Her husband must have known the truth, Stopmouth thought. He asked the others why they were here, and none had any answers except that all of them, apart from Tarini, seemed to have somebody working in the shipyards.
But the talkative woman, Yogita, hadn’t finished. ‘And my man wasn’t the only one,’ she said. ‘Some of the engineers revolted. They’d heard something – something terrible – I don’t know what. And they threatened to change the launch codes so the warship couldn’t be used, but I couldn’t tell you what happened to them after that – I was in here.’
She was looking at Stopmouth as if he had the answers, but what could he say? ‘The world is ending and you’re all going to die’? or, ‘Don’t worry, your brave leaders will be escaping and will think kindly of your sacrifice’? How could such words possibly help her? Or him, for that matter.
However, it was interesting about those workers changing the … he’d forgotten the word already – something ‘launch’. But he knew it referred to the magic paper Indrani had seen. If Dharam only had the old version, it would explain why he needed her so badly now.
‘I have to get out of here,’ he said. ‘We all do.’
He didn’t answer their questions. Instead he tried the locked door, asking the Roof to open it for him, asking for furniture that might have helped in smashing it – all to no avail. He tried contacting Indrani, calling her to say he was all right, to ask about Flamehair. She didn’t respond to his messages and he had no proof she was even alive – except, of course, the fact that they had bothered to keep him safe.
‘Are there guards?’ he asked the other hostages. ‘When do they open the door?’
‘When there are more people they want to keep safe,’ said Tarini. ‘We have everything we need here,’ she added. ‘I’ve never seen so much food in my life!’
‘They’ll come for those rations, don’t you worry,’ said the hunter. ‘But it may be too late by then. My wife … I need to find her and her … and our child. I’m sure they must have been taken to the warship.’ It was the only thing that made sense. They’d want Indrani aboard and they’d use Flamehair to make her do their bidding. Or maybe they’d threaten Stopmouth himself.
‘I know a way out,’ said the girl.
Yogita snorted. ‘Oh, not again, you crazy child!’
‘I went some of the way already,’ Tarini confessed. ‘Just some of the way. I was too scared, and besides, they told me to stay here. My boyfriend is working for them.’
Stopmouth bit his lip. ‘Will you help me leave, then?’
She nodded, and pointed out towards the impossible drop. ‘We need to go that way.’
‘Oh no!’ was all he could say. ‘I can’t.’
‘But you’re a hero,’ she said. She pushed a strand of hair out of her face. ‘I’ve done it. Watch me.’
‘I don’t think I can watch.’ But he let her take his hand and pull him a few steps closer to the edge. He felt his breathing quicken, and halted a good body-length from the drop. His heart beat faster than a wedding drum and he realized that if by picking this girl up and throwing her over the edge, he himself could be spared this task, then he would have done so. The thought shocked him. I am Wallbreaker, after all, he realized. He remembered the sweat on his brother’s lip; the nightmares he was said to have, and the way he’d turned into a chief who directed others to hunt, having become too scared to ever do so himself. Wallbreaker.
‘Are you sick?’ asked Tarini. ‘You’re sweating.’
‘I know.’
‘We don’t have to go,’ she said.
Stopmouth looked at her, shamed by her bravery, and thought, Oh my ancestors, this one is worthy of the greatest of you. Possess me. Give me the strength to get this girl onto the warship alongside my family. He didn’t worry that this might mean one of the rulers of this cursed place losing out.
‘We’re going,’ he said. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘You’re both mad!’ said Yogita again.
Tarini ignored her. ‘We climb over the lip,’ she said. ‘There are pipes and things, bars of metal. We can clamber over them as far as the edge of the room and then move up a level. After that, though, it gets hard.’
He smiled. ‘Hard? Don’t … don’t let’s talk about that yet. We’ll just … go. I’ll need you to guide me because I might … I might have to keep my eyes closed, all right?’
‘All right,’ she said.
