by Janean Worth
Ket licked his long teeth, anticipating cracking open her bones to get at the juicy marrow inside.
Darkness was coming.
And Ket would kill.
Chapter Fourteen
Mathew kept his head down as they tramped through the low hanging branches of the stand of trees that grew along the river. The wet ground underfoot dampened the sound of Gallant’s hooves, but still, he felt nervous and afraid that they’d be discovered at any moment by Enforcers or attacked by a wild animal that had come to drink or be set upon by a group of hungry Fidgets.
Ever since they’d left Otto at the edge of the city, Mathew had felt as if impending doom hung over their small party of travelers like a sodden cloak, the feeling clinging to him even when he tried to fling it away. With Otto no longer with them, the duty to protect Kara fell solely on his shoulders, Mathew knew, and he wasn’t so sure that he was up to the task.
He was no defender, after all. He was little more than a sneak thief and he was sure that the skills that he’d developed when he’d lived in GateWide would be of little use in protecting Kara should it come to that. Being able to filch a gold watch right out from under a vendor’s nose wasn’t a useful skill in a fight with Enforcers.
The only saving grace was that Otto had been able to return his father’s Old Tech device to him. With it, Mathew felt that he might, just might, be able to protect Kara.
He only wished that he’d been able to use the device to talk to his father again, but so far, his father’s image had not made an appearance upon the Old Tech, and Mathew didn’t know how to make it appear. He desperately wanted to know what was so powerful about the device that it had caused Otto to warn him against letting it fall into the Sovereign’s possession. Surely, since his father’s duty had been to work with the Old Tech in the Sovereign’s House, his father would know what the device was capable of? If only his father would again appear to him!
Zandra padded up to his side, silent and sure-footed on the uneven ground, and nudged his shoulder, almost as if she were reassuring him that things would be all right. He wished that he believed that it would. But he didn’t. With each step they took that led them closer to GateWide and the Sovereign’s House, he felt more and more uneasy. He had to force himself to continue on. He knew, without a doubt, that this was the right thing to do, but making himself do it was the tough part.
He couldn’t help but think of all the stories he’d heard about the ways that the Sovereign had to make those who defied him suffer. And it was those stories, and a deep-seated fear of experiencing them firsthand, that made it so hard to go back to GateWide.
At least both of the tracken had opted to accompany them. When questioned about their decision, they’d made it clear that they would not be dissuaded from helping the other tracken who were enslaved.
During Kara’s long, one-sided conversation with both beasts before they’d left the orangery, when she had asked questions and they’d answered with nods and shakes of their heads, Mathew had learned that the only known living animals of their kind were at the Sovereign’s House. The two tracken knew of no others of their kind that existed in the wild. And they were determined to free their brothers and sisters from the Sovereign’s cruelty.
“Without Otto, how are we going to remove the wires that the Sovereign uses to control the tracken before they attack us?” Kara asked into the silence.
At his insistence, she was riding Gallant as they made their way back to GateWide. He wasn’t completely sure that her arm was fully mended, though the tracken’s tears did seem to have produced amazing results. When he’d looked at her arm earlier, there had only been a faint line of pink skin, where before there had been deep gashes. The same had happened with the bite on his leg. Only four tiny pink dots remained of what had once been large, open puncture wounds from the serpent’s bite.
“I don’t know,” Mathew answered, wishing that he did, the problem adding to his desire to turn back and flee as fast as he could back to the safety of the orangery.
Zandra mewled at his side, and then butted her nose against his shoulder.
“Oh, you know how, do you?” Mathew said.
Grade nodded her head. Yes.
“Won’t they try to attack you too, Zandra, just as Razer did before?” Kara asked.
It was Razer’s turn to mewl this time, a sound of sorrow, apology and shame.
It was completely amazing how the animals, now freed of the thing that had once controlled them, could communicate such a wealth of emotion through their vocalizations. Mathew reached out to stroke Razer’s undamaged ear.
“I know you didn’t mean to, Razer. I told you that it wasn’t your fault. Kara forgives you,” Mathew said soothingly.
Razer yowled.
“Shhhh,” Mathew cautioned. “Be quiet. Something might hear us.”
Razer blew a noisy blast of air out of her nostrils, almost like a sigh of disgust, as if to say that she was scared of nothing.
“Ha, you’ll think that when the Enforcers find us,” Mathew told the beast, feeling as if he had to defend himself since Kara was there. She already thought him cowardly, he was sure. He didn’t need Razer emphasizing that point for her.
“If we don’t reach the Gate by sundown, we’re going to have to spend the night in the forest. With the Fidgets,” Kara said. “And poor Gallant here cannot climb trees.”
Kara reached down to pat the horse’s neck in consolation.
“I’m not leaving him to be eaten, you know that right?” she said.
Mathew turned and gave her a look. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t let him get eaten either. He’s a good horse.”
As Mathew walked along the river, he remembered how much different he’d felt the last time he’d been this close to the Gate. He’d been terrified, alone and certain that he’d be captured at any moment, and that fear had emblazoned the memories upon his brain like a brand. From those horrified, crystal-clear memories, he was beginning to recognize landmarks that he’d passed that terrifying night.
