She moved first, feinting with her right-hand sword; the ranger glanced in that direction as Dahlia brought up the sword in her other hand. Then she dropped it again, real pain flashing across her face. The ranger darted in and brought his sword up into her belly. It tore through her armor to stick out of her back, dripping red. He let go, and Dahlia slumped to her knees, coughed once, and fell onto her side.
He turned to me and Magpie. “She attacked me first.”
“Us too,” I agreed. “Did you hear the part where came to kill Magpie?”
“I heard enough.” The ranger looked troubled. “If I go back to the feeds, will I see something similar from your last PK incident?”
“It’s all there,” said Magpie. “And you might want to ask your bosses who paid for her ticket.”
The ranger nodded. In the moonlight I could see the lines on his face, the gray in his hair. “I’ll call my men back. Your friends aren’t far away. Get out of here.”
***
It didn’t take long for Magpie and me to find Cass and Noah, which was good, because neither of us knew how to start the conversation we so badly needed to have. The feeling of betrayal still burned inside me, like a wasp stinger that had gotten lodged between the folds of my heart, every effort to dig it out just shoving it deeper. Magpie was the one who had to perform the operation, but I would have gladly told him how if I’d only known.
Our friends hadn’t gotten much farther than we had before being caught, and we found them by walking against the stream of rangers who now filtered back through the trees toward our camp. Noah heard us first, looking up from where he was fiddling with a tinderbox, trying to light a torch that he held between his knees.
“Are you okay?” He straightened up and the torch fell on the ground.
“We’re fine,” I said. “You?”
“Fine,” said Cass. “I thought the rangers had us for sure, then they just stopped and turned around.”
“We finally got their captain to listen to us,” I said. “All it took was Dahlia nearly killing me.”
“Dahlia?” Cass blinked. “The Angel?”
I nodded. “Yup. She worked for Magpie’s crime family.”
“She seemed really nice,” said Noah.
“She was a sociopath.”
“Was?” Cass’s eyebrows went up.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“Fine,” she replied, kneeling to fix a strap on her backpack. She paused and glanced up at me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
I looked away. “Okay, Hearthammer, let’s get to the wall.”
“Anybody know which way is north?” Magpie asked.
“That way,” Noah and I said together.
***
We walked all night, too flooded with adrenaline to sleep. As dawn came green and gold among the leaves, we curled up in exhaustion on the soft forest floor. The sun was high overhead when we woke and, wordless, set out again. The forest seemed to go on forever, as the rest of the day and another night passed with no apparent change to the endless rows of trees.
I made the trip in near silence. I’d been severed from two of my three friends, and I didn’t have the heart for one of Noah’s monologues. I was sure the rift between me and Magpie had to be glaringly obvious, but then, I was relying on the two most oblivious members of our party to pick up on it. Really, it was my duty to tell them, but every time I tried to work up the courage I discovered a new excuse not to. Cass would blame me, my dark thoughts said, or it would renew Cass’s trauma, or it would distract us during our most important quest yet, or it would tear the party apart just when we stood on the brink of victory.
Help Keats first, I told myself. Then you can collapse.
I woke before dawn on the third day, feeling restless, and as I shuffled around our campsite I saw my friends opening gummy eyes and stirring in their bedrolls. We got underway in silence, and as we set out again between the trees I found myself wondering if the wood would ever end, or if we’d been trapped in some sort of magical loop.
The forest fell away just as the sun appeared in the eastern sky and we found ourselves at the top of a long incline of gray rock that ran down and away for miles. Just at the horizon was a thin line of darker gray that divided the earth and sky.
“Is that the Wall?” Cass asked, shielding her eyes.
“That’s the Wall,” I said. “We did it.”
“You said we were going to touch it,” Noah put in.
“Okay, picky,” I said, “let’s go.”
