Road's End (The Narrow Gate Book 4)

by Janean Worth

  Once again, Kara wondered what control the man had over them. He was tiny and frail. They could not possibly be afraid of him. So why did they listen to him, guard him, and call him Master?

  A moment later, the Custodian spoke to her, as she stood trembling near the edge of the platform with a chance at freedom seeming very close.

  “They say that there is much going on above on the surface.” His tone was taunting and filled with malicious glee. “To the north, they say that guards from the place you call GateWide have gathered to fight other men that they have seen lately in the city aboveground. These men have been searching for you. To the south, more of the guards gather and hide, waiting for your others to be brought to them by a girl who leads them away from the city and your place of hidden protection.”

  Her others? Did he mean the Strays? Someone was leading them back to the Old Forest, into a trap of waiting Enforcers?

  Kara groaned aloud, unable to contain her horror. Someone had come during her absence and ferreted the Strays away? How had Otto let this happen?

  Anguish ripped through her. She knew she should never have left them. They were once again in danger. What would happen to them if they were taken back to the House? She was sure she knew, and she could not bear the thought.

  She clapped her hands over her mouth, trying to hold in a sob. The Custodian already seemed to be enjoying this horrendous development, and she did not want to provide him with any more to entertain his sick sense of enjoyment. He seemed to delight in others’ pain.

  The Strays would surely die. And there was nothing she could do about it. She was captive to this insane man and his horde of tamed Fidgets.

  She looked around, seeking something to help her escape, but there was nothing there that hadn’t been there before when she’d looked. Nothing there to help her.

  The Custodian laughed, as if he knew what she was thinking.

  “No, there is no escape. You will be my companion as long as I desire it. Long after your others have been killed and their bones have rotted away, you will be here, with me.”

  Kara squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to even think about such torment, but she couldn’t stop the single tear that escaped to track down her cheek.

  She had to find a way to help the Strays. A way to warn the citizens of GateWide. She had to. But how?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gabert was on the ground again, half lying in a pile of moldering leaves, his chest burning with pain as if a fire had been lit inside his ribcage. He could not move. His last fall from the back of the horse had brought such debilitating pain in his ribs that he was all but paralyzed with it. But he could watch, and what he saw horrified him.

  His companions of the previous few weeks—those from the Narrow Gate—fought the Enforcers who had found the path that Gabert had so carelessly left in the Old Forest. The path that had led them nearly to the Narrow Gate itself.

  Gregory, Mathew’s father, fought the fiercest. But the others put up a good fight, too.

  However, from his place upon the ground, Gabert could see their handicap, and the reason that they would lose the fight, though the outcome was far from obvious. Those from the Narrow Gate, the Believers who strove to do the right thing, would not injure or kill the Enforcers. The Enforcers had no such qualms, and fought with a ferocity and disregard for human life and suffering that the others lacked. This had been taught to them by the Sovereign, and in that fight, it served them well. The Believers were no match for the Enforcers’ killing fervor.

  Gabert shuddered in pain and tried once again to climb to his feet to help. He had endured the same training as the Enforcers; he knew what to expect. He could help the Believers, if only he could stand.

  Groaning, he rolled, trying to gain his feet, but all that he accomplished was wallowing in the leaves, disturbing a nest of beetles beneath him. They proved as useless as he was, fleeing into the forest away from the melee surrounding them.

  Gabert saw Gregory go down after one of the Enforcers clubbed him a savage blow. Another Believer rushed to help, but he was tackled from behind by another Enforcer, then easily clubbed into submission.

  Therese came running from the direction of the Gate, an object held in her hand, her skinny old legs covering ground much too slowly. Before she could activate whatever Old Tech that she had in her hand, one of the Enforcers pulled his gun from his belt and shot her. Therese dropped the Old Tech, her hand immediately clutching the spurting wound in her thigh.

  Gabert’s mind froze with the horror of the moment. He fought against his bonds, uncaring that his chest burned so badly that it felt as if he would combust.

