The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(63)

In the distance, gunfire chattered.

He couldn’t tell who was fighting for the territory. Could have been United Patriot Front or Army of God, or Tulane Company, or Taylor’s Wolves, or the Freedom Militia. Impossible to guess. Just more gunfire.

Gutty came up behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, Ghost,” he said. “We’re doing patrol. Guess who walks point?” and then he laughed, because to him, it was funny.

29

MAHLIA AND TOOL reached Moss Landing in the afternoon of the second day. Twice they had to double back and work their way around patrols that Tool sensed, and so their route was circuitous, but eventually the broad muddy swathe of the Potomac River opened before them.

Mahlia had been to Moss Landing twice before with the doctor, but each time she had remained on its fringes while the doctor went into its heart to bargain for medicines from the troops who smuggled black market goods in from the coast.

As long as there was a river, there was transport, the doctor had said. Medicines were smuggled upriver from where the big scavenge companies and their corrupt workers would sell to the troops, and guns moved downriver, magically penetrating the war lines, even though armies and refugees could not.

More guns and bullets for the struggle.

“Why do they keep fighting?” Mouse had asked once. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop? Everyone would make more money.”

Mahlia had almost laughed at that. He was basically repeating what her own father had said every night for years.

“They’re stupid and crazy,” she’d said.

But Doctor Mahfouz had shaken his head. “Not crazy. More like… rationally insane. When people fight for ideals, no price is too high, and no fight can be surrendered. They aren’t fighting for money, or power, or control. Not really. They’re fighting to destroy their enemies. So even if they destroy everything around them, it’s worth it, because they know that they’ll have destroyed the traitors.”

“But they all call each other traitors,” Mouse had said.

“Indeed. It’s a long tradition here. I’m sure whoever first started questioning their political opponents’ patriotism thought they were being quite clever.”

Now, Mahlia and Tool crouched in the jungle on the outskirts of town. It looked much as she remembered it. Troops on R & R. Nailshed girls. Guns and booze and drugs and laughter and screaming. Guns firing randomly, like Spring Festival fireworks going off, but all the time. The place seethed with ring fights and red rippers and white dust and bloodshot eyes watching from the shadows. Mahfouz had never wanted her to go into it, and she’d been glad to stay out.

Beyond, on the river, she could make out a few sails. Smugglers, probably, with their little skiffs. No rich ones, though. The last time she’d been here, there had also been the buzz of biodiesel zodiacs, running upriver on behalf of Glenn Stern and his UPF soldiers.

She watched the soldiers and the nailshed girls. Suddenly gasped as she caught a better glimpse of a soldier. He had a green cross tattooed on his bare chest, and now that she looked, she caught sight of a glinting amulet of aluminum strung around his neck. They were all like that. All of them with their crosses and their amulets.

“Army of God,” she whispered. She started worming backward, trying to escape. “It’s Army of God.”

Tool gripped her arm, stopping her flight. “This is a change?” he asked.

“Used to be United Patriot Front.”

“War is fluid.” Tool studied the town. “There are still soldiers on the river, and crates being unloaded on the dock. Black market goods still move on the waterway. The players have changed, but the business of smuggling remains the same.”

“Yeah, except if we have to cross back into UPF territory downriver, we’re dead.” She looked out again at Moss Landing. Rough-cut buildings scabbed inside older fallen-down and overgrown concrete and brick. The troops were singing some patriotic song about how their general would never die until the last God-haters were swept away.

“That is not why you try to flee now,” Tool observed.

Mahlia’s heart was pounding. She swallowed. “They’re the ones that caught me. Last time. The ones that took my hand.”

Tool nodded slowly. “Still, you must go down. See if the route remains open.”

“Not me.” Mahlia shook her head violently, fighting down memories of trying to break free. The soldier boys laughing as they laid her hand across the log. “They got no love for castoffs.”

A shout went up. Mahlia flinched. A couple of soldier boys stumbled out into the middle of the street, leaning on nailshed girls. They were all drunk or high. Crazy and mindless because they weren’t on the front.

UPF had been the same way, when they owned the town. Moss Landing was safe territory. R & R ground. Safe upriver from the Drowned Cities. Easy duty.

Unconsciously, Mahlia found herself reaching for a rock, prying it up, preparing to defend herself if they came her way.

She looked down and almost yelped. Her hand gripped a skull, lying buried, meat still on the face. It was past stinking, but she could make out the triple hash of Glenn Stern on the warboy’s cheek. With a chill, she realized that she and Tool were lying on a graveyard of bodies, UPF soldiers shallow-buried all around.

“Fates,” she whispered.

Tool’s bestial face showed amusement. “I thought you knew.”