by Wilson, Mark
Alys smiled down at her in her bed and pulled on her leather jacket. Tucking her three Sai into their places – one on each thigh, one on her belt – she told Steph once again, “No, maybe next time, but not tonight.”
Alys tucked the girl back into bed and slipped out through the gap in her canvas tent. Once outside she looked up at the crescent moon, pulled her collar up against the breeze and took off at a slow run towards the gates of The Brotherhood.
Unable to get the boy with the bow out of her thoughts, Alys had decided earlier in the evening to visit the Castle Esplanade and spend some time training there, where he trained. She deserved the freedom; she’d earned it. Unfortunately her mother disagreed and still demanded that she did not leave the safety of their fenced community until she deemed her ready. Alys was supremely confident in her abilities to defend herself and dispatch any threat, of either the living or the dead variety. Besides, the Esplanade was Brotherhood territory and they rarely ventured outside of their underground town, certainly never after dark. Aside from the boy with the bow. Something shifted in her gut once more at the thought of him and the freedom he had but didn’t deserve. I deserve it, she told herself.
In order to reach the Esplanade, Alys would have to go through The Brotherhood gates and walk along through the Royal Mile, up Castlehill and onto the Castle grounds. She didn’t know that part of the city, but from the layout she was able to see from The Gardens below, it looked like a straight shot from the gates to the Castle. If the streets up on the Royal Mile were similar to those where her community lay, there’d be plenty of dark alleys, closes, doorways and crevices in which to hide in the darkness if needed.
As she reached the gates Alys slipped her pair of blunted Sai from their sheaths on the sides of her thighs. Rotating them she held her Sai handles out with her grip on the cross bar and the main shaft running tight along her inside forearms. In this grip, the Sai were excellent for defence and attack. She left the third of her Sai in her belt. The sharpened edges and point made it her most lethal and least-used option. The Ringed and living people alike could easily be silenced or stunned with her more traditionally blunt Sai.
After checking along the fence-line where Bank Street met High Street, the boundary between The Brotherhood’s territory and her own people’s and the place she’d first met the boy with the bow, Alys picked the gate’s lock and slipped through. A gust of wind shot along the length of High Street as she stepped through the gate, taking her breath away and causing her to retract through the gate in response.
Get a grip. She stepped back out onto the cobbles of The Royal Mile. Locking the gate behind her, Alys moved quickly and quietly along the sides of buildings, pupils wide, taking in every speck of available light and every detail of the unfamiliar street and buildings. Looking to her left, towards The Brotherhood’s home at Mary King’s Close, Alys’ eyes were drawn to the gothic St Giles Cathedral. She made herself a silent promise to come back another time and investigate the beautiful building and its surrounding courtyards. Turning her attention to her right, she made her way up the cobbled Lawnmarket towards the Castle Esplanade.
As she forked right up to Castlehill, Alys noticed one of The Ringed stuck behind the railings of the fence around The Hub, another gothic-looking building. Trapped between the railings, arm broken and twisted around the fence, it was no threat to her. Trained to calculate risk, she decided not to waste energy silencing it and continued up Castlehill.
As she passed the railing, the former woman in a tattered red waitress uniform, craned its neck and snapped its jaws reflexively at her. A pitiful, dry groan escaped its throat. Alys looked at it for a second, taking in its appearance. In the advanced stages of decomposition – as advanced as these creatures got at any rate – the creature looked dry and broken. It creaked when it moved and carried dust, probably desiccated flesh, all over its person. The eyes were long gone having passed the putrefaction stage many years past, but it sensed her by some other means and turned its empty eye sockets towards her, repeating its weak, hungry groan.
Alys sighed, walked around the fence and quickly silenced the trapped ex-person, before moving up the slippery cobbled road once again towards the Castle.
