by T. C. Edge
“You alright?!” he calls.
I nod.
And pulling me towards Adryan, who hovers under the close canopy of trees, we surge away from the wall, just as our enemy begins to reach the ramparts and send their bullets to chase us.
Into the shadows we go, lifting the gas masks to our faces.
Running off into the unknown.
19
The woods grow quickly murky and thick. Beneath our feet, the ground turns sticky, the constant toxic rainfall in the area giving life to bogs and swamps that aren’t easy to navigate and traverse.
Led by Zander, who’s spent plenty of time wandering the outerlands beyond the northern reaches of Outer Haven, we quickly find ourselves losing sight of the facility at our backs, descending into a dangerous and dark world, where the threat of death and injury awaits around every turn.
Our pursuers won’t stop just because we’ve escaped the high wall. Many will already have made the leap themselves, following our step into the forest, with others spreading through the main gate and coming at us from another angle.
It’s the Dashers I’m most worried about. Without the burden of Adryan, they’ll be able to search quicker, cover more ground than we can. And to add to the issue, my husband seems to have developed a limp.
At first it’s hard to see, given the unsteadiness of the ground and the hurried nature of our escape. Only once we’ve made it a little way into the woods do I notice that his left ankle isn’t operating as well as his right. That each time he puts any weight on that side of his body, a fresh grimace of discomfort joins the many days of torture-induced pain that’s built up behind his eyes.
“It’s fine,” he mumbles, seeing my show of concern. “I’ll manage. Don’t slow down for me.”
His faculties are returning at least, the adrenaline-fuelled escape dissipating the drugs that linger in his blood, freshening his weary mind for the task ahead. He knows that, unlike my brother and me, he’s incapable of moving quickly through this swamp, incapable of fighting off our attackers as we can.
I’m sure he doesn’t want to add an injured ankle to his own disadvantage. He’s far too proud a man for that.
So I don’t even mention it to my brother, who continues to battle his way through the bushes and trees and tangled vines that block our path, navigating cleverly through the deeper swamps and continually searching for more sturdy ground.
A fall into one of the bogs could be fatal. Such is the toxicity of some of the pools of water here that the skin can quickly be burned away without sufficient protection, and the mind addled by pain and madness before you can step from the deadly bogs.
One uncertain step can end up being your downfall.
But my brother is well experienced, and leads us through as quickly as he can manage as our pursuers call out in the distance, passing along orders and information as they attempt to hunt us down.
Unfortunately, we’re leaving a trail, the rush of three bodies through this untarnished bush enough for a skilled tracker to follow. And with Bats and Sniffers among our pursuers, we’re well aware that we have no option to let up or slow down. We must keep going, on and on. And if we have to face our enemy again, so be it.
Under the canopy, the world is dark. My eyes, and Zander’s, are able to deal with this murk. Adryan’s aren’t; yet another weakness.
As the forest thickens, so the light fades even further, and Zander quickly stops at the front and swaps masks with Adryan.
“This one has night-vision,” he says, passing my husband the Stalker mask and visor.
He takes the regular gas mask and slips it quickly onto his face to protect against the fog, and Adryan does the same. It seems to have an impact, his vision suddenly far improved and pace speeding as his footfall becomes a little more sure.
Our pace quickens through necessity. The chasing pack isn’t far behind. It’s still early afternoon, yet the daylight is lost down here. And even through the cracks above, a gloom is gathering as clouds start to cover the sun and blot out its warm illumination.
We hurry on, and the noise behind us gets louder. Then, suddenly, I hear the cracking of twigs closer to our rear, a little way off to the right. My eyes skim through and catch sight of a Dasher dancing as quietly as he can manage through the trees.
Not quiet enough.
I see him. So does my brother. Within moments Zander has disappeared himself and engaged the man in combat. Yet this one he doesn’t kill. Trapping him against the trunk of a thick and craggy tree, he sets an order into his mind to aid us in our escape.
