As if answering William’s call, Max sprang forward to take down the next diseased. He lunged with his spear, drove it through the eye of one of the creatures, and pulled it back out again before the thing fell. Back next to William, he said, “Trust me. If I need to, and if it will help, then I will.”
“You need to.”
“We’re at the mercy of the hunters here. The diseased won’t go away until they stop, no matter what I do.”
The five of them fought as more diseased evaded the hunters, who still took down at least ninety percent of the encroaching creatures. But it only took one bite.
The drumming stopped and the flow of diseased slowed. Samson stamped his foot on the ground and threw his arms wide as he implored Slate’s tree. “What the hell are you doing? This isn’t what we agreed!”
Artan raised his eyebrows at William. Before William could react, the hunters jumped from the trees.
Slate smiled as wide as ever. “You can see how great this spot is for hunting. This is how we get so much meat. Anything running through here is lucky to get out of the other side alive.”
“You could have shown us another way,” William said. “Your little performance seemed a bit unnecessary.”
“But there’s nothing like a live demonstration.”
While Slate talked, Hawk marched past him. Despite Olga temporarily lifting his mood, a deep frown once again dominated his features. He moved with purpose, heading straight towards Max. The punch came from nowhere, knocking Max to the ground.
William stepped forwards, Slate’s spear flashing up in front of his face, the bloody tip of it just inches from his left eye. “I’d stay there if I were you.”
Hawk leaned over Max before kicking him in the stomach, driving a deep “oomph” from him. “This is for shoving me over, you prick.” Another hard kick. “This is payback for us having to deal with your bullshit. Who the hell do you think we are?” He made every point with a kick. “Women don’t play tri-rings. Women don’t hunt. And when I get back to Umbriel, I’m going to show your little bitch what women are good for.”
Dropping to his knees, Hawk grabbed Max beneath his armpits and pulled him upright. Max’s eyes rolled and his head flopped. Blood coated the bottom half of his face. “This is for making me clean your feet.” He headbutted Max, his forehead meeting Max’s nose with a crunch! When he let go of him, Max fell limp.
Slate grinned at William while the other hunters closed in. They outnumbered William and his friends at least five to one. William led the way in throwing down his weapons and raising his hands while Samson switched sides, joining the hunters. “Artan told me you were a snake. I should have—”
A ringing chimed through William’s skull when Slate punched him. His legs weakened, but he remained on his feet long enough to take another blow. The impact slammed white light through his vision before his world turned dark.
Chapter 35
William gasped as he choked on the frigid water. He rolled over, his left arm falling from the platform and hanging down. Artan caught him before the rest of his body followed, grabbed him by his shoulders, and spoke a gentle reassurance to him. “You’re okay. Breathe.”
Other than Matilda, no one could calm him as quickly. To look into the steady gaze of the boy he knew so well brought William’s heart rate down and helped him find his breaths.
Artan eased William to his feet. His legs still weak, he leaned on the boy to remain upright. Now he’d regained consciousness, the world began to make sense again, a throbbing ache running through his face from where Slate had punched him. The sounds of the diseased came at them from every angle. Their rich vinegar reek hung heavy in the air. Max and Cyrus were also with them. They were standing on a broken plinth made from the same grey stone he’d seen everywhere in the ruined city. They were about ten feet from the ground. Two horses and carriages like they’d used to get through Edin were in front of them. Ranger, Magma, Samson, and Slate stood on one. Warrior, Crush, and Trent on the other. Behind them, the cage he and Olga had rescued the others from when they went through the tunnels; in front, the hill they’d scaled. Magma’s fortress lay on the other side of the hill.
With four of them on the plinth, they had room to stand up and turn around, but nothing more. Hundreds of diseased gathered around them like they had his friends in the cage. They had nowhere to hide and no escape.