Stopmouth shut his eyes and allowed her to lead him to the edge, trusting her when she said to stop. His heart hammered in his chest and his imagination created a vision of the fall every bit as terrifying as the real one he was trying to block out.
‘Sit down here,’ said Tarini.
His legs locked in position.
‘I said, sit down!’ She had a remarkably hard punch for one so small. It didn’t hurt, but it woke Stopmouth’s pride enough to allow him to obey.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I know what it’s like. But you’re a hero, right? I know how you guys work. You just have to think of the person, you know? The person you can’t let down.’
‘Indrani,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ and he could hear the smile in her voice.
He opened his eyes and closed them again immediately as his stomach spotted the void and tried to leap towards it. However, his brief glimpse had shown him plenty of strong, predictable handholds – the pipes Tarini had promised.
Stopmouth backed over the edge while Yogita whispered loudly about how stupid they were, how they’d never make it back and so on.
He shuffled along after the girl, a stout tube taking the weight of their feet.
‘We’re just coming to the wall now,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to open your eyes to find the handholds.’
He nodded. A great draught was at their backs, the air cold enough to chill the sweat on his skin. When he forced the lids of his eyes open, all he saw was the edge of the room where he’d been held prisoner and the fascinated faces of the other hostages staring back. Not so terrible, he thought. Above and to his left, Tarini hung from a clump of metallic fibres that looked as though they’d just sprouted there. Her eyes were so full of encouragement for him, and no little belief, that he knew he could do this. As long as I don’t look down …
They climbed easily after that. So many curious protrusions, cables and pipes poked out of the walls, he felt he could scale them all day and never tire. But they didn’t get far. Little lights ran here and there on the wall, flicking on and off, but Tarini showed no fear of them, so neither did he.
‘This is where I had to stop last time,’ she said.
The wall above them had grown smooth for half the length of a body. Polished metal that Stopmouth could see his face in, his pale skin. Above the mirrored section lay a mass of loose cables and the lip of what might be another room. ‘Look at the shape of it,’ said Tarini. ‘I think it’s the end of a corridor.’
The hunter nodded. There seemed to be entrances to other corridors all over the wall, although only one was within reach. Or almost within reach … He could see why the girl had been forced to stop here. To get onto the lip, she would have had to climb as far as she could before leaping in the hope of grabbing onto the edge, or maybe onto one of those cables. Somebody of her height and strength was unlikely to succeed, and if she missed … He shuddered and wished he had more control over his imagination.
At that point Stopmouth felt some kind of vibration thrumming in the pipes to which he clung. A quake! he thought, horrified. But it never rose beyond a slight tremble that he felt in the palms of his hands.
‘Oh, look!’ said Tarini. ‘Over there!’
‘I … I don’t want to. Could you tell me what’s happening?’
‘A bridge,’ she said. ‘It’s growing out from a corridor near the one we’re trying to get to, and going towards the warship. Maybe we should head back? They’ll see us when they start to cross.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘If I don’t do this no
w …’
She said something back to him, but he’d already stopped listening. All he could hear was his own blood pulsing through his head. He pushed himself up as far as he could go. His limbs trembled, but whether that was the bridge extending itself or his own terror, he didn’t dare consider. He crouched down, ready to spring. His muscles locked in place, but he was in charge, not them. Indrani needed him, and Flamehair too, his mother’s grandchild. He screamed, and launched himself upwards. It was so easy to pass the height of the lip, he almost forgot to grab onto it. His sweat-slick hands clung tight.
‘I can give you a push,’ he heard from below.
Tarini’s strength helped him over the edge, although the loose cables scratched at his chest and the remains of his robes. Thank the ancestors, an empty corridor. Another one paralleled it no more than twenty paces away, and that was where the bridge was coming from. He was sure he’d be able to reach it through one of the many side passages he could see ahead of him.
A little further in lay a pool of what had to be slime. He shuddered, imagining what would have happened had it been closer to the edge when he was trying to hold on.
