Chapter 161: Bridge Warehouse

More rationing was taking place inside, and every one of the trapped voices sounded close enough to reach.

Austin Veyron pressed his hand to the door of the bridge warehouse. The red bowl emblem had seeped into the wood, and it was warm against his skin, as if it were pressing back against his touch. It wasn’t an ordinary lock. The door was sealed against anyone who refused to become rations for whoever controlled the food supply.

The mark on Austin Veyron’s wrist was hungry. It had responded at Ember Hold and at the Black Mouth Exchange, and every time he felt that hunger, it seemed to grow a little stronger, as if it were learning him.

Nyra kept the heart shard hidden under her coat. "Vask has a piece of the sample with him," she said. "It’s feeding on the warehouse’s food supply."

The young Ashbridge guard pointed up at the bridge above them. "There’s a public count bell in the warehouse. Before the warlords took over, we used it to let everyone know how much food was coming in."

"Can we get to it?" Tessa asked.

"There’s an office at the top of the warehouse."

Veyra examined the door, running her fingers along the hinges and the gaps in the old wood. "We get the civilians out first. No one goes in without knowing where the exit is."

"There’s a passage for loading goods in and out of the warehouse," the guard replied. "If the locks fail, it leads out to the ravine trail."

"That will be our exit," Austin Veyron said.

"Assignments," Sable said.

Everyone stated their assignment in a low voice, one after another, the way they had learned to do before every door that mattered.

"Scout," Rin said.

"Shield," Veyra said.

"Guide," Orena said.

"Attuned," Nyra said.

"Record," Tessa said.

"Witness," Sable said.

"Choice," Austin Veyron said, looking at the emblem on the door.

The warehouse door creaked open, groaning on hinges that hadn’t been oiled in years.

Hot air and red dust poured over their senses. The warehouse was crossed with beams from the old bridge, blackened by fire and time. Old chains dangled from the ceiling where they had once held netting to keep the food from spilling. It was stifling inside, and the air smelled of dust, flour, and something metallic underneath. Grain was piled all over the floor, leading up to a raised platform where Vask stood with the red fragment hanging around his neck on a chain.

Vask was a skinny demon in charred leather armor, with an ash blade at his hip. He looked around the warehouse with cold eyes, as if he were taking stock of everything in it. Dozens of refugees sat inside a circle of red grain dust, each holding an empty bowl in their hands.

"Welcome," Vask called out. "You’ve come at just the right time to witness Ashbridge gaining protection."

The refugees looked at the open door and then back at the red circle around them. They were terrified. Some tried to stand and failed, held down by the dust as though it had weight.

"Each one of you will take a bowl," Vask said, lifting the fragment. "And you will name the hand that feeds you. Then no one will ever be able to take your rations away from you again."

A woman near the edge of the circle shook her head. "I have a daughter out there," she said, quietly but defiantly. Her voice was thin, but she didn’t look away from him.

"Then accept protection, and you can see her."

The young Ashbridge guard stepped up toward Vask, his hands trembling. "You’re controlling our food supply."

"I’m providing for you," Vask said with a smile. "Food is about control. You can’t feed a ravine with words."

Red dust rose into the air and formed ration constructs around the circle. They were made of sackcloth and black grain, with mouths full of grain, and each one held out a bowl with both hands like an offering.

PROTECTION OWNS THE HUNGRY.

Rin fired the first arrow and struck one of the constructs’ bowls. Black grain spilled across the floor and started crawling toward the refugees, but Orena stomped on it and ground it into the floorboards until it stopped moving. Veyra attacked one of the constructs and cut the tag line wrapped around its neck. It collapsed into a heap of sackcloth, and its bowl rolled away across the floor.

Austin Veyron walked toward the circle of red dust, stepping over the fallen sackcloth and the grain still twitching on the floor.

The fragment pulsed around Vask’s neck, and the Maw trace on Austin Veyron’s wrist flared so hard that red grain and empty bowls filled his vision. He could feel the whole warehouse becoming one hunger. He could consume all of it: the circle, the constructs, the food, and the fragment around Vask’s neck. It would all become one hunger, greater than all the rest.

Veyra grabbed his shoulder. "What do you want?"

"The entire warehouse."

"What would it become?"

"Mine."

"Look smaller." She didn’t let go of his shoulder. She just held on, reminding him that he wasn’t alone in this warehouse.

Austin Veyron looked at the phrase written across the ration constructs. It took him a moment to see the words instead of the hunger pulling at him, like dragging his eyes away from a fire on a cold night.

"Target," he said. "The protection-owns-the-hungry clause."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

Austin Veyron placed his white root chain in the circle of red dust, and DEVOUR opened. The clause felt like someone handing you a blanket in the cold, with a collar sewn into the lining.

PROTECTION OWNS THE HUNGRY.

