by A. G. Wyatt
So, maybe Sophie was right. Maybe everybody had to tag along sometime. Maybe that was no bad thing. Maybe he even owed her for her help, owed the world for what Jeb and Pete had done for him.
But that didn’t mean he was up to the job.
“Look, Sophie, I ain’t saying you’re wrong.” He tried to look her in the eye. It was the least he could do. “Everyone’s got to learn from someone. And I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t rather be roaming the roads than living with a whole mass of folks like you’ve got here. Maybe one day you’ll choose that life too, and I hope I see you out there in the world. But I ain’t the guy to show you it.
“I ain’t a good man. I ain’t one to stop and look after others, or to step in and help them when they need it. I’ve stood by and let terrible shit happen rather than put my own ass on the line. I’m a coward, and I’m selfish, and I ain’t fixin’ to change any time soon. The only person I ever looked after was myself. Only one who’s ever tagged along with me is my gun, and it ain’t done him any more good than it’s done me. We both spend most of our days with empty bellies and no direction to go in, and that ain’t changing anytime soon neither.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re still a kid. And in a place like this you get to be a kid. You get to have people look out for you, keep you in one piece, help you learn about life before it grinds you into the dirt. Folks like Sergeant Burns, your Molly, they’re good for that. I admire them for it, truly I do. They make a better world while I just scrape by in the one I’ve got.
“And that’s why I can’t take you with me. Because it wouldn’t be no good for me, and it sure as shit wouldn’t be no good for you.”
Sophie hung her head, hiding her face beneath the wild mop of her hair. Her arms were still folded across her narrow chest and she seemed to have shrunk back into herself.
“Fuck you,” she muttered at last. “Hope you get stuck in the hole.”
She ran off down an alley, away into the darkness.
“Reckon we deserved that,” Noah said to Bourne. “And by we, I mean me, on account of you’re a gun and I’m just some asshole talking to himself in the dark.”
Asshole or not, it was time for action. The guards were as far from the works as they’d been the whole time he’d stood here. He took a deep breath and hurried out of the alley, darting from a heap of rocks to a pile of pallets to a stack of bags of sand, always keeping something between him and the eye line of at least one of the soldiers.
He paused at the base of the wall, looking up to see if he’d been spotted. One of the guards was looking down into the street, and for a terrible moment Noah thought he’d been caught, but then there was a cry from the far side of the wall and the man turned away, busied himself firing arrows down into the night.
It wouldn’t be much of a climb up to the hole for a man who was on the scaffolding. But for Noah, climbing up under the scaffold to stay hidden, it was a little trickier. He managed by jumping to catch the bottom edge of the opening, his fingertips scraping across rough stone. With weary arms, he heaved himself upwards, feet scrabbling against the rock wall beneath him, kicking off from any outcropping or unevenness that gave him the slightest grip. Half a minute’s hauling and grunting saw him halfway up into the hole, his shoulders tight between the stones, dragging himself forward with tiny, cramped movements as he heaved the rest of his body up from behind.
“Hey!” Somebody yelled behind him, and Noah realized how terribly exposed he was, with only his ass and his frantically waggling legs to protect him from anyone behind. He wriggled forward as fast as he could.
“Hey!” The voice called out again and Noah scrambled even faster, scraping himself against the stone.
This was like his worst nightmare come true, trapped in a space so small he could barely breathe. The stones didn’t just press in on his mind, they pressed in on his body, squeezing him into a passage that was nothing but blackness. What if there was nothing at the other end? What if this was all just a trick played on him by Sophie, trapping him here to die in this coffin-sized space? What if the builders had blocked up the other end? What if he died in here, enclosed, compressed, squeezed in worse than any cell or any room or any place he’d ever been in his life?
His heart was racing again, sweat breaking out across his brow.
“Hey!” Once more the voice cried out and Noah didn’t know which was worse – the thought that someone was coming to catch him, or that they weren’t and he was trapped in the wall all alone.
“Hey, they need us by the east gate! Things have really gone to hell.”
Noah sagged with relief. The shouts weren’t for him. But as he slumped, his forehead pressed against the cold stone beneath him and fear rose up once more.
“Got to get out,” he muttered to Bourne, or maybe just to himself. “Got to get out. Got to get out.”
He swallowed hard, pressing down the rising tide of terror, and pulled himself a few more inches through the gap. His knees were in now too, giving him another way to push forward.
“Who’d have thought the wall was this damn thick?” he said, and then, as another thought occurred to him, “Is this how Iver went mad, just muttering to himself in the dark?”
Just as he was about to panic, something cool brushed against his cheek, a breeze blowing in from the tunnel mouth. He squirmed forward a few more inches and a few more, twisted one arm around beneath him and reached out. From the elbow down it was out of the hole.