  “NO!” he shouted as Therese fell to the ground, her eyes round with shock and pain. “No!”

  The Believers all around them were being summarily dispatched. They lay strewn across the ground, most wounded and moaning, but Gabert feared that a few of them might be dead.

  Unable to rise, unable to even breath now that the pain in his ribs had grown so great, Gabert shut his eyes, also unable to watch.

  The Narrow Gate, the place of hope for all Believers, the nearly utopian settlement that would have brought an end to pain and suffering for so many, was surely now lost.

  Because of him. Because of him!

  If it were possible to die of misery, Gabert knew that he would have expired at that very moment. If it were possible to wish oneself dead, he would have done it already, for he could not bear this final shame of his—this last, terrible failure.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gemma knew they were nearing the rendezvous place. Soon her task for the Sovereign would be complete and her people would be freed. They could then go back to their little village and try to forget that any of this had ever happened. Except, she knew that she would not be able to forget. Even now, she felt a desperate, last minute need to stop this foul deception and tell the others what she had done.

  The only thing that stopped her was the thought of what the Sovereign would do to the rest of her people if she did not complete his task, and her own certainty that she could not make it in the world alone. Though she had often eschewed their company, she needed her people. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed them before they’d all been dragged off to GateWide. She had always been a loner, disdaining the social activities of her settlement and opting instead for her own company. Gemma saw what a mistake that had been. She’d missed out on so much through her own selfishness, and now some of those whom she had neglected to spend time with were gone forever, put to a premature death by the Sovereign.

  She shuddered as the memories of their painful deaths, which she’d been forced to watch, played out in her mind in a horrifying tableau. She could not bear to think of that happening to the rest of her people—the only people alive who loved her, cared for her, knew her. She could not bear it.

  Gemma knew that she’d forever feel the guilt and pain of turning the Strays over to the Sovereign and allowing them to suffer in the place of her people, but that pain would surely be less than the pain of being alone and knowing that she could have prevented the death of her people. The Elders and children and the hard working, kind‑hearted women and men who were left deserved to live.

  Gemma fingered the small object in her pocket, wishing that she could crush the thing beneath her heel. If not for that one tiny device and her fascination with it, her people would not be in danger, and she would still be happy and carefree. And the Strays whom she was taking to their doom would still be protected in the sanctuary with their metal giant to look after them, not exposed in the Old Forest while a group of Enforcers waited to take them back to the House.

  Just ahead, the gurgling of the river announced their nearness to the life‑giving water source, and to the Enforcers’ hidden camp. The Strays had only a few more moments of freedom left. Bitterness flooded Gemma’s mouth with a sour taste and she felt like retching. Regret sliced her deeply. She felt sick with her own actions.

&n
bsp; She glanced at the girl, Merrilee, riding so trustingly at her side. The girl was tiny for her age, and still gaunt and damaged from her previous enslavement in the House. Gemma knew that Merrilee would not last long once she was returned. That is, if the Sovereign didn’t kill all of them outright.

  At the thought, Gemma selfishly hoped that he would wait until she and her people were gone, so she did not have to witness the consequences of her actions this day.

  Ahead, a thick copse of trees came into view. Just beyond that, Enforcers lay in wait.

  Gemma gulped, feeling her heartbeat escalate. She had only moments to change her mind. To save Merrilee and the others from their fate.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the last two Grandfathers in her mind, and she did nothing to save the Strays.

  They entered the copse and immediately the Enforcers were upon them. The Sovereign’s guards leapt out of bushes, from behind trees, surprising the Strays completely. The men easily dragged the Strays from their saddles, throwing them to the ground like rags and binding their hands and feet quickly with thick, rough ropes.

  Gemma turned her face away, unable to watch. And as she did, her gaze met that of the woman, Hertha, who had accompanied them from the sanctuary.

