He tightened his grip. “What good do you think you could possibly do?”
“If I put myself in danger, Nicky might–”
“No.” That was Connor, only he wasn’t speaking to me. He was staring into the flames ahead. His mouth was set in a hard line and his eyes had darkened with rage, shifting from blue to almost black. He raised his hands and took a single step forwards. After a moment his breathing grew harsh and he began to tremble. Connor was trying to do something and whatever it was, it was taking an enormous effort.
I shook Hoffman off. He let me go this time and I moved across to Connor, who was muttering to himself, “It’s all just air … everything is encompassed by air, and I control the air … I control the air … and air flows and moves and is hot … where are the places where the air is hot … where are places where something hungers … I control the air … I control the air and You. Can’t. Have. Any!”
The fires went out.
I gasped, blinked, and looked again. They were still out. There was plenty of smoke and charred earth but no flames whatsoever, and while the Firstwood was too far away for me to make out any small fires burning there I was willing to bet there were none. I looked up at Connor. “What did you do?”
“Took away the oxygen.” He smiled faintly. “Fire can’t live without air, you see.”
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed. I caught him, staggering under his weight, and hissed at Hoffman, “Get a Mender!”
Hoffman sprinted across the gravel, and I lowered Connor to the ground. He drew in a stuttering breath, and was quiet so long I began to worry he wouldn’t draw another. Then he breathed again, only there was a rattling sound to it that terrified me. I put my hand on his chest, trying to pour my strength into him. “Breathe, Connor. You have to breathe.” I tried not to hear Jules’s desperate voice echoing in my memory, Wake up, Red. You have to wake up. Ember wasn’t dead, and Connor wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t losing anyone. Not today.
Hoffman came tearing back, bringing Wentworth with him. “What happened?” she demanded. “How was he hurt?”
“He used his ability to put out the fires. I think it was too much.”
“He put out the fires?” She shook her head. “You two really are extraordinary.” She bent to take Connor’s hand in hers. For what seemed like forever, nothing happened. Unless – was his breathing growing easier? Yes, it was, it definitely was, and the rattling noise was gone.
Pepper’s voice rang out in my head. Ash! Connor okay? She was staring at us from where she stood at the edge of the grass.
Wentworth’s healing him, I told her. Where are the minions?
Gone. Don’t seem to be coming back. We’re all watching for them.
Is everyone okay?
None of my Tribe is dead. Don’t know about yours. I’ll ask Jaz!
She went silent and I focused on Connor. His breathing was even better. In fact, it was close to normal. He blinked open his eyes, and Wentworth smiled at him. “You’ll be fine, although you’re not going to be able to use your ability for quite some time. And you need rest. Not,” she sighed, “that I suppose you actually will. But please try.”
She straightened and went hurrying back to her other patients. Connor looked at me. “Tribe?”
“Don’t know. Pepper’s finding out. The Saur Tribe’s okay.”
“Help me up.”
“Don’t,” Hoffman said. “The Mender said to rest.”
Connor shook his head. “This isn’t over.”
He was right. The enforcers were still coming, and the minions would be back – and with the Blinker on their side, they’d be back soon.
I wrapped my arm around Connor’s waist, supporting him as he rose to his feet. Pepper’s voice came again. Ash, Jaz says–
Only I never found out what Jaz said. There was a thumping sound that reverberated around us, and then a sharp cracking. And someone grabbed hold of my shirt and threw me.
I went soaring through the air. From behind me I heard a tremendous crashing noise and then I was crashing too, tumbling into the earth. For a second I lay still, staring dazedly up at the sky. What had just happened?
“Ashala? Are you all right?”
Connor. I sat up cautiously, to find he was doing the same a few metres away from me. I was bruised all over, but nothing seemed to be broken. “I think so. You?”
He nodded. Then he focused on something behind me, and paled.