“We’re not far away from GateWide now, so we should make it in plenty of time. The Gate should still be open. It’s how we get in the Gate without being seen that’s going to be difficult.”
“Has anyone ever unexpectedly entered the Gate before?” Kara asked.
“Not that I ever heard of. Only Enforcers and the Gatherers usually leave GateWide, and no one is surprised when they come back. They’re always expected,” Mathew answered.
“So, if no one has ever done it before, maybe it will be easier than we think? No one will expect us to come back.”
Beside him, Zandra hissed, startling him. Then she growled low in her throat, the sound an obvious warning, and his heart started to pound.
Seconds later, Mathew heard the unmistakable sound of hoof beats upon the forest floor.
Chapter Fifteen
Rage flowed through him, coloring his thought red and clenching his teeth in a vice-like grip, making the sick ache in his head worsen. Some tiny part of his mind that was not mad knew that the rage was unnaturally strong, blown out of proportion to what it actually should have been, but he could not control it. This insurmountable rage burned at the back of his mind, always, like a cancer eating away at him. And he could not get at the source of his rage because the man could not be found, so the feeling festered even more, like the open sores that would not heal where the Old Tech joined his flesh.
His head throbbed with a shooting pain, and he held in a groan, instead forcing his one human eye to find and settle upon the nearest Stray.
“Boy, bring me more willow bark tea, and be quick about it,” he bellowed at the bedraggled child, not caring that the boy’s eyes widened in fear or that his face drained of all color as terror seized him.
The Sovereign’s Old Tech hand twitched uncontrollably, and his rage grew as the boy scurried away to do his bidding. If his High Advisor had not abandoned him, he would know how to control the twitch in his Old Tech hand.
And he would know other things as well. If the man were still at the House, he would know why the Old Tech joined to the Sovereign’s flesh would not heal and he would know how to control the Far-Seeing device that was embedded in the Sovereign’s eye. Without his High Advisor, the Sovereign knew only a few of the ways the Old Tech worked, and those he knew only because the man had shown him before he had left GateWide.
Rage stabbed viciously at his temples as he thought again, for the thousandth time, what a mistake it had been to send his High Advisor outside GateWide’s walls on a mission. The man had been the best of his advisors, and the only person who had been able to figure out most uses of the Old Tech that the Enforcers often brought back from their secret foray missions into the fallen city that no one else in GateWide knew still existed.
Before his journey outside GateWide’s walls, the High Advisor had managed to awaken the most powerful device that any of them had ever seen. He had only been able to surmise a few of the device’s uses, but those had astounded even the Sovereign. The Old Tech device could force people to sleep, yet when they awoke, they were unharmed. His High Advisor had hinted at other, even more powerful, properties, such as the device’s ability to detect other devices of similar types. And he had implied that the Old Tech even had the ability to move things, even living beings, from one point to the next in the blink of the eye, though the man had not yet unlocked the secrets to use the Old Tech in this manner.
The Sovereign had been delighted by this newfound Old Tech, and upon hearing that the device could lead them to more devices of the same nature, he had sent his High Advisor out to find them, thinking that the device would protect the man on his journey. The Sovereign had gleefully imagined the strength of his Enforcers if even a handful of them were to have devices that would take them anywhere in the fallen world in the blink of an eye. He recalled how he had thought that his High Advisor would be bringing him back devices that would truly make him the most powerful living person anywhere. He would no longer have to hide so many secrets from the people of GateWide, because he would become so powerful with these new devices that the people would not dare to defy him, even if they did find out that most of what he allowed them to know was a lie. Even if they found out that the Narrow Gate, the One True God and The Book were not myths to be disregarded, but truth. Even if they knew that they were not the only survivors of The Fall, and theirs was not the only community of living souls in the world.
With the new devices, he would have become more powerful that The Creator himself, and the people of GateWide would have had no choice but to continue to bow at his feet. He would have had the power to crush the small group of deserting Enforcers, and bring all back under his control.
These memories made his head ache even more as the rage all but consumed him. His High Advisor had fooled him into believing that he had died in the Mire. The man had cheated him out of his rightful power and somehow left the most powerful Old Tech device that had ever been discovered in the hands of a mere boy.
And when the Sovereign got his hands on that boy, he would take the Old Tech device, and the secrets that the boy’s father had surely left with him, and he would regain the power that he had lost. He would pry the thoughts from the boy’s mind if need be, and he would find a way to locate the boy’s father and the other Enforcers who had abandoned him, and he would make them pay. Not with death, but with servitude. Death would be too quick and painless, and he needed his High Advisor to show him how the Old Tech worked, but he would make their servitude as unpleasant as possible. How they would regret their defiance of him.
His head throbbed again, and he was jolted from his thoughts by the sharp spike of pain. He looked around his throne room, but he did not see anyone bringing him the willow bark tea that would ease the ache in his head.
