Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin

by Robertson, Michael

  “How long before they realise they’re not going to?” Max said.

  “Hopefully long enough for us to get Cyrus the hell out of here.”

  A tap on his shoulder, William followed where Artan pointed. Over by the fire, near the beheading block, stood Cyrus, his hands bound behind his back. Trent hovered close by, an executioner’s axe in his grip. The sight of the beanpole boy turned the acid in William’s stomach. Sure, he’d been the one to punch Trent when he’d wanted to get out of Edin, and he had to take responsibility for his part in their dispute, but Trent had taken it to a whole new level. “That’s good.”

  Max lifted his head to see Cyrus before pulling back down again. “Doesn’t look very good.”

  “No, you’re right,” William said. “It looks like they’re getting Cyrus ready to behead him. Olga and I had to watch them do it when we were in here looking for you three. They beheaded two boys and took a girl away. She must have been a gift for Grandfather Jacks. But what’s good about it is Cyrus is close to the back gate. Artan and I will go and free him while you go through it and clear a path on the other side. You can make sure we have a clear run. Also, as much as I hate this community, I’d rather not fight my way through it. Most of these people might have made a choice I wouldn’t have made, but they’re just trying to survive. The fact that Cyrus is away from the pack is a huge advantage.”

  “You want me to get the horse?” Max said.

  “I think we should go on foot. It might keep us away from the diseased on the carriage, but if we use it there are only certain paths we can take. I think it’ll slow us down too much. Make us too easy to catch.”

  Ranger’s sword sheathed on his back, William crawled along the roofs towards the fire, Artan taking up the rear while maintaining a grip on Jezebel.

  When they reached the end, William pointed at the back gate. “Max, you get that open and we’ll get Cyrus. You both ready?”

  Max gave William a thumbs up. Artan stared steel at him.

  It didn’t matter how he focused on his breaths, William couldn’t force calm. Better to use the adrenaline than try to suppress it, he slipped from the roof, landed on the ground, and sprinted towards the fire. Trent turned in time to take a hard shove in the chest, the boy’s long arms windmilling as he dropped his axe and fell to the ground.

  While Artan freed Cyrus, William levelled Ranger’s sword on Trent’s throat. “Scream and I’ll end you.”

  “Let’s go,” Artan said, dragging Cyrus towards Max at the back gate.

  A tight grip on his sword’s handle, the tip of it shook, hovering just inches from ending Trent. He could silence him before he gave them away. But he couldn’t. The past few days had been a fight to survive. What point would there be in living if he lost his humanity? Instead, he kicked Trent in the head, knocking the boy out cold before dragging his long form away from the fire and out of sight behind the small woodshed.

  Cyrus, Max, and Artan all stood at the back gate. When William got closer, he said, “What are you doing?”

  “They’ve nailed it shut,” Max said, tugging the handle as if to prove his point.

  William tugged on the gate’s handle too. The silver glint of different shaped bent nails ran all the way down one side. It would take them too long to pull them out.

  “Let’s get back on the roof of the huts. We can—”

  A group of about eight men and women appeared. Led by Warrior, they cut off their route.

  William’s heart sank. “Shit.”

  Chapter 37

  “What do we do, William?” Max said. “I don’t have a weapon to fight them.”

  And neither did Cyrus.

  “Follow me.” William took off towards the fire, Warrior’s group tracking their progress.

  “We can’t fight them, William.”

  A shovel rested near the fire. It had been fashioned from an old sheet of metal, the head of it covered in ash. William dug it into the fire’s embers and threw the red-hot coals at the pack closing in on them.

  Several of them screamed, and then screamed again when he launched another shovelful. But that wouldn’t hold them back indefinitely. He handed the shovel to Cyrus. “Use this to keep them busy.”

  While Cyrus sent another shower of coals at Warrior’s group, Artan stood ready with Jezebel. William grabbed Max. “We need to go out the front, and you need to lead the way.”

