by C. R. Pugh
I held my breath. Those were the most brazen words I had ever spoken to my grandfather, and he never appreciated when I showed any semblance of backbone during his projects. The one time I’d interfered with his torture of Ravyn had not turned out well for me. Grandfather had struck me and I’d wound up in the infirmary with a broken nose. It could have been much worse, and it had been worse for Ravyn. He’d nearly killed her that day. I had decided then and there that I’d had enough. Grandfather had become reckless in his pursuit of this imaginary dream of living forever and taking control of the small continent we live on. Only a few of us realized how futile it would be to rule from this tiny place.
Murray was too far away to govern. Not to mention any people living further north near Hemlock Ridge. There were too many obstacles for his plan to succeed. Ahern, Terran, and Peton were closest. Terran had fallen under his jurisdiction years ago because they had no army to defend themselves.
Ahern and Peton were not so helpless and would protect their way of life at all costs. Grandfather’s plan to bribe them into submission with the serum … I could not see it working to his benefit in the long run. Ahern’s governor was already causing him trouble, according to the missive from the soldier. Peton had cooperated with Grandfather’s demands so far, but this newest message from their Elders revealed that they were dealing with their own insurrection from within.
If all of Peton’s Warriors and Ahern’s fighters wised up to Grandfather’s game and rallied together, they could annihilate us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Grandfather glaring at the computer monitor as if the machine were defying him on purpose. Without warning, he stepped toward me and slammed his hands down on the armrests of my chair. I gasped and flinched back as far as I could. My grandfather leaned in until his nose was an inch from mine. My eyes widened in fear and my knuckles were white from gripping the seat of my chair.
My grandfather narrowed his gray eyes at me and spoke in his most menacing tone, enunciating every word. “You are becoming less useful to me by the minute. If you are holding back information, being my grandson will not save you.”
He stared at me in silence for a moment, judging whether or not I had been lying to him. I kept still with my lips pinched shut.
He pushed off the chair and stalked toward the door. “You will search every line of code until you find where Test Subjects One and Two are located,” he said over his shoulder. “And you have twenty-four hours to get it done. No excuses.”
Turning on his heel, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I stared at the door in silence, swallowing over and over to keep from losing my lunch.
Twenty-four hours.
The time limit was not the problem. I had worked out the identities of each chip a few days ago. The lone dot roaming along Blackrock River was TS2. He was also carrying the locater. His chip had been near that group of soldiers. Why had they not returned with him? Since the group of soldiers hadn’t moved in a while, I’d assumed they were dead. But who had killed them? It couldn’t have been Ravyn. Ravyn was inside Ahern. That puzzled me, too. Why had she gone to such a dangerous place? And why had TS2 not followed her there?
I was missing something.
Perhaps TS2 was following Ravyn, which was always his primary mission. And if he was following her, that meant she no longer had a chip inside of her. She’d found a way to take out the bullet. But Ravyn would not be making her way back toward the compound unless there was a good reason, and I couldn’t think of any. No one was here for her to rescue. Coming here would result in pain and suffering at the hands of my grandfather.
Perhaps Ravyn is dead, buried in that pile of soldiers near Murray.
Ravyn was a survivor. I wouldn’t believe Ravyn was dead until I had proof. Someone had to have kept the bullet with the chip inside and carried it with them into Ahern. But why would anyone keep it?
Pushing out of my chair, I paced the room.
You know what you have to do, Audrick. Quit being such a coward.
I took off my glasses and wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands. There was only one way I was going to find out for certain why TS2 was strolling along the river and not completing his assignment. I was going to have to leave the safety of the compound and find out for myself.
This is crazy, I thought, continuing to pace the floor. I was no soldier or fighter. But the Sabers were in their dens. Grandfather had made no mention of using them in the near future. He was relying on his soldiers to track Ravyn down.
Soldiers. I bit back a curse. Once he had figured out that the lone red dot was TS2, he would send out soldiers to retrieve him. I had to get there first.
A fist pounding on the door made me jump backward. I slipped on my glasses and asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s Darren.”
I pulled the door open and yanked him inside. “Anything new?”
“No,” he whispered. “I passed him in the hallway. He was muttering to himself like a lunatic.”
“Nothing else?”
Darren shrugged. “Renny has been guarding the lab where the serum is. I can’t get inside.”
“Just as well,” I muttered. “If we go through with destroying the serum, he’ll kill us all in a fit of rage. Better to wait.”
“What do you want me to do now?” he asked.
I turned to the monitor and tapped some keys. The lone red dot where TS2 was located flashed up on the screen. Folding my arms over my chest, I stared at the monitor. If TS2 kept heading west …
No, it won’t work, I thought, calculating the distance in my mind. I’d never make it back in twenty-four hours. And I needed to be here to tell Grandfather what I’d discovered.
Maybe I didn’t have to be here …
I turned to Darren.
“What?” he asked.
I approached him and placed my hands on his shoulders. “I need you to cover for me for the next two days.”