As we set our sights ahead once more, the attacker turns and moves off in the opposite direction. A minute later, the sound of gunfire cracks once more in the distance, the man causing havoc within the ranks of his own men.
My brother, once more, has proven his considerable worth.
An hour passes by as we’re accosted a couple more times. On each occasion, my brother handles the men while I stay with Adryan, protecting him. I want to add my own powers to the mix, but Zander shows me I’m not needed. He tells me too with a firm order.
“Leave them to me,” he growls. “Stick with Adryan.”
Only once am I forced to help, when a Brute comes charging through the bushes and Zander’s gun fails to fire. As he dodges the giant, I step in and disable him with a shot to the knee. It cracks against the cap and the Brute howls a deafening roar of pain, his weight shifting as he tumbles and sinks into a thick, muddy pool of acid.
His howling intensifies and sends a chill right through me as his face is covered in the burning mud, causing boils and blisters to bubble up on his skin.
“Finish him off,” orders Zander. “Stop that howling.”
It’s my test. My first kill.
I lift the gun and aim it at the Brute’s head, just below the protection of his helmet. My delay is enough for Zander to shout: “Finish him.”
His sudden words cause my finger to jolt on the trigger. The bullet fires and the howling ends. A huge body sinks into the mud.
I’ve killed my first man.
Mercy, I tell myself. This one was mercy.
I can’t dwell on it.
Into the depths of the forest we go, the hunters behind us now so dispersed that we might just have lost them. For another hour we trek without further interruption, and a deep silence pervades the world. Exhausted and drained, my brother finally allows us to rest in the shadow of a little rocky outcrop, hidden to the side of a small clearing.
Adryan has returned to life now, but the grimace on his face hasn’t left. I make him take a seat within a small cave cut into the side of the rock and lift his left ankle up onto my knee. It’s swollen badly on one side, his movement severely limited.
Zander, prowling around the clearing and constantly checking for any sign of our chasers, doesn’t notice. Adryan doesn’t want him too either.
“It’s fine,” he assures me. “It’s just a sprain.”
I move in to sit beside him, gently lowing his leg back to the ground. For a few moments, we sit in silence, watching Zander from the shadows as he peers through the trees and tries to get his bearings.
“I tried to get you out,” I say quietly.
Adryan’s eyes don’t turn to me. He continues to stare blankly, his mind still badly messed up by the last few days he’s had to bear.
“I tried to make an exchange,” I continue, “to bargain with Cromwell. You for Agent Woolf. Lady Orlando wouldn’t take it.”
“Of course she wouldn’t,” he says. “That was never part of the deal.”
I turn to him. “What deal?”
He drags a breath into his tired body. “The deal that, if we got caught, we were alone. At least, that was the deal for me. Your brother was never going to let that happen with you.”
“And you were OK with that? Adryan, they could easily have made the exchange. After everything you’ve done…you deserved to be freed.”
“I’ve done no more than anyone
else. I have no fear of dying, Brie. As soon as they came to the apartment to take me, I knew that would be my fate. I made my peace with that a long time ago.” His soft eyes fall to mine. “But thank you, for coming here. You took a risk…that maybe you shouldn’t. But thank you.”
He smiles weakly. It’s the best he can do right now.
I take his hand and a new silence resumes, but for the quiet clicking of bugs and the occasional chirp of a strange bird. It’s oddly peaceful here, the sun peeking through a break in the clouds and laying a warm blanket on the little clearing ahead.
But within no time at all, the peace is disrupted once more, nothing but a brief lull. Zander comes back over to us, hazel eyes searching through narrow sockets.
“OK, break’s over. Let’s go.”
There’s a worry to his voice, a tension that won’t fade until we’re back in the safe hands of the Nameless.
“How far are we from the church?” I ask, referring to the rebel headquarters.
“Hours,” he tells me. “We won’t get there before nightfall. And that’s when it’s most dangerous.”
