Radicals (Blood & Fire)

by Frankie Rose

  “I think he’s mad at you,” Ryka observes.

  “You think?”

  He snorts, folding his arms across his body. “He’s probably right to be. I’d be pretty furious if I almost died to save you, only to have you willingly throwing yourself back into a fight. You can always… You could…” He struggles to even utter the words. Such is the disgrace in abandoning the fights for a person of Freetown that the words alone seem to be choking him. “You could turn around and walk back down those stairs, and I will love you forever for it.”

  I clench hold of my Balisong, reacquainting myself with its cool metal grip. “I will if you will.” I already know what he will say. He may have argued against holding the fights yesterday, but now that they’re going ahead, there is no way he’ll ever walk away from them. To do so would be a huge dishonour to himself and to his family.

  “Can you just do it for me? You’re not bound to this like I am. It wouldn’t be the same for you,” he says.

  “What, and risk your people hating me even more? That would probably be a fate far worse than dying on this rooftop.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t even think it. You’re not dying today.”

  I keep quiet at that, trying not to think about it. No point in panicking over it until the woman in red calls out my name. And I know it. I know that she will. Instead, I stare back at Caius, chewing on my lip. “Do you think I should try and talk to him? Explain why I’m here? Why I can’t just—”

  “Kit, he knows. He knows all too well.”

  “What?”

  “He stayed and fought and nearly died for you, because he loves you. And now you’re here, refusing to leave, refusing to be somewhere safe.” He turns and looks at me, eyes deep pools of brown. “Because you love me.”

  I look away, suddenly extraordinarily uncomfortable. Ryka’s never said that before, never really acknowledged Caius’ feelings in such blunt words. And I’m scared to even think about Caius’ feelings. Because I’ve hidden from him for days and days, trying to avoid the conversation, the awkwardness, the feeling of betrayal and guilt and confusion that sinks like a stone in my gut whenever I see him, but the truth is…the truth is that I can only hide from him for so long. He’s a part of me. Like Luke is a part of me. And I’m afraid that when I’m done hiding from him, the rawness of his hurt, the hurt that I have caused by falling in love with someone else, will forever destroy the bond that always connected us despite our halos.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Ryka nods his head, as though hearing me say all of this out loud. And letting me know he understands. He clears his throat. “No, Kit. He’s more mad at me than he is at you. He just doesn’t know how to show it yet. He’s damning me because I won’t turn around and take you off this rooftop. And I’m damning myself for it, too. But, please Gods forgive me, because I can’t. I just can’t walk away. It’s not who I am.”

  “I know. I know. I wouldn’t—”

  “People of Freetown!” The call goes up from behind us, halting my words. A sea of heads all turn to locate Grandfather Jack as he jostles his way through the shoving bodies, making his way toward the centre of the clearing. “We have gathered here to give sacrifice!” There is a savage kind of rawness to his voice as he takes his position in the centre of the mass of bodies; I’d never seen a grown man cry until I took Jack to see Olivia, and the past twelve hours since then he’s been simmering under a black cloud, refusing to speak to anyone. Now, he seems ready to speak, ready to roar into the wind that howls across the exposed rooftop in his anger. His face is a deep shade of red as he paces in a circle, eyes fixed on the floor. “People of Freetown, we have gathered here to give sacrifice,” he repeats, the words coming out slower, the tone of them deeper, filled with something dark and ugly. He has always been so light-hearted and casual and yet right now he looks like he has murder on his mind. I look to Ryka, suddenly worried. He returns my look with a nervous edge of his own. Everyone is silent as the old man paces slowly round the circle, still glaring at the ground, working his jaw.