I twisted to look back at the centre and found that the main gates and part of the wall around them were gone. It was now a heap of composite rubble, and there were enforcers and Menders working frantically at the wreckage. Because people are trapped. And Connor and I had been standing right there. How had we gotten out? Hoffman. Someone had picked up us up and thrown us further than any normal human being ever could have. But now I couldn’t see him anywhere.
“I think Hoffman must be caught in the rubble – we’ve got to get him out!”
He shook his head.
“Connor–”
“Hoffman will survive, Ashala! And him helping us is for nothing if we don’t find the minions. That thumping sound? It had to be a Pounder.”
Of course it had, banging their fist against the base of the wall. Except too much of the wall had fallen for it to have been the work of only one. “Pounders,” I corrected him.
He nodded agreement, and searched around on the ground for something. In a second I realised what. The streaker. His must have fallen when we were thrown. Mine probably had as well. I looked around and spotted it, shoving it back into my pocket. Connor found his and we pelted to the centre. As we got close I saw that Pepper was hurt. She was sitting with one hand held to a bleeding head, and Wanders was in front of her, hissing and keeping the Menders at bay. “Find the Pounders,” I told Connor. “I’ll deal with this.”
I ran to Wanders, calling out in my head, It’s all right, Wanders, they just want to heal her. He didn’t seem to be listening to me. I got closer, weaving between the Menders, most of whom were hurrying either to the patients or to the wreckage. Three were hurrying away … Wait, three who were hurrying away? I stopped, turning towards the three Menders. The three young Menders. As I watched, one of them glanced to the side, and I only saw him in profile but it was enough. I’d never forget that face. It belonged to the Boomer I’d seen at the station.
“Minions!” I shouted, pointing at them with one hand and reaching for my streaker with the other. Before I’d got hold of it there was an enraged screech and Wanders-too-Far came skittering across the gravel with impossible saur speed. He tore through the minions, crushing one Pounder under his feet, sending another one flying with a sweep of his tail, and locking his jaws around the Boomer. The second before his jaws snapped shut the Boomer raised his hands, clapping them together.
Boom. It was a small explosion. Tiny, really. Only it spattered the gravel in the deep, rich red of Wanders’s blood.
I ran to him. The Boomer was on the ground, broken and dead. And Wanders …
He was still alive; I could see his mighty chest moving. But all of his tail was gone, and most of his back leg, and blood was pouring out like a river.
THE RUSE
ASHALA
I raced to Wanders, screaming, “Mender! We need a Mender!”
Wentworth came running, and Connor too. I fell to the gravel beside the fallen saur, cradling his big lizard head. Wentworth darted over to the remains of his tail and leg, and Connor stood over us with the streaker in his hand, watching for more trouble.
I am gone.
“No. No. Just hold on, Wanders. Wentworth’s going to fix you, you’ll see.”
She cannot! He twisted, flinging me off and snapping at the Mender. Blood gushed even faster from his terrible wounds and he let out an agonised scream. Wentworth scurried backwards.
“She’s a Mender!” I shouted. “It’s okay, she’s trying to help.”
Someone else yelled, “No, Ash. She has to sto
p.”
Pepper was staggering in our direction with one hand held to the wound on her head, struggling with Shona who was running alongside and trying to heal her. She spoke again, in my mind this time. He wouldn’t be able to hunt, or run, or move. Saurs can’t live if they can’t be saur, Ash.
And right on top of her voice came Wanders. I am gone. Let me go.
I stared down at him. His blue tongue was lolling out and his breath was whistling through his teeth. Tears started to leak from my eyes and my chest was hurting so bad I knew this time my heart really was broken and it was broken forever. Pepper was right. If it had been a wolf, a wolf who couldn’t run, couldn’t hunt, I knew what the Pack would have done.
Wanders was saur. Tougher than anything.
But not tougher than this.
Wentworth edged forwards again. I couldn’t speak for crying but I shook my head at her. “You can’t … you can’t …” I reached up one hand to scrub the tears from my face and forced words out of my aching throat. “He wouldn’t be able to hunt or – function. He’s a saur, it’s not like you could give him crutches or something …”
Realisation dawned on her face, and her shoulders slumped.