“But we’ve lost them,” I say.
He turns his eyes to the dark green forest.
“It’s not them I’m talking about.”
20
We’ve outrun our pursuers. And we’ve outrun the daylight too.
It’s growing dark up above, dusk all but ready to fall. My body aches through action, the endless slog through the marshlands and woods taking a great deal of energy when I have so little to give. Adryan is struggling badly, but refuses to give in. Zander refuses to ask him if he’s OK. It’s as if there’s a silent pact between the two to not draw attention to weakness.
He does ask me, though, and I assure him I’m fine. But after several days of neglect locked in that chair, I’m flagging badly. My mind is wavering, losing itself as we trek on and on with no real way to discern our progress.
Far away as we are, even the lofty summit of the High Tower is absent from view. Perhaps if we were to climb a tree to get a better look it would appear, somewhere away in the distance. But down here in the bush and bog, we have no features to determine our course except the endless trunks of trees and the little ponds and puddles that populate the swamplands.
On occasion, we reach another clearing, and Zander performs another check to make sure we’re going in the right direction. Above the trees, I see the faint sign of the mountains so far away. After another hour, I see them again, and note that they look exactly the same; that we’ve covered such a short amount of ground to make the view appear nigh on identical.
I let myself smile only briefly at seeing the high peaks, topped with snow. I think back to only a couple of nights ago, when I’d seen a fire flickering inside a cave, wondering whether the rumours of the mountain dwellers had been true all along or if it was merely some trick of the light, some lie manifested inside my mind.
When I looked upon the peaks from that high window, I had no hope that I’d ever be out here, looking up at the mountains from this vantage.
I could, should I wish, continue on towards them. Please the selfish person inside me, the adventurer who wants to explore and get as far away from the city of Haven as possible.
But then, that internal adventurer is tired, and weak, and easily overpowered by the gratefulness I need to show my brother.
He broke me free. He broke Adryan free. Just like he did with Drum all those weeks ago. Back then, I promised him that I’d complete my mission in return. I didn’t. I failed. But at least I tried.
Now, I have more debt to pay. More red in my ledger. I will, once again, need to accede to any demand he makes. If he wishes it, I will become a soldier. I will fight with him, side by side, and have another crack at crushing Cromwell.
Because, really, I guess that’s still the main aim. Although something tells me it won’t be anywhere nearly as simple this time. He knows we’re coming now. Unless Burns does something from the inside, he’ll be untouchable.
But whatever Zander wants, I’ll do. But only if it comes from him. Lady Orlando has earned no such compliance from me.
We trudge on in the darkness, my Hawk-eyes losing some of the clarity that daylight brings. With the strange mist hanging around on the floor and clinging to the trees, this isn’t like any normal darkness. It’s deeper, pervading all, blocking out my powers so that my ability to see in the night is more limited.
It frightens me. There’s a strange sense here, something rising in my bones.
A feeling that we’re not alone.
That there are eyes all over the place, hidden high and low, watching as we grind on through the trees. Mile upon mile has been covered since escaping the REEF, but there’s still a long way to go.
And here, as dusk passes and the nightly light of the moon and stars are hidden by the swamp of cloud above, a new danger begins to brew. Not soldiers or guards. Not Dashers and Hawks and Brutes. Not guns and knives and manmade weapons.
No.
The dangers here are earthy, natural dangers of the world, a world made unsafe and terrible by the hand of man himself.
Many years ago, these woods would have been so very different, were they even here at all. The lands were so dominated by humans that nature was controlled, hiding in the shadows and awaiting its time.
That time has come again. The toxic mist, the horrible poison, isn’t a natural deterrent to this wild world. The beasts that hunt in these woods, accustomed now to the fog, have learned to stalk amid the mire, to prey on those foolish enough to step foot here.
