Rick frowned. “No. The devils moved out, remember? Harpsborough would also be thriving and bustling like this if the Fore hadn’t weighed them down. That, and they know how to do some masonry work here, which helps the look of the place.”
A boy, his skin so grey he hardly looked human, emerged from under the woodstone steps where he had been taking refuge from the intense light of the chamber. He rushed up to them. Ellen guessed he was probably around ten years old.
“What happened to your foot, miss?” He asked Ellen.
“Zombie ate it,” Molly supplied for her.
Ellen laughed.
“That sounds very painful, miss,” the boy said. “I can help you out. I know the whole town. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll take you there. All I ask for is a bullet, so I can help feed my starving mother.”
For some reason Ellen didn’t find the boy’s story very believable.
Rick pulled out a clip from his pocket and tossed it to the boy.
The boy’s eyes widened and his face broke into a grin. “Thank you, sir! I’ll take you wherever you need to go, sir.”
“El Cid,” Rick told him.
The boy’s grin died on his face. Slowly he nodded. Without another word he turned and led them through the maze of brick houses. Ellen could have sworn that the closer they got to their destination, the quieter it became.
The house they were brought to looked like an oversized igloo, except with clay bricks instead of blocks of ice. There was an ironbound woodstone door set into the front of the structure.
Ellen turned to thank the boy, but he wasn’t there. The sound of his quick footsteps caught her attention, and then she saw him, running away. Rick stepped up to the door. Ellen could feel her stomach tightening.
He knocked.
Kyle had heard them walking, day after day. Their sounds echoed into his room. He had called out to them, but they had not answered. Perhaps they could not hear him. Perhaps they had thought he was a devil.
Perhaps he had imagined them.
Their footsteps invaded his dreams, keeping him from sleeping deeply and threatening him with madness. They were human footsteps, he was sure of it. Thousands of human footsteps. And they passed through hell, day after day, not caring to stop and help him.
Kyle had envisioned for himself a glorious end. He had counted on the dyitzu coming in to find him. They would throw their fire. It would splash beside him, the liquid fire splattering across his skin. He would scream through the pain. He would take them down, one by one, until his M-24 gave out that final click that let him know he was out of bullets.
The dyitzu would descend upon him. They would think to get close to him, so that they could torture him. Then he would strike one with his knife. The rest would kill him then with their long claws ripping through his muscles.
But they never came.
The footsteps kept them away.
Or maybe it had only been a day. Maybe he really was mad.
Today he was determined to find the walkers. He strapped his M-24 to his back and began to crawl.
His legs dragged behind him. They were worse than useless, their weight holding him back, and their exposed nerves clouding his vision with pain. At times the agony threatened to knock him unconscious, but if there was one thing worse than the pain, it was the endless monotonous drum of those footsteps.
He dragged himself down a series of steps, turning sideways to keep his knees from catching on the edges of the stairs. His rifle bumped against each of those steps, but the noise summoned no devils.
They were there, in the room beyond, a single file line of walking humans. The room was large, maybe three hundred yards in length, and as much as fifty yards across in places. He could see them only as silhouettes outlined by the yellow light of a distant cubbyhole. Maybe they were one of the Carrion tribes. Perhaps they had decided to move. Kyle drug himself into the room. The even rock of the floor made it difficult for him to find handholds, but the sight of fellow human beings made him bold. Who cared if they were Carrion people? Who cared if they would make him a slave?
He could not see their faces even this close, so bright was the light beyond them compared to the dark of the room. Their step was uneven, lurching. They seemed as soulless as any men Kyle had ever imagined. He gritted his teeth and crawled on.
Let them take my soul, so long as I live.
Their long shadows were projected across the floor, and Kyle was close enough now that the dark projections of their heads covered his hands as they passed.
“Please,” Kyle begged. “Please help me.”
They did not seem to notice him at all. Kyle dragged himself even farther forward, intending to touch one of them, intending to make one of them listen—then stopped.
