The Hollow Gates

Every night the city of Osumadu marches out its dead to hold the line against what waits in the ash-wastes. To feed that army, the living must bleed. Nduoma is a way-keeper, master of the city's hidden locks and forgotten gates, making a dangerous living moving illicit grain and desperate people through the cracks in the walls. When a botched smuggling run unearths a sealed vault beneath the oldest district, she finds proof that the city’s founding compact is a lie: the dead aren't marching to protect Osumadu, but to keep something else imprisoned. Now, hunted by the ruling factions who will execute anyone to keep the truth buried, Nduoma must use every locked door and secret passage she knows to tear down the city's foundation before the dead finally turn around and march home.