I find myself moving closer to Zander now, dragging Adryan with me. His step has slowed, his eyes more narrow. They stare with a greater intensity, knowing just what lurks around us.
He’s hunted these woods before. He’s acted the part of the predator, him and his band of hybrids, too great a force for any beast here to reckon with.
But not this force. Not the three of us. Not with me so tired and weak. Not with Adryan so defenceless.
And Zander knows it.
He knows full well of the threats we face. He knows full well that death could strike from any angle, behind any tree, pouncing on us before we can even raise our weapons.
Usually, no doubt, he’d hunt with Bats and Sniffers. He’d have warning of strange scents in the air, of the musty smells given off by the animals that lurk here. And the otherwise imperceptible sounds of footfall would be detected, the Bats aware of all things moving among the trees.
But we are not Bats.
And we are not Sniffers.
We have only our Hawk-eyes here, muted by the strange darkness, and our Dasher powers that might just help us in a chase. But mine are weak and waning, my energy levels spent. And Adryan has no such gifts to use. He’s not even armed.
With all this clearly playing on Zander’s mind, he searches the night more carefully than ever. And turning to us, his hazel eyes shine with a bright and sudden concern, before switching to a large tree off to the right.
“Go, now,” he whispers harshly. “Get into the branches.”
I delay a split second, and that’s all I need. Suddenly, I hear them, the low growls and the scratching claws. And I see them too, the red eyes dotted in the gloom.
I grab Adryan and run.
We reach the trunk of the tree and scramble up, his injured ankle forced to work, to push his frame up from the ground as Zander retreats behind us, offering himself as a distraction.
We reach the low branches just in time, only a couple of metres from the ground. From all sides the creatures come, wolf-like but larger, with a green tinge to their fur and a red light in their eyes. Their fangs are long and sharp, their muzzles strangely shaped and adapted to live among this poison.
All the pictures I’ve seen of old wolves spring to mind, only morphed and altered into something more nightmarish and grotesque. Some are drawn straight to us, hiding in the branches, scratching at the bark and trying to climb up.
As I lift my gun to shoot them down, I see Zander’s body phase into the night, his speed shifting him deeper into the woods in an attempt to draw the beasts away.
Some follow, chasing him down. Others continue to growl at the base of the tree as I aim and fire into their snapping snouts.
The sound of my gun cracks into the night, and one of the wolves drops to the earth with a bullet in its red eye. The rest move like lightning, out of my line of sight and around the trunk, searching for another avenue up.
“Climb!” I call to Adryan.
Together, we reach for the next set of branches and work our way up, just as the wolves dig their claws into the bark, ripping at the wood as they attempt to scramble up towards us. My gun spews forth more fire, each shot echoing loudly through the forest until, suddenly, the trigger yields only the sound of clicking.
I’m out. The gun’s empty.
I slip the weapon into my belt and continue up, higher and higher, following straight behind Adryan. Away into the woods, I see red lights bursting from the tip of Zander’s rifle, cutting through any wolf that threatens to get too close.
But he must be tired too, his own Dasher powers only working for so long. Zipping from place to place, the beasts continue to charge him down, seemingly unafraid of the weapon that sees to the death of a number of their pack.
More of them come, more than I can count, shadows forming into shapes in the night. They rush around, hunting down Zander or sniffing out Adryan and me as we claw our way higher to safety.
The wolves struggle to keep up. They’re not built for climbing. Not like the jaguars and other deformed big cats that lurk around here too. They make progress by sheer will alone, scratching with such fury at that bark that some manage to reach the larger, lower branches.
But we’re out of reach again, our more nimble frames and dextrous abilities giving us the advantage. My fear reaches fever pitch. Only by the continuous flaring of red lights am I aware of Zander’s safety.
They’re further off now, glinting in the distance as my brother draws the beasts away. I scream his name as the wolves on the tree fight their way higher, gaining on us now as we cling to the limbs of the tree with nowhere to go, nothing to defend ourselves with.