‘My turn,’ said the girl. ‘We need to hurry – the bridge is almost complete. There’ll be somebody crossing it.’
Stopmouth had hoped to find a rope, or something to pass over to pull her up, but his clothing had been so corrupted by the slime that he wasn’t sure it would hold her weight. Some of the cables hanging there might do, but he would still have to look over the edge in order to pass one down to her. He swallowed his fear and reached down for her, careful to concentrate on her hands rather than the fall. Her voice and her own brave eyes steadied him. ‘You won’t drop me,’ she said. And she jumped. Not a moment too soon. The bridge reached the side of the warship with a deep clang.
‘We should get over there if we want to cross,’ said Tarini as he dragged her over the edge. ‘They can pull their bridge back just as easily. And if it’s the ship we’re heading for—’
‘It is. Come on. No, wait—’ He paused. ‘We should agree to talk from now on into each other’s heads. I’ll allow you and—’
‘We can’t,’ she said. ‘The Roof is still translating, but messaging isn’t working right. There might be a jammer nearby. I couldn’t get through to my boyfriend.’
Maybe her friend was already dead, Stopmouth thought, but decided not to mention it. There’d be time enough for bad news later on.
Ahead of them, past a massive pool of slime, the corridor curved off in the direction of the bridge. Yet the side passages appeared to offer a more direct route, full of smashed machinery and other good cover. ‘We’ll go this way,’ he said.
It proved harder than he’d thought. Little doors no higher than his arm lined the walls three high. Most were open, as though they’d recently burst, and spewed forth wires and glittering scraps of hexagonal metal that made the ground between the machines slippery and uncertain. The gaps they passed through grew smaller. They squandered hundreds of heartbeats tripping over one obstacle after the other while Stopmouth imagined the bridge pulling away again, leaving him stranded here for ever and making rescue of Indrani impossible. Deep down, he still hoped that some of the tribe on the surface had managed to barricade themselves into Headquarters. He might yet be able to scare Dharam into saving them.
They kept pushing forward as fast as they could go, until Stopmouth, pulling ahead, fell off the last metal box to land in the light of the corridor beyond.
‘Well, Captains,’ he heard a voice say, ‘I doubt we’ll ever have such an easy mission again! He came right to us.’
The hunter looked around. He found himself in a clean, wide corridor no more than twenty paces from the bridge. Three Wardens waited there. Three. He might just about be able to handle that many – they frightened easily, that was the trick. And they stood between him and his Indrani. This could only end one way.
Two of the Wardens – both young women – already looked a little worried. They leaned heavily against the rail of the bridge they had grown, and their faces ran with more sweat than seemed natural. The man at the front, however, only grinned. He stood with hands on hips, his head tilted back like a chief surrounded by friends at a feast.
Beyond them lay the circular shaft. It stretched upwards for ever, all glittering lights and polished sheets of metal that sat next to each other in complex patterns. Stopmouth craned his neck, drawn towards the terrifying vastness of the space even as his stomach rebelled. Globes swam up there, always moving, always working, tiny as insects until they came lower to buzz about the warship. Even then, they grew no larger than his fist.
The foolish Wardens didn’t interfere with him as he sat up. They just stood there, watching, the one at the front still smirking beneath the visor he wore.
Stopmouth glanced back into the clogged passage. Good, he thought, Tarini had been smart enough not to come out from hiding where he’d have had to worry about her too.
When he turned round again, he found, to his astonishment, that the leader of the three Wardens had somehow managed to appear right beside him.
‘Surprise,’ said the man.
A lazy kick sent the hunter sliding and tumbling across the floor. ‘Get over here, Captains!’ said the Warden. ‘We’ve been warned about this savage. “Take no chances,” they said. He’s killed our kind before. And more than once.’ A smack. ‘Too young, too cocky, the lot of them.’ The women still hadn’t moved and it made the man angry. ‘I said, get over here! What are you waiting for?’
