“Somehow I doubt it.” Max shuffled around in front of William, who then said, “What are you doing?”
A few seconds later, William flinched again as Max first touched his face, shoulders, and then patted down his arms until they were holding hands. He fed a piece of cloth into William’s grip. “Here, hold this.”
The banging behind them louder than before, the screams closing in on them from somewhere in the tunnels, William’s throat hurt to shout over the noise. “What are you doing?”
“This is my top. I’ve tied it around my waist so you can hold on to it. It makes sense for me to lead because I can bump into the diseased and not get bitten.”
“But you still can’t see anything.”
“No, but I’m more useful than you.”
“All right, no need to rub it in.”
“Oh, and, Spike—”
“William!”
Although Max replied, a chorus of shrieks from somewhere in the tunnels drowned him out, so he tried again. “Does it really matter right now?” Before William replied, he added, “Your sword needs to be sheathed.”
“What?”
“You need to make sure your sword’s away. I can’t have you swinging it when you’re no more than a few feet behind me. So are you ready?”
“No.”
“Will you ever be?”
“No.”
The slack in Max’s shirt pulled taut as he moved off, and William—despite every desire—let the boy lead him. Each step in the darkness sent a flip through his stomach in anticipation of a fall.
They started slow, leaving the reek and hammering of hundreds of diseased behind as they delved deeper into the rich, earthy dampness of the tunnels.
Max quickened the pace and William tugged against it. Then another diseased’s wail barrelled through the darkness and he yielded. If they were too cautious, they’d die.
Nowhere near a sprint, but they quickened to a jog, every step blind, every step loaded with the potential to throw them to the ground.
The first William knew of Max stopping came when he crashed into the back of him. “What’s up?”
More diseased’s screams.
Several seconds of heavy breathing, Max finally said, “They’re getting closer. What shall we do?”
William held his breath and listened to the slap of steps. “It sounds like just one of them.”
“Shall we let it come to us?”
“Yeah. I need to draw my sword though. If we stay back to back, it’ll be safe.”
“Okay.”
William dropped Max’s shirt, drew his sword, and backed into his friend. He pushed away thoughts of when he’d done the same with Hugh near the gym. Neither spoke as the steps closed in on them. The cries sounded almost human as if the thing tried to articulate words it once knew.
The footsteps mirroring his heartbeat, William battled his short and rapid breaths while tightening his grip on his sword’s hilt. Max shifted behind him, his turning feet scratching as he clearly widened his stance on the gritty ground.
The approaching diseased rounded the corner and came at them. Slathering, rattling, phlegmy breaths, it drew closer. An awkward and uneven gallop, William held his sword out, tip first, inviting the creature to skewer itself at full charge.
It sounded about ten feet away. Eight feet. Six feet. Two feet …
But nothing crashed into them, the steps flying past as if they belonged to a ghost.
“What the hell?” Max said.
After a few seconds to be certain the steps were definitely running away from them, William shook his head. “It must be in another tunnel.” He felt the touch of Max’s hand as he passed him his shirt again. He sheathed his sword before giving the sleeve a tug. “Let’s go.”
Where one set of footsteps had passed them, twenty pairs took its place, diseased sprinting through the tunnels, coming at them from every direction.
The speed they’d moved at before the ghost of the diseased had nothing on their current pace, William hanging on to Max’s shirt while fighting against his own tense reluctance to run. But they needed to get out of there.
A flash of light then punched through William’s vision as he slammed nose-first into the back of Max’s head. A ringing in his ears, he stumbled back, letting go of Max’s shirt and hitting the hard ground. His eyes watered and the coppery taste of his own blood ran down the back of his throat. He sat up, his lips damp with his nosebleed.
“William, are you okay?”
William reached out and grabbed Max’s leg. He felt the touch of his friend’s hand, who pulled him to his feet.
“I hit a wall. Are you okay?” Max said.
Several nods, William spoke in a nasally tone. “Yeah, although I think I’ve broken my nose.”
Another furious scream crashed through their conversation.
“Can you still run?”
“As long as you don’t hit a wall again.”
“I’ll try not to. Let’s go.”
Before setting off, the sound of the creatures approached from behind. More than one this time. “What do you want to do?” Max said. “Stay and fight?”
Adrenaline sent a violent shake through William. “How many do you think there are?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“If they catch us, I’m not confident we can fight them off.”
The slack in Max’s shirt pulled taut again, so William followed him, running blind with the horde on their tail.
They were slower than the diseased, the creatures getting louder with every step. Shouting to Max wouldn’t help anyone, but William guessed they had thirty seconds at most before the beasts were on them.
William then crashed over the top of Max, his forearms slamming against the edges of several stairs. In spite of the sharp sting from his fall, he scrabbled to his feet. “Max, are you okay?”
The diseased drew closer.
“Stairs have to be a good thing, right?” Max said.
