Three weeks had passed since the shelling over Dornheim fell silent, and rusty bolts and intact wheels had become the city's primary currency.
Noah stood knee-deep in liquid mud on the outskirts of what used to be a residential quarter. His boots had soaked through long ago, and the fingers of his left hand were numb with cold. His right arm, tightly bandaged beneath his jacket, throbbed with a dull ache. Albert had told him "not to strain it," but Noah didn't give a damn.
"Those ones from the stroller won't do," Noah rasped, nodding toward a heap of twisted plastic and metal. "They'll shatter on the first bump. Look for something heavier."
Darwin, rummaging a couple of meters away, straightened up, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. The boy's face was smeared with soot, his eyes red from sleep deprivation.
"What about the ones from the factory cart? They have steel rims. If we grease them with tar, they'll keep spinning."
"Bring them over," Noah muttered.
The sound in his ears began to distort again. Noah shook his head, trying to clear the haze, but it only triggered a wave of nausea. He spat into the mud and set to work helping Darwin haul out a heavy steel axle.
"I didn't think a wheelchair would be this hard to make," Darwin said.
"Did you forget? We call it a 'throne.' 'Wheelchair' sounds too pathetic," Noah replied.
"Still, he's not going to want to sit in it," Darwin said quietly, tightening a nut with a fragment of a rusty wrench. "Iron... he's not the type to settle for this."
Noah crouched down, anchoring the axle with his left hand. "Nobody's asking him."
Noah bore down on the lever. The metal groaned in resistance.
"Need a hand?" Darwin offered.
"Mind your own business," Noah snapped. "The wheels need to be locked tight. If this thing falls apart under him halfway to the crater, I'll strap you into this chair myself."
Darwin sniffled and went back to work.
Elyria flitted out of the forest from the direction of the "Green Zone." She landed on Noah's shoulder, her wing brushing perilously close to his ear.
"Rust and old grease. And this is what you call a 'throne' for my Iron?"
"Back off," Noah shot back. "We have no tools, no workshop. We're throwing together whatever we can find."
"You could at least add some flowers," she said, fluttering over to the chair's frame. "I tried to run a vine up the backrest to make it softer, but I don't know if it'll help."
Noah straightened up, wiping his hands on his trousers. "Darwin, we need brakes."
Darwin froze, hammer in hand. "Oh... right. Brakes. I'll try to adapt those pressure plates over there."
Noah stepped back to examine the fruit of their three-hour labor. A hideous, cumbersome chair cobbled together from bits of various junk. The leather on the seat was cracked, the wheels were mismatches in both size and color, and the frame was a patchwork of stains.
"You know," Elyria said, suddenly growing quiet as she studied the chair. "It actually looks like him. Just as prickly and strange. Fine, it'll do. But I'm still going to weave some fragrant moss into it."
Just then, rapid footsteps echoed from the direction of the "Green Zone." A militia member was sprinting toward them, stumbling and waving his arms.
"Captain! Noah!" he wheezed, breathless. "Albert is calling for you! Hurry!"
Noah went cold. His first thought flew to Iron—was it over?
"What happened?" He bolted toward the man, completely forgetting the pain in his shoulder.
"The Count!" the militia private gasped. "Count Wayland... he opened his eyes. He's conscious!"
Noah exchanged a look with Darwin. Elyria let out a joyful squeak and darted off, streaking toward the tents. Noah followed at a slower pace, feeling a heavy dread stir within him.
Albert sat on a low stool, rubbing his face with his palms. His fingers, stained yellow from tobacco and antiseptics, were trembling.
Count Wayland lay on his back, staring blankly at the gray canvas ceiling. His gaze was coherent, yet possessed a glassy quality.
"Water," he rasped.
Albert immediately brought a mug of turbid water to his lips. The count took a few gulps. He grimaced, pressing a hand against his bandaged chest.
"Easy now," Albert said dryly. "You've got a hole in you. The tissue has closed up, but if you start thrashing around, everything will rip at the seams. And I have nothing left to stitch you with; the thread is running out."
Wayland slowly turned his head. His eyes focused on Albert, then on Walter, who stepped into the tent, ducking beneath the low flap.
"The city?" the Count asked curtly.
Walter remained silent, staring off somewhere to the side. Albert answered for him as he checked the cleanliness of the dressings.
"The city is gone. Forty or fifty people survived."
"Iron?" he asked again a minute later.
Albert nodded toward the adjacent berth. Elyria, who had just flown in alongside Noah, quieted down and perched on the edge of Iron's pillow, looking over at the Count.
"He's alive," Walter said, stepping closer to Wayland's bed. "But he's in a coma. Elyria says everything inside him burned out. Even if he wakes up..."
The Count tried to push himself up on his elbows but immediately collapsed back down.
"Stay down, you fool," Albert grunted, pinning his shoulders back to the cot with force. "We have exactly three antibiotic pills left for the entire camp. And your wound has started weeping."
"I don't care," Wayland shifted his gaze to Noah, who stood silently by the entrance. "Noah... do you hear me? Rally the men. We need to fortify the perimeter."
Noah gave a crooked smirk, leaning his shoulder against a support post. "Half the militia can't even walk because of shell shock. What kind of preparations? We're just trying to keep from kicking the bucket before tomorrow morning."