Upon reaching the top of Castlehill the narrow, gothic street suddenly widened into a broad esplanade at the top of which stood Edinburgh Castle. Despite the freezing rain and the wind, and her own stoic disposition, Alys smiled to herself and began to walk out into the open space.
As she made her way across the square, she heard someone’s boots running up Castlehill behind her. After vaulting over the railings on her right, Alys took position behind a large stone Celtic cross and sat silently watching as the boy with the bow appeared. Obviously in a state of panic, he carried his bow out in front, arrow in position, and a rucksack on his back. Scanning the Esplanade, he made his way carefully towards a massive arched door at the Castle. From where she sat Alys could see him retrieve a small object from behind one of the walls by the Castle, slip it in his bag and move back around the Esplanade towards Castlehill.
He stationed himself tucked in behind a wall, alert and watching, down the cobbled road that led to Mary King’s Close. Clearly he expected someone. Alys slid silently around the perimeter of the fence she’d taken cover behind, her eyes never once leaving him until she could see part way down Castlehill in the direction he was facing.
An hour passed, during which time he kept his arrow loaded and his bow-string taut. There was no sign of movement in his muscles despite the tension in the bow for the whole of the hour he stood watch. It was a striking feat of stamina and strength. Alice was reluctantly impressed. Eventually, he decided that whoever he thought was coming after him was gone or had never come. Unhooking his arrow he sat on the wet cobbles, rucksack pressed up against the wall, visibly relieved and obviously defeated.
Part of Alys enjoyed seeing the carefree boy so visibly distraught, but most of her was crushed that the illusions she’d crafted for herself of his perfect, free life were just that, illusions. Unwilling to break the silence or his moment of reflection, she sat as still as the stone cross behind her watching his shoulders move in time with his sobs. Shame rose in her; she wanted to leave, to give the boy his privacy, but she stayed where she was.
The sound of breaking wood brought her instantly to full alert. She sprang to her feet, giving her position away to the boy who’d already risen and was turning his body side-on to her and taking aim. She froze. Not out of fear for herself – she’d looked this boy in the eye as a ten-year-old and knew that, despite the anger, she felt towards him, the jealousy of a life she imagined that he had – this was a good person. He wouldn’t fire at her.
She’d frozen in place because she’d spotted the source of the noise which had startled them both out of their hiding places. Six Ringed had crashed through the boarded-up shop front immediately next to where the boy had been resting his back against the stone walls. With his attention on Alys, the boy was unaware of the dead hands reaching out to him or the teeth snapping in anticipation of a meal at last.
Her mother would look after herself and walk away. That’s what Alys been taught to do and it was what she wanted to do. She pushed her mother’s voice away and shouted at him.
“RINGED. BEHIND YOU.”
Alys began running in his direction as she drew her Sai. Never taking her eyes from him, she saw realisation dawn in his green eyes and watched him swing around, turning his bow arm to bring it horizontal and smashing into the side of the nearest creature’s temple. As she covered the ground between them, she saw him take a single step forward and kick another of The Ringed across its knee, causing the weak ligaments to snap and the creature to tumble forward.
He was quick and inventive but he’d obviously never fought a crowd before and was trying to fight them one at a time, as if they’d form an orderly queue and politely wait their turn. Inexperience was going to get him killed, or worse, get him bitten.
Al
ys threw herself into a high somersault, clearing his head as the downed creature dragged the boy to the ground with it. As she passed over the boy, she saw The Ringed using its arms to crawl up the prone boy, forcing him to jam his bow riser into its rotting mouth. She heard teeth crunch and a scream as she cleared the pair and flashed out a kick to a female creature’s chest, knocking her over.
Silencing her with a Sai point to the temple, Alys rotated both Sai and launched both hands forward delivering the flat Sai handles into the foreheads of the two Ringed currently reaching for her. Yanking the handles free she whipped around once more, using the length of her Sai to break the arm then leg then neck of the last one, before pushing a Sai edge through its ocular cavity, bringing it to a final silence. Leaving her Sai poking from its eye socket, she smoothly pulled her third Sai from her belt and launched herself at the boy.
