“Artan!” William sat up. “You’re speaking! My god, how are you?” He laughed. “How do you feel?”
Before Artan replied, Olga kicked out a leg in William’s direction. “It’s not like I’m exhausted here or anything! You keep on, yeah?”
But screw Olga, she’d be pissed with him whatever he did.
His expression as blank as before, his cheeks sallow, his hair lank and greasy, almost as if it took on his current depressed state, Artan shrugged. “I need to pee.”
“I’ll go with you,” Matilda said, reaching across and touching the back of William’s arm. “We’ll be back in a minute.”
Max had also woken up, and as Matilda and Artan got to their feet, William winced. “Um … Max, can you go with them too, please?”
Olga tutted.
Matilda said, “We’ll be okay.”
“It might be a bright night, but it’s still night. There’s still a thousand shadows down there. The diseased could be in any of them. I know you can look after yourself, Tilly, but I would suggest Max chaperone anyone in this situation.”
“We’re only going to the bottom of this building.”
“Why can’t he just do it here?” Olga said.
William could take her abuse when she aimed it at him, but not at Artan and Matilda. “You’d want to, would you?”
Although Olga opened her mouth, Matilda spoke first. “He can’t pee in front of other people. It won’t come out.”
“What the hell?”
“Stop being a dick, Olga,” Matilda said.
Olga might have complained, but Max had already got to his feet.
Matilda dropped down to the ground first, then Artan, followed by Max, Olga reaching out and holding his hand as he passed.
The second they were out of sight, Olga started again. “Why did you ask Max? Matilda can look after herself.”
“You know why. Now give it a rest for once, yeah?”
When she stood up, William tensed. He didn’t want to fight her, but he’d had enough of her bullshit.
Despite the venom she directed his way through her narrowed eyes, Olga walked to the window and peered out.
“The kid gets stage fright and you’re going to watch him?”
“I’m not watching him, I’m making sure they don’t get into any trou—”
It took a lot to stop Olga mid flow. William joined her at the window. “Shit!” Silhouettes closed in around Artan, Matilda, and Max. He counted eight, but it could be more. “Where did they come from?”
When Olga moved away from the window, William caught her arm.
A wild animal, Olga stepped up to him and bared her teeth. “What the hell are you doing? We need to go down there. I know you’re a spineless weasel, but don’t bottle it now. Especially as you just sent Max with them. Try to do the right thing for once in your pathetic life.”
An argument wouldn’t serve anyone. Instead, William pulled Olga back and pointed out the window.
“What am I looking at?”
A collection of fallen towers in the distance, similar to one they were currently in. “Look at the tallest of the three towers over there, and then look to the one to the left of it.”
Because of his proximity to Olga, he felt the tight wind of tension turning through her as if she might pop. She then fell loose. “Damn. How many do you think there are?”
Another building on their right had another sentry positioned on it. “I’ve no idea, but look, there’s one there, and one there—”
“And one there,” Olga said.
As the gang closed in around his friends, every fibre of his being told William to run down to them, and although Olga would probably follow him, it wouldn’t serve anyone. “We don’t stand a chance if we go down there now.”
A man’s voice rang through the still city. “Drop your weapons. Now!”
“So … what?” Olga said. “We let them get taken?”
The clatter of steel sounded as Max, Matilda, and Artan discarded their swords.
“If they’d wanted them dead, they would have already killed them.”
Three gang members moved in. They bound Matilda’s, Artan’s, and Max’s hands behind their backs. The one behind Artan waited a few seconds longer as the boy continued to empty his bladder.
“Clearly not got stage fright now, has he?” Olga said. “I still think we should go to them. They might not kill them here, but there are a lot worse things than death. Especially for that pretty little thing of yours down there.”
Bile churned in William’s gut. “Are you trying to make this worse?”
“I’m just questioning the wisdom of holding back.”
“If we follow them, we can work out where they’re going and rescue them.”
“I think it’s a bad choice.”
“Worse than us getting captured too?”
Olga ground her jaw.
“I didn’t think so. It kills me to watch this happen, but we stand no chance trying to fight that lot. You need to trust me.”
“Like you’ve done anything to earn my trust!”
“Change your tune, Olga. Hopefully they don’t know about us, and they don’t know about Max’s invulnerability. If we’re patient, those two things will work in our favour.”
“So you’re putting the responsibility on Max to fix this?”
William clenched his jaw to stifle his scream. “Will you stop fighting me about everything? Believe me, this is the hardest thing in the world, and if anything happens to Matilda, I won’t ever forgive myself. But I genuinely don’t believe we can help by going down there now. We need to follow them and come up with a better plan.”
Although a man had spoken first, a small girl, who must have been younger than William, stepped forward. “Where is he?”
“Where’s who?” Matilda had taken it on herself to speak for the group. A good thing too; she had the sharpest wit of anyone William had met.
“Hugh!”
“How does she know Hugh?” Olga said.
