Chapter 120: The Bridge

Rook caught Mara by the elbow when her boot slipped, held her until she found her footing, then released her.

"Loose ground. Keep to the right."

She brushed the grit from her palm. He had already turned away, the coffin shifting against his back as he stepped over a low shelf of rock.

"You could slow down a little."

He slowed down. Mara looked at the back of his head. She had been ready for him to complain about her legs, or her eyes, or whatever part of her he considered responsible for the slip. Instead, he adjusted his pace and kept walking. Somehow, she felt worse.

For a while she followed the blue light of his lantern, picking her way through the stones. His boots scraped over the ground. The chain securing the coffin clicked whenever he changed direction. Beyond those sounds, there was nothing to occupy her.

"How much farther?" she asked.

"We'll know past the rise."

"And then we cross?"

"If the approach is clear."

She waited for the rest. Apparently, that was the rest. "I suppose asking whether there's anything dangerous on the bridge would be a stupid question."

"Yes."

Mara pressed her lips together. Usually, that would have been the beginning of an argument. She could have complained about his idea of a safe road, and he could have reminded her that she was welcome to find another. She would even have taken another comment about how much easier traveling had been before meeting her.

He stepped around a jutting stone and pointed it out without looking back. "Mind that."

"I see it."

They walked another dozen paces before she spoke again. "You might be able to Cull now."

Rook kept walking, but she saw his fingers settle more tightly around the lantern's handle.

"I can't."

"You remember more than you did before. Surely that makes it more likely."

"I still can't."

"I'm not saying you can do it this instant. I'm saying at least you have something to work with."

"I've got more things in my head." He ducked beneath an overhang, turning his shoulder to keep the coffin from catching. "That's what I've got."

Mara followed him through. The stone brushed the top of her hair. "You thought everything that happened was your fault."

"Mara."

"It wasn't. Not all of it. They did those things to you, and you spent all this time thinking you were just some..." She stopped before the word came out, then tried again. "Doesn't knowing that matter?"

He stopped beyond the overhang. For a moment she thought he might finally turn around and argue with her properly.

"They're still dead," he said.

She looked down at his hand. He had shifted the lantern away from her so its frame would not strike her knee when she stepped out.

"I know."

"Then leave it."

He waited until she was clear before moving again. Mara followed with her jaw tight. She could still explain what she had meant. She had never suggested that remembering would fix everything, or that the people he had lost no longer mattered. He knew that. He had to know that.

Ahead of her, Rook lowered the lantern to examine a shallow depression in the path, then guided them around it. She let the explanation go unsaid.

At the foot of the rise, he stopped to tighten one of the coffin straps. Mara watched him pull the leather through its buckle. There was a worn place where his thumb kept passing over it.

"It should have been your choice."

His hand stopped on the buckle. She nearly added that she had been trying to help. The words were already there, waiting. Instead, she stood with her hands at her sides and let him finish tightening the strap.

"Yes, it should have been." he said.

Mara nodded, although he wasn't looking at her. When he started up the rise, she followed a few steps behind.

"Stay on this side of me," he said near the top. "The ground falls away on the left."

She moved to his right. Beyond the rise, the land ended, and Mara stopped so abruptly that loose stones rolled past her boots. The lantern showed a ragged lip of pale rock, then empty space. She could follow the edge some distance in either direction before the darkness swallowed it. There was no slope beneath it, no lower shelf she could make out.

A road extended across that emptiness. She took another step, drawn by the blunt familiarity of it. A broad concrete bridge began between two square posts, its surface marked with faded white lines. It was wide enough for several cars abreast. Waist-high parapets ran along its edges, with narrow drainage openings cut at regular intervals near the ground.

Rook raised the lantern as they approached. Beneath the near end, thick concrete ribs curved down into the rock. The deck above them was deep enough that Mara could have stood upright beside its exposed edge without reaching the top.

"That's a bridge," she said, then caught Rook's glance. "I mean a real one. From..." She touched the square post beside the entrance. The surface was cold and rough, with tiny pits left in the concrete. "From when people were alive."

"Remembered here."

There were even expansion seams across the roadway. She could picture tires passing over them, the small repeated bump beneath a car seat. The thought made her look along the white line as if it might lead to something familiar at the other end. It disappeared beyond the reach of the lantern.

"Who remembered it?"

"Don't know."

Mara looked back along the edge of the chasm. "I suppose it's the only way forward."

"It cuts across the Step. We cross here."

He stepped onto the concrete. His boot landed with a flat, ordinary sound, and she followed.

The first heap of rubble stood a short distance ahead. From the rise, she had taken it for a damaged section of the bridge, but the roadway beneath it was whole. Blocks of dark stone had been stacked against pale chunks of masonry. Bricks filled some of the gaps. Across the top rested a slab as thick as her thigh, leaving a low space beneath it.

