She hated that she'd saved them.
Hopefully she'd make up for that mistake one day.
Kirby figured they were more than halfway to New Hope. They'd already passed the spot where the tracks veered off toward the stream where she'd stayed with Flora, William, and Bray on the night after leaving the settlement. She'd directed her unwanted companions around the detour, knowing she couldn't afford to lose more time. When the sky was growing too dark to see, Heinrich halted.
"We'll have to camp soon," he called over his shoulder. "We're losing too much light."
"Any suggestions?" Jonas asked as he pulled the second horse up behind them.
"I know where we are. The Tunnel is close," Heinrich suggested. "It'll give us shelter, as long as no one else has claimed it for the night."
Jonas nodded. It seemed as if everyone knew what the term meant, except Kirby.
"What is The Tunnel?" she asked.
"It's a place leftover from the gods," Jonas explained. "Occasionally you'll get a Savage or two, but the local tribes take great pains to go around it. They have superstitions."
"How about the men from Halifax?" Kirby asked. "Do they camp there?"
"We've never run into them." Heinrich shrugged. "Hopefully our luck will hold."
"How far away is your settlement?" Jonas asked Kirby over his shoulder.
Hating every time she had to give information, Kirby said, "We should make it before mid-day tomorrow, provided we don't run into any trouble."
"Will that be enough to meet Deacon's deadline?" Jonas smirked. Kirby wanted to wipe that smile from his mouth with a bullet from her gun, but she refrained with effort.
"Yes. We'll make it back, as long as we can pull the guns out of the towers without issue. It might take some maneuvering to get them from the burnt buildings, as I said."
"It's possible our men found some already," Heinrich said. "We might never have to make the trip."
"We'll need to make sure to get the ammunition," Jonas reminded him, as he spurred the horse behind Heinrich's and they kept riding. "And I'd like to see the settlement, anyway."
They veered away from the trail, heading into a thick area of forest. Heinrich looked like he was following landmarks, riding past a large, uprooted tree, and past the remains of several crumbled, ancient buildings. Soon they were galloping over uneven ground. Kirby looked down to find two bumps on either side of a flatter portion of land. Many of the trees seemed to have been cleared in a straight path. Of the trees that grew, many were shorter, and less aged than the others.
Noticing her looking, Jonas called over his shoulder, "Two, long pieces of smooth metal are buried underground here, running parallel to one another. No one is quite sure why, but the local barbarian tribes think they lead to the graves of the gods."
"It keeps them away," Heinrich called happily over his shoulder.
Kirby studied the ground, having a pretty good guess as to what they were, but she had no desire to share her knowledge.
She watched the trees as they rode down the bumpy trail, mostly keeping to the middle, getting presumably closer to The Tunnel. In the distance, a structure appeared, sheltered within tall trees. Dead, wilted vines crawled over the top of what looked like a half circle, many times taller than most of the stone houses she'd seen on the islands, and a few times as long. The sun was gone, but an amber glow shone through the back end of the building, illuminating holes in the ceiling where enormous glass windows might have been.
They approached with caution, careful for signs that someone else had made the place their home. The place seemed deserted. Other than a few birds that scared up and took flight, the building looked as if it had been abandoned many, many generations ago.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Jonas said from the front of the horse as they rode closer.
"The Tunnel," she said, repeating the term they'd used.
"That is what we call it. It is clearly made by the gods," Jonas said with authority. "Though I have some guesses as to what it is. I'm curious to hear what you think."
Kirby kept quiet.
They rode until the bumps in the trail became more pronounced and they could see partway into the structure. The Tunnel was a hundred feet long. Inside, she saw long pieces of metal poking through the earth, forming the same twin lines between which they were clearly riding. On either side of those pieces of metal, the ground rose higher, forming a steep drop-off where weeds and moss had taken over. People had perched there once, if her guess was correct. Although she couldn't see all the way into The Tunnel, she saw some fading light at the opposite end, in between a thick cluster of trees that had grown, providing a makeshift barrier from the elements.
"I haven't been here in a while," Jonas admitted. "Usually my trips are to discover new things. We've already scouted this place for things of value. We didn't find much."
They slowed the horses as they got close to the structure's entrance, squinting through a glare that was getting worse.
"I don't see any Savages," Heinrich grunted. "A fire will scare any lingering critters away, if they haven't run already."
They dismounted the horses, walking underneath the structure's opening and leading the steeds. The ceiling was many times taller than their heads, causing Kirby to look up and inspect the curved, vine-covered beams that served as a roof. Dead plants created a brown covering that filled in many of the gaps. She frowned as she noticed small holes in the rusted metal on the sides of the building that looked familiar.
"What do you think?" Jonas asked Kirby again, unable to wait for an answer. A smile she'd grown to hate crossed his face.
Hoping to knock some of the confidence from his expression, she said, "It's a train station."
Jonas seemed more fascinated than deflated. He nodded. "A path to get from one place to another."
"Not just a path," Kirby said. "The people you think are gods rode in objects that carried them over the pieces of metal in the ground—objects called trains. Those objects took them from place to place, in faster speeds than you can imagine today."
"Faster than a horse?"