Stopmouth felt something grip him round the neck and raise him off the ground. A hand, a single hand, at the end of an arm so strong it didn’t need to bend as it hoisted him into the air. It was only now, in that crushing grip, that Stopmouth glimpsed the red stripes that marked his three enemies out as Elite.
The visor watched as Stopmouth scrabbled at the sleeve of the Elite’s uniform, digging fingers into the iron muscle beneath. He saw wrinkles on the man’s chin, as though he was as old as Kubar back home. Strands of grey hair poked out from beneath his helmet. Old people were supposed to be weaklings.
The Elite could easily have crushed his victim’s windpipe, but did not. Nor did he ever bend his arm. Perhaps he’d heard how the hunter had eaten Krishnan’s face and was keeping a safe distance.
‘Hurry up, Captains. Bring the chains.’
Tarini chose that moment to make her move. She darted out from the side passage, a shard of metal flashing in her grip. One of the sick Wardens on the bridge called out a warning, but quick little Tarini had no more than five paces to make up before slashing at the sergeant’s back.
The man cried out and dropped his captive. His first swipe at Tarini was too high. Before he could take another, the hunter dived forward to take him round the ankles so that he crashed to the ground, striking his head hard enough to stun.
Stopmouth saw a familiar shape in the man’s weapon belt – a metal sling; a gun, as they called it. He pulled it out, intending to strike the Elite warrior before he could regain his senses.
‘Stopmouth!’ cried Tarini.
The younger Elite had finally steadied themselves enough to run towards Stopmouth. One of them had a funny kind of metal rope, but her feet caught in it, slowing her down.
‘Run, Tarini, hide!’
Stopmouth raised the iron weapon, pointed it and pulled the trigger. A deafening bang thundered around the walls of the corridor and the weapon jumped in his hands like a living thing. He had barely time to realize he’d missed everybody before the nearest woman reached Tarini and knocked her to the floor. The other had recovered her feet and was approaching fast. Stopmouth flung the weapon at the face of the nearest. Then he dived into the gap between a few rusty machines in a side passage and wriggled for all he was worth, desperate to get away.
They wanted him alive: the older one could have killed him at any time, and had called for the younger ones to bring chains – that was the metal rope he’d see
n. The only use they could possibly have for him was as a hostage to ensure Indrani’s good behaviour. Once Dharam had made his escape, he would have the hunter killed. Indrani would know this, but would still be forced to do his bidding.
I must not be caught.
He heard conversation from the other end of the little tunnel: ‘No, Captains, I’m fine, I’m fine! Just follow him down the tunnel so he can’t come back this way. I’ll do the rest. “Crippled and in chains,” they said! It will be my pleasure.’
A great racket filled the passageway as one of the Elite struggled through the tunnel, lifting machines out of her path, pushing others aside like the branches of trees.
Stopmouth’s own progress was not so swift. He was tired and hungry again. New cuts and bruises collected on his body with every step. They would catch him – there could be no doubt about that. They’d use him and little Flamehair as weapons against his woman. Then all three would be killed while the tribe died out on the surface. Hopeless, all hopeless.
He came out into the corridor sooner than he’d expected.
The drop lay waiting for him only twenty paces away, with the small stream of slime he’d passed through earlier glittering under all the reflected lights of the shaft. His pursuer was making quite a racket in the passageway he’d just left, but other footsteps approached beyond the curve of the corridor in front of him.
Sooner or later he’d have to fight them. A terrible prospect. All his previous successes with the Elite had involved a mixture of luck, outside forces and arrogance on the part of his opponents. None of these could be relied upon now, especially in the case of the sergeant, whose voice he heard coming round the curve of the corridor, shouting encouragement to his younger, weakening comrades.
Stopmouth looked around for some help in fighting his enemies, and laughed even as his heart almost seized in terror. This place was full of weapons he could use, full of them. And all he needed to win was a desperation strong enough to overcome his fear.
The Deserter Page 29
