by Joel Ohman
Charley started toward her to help, but then stopped. She could handle herself.
Besides, he wanted Orson.
Just as he was pulling his eyes away from Sandy, Charley saw him.
Commander Orson was spearheading a formation of guards cutting its way through the crowd. Though Orson merely walked, calmly and methodically chopping his sword from side to side as if clearing some mildly troubling brush along the edge of a path, his height and self-assured bearing singled him out.
Charley tensed, ready to spring his full force at Orson, when he felt a large hand grasp his shoulder. Whirling, he turned to see Chappy’s wide face smiling crookedly at him, his cheeks ruddy and eyes bright.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there, cowboy.” Chappy nodded toward Orson. “Now, we can’t have you charging off just yet to try some ill-thought-out frontal attack on the commander solo, can we?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wanna be the new leader? So, lead.” Chappy looked meaningfully over his shoulder at his men as they clustered behind him.
Charley fought to rein in his growing impatience, but Chappy was right.
“Okay,” he said through gritted teeth. “What do you … advise?”
Chappy’s mouth quirked upward, his lips parting for just a second before his face returned to neutral. In that millisecond, Charley sensed that he had lost something.
Chappy stroked his chin. “Well, just tell the men what to do. They know to do what you tell them.”
“In that case …” Charley turned toward Chappy’s men, raised one of his blades high over his head, and yelled at the top of his lungs: “CHARGE!”
A great cry arose from the men. The boy with the highest Score in Meritropolis was fighting for and not against those Low Scores sentenced to the gates.
Meanwhile, Orson had barked orders to his blue-coated guards, and they had assembled themselves neatly like plates of armor chinking and locking together. Commander Orson thrust his sword in the air, long black hair billowing out behind him, bared his teeth, and bellowed out: “HOLD!”
Charley screamed his fury and ran directly at the mass of guards. Chappy’s pack of men frothed and howled close behind. Orson’s men tensed for impact, their metal bats clacking together like wind chimes signaling a change in the air.
Charley scampered up a small limestone bench and then, without pausing, launched himself boot-first into the face of the closest guard in the front row. Next he scythed down both of his blades in an X-shape. The guard slumped and dropped to the ground with a thump.
Bending down to one knee, he avoided the rash of bat swings that swooped over his head. Then in one smooth, whirling movement, he spun like a top, letting his blades whistle inches from the legs of every guard foolish enough to still be within range of his outstretched blades. He twirled once more, just for good measure like a human throwing star. The guards backed away as far as the packed crowds would let them.
Rising slowly, he wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. Three guards were staring at him, a look of terror frozen on each of their faces.
The corners of his mouth rose in a gruesome semblance of a smile.
The guards ran.
* * *
The battle raged around Charley, as his pack of men continued to tear into Orson’s guards. Charley carried on walking calmly in the direction of Commander Orson.
The sky swirled with orange and pink; dusk was fast approaching. Charley looked down at his hands, now stained red, and he wondered if he would ever be truly clean again. He walked among a sea of fallen Blue Coats; victory seemed imminent. Commander Orson was still protected on all sides by a thick coterie of guards, but Chappy’s men—and thanks in no small measure to Sandy’s fighting skill—were slowly eroding his ring of inner defenders.
Charley stopped and took in the battle, never taking his eyes off Orson. He wouldn’t let him slip away again.
He inhaled deeply, his once-heaving chest now rising more slowly as he tried to regain his breath. He needed a clear head to face Orson. He breathed in once, twice, letting the air fill his lungs. Then he exhaled. And coughed. Was that smoke?
Before he could look around, Charley felt the ground beneath his feet buckle and then bounce, slamming him against the floor, wrenching his shoulder against the cobblestones at an awkward angle.
A bright orange fireball blossomed from the gates; the sound of the blast concussed his ears with a force so raw, it was almost physical.
