Page 113 (1/2)

The Scorpion Obsidians die first fro er with us now We have little water to share

Seven Golds re Kalindora and Cicero To the west, the mountain peaks ride the waves of the heat-warped horizon To the east, the waste stretches as if it were all that existed War machines move beyond the irradiated clouds

Desiccated tanks from Darrow’s surprise retreat across the Ladon stand blackened in the distance, victih the mess of the electrical stor Or it would be if the Golds fought as an arreedy autarchs

We did this to ourselves And our ionnaires paid the price

Umbra visit us as alk White chalk twisters that spin ninety s with a thin white film that comes out in clumps wh

en we cough

A fever has grippedfield Reveries corandmother often Sometimes there is a chair Great and silver and carved with eccentric faces I have never seen it before And there is a white door that appears always on the horizon, acco of waves

I have seen it before in my dreams

Sometimes I reach it

It swings open to reveal nothing but shadow And then it is on the horizon again

I stumble often on the unstable sand and chalk, but Kalindora steadies me She cauterized her left arm just beneath the shoulder where Darrow’s blade hacked it off Still, she is the source of our momentum, the quiet, optimistic heart of our desperate push toward Erebos We will not make it, I think With the interference fro our trackers, our best hope is a chance encounter with Society forces If any still remain

In late afternoon, we discover the remains of a stork crashed into the sand We harvest it for supplies, and gather around to see if its co They are not But at least we have water and rations Kalindora declares it our caht Five Praetorian Grays and seven Golds hunker between the boulders to wait for the sun to depart

Soon after nightfall we hear ships in the sky

“They can’t see us,” Cicero says from the nest he’s made in the dirt Of all the survivors, he seems the only one to retain any of his humor

“Thirty ht in that battle,” Kalindora says “Even if they could, you try picking up all those pieces”