Chapter 37
Two Sides of a Coin
Before evening they covered another stretch.
The sun sat on the far ridgeline and stained the road orange-red.
"Light's going. Let's find somewhere out of the wind," Eren said.
The others nodded.
They settled at the foot of an old wall by the roadside. Half a house left—both sides gone, one face still cutting the northwest wind. Dry grass underfoot; not damp.
Meng Xiangyang dropped his bundle and went for firewood at once. Fast hands: an armful of dry brush from the scrub nearby, then a fire striker from his pocket, and the pile caught. No wasted motion.
Eren passed out the trail food. The four of them sat around the fire chewing jerky and flatbread, washing it down with cold water from the skins.
Firelight flickered on the wall.
Night insects started up.
After the meal nobody rushed to sleep. A full day on the road had left their legs sore, but their minds weren't ready to quit yet.
Meng Xiangyang wasn't the sort to sit quiet. He finished his last bite and opened the talk.
"Any of you been to Rusak Town?"
Nova shook his head.
"I hear it's huge!" Meng Xiangyang spread his hands. "My cousin works there. Every letter home, he says it's another world from our village."
"Yeah?" Nova's eyes caught the fire.
"Our place is just farming, chickens, sheep, odd jobs. Rusak's different. Cousin says big trade, big factories, carts of goods rolling out nonstop."
"Pay's got to be decent, then?" Lila put in.
"He never said numbers. Every so often he sends money home, though—has to beat village wages." Meng Xiangyang didn't hesitate.
Eren leaned on the wall, arms on his knees, listening.
"Shops are full too—stuff stacked to the ceiling. Got coin, you pick what you want." Meng Xiangyang went on. "Every time he comes back he brings treats for us: sweets, cured meat, candied fruit, that kind of thing."
"How does that compare to before the Impact?" Lila asked.
Meng Xiangyang blinked, scratched his head. "Before the Impact? I was little. Village kid. Never saw much of anything."
"Town quiet? Or rough?" Eren spoke up. Shop goods clearly weren't what he cared about.
"Rough? No way." Meng Xiangyang shook his head hard. "Patrols on the streets. Nights aren't scary. Crystone lamps all down the road. Cousin did warn me though—don't pick fights with uniforms. Big town. Don't get stupid."
Eren nodded. "What else? Keep going."
"Kids get schooling too." Meng Xiangyang thought a moment. "Cousin says so, anyway. Town kids have somewhere proper to go. Not like us—big ones dragging little ones, rolling in dirt all day."
Nova's face looked more alive than it had in daylight.
Lila poked the fire with a stick, eyes still down. "Food and a bed can't be cheap."
Meng Xiangyang scratched his head again. "Cousin never got into that. They earn more there, though. He's alone and still sends stuff home—can't be ruinous, right?"
"Sounds that good—why wait till now?" Lila asked offhand.
"Couldn't leave the house." Meng Xiangyang's smile thinned; his voice dropped. "Dad's leg's bad. Field work's just Mom and me. Wanted out for years. Only made it this year. Figure I'll get a foothold first, send money back."
Then he grinned again, as if he didn't want the air to go heavy. "Anyway, in Rusak you work hard, you live well. Cousin said so."
The fire jumped. A dry branch cracked in two; a spray of sparks went up.
Nova edged closer. "What's your cousin do there?"
"Loading. Hauling. Muscle work," Meng Xiangyang said. "He's built for it—never short of that kind of job. Heard he got some kind of ticket later. Opens more work."
"When we hit town, have him put in a word for us. We're new. Don't know the place. Don't want to get taken." Lila took the opening—later she might dig for something useful.
"Sure, no problem. We're friends now, right?"
Meng Xiangyang couldn't stop. Everything his cousin had said, peddlers had passed along, village gossip had stitched together—he dumped the whole of Rusak out in a rush: clean, bright, money to earn, goods to buy, nothing missing.
Nova hung on every word, jumping in now and then—where to eat, any smithies, markets with rare stuff. Meng Xiangyang knew some of it. What he didn't, he waved off. "Big town. Bound to have it."
By the end his throat had gone dry and his voice sank.
Eren saw Nova flagging too. "Sleep. Another day on the road tomorrow."
Meng Xiangyang lifted his head. Night had settled solid. "Yeah. Let's all turn in."
Nova burrowed into his blanket, a scrap of smile still on his mouth—probably still thinking of Meng Xiangyang's sweets and candied fruit.
