Horde (Razorland #3)(48)

He looked undecided, then Morrow pointed out, “I marked how many pitchers of beer you sold while I was sharing that tale.”

But the man wore a shrewd look. “That was part of our old arrangement, but I’ve a mind to offer you another if you’re interested.”

“Not the same sort you gave the Muties, I hope,” Thornton muttered.

I shot him a quelling glance. “I’m amenable to bargaining.”

“Then you lot clean the common room after I close up, then you can move the tables and bed down. Sound fair? I sleep upstairs, mind, and I’ll count all the jugs and bottles before I retire. If there’s even a drop missing in the morn, there will be trouble.”

“Fine.” I had no interest in more of his warm beer, which smelled like piss to me.

A few hours later, we were mopping as a unit. That wasn’t the kind of action I had in mind when I set out, but maybe the next town would bring better luck.

Of a certainty, it couldn’t get worse.

Failure

It was always a mistake to tempt fate with thoughts like that.

Tegan had explained the idea of fate, a concept passed on by her parents. She knew lots of odd things. And I shouldn’t have thought what I did, because the situation could always deteriorate. In the next month, we visited Appleton and Lorraine. The former was a village similar to Salvation, though they had more modern amenities; I could see why Longshot had enjoyed the trade runs. In both towns, I used his name to open doors, and folks were sad to hear he’d passed on, more so to learn of Salvation’s fate. Those facts were enough to get them to let me say my piece.

But I’d come to recognize the light in a man’s eyes before he laughed in derision. When it was forty or more, the sound could be demoralizing. They took one look at my ragged group, listened to my idea, then fell to uproarious chuckles. And those were the nice ones. A few men threw food.

Today, we stood on the outskirts of Gaspard. We had made a complete circuit, and now we stood on the coast. It had been so long since I saw the great water that rather than continue on toward the town I saw in the distance, I paused on the rocky beach to marvel. The men came up beside me, weary and travel stained. I had pushed them hard for little gain, but so far, nobody had complained. I had no illusion that they’d continue to follow me, however, if we kept wandering without progress.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Thornton said.

I gazed out over those blue-gray waters, the waves rocking toward shore. “It’s worth seeing.” I turned to Morrow. “Is this going in your story?”

“It might,” he answered.

Gaspard was built on a jut of land that reached out over the water. It seemed foolhardy. What if a great wave drowned them all? But with Freaks roaming, maybe the sea was the least of their worries. To the front, they had the ocean as a bastion and at the back, they had chipped a towering wall out of the rock and mortared it. It stood higher than any defense I’d ever seen, impressive enough to deter fire and claws, any attack the Freaks could devise. There was only a narrow pass covered by a metal gate. The town had a forbidding air, but it was a stronghold.

The world is bigger than I would’ve believed, down below.

If anyone had told me there were so many people living Topside, I would have laughed. Everyone knew the world above was ruined, uninhabitable. It was hard seeing a constant reminder of how misinformed my people had been. These towns weren’t huge like Gotham, but each held hundreds of people, all living according to different rules. Now I understood how foolish my proclamation to Colonel Park must have seemed. I’d simply go unite everyone because it needed to be done? No wonder she laughed—and people kept doing so.

“One thing I don’t understand,” Stalker said.

I turned to him. “What’s that?”

“What’s the purpose of the tithe? It’s not like one person is enough to feed a large number of Muties, so it can’t be about food.”

Ah. So he was still thinking about Otterburn. I had to admit, I was puzzled too.

“It’s symbolic,” Morrow said.

“Explain.” Fade looked curious.

The storyteller’s face gained a grim aspect. “It means the Muties are letting those people live on sufferance. They’re the victors, the overlords, and the battle hasn’t even been joined.”

“Do you think it could be like an experiment?” Tully asked. “On a small scale. They’re wondering how humans will react to such proposed bargains and whether we can be relied on to keep the terms.”

“If any of that’s true,” Thornton said, spitting onto the sand, “then things look bleak for us. We don’t want our enemy learning more about our ways, how to cow settlements into bending at the knee.”

There may not be anything we can do. But I didn’t speak of how disheartened I was.

On the map, this settlement had a slash mark by it. I could interpret most of Longshot’s symbols but this one defeated me. But if Gaspard was dangerous, surely he would’ve noted it in a more obvious way. There was nothing for it but to push on. Turning from the ocean, I led the way up the shore and over the uncertain ground until we came to the metal lattice that sealed the town. A man in a helmet stepped into sight; his armor was crafted of reinforced leather, so it lent him a martial air. The sight gave me hope. Maybe there were warriors here, and some might be interested in taking the fight to the Freaks.