On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

breath to retort, just as the corpse wraps blue fingers around my wrist. Blinking, I pull back, but his grip is like a shackle. The dead man grins. Metal shines dully behind his yellow teeth. Someone has stuffed a grenade where his tongue used to be.

As the corpse pulls the pin with his free hand, the armée men scramble. A shot rings out; the body jerks, but bullets can’t kill the dead.

Everyone is shouting, swearing. Leo calls my name as he races toward us. Frantically, I haul back, feet slipping in the mud; my heart pounds as I fumble for my knife. How much time do I have? Not long enough to cut myself free, but I don’t need to. Sliding the blade across the tip of my finger, I mark a bloody new symbol on the corpse’s own wrist: death. A flash of light—the soul flees—the bruised fingers go slack.

Suddenly off-balance, I topple into the paddy. Muddy water closes over my head. Gasping and coughing, I scramble to my feet. I can’t see, but the smell of curdled blood fills my nose. Akra’s voice echoes in my ears. “Run, Jetta!”

But which direction?

Wiping my face with my wet sleeve, I open my eyes just in time to see Fontaine throw himself over the corpse, pressing the body into the muck. The explosion throws gore and mud over me in a wave of wet heat. I stumble away with a splash, my ears ringing in the blast. As I sit, stunned, rain falls gently around me . . . not water, but blood.

FOR IMMEDIATE DISPERSAL

1er Octobre

By order of King Antoine of Aquitan, all officers are commanded to bring their remaining men to Nokhor Khat to assist in the deportation directives given by King Raik Alendra of Chakrana.

The Prix de Guerre shall be immediately supplied and outfitted to bring our people home at all speed. Gather your men at once and report to the docks in Nokhor Khat.

Capitaine Xavier Legarde

Chapter Two

“Jetta!” Leo’s frantic voice is far off. Muffled. Dazed, I take a breath to shout back. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder. He’s already at my side. “Are you all right?”

“I’m . . . fine,” I murmur, though I can hardly believe it myself. Aside from the ringing in my ears and the nick on my finger, I am unhurt. If Le Trépas meant to kill me, he’d failed miserably. A wild laugh bubbles up my throat. One of the soldiers whips his head around at the sound, his face speckled with blood. The lieutenant’s blood.

Fontaine is certainly dead, and the last soldier is wounded. As Leo helps me out of the mud, my heart races, my thoughts returning again and again to Fontaine’s grim face as he shielded me from the blast. Why?

“What?” Leo eases me down on the dry berm, taking out a handkerchief to dab the mud from my eyes. I blink at him through the drifting souls as they cluster. They are drawn to my blood, so hungry for life. The lieutenant’s soul is among them, a silent pillar of fire. Does he regret his sacrifice? “Why what?” Leo says again; only then do I realize I’ve spoken aloud.

“Why would he save me?” I say softly, passing a shaking hand through the golden light that is all that’s left of Fontaine.

“Because he thought you could save us,” one of the soldiers says through his teeth. With a grunt, he lays his companion down on the dry soil beside me. The man moans weakly, his left leg covered in blood.

“Any Aquitan who joins us has clemency,” Camreon begins, but the first soldier whirls, his teeth bared.

“And what of the rest?” He wipes the blood from his face, his eyes wild, and suddenly I wonder what else the soldiers had seen at the plantation. “The ones who don’t trust you, or don’t know who the hell you are?”

“They’re probably better off going back to Aquitan,” Camreon says mildly, but the soldier laughs bitterly, looking back over the bloody water.

“Perhaps that’s true,” he says darkly. “But they’ll be lucky if even half of them survive the journey.”

Leo looks up from his fussing. “Why is that?”

“The Prix de Guerre is a cargo ship,” the soldier replies. “She may be able to fit a thousand refugees, but not to feed them. I don’t know what General Legarde is thinking.”

At the name, Leo goes absolutely still, and my own heart stutters. The other soldier groans. “Teh-twa, Matthieu.”

Matthieu ignores him. “No victuals, no medical. And low on coal, so the journey will take twice as long as it should!”

“General Legarde?” With needless care, Leo folds his filthy handkerchief. His voice is so quiet I can barely hear it—or is that only the ringing in my ears? “Are you certain?”

The soldier scoffs. “Who else would be giving orders that will get us all killed?”

The answer comes to me immediately: Le Trépas. But Leo is more circumspect. “I killed my brother in the battle of the valley,” he says grimly. “Whoever is leading the armée now is not the same man.”

Matthieu spits into the water. “Legarde might be a terrible general, but I think even the officers would notice if he’d started rotting at his desk.”

Leo stands abruptly, tucking his handkerchief into his pocket and starting off toward the thatched huts that rise on bamboo stilts above the flood plain. “I’ll go get the docteur.”

“I’ll come,” I say, starting after him, but Cam puts a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Sit down till the docteur checks you for a concussion,” he mutters. Then he raises his voice, calling after Leo. “Bring a cart and some shovels, as well! We’ll bury what’s left of Fontaine as honorably as we can. As for your surrender,” he adds, turning to the soldier, “I accept. We need all the help we can get.”

Gritting my teeth, I watch Leo trudge through the paddy alone. My heart tugs in my chest like it’s trying to follow, but the guilt is a weight in