Firebrand

by Antony John

  I emerged from the shaft to a different fort than I’d seen before. I was next to the barracks, but instead of silence and darkness, men and women strode back and forth carrying torches. The place was bustling. No one was looking in my direction at all.

  I stepped onto the dirt and savored the feel of hard ground. I wanted to find somewhere to hide for a moment, but I had to replace the grate first—nothing would give me away faster than an open shaft. So I knelt beside it and lifted, eased it across and let it slide into place.

  I should have realized it would make a sound. The low clang rang out across the grounds.

  “Is someone there?” A man’s voice carried down from the battlements. He held his torch out in front of him to get a better look.

  I took two quick steps and slithered over the nearby wall, landing in a heap in the space where Rose and I had passed our first night together. By then, someone else was coming over to investigate. The glow from a torch drifted over the wall. Footsteps splashed through puddles. The men on the battlement above me edged closer.

  Their torches revealed a shadowy space in one corner. It was a hollow in the wall. I crept over and slid inside. I barely fit, but as the footsteps shuffled above me, I knew I was hidden. Well, as long as no one smelled me.

  “Did you see something?” someone asked the first guard.

  “No. Heard something, though. It was over here, near the sewer.”

  More guards joined them. “Sewer grate is on fine,” said one.

  “Yeah,” admitted the first guard. “But actually—”

  Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by the sound of shouting. I recognized Ananias’s voice.

  I worked my way through the maze-like ruins of the barracks following my brother’s shouts. The noise of the rain covered the sound of my footsteps, and no one on the battlements looked down. Finally, I peered around a corner and saw that he was being held prisoner in one of the casemates. A row of iron bars ran across the entrance, and two men stood guard. In the light of their torches I could see them talking animatedly, though I couldn’t make out their words. Ananias shouted again, but neither man replied.

  I followed the glow back through the room. My father was there, propped up against a wall. Tarn too. But there was no sign of Griffin, or Marin and Dennis.

  Other guards were descending on the prison now, drawn by Ananias’s shouting. I wanted him to stop—there was no way I could take on several men—but I couldn’t communicate with him. Instead I picked up a stone from the ground and threw it toward him. There was a loud bang as it hit one of the metal bars.

  Immediately, the guards turned toward Ananias, their weapons raised. But Ananias wasn’t watching them. He was squinting into the darkness. He scanned the area, and when his eyes fell on me, hidden in an archway, he gave a slight nod.

  “Griffin’s going to escape from the gunroom,” he told the men. “You won’t be able to hold him.”

  This seemed to amuse the guards. “You can stop talking now,” one of them said.

  “You’re all going to die—”

  “I said, shut up!” He slammed his gun against the bars.

  Even though I knew Griffin’s location, I still had no idea how to cross the fort without being captured. And the guards were growing restless.

  “You’re scared,” Ananias taunted.

  The guard raised his gun and pointed it at my brother.

  “You’re still shaking.”

  “Stop it, Ananias,” Tarn warned him.

  Ananias wouldn’t take his eyes off the guard. “No. I’m only just getting started, see?”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when he flung himself at the bars and grabbed the gun barrel. The guard lost his balance and slipped to the ground. He was mumbling something, fighting to regain control when the gun fired. It seemed accidental. But the result was the same.

  Ananias collapsed to the floor, holding his shoulder. Father dropped to his knees beside his son, and Tarn rushed to his side. Footsteps pounded toward the casemate from around the fort. Ananias grimaced, but his eyes were fixed on me again.

  It was my chance.

  All the torches in one place left much of the fort in darkness, so I sprinted back through the barracks and used the ruins to climb up onto the battlements. No one was there anymore. I kept low and ran along it, heading for the battery. I had no idea how I’d be able to help Griffin when I got to the gunroom. I just knew I had to try.

  Three yards later, someone tackled me.

  CHAPTER 35

  I tried to roll out from under my attacker, but our legs got tangled. I couldn’t see to punch, and I didn’t want to make a sound in case other guards came over.

  “Thom?”

  “Alice? Why did you attack me?”

  “I didn’t even see you,” she whispered. “Although I probably should’ve been able to smell you.” She leaned away. “All the guards left the peninsula when you created that diversion. So we climbed the wall and jumped over.”

  “Where’s Jerren?”

  Someone else landed beside us. “Good work,” said Jerren. “How did you do it?”

  “I didn’t. Ananias did.”

  “How?”

  “By getting himself shot. Don’t worry, he’ll live,” I added. “But he won’t be pleased if we waste this chance, so we need to think. Griffin wasn’t with him. Neither was Dennis or Marin. Ananias shouted that Griffin’s in the gunroom.”

  Alice sighed. “And I suppose you know a way for us to get in.”

  Jerren ran a hand through his wet hair. “I do.”

  Near the main gate, guards were drifting away from the scene of the shooting. No one had died and Ananias had worked alone, so there was nothing more they could do. They returned to their stations, torches giving out a steady light as the rain eased off.

  We sank to all fours and crawled along the battlements, keeping to the shadows. After ten yards we reached the sheer wall of the battery.