Pepper reached us and fell down beside Wanders and me. The wound on her head wasn’t bleeding any more; Shona must have managed to heal it. I put one arm around her, hugging her small body close. Wanders gazed up at her. His golden eyes were clouded with pain, except I could still see the love in them for Pepper. We have wandered far together, you and I.
She stroked his scales. “We’ve wandered the furthest, the very furthest. There’ll never be another saur like you, not ever …”
Wentworth suddenly spoke, in a low, urgent tone, “Ashala?”
I looked miserably over at her.
“Some lizards can regrow their tails. Can saurs?”
I shrugged impatiently. “They can regrow the end if something happens to it, but his entire tail is gone, and his leg!”
“It doesn’t matter,” she answered. “The point is, it’s in him, the ability to regrow flesh. I might be able to make him whole.”
It sounded impossible. It should be impossible. But Wentworth was the strongest Mender I’d ever seen. I turned back to Pepper and Wanders. “If anyone can do this, she can. Please let her try.”
And Wentworth added quickly, “If I can’t do it, I promise you I’ll let him go. If nothing else, I can take away some of the pain.”
Pepper said nothing. Wanders did. She can try.
I nodded at Wentworth who leaped forwards. She settled next to Wanders, placing her brown hands gently against his black scales. I put my own hand on Wanders’s neck, just to let him know that I was there and that he was with people who loved him. He’d closed his eyes, but I heard his voice faintly in my head. You were the first human I ever met.
“You were the first saur I ever met.”
Gnaws-the-Bones would have eaten you. Or Tramples-my-Enemies. Or Hunts-the-Small.
“I know. I met exactly the right saur at exactly the right time. You saved me, Wanders.” I bent to press a salty kiss to his scales. He didn’t speak again.
Pepper made a choking sound, and I thought, That’s it. He’s gone. But then she gasped, “Ash! Look!”
I glanced up, following the direction of her gaze to where Wentworth was sitting absolutely straight, staring at nothing. Beneath her hands, bones were growing out of what remained of Wanders’s leg. My mouth dropped open as the bones stretched out to form a skeleton, and in the same moment, cartilage shot out of what was left of his tail. Wentworth started to shake and struggle for breath; she was pushing her ability to its limit and beyond. Wanders was being healed from the inside out and it was happening faster and faster – veins appeared, and muscle, and blood and scales over the top of it all. The scales were pale blue instead of black and his tail looked shorter than it should be. Wentworth had done it. Wanders-too-Far was whole.
Wentworth shuddered, slumping as Wanders raised his head to look down at himself. I am not gone?
The big saur began to rise. Pepper and I scrambled out of his way and Connor dashed over to help Wentworth get clear. Wanders rolled to his feet and shook himself. He pranced, cautiously at first and then with greater confidence, swishing his new tail from side to side. Then he threw back his head and let out a saur screech. I am here! Pepper pelted over to him, throwing her arms around the blue scales of his new leg and holding on as if she’d never let go.
Laughter bubbled up inside me, and it hurt because my throat was raw from the tears but it was a good hurt. I looked over at Wentworth, wanting to share the moment with her. “You did it, doc!”
She was lying limp and still in Connor’s arms. And Connor was feeling for a pulse. In a second he raised his head and yelled, “Mender!”
No, no, no … I took a step towards them but slowed as Shona and another Mender went running past me. I didn’t want to get in their way. The two of them crowded around Wentworth, asking Connor a few low-voiced questions. Wentworth’s okay. She has to be okay … After a moment the other Mender shook his head, and then Shona did.
“She can’t be dead!” I protested. “She was fine, just seconds ago!”
Shona sighed. “Healing the saur must have taken everything she had. She’s gone.”
I couldn’t absorb it. My mind kept stupidly insisting that she couldn’t be gone. But she was. Rae Wentworth, who’d saved my life more times than I could count – who’d saved Daniel’s life after Neville had stabbed him – was dead. My friend is dead. Everything was spinning. The jump from happiness to sadness had been too abrupt, and I was disorientated, unable to get my bearings. I looked at Connor, who looked back at me – and his eyes widened in dismay, fixing on something behind me. He leaped up, reaching for his streaker, just as someone gripped my arm from behind.