Back to Map
Table of Contents
21
Ravyn
For two days we’d been making our way south, back toward Ahern. Brock had been right about the weather turning bad. Snow had begun to fall right after we had left Kaelem in the clearing. The snowfall lasted an hour, but none stuck to the ground. To my dismay, Kaelem had opted to stay behind alone. I had hoped he might feel some desire to seek justice for his sister and mother, but we hadn’t seen him in two days.
I set a hard pace and only stopped to let the group rest when I felt Camellia could be pushed no further. She held up well on the journey, despite having never roughed it in the woods. By the time we reached Crabapple Grove and Blackrock River again, the snow had turned into a cold drizzle, chilling me to the bone. My sister never uttered a word of complaint.
We were low on food. During one of our rests, Kieron made himself busy building a fire while Tallon and Brock hunted for any kind of bird or rodent to roast over the flames. Squirrels and rabbits were the easiest to find.
While they were busy, I found Camellia wandering up and down the banks of the stream.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You know it’s not safe to be here alone.”
“Making myself useful,” she replied.
My sister walked slow, eyes focused on the edge of the water. She was looking for something.
“There!” she said, pointing downstream.
I scanned our surroundings for danger. “What is it?”
Camellia ran downstream about ten feet and knelt by the bank. Green plants with small round leaves were growing out of the shallow waters. My eyes widened as she dipped her hands into the water and ripped some leaves up from their roots.
“Watercress,” she said, holding them up for me to see. “We can eat this. It grows year round by any good water source.”
My mouth slowly dropped open as I stared down at her. “How … how did you …”
“We learned about these plants in Terran. Remember?”<
br />
There were many wild sources of food I had learned about in Terran. This was one I’d forgotten.
As we travelled beside Blackrock River, Camellia became our most valuable scavenger for food. Brock and Tallon continued to hunt, but wild animals were scarce. My sister and I collected as many acorns and walnuts from the ground as we could gather and stored them in my pack. Camellia continued to uncover more patches of watercress plants along the edges of the river. The leaves didn’t taste very good, but it was better than nothing. We also gathered pine needles and boiled them into tea. It wasn’t filling, but the nutrients in the pine needles would keep us healthy. Camellia spent most of her time eating, drinking water or tea, and sleeping to allow her body to recover. I even slipped her some of my food to make sure she had enough nourishment.
Tallon and Brock were as anxious as I was to get to Ahern. Tallon suggested travelling straight through the Old Sequoia Valley toward the remote village, but I overruled them.
“We should stay close to Blackrock River,” I said. “We’ll slip by the compound before the General even knows we’ve been here. He won’t be expecting it.”
“And what if they decide to track Kieron again?” Tallon asked. “More soldiers could find us, and then what? We don’t have time to waste fighting them.”
“I agree with Tallon,” Kieron growled. “This isn’t a good idea, Ravyn. We’ll draw too close to Wolfe’s territory. Wasn’t it you who wanted to stay far away from him?”
I nodded. “It sounds crazy, but we’ll need water from the river, and game can always be found near water. The locater will tell us if soldiers get close.”
I was no device expert like the General’s scientists were, but even I had been able to figure out how to turn the contraption on and off. Each soldier we’d killed in that clearing near Murray had a tracking device in them, and so did Kieron. They must have implanted them after I had made my first escape.
Why didn’t the General give me one while I was in his custody?
“There are other streams, Ravyn,” Brock argued.
“True, but there is also a cave by Blackrock River where we can get out of the weather for a longer rest,” I explained. “Thorne showed it to me once. If we follow the river west, we’ll find it.”
They’d all agreed, since the cold was affecting us all. We bundled up as much as we could, adding layers on top of the clothes we already wore to keep warm. Once the sun went down, we made camp between a group of sequoias. The five of us sat in a tight circle around the fire eating the squirrel meat, watercress, and acorns from our supplies. Night Howlers cried out in the distance as we rested by Blackrock River.
Camellia’s head jerked up and scanned the ominous forest around us. “That sounds closer than before.”
Kieron gazed at me across the fire. “They aren’t far. Maybe a mile away.”
I swallowed back the fear threatening to creep into my thoughts.
“That’s close,” Camellia said, her body shivering in response.
“It’ll be fine,” I reassured her. “I don’t sense a threat. They’re hunting further south since it’s winter. Less food, you know?”
Kieron quirked his eyebrow at me. He knew I was lying to Camellia to ease her worries. I had a sneaking suspicion the harpies had caught the smell of blood and were stalking us. Brock and Tallon both kept their weapons in their laps while they ate, so I knew they sensed the danger too.
“Let’s rest another thirty minutes and then we’ll get moving,” I announced. “We’ll find that cave tonight if we keep going a few more hours. From there we’ll turn south and avoid the compound.”
***
Two hours later, we walked single file beside the river. The water had been moving at a leisurely pace near Crabapple Grove, but as we continued west, the current picked up speed. A low rushing sound filled the silence of the night as we hiked beside the rapids. We were getting close to where I had been shot and fallen into the water.