Before William could comment, the girl added, “That little shit punched me when I was on guard at the national service gates. He was the one who left the gate open! The one responsible for this mess.”
Olga gasped.
“He’s dead,” Matilda said. “He died in the city.”
“Like pretty much everyone else! Death is better for him than what we had planned.”
A large man stepped into the moonlight. He had red hair and a thick beard. “That’s Rayne,” William said.
The ex-protector pointed at Matilda. “I know you. You were always with that little prick Ranger hated. Where is he?”
“Dead,” Matilda said.
“That’s a shame. Normally we’d extend an olive branch to see if you wanted to join our community.”
“I’d rather die than join you lot.”
“She’s not doing herself any favours down there,” Olga said.
Rayne shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart. I think we should take you to Magma. See what he and his boy want to do with you.”
The words plummeted through William’s stomach.
While waving a broadsword at his three prisoners, Rayne said, “Move. Now.”
Olga’s voice crackled as she spoke in a throaty whisper. “So like I just said, why should I trust you? Is there anything else you’ve not told me? It’s kind of a big deal that Hugh left the gate open, you know? When were you planning on sharing that with me?”
“You saw the state he was in at the end of our time on national service.”
“So I’m supposed to forgive him for killing almost everyone I cared about?”
William sighed and lowered his gaze. “No, and I’m not sure I do either.”
“And on top of that, you still decided Max wasn’t worth saving the first time round? You and your little girlfriend—”
“Don’t start on Matilda.”
“Or what?”
William clamped his jaw
shut.
“So you and your little girlfriend thought you’d leave Max? Even if I discount Hugh’s judgement—as you said, the boy had clearly lost the plot by then—what am I to think of yours?”
Olga turned to walk away again and William grabbed her arm, harder this time. White light smashed through his vision and his cartilage crunched from where she punched him on the nose. Fire tore through his sinuses and his eyes streamed, the coppery taste of blood running down the back of his throat. He hadn’t seen the punch coming, and the ring of steel didn’t prepare him for the sword tip levelled at his face.
The shuffling of bricks and rubble beneath them announced the appearance of another group of people. Mostly men, six or seven of them, they must have been waiting nearby. They followed those who’d taken Matilda, Max, and Artan prisoner. Several more groups of similar sizes appeared from the dark ruins surrounding them.
A diseased’s scream rose and died in the distance as another gang dispatched it.
The slow grind of steel as Olga sheathed her sword. “Okay, you were right. We would have been slaughtered down there. But don’t think I’ve forgiven you for covering for Hugh, it’s just that we have more pressing matters. So what do we do now, genius?”
His nose in a pinch to stop the blood flow, William said, “I won’t let anything happen to them. I say we wait five minutes to give all the others time to expose themselves. Then we follow them.”
Her face still locked with a bitter twist, Olga said, “If this goes wrong, I’m holding you responsible.”
Chapter 5
William had to let go of his nose to climb down from the ruins. By the time he found solid ground again, blood coated his front, the fabric lying damp against his chest. While Olga descended to be beside him, he tore a small strip from the bottom of his shirt and then tore that strip in two. He twisted each piece of fabric into a tight wad before plugging each nostril. Despite the shadows surrounding them, the moonlight revealed Olga’s smirk. “Idt’s dot funny!”
Her face dropped. “Neither’s finding out Hugh caused the collapse of Edin. And even worse, you deciding I didn’t need to know that!”
Their view impaired now they were lower down, they waited for about a minute before Olga led them out of the ruined tower and in the direction of their friends. They both had their swords drawn, William’s tired eyes stinging from trying to take in his dark surroundings.
A crescent moon in the cloudless sky, it gave them some light to plan their route out of there, but it did little to warn them of the smaller rocks and debris in the abandoned streets. One of the metal rods tore across William’s right shin. When he reached down to rub it, he grazed his knuckles on a nearby wall.
Were Olga not moving at such a pace, William might have slowed to tend to his pains, but she flew through the landscape with the grace and agility of a squirrel. Until she stopped dead.
Just as William caught up to her, she drove her sword into the darkness. The wet squelch of steel sank into flesh. The rancid reek of vinegar and rot. A diseased dropped to its knees, folded forward, and sprawled across the road.
His pulse raging, his lungs tight, William gripped his sword and waited, spinning one way and then the other. But no more diseased appeared. For now.
The gang and their friends remained out of sight. The second the diseased had fallen, Olga had set off again. William bit back the urge to call after her. How the hell did she move so easily? She traveled as if she had night vision, stepping up on rocks and leaping from one ruin to the next. William scraped his other shin, smashed his shoulder into a wall, and stumbled, nearly dropping his sword as he fought to maintain his balance.
They charged up a slight incline. The top of the hill, along with the large ruins running along it, blocked their line of sight. Was it naive to expect his friends to be just over the brow? What if they’d vanished?
Close to the ruined towers William had seen the first sentries in, he squinted, but it did little to penetrate the darkness. Hopefully they’d moved on with the rest of the gang.
