Poison

by Lan Chan

  Surely Papa wouldn’t want me to find the man who may well have poisoned him? I don’t understand any of it. It’s crossed my mind that if I do reach the Citadel, it’s almost certain I will also see Gideon again.

  Somebody stirs and I think it’s Micah, but when I check, he’s still asleep. Gage and I realise at the same time it’s Leura. He’s beside her in an instant and I hang back, not knowing whether I’m intruding on their private moment. It’s too early to tell if their closeness is born of friendship or if there’s something more.

  Leura makes a gargling noise. “Don’t try to talk,” Gage murmurs. He helps her into a sitting position and brings the water bladder to her lips. She takes greedy sips, and as she does so, she sees me leaning against the tree. She beckons me over with a sloppy wave, not yet fully in control of her extremities. Her clothes and skin are covered in a drying layer of grey mud. I don’t think she realises, because when I get close enough, she suddenly pulls me into a hug. I go rigid on instinct. Besides Papa, Micah, and occasionally Kadee, no one’s touched me for a long time. In the Citadel, touch meant pain, and it’s a reaction that’s been hard to shake.

  Leura’s embrace is feather light, though, and not in the least bit threatening. “Thank you,” she croaks, somehow knowing it was me who saved her. I find myself hugging her back.

  “What the hell?” Cora snaps from where our packs have been stored. “Where’s all the food?” Leura’s arms slacken and she lies back down. Cora’s opening backpacks, looking inside them, swearing, and tossing them aside. “Gage, where’s the rucksack with the cheese?”

  “It’s there,” Gage answers. “I saw it last night.”

  He joins her in unloading our supplies. Soon it’s apparent we’re not just missing the rucksack with the cheese. A lot of our food supply is gone.

  “It’s just one thing after another!” Cora says. Her voice gets louder and louder as she rants and raves.

  “What’s going on?” Micah says. It’s amazing how much a few days in the wilderness can change a person’s appearance. Micah’s hair is knotted and his clothes are grimy. Cocooned in his sleeping bag, he reminds me of a vagrant child I once saw huddled in an alleyway in the Citadel. I dread to think what I look like.

  “Our food has been stolen,” I say to Micah in a hushed tone.

  “When?” Micah asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Who knows? It could have been any time in the last two nights. We’ve all been asleep at one stage or another.” I want to mention it’s a blessing only our food has been taken. That’s a pretty sure bet the culprits are smaller animals and not bigger predators. I don’t think Cora will appreciate it though.

  Sully whines as the pitch of Cora’s complaints get shriller. “You!” she points at Sully. “Fat lot of good you’re doing us!” She turns an accusatory eye on me. “What’s the use of having it here if it won’t even protect our food?”

  “She,” I say. “What’s the use of having her here if she won’t protect our food?”

  Cora’s face darkens and she bares her teeth. My hand goes to my knives. I don’t want to hurt her, but if she runs at me I won’t hesitate.

  Leura’s soft choking voice cuts through the tension. “Stop,” she says. “It’s my fault we had to hang around here so long. I’ll go hunting.” Only someone with a stone heart could watch the way her feet dig at the ground as she tries to push herself up and still be angry.

  “I’ll go,” I say. “I didn’t bring any food to the party so it’s only fair I do something to compensate.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Gage offers.

  “I hunt better alone.”

  “You’ll die better alone too,” he says.

  Since when do you care? I think.

  “You’ve had no sleep,” I say.

  “Fine!” Cora says. “I’ll go with the Wanderer runt. I have to do everything around here anyway.” She holds out her hand to Gage. “I need the bow and arrows.”

  That’s how I find myself trudging through strange terrain with an even stranger Farmer by my side. We don’t speak for a full half hour, only walk through the dense shrubbery and try not to get too scratched up by twigs and branches jutting in our way. I spend the time collecting berries that I squeeze into the special liquid compartments of the knife holder on my belt. These holders act as dibbers, coating the knives in various poisons.