William scrambled up them, smashing his head against the wooden barrier of closed doors. When he pushed against them, the metal frame felt hot to touch. They had fifteen seconds at the most before the diseased reached them. The air had already curdled with their rancid vinegar reek.
A clenched jaw, sweat and blood running down his face, William pressed his palms to the warm wooden doors and yelled as he shoved one of them with everything he had.
The crack of the door fell wide, and the muted daylight dazzled William. He clambered from the hatch, falling against the ground. Just one door open, he fought to breathe in the smoky air while Max scrambled free.
A wall of diseased on their tail, the second Max burst from the hatch, William slammed the door shut to the satisfying crunch of the lead runner’s skull.
William put his weight against the doors to hold them back, and Max shoved a thick metal pin at least two feet long through the handles. It was attached to the doors with a chain, clearly used for locking the tunnels from the outside. Although the diseased opened the doors by a few inches, the pin prevented them from shoving them any wider.
His hands on his knees, William battled his own fitness and the thick black clouds around them. Hot from his run, his surroundings were like a furnace. They’d come out in the woodwork district.
After a heaving coughing fit, Max stood up and nodded at the doors they’d just clambered through. He then squinted to take in their surroundings and shook his head before he said, “Out of the frying pan …”
Chapter 54
Now they were in daylight—albeit muted daylight because of the thick clouds of smoke—William got a clear sight of Max with his shirt off. Every one of his ribs were visible, and his stomach looked like it had been sucked in. He wore the neglect of a prisoner of the state—and that was someone in a luxury prison; what would Artan look like? Would he even be alive when they finally got to him?
The doors rattled and slammed shut repeatedly from where the diseased continued to push against them.
Max sheathed his sword, untied his shirt from around his waist, folded it, and then fastened it across his nose and mouth. William followed suit, removing his sheathed sword from his back so he could take his top off to make a mask.
Although William breathed more easily, the impromptu filter did nothing for the thick smoke in his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks as he blinked against the noxious clouds.
His words muffled, Max said, “At least the diseased are held back.”
“Yeah, but that door won’t be anywhere near as effective when it’s on fire.”
The air alive with pops and crackles, a deep creaking ran through a tall building on their right. As William turned towards it, the structure failed, dropping as if the bottom of it had been obliterated. It fell straight down, thrusting out hot air. The burning embers died just a few feet from them. As more of their surroundings creaked, he said, “Let’s go.”
Almost as blind above ground as they were beneath it, William led their escape this time. Black clouds, bright explosions of fire, and the wind thrusting stinging fireflies at them added to their dilemma.
Yet another building creaked on their left, so William led them right as it fell.
They reached a dead end, a wooden fence at least eight feet tall; it was aflame like everything else in the damn district. William’s shoulders slumped. “Shit.”
A tight grip clamped on William’s left arm before Max dragged him through a dark cloud. They were back in the tunnels, blind and with William trusting his friend’s lead.
The other side of the cloud showed them another path, albeit one with flaming beams in their way. Despite the heat, his inability to breathe, and the chance of a mountain of fire collapsing on them from any of the towering infernos on either side, William would take this over the tunnels any day. Limited visibility always won out over no visibility.
As they drew closer, what William had initially taken to be a hunk of wood turned out to be the charred remains of a person. The whites of their teeth revealed them as human. Hopefully, it had been a diseased.
Max stopped first and William caught up to him. Another burning dead end. The pop, crackle, and roar of fire around them, Max didn’t try to speak. He didn’t need to. They were screwed.
This time William took the initiative, kicking the wall as hard as he could. The flaming fence panel toppled, opening a way through.
Several more twists and turns, William tripped as he made it into tailoring, stumbling several paces before he fell to his knees. Max joined him a second later. There were no diseased nearby. Although they were far from safe. If the monsters heard or saw someone to infect, their caution would undoubtedly abandon them.
The moisture leeched from his body, William gulped, but it did nothing to sate his thirst. “Are you okay?”
Before Max replied, a shrill scream cut through the air. But not the scream of a diseased … the scream of a child.
After he’d pulled his shirt away from his mouth, Max said, “Was that a diseased?”
As much as William wanted to lie, to pretend they hadn’t just heard a cry for help, he couldn’t. The child screamed again, and this time he saw her. “Look.”
Max looked where William guided him. “Shit.”
The girl was trapped on what looked like the roof of a factory at the edge of the district, surrounded by flames. William shook his head. “And she nearly made it.”
“She still could.”
They’d left plenty of people behind already, what made this girl so different? “What do you mean?”
Max’s turn to point. “The building next to the one she’s trapped on looks relatively stable.”
“By relatively stable, you mean only about sixty percent on fire rather than ninety?”
“That’s forty percent we’ve got to work with. If we can get up next to her, we can persuade her to jump across.”