He could smell them. They were rotting.
Corpses.
A few of the dead turned their heads as they walked. Kyle could not make out their eyes against the light, but surely they must have seen him. The smell got worse. It became so bad that Kyle had to work to keep from retching. Bile rose into the back of his throat. His eyes began to sting.
He heard the sound of a feathered wing flapping.
A harpy landed beside him. He could see the right side of its body in the light. Her skin was as grey as a corpse’s. Her eyes black, like a dyitzu’s. Huge brown wings stood out from her withered shoulders. The skin around her mouth was wrinkled like an old woman’s, and her hair was white, long and stringy. It was missing in places, as if she had some sort of mange. Her teats were almost human, ancient and wrinkled, hanging like used up udders well below her ribcage. They wobbled with the harpy’s odd gait as she walked towards him.
Her legs were more like a bird’s than a person’s, though Kyle could see the definition of what looked like human thigh muscles as they disappeared into the mess of brown feathers that cloaked the thing’s backward jointed knees.
The harpy’s mouth opened. The teeth he could see were old, blackened and rotten. Many were broken and a few were missing. She let out a screech that was halfway between a woman’s scream and a hawk’s distant call. The rank smell of her breath overpowered that of the corpses. His eyes watered, and he vomited.
Kyle shook his head to clear it. He continued heaving, but nothing was coming up. He reached for the M-24 on his back and brought it to bear. The harpy’s breasts stopped wobbling as she paused to take stock of the weapon. Kyle’s bullet hit her in the face.
They harpy’s neck jerked backwards, and then she fell to the ground, wings spread out on either side of her. She was twitching.
The corpses continued marching.
The harpy began to rise. Kyle could see where his bullet had hit her. It appeared to have shattered her cheekbone just below her right eye. Kyle worked his bolt, chambering another round. Between dry heaves, he fired again. Just as before, the head snapped back and the harpy toppled. And just as before, she began to rise.
God, if you can hear me, I could use you.
He fired again.
The harpy continued twitching. He heard more wings, coming from behind. He looked back to see another harpy rushing at him. Kyle swung his rifle around.
With one set of talons, the harpy reached out and grasped the barrel of the gun.
Kyle drew his knife and buried it in the claw.
The harpy screamed, but didn’t let go. It put all of its weight on the rifle, pushing it to the floor and rolling Kyle over. Then it lifted its other leg. Kyle saw it hovering over his head.
It descended.
Arturus smiled as he entered the meeting room Galen had secured for them. Everyone who had survived was here. Aaron, Avery, Johnny, and even the priestess. The room had a single table and it was lit by a pair of slow burning woodstone torches. The smoke made Arturus cough as he approached, but it didn’t seem to be bothering anyone else. Spread out on the table was a series of paper maps. They appeared to have been colored in by a graphite pencil. The paper sheets didn’t seem to match each ot
her. Some had notebook lines, others did not. Some had even been torn.
“Why is she here?” Avery asked, his emotionless eyes set on the priestess.
“Because she’s coming back to Harpsborough with us,” Galen answered.
Avery didn’t blink. “I’ll kill her, Galen.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Aaron told him. “That’s an order.”
Kelly, for her part, ignored the man. She was staring at the odd arrangements of maps. There were gaps between some of them.
“Now listen closely,” Galen said. “We’re going to make it home. If you recall, I made a few deals with Calimay. Turi has been nice enough to fulfill the first of those obligations. We’ve got two left.”
Aaron nodded. “You’ve got to show them the rustrock, and then scout out the City of . . .”
“Blood and Stone,” Arturus finished for him.
Galen grunted. “That’s right. And I intend to do both of those in the same trip. This is where we are now.” Galen pointed to a place in the center of the mess of maps. Then he traced his finger a few inches to one side, over a spot on the table where there was no map, and then to another sheet. “And this is where the gold mines are at the edge of the Deadlands.”
