by Janean Worth
Kara knew he was right. But she also knew that they had to do something. There was no other choice.
“Gallant is tiring, Mathew. We have to try,” Kara told him, her heart pounding with fear inside her chest. The fast pace that the tracken had set was hard for the horse to maintain. Foam flecked his neck, but he showed no signs of slowing. “It will be dusk soon, and they’ll shut the Gate.”
Kara was sure that Gallant could make it to GateWide at the pace they’d set, but further than that was impossible. They could not keep the pace beyond the distance to GateWide. Besides, who knew what lay beyond the walls on the other side of GateWide? That was not a direction that she had explored when she’d been on her own in the wilderness, fearing to come too close to the walls and risk discovery.
There could be even worse dangers in store for them if they tried to skirt the Gate and the wall that surrounded GateWide and circle back by morning when the Gate opened again. And, then there was the threat of the Fidgets. Kara was certain that they could keep the Fidgets away if they built a large enough fire, but that would simply give away their position to the Enforcers inside the Gate during the night, and they would be easy targets come the morning.
No, it was better to risk galloping straight through the Gate and into GateWide and trying to find a spot to hide in a stable or storage area, than it would be to spend a night just outside the Gate.
They broke from the line of trees that marked the edge of the forest, and Kara felt a quiver of elation seize her. The Gate was ahead, its heavy wooden doors wide open, and she knew that only a single Enforcer guarded the entrance.
They might make it after all.
The tracken, seeing the open ground devoid of trees and brush ahead, poured on a burst of speed, heading directly for the Gate, and Gallant did his best to match it.
The wind burned Kara’s cheeks as they rushed toward the Gate.
Moments later, the Enforcers broke from the forest in pursuit.
They had, perhaps, fifteen minutes before the Gate was closed for the night. Kara knew from experience that it would not be opened again until morning, no matter what transpired outside the walls. This was a rule of the Sovereign’s. It was unbreakable.
And then, ahead, the unthinkable happened. A score or more of Enforcers burst from the Gate, headed right for them.
Kara gasped. How had they known of their arrival? They’d only just now broken from the trees. They could not have been seen in the thick growth of trees by a sentry. It was impossible. How had they known?
Zandra and Razer quickly changed direction, veering off away from the Gate and heading in a wide arc back to the edge of the forest.
With the trackens’ swift speed, Kara was sure that they would make it back to the trees before the Enforces behind them were able to catch up. She was not so sure that Gallant would be able to pull it off, especially with both she and Mathew upon his back.
Behind her, Mathew groaned, a wordless sound of fear and helplessness.
She felt him struggling, one-handed, to dig into this pocket as Gallant surged ahead.
Their pursers followed their movements, turning to cut them off before they could reach the forest’s protecting edge.
Gallant poured on a burst of speed, almost seeming to know that this moment could mean life and death for those who rode upon his back.
The Enforcers from the Gate were not a clear threat, they were still too far away, but the group from the forest was pulling ever closer. They were almost upon them.
“We have to get just in front of them,” Mathew said. “Don’t let them get ahead of us. I need them to be behind us for this to work.”
The group of Enforcers from the forest was close enough that she could see their faces. She recognized two of them. They had been in the group of Enforcers the night that Mathew had first used his father’s Old Tech device.
Their remaining tracken appeared from around the side of one of the horses, outmatching the equine in speed, just as Zandra and Razer had done with Gallant in their headlong rush back to the scant protection of the forest.
The beast would reach them before they reached the forest. Kara was sure of it.
She felt Mathew turn in the saddle behind her, heard a warning shout from one of the Enforcers, and then a burst of light erased her peripheral vision and a sizzle of sound filled her ears.
The light faded, and their pursuers pursued them no more.
Kara slowed Gallant. The horse gratefully settled into a walk. Kara turned to look behind them.
As she’d known they would be, the party of Enforces that had pursued them in the forest lay upon the ground. Their tracken and horses lay with them. The Enforcers from the Gate had not been affected, but most of their tracken, swifter than their horses, had managed to catch up to the other group. They lay just yards behind the fallen men and horses.
The other group had broken off their pursuit. As far away as they were, Kara could hear their shouts and mutters of disbelief and fear.
She saw the leader of the party make a circular motion in the air with his arm, and the entire large group of men and horses and tracken turned back toward the Gate.
Kara looked up at the sky.
The sun was almost gone.
They had avoided capture, but, as soon as the sun went down, they would face perhaps a greater threat than the Enforcers.
She urged Gallant to turn around, heading toward the group of fallen Enforcers.
“What are you doing?” Mathew gasped. “We need to get away from them while they’re unconscious.”
“I’m going to free these tracken from the threads that force the Sovereign’s control upon them,” Kara said.
Chapter Seventeen
The Gate swung shut with a mighty boom. The sound echoed out across the natural meadow that surrounded GateWide, reaching Mathew’s ears as clearly as if he stood just inside the massive wooden panels. The sound was not enough to drown out what Kara was saying, but it was enough to distract him from the conversation. When Mathew had lived in GateWide, the sound of the Gate closing at night had always meant safety to him. Now, it meant something else entirely.
