The procession emerged out of the haze: a line of sobbing, hacking, coughing men and women coffled in a line and guarded by a crew of men who in another life might have been soldiers as honorable as the ones who stood on either side of her. The soldiers wore cloth tied over mouths and noses to protect themselves from the air. The prisoners had nothing but the rags on their backs. A few were naked. As they shuffled past, she counted them: eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. Over one hundred in all, a remnant.
Although their guards were alert, looking from side to side and pointing here and there into the gloom, they marked no watchers, even those standing in plain sight a stone’s throw off the road. As the last man, a brawny, swaggering fellow, faded from sight, Pietro let out a great sigh that was more of a hoarse choke, and touched his chest where the amulet lay.
“Lord be praised,” he said.
Focas choked down a hysterical laugh. “Didn’t you recognize him? That was Sergeant Hatto there walking last of all. Do you think those were slaves they were herding away?”
“Slaves now, whatever they were before.” Pietro knelt, touched his hand to the dead earth, and kissed his fingers. “I pray you, Your Excellency, let us go swiftly.”
“This land is a charnel house,” said Focas. “I can smell it.”
They walked again that day, and the stench of sulfur got worse. Antonia’s headache got worse. Her eyes wept from the burning. In time, they saw off to either side glowing cracks spewing ghastly yellow smoke. It was as though the Earth itself was breaking apart. Once Pietro almost fainted when the wind caught him full on with a streamer of air off one of the fumaroles, but he staggered forward gasping and vomiting until he was out of danger. After that they were careful to keep cloth tied tightly across mouth and nose.
They walked as though in a tunnel, since they could see no great distance to any side. The haze clouded everything, making the world seem by one measure very small indeed and by another like a vast unknowable wasteland that could never be crossed but only suffered. Trudging on in this way they missed the crossroads where they might turn aside to Tivura and came at the end of the second day to the walls of Darre. In all that time they had seen not a single living creature except that one sad procession. No birds flew; no sheep blatted; no goats disturbed their rest, seeking scraps to eat. The mule was not faring well, but it had a strong sense of self-preservation and refused to fall behind. Even so, Antonia walked rather than rode for fear it might buckle and toss her to the ground. If she broke a leg, she, too, would be trapped in this purgatory.
That was what it was, of course. She recognized it as they saw the gaping gates rise out of the fog in front of them and beheld the tumbled ruins of the fairest and most magnificent city humankind had ever built. Had they unwittingly crossed through a stone crown into the world where galla roamed? Had Anne’s magic brought down the destruction? Or had the Lost Ones returned with plague and fire to defeat their ancient enemies?
“We’ll go to the palace, camp there tonight, and after take the road to Tivura.”
“I don’t like to go into the city,” said Focas as Pietro stroked his beard. “It scares me. I don’t mind saying so. It scares me.”
“None will see us. I think the city deserted in any case.”
Pietro hesitated. Even after all this time he did not trust her; he did not look to her as a servant ought to obey his master. Still, in the end he turned to Focas and said, breath whistling as he spoke, “The empress. She would want it, would she not?”
The empress. They were all Adelheid’s faithful soldiers, every one of them.
Fuming, she followed them into the empty city. Twice, they saw dogs slink away around corners, tails tucked tight and heads down. Of dead folk there were none, but human bones they saw aplenty scattered across avenues and the open squares. Fallen apartment blocks and tumbled columns lay like dead beasts in the rubble. Each entryway was a dark mouth; each was silent. Wind swirled dust up from the streets to blend with the haze. Once, from far away, they heard a shout. Their footfalls scraped ominously, echoing off the walls. But they saw no one.
“How many days since that wind blasted us?” Focas whispered as they reached the paved ramp that led up to the two palaces built atop the central hill. “This happened then, don’t you think? The storm brought destruction with it. I could smell it in the air, like it was diseased.”
Pietro scratched his nose, then sneezed. “I wish we’d stayed with the empress. No telling if she lives, or is dead.”
Close by, a dog growled, and both soldiers whirled, raising their spears, to be greeted by a heavier silence.
“Come,” said Antonia. “It will be dark soon. Let’s find shelter.”
They made their way up the ramp past broken-down wagons abandoned in haste and in one case with the remains of a horse scattered around the traces where dogs had ripped it apart. Focas counted swords, and had reached the astounding total of fifty-five before they reached the top.
“Who would throw down their good iron swords like that?” he muttered to Pietro. The two men stood a stone’s throw away from Antonia, but she overheard them nevertheless.
“Dead men. We’ll be dead, too, if we don’t get out of here. This is a fool’s errand.”
“Hush!”
From the top of the ramp they surveyed the city. Nothing moved but for a tumbling scrap, hard to say what it was but probably a bit of cloth, rolling down a distant avenue. The fog obscured even the towering walls and distant gates. Of church towers, she saw none. Perhaps they had all fallen. Off to the west in the hills bordering the sea, streaks of fire that marked red flowing rivers pierced the sullen haze despite the distance.
Surely even the Pit smelled sweeter and nourished more life!
Surely not. This was the Enemy’s handiwork.
“Come,” she said.
They ventured into the broad courtyard that fronted the twin palaces. The imperial palace had burned. It still stank of charred wood, a sharp scent overlying the reek of brimstone and decay. The skopos’ palace had many more sections built entirely of stone, and these had survived with less damage.
“I had thought to examine the regnant’s schola and library,” said Antonia thoughtfully as they stood in the courtyard that separated the two palaces. “But it appears too dangerous to walk there.”
She advanced nevertheless into an alcove where a sooty face peered at her out of the stone: a woman’s visage wreathed with snakes that were also her hair. A viscous green puddle had collected in the basin below her open mouth, once a fountain where travelers might splash water on dusty faces before entering the great hall to meet the regnant. The mule strained toward the water. Pietro hauled it back.