  I already know we’re never going to catch any game because Cora’s making an almighty racket. She looks like a string puppet dancing in awkward, jerky movements. I may be a runt in her eyes, but in the forest, her size puts her at a disadvantage. She’s too heavy to climb any but the thickest branches and too tall to move with any stealth. Her boots stomp the ground so loudly I think she’s doing it on purpose.

  We walk for another half hour without much luck. “We have to split up,” I say. That’s code for: I have to get rid of you if we’re going to catch anything.

  “Fine by me,” she says.

  At the next natural fork in the trees, I go left and she goes right. “Wait!” I say before she disappears from sight. “If you’re unsure if a plant is edible, rub a tiny part of the leaf on your wrist. Give it some time and if nothing happens, rub it on your lips. Steer clear of anything with opaque sap, okay?”

  She rolls her eyes at me and then she’s gone. As soon as Cora’s out of earshot, I secure my belt and proceed to climb. The only successful ground hunters are the carnivorous beasts that dominate through size. If I’m going to stand a chance, I need to be up as high as I can for safety and camouflage. I wish Sully was with me, but I would be a hindrance to her, and she doesn’t understand the concept of kill only what we can eat.

  I jump from tree to tree until I come across a copse of liquidambar above what appears to be a patch of red clover. For the first time since I stepped foot in the forest, I get lucky. It doesn’t take long for my first prey, a grey kangaroo, to hop past. I can tell he’s a male from his lack of pouch. Somehow this makes it a bit easier to contemplate killing him. At least I know he’s not leaving behind a joey. For some reason I hear Aiden’s voice in my head. “Do you need to do this?” he says. “They have just as much right to be here as we do.”

  The kangaroo isn’t attacking me like the rats were. If I let him go I might still be able to find something else to eat. He’s a beautiful specimen with a thick coat and meaty legs. My thoughts immediately skip to how warm that coat would be for Micah.

  That does it for me. Between Micah and the kangaroo, the latter has no chance. It still takes me longer than usual to reach for a knife and aim, but once I throw, I make sure it’s accurate. The last thing I want is to cause undue pain. Before the knife even hits, I scamper down the tree in case the first blow doesn’t kill him and I need to finish him off.

  I needn’t have worried. The kangaroo is slumped on the floor with my knife lodged under his neck. Now what? I haven’t thought this through at all. He’s a big creature and there’s no chance I can carry him back on my own.

  I cover the kangaroo in fallen branches and hope he’ll still be in one piece when I get back. Locating Cora is too easy. All I need to do is retrace my footsteps to the spot where our paths diverged and then follow the trail of broken undergrowth and heavy footprints. It’s impossible to work out what her logic was in choosing her path, but she hasn’t gotten far.

  I don’t know why, but I’ve sunk into stealth mode. I slide my boots through the damp leaves instead of stepping on them to stifle the sound. I push past the last of the branches that obscure my view and freeze in my tracks. A strangled cry escapes because there, amongst the overgrown grass, are the bodies of the group who ransacked Micah and me.

  The bodies are covered in animal bites and scratches, but it’s impossible to tell if they were made pre or post-mortem. I suppose it doesn’t really matter because one thing is clear. The bounty of supplies they once carried is gone. Animals have no use for supplies except for their food value, so that leaves only one predator. A hum
an has done this.

  Strangely, I find myself hoping the murderers were Seeders, because I can’t fathom Landing citizens picking each other off this way. Then I realise I’m just romanticising the truth. I’d like to think in the same circumstances I’d be noble and would find another way. But truthfully, I know myself enough to admit, however reluctantly, that there is enough of a competitive monster in me to do what’s necessary. My ringmaster used to say athletes and killers aren’t all that different. The single-minded determination is there. Only the focus differs.

  Stepping closer is like wading through clay, but I force myself to place one foot in front of the other until I’m ankle deep in dead bodies. I stub my toe on something sticking out of one of the boy’s pockets. It’s a small handgun.

  “What is it?” Cora’s voice says from behind me. I can only imagine how I must look, a Merchant girl standing amongst a group of dead Farmer bodies.

  I gulp down my apprehension and then bend over to pick up the weapon.