“Are you insane?” As William said it, the girl screamed for her mum, her voice tearing with her grief, fear, and no doubt pain as she got slowly roasted.
When Max didn’t reply, William shook his head. “I’ve got to get to Matilda in the arena. We need to rescue Artan. We’ve left people before; why should this girl be any different?”
“Were the others you left about to burn to death, or did they still have a chance of surviving?”
If he’d had an argument, he would have given it. For the first time, he made eye contact with the girl. Wild and wide, her pure terror stood out on her soot-stained face.
Max said, “She can’t be any older than nine or ten, and one thing we know for sure is if we don’t help, she’ll burn.”
“Damn it.” William stumbled back towards woodwork. “Come on.”
The building beside the warehouse had rungs much like the steps to get to the roof of the gym. It was such a simple addition that William imagined most of the wooden structures in Edin had them. It gave them easy access for maintenance.
On the roof of the building, the entire structure swaying as if it could collapse beneath them, they managed to get to within about six feet of the girl as the flames began closing in around her. William pulled his mask down so she could hear them. “You have to jump.”
The gap between the buildings stretched two feet at the most, but even though the girl stepped forward, she halted before she reached it.
“Come on,” Max yelled. “You have to jump now.”
The girl’s blonde hair had the same soot stains as her face. Her mouth hung open. William locked eyes with her. “Jump! Now!”
“She’s not going to do it,” Max said.
The flames were closing in. “Jump, you idiot,” William said. “You’ll die if you don’t.” Where he’d had the girl’s attention, he lost it in that moment. The same glaze he’d seen in Hugh, she’d stopped listening.
While still fixed on him, the girl remained perfectly still as the flames blocked off her exit. She then vanished behind the shimmering orange wall.
The heat forced both William and Max back, but they both stayed on the roof as if the girl might somehow burst through.
William said, “There must be a way to help—”
The scream of a child burning to death cut through his words.
At least a minute of wailing and crying, screaming and shouting, the girl finally fell silent.
The building William and Max stood on swayed. As much as William wanted to mark the girl’s passing, they had to get the hell out of there.
Max backed off the roof first, descending the ladder they’d climbed up. The woodwork district roared and spat like a giant beast.
His eyes streaming, William took extra care to find his footing before he followed, the toe of his boot missing several times before he caught a wooden rung. A short climb and he reached the reassuring stability of solid ground, taking off after Max and leaving woodwork for a second time.
Chapter 55
It had taken them several hours to get from woodwork to the edge of tailoring. The death of the girl had kept them silent for at least an hour of their journey before William finally talked to Max about the apprenticeship trials, giving him a full account of what had happened. While they spoke, they remained on high alert for any sign of the gangs. The onset of night made the task increasingly difficult.
Now, as they stood with the main road between them and the arena, the bright moon highlighting the heads of the shambling masses, Max shook his head. “It’s too dark to cross; we need to wait until morning.”
Near ready to drop, his eyes burning, his muscles aching, and the scream from the girl in woodwork still echoing through his skull, William said, “Maybe you’ve got a point, and were we all together right now, I’d agree with you.”
“But?”
“That road’s thirty feet wide at the most.”
“It’s not the width of the road you should be worried about, it’s the scores of diseased on it.”
“But surely the dark will hinder them too? They didn’t fin
d us as easily in the tunnels.”
Although Max opened his mouth to no doubt deliver an argument, William cut him off. “I need to see them, Max.”
“You need to see her!”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything if it means you’re going to take stupid risks.”
A cock of his head to one side, William raised an eyebrow at his friend. “It’s a little too late to be talking about that now, wouldn’t you say? We’ve come back into the city after all. Besides, Olga will be glad to see you. And what good will waiting here do when I’ll spend the entire night awake and worrying about whether they’ve made it back or not?”
“You’re not thinking straight, William. Matilda’s a big girl; she can wait for you until the morning.”
“But I can’t wait for her. Besides, you don’t need to make the decisions for me here. It’s not like my actions can cause you any harm.”
“No, but you need my help. Without it, you’re not getting across. I don’t think you’re making a reasonable judgement. As a friend, I’m trying to intervene.”
“And I appreciate you being candid with me.”
Before the conversation could go any further, William moved to the edge of the roof in two steps and jumped off, his arrival amongst the diseased met with their usual hellish wails.
Max called after him, “You should have at least let me go across and check they were there first.”
It seemed so obvious now. Obvious, but a little too late for William to do anything about it. At other times, he might have drawn his sword, but if he stopped to fight, he’d die. He shoulder-barged the first diseased, the creature’s arms windmilling as it fell backwards and hit the ground.
No more than a third of the way across and he already had a pack behind him, but those ahead hadn’t yet wised up to his presence. Shoving, kicking, and running with all he had, he weaved through the busy main road with only the moonlight to guide him.
His attention on the gates to the arena, William put everything he had into his pumping legs.
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