Mathew stood beside Kara while she felt around behind the ears of a prone tracken, searching for the wire-like device buried in the animal’s neck. The dense fur behind the animal’s large head was as long as her slender fingers, accentuating just how thin and frail she still was. Buried deep in the long fur, her hand looked as small as that of a child, though Mathew knew that she was at least as old as his own fourteen years.
In her other hand, she held the five bloodied wires that she’d already removed from other prone tracken. Mathew had tossed away the three wires that he’d removed from the tracken that he had freed, glad to get rid of the evil devices, but for some reason, Kara was collecting them.
She had finished outlining her crazy plan, and was now intent on her task to remove the device on the last unconscious beast.
“You can’t be serious, Kara,” Mathew said, unwilling to believe that she’d even thought of such a thing. “They’ll overpower us as soon as they get a chance. There are five of them, and only two of us.”
“Have you forgotten Zandra and Razer?” Kara asked.
“No, but I don’t think that they would attack an Enforcer. The Enforcers have been their masters since birth,” Mathew said.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Kara said, finally finding the final wire and plucking it from the tracken’s neck.
Behind them, Zandra yowled in what could only have been agreement.
“Fine, we have Zandra and Razer to help, but what if that’s not enough?” he asked.
“Mathew, do you really think that leaving these men here like this is the right thing to do?” Kara gestured to where the Enforcers all lay upon the ground, their bodies slumped haphazardly in whatever position they’d landed in after they’d been felled by the Old Tech. “With darkness coming? And knowing that the Fidgets have been growing in number
s? And what about their steeds? The horses had no part in this. They’ve only done the bidding of their masters. Do they deserve to be eaten by Fidgets?”
“No, they don’t. But, Kara, by helping these men you’re putting yourself in danger. They could hurt you. Or, overpower you when I’m not looking. Or something,” Mathew said.
Kara smiled at him, “Mathew, have faith that doing the right thing will be rewarded by your Creator. I’m starting to realize that doing the right thing is more than just a means to find the Narrow Gate. It’s not simply a thing you do, it’s a way to live. I’m starting to think that there is much, much more to doing the right thing than I’d first imagined.”
Mathew didn’t know what she was talking about. Doing the right thing was just that, doing the right thing. It was a choice. How could it be more than that?
“I don’t like it, Kara, even if it is the right thing. It seems dangerous,” Mathew muttered. “If we stay here, build fires to keep away the Fidgets and protect these men, and their horses and the tracken, we will be announcing to those behind the Gate our exact location. If the Fidgets come out tonight and surround us, then we will have to stay here until morning, hiding near the fire, and when the Gate opens at sunrise, we will be easy to find. The Sovereign will send more Enforcers and more tracken this time. We won’t have a chance.”
“Perhaps they won’t come? Perhaps they’re scared of your father’s Old Tech?” Kara said.
“But it won’t work again until it has a full day of sun!” Mathew said, beginning to feel frustrated. Why was it always so hard to protect her? Why did she have to make it so difficult? Couldn’t she see that he was trying to do the right thing too? And that, to him, the right thing to do was to protect her?
“But they don’t know that,” Kara said with a smile. She crammed the wire things into the pocket of her tattered leggings and then bent over a fallen horse and started to unbuckle its saddle.
“I’m not talking you out of this, am I?” Mathew asked, thinking it was ridiculous to even consider helping the Enforcers. Even if she did intend to tie them up, guarding them all night from the Fidgets would be a terrible risk. If one of them were to happen to get lose from their bonds, Mathew knew that he wouldn’t be able to overpower an Enforcer if they became violent. And, with the Old Tech now out of power, they really had nothing else to use to keep protect themselves form the Enforcers.
“Don’t worry so much,” Kara said as she freed the saddlebags from the horse she’d been unsaddling. “And, think on the bright side. We now have weapons. And more tracken to help us get into the House.”
Weapons! Mathew frowned. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Of course the Enforcers had weapons. They always had weapons.
He and Kara could use their own weapons against them. If necessary, he would shoot any of them who thought to harm Kara.
Kara laughed suddenly, and he realized that she had stopped what she was doing and was now looking at him.
“What?” Mathew asked, bending to help her with the saddle.
“You’re thinking about shooting them, aren’t you? We are trying to save their lives, not end them,” Kara said.
Mathew felt his face color, and was immediately glad that the falling dusk was beginning to hide his features. He didn’t mean to be so transparent.
“I’m not bloodthirsty, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mathew said.
“No, that’s not what I was thinking,” Kara said.
“What, then?” Mathew asked.
Kara shrugged, “I just meant that it wouldn’t be right to kill them. They’re kind of a tool for the Sovereign too, just like the Strays and the tracken. Perhaps they don’t really want to do the task they’ve been set to?”
Mathew groaned. Kara thought too much. She really did. And she always tried to find the good, even in Enforcers. The same men who had only moments ago been intent on capturing them to take them back to the Sovereign to face torture and death.
“We need to tie them up before they awaken, and then I need to start making the fires if we are staying here for the night,” he said, disgusted with the whole idea of protecting the Enforcers.