More heaps stood beyond it, scattered across the roadway. Some crowded the parapets. Others occupied the middle, forcing a traveler to turn between them. Pieces of concrete lay at odd angles against the larger piles, making narrow passages and deep recesses.

"Who left all this here?"

"Reapers."

She looked at him. "On purpose?"

"It's cover." Rook pointed upward.

Mara raised her eyes. There was nothing to see above the lantern's light. "They fly?"

"Some do. Keep close to the blocks."

He led her around the side of the first pile. Scratches crossed the upper surface of the slab, several so deep that grit had collected inside them. At its edge, four long grooves curved down toward the shelter beneath.

Mara ran her eyes along them, then moved closer to Rook. "What do they do?"

"Grab you. Carry you past the edge. Let go."

She looked toward the parapet. It came barely above Rook's waist. "And then?"

He checked the space under the slab before answering. "People think they go down to eat what's left."

"Think?"

"Nobody's come back up to tell us."

Mara kept her hands away from the parapet. "But if they die, they can return near a Beacon."

"Some have." He lowered the lantern and examined another gap between the blocks. "They remember being taken. A few remember falling. Nothing from the bottom."

She peered between the parapet and the rubble. Even here, with the light close by, the chasm gave her nothing to judge its depth. She could not tell whether the faint sound reaching her was wind against the bridge or something much farther below.

Rook stepped into her line of sight. "Watch the road." When she brought her eyes back to him, he pointed along the route. "Stay low between shelters. Check before you get under one. Don't climb on top."

"You make them sound so inviting."

He inspected the next pile. Mara looked away before he could see her expression.

They crossed the first open stretch quickly. The solid roadway made the pace easier, though she found herself placing her feet carefully whenever they passed a drainage opening. Rook kept slightly behind her on the exposed side, his coffin close enough that she heard a buckle knock against its wood.

At the next barricade he raised a hand, and Mara stopped. Something moved through the air above them with a slow, heavy beat. She felt it before she could pick the sound apart from the wind.

"Under."

Rook pointed to an opening between two blocks. Mara bent and slipped inside. He followed sideways, lowering himself until the coffin cleared the slab overhead. The lantern came down beside her boot.

A shape passed through its outer light. Mara saw a bare chest hanging between broad wings, with long legs drawn up beneath it. The feet opened as it descended. They had fingers.

She began to turn for a better look, and Rook's palm settled against the back of her shoulder, keeping her beneath the stone.

The creature struck the roadway just outside, its fingers scraping over the concrete. One hand slapped against the block beside Mara's face, nails searching along the edge. She pressed backward, feeling rough stone through her clothes. A nail reached around the corner, hooked briefly into a crack, then pulled free.

The block took its weight without shifting. Rook watched the reaching fingers with his one handed scythe held low beside his knee. His other hand remained on her shoulder.

A wing dragged over the roof with a dry rasp. Dust sifted down onto Mara's hair. Then the hand withdrew, and a gust blew grit past their boots as the creature pushed off.

She listened to the wingbeats recede. Rook kept her down until they had faded entirely. Only then did his hand leave her shoulder.

"Did it see us?" she whispered.

"Probably."

"Will it come back?"

"We keep moving."

He eased forward far enough to look along the roadway. Mara brushed dust from her mouth and watched him. A pale streak lay across the side of his coffin where it had rubbed against the slab.

"Wait," she said.

Rook stopped. The next shelter stood several paces away, a large sloping piece of concrete propped against a squared block. Beneath it, something pale had shifted when the lantern moved.

Mara pointed without reaching outside. "There. Under the low part."

He lowered himself beside her. At first it looked like a dirty scrap of cloth caught between the stones. Then a small hand unfolded from beneath it and gripped the underside of the slab. A second hand appeared farther along, attached to the same narrow body. Its head rested sideways against the concrete, mouth opening and closing without a sound.

"There's another behind it," Mara said as Rook looked farther back into the recess. "I saw it move."

"Show me."

She leaned closer and indicated the gap. He followed the direction of her finger, then nodded once.

"We'll take the one by the parapet."

Mara checked that shelter as carefully as the light allowed. Its opening faced them, and she could see bare roadway beneath the slab.

"That one's clear."

"Keep watching it."

Rook looked up while she kept her eyes on the opening. His hand found the back of her arm, guiding her out from beneath the low roof when he was ready. She moved with him, bent forward, listening for another wingbeat.

At the next shelter, she held the lantern while he turned to get the coffin through. The lower corner caught against a projecting brick.

"Left a little," she said.

He shifted. She kept the light on the obstruction until the coffin cleared it, then crouched beside him with the lantern between her knees.

Rook pointed past the next stretch of open road. "Can you see under that one?"

Mara leaned forward, keeping her head beneath the slab, and raised the light.