It took over an hour to descend the slope and my thighs and ankles ached from the persistent tilt by the time we reached the Wall. It was about thirty feet high, solidly built of the same gray stone we’d just crossed, cut into neat blocks that seemed fitted together without the aid of mortar. As we drew near, we were able to get a view over it, where the gray stone continued for maybe another mile before trending back to forests. The Wall itself was about a yard thick, with no indication of any guard posts or other habitation. Just a big, blank stone face, stretching endlessly in both directions.
I stretched out my hand and laid it flat on the smooth stone. It was a bit cool to the touch.
“Now we did it,” said Noah.
“Cameras on?” Cass said.
“Cameras on,” I agreed. Noah slipped off his pack and began rifling through it for the handheld, but I had already snagged my drone from where it hovered loyally nearby and hit the big red button. It tugged itself out of my hand and rose, turning, to an angle that captured both me and a stretch of the Wall at my back.
“I’m back,” I said. I gave the camera my best tired smile, wondering just what I looked like after days of endless travel and nights on the dirty ground. “I know you’ve missed me. And I missed you, too! Now, you might be wondering just what I’ve been up to all this time. And I’m sure you’re wondering why I started streaming again in such a boring place. Well, guess what? It’s not boring at all.”
I glanced back at Noah, whose eyes were locked on the handheld. He must have felt me looking, because he caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. Our numbers must be coming back, but I still wanted to stall a bit longer before the big reveal.
“I grew up on the forums, so I know what kind of crazy speculation you guys get up to. I used to love doing it. Is DragonLass29 still taking bets on ElfBoard? I don’t think I ever won one of those pools…” It had only been a month since I was one of those Summerlands fanatics arguing over famous streamers’ next moves on the most popular forums, but it felt like the world had moved on into an entirely different era in human history. I smiled at the memories. “But somebody’s about to win the ‘What Is Linnaea Up To?’ betting. You ready? I’m ready.”
I took a deep breath as the weight of what we’d just done came crashing over me like a wave. Going to the Wall was expressly forbidden by Expedition Games, everybody knew that. Just coming within five miles was grounds for expulsion from the game. Now we were flouting that rule in the most public possible way, turning it from a sacred law to a ratings gimmick.
It was too late to turn back. I put my hand on the Wall, enjoying its coolness in the growing heat of the day.
“We’re at the Wall,” I told my camera. “It took about two and half days from Wyatt Falls. There’s a huge forest, and the trees—well, I’ll do a lecture on that soon. But for now, yeah, here we are. This is the Wall. We’re not supposed to be here, but so far we haven’t seen anything worth hiding.”
I faced the camera head-on. “Now, I need to shut off for a minute, but don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
As I turned around to ask Noah to shut off my stream, Cass threw her arms around me in a hug that squeezed all the breath from my lungs. She was somehow simultaneously hugging me and jumping up and down, squealing. Over her bouncing shoulder I could see Magpie and Noah sharing a serious handshake, which quickly became a hug of its own when Magpie pulled Noah in and thumped him on the back. There were t
ears in both boys’ eyes. Finally, I pushed Cass away, my hands on her shoulders.
“Did we—” was all I managed before the other three members of Hearthammer began shouting all at once.
“We’re number one—” Magpie was shaking his head in wonder, his eyes wide.
“You did it! You did it!” Cass looked like she was about to hug me again, but instead she just slapped my shoulder. “You’re a genius, Em. I never would have thought—you’re a genius!”
“Look, look, look—” That was Noah, shoving the handheld into my hands. My screen was up, showing a bright red line swooping up in a steep climb and leveling out at the very top of the graph. Digital fireworks were just dying away, trickling down under fake gravity to the bottom of the screen, where the words CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE THE #1 STREAMER IN THE WORLD! burned in red.
The green NEW MESSAGES line was lit up as well and the counter next to it was ticking higher and higher with every passing second. I had thousands of messages and more were flooding in as I watched. Suddenly the handheld displayed an alert I’d never seen before, which took over the entire screen: PRIORITY MESSAGE. PLEASE OPEN.
Alarmed, I tapped the alert. A message from Uncharted Territory opened on the screen.