The loud ringing of a bell, it jangled through William, setting his already shot nerves on edge. Thank god Artan still had a hold of him, keeping him steady while he made sense of the world. Ranger continued ringing his bell, leaning back with his laughter, his fat mouth spread wide.
William turned to his friends first, Max stumbling where William nudged him before Artan grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. A nod passed between them.
William said, “What the hell is this?” But before they answered him, he turned to Samson. “You snake! This is your doing. What have you done? Where are Matilda and Olga? Where are the other hunters?”
Still laughing, Ranger stopped ringing his bell and took a moment to compose himself. He pressed the back of his hand to his nose as if it would help contain his glee. “This is payback, Spike.”
“That name died with my old life.”
“This is payback for all of your bullshit during national service. For the trials and how you and your muggy little friend Hugh behaved. Where is he?”
As much as William wanted to hide his sagging frame at the mention of his friend, he couldn’t fight the gravitational pull.
“Well, he’s better off dead. Otherwise, I would have made him pay for leaving Edin’s gates open.” Ranger flicked his hand at William and the others on the plinth. “It would have been worse than this. This is all his stupid fault, after all.”
“As wonderful as this little monologue is, Ranger, what the hell do you want?”
“I won’t be hurried. In case you haven’t noticed, we hold all the cards here.” While Ranger talked, the white horse pulling his carriage shifted, making the boy and those next to him sway with its movement. “Good job the protectors built a fortress, eh?”
“While they conned Edin’s residents into thinking they were worth something?” William said.
Magma wrung Jezebel’s handle, his already furrowed monobrow twisting harder.
“The protectors knew there were liabilities like Hugh living in Edin.” Ranger shrugged. “As much as they wanted to protect the place, there was only so much they could do. They needed to have a plan B.”
The others let Ranger speak. The boy had clearly been waiting a long time to deliver what sounded like a well-rehearsed condemnation of everything William stood for. The large black horse on the other carriage stepped several feet closer, several diseased screaming louder as they were crushed beneath its steps.
Cyrus yelled, startling William as the boy leaped from the plinth. Artan reached after him too late.
The gap seemed impossibly wide, but the boy made it, belly-flopping onto the roof of Trent’s carriage, his legs slamming against the wooden side with a whack! The large black horse grew agitated. The diseased shrieked and reached up at him, their hands beating against the carriage’s wooden panelling. Before Cyrus could pull himself onto the roof, Warrior grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him onto the carriage. He spun him over and slammed several blows into his face.
Max should have made that jump, not Cyrus. If the boy read William’s silent accusation, he ignored it.
Trent clambered into the driver’s seat, his long and slim body arachnid in its movements as he crossed the gap from the carriage to the bench. He steered his carriage closer to Ranger’s. Warrior and Crush dragged Cyrus up by lifting him from beneath his armpits. He hung like a rag doll, his body limp, blood dripping from his chin.
“Take him back to the fortress,” Magma said. “We should make an example of him. This is what happens to deserters. Trent, you will behead him in front of everyone.”
Trent’s already
pale skin turned several shades paler as he acquiesced to Magma’s request with a nod. He clicked at the horse, much like William had with Goliath, and turned them around before taking Cyrus, Crush, and Warrior towards the hill leading to Magma’s fortress.
Ranger grinned. The same smug face William had wanted to punch every single day of national service. “Well, it looks to me like you’ve lost, young man.”
“Screw you.”
“But we’ll come and visit. I reckon you might last a few days up here, keeping the diseased entertained and out of our way while we continue to build our walls.” The loud clanging bell pulled William’s shoulders into his neck. It riled up the diseased, aggravating another strong waft of rot and vinegar.
For most of Ranger’s speech, William fixed on Samson. “You’re going to pay for this.”
As pleased with himself as Ranger, Samson giggled. “I can’t believe you fell for it. We have a deal, you see. The hunters provide our society with meat, and we provide Grandfather Jacks with women.”
“You mean girls?” William said. “We saw those young girls with Rayne.”