Connor disappeared. Everything disappeared. The whole world vanished from existence, plunging me into darkness. For the space of three heartbeats, I could see nothing and feel nothing. Then the world came back.
Only I wasn’t where I’d been before. I was standing on top of – a truck? I just had time to register that when someone shoved me from behind and I went hurtling towards the ground below. The streaker tumbled from my pocket and I grabbed for it. But my grasping fingers missed and I landed awkwardly, right on top of my arm. White-hot pain shot through me, and in the same moment, someone clasped something cold around my neck. Rhondarite.
I rolled to take my weight off my injured arm – and found myself staring up at Neville Rose.
He smiled his monster’s smile, and said, “Ashala. It’s so nice to see you again.”
I struggled to my feet, cradling my arm against my chest. My gaze darted left and right as I tried to grasp what had happened. The Blinker. He’d taken me from where I’d been and brought me … here. Wherever this was. No, I knew where it was. Trees, vegetation. A nearby road, with composite blocks that had been smashed through. The barricade. I was two hours from the centre, at the edge of a big clearing that Neville was using as a camp of some kind. There was a tent, and another truck, and a bunch of enforcers. But it wasn’t Neville’s main army. It couldn’t be, because there weren’t nearly enough people here. The rest of them must still be on their way to the centre.
The Blinker appeared at Neville’s side, and Neville put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Well done, Aaron.”
The Blinker stared at the ground. “I couldn’t get the others, sir. I’m afraid they’re dead.” He winced, as Neville’s grip on his shoulder tightened.
I eyed the enforcers in the clearing, and pitched my voice to carry. “Oh, they’re definitely dead. Eaten by a saur.” There were a few frightened reactions to that, and I started inventing gory details with enthusiasm. “Two of them got squashed and the other one had his guts torn right out of–”
“Enough!” Neville snapped. I subsided into silence, pleased to have got to him. Surprised to have got to him, actually – I would’ve thou
ght it would take a lot more to provoke him. On the other hand, I supposed things weren’t going so well for him today, given that Connor had put out the fires, and Wanders had killed the Pounders and the Boomer. Maybe we were winning? Yeah, if we could just find a way to deal with whatever other minions are here, plus all the enforcers in the trucks, we’ll be fine. Not to mention that I was now a prisoner wearing rhondarite, which interfered with mindspeaking the same way it did with abilities. We weren’t winning. But we hadn’t lost yet.
Neville pointed to the tent at the side of the clearing. “That way, if you please, Ashala. Oh, and if you’re thinking of trying to escape that collar with the mastercode – don’t. I’ve made the Gull City collars quite secure again.”
Figures. I moved reluctantly to the tent, hunching my shoulders. I hated having Neville at my back with a streaker in his hand. I hated having him at my back, full stop. Every instinct I had was screaming to turn and face the bad thing breathing behind me. I forced myself to keep looking ahead as I reached the tent and stepped inside.
No one here. Just a desk with papers scattered across it, a chair behind the desk, and another chair in front of it. Command post? Neville waved me towards the chair in front of the desk. I walked over and sat down, still cradling my arm, which was either broken or badly sprained. Either way, the pain was starting to make me nauseous.
Neville sat on the edge of the desk. Too close. Too close to me. I grit my teeth, trying to control the urge to lean back and put a few more centimetres of air between us.
Then Neville said, “Tell me where he is.”
I stared back at him, puzzled. “Who?”
“Terence! I know it was you, Ashala – and I know you understand what he is. No one else could have harmed him. Where is he?”
My mind raced. Neville knew what Terence was but not where he was. Terence hadn’t trusted him that far, and I certainly wasn’t going to enlighten him.
“He’s gone,” I lied. “Completely destroyed. There’s nothing left.”
The Foretelling of Georgie Spider Page 23