  “We have gathered here to give sacrifice… How many times have I said those words? The months and the years may have slipped most of you by, but they’ve weighed heavy on me. Over a thousand times I have stood before you to begin these proceedings,” he mutters, shaking his head. The wind rips across the platform in a solid gust that makes the dark grey shirt he’s wearing snap and billow around his body. “A thousand men!” he shouts, raising his head up and casting angry eyes over the confused faces that peer back him. “Over a thousand men have died while I have led the people of Freetown. They have been sacrificed to appease a religion that bears no real evidence of its existence. No real evidence of its truth. And now we are here, and we must fight again. And I say to you…what kind of benevolent Gods must demand death in order to protect life? To keep it safe? This is a farce. I think…” His eyes scan through the crowd; they fix on Ryka, apparently finding what he was searching for. “I think it’s time for an end,” he says softly. “Time to put down our knives and to stop killing each other once and for all. Time to stop celebrating the deaths of our brothers and our fathers and our sons. To stop pretending like those deaths have ever meant something.” His eyes lose their sadness and harden, now. He glances away from Ryka, addressing the gobsmacked crowd instead. “People of Freetown, it’s time to denounce the priestesses!”

  The response is instant: sheer horror. Women, men and small children all recoil backward, as though Jack’s words are an incendiary and they’re likely to set the very air alight.

  “Sedition!” someone cries from the other side of the rooftop. The word is echoed over and over again, catching in the throats of at least two hundred people. “Sedition! Blasphemy!” I find myself staring straight at a woman on the other side of the clearing, dress torn and dirtied, a hand pressed protectively against the chest of a young boy, presumably her son. Tears streak down her face, creating runnels in the grimy patina marking her skin; her mouth makes the soundless shape of a word: why? She says the rest with her eyes. Why are you doing this to us? Why are you inviting damnation upon our heads?

  I clasp my hands over my mouth, not really believing what’s just happened. One moment Ryka and I are standing firmly at the front of the gathering, the next our bodies are being shoved and pushed, staggering forward and to the left as the residents of Freetown go crazy.

  “Raksha!”

  “There must be sacrifice!”

  Not knowing what to do, the people all look to each other, making outraged sounds that never really form into full words, pulling at shirts and dresses as if to rouse their neighbours into the same terrified madness they have descended into.

  How can he say that?

  How can he speak those words?

  We’ll die. We’ll die. We will all die!

  Jack has, with his few chosen words, caused a devastating storm that will never pass for him now. He has just lost his place in Freetown, right before our eyes.

  “Gods…” Ryka breathes. He reaches out to me, grabbing hold of my hand to make sure we’re not pulled apart by the movement of the crowd. “Gods save us. What…what is he doing?”

  “He’s making a stand.”

  Of course that’s what he’s doing. His granddaughter is more precious to him than his position as leader of Freetown. His grandson is more precious to him than the respect of an entire city. He will not stand idly by and watch the priestesses waste more lives than have already been lost, or allow his grandchildren to be hurt any further because of the Faith’s constant struggle to control the people and bend them to their will.

  He lifts his chin, firmly staring down the people who hurl abuse at him, so upset by his words that even more of the women are crying now. In amongst the wildly reacting people, a few bewildered faces glance around, as if trying to work out what the hell is going on—the people of the Sanctuary; those who chose or were chosen to escape. After their sheltered life back in the Sanctuary, they can’t possibly kn
ow how inflammatory Jack’s words are. How Freetown will perceive them as a threat to the safety of their families and loved ones. Caius and Foster are the only members of the Sanctuary who aren’t standing still. They’re pushing their way through the people, fighting to reach the other side of the rooftop. To get to Ryka and I? By the looks of it, yes. As I watch them, I catch sight of another familiar face, pushing and shoving, too. It’s James. The crowd parts more easily for him, knowing his face, and his reputation, and choosing to scramble out of his way before getting hurt. He’s heading in the opposite direction to Caius and Foster, though, headed straight toward Jack.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know. But if he even thinks about—” Ryka’s cut off as James pulls a blade from his belt. Ryka’s face contorts into disbelief. In a short second, he has his own blades in his hands. “He’s going to kill him!”