  “Take it,” I plead, handing her the gun. I’ve held and fired guns before. Gideon had a locked cabinet full of them in the mansion and in his Citadel penthouse. Once, Gideon took Aiden and me target shooting. Only silhouette targets because Aiden refused to kill a live animal. My aim was good. It would be better now, but my mother’s murder has tainted the weapon for me forever.

  Cora holds the muzzle of the gun between her thumb and forefinger as though she’s scared it’ll go off any minute. “The safety’s on,” I say. She nods and slips the gun into her rucksack.

  “Let’s go,” she says, running her hands down her shirt as though wiping some invisible unpleasantness from them.

  “Should we do something for them?” I ask.

  “Like what?”

  I have no idea, and in the end we just close their eyes and turn away. We retrieve what’s left of the kangaroo and eat well that night. Even better, Gage has managed to go back and get some of the perimeter alarms from the grove of scorpion flowers. Everyone goes to bed satisfied, and for the first time since we set off, I grow a little hopeful that maybe, just maybe we might make it.

  Thirteen

  It feels like I’ve barely closed my eyes when the wailing tears them open. My lids are gritty and heavy, and I fumble around trying to turn off an alarm that isn’t there. Someone’s shouting, but their voice is muffled by the piercing in my ear. My fingers claw against damp ground, and suddenly I remember where I am. Beside me, Micah is rolling in his sleeping bag, groaning and calling for someone to turn off the alarm. I shake him roughly and am unzipping his sleeping bag when I hear it. The gut-wrenching pack howl of a dozen sabrewolves. The sound is so close I imagine their teeth snapping shut on us at any moment.

  “Get up!” I scream at Micah, throwing our backpacks over my shoulder.

  “Rory? What…”

  “Sabrewolves!”

  This finally gets his attention, and he starts scrambling around for last-moment supplies. “Leave them,” I order, securing the utility belt around my waist and dragging him to his feet.

  “Climb! Now!” I push him when he hesitates. Elsewhere, I can hear Gage ushering Leura to do the same, and as Micah and I ascend the tree’s branches, I’m yelling at the top of my lungs, telling all of them to get as high as they can.

  It’s still too dark and I’m too sleepy for my vision to adjust well enough to get a good idea of what’s happening. But even in the dark, I’m not imagining the snapping of sabrewolf jaws, because mere moments after Micah and I vacate our sleeping spot, an animal the size of a cow converges on our supplies. Sounds of plastic and glass breaking under padded feet drift up to us, and without warning, the alarm cuts out amid a loud crack. The panel that controls the perimeter alarms has been destroyed.

  “No!” Micah sobs.

  “Let it go,” I say through gritted teeth. “You can always build another one.”

  About fifty metres from the tree we’re in, there’s growling and scraping and then a thud. A familiar whine echoes through the trees and wraps my heart in its cold grip.

  “Sully!” My arms shake too much to get a grip on the trunk. “Run, Sully!”

  “Rory! Please stop shaking the tree,” Micah pleads. I feel his clammy fist beat at my shoulder, and I want to smack him until I realise he’s trying to get a hold of me because he’s scared I’m going to fall. I reposition myself onto the branch he’s sitting on and he buries his face in my shoulder.

  “Is she dead?” I hear him say. He squeezes my hand. I try to cover his ears, but I’m not fast enough, and what I think is Sully’s mournful wailing is abruptly halted by the sound of lacerating flesh. I stifle a scream. The all too familiar sloshing of blood and ripping flesh is unmistakable, as is the scent of ruptured guts. In the tree next to us, someone vomits and I can feel my own innards clenching, so I make myself breathe through my mouth.

  Then one of the beasts comes our way and Micah whimpers. Three little barks drift up to us. “Sully?” The impatient growl tells me it’s her. I break off a small branch and throw it at where I think she’s standing.

  I blow three sharp whistles, my signal for danger, and finally, as the pounding feet of other sabrewolves draws near, she turns tail and runs into the forest. The mess of sick attracts the attention of one of the sabrewolves who sniffs around the area and paws at the ground.