Samson shrugged. “Females. Normally, it’s quite a straightforward process, but when we saw you leave Edin, we asked a little more of our friendship with Umbriel. Seeing as you and Ranger had history, it made it more personal. We wanted to have fun with you. Make you feel like you were getting somewhere, and all the while, we were waiting, ready to screw you over.” The large bald man grinned.
“What happened to the Samson we met in the arena? The Samson who was a great leader of people. Where’s he gone?”
“He was lost with the one hundred from the arena.”
“What really happened to them?”
“I saw an opportunity and took it. Good guys and bad guys? What kind of binary bullshit is that? The only distinction in this world now is dead or alive; I choose the latter. While they were being attacked, I left.”
“You abandoned them? You said you couldn’t help them.”
While jamming one of his thick thumbs into his chest, Samson’s voice shook. “I probably couldn’t have. So I chose to live, William. Judge me from the afterlife if you so wish. You might get bored waiting for me to show up though. I’m a survivor.”
There seemed little point in continuing the conversation.
Ranger said, “We’ve been watching you for days. It’s been so much fun. We watched you and Olga follow the bait we laid for you in that cage over there. We made you think you’d been so clever in rescuing your friends. Why didn’t you go through the tunnels first? Actually, I don’t really care. We used Samson to let you into the fortress, to make you think he was onside. We even let Cyrus join you, not that he knew anything about it. We sent you to Umbriel and they agreed to make you think you were good enough hunters to join them.” He winked at Max. “Hawk wanted to keep Olga.”
Slate snorted a laugh. “And we had so much fun shaving your heads.”
Samson moved so quickly, the first William knew of Slate tumbling from the carriage came when he screamed as he fell. Scores of diseased smothered him, hiding him from sight.
Magma raised Jezebel and turned on Samson. “What the hell was that about?”
“They shaved my head.”
“Of course they did. They needed to make it convincing.”
“But—”
Magma kicked Samson with such force he lifted from the roof of the carriage before falling into the mob below. The diseased smothered the big man as easily as they’d smothered Slate.
Just Magma and his son remained. After a few seconds, William threw his arms wide. “So where are Matilda and Olga?”
Ranger stood ashen faced, peering down on the now diseased Samson and Slate. Magma stepped forward, his thick hair tousled by the wind. “They’ve gone to be with Grandfather Jacks.”
“He’s a real person?”
“Yep. And he’s as mad as a box of frogs. Your little girlfriends are about to find out all about him. The other hunters have already returned to Umbriel so they can send them on their way. Maybe Hawk will have some fun with Olga first.”
“I’ve had enough!” Max then said. “I’m done.”
And maybe there hadn’t been a better time than now. At least he’d finally chosen to do it. William stood aside while Max kneeled down on the rough stone plinth, turned around and slipped off it backwards.
Ranger laughed to watch the boy take his own life. “You’re pathetic, you know that? Spike was always febrile during national service, and you were always weaker than him.”
The second Max landed amongst the diseased, he charged Ranger and Magma’s carriage. Barging the diseased aside, he used the step along the bottom of the carriage to boost himself. He reached out and grabbed Ranger’s right ankle.
Boom. Ranger landed on his back, the white horse twitching. Max dragged Ranger off, the boy reaching out to hold on too late, screaming as he vanished under a blanket of diseased.
A deep yell, Magma swung at Max, missing him, a wave of splinters bursting away from the gash he hacked into the carriage’s roof.
Max stepped on the windowsill, pushed up, and grabbed the front of Magma’s shirt. He pulled the protector off the carriage with him.
Magma landed a punch on Max before the diseased swarmed him. And a good job, because Max’s eyes were glazed when he got to his feet. One more blow would have knocked him out cold.
“Get control of the carriage,” William yelled.
Clarity shone through Max’s glaze. He climbed the carriage again, using the embedded Jezebel as a handle to pull himself up.