  He is as well. James advances on Jack with a stoic determination on his face. His hands are full of steel, serrated and wicked as filed teeth. My heart slams against my ribcage as I see his trajectory and know he will reach the old man before we can stop him. Ryka leaps into action, charging forward, but the sick twisting in my stomach tells me he’s going to be too late.

  Ryka is twelve feet away from Jack, but James is a mere three. I react without thinking. I snatch up my throwing knives and spin them over in my hands, and then…they’re gone.

  I’m crouched close to the floor, not breathing as the metal sails past Ryka’s head, and then they hit their target. The knives don’t exactly reach the mark I was intending, though. James’ face is entirely blank as he twists his body, almost upon Jack, and then he turns. My knives land, one, two, imbedding deep within the top of his right arm and his back.

  They don’t stop him.

  He reaches for Jack, grabs hold of the old man’s arm, and then his knife is plunging upward. A startled gasp escapes me, all oxygen vanishing from my lungs. No. No, he can’t…

  Jack falls sideways to the ground as James thrusts him out of the way and propels his blade upwards in a violently powerful sweep. The sharpened steel makes contact with the man standing behind Jack. The man who was about to sink a knife of his own into Jack’s back. James gives the knife a twist, grimacing with the effort as the other man rises onto his tiptoes, a last ditch and entirely futile attempt to back away from the weapon that’s already hilt deep in his stomach. The soot-stained man, a fighter by the looks of the weapons around his waist, blinks in surprise at James, and then a river of blood flows swiftly from his open mouth. He drops to his knees, stiff as a board, and topples sideways, dead eyes blindly staring into nothingness.

  Ryka helps Jack up from the ground, staring wildly around, presumably looking out for any further assault. I rush forward, choking on my own breath. He wasn’t going to kill him. James wasn’t going to kill Jack. He saved his life, and…and oh, Gods…I stabbed him. Twice!

  James sags to his knees as I arrive at their side, feeling dazedly over his shoulder, trying to reach for my blade, which is still sticking out of him.

  “Don’t! Don’t. You’ll bleed to death.” I lightly touch my fingertips to the handle of the knife, not knowing what to do. James tilts his head up to me and grins sardonically.

  “Bet you enjoyed that, kitty cat.”

  “I thought…”

  “I know what you thought.” He’s pale, but he seems to be somehow getting over the shock of being impaled by two throwing knives. He turns to Ryka, who is making his way toward us. “Get the old man downstairs, Ry. You need to get him out of here before the priestesses come. There’ll be holy hell if they arrive and decide he’s said enough to warrant his death. The crowd are baying for it already.”

  James’ actions a moment ago—killing Jack’s attacker—has momentarily stunned the crowd enough to have calmed them down a little, but it won’t take long before they’re incensed again. People are trying to grab at us already. Even as I think this, Ryka stabs one of them swiftly straight through the tendons across the back of his shovel-like hand so that the blade juts out of his palm. A spurt of bright red blood jets out of the wound when he snatches back the weapon. The guy looks stunned, but unbelievably he doesn’t back down. Ryka casts a sharp, warning glare at him, letting him know he has no qualms doing it again if he has to, and somewhere a lot more damaging. I turn to remove his grandfather from the melee, but Jack is on his feet and has knives in his hands. “Come on, old man!” I yell.

  “I’m not going anywhere. Let them come,” he growls. “This has to stop, Ryka. There has to be a stop to it.”

  Ryka looks torn. He wants this; he wants to show defiance to the High Priestess and the others, and he wants revenge for what they did to his sister, but it’s obvious that he sees how impossible this situation is. A low grumble reaches us on the wind, carrying the voices of the people on the other rooftops to us. Goodness knows that they think is happening over here, unable as they were to have heard Jack’s speech.

  “Go now,” James repeats, his voice a little breathless as he rises to stand. “You need to make him.” He raises dark eyebrows at Ryka, stressing his words. Ryka swallows, takes one look around at the horrified faces of the people that surround us, and makes up his mind. He whirls around, rushing for Jack.

  “No time for heroics, old man.”

