Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

“Can we work out where they went?” I gestured to the device, then to the shelves and tables.

“How the fuck would I know?” Suri snapped back. She whirled around and stalked to the bookshelves, then pulled one of them over like it weighed nothing. She began frantically tapping the exposed walls to search for hollow panels or secret doors. “I don’t even know if I could pick them out on the street. Half the time, it was so dark in the Dregs that I could barely bloody see them. The rest of the time, they were jamming pokers or other shit into me, and I was screaming my fucking lungs out-”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay,” I said, trying to soothe her. “We'll find them, one way or the other. If anyone can do it, it's us.”

“Those motherfuckers!” Suri put a boot to one of the chairs and kicked it full-force across the room. It smashed the far wall and shattered, sending wood shrapnel skittering across the circle. “Those absolute CUNTS!”

Karalti and I hung back, collecting notes and journals as Suri stopped looking for them and began to trash everything within reach: glasses, books, and finally, the table underneath. She slammed both fists onto it as she sagged into a chair, put her face against her forearms, and began to shake. That was when I went to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“We'll find them, somehow,” I said. “But you need to pull yourself together long enough to get home. We got people to get to safety.”

“I know. I know.” Suri's voice was raw with barely controlled fury. “But we aren't gonna find them, Hector. You know it, I know it. They're fuckin' gone. And they… those little piss-ants sent the guards to my cell to just start up like business as usual, you know. They had months to think about what they're fuckin' doin' down here, and they... they were gonna just...”

“We'll find them. But you need to get on your two feet and we have to bail out of here.” I clapped her back, hard enough for her to feel it through her blackened metal shell.

“Suri.” Karalti looked up over, an open book resting in one hands. “I don’t know if it’s any help, but I’ve got some names here. It looks like one of them was writing a lot.”

“Hit me.” Suri closed her eyes, straining to regain control.

“Jacob is the guy that did the writing,” Karalti said, scanning the page. “And the other guy he’s writing about is Nicolas. He doesn’t seem to like him much.”

“Jacob and Nicolas?” Why were those names so familiar?

“Get everything you can.” Suri climbed to her feet, and the three of us began shoveling papers into our packs. That lasted maybe ten seconds before the ground began to shake. The ground jolted from side to side; the torches guttered, swaying as the tunnel roof groaned overhead.

The sandworms were here.

Chapter 10

A rush of primal fear lanced through my gut. Every Californian knew that sensation of the earth about to rise up under their feet, split apart, or liquefy. The rumbling built, and built, until the few bookshelves we hadn't turned over began to sway back and forth.

“It's the fucking Sandworm Queen.” I began to backpedal for the door. “Run!”

No one needed telling twice. We scrambled out of the door and bolted past the fallen Turks, the piled corpses, and down the blasted hallway. I heard a wall explode in behind us, scattering chunks of stone and sending clouds of dust up into the air.

We burst back into the field hospital to find pandemonium: the healthy were gathering what injured they could, carrying or dragging them as the ground bucked fitfully beneath our feet.

“Here!” Suri hauled up one unconscious man, and threw him unceremoniously over the back of Cutthroat's saddle. “Hector, Karalti - take Cutthroat and get out of here! Don't worry about me; I'll catch up!”

“Suri-” I started, even as Karalti grabbed my forearm and began to drag me toward Cutthroat.

“No! Don't you dare argue with me about this.” Suri bared her teeth, hauling one patient up into a fireman's carry over her shoulder. She squatted down so one of the other prisoners could slump another body over her other arm. “If Karalti dies, we're fucked! Get her and Cutthroat out of here!”

She had a point there. I sprung onto Cutthroat's back and dug my feet into the stirrups, caught Karalti's hand as I urged Cutthroat into a sprint, and swung her up onto the saddle as we fled.

Cutthroat wailed, trying to turn her head back toward Suri until a huge chunk of stone dislodged from the ceiling and nearly smashed into us. It spooked her so bad that she practically bolted back toward the surface. We ran through the junction and swung a hard left up the wagon entry tunnel. Al-Asad crumbled behind and around us. As soon as we hit the straight upward climb I whipped Cutthroat to a full sprint: head down, spine and tail held stiffly out behind her. I looked back for Suri, but couldn't see her in the chaos - and then we burst out into the fresh desert air, clawing through a crowd of agitated rebels, prisoners, and captured guards.

“Where is she?” Karalti searched the crowd.

“I don't know.” I wheeled Cutthroat around, reaching back to make sure our injured passenger was still loaded on properly. The dinosaur snapped at people who got too close, clearing a fifteen-foot circle of space with her claws and tail. When the crowd got the hint, she reared up and barked. “Cu-CAW! Cu-Caw!”

“Uhhhhuuu.” Karalti groaned, clenching my thigh with one small hand. “I don't know if she's gonna make it.”

“She will.” I kept Cutthroat on a short rein, waiting and hoping.

Men and women were shouting over one another, pressing towards the curtain wall and the single small exit out into the desert. There was a gritty crunch from deep within the tunnel, and then the walls simply sloughed