The road clearer and better lit as they drew closer to the brow of the hill, William quickened his pace, catching up with Olga. And a good job too. The wind at their backs, he would have heard it much sooner had the breeze been coming towards them. He reached out to his short friend.
In his panic, he gripped too hard and Olga spun around with her sword raised. Again. A finger pressed across his lips, he spoke in a whisper. “Listen!”
The snarl of diseased close by. The whites of Olga’s eyes stood out on her face.
“They’re just over the hill,” William said.
Olga nodded.
William pointed at the tower they’d seen a sentry in. “We can hide out in there.”
Olga nodded again, this time letting William take the lead.
The cries of multiple diseased over the brow of the hill, it sounded like a war between them and the people who’d caught Matilda, Artan, and Max. They were farther away than William had hoped. The warriors met the diseased’s screams with war cries of their own. The sound of hacking and slashing, the frenzy of their joint enemy gradually quietened.
Despite not being able to see the battle, William’s attention remained over the hill as he slipped through the crumbling doorway of the tower. A diseased then slammed into him, sending him stumbling as he reached out to hold it back. In his face, it smothered him with its rancid breath. Its mouth stretched wide in a scream as it leaned closer, his arms shaking from its pressure.
A flash of silver to his right, Olga stabbed the thing in the face. Another rich and sickening waft of rot and vinegar, the creature fell away.
His sword ready for the next one, the creature burst from the shadows. William chopped at its neck, bracing for the resistance of blade hitting flesh. But it never came. The thing had ducked. It ducked! “What the hell?”
The woman jumped up, screaming as loud as a diseased.
William leaped back, her sword missing his front by inches.
Olga filled the distance between them. The woman backed into a corner, avoiding her attack. She screamed, “We have more prisoners here!”
Olga swung her sword a second time. Sparks strobed through the darkness, the clang of her blade hitting the wall.
The space too tight for William to rejoin the battle with his sword, he picked up half a brick from the ground. While wrapping a tight clench around the rough lump, he wound back and waited for a clear shot. Olga ducked the woman’s next attack and he launched it.
He scored a direct hit, the tonk of brick against skull like he’d hit a tree. The woman remained on her feet, but she swayed.
Olga drove her sword into the woman’s chest.
The woman gasped, fell against the wall, and slid to the ground. The moonlight showed her mouth still working, her eyes wide, her skin puce. Although she huffed a desperate wheeze, she had no chance of getting the gang’s attention.
William’s grip turned weak on the hilt of his sword. But Olga had already stabbed her, so he needed to do this. “She’s a diseased, she’s a diseased, she’s a diseased.” He tightened his fist before thrusting the tip of his blade into her temple. The bone yielded much like it would with a diseased, the woman silenced much like she would were she diseased. Yet the weight of his heart trebled in that moment. It didn’t matter what he said to himself to get through, he’d just ended another human being, executed her at her most vulnerable. “Diseased are one thing,” he said. “A fellow human, no matter how abhorrent …”
“Come on,” Olga said, pulling on his sleeve as she spoke with a softness he’d not heard from her before. “We’ve not got time for remorse. We need to get out of here before they come looking for her.”
William let her lead him away, his legs weak as he negotiated the ruins in search of a safer spot to hide.
Chapter 6
Guided by Olga, William’s steps were wobbly from his strength having left him. They’d had to silence the woman, but it didn’t
change the fact he’d just murdered her. He stumbled on a rock in their path, his stomach lurching from where he nearly fell. They had to get away from there. Someone must have heard the woman scream.
They burst from the ruins into what had once been a main road. A pack of diseased on their right. Four of them, they screeched and William yelled as he cut one down.
Panting from where she’d dispatched the other three, Olga wrapped a tight grip on William’s sleeve again and dragged him away for a second time.
They darted behind a wall on the brow of the hill. About six feet tall, it hid them from the battle raging in the valley below. Olga let go of him, sheathed her sword, and pulled herself up to peer over.
Several more diseased flashed past on William’s left. They paid their fallen brethren no mind as they vanished from sight to join in the battle on the other side.
The moonlight shining off her sweating face, Olga turned to William and whispered, “You need to see this.”
The top of the rough wall cut into William’s hands, his arms too weak to support his weight. He dropped down again, scraping the old brickwork with the toe of his boot until he found a small protrusion to stand on. Matilda would have found the ledge instantly.
The ruins stretched out below them, dipping into a crater at least a thousand feet wide. The moon ran a highlight over the devastated landscape. At the very bottom, at the base of the bowl, Matilda, Artan, and Max remained bound. A circle of guards protected them for now.
As the diseased flooded into the crater from every side—some tripping and falling, some riding the momentum of the steep slope—the guards held their ground and dropped those who came too close. Another pack of seven diseased flashed past on William’s left.
“I don’t think they can keep this up,” Olga said. “Sooner or later, the diseased will overwhelm them.”
“But there’s more guards than I thought,” William said. Hard to tell in the chaos, but it looked like at least forty of them, if not more.
Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin Page 3