"Much faster, if my people's stories are to be believed," Kirby answered.
Enamored, Jonas looked from Kirby to the long, wide tunnel that she had informed him was a train station. Heinrich and Ruben walked ahead.
"You didn't tell me about trains, when we talked earlier about ships and cars."
"You didn't ask."
Jonas gave her an annoyed look. "Have you seen many places like this?"
"There are several places like this in my homeland, though none of them function. Some are even built underground. The underground ones look different. They have different names."
"In one of these objects, trains, you could explore new pieces of land in the time it takes to dream about them, if they go as fast as you say," Jonas suggested.
"Perhaps," Kirby said, "though I doubt we will ever have that answer."
"You say we won't," Jonas said. "But my hope is to find some of this hidden knowledge, and get some of these things working again."
"A bold ambition, for a man who spends his days playing with junk," Kirby said with a smile, making no effort to hide the barb.
Jonas creased his brow, looking as if he might retaliate, when Heinrich called out from in front of them. Ruben drew his sword.
"What is it?" Jonas called ahead.
They walked in with weapons drawn, as if mutants might spring out at any moment. Kirby inhaled the air for the fetid odor of what these men called Savages, but it wasn't mutants Heinrich spotted.
Men's bodies were scattered everywhere between the train tracks, lying facedown in puddles of blood that she could smell, now that she was closer. Most of the men were dressed similarly to the islanders. People with guns had clearly slaughtered them. Bullet wounds lined their bodies, and empty, scattered bags lay around them. Some of the dead men had been piled on top of one another. Heinrich bent down with his flat sword. Rolling one man over
to verify he was dead, dread grew over his face as he said, "Our soldiers."
Jonas confirmed it as he rolled another man over. "This is Jericho, one of the men Deacon sent out ahead of us. By the looks of it, the entire group is slaughtered."
Kirby studied the circular bullet wounds in the man closest to her, which matched some of the holes she'd seen in the walls and the ceiling.
"Filthy Halifax animals," Heinrich spat.
Ruben gritted his teeth as he walked from one man to the next, verifying each one was dead. "Dirty, savage sons of bitches. They will die for what they've done."
Kirby looked around. Some of the blood was dried, but the bodies were fresh enough to not have been scavenged by animals. She didn't see or hear anything, but someone might be close. She bristled as she looked on either end of the long, wide tunnel.
Jonas wandered between the bodies. "We can't stay here," he said, clearly rattled. "We need to leave."
Chapter 32: Kirby
They rode until they'd made some distance from The Tunnel and the sky was nearly dark, spurring the horses faster and making suitable ground away from the gory scene upon which they'd stumbled. Eventually, they found the crumbled remains of a small, square building with two walls overgrown with weeds. Using their swords, they hacked away at some stubborn vines and wilted weeds and created a spot big enough to lie down, then tied the horses to some nearby trees. After some debate, they started a fire that was small enough to warm them, but hopefully not large enough to give them away. The moon was nearly full above them, casting an illuminating glow over the men and the fire.
Heinrich and Ruben conversed angrily about what they'd seen in the building, spelling out plans of revenge and reports they'd make to Deacon as they swigged from flasks reeking of the strongest alcohol Kirby had smelled in the new land. She sensed a fear eating through their hard demeanors. The guns were new to them. They wanted the power, but they were afraid of it.
"We will have their scalps," Heinrich said, taking a large swig. "We will butcher them and feed their bodies to our pigs."
"Even the swine are more worthy," Ruben spat.
"The families of our soldiers will know they fought bravely." Heinrich set down his flask and nodded definitively. "We will make sure those soldiers are honored, even if we can't bury them."
"Was that all of them?" Ruben asked Jonas.
"I think so," Jonas said.
"How are we going to bring back the guns?" Ruben asked, looking at Jonas.
"We'll carry what we can," Jonas said. "Deacon will be angry if we come back with nothing. We need to continue, without the other group."
Jonas sat quietly by the fire, warming his hands and reflecting. His eyes grew distant as he watched the flames, sipping from a similar flask as the others. "They've discovered how to use the weapons. It is exactly as we feared. We need to get those weapons from the settlement, or our people will be as dead as those men."
Kirby didn't respond. The bloodied, bullet-riddled bodies reinforced a belief she had known since she was a young girl in her homeland—violence begat violence. There would be no end to it, until every last one of the islanders was killed, and probably all the men from Halifax.
She had no stake in their war. She didn't care who lived or died.
Hopefully she and William would be gone by then.
They watched the fire and the forest for a while, eating dried meat and sipping from flasks. Eventually, the false bravado of the soldiers segued into a quiet silence. After a while, Jonas broke the quiet of the crackling fire again, his eyes glossy from too much drink.
"If we had working devices like the objects that used to ride through The Tunnel, we could bring those men's bodies back to The Arches," he said softly. "We could bury them."
"Those objects died with the gods," Heinrich grumbled, making it clear what he thought of Jonas's ideas.
"Are we certain, though?" Jonas looked from the men to the forests. He raised a slow hand. "I've heard some of our eldest Important Ones tell stories about things we can't imagine, stories that they have passed down."
