1. Leah #2
“Lindon can eat demon shit,” Hodges curses. “He doesn’t care if one of his lackeys gets scorched right to Infernum if there’s some loot in it for him. I happen to like staying alive, thanks very much.”
“Then you wait it out here as long as you like,” I say, clambering down to our own rope. “But I’m not sitting around here on my ass while they snatch all the good loot. I’ll meet you back at the Three Bridges, all right?”
“Leah—”
“I can’t waste this chance, Hodges,” I shoot back before he can go on.
I wince at the harshness in my voice. He doesn’t deserve that.
Hodges has people depending on him too. But he’s not trying to escape something like I am.
Besides, it’s not like my reckless behavior won’t benefit him too, given we share our earnings.
As I wrap my fingers around the rope and look up at him, he offers me an exasperated smile.
“Just be fast, okay? And smart,” he orders.
“Faster and smarter than you, anyway,” I answer with a wink, which earns me another rude gesture as I scramble down the rope.
Quick as a rat, I’m jumping the last few feet to the ground and sliding down the riverbank.
A thick clump of reeds clustered at the edge of a small culvert hides my way out of here.
The city gates and main waterway won’t open for another few hours at least, when the wardens are sure it’s safe.
But by then, the plains will be mostly picked clean.
The most successful scavengers find faster ways onto the battlefield, while the ground is still smoking and the blood is still warm.
I tug my homemade raft from out of the reeds, clambering in and letting the water carry me under the culvert and out onto the other side.
I’m an all right climber—enough to stop myself falling to my death on the city walls—but lots of the stronger scavengers can scale ropes faster than I ever will.
Unlike most of them, however, I can swim.
That means I can use transportation they avoid for fear of drowning.
It takes me into the heart of the battlefield quicker than I’d ever make it on foot.
The water’s muddy with the runoff from the scorched banks. There’s worse debris in these waters than ash, and I try not to look too hard when a flesh-colored object bobs past me.
By the time I’m dragging the raft onto dry land, I’m already half a mile ahead of the other scavengers reckless enough to hit the plains this early.
I crouch low among the grasses, scanning the immediate landscape for signs of danger, but the rifts to the other realms are closed now, and only a haze of gray mist and black smoke drifts through the air.
Everyone left behind is dead or beyond saving.
I do a quick inventory check—my yew bow secured at my back, my satchel at my side—then I start searching.
I move quickly across the ground, scanning as I go.
I scoop up a white feather speckled with silver ephilium blood and stuff it into my satchel before darting forward a few more yards toward the glimmer of something wedged under a rock.
I tug it from the wet earth with a squelching noise and wipe it clean.
It looks like a single, bent plate from an ephilium’s bracer.
“What’chya got there, Radley?”
I stow the shard of metal deep in my bag as I spin around to face Oxel.
“Nothing,” I say, my hand reaching up to touch the curve of my bow in warning. Oxel’s a skinny, tricksy scavenger who tries to pick people’s pockets on their way back to the city, but he’s not the type to attack out in the open.
Unless he’s looking to try something new…
“Looked like sumthin’.” He squints accusingly at my bag, and my heartbeat speeds up a notch. I pull out the yew bow I picked up on these very plains, sliding an arrow from the sheath at my back.
“Why don’t you go ask one of Lindon’s boys what they’ve found, Oxel?” I ask, holding my voice steady. “Or would you rather wait for Hodges? He’ll be here any moment—and then we’ll both kick your creepy ass.”
I don’t actually know where Hodges is right now. He and I have our own scavenging styles and pick our individual routes across the plains, but on the average day, he’s never too far away. We watch each other’s backs.
That is, on an average day when I haven’t left him behind on the city walls because I’m too fucking impatient to care about the risks.
Oxel eyes my bow, then spits in the dirt. “Bitch.”
“Call me that again and find out how good my aim is, roach.” I keep my voice measured, making it clear I’m in control of myself—he can’t get me to lose my temper or drop my guard.
Maybe that’ll be enough to keep this from turning into a physical fight.
I know I can defend myself, but that doesn’t stop me praying Oxel doesn’t take another step closer.
I’ll do what it takes to survive, but that doesn’t mean I want to. Not again.
He clearly decides whatever’s in my satchel isn’t worth challenging me over, because after a few tense seconds he shrugs and shuffles away.
Not for the first time, I’m glad no one except Hodges knows my real name here.
To my fellow scavengers I’m Rose Radley—an alias I shed along with my weapons once I’m back inside the city walls.
I return to scanning the churned ground ahead for spots where the earth looks most disturbed.
I’ve always had good instincts and sharp eyes, and I let them guide me now.
I ignore the pools of demon blood—the other scavengers are welcome to those—but use the jar in my satchel to scoop up a particularly dense patch of black mist, a remnant of demon shadow magic that lingers on the plains after battles.
I’m careful not to touch it, my gloved fingers sealing the lid tightly.
The plains are getting more crowded now.
The shouts of groups working together echo through the smoke.
I wave to a father and daughter I know who always scavenge together, but keep my distance.
Hodges is probably somewhere out there, but the battlefield is big, and trying to track each other down would just waste time.
He can handle himself. Plus, we already agreed to meet back at the market.
I move faster, anticipation making my insides squirm.
My instinct tells me there’s a bigger prize still out here, and I need to find it before anyone else gets their grubby paws on it.
My gaze catches on a flash of white. Perhaps another feather, or a piece of bone from some previous battle?
Then I glance beyond it and see a curve where the earth falls away into a deep crater.
A body. It has to be—it’s the only thing that makes that kind of impact. I rush over to the edge, and my heart starts racing when I spy the pale corpse lying at the bottom.
The hole is maybe four yards wide and marked with the coursing lines of an ephilium lightning strike, snaking outward from the body like a network of blackened roots.
The demon looks female, I guess, her skin white as bone, with a flat, upturned nose that makes me think of a bat, matching the leathery wings shredded at her sides.
Her eyes are closed, and her coal-black lips, smeared green with her blood, are parted to display rows of sharp teeth.
But her features don’t really interest me.
Demon teeth and leather sometimes pay, but it’s a niche market, reserved for the truly shady dealers who aren’t afraid of damning their souls to Infernum.