Ash and Quill(61)

Morgan had done this without meaning to. And they were shoving her, Santi, and Wolfe up the steps just as he'd expected, while the mob filled in the space between the steps and the fields. The rain was starting to slow a little, but the fields were a stinking mass of rotten plants and mud, and no one seeing it could fail to understand that they were going to starve this winter. 

Beck needed a scapegoat, or it would be his head on the chopping block.

The Burner leader took Morgan by the arm and marched her to the edge of the stairs, showing her to the crowd. It was easier to hear him now, and his voice seemed to have come back to full strength again. "This creature is the traitor who destroyed our crops-an Obscurist, sent by the Library to poison our food and force us to submit! We trusted her! We allowed her safety and shelter and our good welcome. I ask you, good people of Philadelphia: what punishment do you demand?"

The answer roared back from a hundred throats: death. They were going to kill Morgan. They'd tear her apart.

Jess tried to breathe against the weight of suffocating fear. Think. Find a way out. He didn't see one.

Beck moved on to Wolfe. "This one is her master and her protector, a full Scholar of the Great Library! A Stormcrow, sent to us to destroy us! What punishment, good people?"

Death. They took it up as a chant this time, and the power and fury of it chilled harder than the rain.

Santi was next. Sworn enemy of our city. Captain of the High Garda. Murderer of our children.

And the sentence was obvious.

Beck turned to the three of them, and Jess saw him smile. It was a terrible, cynical thing, and it made him tighten his grip on the two pistols he'd drawn. "Make her bring back our crops," Beck told Wolfe, "And I'll let her live."

"I will," Morgan cried out. "I'll fix this if you let them go!"

"She can't fix it," Wolfe said with ruthless precision. "Nothing can bring back the dead. You believe in the Christian teachings, Master Beck? Well. You reap what you sow."

Beck hit him. Backhand, a viciously fast blow that rocked Wolfe's head to one side and left him spitting blood. Santi snarled and tried to pull free, but he was too weak.

"You reap what you sow, you filthy crow," Beck said. He swung around to glare at Morgan. "Last chance, girl. Save our crops, and save their lives." Beck pulled out a pistol and leveled it at Santi's head. The captain looked at the weapon, then past it to meet Beck's eyes.

"I will not say it again, girl," Beck said. "Bring back our crops. Or I'll kill this man right now, and his blood will be on your hands. I'll save the Scholar to burn alive and screaming. Do you hear?"

Santi said, in a deceptively calm and unbothered voice, "None of this is your fault, Morgan. No matter what happens. In bocca al lupo, Christopher."

Wolfe took a sharp, sudden breath, and whispered, "Crepi il lupo, dear Nic."

It meant good-bye.

Jess stood up, but he had no shot, no clear one; he could see a sliver of Beck, but not enough to aim for, not enough to do any good, but he had to shoot . . .

And that was the moment when sirens began to wail beyond the walls.

The tone was different. Louder, higher, more dissonant than before. And an amplified voice with an Alexandrian accent spoke first in English, and then repeated the same phrase in German, Spanish, more languages that Jess didn't even recognize.

But the phrase would be the same in all of them.


      ///
       
         
       
        

The Great Library declares no quarter will be given.

Philadelphia was about to die.





EPHEMERA


Urgent directive from the Archivist Magister to commanders of all High Garda surrounding Philadelphia


You are ordered to disregard previous instructions on the preservation of the city, its occupants, and the capture of the Burner leaders. For the safety and preservation of the Library, you must bombard the city immediately with all speed and all strength, with no regard for casualties or for damage.

Let the city of the Burners be reduced to ashes. Let no living thing remain.

Let it burn.


Text of a letter from the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus to his son. Available in the Codex.


My son, these are the ways of brothers: you must reach the outer limits of virtue before you die. You must trust the man at your back and to your side. You must joyously run to the fight, and never from it. Do these things, and you will be both a good man, and a brave man.

And the brave never die. Mark this well: the brave never die, for we remember.





CHAPTER SEVEN





Jess took his finger off the trigger, and thank God he did, because he knew he would have killed someone he didn't intend to hit, his hand was shaking so badly. The mob had gone from rabid to panicked in a breath, and now they were starting to scatter. Now to run, slipping on the slick grass and in the mud. Desperate to get to a shelter.