Still out of breath when he reached them, Max said, “I told you I’d use my invulnerability at the right time.”
“Right time?” William said. “We’ve just lost Cyrus.”
“I couldn’t have attacked them when there were two carriages. It’s a good job Samson and Slate went too. Any more than two of them and I wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
Artan jumped across to the carriage’s roof first, William hopping over a second later. From the driver’s seat, Max held the reins up, but William shook his head. He couldn’t form a bond with another horse like he had with Goliath.
“We need to get to Umbriel now,” Max said. “Hopefully we can get to Olga and Matilda before anything happens.”
Artan shook his head. “We need to get Cyrus first. Matilda’s my sister, and I love her more than anything, but we can’t pass Magma’s fortress and leave him there. I hate to think what they’ll do if we don’t rescue him.”
The anxiety in William’s stomach had claws. They couldn’t delay getting to Matilda and Olga. But he still nodded. “Artan’s right. Cyrus just put himself on the line for us.” He turned to Matilda’s brother. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you about Samson sooner. You had his number from the start.”
“We’ll make it right. We’ll save him and we’ll get Tilly and Olga back.”
“Can you lead us over that hill, Max?” William said. “We need to think of a way to get in and out of the fortress as quickly as possible.”
Max lay on his front on the roof of the carriage, William and Artan on either side of him as he led them towards the hill. The diseased were furious beneath them, but they were already losing interest now they couldn’t see them. Hopefully they’d leave the mob behind.
They passed Ranger on his right side. Now one of the diseased masses, the boy had several deep and glistening cuts on his face from where he’d been bitten. “Magma deserved everything he got,” William said, “but I can’t help feeling sorry for Ranger, even after everything. He was a sad little boy with no mum and a sociopath for a dad. They might have been tracking us for most of the time, but Olga and I saw how Magma spoke to him. The bullying seemed real. Ranger could never meet his dad’s expectations. He could have been someone very different had he been dealt better cards.” Diseased’s screams, the familiar sway of the carriage, the midday sun beating down on them as the three fell into silence.
&
nbsp; Max halted the carriage and slipped from the roof. The creatures had no interest in him, Ranger damn near oblivious as he slipped the boy’s sword and sheath from his back. He passed it up to William before taking his place in the middle again.
William hugged the weapon. “As much as I got used to having a spear, it feels good to have a sword again. Artan, you take Jezebel. I think we’ll be glad of these weapons soon.”
Chapter 36
Now they were close to the back wall of Magma’s fortress, William lifted his head. There were only a few diseased nearby, and none of them noticed him. “Well, at least it’s got us here without a fan club. Now we need to get through this as quickly as possible. Get in, get out, and get Olga and Matilda away from Umbriel.”
Both Max and Artan nodded.
They were about eight feet from the ground on the roof of the carriage. Not much lower than the spiked perimeter of Magma’s fortress. “There are huts over this back wall,” William said. “We jump it and we’ll land on the roofs.”
Artan and Max stared at him.
“I’ll go first.”
Artan and Max nodded.
In one fluid movement, William hopped up into a crouch, gripped one of the spiked points along the top of the wall, and vaulted over. Despite his prior knowledge, his stomach still leaped into his throat as he fell down the other side. A split second of doubt. What if the huts were farther along?
His fall was halted by the roofs of the huts he knew to be there. The shock of his landing ran up through his legs, and William rolled aside as Artan and then Max followed him over. Both of them had jumped blind, trusting his judgement.
When Max tried to stand up, William pulled him back down again. All three of them lay along the roof, William pointing up its slant. “The angle of these roofs means those on guard can’t see us as long as we stay down.”
Led by William, all three of them crawled on their stomachs up the roof’s slant and peered over the edge at the community. A crowd of maybe sixty had gathered by the main gates. A good chunk of the population. William said, “They must be waiting for Magma and Ranger’s carriage to return.”
Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin Page 17