Arturus did his best to follow the markings on the map, but he had no idea what they meant.
“The rustrock mines are right there. We’ll escort some of Calimay’s surveyors to the place. That part is going to be dangerous.”
Avery snorted and crossed his arms. “You’re telling me. We’re almost out of bullets.”
“We’re in luck there,” Galen said. “Calimay’s agreed to furnish us with guns, ammunition and some backpacks. We’ll be on our own for food. Now, I’ll have to fix some things up around here as well hunt, so you won’t be seeing much of me in the next few days. That’s probably for the best, though, since it will give you guys a little more time to heal.”
Avery turned red, his fists clenching at his sides.
“Can it, hunter,” Aaron ordered him. “We are this close to making it home. You keep your damn shit in order. You got me?”
Still flushed with anger, Avery nodded.
Galen waited for Avery to calm down a little before continuing. “From there, we’re going to head south, or what you remember from Harpsborough as the direction ‘downriver.’ That will take us to an aqueduct. It’s not on the map, but it’s right here.”
Arturus nodded as he looked down. “That’s not too far from the mines.”
“Well,” Galen said, “it happens that it’s not. You should know, however, that these maps are many things, but they’re not drawn to scale.”
Kelly laughed. Avery looked at her angrily, as if the woman had no right to any amusement, but another sharp look from Aaron kept him quiet.
Galen looked at them all, perhaps making sure he had their attention. “Now the aqueduct is sealed, so this part won’t be very dangerous. We’ll run up the aqueduct, probably without seeing any devils, all the way to here.” His finger ran up the maps until it left them, stopping at the edge of the table. “Then I, and maybe one of you, will leave the aqueduct and scout. After we find out what we need to, then we’ll return here, to Calimay’s.”
Aaron reached over and touched Galen’s arm. “What is it we’re looking for, old friend?”
“When I first saw the amount of devils in the Carrion, it was clear to me that some greater demon had called them here. After a while I guessed the Archdevil in Londinium was the one who sent out that call, but as we got closer to that area, I realized that the dyitzu got thinner there, not thicker. My guess is that they’re actually thickest around the City of Blood and Stone. We’ll figure out if that’s true when we get there. Assuming that is the case, we’ll check and see if they are also the tribe that’s using the upside down cross as their symbol. Then, most importantly, we are going to capture one of their men and find out if their leader is a human named Lucreas.
“But I have something else to say. Something more important. It’s no secret now that . . .” Galen paused, looking towards Arturus. “Well, that they think Turi is the child of an angel. The Infidel wanted him for that reason. Maab wants him for that reason. But the fact that he’s the child of an angel means that he can do something. Can call something. Can affect something. I don’t know what that thing is, but I know whatever it may be, they want it bad.”
“The Infidel Friend,” Aaron said, “won’t he go and report where Arturus is?”
“Yes, very possibly. That’s why we cannot tell Malkravyan that we’re coming back to Calimay’s. When we leave, he’ll go and report that to the Infidel. If he doesn’t know we’re coming back here, he’ll report our last known location as the City of Blood and Stone. If we can, we’ll trick them into thinking that we died there.”
He’s lying. He doesn’t expect to fool Malkravyan. We may get the other hunters back to Harpsborough, but Galen and I will have to keep running.
“How do we get home?” Aaron asked.
“We’ll travel along the Carrion, here.” Galen ran a finger along one map. “Calimay has a guide which can take us through this offshoot of the Lethe. Without the guide, I doubt we’d make it, but with him, we’ve got a decent chance. We’ll stop when we run into these veins of pyrite. That’s about where the barriers end. Then we can cross the Kingsriver and head upstream till we hit Kingsport. After that, Macon’s Bend, and then Harpsborough.”
Johnny started to grin. “I think we’re going to make it.”
“The new guns will help,” Avery said.
“And if the Infidel thinks we all died, we should be safe.” Aaron didn’t seem too sure of himself on that count.