Go over the Wall.
Dave
My breath caught in my throat, and I felt pinprick tears start in the corners of my eyes. I hit REPLY.
That wasn’t the deal. We hit #1.
L
The response came in almost instantly.
New deal. You want the money, go over the Wall. Not joking.
In a daze, I passed the handheld to Cass.
“What is it?” she said, glancing down at the screen, where my chain of messages with Dave Davies still showed. “Oh, shit. Is he for real?”
“I think so,” I said.
“What is it?” Noah asked.
“Dave from Uncharted,” I said. “He says we have to go over the Wall if we want the endorsement deal.”
“If we do it, will he pay Keats’s bills?” Noah asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think.”
“Then we should do it,” Noah said.
“What’s out there?” Magpie asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Nobody knows except Expedition, and apparently it was worth building a Wall to keep us from finding out.”
“He’s playing us,” Cass said. “You guys seriously can’t see that? We did everything he wanted and now he’s stringing us along for more.” She shook her head. “Look, we’re all desperate to find some way to help my dad. You have no idea how bad… but this guy is using it against us. He’s never going to give us what we want, can’t you see that? I’m not dancing for some marketing jackass anymore. I say no way.” She folded her arms. “Magpie?”
“I’ll do whatever Emma wants,” Magpie said, giving me an apologetic half-smile.
“Yuck,” said Cass. “Okay, Linnaea, that’s one for and one against. You’re the superstar, you decide.”
I already knew the answer.
***
Anticlimax followed, as we all turned our cameras on and set out along the Wall, looking for anywhere that we might cross it. The smooth, fitted stone was unclimbable, and the blank gray rock at the foot of the Wall offered no trees that might help us up. As we walked, I tried to keep my audience entertained with my thoughts on the terrain of the last few days. I even mentioned our run-in with the rangers, though I left out the details of our escape, saying only that we’d slipped away in the night and fled north.
In the end, in was pure luck that made our plan possible. As we slogged along the Wall we saw a break in its clean, gray line about a mile ahead. We spent the next fifteen minutes debating what it could be, until we finally came close enough to realize that, against all odds and all logic, the Wall simply ended.
Cass thought it must have been knocked down by a storm, and I was inclined to agree, until we reached the spot where the Wall petered out. It wasn’t a clean line, as though the builders had decided they’d come far enough and finished the project, but it also wasn’t a jagged hole smashed by a stormborne tree or rolling boulder.
The Wall was still under construction.
Huge blocks of neatly-cut stone stood all around, and on the far side of the Wall, a wooden scaffold was raised where the builders must have just finished placing the highest blocks of the most recent stack. A single gray cube stood flush with the end of the Wall, clearly the first to be placed in a new column.
“Okay, uh…” I stared at the black eye of my camera, which stared back. “Well, we found a way past the Wall. It looks like Expedition is still working on it. So, we’re just going to go around, I guess. Here we go.”
I went first, with Cass and Magpie close behind me and Noah watching our backs, his sword drawn. I clutched a copper coin in my right hand, ready to start a fireball rolling at the first sign of danger.
Instead, we found a camp. It was set only a hundred yards back from the Wall, and was far larger than the little campsites we’d made on our journey. It reminded me of the nomad camps of the ancient Mongols: five large tents, all brightly painted in different colors, stood around a large central fire pit. The tents were made from thick canvas on long wooden poles, substantial but clearly moveable.
“It’s deserted,” Cass said, lowering her bow, and then the flap of the nearest tent opened and an elf stepped out.
There was nothing else he could be. He was tall, maybe six and a half feet, with thin, pale features and long pointed ears that swept back from his head. His hair was long and bone-white, almost a match for his skin. In high boots, tight pants, and a loose sort of half-toga of rich purple cloth, he looked just like the art we’d seen scattered around the Summerlands, though I noted that he didn’t have any spots.
“Holy shit,” Noah said.
