To their right stood a watchtower, several people in its upper levels waving everyone on. To their left was the blazing ruins of another tower. He could smell cooking meat, and he blinked the smarting smoke from his eyes.
"Quickly," Peer said, and she was the first of them out onto the Levels. This is her place, Gorham thought.
The going was slow. Many people were crossing, though plenty seemed to be holding back, the ingrained fear of Skulk causing them to hesitate. What must they think of the sudden idea to come here? He thought of asking someone, but he felt apart from everyone other than his companions. They had come here not as refugees but as saviors.
He untied the last bag of flies and hurried after Peer. She seemed keen to reach Skulk. Maybe she thought of it as coming home. I'll have to tell them soon, she thought. I'll release the flies and then go for Penler. Make sure there are a few left in the bag for him. She knew that he probably would not still be in his home, that he had likely moved on when she left, that what was happening today would have drawn him out, fascinated and afraid. But she also knew that she had to try.
"Peer, slow down!" Gorham called behind her, and she realized that she had broken into a run.
"I'm going for Penler," she said.
I left a man in Skulk, she'd told him.
"I know," he shouted, "but will you just wait?"
She paused and looked back at Gorham, Rose, and Alexia. They'd halted beside the hump of a burned-out building, and Gorham was leaning in close to Rose, listening to her soft voice. She seemed weaker than ever, but Peer still thought the new Baker had more strength left in her than most. Or was that wishful thinking? Right then it seemed to matter so much less. They'd done what Rose had asked of them, and now it was in Fate's hands.
Rufus had told them so little of what was out there, but perhaps detail did not really matter. What mattered was that there was something out there, beyond the murderous sands and lifeless dunes, and beyond the sun-scorched corpses of those who had tried before. Their world is called the Heartlands, Rufus had said, and their Heart and Mind sees through me. It knows Echo City now. I hope it will welcome you.
But that was vague and nothing that they could communicate to anyone in the midst of such chaos. Instead, the people would need someone to lead them out into the desert. Someone to lure them. The idea of being the first to go out there and keep walking, seeing whether this new, young, fading Baker's ideas had worked at all… that would take someone special.
Peer sagged as realization struck her: It would take Penler.
"Gorham!" she called. "I've got an idea. I'm going to find-"
"Penler," he said again, nodding. "And I'm coming with you." He said something else to Rose and Alexia, then trotted over to Peer. "Better to split up anyway. Spread the bloodfly love."
"That's why you're coming?" she asked, smiling.
"Of course. Why else?" His feigned innocence made her chuckle, and she could not recall the last time that had happened.
"Welcome to my home," she said, indicating the first line of Skulk buildings not far away, and part of her enjoyed the flash of guilt in Gorham's eyes.
They waited until they'd crossed the Levels before pricking the final bags. Many of those crossing had been bitten already or were being bitten as the plague of flies followed the general direction of travel. But there would be people in Skulk who had yet to be exposed, and Peer wanted to give them as good a chance as any.
She kept glancing back toward Marcellan Canton. She reckoned that the area that had been swallowed down into the Echoes was five miles distant, and a pall of smoke and dust still hung over the whole site, obscuring the view. The glow of fires burned through here and there, and they must have been voracious to be visible from this far away. She tried to resist the feeling that they were relatively safe here in Skulk. Though the destruction seemed to be behind them, she could still feel the ground beneath her shaking. The Echoes below this place were fewer, the buildings here older than almost any in Echo City, but that did not mean they were safe. Whatever was rising-Rose had called it the Vex, muttered in hushed tones of abject terror-would have the whole city as its playground.
Nowhere was safe. The city was finished. She felt sick but also a barely veiled excitement at that. Everything she had always believed as a Watcher was about to be explored for real. In a matter of days, everyone in Echo City might be dead… or some of them could be somewhere else.
They ran where possible, and where there were too many people, they pushed through the crowds. Reaching the first of the buildings, Peer drew her knife and pricked the last bag, agitating it with both hands until the flies started pouring from the tear. Gorham did the same.
The streets of Skulk were awash with thousands of people who had never considered that they would be here. Some wandered in confused groups, aimless and seeking something more, casting fearful looks at their surroundings. Others were sitting along sidewalks or in the street, on fallen ruins or in the windows of the taverns and cafes that had been set up here over the years. Whole families sat together in protective huddles, and here and there single people roamed, lost and alone. Peer felt the urge to tell them what was happening-but if she stopped for one, she would have to stop for them all.
The crowds parted as she and Gorham rushed through the dilapidated streets, flies spewing from the shrinking bags. They left behind the familiar yelps of people being bitten. When Peer felt that her bag was almost empty, she pinched the slit shut and tucked it beneath her arm. These are for Penler.
"Done," Gorham said behind her. "Peer, wait."
"No time," she said, and Gorham cursed as he struggled to keep up with her.
The confusion was palpable. Encouraged to flee to this prison district by urges they could not identify, everyone was now waiting for whatever came next. Marcellan Canton was visible from most places, and where it was not, the people still seemed aware of what had happened there-what was still happening. The fear showed in their eyes.
This is not the place I lived in for three years, Peer thought, and she was glad for that. Skulk had never seen so many people, and even when she passed a small cafe where she sometimes drank five-bean while reading one of the books collected in a central library, it no longer seemed familiar. Only now did she realize that it was people who shaped the face of a place, not the place itself.
"How far?" Gorham asked.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing," he said, panting hard. They paused on a street corner, leaning against a wall.
"You've let yourself go since I left," she said, offering a smile to show she was joking.
Gorham shrugged, looking around nervously. She felt protective of this place and what had been done here. The Marcellans sent those they thought were the worst of the city this way, and most of them had made a go of forming a functioning society.
"I used to live over there," she said pointing along a street. "Half a mile away. Small house, nice. Still had pictures on the wall."
"You don't need to tell me this," Gorham said.
"It's no problem," she said, looking back along another street at the imposing mount of Marcellan. Smoke hung heavy over that canton now, drifting west across Course. "We're becoming strangers to the whole city, and…" She trailed off. Gorham said something to her, but she could not hear. Blood thrummed in her ears, her heartbeat increasing, breath raking at her throat. She felt a fly land on the bridge of her nose and bite, and she welcomed the brief spike of pain, because it was the only hope she had.
Gorham grabbed her arm and shook it, and she raised one hand to point. Around them, the sound of panicked flight and frightened conversation subdued.