Then another section of the wall erupted. Followed by another. The protective barricade around Meritropolis had turned into a sheer wall of hungry flames. The heat radiated across his face from where he lay on the ground. Charley had the feeling he was looking into hell itself. And it was coming for him. The wall of fire was collapsing inward.
Charley scrabbled backward, propelling himself away from the unbearable heat.
People stumbled by, their faces streaked with soot. Charley had to turn his head away from the scores of hideously disfigured people who had been much closer to the blast than he had. Many people had their mouths open. Charley couldn’t work out if they were screaming.
He couldn’t hear anything but an all-consuming whoosh. Everywhere he turned, there was a roaring in his ears.
He wondered if he could be in shock. He felt heat on his back and continued staggering away from the flames, unsure where he was going.
He forced himself to stop. His thoughts rushed at him all at once. Where was Orson? Where were Sandy and Chappy and his men? He compelled his body to turn around and survey the area where Orson had last been seen, but the smoke made it hard to distinguish much of anything.
His left shoulder ached like the Devil himself had jammed a hot poker in the socket and was continuing to twist it, but his mind was slowly starting to clear, and the whooshing in his ears was receding to a high-pitched ringing noise. But he was relieved at the noise—he hadn’t lost his hearing permanently. He could even catch snippets of other sounds.
He made himself focus and think. If Orson wasn’t here, and if he was still alive, where might he go with no gates for protection? He knew the answer immediately.
The Tower.
He turned from the crashing gates and stumbled toward the Tower.
“Charley!”
Charley moved his head in the direction of what sounded like his name. It was as though someone down a tunnel was calling him from far, far away.
“Charley!”
A grime-smeared hand touched his shoulder, his bad shoulder, and he winced as he turned around. Sandy was urgently mouthing something just inches from his face.
He reached out and hugged her dumbly. She stopped trying to talk and just looked him, her eyebrows knitted together. She held him at arm’s length for a moment before stroking the side of his face with her sooty hand. Charley didn’t like the look of pity she wore, so he shook his head vigorously from side to side and made his mouth say what he hoped were the words, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” The action didn’t do anything to clear his thoughts, but it appeared to have a settling effect on Sandy. Her face relaxed, and she grabbed his arm and gestured to the Tower.
Charley followed her, still coughing every few steps; he couldn’t remember ever being so thirsty. But his hearing was definitely returning. He could hear yelling and screaming in the distance, as well as an eerie and agonizing wail that set his teeth on edge. He had seen hell up close; now he wondered if he was hearing what those in hell sounded like as they burned alive.
He walked faster, almost wishing the whooshing sound would return.
* * *
The blast had only solidified in Abigail’s mind what she had to do. Watching from the Tower, she had already known that Orson was in trouble. There were just too many people—too many angry people—and Orson’s guards were not trained to handle the sheer numbers of the riot. There would be a regime change, of that she was certain.
Above all else, Abigail was a survivor;
she was no helpless princess waiting around to be saved by the hero of the story: she made her own way in life. If there was a hero in her story, it was up to her to be that hero for herself. And like all survivors, she had backup plans upon contingency plans upon alternate plans. Her allegiances were fluid. She knew they had to be, in order to survive.
She hurried down from her Tower perch to seek out Charley, Chappy, and the other insurgents and offer them sanctuary in the Tower. With the walls destroyed, those who held the Tower held Meritropolis. It was that simple.
She smiled inwardly, fixing her face into a concerned expression worthy of the Mother Teresa she had read about: a real hero, as she hustled Chappy and the other survivors inside the Tower.
She pointed at two of Chappy’s men who looked the least shocked. “You two remain here at the door. No Blue Coats inside.” They looked at Chappy, and he gave them a quick nod. She guided Chappy down the hall and toward the Tower door, but then Chappy stopped. He seemed to ponder something before turning back toward the two men. “No Low Scores, either. We don’t have room. No Blue Coats and no Low Scores. Only our people.”
The two guards held his gaze, then each looked down briefly before answering with a snappy, “Yes, sir.”