"So have I." Heinrich laughed through some of his anger. "Half of them don't make sense, and the other half are about as interesting as watching wet clothes dry."
Ruben chuckled bitterly.
"Sometimes, when they think we aren't paying attention, they say things that sound as if they have a grain of truth. Usually, I dismiss them, as well," Jonas admitted. "But I remember a story one of our eldest told. He was sick with an illness that would lead to his death. But right before that, he had a period of lucidity. He started speaking loudly—so loudly that a group of the others gathered to listen. He repeated things as if they were truths."
"What did he say?" Heinrich asked, clearly humoring Jonas.
Kirby, who was staring at the trees, looked back at the three men, her curiosity piqued.
"He told of a city to the south, a great city where the objects of the gods still worked. He said that most of the gods' things were destroyed, but this one city had stood through time. A group of peaceful people lived there, enjoying the gifts of the gods, residing away from the threat of Savages and barbarian tribes such as the men from Halifax." Jonas seemed reflective. "They were clearly tales of a man in his dying days, and Deacon dismissed them. But still, we wondered. Imagine living in a place like that?"
"If this man knew so much, he could've floated on one of those metal tracks in The Tunnel to his magic city," Heinrich scoffed.
Jonas laughed. "It is a nice dream, nonetheless."
Kirby thought on that story as the fire burned and the men planned out shifts for the night. Her dream of a golden palace in the clouds seemed as far away, and as foolish, as ever.
Heinrich took first watch while Ruben agreed to the second. No one trusted Kirby enough to keep watch, but that was fine with her. She doubted she'd sleep, but she'd get some rest. Laying in such a way that she had a clear view of the men, Kirby closed her eyes.
Chapter 33: Deacon
"Deacon!" A winded soldier rushed up the pathway between the buildings, to where Deacon stood under the moonlight.
"What is it?" Deacon appraised the man, and the silhouettes of the soldiers in the distance by the wooden bridge, all of who were watching. Another man was bent over next to the bridge, hands resting on his knees, catching his breath.
"We came from the main bridge. We have news."
"What is it?"
"A group of our hunters came across a wounded man, one of ours. He was stumbling through the forest in the direction of the islands. His body had several holes in it, made with the god weapons."
Deacon's mind flew to the acorn-sized hole in the soldier's ankle that Kirby had made with her gun. Before concluding anything, he asked, "Where is this soldier?" He looked around, as if the man would appear, or the man in front of him would direct his attention.
"He died on the bridge, sir," the soldier said, catching enough wind to stand up straight. "Bartholomew tried to help him. He sent me here while he tried to get more information from the hunters."
"What was the soldier's name?"
"Leonard, sir," the soldier said. "He was from a party you sent to the new settlement, New Hope. A group of Halifax men ambushed him and all the others while they stayed in The Tunnel a few nights ago. They used the god weapons. He was the only survivor."
Deacon's body tightened as he processed the impact of what the soldier was saying. "What happened to the group I sent out afterwards? The one with the stranger, Kirby?"
"We're not sure, and neither was Leonard." The soldier looked at the ground, as if he might find the answer there. "He didn't see anyone else. Leonard had been traveling awhile. The hunters checked the area where they found him, hoping they might have more information for you, but they did not see anything. The Tunnel was a long distance away."
Deacon looked at the gun over his shoulder, and back at the bridge. "Send me Bartholomew."
Chapter 34: Deacon
; Cold bled from Bartholomew's jacket as he stood at the threshold of Deacon's study, a grave expression on his face.
"Every one of the settlement party, slaughtered," Deacon repeated, watching Bartholomew.
"It is true."
"Did you obtain any more information from the soldier, the man named Leonard?"
"No, sir. But I have other news." Bartholomew shook his head. "Another group of our hunters, one that arrived shortly after the first, heard the god weapons being used in the forest, in a different area. I do not think the party at The Tunnel was the only group of Halifax men. I believe others are out there."
Wondering if the second group might have heard Kirby, Deacon asked, "Did it sound like one god weapon?"
Bartholomew's face betrayed the answer. "No. It was many."
"They are slaughtering our people." Deacon's face grew hard as he fought back some anger. He had known this was coming. He had expected it. "Our time has run out. They will be coming here soon."
"I suspect the same." Bartholomew's face was grave.
"Send some scouts to Halifax," Deacon said. "Tell them to get me more news as soon as possible."
Chapter 35: Bray
Bray kept in line behind the Halifax men as they hiked through the forest at night, their torches illuminating their shadows and the silhouettes of their guns. The moon was nearly full, but a canopy of thick, jutting branches above dimmed some of the light. A few bats flew overhead, flapping their wings, causing a few false startles. Bray walked next to Samron, behind two other soldiers who took the lead, crunching through the snow, carrying their guns. Flora walked in the rear with a soldier on either side. A single man brought up the rear.
Bray's legs were past the point of exhaustion. His head was cloudy from lost blood. He was used to hard travel, and he had no complaints about it, but he hadn't counted on marching through the night after a grueling day. That was the reason they'd make the settlement by morning. It made sense now.
The Ruins Book 2: A Dystopian Society in a Post-Apocalyptic World (The Ruins Series) Page 11