“Free!” he exclaimed joyfully, pressing that hand against the wall and dragging himself forward. His other arm emerged into the air, then his head, then his chest. Then in a rush he wriggled forward, slithering like a snake out of the hole and tumbling with a thud to the ground seven feet below. He sprawled there for a moment, face pressed against the damp earth, ass sticking up into the air, ignoring the fresh bruises and just relishing the air around him.
Free.
He was out of Apollo.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT
NOT FOR THE first time that night, Noah hauled himself up from the ground, counted his new bruises and considered himself lucky not to have suffered worse. His left wrist still felt like it was stuffed full of wire wool, but he could still feel all his fingers, so he seemed to be getting away with it for now.
He’d even gotten lucky in where the hole opened up to. Most of the wall ran over streets, but this bit was in the remains of someone’s garden, and dirt was less painful than concrete. Maybe the Almighty wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
He needed to get out of here before anyone spotted him, but as he started out across the open ground beneath the walls, movement caught his eye. He flung himself to the ground as a group of people came running and yelling out of the ruins.
First came an Apollonian soldier. The light from the stars and the debris belt gave her a stark appearance, the bow symbol on her chest bright white against the black of body armor, her scarf and her sword gray and angular shapes.
She turned as she came into the open, swung at one of the people following her. They were all Dionites, dressed in loincloths and wielding weapons. A small mob pursued her out of the ruins, prowling forwards with wild and bloodthirsty whoops.
The Apollonian kept backing away, trying not to get outflanked by the Dionites. But there were seven of them and only one of her. She stumbled on a patch of rubble and almost fell, swinging wildly to keep the pack from closing in, her sword ringing off their raised weapons.
As she turned to defend herself against each opponent in turn, Noah got a good look at her face. It was Sergeant Burns, with the tattoos that led to who knew where and the over eager approach with the beating stick. Sergeant Burns who’d kept quiet about his first escape attempt in return for some secrecy about her own act of kindness. Sergeant Burns whose care he’d thought he was sending Sophie back into.
There were few people here who he even halfway liked, and one of them had died in front of h
im less than two hours before. He was damned if he was going to let the same thing happen again.
Still lying on the ground, Noah reached around for Bourne and then for the box of ammo in his pocket. As he did so he watched the Dionites. Their way of fighting was a wild flowing way, almost acrobatic as they danced around Burns, pushing her ever backwards, darting about to avoid her blade and get themselves into better positions.
She lunged forward and hit one of them in the arm. Without armor or even clothes to protect him the sword sliced a chunk from his flesh. He leapt backwards, screaming with pain as he clutched his flapping muscle into place, trying to staunch the blood flowing from his arm.
For all the wild fluidity, there was still some kind of hierarchy among these attackers. The last Dionite to have emerged from the buildings was a well-muscled man with a towering mohawk, like a great bleached white crest rising up from the top of his head. As the injured man fell back this leader ordered others to fill the gap. There would be no reprieve, no breathing space or exit for Sergeant Burns.
Noah flipped the lid from the box of bullets, pulled the lever on Bourne that let him swing the chamber open.
The Dionites closed in tighter around her. One of them struck her arm with a club. A crack exploded through the air as the blow hit a chunk of plastic armor. Burns swung wildly as she tried to break clear of the pack surrounding her.
With a couple of bullets in hand, Noah quickly slid the first one into Bourne’s chamber. There was something satisfying about actually putting bullets in the gun at last. It felt good.
Burns dived at one of the Dionites, but he dodged out of the way and as she ran past she almost collided with the remains of a brick wall. She turned, now with something to her back but no room to maneuver, nowhere left to go.
Noah turned the chamber ready to load the next bullet. Something rattled as he did it and he peered at Bourne in concern.
“Not now buddy,” he muttered. “Don’t go breaking on me now.”
It was hard to make out details in the darkness. He prodded at the bullet he’d put in and it shifted in the chamber, rolling around a couple of millimeters’ gap.
The bullets were too small.
“Shit.” He tipped Bourne up, let the useless ammunition fall out.
The Dionites were getting ever closer to Burns. She lunged right with her sword, catching one of them in the leg, and then darted left. But as she swung around a club collided with the back of her forearm. Her hand spasmed and the sword fell from her grasp.
Noah dug around in his pockets, feeling for the other bullets. Maybe they’d be the right size. They hadn’t come from the box, right?
He found them, dropping one as he fumbled them out of the depths of his pants. They felt bigger than the bullets from the box. Holy mother of desperation, they might actually fit.
Burns flung herself shoulder first at one of the Dionites. They fell together in the street, rolling over and over, kicking and punching and gouging, the club falling from the Dionite’s hand.