  “There’s a fence at the top,” said Jerren. “Watch tower’s a few yards behind it. Get on my shoulders and I’ll lift you up.”

  He tried to get Alice up first, but she hesitated. “What’ll you do?” she asked.

  “I’ll be taking the route around the outside. Lethal if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “And you do know, right?”

  He snorted. “Are you worried about me, Alice?”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Fall to your death for all I care.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  He lifted her onto his shoulders. She grabbed the metal fence and pulled herself up. With another breath, he readied for me.

  “Are you sure you can lift me, Jerren?”

  “Stop talking and climb.”

  I stood on his shoulders and joined Alice on the battery roof. She was lying on her side, face turned away from the men and women carrying torches less than twenty yards away. I was certain they would see us, but the torchlight must have blinded them.

  Jerren seemed to take forever to arrive, but I couldn’t blame him for that. It was a miracle he’d been able to climb the wall at all. We hustled into the empty watch tower so he could catch his breath.

  “Lucky we decided to come at night,” he said. “This would’ve been occupied all day.”

  “We did something right, then,” replied Alice. “Now all we need is for everyone to surrender and let us leave on our ship. What are the chances of that?”

  “Unless we get some help, pretty slim.”

  “Thought so.”

  We left the tower and crossed the battery roof, keeping low and pausing behind walls whenever someone drew near. Finally we reached the top of the stairs above the gunroom. Two armed guards stood sentry at the door, talking in hushed tones, unaware of how close we were.

  “What now
?” I whispered.

  “Follow me,” replied Jerren.

  He ran over the roof to the far end. Dangling his legs over the side, he slid onto a fence below. From there he swung onto the walkway that led to our room. Alice and I followed, our descent slow and awkward. At least there was no one around this part of the fort to hear us as we landed.

  When Jerren entered the corridor that led to our room, I grew suspicious. By the time he entered our room, I wasn’t the only one. Alice had stopped walking too.

  “You’re going to have to trust me,” he called out from the darkness.

  Alice didn’t move. “Why?”

  “Because you weren’t the first people to be put in this room.” He pried open the door. “It’s where they put Nyla and me after our parents died. They didn’t want us around everyone else until they were sure we could be controlled.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I heard them say so. There’s a vent at the top of the wall. Behind that, ductwork runs along the ceiling. It would’ve provided hot and cold air back in the old days. Doesn’t work now, but it connects with the gunroom next door. I used to stand by the vent cover and listen to the voices. They were faint, but I knew what was going on. Knew what was at stake. That’s how I was sure they’d killed my parents.”

  Jerren moved through the pitch-dark room confidently, having memorized every part of it. There was the faint sound of something scraping across the floor, and then he called us toward him. “Help me with the bunk. We need to take the mattress off and lean it against the wall. We can climb up the slats like a ladder.”

  We wrestled the bunk into place. Jerren climbed up first and pulled the metal screen away. He handed it to me and I placed it against the wall. By the time I reached up to check that he was all right, he had gone.

  “You go next,” said Alice.

  I climbed the slats and slid into the crawlspace. Jerren was just inside too, so we moved to either side to make room for Alice. I figured she’d find it harder to pull herself in, as she was shorter than us. But when I offered her my hand she batted it away. She vaulted up and in, taking her place between us.

  Now that we were still, sounds drifted along the metal duct: voices, and a low, faint hum. The voices, I’d expected, but the hum was unlike any sound I’d heard before, completely unchanging in tone and pitch.

  “You’ll have to lead, Thomas,” Jerren whispered. “No room to change places.”

  I shuffled along on all fours, trying to glide instead of lifting my limbs so that we’d keep the noise down. Alice and Jerren were behind me, but I couldn’t hear anything except their breathing. The duct occasionally bowed under our combined weight. Ahead of me, the hum grew louder.

  I concentrated on the men’s voices, which is why I didn’t feel the metal edge. Or the gap. My hand slid into the room below. Though I tried to rein it in, I gasped.

  The men in the gunroom stopped talking. The hum was the only sound, resonating along the metal duct.

  Gradually the voices returned. Still, I waited for clues: occasional pauses in the conversation, something that suggested they were suspicious. But the exchanges were rapid and the voices were raised. Whatever was happening was reaching a climax.

  I reached into the gap but couldn’t feel the bottom. It was at least half a yard across and there wasn’t much room to move about. So I flattened myself and stretched both hands across the gap, waited until my arms were safely on the other side, and pushed off with both feet against the edge. My knees rubbed against the duct, but the noise was drowned out by sounds from the room.

  Alice and Jerren followed behind me, each wrestling with the gap. The duct was wider here, but after a few yards, it split left and right. In either direction, the new ducts were much smaller.

  The voices were coming from the right, so I chose that way. But I’d only gone a yard when I felt the metal shifting beneath me. With three of us, it would be impossible to stay quiet. More likely, the whole duct would give out and send us crashing to the floor.

  “You’ll have to wait here,” I whispered over my shoulder: “It’s not strong enough for all of us.”