The rage grew. It consumed him. It writhed in his belly and coursed through his veins and his aging heart pounded with wrath. His Old Tech hand shook, then rose, his finger pointing around at each miserable Stray in the room. He felt spittle trail from his sneering lips as he looked at the children; the ungrateful brats who had no parents to provide their food or clothing so they must come to his House and eat his food and use his cloth and take what was his. In return, they provided only small services, and most of the time they couldn’t even get that right. He needed his tea, and it wasn’t there!
“Where is my tea?” he bellowed. The mechanical parts on his hand whirred and the light beam that guided the strange energy that was called a laser lit and pointed where his finger pointed, red like his anger.
The Strays in the room whimpered.
“Quiet, you miserable Strays!” he shouted, anger pounding so hard in his head that he momentarily lost the sight in his human eye. He growled with frustration, and the tracken near his throne echoed him, their growls rumbling throughout the throne room.
He felt the rage take over, and he released it into the laser of his Old Tech hand, letting the anger fly through the room on a thin stream of red that threatened to destroy everything in its path.
He heard screams of pain, but he could not see the destruction he wrought with his human eye, and the Far-Seeing device did not show things of that nature. Still, though he could not see it, he felt a grin split his lips at the sounds of the suffering. Good, he thought. They should suffer as I suffer.
A small voice at his side jerked him from his pleasure, and the Old Tech whirred again and he heard the laser click off.
“I have your tea, Master,” a child’s voice said.
Small, cold hands guided a hot cup into his hand as his vision returned to his human eye.
He took the cup from the child, knowing that his kitchen staff would not dare to make the beverage too hot to drink, and gulped it down greedily, eagerly anticipating the lessening of the pain in his head.
Just as he had swallowed the last drop, he felt his Old Tech eye twitch into action and the Far-Seeing device emitted a series of clicks and beeps. Immediately, his brain was filled with an image of the boy, the escaped Stray, nearing the edge of the forest that surrounded GateWide.
The Sovereign handed the cup back to the child and grinned in glee. The stupid boy was coming to GateWide. No doubt bringing the Old Tech device, and its secrets, back inside his walls.
He leaned back in his throne chair, and felt the rage lessen and flow away from him as he mentally celebrated his upcoming victory. If the boy came inside GateWide, then he would have no escape. Enforcers would find him and bring him to the throne room.
It would feel so good to crush the boy’s rebellious spirit. And the other Stray that the Far-Seeing device had shown him was travelling with the boy would just be an added bonus. She was a girl with no real worth, except to use to teach a lesson to the other ungrateful Strays who might think that they could escape their service to the House, so he would have fun using her as such.
And he would have his device back. And soon after, he would have the boy’s father, his High Advisor, back as well.
Truchen had already readied a group of Enforcers to depart at sundown, so even if the boy did not dare to come back through the Gate, the Sovereign would still have him captured before dawn came again.
Chapter Sixteen
The Enforcers and the one remaining enslaved tracken were hot on their trail. Kara had spotted them through the trees several times from her vantage point high atop Gallant’s back. And they had seen her too. Their shouts of triumph had attested to that.
The Enforcers did not look too much the worse for their encounter with the Fidgets, but Kara had only moments to wonder at the strangeness of this before the chase began in earnest. The Enforcer’s tracken had found the animal trail that Zandra and Razer had led them to, and even now the Enforcers were using it to their best advantage, urging their horses into a gallop along the well-worn surface.
The heavy thumping of hoof beats behind them was like a drum sounded in battle, driving them on ahead in haste.
Kara had no tim
e to do more than hang on to Gallant’s reins and try to guide him as best she could as he followed Zandra and Razer, crashing along the animal trail at a full gallop. Mathew clung on the saddle behind her, and she could feel the frantic pounding of his heart through the thin shirt at her back as he hugged her tightly to keep his seat.
Zander and Razer led them with some speed over the ground, but, already, Kara could tell that it would not be enough to outrun the Enforcers.
The shouts of the Enforcers became clearer as they drew nearer, and Kara could now make out some of their words. And the howl of triumph that their tracken gave was enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck.
“Stop!” one of the Enforcers shouted.
“Run them down,” another shouted. “They’re on Gabert’s horse, and the animal is tiring.”
“Kill the two tracken, they’ve been freed of their harnesses,” a third Enforcer shouted.
Kara shuddered.
She couldn’t let them kill Zandra and Razer.
“Mathew, can you use your father’s Old Tech like you did before?” Kara said, laboring to be heard over the pounding of Gallant’s hooves.
“I can, but if I do, it will not be fully powered when we enter the Gate. The last time I used it on the Enforcers, it used all of the power the Old Tech contained. The sun is almost gone, there is no time to get its energy back,” Mathew gasped behind her. “We would be defenseless.”
“We have only a short distance to the edge of the forest,” Kara said. “Perhaps we can make it inside the Gate and find some place to hide within GateWide until we can enter the House?”
“Where would we hide, Kara?” Mathew asked. “There is nowhere in GateWide that is safe from the Sovereign or his Enforcers.”