“Put your weapons down,” I said, and they did. The elf watched us from the mouth of his tent, his face a blank. The copper piece was hidden in my right hand as I stepped forward and raised my left in greeting.
“Hello,” I said.
The elf ducked back into his tent, and I made out a few faint words in the musical language we called Elvish. He reappeared a moment later, accompanied by a second elf dressed similarly, but with a long golden vest over his outfit.
I pointed to the Wall behind me. “Are you building that? Did you build the Wall?”
The first elf’s eyebrows went up in a surprisingly human gesture. He raised his left hand with the palm towards us, reminding me of the carving we’d seen in the forest, and spoke. His voice was like a song, flowing through what had to be words and sentences with no indication where one ended and the next began. The cadence was familiar—it was the same language that we used for magic, I was sure of that—but the words were alien and inscrutable.
I shook my head and tried to look apologetic.
Now the second elf leaned in and murmured something in the ear of the first. As he spoke, he held his right hand up with the back facing the first elf in a posture that looked somehow commanding and subordinate simultaneously. He indicated us a few times with nods of his head and at one point they both paused their conversation to give us a long, appraising look. The second elf finished his speech with a sort of half-bow and a sweep of his hand back down to his side. A look flickered over the face of the first that, if he had been human, I would have pegged as guarded annoyance.
The first elf shouted something, a single word, I thought, and the camp came to life. From the tents came more elves, with long, curved swords and bows of red and purple heartwood, another dozen in all. At the edges of my vision I could see the other members of Hearthammer readying their own weapons. Cass lay an arrow on her bow as Noah raised his sword warily. Magpie had his hands on the knives in his belt.
“Wait,” I said. “We don’t want to fight. We just want to talk to you.”
The first elf cocked his head at an elegant angle and spoke again, but all I could do was stare back blank
ly. He took a languorous breath, the nostrils of his long nose flaring, then glanced at the elf in the gold vest who still stood attentively at his side. That elf said something solemn, and the face of the first hardened. He looked back at me, catching my gaze and holding it with mismatched eyes of blue and green.
Then he barked out a command, and all around us, the elves attacked.
I fell back as the archers loosed a flight of arrows that fell just short of us—a warning shot, maybe?—peppering the ground with long, red-fletched shafts.
“Form up!” I shouted. Noah darted forward, sword in hand, and Magpie joined him, putting himself between me and the camp. Cass nocked her arrow as I began to roll my copper piece over my fingers, murmuring the Elvish magic words as quickly as I dared.
Another rain of arrows fell, all of them landing neatly behind us this time. The message was clear. But if the elves expected us to surrender, they were disappointed, because Cass responded to the arrows with one of her own. It flickered out in a laser-straight line to slice the cheek of the elf in the golden vest, who slapped a hand to his face that came away smeared with blue-green blood.
“Dammit!” Cass grunted as she pulled another arrow from her quiver. The two elven leaders backed away as four swordsmen advanced, spreading out to try and surround us more surely than the archers could. Magpie turned warily, both his daggers gleaming in white-knuckled hands; Noah stood stoically with his sword in a ready position.
The swordsmen dashed in, moving faster than I’d ever seen a human move. They split into pairs; one duo came straight at Magpie and Noah while the other cut around to come straight at Cass. As much as I hated the idea of fighting the elves only minutes after we’d met them, the threat was obvious. All we had to do was survive long enough to escape; then we could try to lose them on our side of the Wall. And if a fight with elves didn’t satisfy Dave Davies, it would be time to give up.
The first pair of elves hit the boys in a whirlwind of blades. The grace of the elves was incredible; they moved together like dancers, if those dancers were identical twins who had practiced together every day of their lives. One cut low as the other slashed high, then they spun back-to-back and came apart to dart their swords around Noah’s guard, pricking him in the arms. Magpie tried to counterattack with his daggers, but each stab at one elf was blocked by the other, as though every motion had been choreographed beforehand. As the boys fell back in the face of the coordinated onslaught, it was all they could do to keep from being cut to ribbons.
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