  With a start, Gemma realized that only she and the woman had been left mounted atop their horses and free from bondage. That could only mean that she and the woman were known to the Enforcers and the Sovereign, and were working at his tasks. Gemma realized that the woman must be a traitor to the Strays. As was she . . .

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A roar of terrible wrath split the air of the Old Forest, vibrating Gabert’s eardrums with the force of it. His eyes snapped open and he gaped at the sight before him. Tracken were leaping into the clearing from all sides, their huge, lithe forms taking down Enforcers all over the clearing. The animals had no trouble subduing the men; their surprise attack had been too swift for any defense, even though some of the Enforcers had been holding weapons.

  In seconds, every single Enforcer was on the ground, held down beneath the massive paws and heavy weight of the powerful tracken. Others prowled among the wounded Believers, sniffing at them, and . . .

  Gabert blinked . . . Were the beasts crying over the wounded Believers? He could not believe his eyes. Why would these vicious animals cry over the wounded?

  A huge animal, the largest of them all, stepped out of the deepening dusky shadows at Gabert’s back. The beast bent down to sniff at his face and then his clothing, knocking against him with a broad, bony head. Gabert groaned in pain, but then he went silent with sudden realization. He was about to get his wish for a quick death. He recognized the beast standing over him. It was the huge male from the House. Tiber was his name. The most vicious of all of the enslaved tracken.

  “Tiber,” he choked out. “I’m glad to see you.”

  Tiber growled, the sound low and mean and filled with the promise of retribution for all of the pain that Gabert had caused in the past.

  “No, I really am glad to see you,” Gabert wheezed. “You don’t know what you’ve done today. What you’ve saved . . . Thank you . . .”

  Tiber snuffled his face again, then stepped back, glaring down into Gabert’s eyes with a glowing amber gaze, long teeth bared.

  “You don’t know what to make of me, do you?” Gabert wheezed, amused despite the situation and his pain. “I still smell like the Enforcer you knew, yet my words of gratitude confuse you.”

  Tiber chuffed, once. Loudly. The animal was so close that Gabert felt its warm breath upon his cheek.

  Then Tiber left him, walking away with feline grace to join the others, leaving Gabert lying there in his pain.

  Tiber visited each man and woman in the clearing in turn, sniffing at them and then moving on to the next, until he came to Gregory. And then the massive beast bent his head and a single tear fell upon the bloody wound on the unconscious man’s neck.

  Gabert watched in shocked amazement as Gregory stirred almost immediately. When Gregory sat up, meeting the eyes of the huge beast that hovered over him, he let out a yelp of surprise and scurried backward, crablike, before he seemed to recognize the animal.

  “Tiber?” Gregory gasped. “You are finally freed?”

  Tiber closed his eyes and bent his head as if in acknowledgement.

  “Thank the Creator!” Gregory said, his face splitting into a smile. “We were not sure that Mathew and Kara had succeeded in freeing you.”

  The others around the clearing began to rise. To Gabert’s surprise, even Therese seemed much improved after having a beast visit her.

  “The tears . . . ?” he whispered. “Is it the tears?”

  Tiber’s sharp ears picked up his faint utterance. The beast looked toward him and nodded slowly.

  “Amazing . . .” Gabert gasped.

  “Gabert is one of us now, Tiber. A Believer,” Gregory said.

  Tiber snorted and shook his head.

  Gregory smiled. “I know he has done evil, even to you, in the past. But he is done with that. He is on the right path now. He no longer treads the wide path, but the narrow one.”

  Tiber chuffed.

  Gregory chuckled very quietly, “It is true.”

  Tiber slowly walked back over to Gabert, sniffing him loudly once again, and then pausing to stare down at him as if in indecision.

  Finally, with a haughty look, Tiber bent his head and one perfect tear welled from his eye and fell upon the gash on Gabert’s cheek.

  Immediately, Gabert’s pain lessened. Surely the beast was a miracle sent, just in time, by the Creator.

  “Thank you, Tiber. I know that I did not deserve your mercy, for I never gave you any when I had the chance.”