He’d pushed The Ringed off him after catching the creature’s mouth around his bow, but was pulling at a blood-stained glove. It had bitten him. He saw her move towards him and held his injured hand up to halt her.
“Wait…”
He didn’t get to complete his sentence; she’d already delivered her blow.
“What the hell?” He’d been complaining at her for a while now as they walked downhill together towards the gates on Bank Street.
“It looked like you’d been bitten.” She shrugged. “Amputation’s the only way of stopping the infection spreading.”
He scowled at her and looked back to the tip of his middle finger on his left hand, or at least at the empty space where the top half of the finger formerly resided.
“It was just a pressure wound to the nail.”
Alys shrugged again.
The boy with the bow and the missing finger stared a little more at the cauterised wound on his shortened finger, before shifting his eyes to her face and offering her a wide grin.
“Well, a ‘thank you’ is in order I suppose.” He jabbed what remained of his mid-digit into the air in an attempt at a rude gesture.
Despite herself and the situation, Alys laughed out loud. It felt good to laugh with him. She couldn’t recall the last time something had made her smile.
“I’m Alys.” She offered him her hand.
The boy with the bow smiled broadly at her and took her hand in his.
“Thank you, Alys, I’m Joey.”
They stood for a few long seconds not letting go of each other’s hand, until it became awkwardly obvious that they’d both held onto each other a little too long. Fortunately Joey had the perfect opportunity to break the connection as he noticed a cloaked, masked man making his way towards them from the direction of Mary King’s Close.
Alys grabbed her Sai, noticing Joey bring his bow up into the ready position, despite the obvious pain in his hand. Her mother had told her often of how men were weak, and unreliable in that weakness, but Joey was anything but weak.
She let him step slightly ahead of her. It wasn’t a defensive gesture, he wasn’t being gallant; she might’ve taken another finger from him for that. Instead he’d taken the initiative, simply because his weapon had the longest range.
They instinctively parted from each other, sidestepping in either direction to flank the cobbled street. She liked this kid more and more; he thought like she did. Give the enemy two targets to worry about instead of one. Masking a smile that threatened to pop up on her face with a scowl, she shouted towards the advancing man.
“Step into the light.”
She saw his head cock to the side, as if he’d been amused at her order, but he followed the instruction by leaving the shade of the buildings and stepping into the moonlight.
Dressed in leather boots, gloves, black denims and a leather duster coat, not a cloak, the figure also wore the long-beaked mask of a plague doctor. Alys recognised it from books she’d read in her childhood. The sight of it threatened to chill her muscles, to seize them up, but she pushed away the instinctive fear that the ancient image had brought and stepped closer to him. Joey followed her lead.
Closing the distance between them, she noted that he wore two long blades, one sheathed at each hip. The way he moved, like flowing silk, told her how dangerous he was. She heard Joey draw further on the bow. He was readying a shot, probably figuring that the man had gotten close enough. The creaking string caused the masked man to halt and spread his arms, palms open in a submissive gesture.
“Mask off. Now,” Alys barked at him.
Joey pulled the last ounce of tension into his bow. Alys took a ready stance, both Sai raised. The masked man performed a strangely old-fashioned little bow to show that he would comply. The gesture did nothing to make either teenager relax.
Reaching up, he grabbed the long, hooked nose with one hand and unbuckled a leather strap behind his head.
“A little jumpy tonight, Joseph?” Padre Jock asked in wry amusement.
“You know this guy? Why didn’t you say?” Alys was instantly suspicious of both males. Had she wandered into a trap? She rotated her hips and adjusted her feet slightly, almost imperceptibly but enough to enable her to defend an attack from either male. Her mother’s voice mocked her.
Joey had seen or felt the subtle changes in her posture and lowered his bow, placing it on the ground in response.