  Those waiting for Ranger and Magma’s return were still gathered by the gates. Far enough away to be aware of the commotion, but hopefully they hadn’t yet worked out what caused it.

  William shoved Max. “Go!”

  Cyrus threw more fire at Warrior. When the protector covered his face, Artan lunged at him, burying Jezebel’s curved blade into the top of his head. His skull cracked like a diseased’s and the man went down, taking the battle-axe with him. Artan grabbed Warrior’s war hammer and slammed its thick head into two more of the group.

  “Catch!” William said, throwing his sword at Cyrus’ feet before running to be at Artan’s side, liberating Jezebel from Warrior’s skull.

  The rest of Warrior’s group ran towards the masses at the gate. Max had gotten close to them too. If William left it too much longer, his friend would be screwed. “Diseased!” he shrieked, and several people screamed.

  William led Artan and Cyrus towards the front gates. He waved his arms in the air. “There are diseased in here. Get out! Get out now!”

  The group opened the gates for them, Cyrus and Artan stoking the panic with him. “Diseased! Diseased!”

  They joined the mass exodus, a shrill cry of Magma’s community running into the creatures outside the gates.

  The second he ran outside, someone grabbed William’s arm. He raised Jezebel, halting just before he swung it at Max.

  Max dragged William along the wall, away from the gates and away from the rapidly turning crowd.

  They reached the end of the front wall and darted around the corner, Artan ending a diseased with a swing of his war hammer. Clear of the chaos and their immediate vicinity free of diseased, they all fought for breath and took a moment.

  “You all okay?” William said.

  Each one nodded in turn.

  “Good. Now that was hard, but we don’t have time to hang around. We need to get to Matilda and Olga before they’re taken to Grandfather Jacks.”

  They all needed longer to recover, but William led them away, and they all followed. They had to use every ounce of strength to get to the girls before it was too late.

  Chapter 38

  With the ruined city well behind them and William’s lungs damn near ready to burst, he led the group in slowing down to a walk. His hands on his hips, the rain stinging as it slammed down against his head and face, he spoke in gasps as he tried to recover. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have a heart attack if I keep running.”

  Artan stopped a few steps ahead of William and turned back, ready to argue. But when he looked from Cyrus to Max, both of them as exhausted as William, he let it go. The months in a cell had left him so skinny he’d snap if he fell, but the boy could still outrun them all.

  The rain turned William’s trousers heavy with damp, but at least it washed away the war paint that marked them as a part of Umbriel’s community. Artan stepped aside so William could lead them again, walking through the long grass up a slight incline. Again, he faced the sky and opened his mouth, his thirst quenched by the slightly muddy taste.

  After a few minutes of walking, William, Max, and Cyrus managed to get their breathing on a par with Artan’s.

  “Some of those people didn’t deserve that,” Cyrus said, droplets of rainwater hanging from his eyelashes. “There were a lot of decent folk in Magma’s community.”

  William’s jaw ached from clamping it against the chill. “But how could we make the distinction in the chaos? We had to get out of there, and half the people wanted us dead.”

  “I dunno, but a lot of them were good people is all I’m saying
. I might have only spent a day or two with them, but most of them hated how Magma ran the place.”

  “Yet they made the choice to stay,” Max said.

  “They were safe. That means a lot in this world. Not all of them were like Trent, you know?”

  Before Max sniped back, William said, “Let’s hope the good ones survived. I’m sad for them, I really am, but we need to focus on what’s ahead.” He cleared his throat to maintain a strong voice. “We can’t dwell on all that’s passed. Not yet anyway.”

  The meadow stretched out in front of them as they crested the hill, Umbriel standing strong against the windy raining onslaught.

  “What the hell?” Artan said, squinting against the weather. “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, shit,” William said. He waited until they were closer to Umbriel’s castled front. The man had been thrown over the side, his corpse hanging by a rope tied around his neck. “It’s Greg.”

