by Bobby Adair
Fitz felt a surge of hope as she looked around the room. The Scholars wrung their hands as they watched her. They were still nervous, but they weren’t disputing any of what Kreuz was saying. Taking the next intuitive leap, she said, “So you’ll help me, then?”
She looked at Kreuz and the Scholars.
“Given what you’ve told me,” Kreuz said, “I don’t see that we have any choice.”
Chapter 55: Bray
Kirby pulled the horse’s reins, turning left with the path and following Bray, clearly getting used to riding her steed. “I would’ve thought we’d reach the other side of the canyon by now. You said it was a few miles.”
Bray stopped and made a show of inspecting the landscape. He’d lied when he’d told her a few miles. But she was right. They should’ve been getting close. They were still riding on the side of a mountain. All around them were trees. The snow had gotten deep enough to bury some of the sticks and rocks that had been poking out earlier, and the sun was setting over the mountains in the west, creating an amber glow over the sky. They were still following the smuggler’s trail, but he didn’t recognize any of the landmarks from the previous times he’d hiked it.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been this way,” Bray admitted. “I must have miscalculated.”
“We’ll have to camp soon,” Kirby said. “We’re losing light. I don’t need to tell you the dangers of traveling after the sun leaves.”
“No, you don’t.” Bray sighed as he thought through a plan. “And the horses have to rest, after riding this terrain. Hopefully the people who took William will have to rest, too.”
“We should still have enough time to cut them off, if we leave at first light,” Kirby said. “We’ll ride until we can’t see, and then we’ll stop.”
They set their horses trotting again. Eventually, they located a spot where the trail widened and the slope to their right was covered in an embankment of snow-covered rocks. Kirby pointed up the steep, slippery slope, which was spotted with trees and looked treacherous to climb.
“This might be a good place to camp. If something comes down this way, we’ll hear it,” she said. “A demon will lose his footing and give us warning. And one will have to work to climb up the slope that goes down.” She pointed to the other side of the trail, which curved downwards.
“Not a bad idea,” Bray said.
With a tired grunt, Kirby dismounted. “Are you as sore as I am?” she asked, massaging her legs. “I can hardly feel my ass.”
Bray couldn’t help his smile, thinking he wouldn’t mind feeling it. “You get used to it after riding a while. It looks like the horse is getting used to you, and you picked up the commands I taught you.”
“She didn’t throw me off,” Kirby said, patting the side of the horse’s bridle. “So there’s that.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who spoke as frankly as you.”
“Maybe you think you haven’t,” Kirby said. “But then again, I’m familiar with the way most of you view women in Brighton.”
Bray looked at her, confused.
“I learned some things when I met the other group.”
They brought their horses to the nearby trees, tied them up, and located a spot just off the path with tall trees overhead and less snow. They found kindling dry enough to start a small fire. Warming their hands over the flames, they settled down. Bray noticed that Kirby kept her bag close to her and her gun in the strange pocket on the side of her pants.
“Were the other people from Brighton as impressed as I am with your gun?”
Kirby thought about it a moment. “Yes.”
“I’m surprised you trusted them enough to talk to them,” Bray said.
Maybe you robbed them, too, Bray thought, but he didn’t say it.
“I can judge people pretty well.” Kirby watched him for a moment, weighing something as she studied Bray. “So I’ll ask you not to argue when I tell you what I know. You lied about how long the canyon was.”
Bray was stunned into silence. He opened his mouth to construct another lie, but Kirby cut him off.
“I’m not as stupid as you think I am, but I think it’s noble that you’re going to such lengths to find your son.”
“Thanks.” That was the only word Bray could think to say.
“If I’d known what you were up to, I might’ve thought twice before robbing you.” Bray started to say something, but she interrupted him. “In case you get any ideas, I’m still taking my horses when we’re done. And don’t get any cute ideas about following me.”
She looked down at her gun to solidify her warning. Then she lay down to get some rest.
Chapter 56: Oliver
Oliver looked down the slope as he sat next to Jingo, scanning the group’s messy trail through the knee-deep snow to where it emerged from an endless forest of evergreens dusted in winter white. The trees filled a valley below that ran for mile upon curving mile back in the direction of the ocean. Towering above the valley, the steep mountains climbed into the sky until their sides were covered in only ice and rock. No tree could stand against the incessant, cold wind at that height.
After hiking through the day and the night to reach the pass between the mountain peaks, Jingo, Beck, Ivory, Melora, and Oliver had reached their limit in the morning. They needed rest. They were far enough from the settlement by the sea, and with the sky just turning to light, they felt safe enough to stop.
Leaving Jingo to keep watch, Melora, Ivory, and Beck had no trouble getting to sleep.
