She heard more scratching and thumping and rattling behind her, louder and faster than before. Tears burned in the rims of her eyes.
Wren needs me now. I should go.
Still she lingered, listening to the rushing water, and the buzzing flies, and her Erik.
And she sat down to wait.
Chapter 27. Fallout
Omar sat at the edge of the bed, gently petting Riuza’s hair. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had coaxed her into lying down properly, and now he guessed by the steady sound of her breathing that she was truly at ease, for the moment. He thought back to their time together, the three years between the ill-fated flight of their airship and the ill-fated construction of Ivar’s Drill.
Riuza hadn’t been the easiest woman to get along with, even though they were stranded together on a strange island at the top of the world surrounded by huge Europan barbarians. She’d been so impatient, unwilling to learn the language, unwilling to make friends, unwilling to consider the possibility of being in Ysland one minute longer than necessary. For her, there had only been the mission of finding a way out, a way home to Marrakesh.
Omar leaned down and kissed her forehead.
And nothing I said was ever good enough for you, was it? I was never clear enough, never stern enough with Ivar, never persuasive enough with the smiths or the miners. I just didn’t want to leave as badly as you did. Maybe I should have been. If we’d sailed away instead of digging up the mountain, none of this would have ever happened.
He sighed.
She looked very different. It wasn’t just the sunken cheeks and veined hands and thin arms. She had always kept her head shaved. The hair made her look like another person altogether. And she’d been so strong, too.
Halfdan brought them food, and Omar tried to wake Riuza and feed her, but the woman was too weary and too dazed to eat. He grasped his seireiken and summoned his dead friend the Indian physician, who could only sigh and shake his ghostly head and tell Omar what he already knew. There was little chance of Riuza surviving very long, much less recovering at all. Even now, eating too much could burst her stomach.
So he sat beside her, holding her hand, trying to remember their better nights together when they had stumbled, laughing and drunk, into their little stone house. And she had stripped off his clothes with the speed and skill of an engineer dismantling a machine, and she had ridden him as though he might carry her all the way back to Marrakesh, if only she squeezed him hard enough and clawed him deep enough, and grunted loud enough. But when morning came they were always still in their little stone house in the cold wasteland of Rekavik.
It was very late in the morning when Omar noticed the noise coming from outside. For a time he just sat still, listening, trying to sort it out. It was voices mostly, male and female, and laden with all sorts of emotion. Anger. Fear. Surprise. Confusion. There was even some laughter. He’d lived in many cities in many lands, and he had come to know them all by their voices. The gentle chanting of Jaipur, the wailing songs of Damascus, the rumbling chaos of Alexandria, and the mechanical cacophony of Tingis. Rekavik had always been a quiet place, true to its fishermen’s roots, a place punctuated by sudden laughter and sudden anger, both usually the result of some fishing mishap. But the city was not quiet now.
They sounded like separate arguments. A few shouts here or there. Some angry, some scared. The crack of a stone as it hit a house. The metallic clang of a hammer on stone. It should have been more scattered and less urgent. But it wasn’t.
Damn my curiosity. It’s going to get me into trouble some day.
Omar went to the narrow window and saw nothing but the inside of the castle wall, so after tucking the blankets carefully around Riuza, he slipped down the hall with his hand resting on the grip of his seireiken. He received a few strange looks from the men in the dining hall, and a sympathetic smile from one of the cooks, but he hurried by them, eager to see what was amiss outside and to return to Riuza’s bedside.
He wasn’t far from the castle gate when he found the first group of shouters. A dozen angry men and women were pressing in against a young woman with a small girl in her arms and a small boy clutching her skirts. A rock was thrown.
Omar drew his seireiken and called upon the dead samurai in the blade, but the ghost of Ito Daisuke was already there, already guiding his hand. Together they plunged forward and slashed the rock out of the air, sending two jagged shards of stone clattering to the ground. The pieces glowed red and steamed quietly in the icy road at his feet. Omar raised the bright sword to let its light sear the eyes of the mob as he herded the mother and the two children behind him.
“What’s going on here?” he said softly.
Another rock flew and again the dead samurai flicked Omar’s wrist, smacking the stone aside.
“I asked what you’re doing here,” Omar said. “We can stand about all day playing hit the rock, but I’m not going to let you hurt this woman and her children. So you might as well start talking.”
“Get away from them,” an older woman snapped. “They have the plague! Get them out of the city before they kill us all!”
Omar glanced back into the terrified eyes of the mother. The little girl on her chest peeked out with huge golden eyes, and Omar saw the reddish hair standing on the girl’s tall ears. The boy’s ears were even larger and redder, the hair sweeping up to two little tufts above the points of the canine folds.
Omar turned back to the mob with a smile. “We’ve lived with the plague for five long years. You all know the signs of it. What is the first sign of the plague?”
The old woman and the young fisherman at her side glared. “The sweating. The shivering.”
“Yes, exactly!” Omar angled his body to let them see the mother and her children. “And you can all see quite clearly that these poor little ones are not suffering from the sweats at all. And if they are trembling, it’s only in fear from you. Look at them again! Yes, their ears and eyes have changed, but these children are not infected with the plague. They aren’t in pain, they aren’t confused.”
“They will be soon enough!” the old woman shouted.
“I don’t think so,” Omar said calmly. “These children have not been infected with the plague. Look at them. Do you really think a bloodthirsty reaver snuck into the city, sank its huge filthy fangs into their tender flesh as they slept in their beds, and then simply walked away, leaving them to grow ill? Of course not! If a reaver had found these two, they’d have been eaten in two gulps. They’re deliciously tiny!”
A nervous titter ran through the crowd.
“No, this is not the plague,” Omar continued. “This is a miracle. You all know what happens with other plagues, like the pox. Some people never grow sick. Some people grow sick and die. But many people grow sick, and then survive bearing the scars of the plague, never to grow sick again. Don’t you see? These children bear the scars of the plague, but not the plague itself. They’re healthy. And better still, that means they can never be infected by the plague at all, even if a reaver did bite them now. Look at this boy! Look at this little girl!” He pointed to them. “Trust your eyes. This is not the feverish, sickly beginning of their transformation into beasts. This is the clear-eyed, iron-strength of two Yslander children who will live long, happy lives in Rekavik, fishing its waters and defending its walls!”
He scanned the eyes of the crowd and saw the distrust and the misgiving and the fear, but where it had been sharp and vicious a moment ago, now it was muddled with doubt and even hope. Slowly, a few of the younger women came forward to look at the children, and then the younger men, and finally everyone was gathered around the mother and her two little ones. They tugged at the tall hairy ears and peered at the bright golden eyes, but there was soon no doubt among them that the boy and the girl were not stricken with the plague.
“But, how did it happen?” asked the mother. “I mean, if they were never bitten by reavers, then how did they come through the plague at all with these… scars?”
Omar smiled as he sheathed his sword. “Every plague has sown within it the seeds of its own undoing. Somewhere in the world there is some plant or fish or flea, some humble little thing that can defeat these reavers. And that’s what your little ones have stumbled upon. Tell me, have you eaten anything strange in the last
