,” Cristena said after a moment. “You do that a lot?”
“ No,” Cross smiled sadly. “I’m actually pretty impressed with myself right now.”
They waited. Stone and Graves looked on, silently. Cristena’s eyes focused on something only she could see there in the greasy waters.
“ Cross?” she said after a moment.
“ Yeah?”
“ Why did you try to save me? I would’ve been all right in that fight, you know. I could’ve taken him.”
Cross thought for a moment.
“ I know,” he said.
“ Then why?”
Cross hesitated.
“ A little spider told me to.”
“ I’m sorry?”
“ Don’t worry about it.”
“ So is she with us?” Stone asked from behind them.
“ She is capable of answering for herself,” Cristena said coldly. “Thanks.”
“ This is our Squad leader, Abraham Stone,” Cross said. “That gnarly looking blonde fellow is Sam Graves. Gentlemen, this is Cristena…”
“ Da’avros,” she said.
“ Cristena Da’avros.”
“ Your new tracker,” she added.
“ Pleased to meet you,” Stone said. “And now we need to move. With what Captain Impulsive here just pulled,” Stone said with an eye on Cross, “we’ll need to exercise a bit more caution from here on out.”
“ A bit more caution?” Cristena said dryly. “Why don’t we start with any caution. Period.”
“ We’re cautious,” Graves said defensively.
“ No offense, but if what happened up there is your idea of being cautious…well…”
“ You can say it,” Stone smiled. “We’re dead.”
“ Yeah.”
FOURTEEN
Cristena quickly took charge, in part because she knew Dirge better than any of the rest of them, but also because she simply had an incredibly forceful personality. Besides having been competently trained in the arts of tracking and combat, Cristena was also a powerful witch. Unlike Cross, she’d never had any institutionalized magical training, but had instead received tutelage from a shaman. Also unlike Cross, Cristena was highly opinionated and very sure of her own abilities.
While common sense dictated they should remove themselves from Dirge as quickly as possible, Stone pointed out that they still needed basic supplies and ammunition, as there would be little to be found in the way of civilization once they left Dirge and entered the Bone March.
“ If only you could’ve been a bit more…subtle…when you decided to ‘help’ me,” Cristena pushed. She’d grown noticeably colder towards Cross since she’d agreed to go with them.
She’s still not happy about her decision, and she’s going to blame me for everything from this point on. Terrific.
The market was a busy place. It was located inside of a series of hollowed-out buildings made of cracked sandstone and supported by steel girders that had turned red from rust and age. Vast tarps made of red and gray cloth were hung over the roofs of the open buildings, forming a makeshift tent that linked the ruined structures together. Thick and unused chimneys filled with refuse and bat colonies doubled as additional support for the fading structures. The vendors, traders and smugglers who populated the market set up their wares in tents, on open tables, or on rugs spread out on the ground. The market was filled with dusty haze, like the inside of a barn or a saw mill.
Cross had the uneasy feeling they were being watched while they shopped. Stone more or less handled the negotiations, with Cristena’s occasional help. Cross and Graves had to step up from time to time to provide their assessment of equipment for sale, much of which was in less than passable condition.
The local militia, who were as interested in satiating the vampire authority as they were with actually maintaining peace, were notoriously crafty at rooting out insurgents and malcontents, and Cross knew that under close scrutiny they’d ultimately be detected for who they really were. The fact that an active search had likely been initiated for them didn’t calm his nerves any, but thus far they’d noted no major alarm had been raised, which was surprising considering how much damage they’d done at the White Spider.
They got less than the desired trade value for Winter’s equipment, but it was still enough for them to acquire a healthy amount of fresh ammunition, some rations, and spare blankets and coats for the cold northern weather. They also purchased a durable camel that could carry everything they’d purchased. The pack brutes were accustomed to survival in the inhospitable Bone March, so the camel would greatly reduce the wear and tear on the horses they planned to acquire next. Cross thought that the brown-furred camel was about the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.
After they wandered the bazaar for a time, Cross knew for certain they were being followed.
He’d been more than willing to sign his suspicions off as paranoia until the third time he saw the same pale woman watching them in the bazaar. She had alabaster skin but was otherwise difficult to get a good look at, as if the air bent around her and the shadows crowded her space. She dressed in an over-sized black and blue cloak that smothered what appeared to be a tiny frame.
Cross first saw her in the crowd when they’d purchased fresh blankets from a diminutive Gol trader. He saw her again when they haggled over the price of dried rations with a local dealer whose half-Doj bodyguard stood nearby, intimidating shoppers with his six muscle-bound arms. Cross saw her for the third time when he perused what passed for an alchemy dealer, a battered and overcrowded table packed with chemical vials, Bunsen burners