“I think we can use pieces of their saddle cinches to bind them,” Kara said, using her knife to saw away at the saddle that she’d just removed.
Mathew bent to help her, hoping that they’d have time to bind all six Enforcers before the men began to awaken.
They worked quickly, side by side, sawing at the leather, and then using the pieces to bind each Enforcer’s feet and hands. When they’d finally finished, only a faint hint of purple remained in the sky, all else had faded to indigo and black.
Zandra moved nearer to Mathew as he finished with the last man’s feet. She mewled softly in her throat, an anxious sound, and butted her huge head against his shoulder.
Mathew stood and patted her head. “It will be alright, Zandra.”
The animal butted his shoulder again, nearly aggressively, almost knocking him off his feet.
“Take it easy, Zandra,” Mathew said. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Let’s get started on the fires,” Kara said.
Mathew nodded. The time for arguing about her plan had passed. Now it was time to work together to make sure that none of them became a meal for whatever lurked in the darkness.
Zandra mewled, deep in her throat.
Mathew heard a different sound in the gloom, and turned. It was completely dark now, but a rectangular spot of light burned in the night. He blinked, staring at it. Then blinked again.
The light remained.
Half of the Gate stood open.
“Kara, look,” Mathew said, pointing. “They’ve opened the Gate.”
Kara turned and looked, and her expression transformed into horror. “They never open the Gate after sunset, Mathew. Never!”
All Mathew could do was nod, and put his hands up in surrender as an Enforcer stepped closer and gestured with the gun in his hand.
While they’d worked to bind the Enforcers on the ground, thinking that they were safe from the people of GateWide until morning, another group of stealthy Enforcers and their tracken had opened half of the Gate and crept up to surround them.
Zandra butted her head against this shoulder again.
“I’m sorry, Zandra, I should have listened,” Mathew whispered, belatedly realizing that Zandra had known that the men were coming and had warned him.
Zandra mewled sadly, as if to say yes, you should have.
Chapter Eighteen
Kara gaped at the Enforcers surrounding them. Why had she not thought of them opening the Gate again? She had known that the Sovereign badly wanted the Old Tech that Mathew’s father had left for him, and yet she had never once thought that he’d break his own rule, and leave the citizens of GateWide vulnerable to attack from the creatures outside the wall in order to get it.
But she should have. She should have. The Sovereign was merciless. Opening the Gate and endangering every person inside GateWide meant nothing to him. He only served his own desires. And Kara should have expected nothing less.
“I’m sorry, Mathew,” Kara said as an Enforcer moved forward to grab him.
Mathew said nothing as the man seized him, roughly shoving him forward into the arms of another Enforcer. They handled Mathew harshly, shoving him back and forth, laughing as he almost fell.
Kara bit her lip to keep from shouting at them to stop. She knew that would only increase their enjoyment of the moment, and perhaps make it worse for Mathew.
An Enforcer came at her, and before he could grab her for more of the same treatment, Kara sidled closer to Zandra and whispered softly, “Pretend to be vicious again. Like you’re one of the others. Make sure the other free tracken know to do the same when they awaken. Don’t let the Enforcers know that you’re not still controlled.”
Zandra surprised her by reacting immediately. The animal leapt forward with a bellow, knocking Kara to the ground in a fit of imitation fury.
Kara screamed, half in real surprise at the swiftness of Zandra’s reaction, and half for the benefit of the Enforcers, so they would not suspect that Zandra was one of the tracken that had been travelling with them.
With so many of the beasts now milling around them, Kara hoped that they would fall for the ruse.
With Zandra still on top of her, growling and snapping those wicked sharp teeth in her face, Kara dug quickly into her pocket and withdrew the wires, flinging them away even as she seemed to raise her hands to ward off Zandra’s mock attack. If the Enforcers found the wires, they would know that some of the tracken had been freed. She had to get rid of them.
Beside her, one of the prone Enforcers began to awaken and thrash in his bonds.
Zandra growled louder, then bit at Kara’s shirt, lifting her off of the ground completely and shaking her as if she were prey.
Kara noticed that Zandra was careful not to actually hurt her, but Kara let her limbs flop around like a rag doll as if she were being mauled.
“Enough,” an Enforcer bellowed.
Zandra growled once more, dropped Kara on the ground and slunk away, as if cowed by the Enforcer’s harsh voice. From the corner of her eye, before she was hauled roughly to her feet by the Enforcer, Kara saw that Zandra had moved to the side of one of the fallen tracken that was beginning to awaken and was now mewling softly in its ear.
Kara only had time to hope that Zandra would be able to somehow warn all of the other freed tracken before they made it obvious that they were no longer controlled, then the Enforcer shoved her roughly toward his companion.
“Here’s a scrawny Stray for sure. Won’t last long in the House,” the man said.
The other laughed.
“It’s the other Stray the Sovereign wanted, anyways. This one is just a bonus,” he said.
“Search him,” another said. “The Sovereign said that he has Old Tech.”
“What about this one?” the man behind Kara asked, giving her a hard shove from behind. She stumbled and fell forward, landing on her hands and knees in the scrubby dry grass of the dark meadow.