Valentine's Arrow

32: Bleed the Water Red

She nodded. "Pretty much."

"In D&D, my first move, when you're dealing with an opposing army like that, would be to lure away a group of them - say six - and take their clothes."

"Is this so they have to go back to the fortress naked and their embarrassment will negatively affect morale?" said Jace. "Because that seems complicated."

"I'm pretty sure he means take their clothes and wear them as disguises," Clary said. "So that we can sneak up to the gates unobserved. If the other Endarkened aren't very perceptive, they might not notice."

Jace looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. "It's in every movie, like, ever."

"We don't watch movies," said Alec.

"I think the question is whether Sebastian watches movies," Rebecca said. "And to the best of my knowledge, he doesn't. Not really."

"Is our strategy when we actually see him still 'trust me,' by the way?" Isabelle asked.

"It's still 'trust me'," Rebecca said.

"Oh, good," Isabelle said. "For a second there I was worried there was going to be an actual plan with, like, steps we could follow. You know, something reassuring."

"It's going to work," Rebecca insisted. "We're going to follow Simon's plan for getting into the Dark Gard."

Everyone was suddenly quiet. They had reached the end of the road. If they did this, there was no turning back. And each of them knew that not all of them might live to tell the tale.

CLARY

Clary didn't think she'd ever been so heavily runed, or had ever seen the Lightwoods covered in as many of the magical sigils as they were now. She had done them all herself, putting everything she had into them - all of her desire for them all to be safe, all her yearning to find her mother and Luke.

She'd also covered herself with healing runes, but they weren't enough to keep her lungs from aching from the constant dust. She stopped to cough now and turned away, spitting up black. Quickly, she wiped her hand across her mouth, hoping that none of the others had seen, but she wasn't so lucky.

"You alright?" Rebecca's dark eyes were narrowed in concern.

"Yeah," Clary replied, trying to keep her voice light. "It's just the air."

"You and Jace probably have it worse because of the angel blood." She gestured to Jace, who was walking a few feet ahead of them. Then she turned and gave Clary a reassuring smile. "This will be over soon. One way or another." She pushed ahead before Clary could reply.

Jace's drawing skills might have been poor, but his strategy was faultless. They were making their way upward in a sort of zigzag formation, darting from one heap of blackened stone to another. With the foliage all gone, the stone was the only cover the hill provided. The hill was mostly stripped of trees, only a few dead stumps here and there. Clary remembered the path up to the Gard in Alicante, green and lovely, and looked with hatred at the wasteland around her.

The air was heavy and hot, as if the burned-orange sun were pressing down on them. Clary joined the others behind a high cairn. They had refilled their bottles that morning from a lake they had found in the cave, and Alec was sharing around some water, his grim face streaked with black dust. "This is the last of it," he said, and handed it to Isabelle. She took a tiny sip and passed it to Simon, who shook his head - he didn't need water - and passed it on to Clary.

Clary took a mouthful of water and passed the thermos to Jace, who tipped his head back, swallowed and passed the bottle to Rebecca.

"That's it," Rebecca said, and dropped the now empty thermos. They all watched it roll among the rocks. No more water. "One less thing to carry," she added, trying to sound light, but her voice came out sounding as dry as the dust around them. Her lips were cracked and bleeding slightly; she was finally beginning to feel the effects of being stuck in a demon realm despite her demon blood.

Jace had shadows under his eyes, and Alec had a nervous twitch in his left hand. Isabelle's eyes were red with dust, and she blinked and rubbed at them when she thought no one was watching. They all looked pretty terrible, Clary thought, with the possible exception of Simon, who mostly looked the same. He was standing close to the cairn, his fingers resting lightly on a ledge of stone. "These are graves," he said suddenly.

Jace looked up. "What?"

"These rock piles. They're graves. Old ones. People fell in battle and they buried them by covering their bodies with stones."

"Shadowhunters," Alec said. "Who else would die defending Gard Hill?"

Jace touched the stones with a leather-gloved hand, and frowned. "We burn our dead."

"Maybe not in this world," Isabelle said. "Things are different. Maybe they didn't have time. Maybe it was their last stand-"

"Stop," Simon said. He had frozen, a look of intense concentration on his face. "Someone's coming. Someone human."

"How do you know they're human?" Clary dropped her voice.

"Blood," he said succinctly. "Demon blood smells different. These are people - Nephilim, but not."

Jace made a quick, quieting gesture with his hand, and they all fell silent. He pressed his back to the cairn and peered around the side. His jaw tightened. "Endarkened," he said in a low voice. "Six of them."

"Perfect number," said Rebecca with a wolfish grin. Her sword was in her hands already, and she was already stepping out from behind the cairn as the others reached for their weapons. Jace pulled himself up onto the rock, and Alec followed him, bow at the ready. Isabelle sprang after him like a cat, and Simon followed, fast and unerring, his hands bare.