Oliver couldn’t make himself doze off. He was having trouble catching his breath, and was afraid something was dreadfully wrong with him. He was scared that if he lay down to sleep without being awake to suck in the deep breaths he needed, he’d suffocate and never wake.
“One day,” said Jingo, in a voice just loud enough for Oliver to hear over the wind, “you’ll have the best stories to tell your grandchildren.”
The dawn light glistened pink through the ice and gave the snow around them the rose color of an early spring flower. “No one will believe me,” Oliver replied.
“The people who are important to you will,” said Jingo.
The morning sun peeked over the horizon, and the colorful hues faded to white.
Still looking, still taking breaths too rapid for the effort of only sitting and watching, Oliver said, “It only lasts for a few moments.”
“Yes,” Jingo agreed. “Nothing is permanent, especially the beautiful things in life.”
Oliver sat down, still staring at the rising sun. “I think I’m going to die.”
“No,” Jingo told him immediately. “Beck’s plan will work. You’ll—”
“I’m not talking about that,” Oliver interrupted as he turned to face Jingo. “I think I’m sick. I can’t catch my breath. It’s been getting harder all through the night. When we came out of the trees down there and started that last climb, I didn’t think I’d make it.”
“It’s not you,” said Jingo. “It’s the air up here. We all feel it.”
“What’s wrong with the air?” Oliver asked, not believing.
“You’ve been underwater before,” said Jingo, “so far that your ears hurt, right?”
Oliver nodded, but couldn’t guess where Jingo might be going with the question.
“That’s called pressure,” said Jingo. “It presses on you. That’s what makes your ears hurt. When you come back to the surface, the pressure goes away, and your ears feel fine. Do you know what causes that pressure?”
Oliver shook his head.
“In the water, it’s the weight. The more water above you, the more your ears hurt.”
Oliver took a big breath again as though he was doing something strenuous, but he was still just sitting.
“Air does the same thing,” said Jingo.
“Air is heavy?” Oliver asked. It sounded ludicrous. “Like water.”
“Not like water,” said Jingo, “but it still has weight. It weighs so little you don’t notice it. But’s it’s there.” Jingo held his hand up. “Raise yours, too.”
Oliver did.
“You feel the wind?” Jingo asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what that is?”
Oliver was confused. “The wind, of course.”
“The weight of the air as it moves against your hand,” said Jingo. “It feels just like water flowing past, doesn’t it?”
Oliver’s jaw fell open. He’d never thought of it that way before. “I don’t understand why that makes it hard to breathe.”
“Without getting into a discussion of molecules and biology,” said Jingo, “let’s accurately say that the air down by the ocean is squeezed tightly together by all the air above it. So, you don’t notice it, but every time you take a breath, you inhale more air than you do up here.”
Oliver experimented with a few breaths. “It doesn’t feel like less air.”
“Except that you always feel short of breath, even though you’re breathing like you normally would.”
Oliver looked at the peaks of the tall mountains around them. “If I climbed up there, would it be even harder to breathe?”
“Yes.”
Oliver smiled. “So I’m not sick?”
“No.”
“I’m not going to die?”
“Not from being up here.” Jingo looked over his shoulder at the valley running down behind them. “This is the highest we’ll go. This is the mountain pass we were hiking to reach. Walking will get easier through the day as we descend on the other side of the mountains.”
Oliver smiled. “You know everything, don’t you?”
Jingo laughed, but quickly stifled it as he looked around at the prone figures of Beck, Melora, and Ivory. He didn’t want to wake them by getting too loud. “I’ve lived a long time. I’ve learned many things.”
“Can I ask you some more questions?”
“You should sleep.”
“I can’t.” Oliver scanned the snow and scrutinized the forest. “I’m too wide awake. Honestly, I’m too afraid to sleep here. I feel exposed.”
“You worry too much for a boy your age.” Jingo scanned the snow-covered peaks and took a look at the forest, as well. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be. I don’t see anything moving. Do you?”
Oliver shook his head.
“We’ll camp early tonight, down the mountain where it isn’t as cold and in the forest, where we’ll be better hidden. Hopefully Ivory and Melora will find some game, so we can fill our stomachs and get a good night’s sleep. What are your questions?”
“Why are there so many demons, but so few of us?”
“Uninfected people?” Jingo asked, to clarify.
“Yes.”
“Uninfected people die of old age,” said Jingo. “Demons don’t. The spore stops our aging processes. It also protects us from other diseases. I’m almost never ill. For the people of Brighton, illness takes most of them. A good number get burned on the pyre. Some die in the never-ending war with the twisted men. Many simply disappear.”
“They disappear?” Oliver asked. “No one talks about that.”