  Tiber chuffed again, as if in agreement this time, then turned to stroll back to Gregory, his gait sinuous and feline‑graceful.

  Gregory climbed to his feet and then, with Tiber at his side, moved to each Enforcer in turn. He and the others quickly had the unresisting Enforcers trussed up—ironically using ropes from their own saddlebags that had, no doubt, been intended for the Strays.

  “What are you going to do with us?” one of the Enforcers asked.

  “I will not show you the location of the Narrow Gate,” Gregory said. “So, there is no choice but to take you back into the Old Forest and leave you there, so that you can find your own way back to GateWide. Unless you would prefer the Mire?”

  The Enforcer shook his head, “No. I wouldn’t prefer the Mire.”

  “Then the Old Forest it is,” Gregory said.

  “We will find you again, Gregory,” another Enforcer said, looking sullen.

  “With our tracken friends here, helping us, I don’t think you will,” Gregory said, smiling cheerfully at the man. “We will soon move the location of the Narrow Gate once again.”

  The man snarled at him, then spat on the ground.

  “Won’t matter. After the Sovereign destroys GateWide, he’ll be sending us after you again. You can’t stay hidden forever,” he said, an expression of smug satisfaction upon his face.

  Gabert struggled clumsily to a sitting position, wishing that someone would untie him soon, but glad that the worst of the pain was fading.

  “What do you mean, after he destroys GateWide?” Gabert asked, wriggling about, trying to gain his feet. Therese saw his dilemma and moved quickly to help, her fingers plucking at the ropes that bound his hands.

  The Enforcer’s smug smile grew wider. “You’ll see. We found some Old Tech that the Sovereign was real excited about. I heard him talking how he’s going to use it to ‘cleanse’ GateWide, so he can start fresh somewhere else.”

  “And what about the people? Everyone who lives in GateWide?” Gabert asked, a creeping, cold dread beginning to crawl up his spine.

  “What about them?” the Enforcer said, shrugging. “I don’t have no family. Not many friends neither. The Enforcers are all I need. And they’re going with the Sovereign, so what do I care wha
t happens to the rest?”

  “I care. I still have family there,” Gabert muttered.

  “As do I,” Therese said, surprising him.

  The Enforcer spat upon the ground again, as if to illustrate how little the lives of the citizens of GateWide meant to him.

  Gregory looked grim, sharing a glance with Therese, who mirrored his expression.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” one of the other Believers said. “If he is planning to destroy GateWide, we need to set our plan in motion now.”

  “But it isn’t ready!” Therese gasped. “How can we hope to succeed?”

  “We will have to have faith in the Creator, as always, Therese. It is the only way,” Gregory said. “You know that helping them is the right thing to do. We can do nothing else. We must go to their aid.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Sovereign smiled with unrestrained glee. Soon, he’d be rid of the betraying Strays, the tedious citizens of GateWide, the few hidden Believers with their uncrushable belief in the One True God, and all but the most loyal of his Enforcers. He would begin his new reign in a new place, a better place. He would bring with him his new, stronger slaves and his loyal Enforcers.

  All of his preparations had been made. All of his Old Tech and the few necessities he needed for everyday life had been packed up in massive trunks and moved to the bed of an enormous wagon in the stable. Of the few remaining horses in the stable, those that had been recaptured after those filthy Strays had let them loose outside the walls, two of the largest would pull the wagon when he left and ten more would be hitched to his special carriage, which he had not had to use in years. With all of the preparations made, he only awaited the return of his Enforcers and the Strays.

  Such was his anticipation of what would soon come that he had considered leaving GateWide ahead of schedule and deploying the bomb early, before his Enforcers returned with the Strays they’d captured. He could barely contain his excitement, but he had managed to restrain himself, only because it would be ever so much more enjoyable to know that the filthy, betraying, arrogant Strays were inside GateWide when he activated the Old Tech. And knowing that he was finally rid of them would be worth the wait.