  Alice huffed. “Then what’ll we do?”

  “There’s vent covers in every room,” offered Jerren. “This duct must lead to one. Tell us what you see through it.”

  I slunk forward. The voices felt so close. One of them was Chief’s. He was usually so calm, but now he spoke quickly. “He’ll be back soon, so let’s get moving.”

  Another flurry of activity, but no more talking.

  I pushed on a couple more yards. The hum was loud, but I still held my breath, desperate to stay quiet. Just ahead of me, light filtered through the vertical spaces in the duct vent. I pulled alongside it and rested on my elbow so that I could see down into the room.

  It was the largest room in the fort. The walls were black, lined with flameless lanterns. The solar generators must have been powering them. They cast overlapping circles of light on the dark floor, and on the group of four men who stood together. But the strangest sight was the space beneath the lanterns, where several guns were propped against the wall in orderly rows, just as Dennis had told us.

  The hum seemed to come from a large machine to one side of the room. There was a table beside it, with an assortment of old-looking knives and other ominous metal objects arranged neatly on a white cloth. And a chair, with crisscrossing leather straps.

  “Is the generator charged?” demanded Chief.

  A man beside the machine nodded. “It’s ready.”

  “Let’s start.”

  I shifted position so that I could watch Chief as he moved creakily toward a rail. Below him was a giant glass cube, showered in even brighter light than the rest of the room. Two men stood beside the cube, dressed in bright white clothing that covered every part of their bodies. There was someone inside too.

  Griffin.

  He leaned against one of the walls. On the other side of the cube, separated by a glass divider, the floor was black.

  Suddenly a door burst open. Out of my line of sight, someone strode across the floor. “What’s going on, Chief?” the new arrival demanded, silky smooth voice tinged with venom.

  I couldn’t see him, but I didn’t need to. I’d have recognized Dare’s voice anywhere.

  CHAPTER 36

  All’s well with the natives, I assume.” Chief addressed Dare without looking at him. “Or are they getting restless?”

  “One of your trigger-happy men just shot Ananias,” replied Dare.

  “Such a waste. We’ll never get that bullet back.” Chief gave an exaggerated sigh. “All the same, it hardly concerns you. You said yourself that you have no connection to those people. Although,” he added, watching Dare from the corner of his eye, “from the way you just burst in here, I’m wondering if maybe that’s not the case.”

  Dare’s expression didn’t change at all. “Where are the children, Chief?”

  The old man tsked. “Why? Are you getting sentimental in your old age?”

  “I told you to imprison all of them.”

  “Yes. But you didn’t tell me where.” He adjusted the sleeves of his tunic. “The children are on Moultrie. Behind bars, exactly as you requested.”

  “There are rats on Moultrie. You’re giving them the Plague.”

  “Indeed, I am. Think of them as my security. Just to make sure everything goes to plan.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” Dare’s eyes did a measured sweep of the room. He had the look of a man on edge. “I don’t like to see children suffer, Chief.”

  Chief stifled a laugh. “You might have wanted to think about that before you handed me Griffin.”

  Dare stepped forward. In response, the guards raised their guns. “Your men seem anxious.”

  “As do you.” Chief sighed deeply. “I’d given you up fo
r dead until last night, Dare. But your arrival doesn’t change anything. You’re our guest, and we have plans for young Griffin.”

  Dare continued past the older man and surveyed the room with the glass cube. “What’s going on here? Our agreement last month was for an injection.”

  “I told you that could never work. Anyway, what does it matter? He’s the solution.” Chief stepped beside a large machine. He ran a hand across it gently, as if he were reacquainting with an old friend. When he turned a dial, the hum became a high-pitched whine. “Anyone might survive a small dose of Plague. But there’s only one person who could survive a massive dose, and we both know it’s that boy in there.”

  “You may as well torture him. This is inhumane.”

  Chief spun around. “When was this ever humane? Is that what you thought all those years ago, when we stood in this very room? Did you convince yourself that an injection of the Plague bacterium was somehow more humane than direct contact with the rats themselves?”

  “Of course it’s different.”

  “Let me remind you that you claimed to have delivered the solution to me. You promised me the Plague years were over, and I threw all our resources into making it so. But she wasn’t the solution, was she? And in the end, the only reason that woman survived is because I gave her the therapy,” Chief roared. “You offered her up for slaughter, and I cured her. Not you. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Chief strode toward the rail. He regarded the glass cube proudly.

  Griffin didn’t look up. All his attention was fixed on the other side of the divider, where the black floor began to shift. Only, it wasn’t a floor at all. The floor wouldn’t move, wouldn’t ripple like that. The floor wouldn’t make a sound.

  It was rats, and they were desperate to get to Griffin.

  I couldn’t take my eyes away. On Hatteras, the Guardians had told us to keep our distance from rats, and to warn someone if we came across a dead one. They were easy instructions to follow because the rats were shy creatures, more frightened of us than we were of them. But these rats were like the ones on Moultrie—violent and hostile.