He consumed owns.

The circle of red dust broke, and the ration constructs stopped moving. One by one, they slumped to the ground, and their bowls tipped over, spilling nothing but dust. The refugees inside the circle stared at the gaps appearing in the dust, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing.

"Side passage!" the young guard shouted. "We have an exit!"

The woman who had spoken about her daughter stood up first. She was shaking, and she had to steady herself against a grain sack, but she got herself up off the ground. "I will take the trail."

Many others followed her lead. Some grabbed bowls, and some didn’t. Tessa helped them sort out who knew the ravine path and who could help carry the food, and the refugees answered for themselves, quietly at first and then with more confidence as they realized no one was going to punish them for speaking.

Vask’s smile disappeared. "You’ve given them an escape," he growled. "Not a life."

"Yes," Sable said. "And their life isn’t yours."

Vask pulled out his ash blade and seemed ready to fight, but his eyes went past them toward the stairs leading up to the office. Lines of red spread across the warehouse floor toward the upper office.

"He’s going for the count bell," Tessa said. "If he rings it with the fragment, the whole shelter will hear his claim."

Rin climbed a beam ladder so fast that the old rungs barely had time to creak. Vask threw an ash knife that clipped her sleeve, but she made it up to the walkway and fired back at him. Her arrow cut the chain the fragment was hanging from, but Vask caught it before it could fall.

Veyra took the stairs two at a time and came face to face with two bridge raiders, blades in hand. She deflected the first one’s strike and kicked the other in the knee. Neither of them wore a fever muzzle. They were fighting for Vask because he had promised them rations.

"Get out of here," Veyra told them. "There’s a side passage."

"Our rations will be taken," one of the raiders said.

"His control over your rations will be taken," Veyra replied.

The first raider hesitated. The second looked down at the warehouse floor, where refugees were passing through the side passage without anyone’s permission. Both of them lowered their weapons. The first raider sat down heavily on the top stair and stayed there, as if his legs had suddenly remembered how tired they were.

The side passage was filling with people leaving the warehouse. Orena stood at the mouth of it, counting how many left out loud, and the refugees counted along with her. Up above, Vask reached the upper office, his boots pounding on the old boards.

Austin Veyron followed, feeling the darkness in his wrist calling out to the fragment. The office was small, and he could feel the bridge shaking under his feet. An iron bell hung from a timber beam, connected to old speakers all around Ashbridge.

Vask grabbed the rope that would ring the bell. "All will hear this," he said. "All will know what happens when no one controls the food."

Tessa came up behind Austin Veyron, out of breath and holding old ledgers from the warehouse. The covers were cracked and stained, but the pages inside could still be read, written in careful, patient handwriting.

"The bell was made for counts," she said.

She opened one of the ledgers and read off the amounts of food in storage. "Three hundred sacks of grain, forty barrels of water, two hundred tins of broth. Ashbridge Shelter food supply."

The bell rope flickered white, and Vask couldn’t move it. The count was taking the bell back, reminding it of what it had been built to do.

A new phrase appeared from the bell.

THE FEEDER NAMES THE WORTHY.

This was Vask’s backup clause, and DEVOUR wanted to consume it. It would be so easy to believe that someone should decide who gets food first, and that the someone might as well be him.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The feeder-names-worthy clause."

"Witnessed," Sable said from the doorway.

Austin Veyron grabbed the rope and felt it under his hand, rough and warm, worn smooth in places by years of other hands. DEVOUR opened, and he consumed the feeder.

Nothing happened at first. Then the bell rang once, deep and clear, and its sound traveled across Ashbridge as a count.

Three hundred sacks of grain, forty barrels of water, two hundred tins of broth. Ashbridge Shelter food supply.

Everyone in the warehouse stopped to listen to how much food there was. Some cried, and some just stood there in awe of what they had heard, as though the numbers were a kind of music they had forgotten.

The fragment in Vask’s hand cracked. He looked at the side passage now open to the refugees, and at the bell that would never carry his voice again. Then he backed out through the window and onto the bridge.

"You haven’t stopped hunger," he said. "You’ve just made it louder." The wind from the ravine tugged at his charred armor, and behind him the bridge stretched off into the smoke like a long gray tongue.

The bridge shook, and red cracks spread across the span. The fragment in Vask’s hand called out to the mark on Austin Veyron’s wrist like two magnets finding each other.

The outer section of the bridge started to fall, stone grinding against stone as whole blocks tore loose and tumbled away.

Three refugees were trapped on the far side of a broken cart, pressed against the railing with no way to cross to safety. Vask stood between them and the collapsing span, the sample fragment clutched in his hand.

The bridge creaked above the ravine, and pieces of rock fell into the smoke below without a sound.

Whatever came next was already crumbling beneath their feet.