The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,96

GUARDS AT THE NODE station actually seem to think they can fight when you and the other Castrimans walk out of the ashfall. You suppose that the lot of you do look like a larger-than-usual raider band, given your ashy, acid-worn clothing and skeletal looks. Ykka doesn’t even have time to get Danel to try to talk them down before they start firing crossbows. They’re terrible shots, which is lucky for you; the law of averages is on their side, which isn’t. Three Castrimans go down beneath the bolts before you realize Ykka hasn’t got a clue how to use a torus as a shield—but after you’ve remembered that you can’t do it, either, without Consequences. So you shout at Maxixe and he does it with diamond precision, shredding the incoming bolts into wood-flecked snow, not so differently from the way you started things off in Tirimo that last day.

He’s not as skilled now as you were then. Part of the torus remains around him; he just stretches and reshapes its forward edge to form a barrier between Castrima and the big scoria gates of the node station. Fortunately there’s no one in front of him (after you shouted at people to get out of the way). Then with a final flick of redirected kinetics he smashes the gates apart and ices the crossbow wielders before letting the torus spin away. Then while Castrima’s Strongbacks charge in and take care of things, you go over to find Maxixe sprawled in the wagon bed, panting.

“Sloppy,” you say, catching one of his hands and pulling it to you, since you can’t exactly chafe it between your own. You can feel the cold of his skin through four layers of clothing. “Should’ve anchored that torus ten feet away, at least.”

He grumbles, eyes drifting shut. His stamina’s gone completely to rust, but that’s probably because starvation and orogeny don’t mix well. “Haven’t needed to do anything fancier than just freeze people, for a couple of years now.” Then he glowers at you. “You didn’t bother, I see.”

You smile wearily. “That’s because I knew you had it.” Then you scrape away a patch of ice from the wagon bed so you can have somewhere to sit until the fighting’s done.

When it’s over, you pat Maxixe—who’s fallen asleep—and then get up to go find Ykka. She’s just inside the gates with Esni and a couple of other Strongbacks, all of them looking at the tiny paddock in wonder. There’s a goat in there, eying everyone with indifference as it chews on some hay. You haven’t seen a goat since Tirimo.

First things first, though. “Make sure they don’t kill the doctor, or doctors,” you say to Ykka and Esni. “They’re probably barricaded in with the node maintainer. Lerna won’t know how to take care of the maintainer; it takes special skills.” You pause. “If you’re still committed to this plan.”

Ykka nods and glances at Esni, who nods and glances at another woman, who eyeballs a young man, who then runs into the node facility. “What are the chances the doctor will kill the maintainer?” Esni asks. “For mercy?”

You resist the urge to say, Mercy is for people. That way of thinking needs to die, even if you’re thinking it in bitterness. “Slim. Explain through the door that you’re not planning to kill anyone who surrenders, if you think that will help.” Esni sends another runner to do this.

“Of course I’m still committed to the plan,” Ykka says. She’s rubbing her face, leaving streaks in the ash. Beneath the ash there’s just more ash, deeper ingrained. You’re forgetting what her natural coloring looks like, and you can’t tell if she’s wearing eye makeup anymore. “I mean, most of us can handle shakes in a controlled way, even the kids by now, but …” She looks up at the sky. “Well. There’s that.” You follow her gaze, but you know what you’ll see already. You’ve been trying not to see it. Everyone has been.

The Rifting.

On this side of the Merz, the sky doesn’t exist. Further south, the ash that the Rifting pumps forth has had time to rise into the atmosphere and thin out somewhat, forming the rippling clouds that have dominated the sky as you’ve known it for the past two years. Here, though. Here you try to look up, but before you even get to the sky, what grabs your eyes is something like a slow-boiling wall of black and red across the entire visible northern horizon.