Avery crossed his arms. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
“I don’t care,” Arturus said. “I don’t care if I have to capture that upside down cross soldier myself. I don’t care if the Infidel finds me. Or if Maab shows up. I’ll do anything to get back home. To see Rick.”
To see Alice.
“Good,” said Galen. “Then what we need and what we want are the same. Our path is clear.”
Aaron nodded, his hand dropping to his belt as if it were looking for something. “Clear,” he repeated.
The door opened. Behind it was one of the most beautiful male faces Ellen had ever seen. He had short cropped blond hair over piercing blue eyes. She felt stunned. His cheekbones were broad and high. Ellen would bet money that he was of German descent.
“Who is it, Aiden?” a feminine voice called from within.
The man focused on each of them, his eyes paying particular attention to their weapons. After a moment, he stepped back and motioned them into the room. From this angle, Ellen noticed that the beautiful man had a sword strapped to his back. The sword’s crosspiece had a golden eagle etched into it.
Why use a sword when you have guns?
Rick led them in. Ellen stood next to him because it made her feel safer.
Infidel Friend were sprawled about the house.
There were five of them. Two sat together, one male and one female, on a small brick bench built into the wall on the left. Ellen guessed the two were a couple from how close they were to each other. A third sat at a table on Ellen’s right. His skin was so black that it shone. He had a rifle disassembled in front of him that he was cleaning. The fourth, who was the pretty male, moved next to the fifth.
The fifth Infidel Friend stood up from behind a desk and moved around it towards the center of the room to greet them.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Cid.”
El Cid was perhaps five feet tall. She wore some black cargo pants and a black tank top. Ellen could see the black straps of her sports-bra coming up over her otherwise nearly bare shoulders. Like the rest of the infidels, she was armed to the teeth. A short double-barreled shotgun was strapped to one leg and a rifle, which looked like the kind Ellen remembered American soldiers carrying, was slung across her back. There was no sway to her hips as she approached them.
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The woman’s arms were incredibly slender, but as El Cid drew near, Ellen could see how muscled they were. El Cid’s hair, pulled back into a ponytail, was jet black, but her eyes were extremely light—a green that was almost blue. Her eyes bothered Ellen for some reason.
There was a look that all the Harpsborough girls seemed to share. It wasn’t purely a look of wide eyed innocence—except for on Kylie—but it gave Ellen the impression that those women could be trusted. She remembered it from the old world, too. She had seen it on female athletes. On soccer or volleyball players from her old high school. In the athletes faces the innocent trust had been mixed with self-confidence. Sometimes Ellen had seen it on the deeply religious. A sheer credulity that made it almost impossible for anyone to wish them harm.
Whatever that look was, El Cid had the opposite of it. She was anything but innocent. Anything but pure. Anything but credulous. Her gaze was sharp, narrow and discerning. One would not want to deceive her, not out of any moral sensibility, but because one could be sure that this woman would not be fooled. It was the same look, Ellen realized, that was on the other Infidel Friend about her. The same look that Cris had worn. But for some reason, while Ellen found it to be very attractive on men, it disturbed her deeply to see it on the two women in this room.
Ellen had never been so afraid of anyone so diminutive in her life.
This woman and her team wiped out a village. She’s a killer. A murderer.
Those green eyes wandered up and down Ellen, and then did the same to her fellows. Eventually they settled on Molly.
El Cid is Turi’s only hope.
Rick stepped forward. “We’ve come to find you because one of your kind, Cris, is in severe danger.”
El Cid’s eyes did not leave Molly.
“Actually,” Molly said, “that’s not true. Cris is just fine, and I have a message to deliver from him.”
Rick’s head snapped over to Molly. Alice’s jaw dropped.
Massan stepped back. “You bitch.”
El Cid shifted, smiled, and crossed her arms. “If you are so ready to dupe your friends, how can we be sure that what you say is really Cris’ message?”
Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2) Page 24