“I do know him, sort of, but I’ve never seen him dressed like that.”
“Aye,” Jock interrupted. “Sorry about that.”
Alys eyed them both. She felt at war with herself. Everything her mother and community had taught her told her not to trust anyone, especially not men, and most especially not men from The Brotherhood. Her mother had also taught her to listen to her instincts, to trust her inner voice and it told her to relax: to trust the boy with the bow and the green eyes. To trust Joey.
Keeping her Sai in her hands – there was trust and there was stupidity – Alys lowered her arms and stood in a more relaxed manner.
“What’s the story with you guys then?”
Jock smiled warmly at her, causing Joey to throw him a puzzled expression.
“Just looking out for the lad. He’s kind of burned his bridges back there.” Jock jabbed a thumb over his shoulder indicating the entrance to Mary King’s Close.
Joey smiled his agreement before asking, “What’s happening down there? Did they send you to bring me back?”
Jock laughed outright at the question.
“Not exactly, son. I’ve no intention of taking you back there.”
Alys watched the exchange.
“What makes you think I’ll allow you to take me anywhere?” Joey asked, clearly irked at Jock’s attempts to take charge of him. “What happened back there? Why haven’t they come after me?” Joey had raised his bow once more, taking aim at Jock’s chest.
Alys backed him up. It felt like the thing to do, even though her common sense told her to leave them to it.
Jock surprised them both by sitting on the cobbles, cross-legged. “I had a little chat with them, son.”
“I’m not your bloody son!” Joey was starting to get angry at the old man’s amusement. Alys didn’t blame him; she thought the old guy was irritating too, but also kinda cool.
“You’ve never spoken to me, cared about me or even looked at me without scowling before today. Why the hell would I trust you? I’ll ask one more time, Jock.”
Joey took careful aim and put maximum tension into the bow.
“Tell me what happened back there.”
He’s gonna kill this old guy, Alys thought.
Jock stood again, placed his weapons on the cobbles and walked slowly towards Joey.
“I… persuaded them to let you go; to come with me, out there.” Jock nodded to his left, towards the fence-line that marked the limits of The Brotherhood’s territory. Alys watched Joey’s eyes narrow in mistrust and confusion.
“I also reminded them who brought you to Mary King’s Close in the first place.”
Joey lowered his bow and shook his head. The tears had
begun to track their way down his face.
“I reminded them who had fetched you from a pool of blood five yards from where your mother was being devoured by those things that they choose to worship. I reminded them that it was me who kept the most dangerous of the Children of Elisha from their gates in return for your safe shelter.”
“Why now? You let me live there all this time, why now?” Joey had fallen to his knees and was looking up at the padre, eyes streaming with tears now.
Alys watched what look like shame pass across Jock’s face.
“Because they had women amongst them, back then. Mothers. All I was then was a killer. A Zombie-hunter. I couldn’t be a father. I couldn’t have a baby to care for, I didn’t know how.”
“Coward,” Joey screamed out at the old man, rushing towards him to strike his face. Jock caught him easily by the wrists and brought his face close to his.
Alys was stunned into inaction and stood passively beside them watching it all unfold. What could she do or say, anyway?
“I was a coward to leave you there for so long, in the arms of mad men,” Jock told him gently. “That’s why I stayed and watched over you. I hoped that you’d be smart enough, be brave enough, braver than me, to break their brainwashing. They were keeping you safe and fed; that is what was important. I waited for when you would want to be free. For the time when you could leave the fences and not just become food for The Ringed. I watched them try to break your spirit, to make you believe with your whole heart that their way was the right way, but you kept a part of yourself free from their influence. The free-running through the streets up on the surface, the visits to the Esplanade; you were becoming independent in thought and deed.”
Joey was crying freely now in Jock’s arms, both men on their knees. Alys looked away, but felt her eyes drawn back to them crouched together on the black, wet cobbles of the Royal Mile.