  “Give me some light, Micah.” I force his backpack into his trembling fingers. He fumbles around for a moment, and then the base of the tree we’re in is bathed in a yellow glow from a flashlight.

  The sabrewolf is ridiculously massive. The Seeders have an unnatural talent for perverting the course of nature, because this thing and its companions would wipe humans out if the Seeders don’t keep them contained. There’s no telltale blip of red light from a psi-chip on the wolf’s ear, so these aren’t Seeder-approved animals. A spiny bone ridge runs along the sabrewolf’s arched back as it snaps at the beam of light. Then it opens its jaw and roars at us.

  The tree shakes as though it’s quivering in fear, but I take the opportunity to sink two knives into the animal’s throat. The beast chokes and its tongue lolls out as it tries to cough up the knives. It’s half successful and brings up one blade before the poison kicks in and it keels over. Its collapse brings the rest of the pack upon us, and I make Micah climb even higher so we’re sitting on very thin branches, hugging the tree trunk for dear life. The sabres rear up on their hind legs and jump up at us, their claws slashing off chunks of bark with each attempt. The distance between their highest jumper and us is a mere metre, and I pull up my dangling feet so I’m sitting wholly on the branch and hugging the trunk with my arms only.

  On the branch just above me, Micah is sobbing quietly and I feel like doing the same. But we can’t afford for both of us to break down, so I close my eyes for a minute and pretend I’m elsewhere. Why is it so hard to clutch on to happy thoughts?

  There, I have one. It was two springs ago and the first of Micah’s Rose flowers had begun to bloom. I remember taking some home to put beside Micah’s bed because he was sick and finding it difficult to breathe. Almost straightaway he commented on how strong the honey scent of the flower was. Which was unusual considering his nose had been blocked up for a week. The memory does it. Reminds me why I need to push on.

  “Micah,” I call above his tears. “I need the light again.” Obediently, he shines the light downwards, directly into the eyes of a sabrewolf making its descent from a jump. I pull back without thinking and pierce it through the eye with another knife. It doesn’t get back up. Two down and I can count at least ten more. A quick finger count and I’ve only got four knives left. The sabrewolves growl at each other in a huddled mass before retreating back into the shadows. It unnerves me how attuned to each other they are. After a while, their feasting resumes and I think they’re leaving us up here, probably knowing we have no way to escape.

  It’s hard to determine how long we stay stranded in our trees before the first shimmers of sunrise
appear. After a while, I’m so tired I doze off, waking with a start and almost falling out of the tree. Behind me, Cora is calling out my name.

  “Psst. Rory.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you grab any food last night?”

  She’s got to be joking. “That’s the least of our problems right now, in case you hadn’t noticed!” I say. “Why didn’t you or Gage shoot at them last night?”

  “Waste of arrows,” she says quickly. I want to rage at her, but now isn’t the time. During the course of my dozing, the sabrewolves seem to have decided they should rest while we do as well. Now that the purple hues of dawn are creeping through the forest, I can see them clustered in the far edge of the clearing. Clever of them to stay outside the reach of my knives. One of their ranks sits watching the trees where we’re all trapped. I have no doubt the moment we start to descend, it will jump into action.

  “What are we going to do?” Micah says from his branch.

  Optimism seems pointless, so I simply shake my head, too weary to even pretend.

  With an intense look of concentration, he digs around inside his backpack and pulls out one of the explosives. It’s tiny, smaller than the palm of my hand, and looks like a small circular egg timer with electrical wires running all around it. I’d briefly considered that option too. Of all times, now would be the one to think about blowing things up.

  “Won’t the fallout affect us as well?” I ask.

  “Probably. But what other choice do we have?” he says.

  After I’ve had a moment to clear my head, I have to agree. “If we’re going to do this, we need to do it soon. While the wolves are still dozing and grouped together.”

  “Can you get me one of Gage’s arrows?” Micah asks. I nod and leave him to his complicated adjustments.

  Sitting in the same position overnight has caused my muscles to cramp. I massage and stretch my limbs, getting ready to make the leap onto the tree that holds the others.