Meng Xiangyang folded his old jacket under his head, lay down in two moves, ready to drop off the second he hit the ground.
Lila leaned against the stub of wall, crossbow across her knees. She swept the firelight's edge once, then shut her eyes.
The fire popped. Another stick burned through.
Third day, first light. Only a fist of pale ash left in the fire pit.
Meng Xiangyang was up first. He fed a few twigs into the ash, then packed his gear.
When Eren opened his eyes Lila was already awake. They got Nova up. The four of them ate dry rations with water, shouldered the bundles, and took the road again.
Morning was still bitter cold. Sun on the face gave no warmth at all.
"Almost there." Meng Xiangyang rubbed his hands. "Cousin says from this stretch, half a day more and you'll see the town wall."
Farther on, traffic thickened. Two mules hauled a cart of Crystone; the drover held a whip, busy greeting people, barely watching the road. Behind them a small covered wagon rumbled past—the man on the box chewing flatbread, eyes never lifting.
Around a low rise the road split. Shoulder posts about waist-high held a faded red-paint board: "Mine traffic—use north road." The main track ran southeast toward Rusak. The mine spur was narrower, rubble heaped on both sides, gray-green Crystone chips the size of fingernails catching light here and there. Below the shoulder lay a few stripped car shells—frames only, tires long cut away.
"That way's the mine." Meng Xiangyang talked as they walked. "We take the other—"
Bang.
He never finished. A dull report from the mine spur, then shouts and the scream of mules and horses.
All four stopped. Eren pulled Nova behind him.
Lila's hand was already on the long crossbow at her back. A length of scavenged bow-arm showed past her cloak, cold and hard. Her eyes flicked that way.
"Trouble?" Meng Xiangyang's face went white.
Another thud on the road, mixed with the crack of wood breaking.
"Move. Don't stop." Eren kept it short. He barely looked—waved the other three along the main road and lengthened his own stride.
They hadn't gone far when dust boiled up near the spur.
A heavy flatbed behind two mules cut slantwise onto the main road, load piled higher than a man under coarse hemp. One mule had blood at the mouth, nostrils working hard. The driver clung one-handed to the shafts, body flung out beside the cart, one foot down, one kicking air. A second man ran hard behind, words breaking up:
"Make way! Make way!"
The cart scraped past them.
They had to clear the verge. Eren hauled Nova down the bank. Lila fell back with him. Meng Xiangyang sat down hard in the roadside grass.
The mules dragged the flatbed another thirty or fifty meters up the main road before they were hauled in. Both animals blew hard. Half the hemp had slid off the bed, showing a pile of gray-green Crystone ore underneath, catching the light.
The dust on the road still hadn't settled.
Bang.
Something iron-gray shot off the spur—low and hard, skimming the dirt—and slammed a post at the fork. The post snapped with a crack, half gone. The thing lost a little speed, flew a few more meters, and landed square in the middle of the main road, maybe ten paces from them.
It stayed put.
Eren drew Nova and Lila and the rest a few steps back, watching as he moved.
Lila's long crossbow was already locked on it.
The thing's iron-gray rhomboid body hugged the ground—chest and belly the widest and thickest stretch, head tapering forward, tail thinner and longer still. Scale plates stacked down its back. Not fish scale, not metal—more like ore. Each plate under a meter across. Look close and a little red showed under the armor, dark then bright, like breathing. Whip-tendrils swept beside the body. Two "antennae" trembled at the front.
The man who'd been chasing the cart finally hit the fork. He glanced at the wagon, then at the thing in the road.
"Warhead!"
His voice cracked.
"Get clear! Run!"
He was already sliding for the verge himself, half his body skidding down the grass bank.
The driver twisted back, saw the monster blocking the road, threw the mules' bridle away, and stumbled for the far side of the cart.
Every cart that had been moving on the main road stopped.
Behind them, a drover on an empty-basket flatbed heard the shouts, cracked his whip; the mule spun and bolted. Ahead, two men who looked like miners headed for the mine spur—one dropped his shovel and ran up the main road; the other ran too, voice pressed low: "Scatter! Stay off that thing!"
Not everyone was careful.
At the far side of the fork, coming back from Rusak, a few porters with shoulder poles rounded the rise, saw a dark-gray patch lying in the road, set the poles down, and started to crowd in for a look.
"Hey—what's that?"
The one with him was more cautious. He caught the man's arm. "You blind? Everybody's ducking!"
Most of the people fore and aft on the main road had already cleared out.
Eren kept backing, eyes on the monster.