I glanced over my shoulder at the others. Camellia was right behind me, her head swiveling from side to side with every sound she heard. Tallon and Brock trailed behind her with Kieron bringing up the rear.
Branches snapped in the forest to our left. My heart was pounding, knowing Sabers could be hunting us right now. I kept the locator in my hand and glanced down at the screen every few minutes to be sure no red dots were headed our way.
Rain began to drizzle down on us again. It wasn’t a heavy downpour but it made the chill of oncoming winter worse.
“H-how m-much further?” Camellia stuttered.
I turned around to face my sister and bit back a curse. Her face was stark white and her teeth were chattering from the frigid night air. I slipped off my pack and rifled through it.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked.
I found my spare pair of socks and slipped them over her hands like mittens. “Trying to keep you warm,” I replied. I knelt down and jerked the thin blanket out of my pack. “Here,” I said, taking the crossbow from her back and draping the blanket over her head and shoulders. “This should help.”
Kieron approached us and, without a word, took the crossbow and slung it over his own shoulders.
“Thank you,” Camellia whispered.
“It’s not much further,” I said, hoping I was right.
We’d travelled another half mile when a red dot appeared on the locator. I halted and stared at the device.
“What’s wrong?” Brock asked me, drawing close and looking over my shoulder.
“Someone else is out here,” I murmured, looking around. I showed them all the screen and pointed out the lone person wandering in our direction.
“Just one,” Tallon pointed out. “It won’t be difficult to take care of one person.”
“Why would a soldier be travelling alone in the Valley?” Kieron asked. “That doesn’t seem smart.”
I stared south into the sequoias. The soldier was coming from the compound. “Unless it’s a trap. They could know we’re here.”
“But if they know we’re here, why wouldn’t they send an entire unit?” Kieron snapped.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Let’s keep going and try to make it to the cave.”
We marched west and the dot drew closer and closer. Despite the chill in the air, my palms began to sweat and my heart raced. The dot was headed right toward us. They’d anticipated where we were going.
Pausing once more, I handed the locator to Camellia, who was still wrapped up in the blanket. Her teeth had stopped chattering for the moment, but her face was still pale. “Can you carry this?” I asked, concerned that she had grown too weak.
“Of course,” she whispered. She took the locator into her sock-covered hands and held it in front of her.
“Keep watch for us.” I said, drawing my pistol from the holster at my waist.
Tallon nocked an arrow and Brock unholstered his own pistols. Kieron lifted the crossbow off his back and pulled it into his shoulder pocket with ease.
We kept walking, but at a slower pace. “Watch your step,” I warned them over my shoulder. “The banks of the river are slick with mud. You don’t want to go over the edge.”
I kept my eyes on the trees, not that it did any good. I couldn’t see anything in the dark the way Thorne could. Thinking of what could be happening to him in Ahern with Nash and their evil Aunt Laela twisting his mind made my stomach clench.
Stop panicking, I mentally scolded myself. Thorne can look out for himself. With Pierce and Archer with him, it was ludicrous to think anything terrible would happen. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to get control of my breathing. One thing at a time, Ravyn.
“How far, Camellia?” I asked.
“About … two hundred yards?” she replied.
I peeked over my shoulder at her and hissed, “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “They’re coming from that direction.” Camellia pointed southwest into the dark forest.
Brock stepped up behind me. “What do you want to do, Ravyn? Should we hide?”
“They must have a locator,” Kieron remarked. “I should leave. Draw them off.”
“No,” I barked. “I want to know who it is. Who would risk the predators in the Valley alone to find us?”
“Unless they think it’s me,” Kieron argued. “I was his captain, and you said they were searching for me.”
“We’re not separating,” I insisted. Kieron gave me an apprehensive look. “I don’t want the General to get his hooks into you again.”
“One hundred yards now,” Camellia said, staring down at the locator’s screen.
“Take cover behind the trees,” I ordered.
I led Camellia into the brush surrounding one of the wider sequoias and crouched down. Kieron knelt down beside me with Camellia’s crossbow. Brock and Tallon hid themselves beneath a fern twenty feet away.
And we waited.
The soft glow of the locator was the only light in the dark of night.
“How far?” I whispered to Camellia.
“A hundred feet.”
“Hide the light,” Kieron murmured.
Camellia pulled the locator to her chest and tucked it beneath the blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders. The world went dark.
My hands began to shake. Whether they trembled from fear or the cold I didn’t know. I heard branches snapping beneath someone’s boot steps as they drew closer to our location and came to a sudden halt.
“Hello?” a male voice called out. “Anyone out here?”
I gasped, recognizing the kind voice.
“What is it, Ravyn?” Camellia whispered.
“I know who it is,” I replied.
I started to rise from our hiding place, but Kieron grabbed my arm and dragged me back down into the brush. “It could be a trap!”
“I don’t think so.” I turned to Camellia again. “Is he still alone?”