  Jack looks about ready to clock Ryka over the head, but before he can so much as move a muscle, two things happen. The first: the priestesses arrive. The shouting had ceased as soon as James had stabbed the other fighter, but now even their urgent whispering and murmured cries stop, too. The mass of bodies part as the elegant forms of the priestesses glide across the rooftop, seemingly unfazed by the scene of dissention before them. And then the second thing, only audible because of the silence created by the priestesses’ arrival: the low hum of something distant. And mechanical.

  I know the noise. So does Ryka, and half a dozen other people on the rooftop, too. My legs suddenly go dreadfully numb. So soon. They’ve returned so soon.

  The Sanctuary.

  But honestly, what did I expect? I can’t have possibly thought they were going to leave us to regroup after having found us so quickly. They’re smarter than that, and so am I. I should have seen this coming. The distant hum of ships’ engines grows louder and louder, the sound of an angry swarm of bees. I search until I finally see them on the horizon: three black specs. They begin as small, dark stains against the blanched white of the sky, but they double and then triple in size with alarming speed. Everyone else has seen the approaching ships now, and they are rushing haplessly around the rooftop, pushing and shoving, climbing over one another in their attempts to flee down the single exit that leads back to the stairwell.

  “Unless you want all of these people blown to pieces I suggest you start…moving.” James winces, pulling the knife out of his arm.

  “There must be blood! There must be sacrifice!” the priestess exclaims, lifting her hands into the air. There’s panic in her voice, too—she realises the gravity of this situation, and she’s still demanding we stay here and fight one another. Freetown’s people are torn. The years and years of indoctrination, the belief that the priestesses must always be obeyed in order for them to survive, even now has them faltering in their tracks. But not for long.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!” The cry is muffled and then muted altogether—the man who shouted the words stumbles under the press of the bodies behind him, and then he is trampled underfoot. It’s impossible to make out what happens to him next, as the flow of bodies seethe forward, desperate to escape the ominous shapes hovering closer across the grasping fingers of the city’s broken spires and jagged towers.

  “No way are we gonna make it down,” Foster says. A man, rushing past, tries to grab the rifle that is hanging from his shoulder on its strap; Foster elbows him in the face, wrenching the weapon back. “This is chaos!”

  Caius shakes his head. “We can make it down. Look.” He points to the other s
ide of the rooftop, to the spot Foster took me and Caius only two days ago—the guide rail. Foster’s eyes instantly light up, but Jack shakes his head. “No. Not a chance.”

  A loud, blaring, bone-trembling sound rings out across the city—the same bass-filled alarm that came from the Sanctuary’s ship yesterday. It fills me with an instant and undeniable dread.

  James shivers, pressing his hand against the wound in his arm. “Come on.” For a man who’s just been stabbed twice, he can sure run pretty fast. He heads over to the guide rail, grabbing one of the scuffed metal casings from the ground, and inserting it into the bracket. “Here.” He grabs hold of my hand begins to thread the canvas loops over them. I pull back, trying to wrestle free.

  “No! James, you first. You’re injured.”

  He exhales sharply down his nose, almost smiling. “I’m touched, but no. You’re going first.”

  I turn around to object, to get someone to make him see sense…and I am greeted with a wall of stern faces. Ryka and Caius both glare at me, arms folded across their chests. Looks like I’m going first. A terrifying gust of wind blasts my back, pushing me forward, closer to the edge of the building.

  The alarm sounds again, this time causing tiny shards of concrete on the ledge of the Det to jump and bounce with the depth of the vibration. The ship is almost right on top of us. “Do it! Go now!” Ryka forces me forward, strong hands guiding me at the base of my spine. I turn, and there it is; bigger this time, and a matte grey-black, great barrel-sized vents blasting exhaust below, and a bank of windows facing directly at us. And through the windows…

  Gods. Lowrence. It’s…it’s my father.

  At least I think it’s him. My eyes could be playing tricks. I catch the briefest of glimpses, and then Ryka’s strong hands are shoving me forward, pushing me off the ledge.