  “I’m sorry, man.” Artan put his long and skinny arm around William. “I know you and he were friends.”

  William nodded and looked away. After a few seconds, he said, “We need to find where Olga and Matilda are and put this place behind us.”

  “What’s the plan?” Max said. “I can’t see them lifting the gate for us.”

  The cries of several diseased cut through their discussion. No matter how long William had spent around the things, the noise always snapped him rigid.

  Cyrus raised Ranger’s sword. William gripped Jezebel. Artan held his war hammer ready to swing.

  “What about you?” Cyrus said.

  Max shrugged. “I’m invulnerable to their bites. That’s how we took down Ranger and Magma and got you out of their fortress.”

  Even over the rain and howling wind, the diseased tore through the grass with a whoosh. Their mouths were spread wide, ready to deliver toxic bites. Flailing arms. Crimson stares.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Now’s not the time, Cyrus,” William said as he stepped forward and hacked down the first of the pack, Artan attacking by his side.

  One slipped past William, and Cyrus missed it. Max swiped its legs away so it fell face first into the grass.

  As Cyrus stabbed the thing through the back of the head, he said, “It didn’t even want to bite you.”

  “Focus, Cyrus!” William took down another diseased. Artan slammed the heavy end of his hammer into the face of two of them, one after the other, with two swinging uppercuts.

  All of them down, Cyrus remained focused on Max. “So why did I jump onto Trent’s carriage if you could have gotten off the plinth at any point?”

  “I didn’t ask you to do it.”

  “Look,” Artan said, stepping between the two of them, “if you hadn’t, Max wouldn’t have been able to take down Magma and Ranger. Samson kicked Slate from the roof because he shaved his head, and Magma kicked Samson off for killing Slate. Max could surprise two of them, but he couldn’t have done anything about seven. You helped because you took a large part of the threat away.”

  “We need to go around the back,” William said.

  It killed the conversation.

  “I know it’s getting late,” William continued, the dark clouds combining with the fading light of late afternoon, “but Rita and Mary could still be working in the field.”

  “Uh …” Max said. “There’s a massive fence in the way.”

  “We don’t need to get in. We just need to talk to them. We need to know if Olga and Matilda are still in there. Come on, let’s go.”

  The already stinging rain fell even harder, every drop striking William’s head like a hammer against a nail. They’d given the place a wide enough berth to remain hidden from sight, and they now approached it at a crouch.

  The large drum a part of the back wall, spear tips visible over the spiked perimeter from where a new batch stood in the bucket for the trials. If there were any watchmen on the scaffolding, they hid themselves well.

  William’s eyes stung as his sweat mixed with the rainwater cascading down his face. When he reached the back wall, he leaned against it. The tall and sharpened tree trunks that made up Umbriel’s perimeter provided ample defence against the diseased, but because of their natural shape, there were gaps between each one. William peered through one of the gaps. “There they are!”

  But just before he could call out, a single drumbeat slammed above them. All four of them pressed their backs against the wooden fence and looked up. William leaned out to see who made the noise. “I can only see one of them.”

  “It’s not them we should be worried about,” Max said.

  A diseased had already reacted to the first beat. It appeared as if from nowhere and charged. It headed straight for them. William raised Jezebel while Artan and Cyrus readied their weapons.

  A spear slammed through its face, knocking it to the ground and killing it dead.

  The aspiring hunter beat the drum again.

  “Why doesn’t he just piss off?” Artan said.

  “Max,” William said, “I need you to be our first line of defence here, okay?” But he didn’t wait for Max’s reply, instead he pressed his face to the gap in the fence and hissed through it. “Mary! Rita!”

  Several more drumbeats drowned him out, so he waited for a lull and tried louder than before. “Mary! Rita!”

  Both women stopped and turned to the fence.