Chappy turned back toward Abigail and gestured grandly down the hall. “Lead the way. Ladies first.” All the while his mouth was smiling, but his eyes were cold and hard, never leaving her face.
“Certainly.” She swallowed. “Thank you.” Abigail hoped that the tall, redheaded girl would find Charley alive and in one piece and get him to the Tower quickly. After hearing Chappy’s conversation with his men and seeing the stony glint in his eye, she had the sudden and unfamiliar feeling that she was in the company of someone just as devious as she was.
* * *
Charley’s hearing had well and truly returned. Unfortunately, it only added to his sensory overload. Acrid black smoke swirled across his frame of vision; it moved as if with a mind of its own, expanding and collapsing to swallow groups of people whole. And now, battle cries intermingled with whimpers of pain.
But the smell was the worst. As a child, he’d decided that if he had to give up one of his senses that he’d abandon his sense of smell as overrated. The air was putrid with a charcoal-like sulfury tang that made Charley’s insides boil. In fact, Charley swallowed hard as he realized that was exactly what the air smelled like—the boiling internal organs they had been served underground during the lean winter months. A rich, coppery burned-liver smell wasn’t just floating on the wind; it was permeating, drenching, soaking into everything. If he survived the day, his sense of smell would give him nightmares for a long time to come. Charley shuddered. It was impossible to get the smell of burning human flesh out of your nose.
“Charley?” Sandy latched onto his forearm, her eyes large. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay …” She released his arm, but didn’t look away. “The Tower is right up here—we’re almost there. Are you … You’re still with me, right? You know where we are?”
“I said I’m fine.”
She reached into her pocket and handed him a small canister. “Here, you probably need this. Have some water. Who knows what we’ll find up ahead. We have to be ready.”
He accepted the water thankfully and drained the canister without it leaving his lips. He handed it back to her empty. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You needed it.”
She was right; he felt his strength returning. And his anger.
“Is Orson in the Tower?” he asked.
“Well, no, I don’t think so. But he will definitely be heading there. Chappy has control of the Tower and—”
They came to an abrupt stop.
“What the …?” Sandy murmured softly.
“I guess we’re a little late,” Charley said.
The Tower was now in sight, but the entryway was barred by hundreds of blue-coated guards battling on two fronts: they were fighting off the still-raging crowds from the outside, while also attempting to fight past Chappy’s men on the inside to get into the Tower.
“I don’t see Commander Orson,” Charley said after a long pause.
“No … me neither. And I don’t see any easy way to get into the Tower. Especially not anytime soon—” She looked toward the darkening sky with a quick, nervous glance. “We need shelter soon, though. With the gates gone and dark coming …”
“Wait!” Charley’s eyes scanned the battling horde and settled on a dark clump of hair.
“What is it? Do you see him?” Sandy asked.
“No, but I see Sven.”
“Are you sure? Do you think we should go down there and—” She stopped, sighed, and slowly unsheathed her sword.
Charley’s blades were out and he was already running.
Triggered by the sight of Sven, the amalgam of disorienting sights, sounds, and smells coalesced into a solitary and clear purpose.
As Charley ran downhill, the crowd parted in unison, accepting him into their midst and propelling him to the front, where the battle with the Blue Coats was the heaviest. Charley sizzled across the cobblestone courtyard like a droplet of grease skittering across a frying pan. All at once, he was in a sea of blue. He desperately fought his way toward Sven.
Two guards moved at him. He knew, a split-second early, that the one on the left would thrust his bat left-handed while the one on the right would ax-chop with both hands. He wasn’t consciously aware of how he knew—maybe it was a subtle visual cue: a flexed knee, an angled glance, a tightening of hands on the bat—but he just knew. He disposed of both guards mid-swing in the space of a breath.