“Brighton only Cleanses the women and children,” said Jingo. “Men who find themselves infected don’t tend to offer themselves up for the Cleansing. It’s not required of them. They mostly run away, so they don’t get discovered. They don’t tell anyone when they leave, and they certainly don’t say why. Most of them eventually lose their humanity and end up in the Ancient City with their kind.”
“All of these demons come from Brighton?” Oliver asked, not believing it.
“A small portion of them. But most of them are as old as I am,” said Jingo. “They are the Ancients the people of Brighton think disappeared. Many others come from the mountains. Hundreds of small tribes of uninfected people live south of here. When the spore finds them, I believe the tribes exile the tainted ones instead of burning them. Many of the exiled ones end up in the Ancient City.”
“Are there towns in the south like the settlement where we found Kirby?” Oliver asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” answered Jingo. “The tribes of which I’m speaking are nomadic and small, sometimes a handful of people, sometimes as many as a hundred. They have no cities and are even more backward than the people of Brighton.”
Oliver had no way of guessing whether Jingo’s reasons accounted for the vast hordes of demons, but it sounded like they could. He pressed on to another question. “Why are all of the demons men? What happens to the spore-infected women? Do they stay in their homes, minding the children?”
Jingo just looked at Oliver without speaking.
“What?” Oliver asked, suddenly feeling that his question was stupid.
“My apologies,” said Jingo, “I didn’t mean to make you feel stupid. You don’t know, and how could you?”
“Know what?”
Jingo steepled his fingers and thought for a moment.
“What?” Oliver asked again.
“I’m deciding whether to tell you.”
“Why?”
“It’s brutal.”
Oliver reached up and patted the barrel of the rifle hanging from his shoulder. “I killed eleven demons yesterday morning. I’m not a child anymore. Brutality doesn’t bother me.”
Jingo appraised Oliver with a long look before he said, “The winters get long sometimes. The demons starve just like regular people do when they can’t find game. When they’ve gone hungry for long enough, they turn to cannibalism. When that happens, it is the weakest among them that are killed to feed the others.”
“And women are weaker than men,” Oliver concluded.
“Physically. Sometimes,” said Jingo. “But it’s more than that. Men who are twisted with the spore become infertile. Do you know what that means?”
Oliver shook his head.
“They are incapable of fathering children, though they still have the urge to try. In fact,” said Jingo, “they suffer none of the social norms, morals, or inhibitions that might keep a man from taking any woman he wants.”
Oliver didn’t like the images coming to mind. “Is that why they kill men, but steal women?”
Jingo nodded. “They have their way with them. But with so many demons and so few kidnapped women, the women don’t tend to survive long. They are all eventually eaten by the horde.”
Chapter 57: Fitz
Fitz appraised the enormous front gates of the circle wall, which extended upward for roughly twenty-five feet and were latched together by a board that fit snugly through the center. The gates were surrounded by stones that were piled closely and tightly enough together to block off any view of the world outside Brighton. The curved wall extended far into the distance, arcing past several guard towers, disappearing from sight. Fitz studied the closest tower, marveling at the overlapping boards and the raised, single room that extended higher than the wall. Inside, several women waved. The tower was large enough to hold a dozen people, but the other towers could only hold two or three.
It had been years since Fitz had come this close to the circle wall. Most of her days were spent in the market, at The House of Barren Women, or more recently, at Blackthorn’s house—now the New House.
Much of the wall had been in place since the times of the Ancients, but many of the stones had been replaced over time, when animals or time knocked the old stones loose. The top was smooth and flat. Normally, cavalry members and census takers guarded the Brighton gates, keeping strict notes on anyone who entered or left, reporting discrepancies to B
lackthorn’s blue shirts.
It was strange to see no soldiers guarding the gates or towers now.
“A wagon wheel,” Fitz said, looking over at Ginger.
“What do you mean?”
Fitz gave a thin smile. “That’s what my uncle told me once about Brighton, when I was young and he was trying to describe the township.”
“I’m not sure I understand?”
Fitz explained, “Brighton is like a wagon wheel. The city center is the hub where most of the buildings and houses are. The farmer’s fields fill the area where the spokes are, and the circle wall is the wheel’s edge. Outside Brighton, it’s like there’s another, bigger wheel going around it, with fields maybe a mile wide between the wall and the forest. The south gate is the main entrance, as you know, with three other gates on the north, east, and west.”
“That makes it easy to understand,” Ginger said with a nod.
“I always thought so.”
Fitz smiled as they turned their attention to a slew of women, children, old men, and Academy members working on three enormous contraptions that closely resembled the pictures in Kreuz’s book.
“I still can’t believe the plan is working,” she told Ginger, who was standing next to her.
“I know,” Ginger agreed. “I’ve never seen anything like them. Do you think they’ll work?”
“Kreuz is confident they will,” Fitz said. “So are the Scholars. They made a small one to test it out this morning before constructing the large ones.”
