In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“No one can flee God’s wrath,” said Antonia sternly. “There are those who have done what they ought not.” She gestured toward the hazy landscape below. “Thus are they rewarded with chastisement and death.”

Focas rubbed his forehead, looking anxious.

Pietro hefted his spear. “No use waiting.”

They started down the road, which was utterly deserted although the day wasn’t far gone. It was difficult to measure the hours because the cloud cover never lifted and the light had a sameness to it that made noon seem like twilight and morning no different than afternoon. Ash squeaked under their feet. Pebbles rolled and crackled, and more than once Focas or Pietro slipped and, swearing, caught themselves before they fell. Fortunately, the mule was a sure-footed creature, stolid and companionable and not particularly stubborn.

As they descended, the light changed and deepened to a queer yellow fog that painted their skin the color of parchment. The hollows of their eyes darkened until the two soldiers looked like walking corpses as they strode along. Down and down they walked, as into the Pit. The world had emptied. They saw no one and no thing. Even the grass had withered into dry stalks. Now and again they crossed a stream running down from the circling heights, but a sour taste choked the water although they forced it down anyway. It sat heavily in parched stomachs. Antonia felt sick. Her head pounded and her throat burned. Each breath scraped as she wheezed along.

In time twilight faded to night. They set up camp off the road but not so far that they would lose sight of it and thus find themselves lost in the morning. The mule ate its lean dinner; they had only two days of grain left and certainly there was little enough to graze. They had bread and cheese and wine for themselves. The soldiers took turns on guard duty. She slept on her cloak under a canvas lean-to. She did not mind the hardship, although her old bones ached and her head never stopped hurting.

At dawn Pietro hissed. “Focas! Rouse you! Do you hear that?”

She rose and came to stand beside them, fingering the amulet at her chest.

She heard the jingle, too, and touched each man on the elbow. “Stand you as still as mice when the owl swoops. Say nothing.”

They, too, wore amulets, as did the mule. She had woven them with her own hands out of wolfsbane and turnsole, and still nursed blisters on her palms and fingers.

The procession emerged out of the haze: a line of sobbing, hacking, coughing men and women coffled in a line and guarded by a crew of men who in another life might have been soldiers as honorable as the ones who stood on either side of her. The soldiers wore cloth tied over mouths and noses to protect themselves from the air. The prisoners had nothing but the rags on their backs. A few were naked. As they shuffled past, she counted them: eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. Over one hundred in all, a remnant.

Although their guards were alert, looking from side to side and pointing here and there into the gloom, they marked no watchers, even those standing in plain sight a stone’s throw off the road. As the last man, a brawny, swaggering fellow, faded from sight, Pietro let out a great sigh that was more of a hoarse choke, and touched his chest where the amulet lay.

“Lord be praised,” he said.

Focas choked down a hysterical laugh. “Didn’t you recognize him? That was Sergeant Hatto there walking last of all. Do you think those were slaves they were herding away?”

“Slaves now, whatever they were before.” Pietro knelt, touched his hand to the dead earth, and kissed his fingers. “I pray you, Your Excellency, let us go swiftly.”

“This land is a charnel house,” said Focas. “I can smell it.”

They walked again that day, and the stench of sulfur got worse. Antonia’s headache got worse. Her eyes wept from the burning. In time, they saw off to either side glowing cracks spewing ghastly yellow smoke. It was as though the Earth itself was breaking apart. Once Pietro almost fainted when the wind caught him full on with a streamer of air off one of the fumaroles, but he staggered forward gasping and vomiting until he was out of danger. After that they were careful to keep cloth tied tightly across mouth and nose.

They walked as though in a tunnel, since they could see no great distance to any side. The haze clouded everything, making the world seem by one measure very small indeed and by another like a vast unknowable wasteland that could never be crossed but only suffered. Trudging on in this way they missed the crossroads where they might turn aside to Tivura and came at the end of the second day to the walls of Darre. In all that time they had seen not a single living creature except that one sad procession. No birds flew; no sheep blatted; no goats disturbed their rest, seeking scraps to eat. The mule was not faring well, but it had a strong sense of self-preservation and refused to fall behind. Even so, Antonia walked rather than rode for fear it might buckle and toss her to the ground. If she broke a leg, she, too, would be trapped in this purgatory.

That was what it was, of course. She recognized it as they saw the gaping gates rise out of the fog in front of them and beheld the tumbled ruins of the fairest and most magnificent city humankind had ever built. Had they unwittingly crossed through a stone crown into the world where galla roamed? Had Anne’s magic brought down the destruction? Or had the Lost Ones returned with plague and fire to defeat their ancient enemies?

“We’ll go to the palace, camp there tonight, and after take the road to Tivura.”

“I don’t like to go into the city,” said Focas as Pietro stroked his beard. “It scares me. I don’t mind saying so. It scares me.”

“None will see us. I think the city deserted in any case.”

Pietro hesitated. Even after all this time he did not trust her; he did not look to her as a servant ought to obey his master. Still, in the end he turned to Focas and said, breath whistling as he spoke, “The empress. She would want it, would she not?”

The empress. They were all Adelheid’s faithful soldiers, every one of them.

Fuming, she followed them into the empty city. Twice, they saw dogs slink away around corners, tails tucked tight and heads down. Of dead folk there were none, but human bones they saw aplenty scattered across avenues and the open squares. Fallen apartment blocks and tumbled columns lay like dead beasts in the rubble. Each entryway was a dark mouth; each was silent. Wind swirled dust up from the streets to blend with the haze. Once, from far away, they heard a shout. Their footfalls scraped ominously, echoing off the walls. But they saw no one.

“How many days since that wind blasted us?” Focas whispered as they reached the paved ramp that led up to the two palaces built atop the central hill. “This happened then, don’t you think? The storm brought destruction with it. I could smell it in the air, like it was diseased.”

wn Pietro hissed. “Focas! Rouse you! Do you hear that?”

She rose and came to stand beside them, fingering the amulet at her chest.

She heard the jingle, too, and touched each man on the elbow. “Stand you as still as mice when the owl swoops. Say nothing.”

They, too, wore amulets, as did the mule. She had woven them with her own hands out of wolfsbane and turnsole, and still nursed blisters on her palms and fingers.