A hairy, overweight and red-faced guard bull-rushed him from just inside his peripheral vision. Charley knew the guard would go low, trying to take out Charley’s knees. He did, but Charley wasn’t there. A little hop, a tuck-jump of knees to chest, and then an ax-chop of his own ended the encounter before the guard even had a chance to brush his hairy fingers up against the cuff of Charley’s pant leg.
Charley moved to the next group of guards. He knew what they would do too, and he was already choreographing the exact moment he would need to divert his attention from them to the rangy, rawboned guard attempting to sidle up behind him unnoticed.
He fought his way to Sven and suddenly pulled back, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Sven was fighting. Not just fighting, but brawling. Sven, diminutive little Sven, was using a wooden board to wallop a fallen guard repeatedly, while Hank, with the deranged facial expression of a madman, restrained the guard’s limbs.
Charley closed his mouth slowly and fought down an urge to laugh. It was so incongruent to all that Charley had ever known about Sven—the maniacal sneer plastered across his face, the small tight back muscles bunching and then contracting as he landed blow after blow on the defenseless guard. It was almost too much for Charley to watch. There had always been something off about Hank’s bloodlust, but now, Sven?
Never taking his eyes off Sven, Charley wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, tasting blood, not his own, in the process. Sven certainly had changed, but Charley had, too. Slowly at first, then all at once, a great sadness came over him: What were they becoming? What had they already become?
“Enough!” Charley stepped forward and caught Sven’s board mid-swing. Sven whirled toward him, eyes wild before his face relaxed into a smile reminiscent of the old Sven.
“Charley, there you are! What are you doing?”
Charley paused for a long moment, his eyes searching Sven’s face. Then, lowering his eyes to the guard, he exhaled a long breath. “Carry on,” he said quietly. “We need to fight our way into the Tower, and it needs to be quick.”
“We’ve got bigger problems.” Sandy had slid up beside them, sweat glistening on her forehead. She was breathing hard.
“What are you talking about?” Charley asked, turning toward her.
“Look,” she said, pointing to the spot where the front gates
had been.
Flames licked sporadically in uneven bursts as they consumed clumps of vegetation, the fallen wall, and the remains of those people too close to the explosions. Picking their way steadily around the charred bodies, a company of around 50 heavily armed men emerged from the flames. Large and armor-plated, the men carried swords, staves, and spiked maces. The medieval weaponry, coupled with their bearded barbarian aggressiveness, made them look like apocalyptic messengers from the Norse underworld.
The invaders were here.
CHAPTER 17
Invaders
“Who are they?” Sven asked, his eyes widening, the fallen guard forgotten at his feet.
“Maybe they’ve come to help us?” A young boy with freckles, sandy hair, and a Score of 63 shuffled up and looked up at Charley in awe.
“No, I don’t think so …” Charley said slowly, gauging the distance between where they stood and the approaching warriors. They were less than minutes away.
Almost before the words had left his lips, a great battle cry burst from the marching men and they broke into a run. It was a deep-throated bellow: ferocious, primal, and designed to inspire fear in all who heard it. These were trained fighting men. An enormous blond-bearded warrior unfurled a brutal mace-like weapon of black steel and began swinging it as he ran directly at them.
“I think you’re right,” Sandy said dryly. “They’re not here to help us.”
Charley’s battle focus was sharpening. “Go get Chappy and his men—get them out here. There won’t be a Tower if we don’t take care of this now.”
Sandy nodded and then took off at a dead sprint toward the Tower, her red hair streaming behind her.
Charley turned toward Sven. “Start rounding up people and look for openings to attack from either of their flanks. Throw rocks, do anything possible to distract them. I’ll see if we can keep them occupied.”
Glancing down, Charley noticed the guard Sven had been beating had regained consciousness. He was lying on the floor, watching the approaching band of men with a look of terror. Charley kicked him in the leg. “Get up! Go tell Commander Orson to do something useful and get all the guards in formation. You’re not fighting civilians holding sticks anymore. These real fighting men will be on us in minutes. Now, go!” Charley kicked the guard again, just for good measure.