  “It’s William. I’m out here with Max, Artan—”

  The drumming started up again. When it finally stopped, the shriek of a diseased ran gooseflesh down William’s spine.

  “Justin!” Mary called up at the scaffolding. “I’ve got a headache. Can you give it a rest for today?”

  A voice breaking from where Justin was clearly transitioning from an adolescent to a young man. “But I need to practice.”

  Balled fists on her ample hips, Mary glared at him. “Don’t make me come up there and kick your arse.”

  “Come on, Mary, I really want to make the next trials.”

  While pinching the top of her nose, feigning a headache, Mary spoke at the ground. “Just for today. Please?”

  The diseased was about thirty feet away from them.

  “Just this one more?”

  “Say yes, Mary,” William whispered.

  “No! Not today.”

  “Shit!” She clearly hadn’t heard him.

  Twenty-five feet away. Justin remained on the wall, the tip of his spear visible from below. He then pulled it away.

  “Come on, Justin,” Rita said. “Hurry it up.”

  “All right, I’m doing it.”

  “Don’t get wide with me, young man!”

  Fifteen feet away, its blood red glaze fixed on William and his friends.

  Max twisted his feet as if to sure up his stance while William leaned away from the wall. He held a halting hand at Max while he watched Justin.

  Ten feet.

  The boy vanished from sight and William said, “Now!”

  Max rugby tackled the diseased, slamming his shoulder into its gut. The thing belched a rancid waft of vinegar rot.

  The diseased twisted and writhed while Max pinned it down. Cyrus stabbed it through the face.

  No more diseased around, William returned to the gap in the fence and watched Mary and Rita wave Justin away.

  After they’d watched the boy out of sight, the two women moved close to the fence. Rita said, “Matilda and Olga have already gone.”

  “What? When?”

  “This morning. Shortly after you were taken out hunting. Carl and Peter, two of the retired hunters, took them.” Rita paused as if to compose herself. Her eyes filled with tears. “They’ve been taken to Grandfather Jacks.”

  “Shit. Why didn’t you tell us more about him?” William said. “You could have warned us.”

  Mary’s eyes also glazed. “You saw what happened to Greg, right? Someone was listening to your conversations and they found out he told you to get away from the communit
y. Someone’s always listening here. This is our home, William. We’ve been through the worst of it with Grandfather Jacks. As long as we work here, we’re safe. We can’t jeopardise that. We wouldn’t survive out there. We’re really sorry.”

  “Sorry won’t get my sister back.”

  William eased Artan away with a gentle shove. “What are they going to do to Matilda and Olga?”

  “Nothing yet,” Rita said.

  “Why?”

  “It’s not a full moon. He chooses a new bride on every full moon.”

  “A bride? What the hell?”

  “Well, bride suggests some sort of consent. Sometimes, he chooses multiple brides.”

  Cyrus pressed his face to another gap. “But some of those girls taken from Magma’s fortress were just kids.”

  Rita turned his way. “The younger, the better. And it’s even worse for the boys he chooses. Hawk used to be one of Grandfather Jacks’ angels.”

  Although he’d been watching their backs, Max leaned close to the gap. “Is that where his scars came from?”

  Her eyes bloodshot, Rita swiped her damp blonde hair away from her face. “Yeah. He’s one of the few Grandfather Jacks didn’t kill afterwards. When I look into that boy’s eyes, sometimes I wonder if he would have been better off dead.”

  “When’s the next full moon?” William said.

  “Three days’ time.”

  William pulled out his map and hunched over it, shielding it from the rain.

  “Where did you get that?” Mary said.

  “We found it on someone a while back. Can you show us where they’ve gone?”

  “That one there,” Mary said. “Diagonally down to the left from here.” The community had been marked on the map as a square about half the size of Umbriel. It had a box by it that—while still green—had a slightly redder tinge.

  “It looks like it’s miles away. Much farther than Umbriel is from Edin,” Artan said.

  “It’ll take you a day or two to walk it.”