“Not me.” Mahlia shook her head violently, fighting down memories of trying to break free. The soldier boys laughing as they laid her hand across the log. “They got no love for castoffs.”

A shout went up. Mahlia flinched. A couple of soldier boys stumbled out into the middle of the street, leaning on nailshed girls. They were all drunk or high. Crazy and mindless because they weren’t on the front.

UPF had been the same way, when they owned the town. Moss Landing was safe territory. R & R ground. Safe upriver from the Drowned Cities. Easy duty.

Unconsciously, Mahlia found herself reaching for a rock, prying it up, preparing to defend herself if they came her way.

She looked down and almost yelped. Her hand gripped a skull, lying buried, meat still on the face. It was past stinking, but she could make out the triple hash of Glenn Stern on the warboy’s cheek. With a chill, she realized that she and Tool were lying on a graveyard of bodies, UPF soldiers shallow-buried all around.

“Fates,” she whispered.

Tool’s bestial face showed amusement. “I thought you knew.”

Mahlia dropped the skull, wiping her hand on her hip, trying to make it feel clean, knowing it wouldn’t work.

“It’s why I chose this vantage,” Tool said. “The soldiers down there will avoid their killing ground. They will detour around the history they have made in this place.”

“You smelled it?”

“Of course.”

It made sense, but still, Mahlia felt nauseated, knowing she was lying atop piles of bodies. Her skin crawled with a superstitious need to get away, but she forced it down. She’d seen plenty of bodies. This was just a few more. And a good reminder of what the Army of God was capable of.

As if she didn’t know already.

“We got to find another way,” she said.

Tool looked at her. “Afraid?”

“Damn straight. Army of God…” She shook her head. “You can’t argue with fanatics. They’ll just cut us down.”

“How is this different from the UPF?” Tool asked. “Your plan was sound. Go to the banks. Seek a guide.”

But now Mahlia saw how risky her plan had been. Even with UPF around, it had always been Mahfouz who had gone down into Moss Landing and come back alive.

She watched the people standing around bonfires. Girls laughing in that way that made you know they were trying to keep soldiers happy but that they were scared.

A man wandered to the edge of the jungle and pulled down his shorts. Urinated. A grown-up. How many actual adults had she seen since the war started up again? The ones in Banyan Town, sure, but out of the Drowned Cities? Just the big names. The ones who ran things. Lieutenant Sayle. The face of Colonel Glenn Stern, head of the UPF. And yet here was a man. Full-grown.