"Walter," Wayland's voice dropped lower. "We have time. By the time rumors reach the capitals, by the time they organize an expedition... we have a month, maybe two. Iron needs to come to his senses by then."
Walter looked at Iron, then back at the Count. "First, we get you on your feet. Albert, what's the status on his fever?"
The doctor pressed his hand to Wayland's forehead. "He's burning up. Noah, take Darwin and haul ass into the city. We need medical supplies. There was a basement beneath the pharmacy near the eastern gates; maybe something survived under the rubble. If you don't find anything..."
Albert trailed off, giving the Count a meaningful look.
"We'll find it," Noah muttered, stepping out of the tent.
Wayland immediately slid back into a heavy sleep, but his hand still convulsively clutched the edge of the blanket.
Noah led the way, instinctively cradling his mangled arm against his chest.
"We're heading toward the eastern gates," Noah called back without turning around. "The pharmacy was in the basement of a corner house. The walls were thick there; it should have held up."
Darwin nodded silently, shifting his grip on a heavy iron crowbar to get comfortable.
At a crossroads, Noah froze. A faint scraping sound echoed from the right. Noah slowly turned his head. Behind a fragment of a wall, about twenty paces away, two figures were rummaging. Filthy, wrapped in tattered rags, the scavengers were trying to haul a steel safe or some piece of valuable junk out from under the rubble. At the sight of Noah and Darwin, they locked in place. One of them, wearing a blood-stained bandage around his head, slowly raised a rusty pipe but lowered it almost immediately, realizing Noah had no intention of claiming their prize.
"They're hungry too," Darwin said quietly.
"Everyone is. Keep moving."
They found the building two blocks later. The top three floors had pancaked inward, turning the pharmacy into a mountain of debris. But the entrance to the basement, shielded by a heavy wrought-iron door, was intact—only half-buried under stone.
"Heave," Noah grunted, pressing his shoulder against the door handle, feeling something click ominously inside his shoulder joint.
They wrestled with it for twenty minutes. Darwin worked the crowbar, prying away bricks, while Noah pulled, careful not to aggravate his right arm. Sweat stung his eyes, mixing with the caustic dust. When the door finally yielded, a draft of damp air wafted from within.
Darwin lit a candle stub. The light caught neat rows of shelves lined with glass vials. Many had shattered, flooding the floor with multi-colored liquids that, over the course of three weeks, had congealed into a sticky, foul-smelling sludge.
"Watch your step," Noah warned.
They began sweeping everything that looked intact into a sack: sealed bottles of antiseptic, boxes of bandages, various powders in tin canisters. Noah discovered a sealed crate bearing military department markings—inside were ampoules of painkillers and alcohol ration blocks.
"Noah, look," Darwin pointed toward the far corner of the basement.
A man sat slumped against the wall there, pinned beneath a fallen cabinet. Judging by the state of the corpse, death had come quickly, but the sight of his desiccated hand, coated in white dust and still clutching a vial, made Darwin look away.
"Grab the sack, we're leaving," Noah commanded.
By the time they climbed back outside, the sun had begun to sink toward the horizon, bleeding an orange hue across the ashen sky. On the return trip, they crossed paths with the two scavengers again. Only now, there were five of them. They blocked the center of the street, cutting off the path. One held a knife; the others brandished heavy lengths of rebar.
"The bag," the one with the knife rasped. "Hand it over."
Noah lowered his burden slowly to the dirt.
And then he surged forward, closing the distance in a single bound. His right arm flared with an agonizing white-hot spike, but he shut it out, driving a short left hook into the leader's jaw. The man went flying backward, dropping the knife.
Darwin didn't freeze up either—with a roar, he swung the crowbar, keeping the rest at bay.
A fraction of a minute later, it was over. Noah stood there, chest heaving as he caught his breath. Someone else's blood dripped from his left fist, staining his sleeve.
"Let's go," he muttered hoarsely to Darwin.
The boy stood beside him, breathing fitfully, his white knuckles completely locked around the iron crowbar.
"It'll be dark soon, get moving," Noah repeated.
They made it back to camp just as the watchfires were being stoked around the tents. Albert intercepted them at the edge of the "Green Zone." The doc was in such a rush he nearly ran them over.
"Did you find it?" His hands were already rummaging through Noah's bag. "Alcohol, bandages... morphine! Noah, you have no idea how perfectly timed this is."
Noah wordlessly sidestepped the doctor and headed toward his tent.
Inside, it was quiet. Wayland slept in the corner, turned toward the wall. Elyria sat on the edge of Iron's pillow, propping up her chin with her fists. Spotting Noah, she leaped up instantly.
"You're back!" She flew to him, searching his face. "You ran into someone out there, didn't you?"
"Yeah," Noah sank wearily onto the ground near the entrance. "Ran into some people. Seemed like our own."
"Our own? What happened? What did you fight over? Who started it?" The questions poured out of her.
"Shut up, kiddo," Noah winced, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "We crossed paths, we parted ways. We let them go, but without supplies they'll barely survive the night."
A few seconds later, staring up at the canvas ceiling, he added in a quieter voice: "Turns out we shouldn't have called Walter a bastard back then. He did the right thing, keeping only the decent ones."
Elyria quieted down immediately. She drifted closer and settled gently onto his shoulder, as if trying to offer comfort.
"Iron is doing better," she whispered softly, nodding toward him. "His breathing is steadier."
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