Noah pressed a bullet against the hollow in Bourne’s chamber. It wouldn’t quite go, slid from his grasp and bounced away. He rolled another bullet from the palm of his hand, pressed this one against the chamber, hoping the problem wasn’t what he thought it was.
Of course it was. These bullets were too large.
The Dionite rolled clear of Burns, reached out for his club. But she’d grabbed a brick, slammed it into his side, sent him sprawling. She staggered to her feet, even as the other Dionites circled around her again, weapons raised. The mohawked leader let out a yodeling yell, gestured for the others to close in. He had his back to Noah now, but Noah would have bet that his expression was one of of terrible, feral glee.
Noah clicked Bourne’s chamber back into place, grabbed the gun by the barrel. Maybe he could use the butt as a club. Not that it had done him much good in the school library, but it was better than no weapon at all, right?
He looked at Bourne, then over at the Dionites with their long clubs and axes. One even had a spear. Maybe this wasn’t much better than no weapon.
Then he saw it lying in the road, some kind of bar or narrow plank about five feet long. He leapt to his feet and ran over to it, shoving Bourne away in his holster, the useless bullets entirely abandoned. It was an old stop sign, its pole snapped off at the base and starting to rust, the sign itself scuffed and dented. He picked it up, felt the weight in his hands. He sure wouldn’t have liked to be hit with it.
Of course, he didn’t like to be hit at all, and attacking the Dionites wouldn’t help with that. But Burns was one person ganged up on by seven, and Noah never could stand to see those kind of odds.
She was kicking and struggle, fighting with her bare hands as four of the Dionites closed in and tried to grab ahold of her. One of them staggered back with a bloody nose, and another curled over as her knee hit him in the stomach, but there were too many of them for her to fend off any longer. As they yanked her arms back, thrusting her forward into the circle of their menace, the leader stepped up, an axe raised above his head.
“Let’s see your gods save you from this,” he said.
It was now or never.
Noah grabbed the end of the pole with both hands, swung it back behind his shoulder. Then he ran, forcing his muscles to go as fast as they possibly could, charging for all he was worth straight towards the Dionite leader.
He let out his best impression of a deep, blood-curdling scream. It seemed like that kind of moment, and if he was fixing to die stupidly then he might as well do it in style.
The Dionites turned toward the sound, noticing him for the first time. Their leader spun around, his axe still raised, a look of confusion spreading across his face.
Noah swung the sign with all of his strength, all of his frustration, all of his anger and terror built up over the past few days. It scythed through the air. The Dionite raised a protective arm but it was too late. The stop sign slammed into the side of his neck and he was knocked to the ground in a spray of blood.
The rest of the Dionites stared down at their leader, as if waiting for him to tell them how to respond to his defeat. He clasped one hand to the side of his neck, and with the other tried to push himself upright. But Noah had hit the jugular and blood was spraying out between his fingers in long pulses, spattering the ground, his body, the white curve of his mohawk. He looked up at Noah one last time, mouth hanging open, and then slumped down dead.
Six Dionites left, one of them injured, against Noah and Burns. He still didn’t like the odds. The stop sign had been a passable weapon when he had surprise on his side, but he could hardly deflect a blow with five feet of rusted metal pipe with a blood-stained plate on the end.
One awesome moment of victory, and now the face of inevitable defeat. It had been that kind of night.
But the Dionites didn’t turn on him. They didn’t reorganize under a new leader. Like a pack of wild animals they stared down in numbed horror at the body of their leader then turned tail and fled, vanishing into the ruins of the old town.
“Yeah, you’d better run,” Noah called after them, trying to wave the stop sign and appear more intimidating than he actually was.
Then he let the weight slip from his fingers, hitting the broken asphalt with a clang. He looked over at Burns, now freed of her grasping captors, looking almost as stunned as he felt.
“Molly, isn’t it?” he said, forcing a smile. “Still reckon I’m a Dionite?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
THE FUNNY THING about pain was how much you could block out while it was happening. Not that Noah hadn’t noticed the scrapes and bruises he’d acquired on his way out of jail and through the wall. Not even that he’d been oblivious to the resistance of his exhausted muscles as he pushed himself, to get out of the building, out of the town, out of that gap in the wall, even to save Burns from her attackers. But on some level he’d been ignoring the exhaustion and the injuries bearing d
own on him.
The other funny thing about pain, about exhaustion too when push came to shove, was how much worse you could feel when you finally rested.
As Noah stood watching Burns look around for her sword, as he realized the cold gray of dawn was starting to lighten the sky, as he felt the sweet freedom of being clear of Apollo, all of that strain and pain finally caught up with him. A weariness so complete that all he could think to do was surrender.
Noah let his legs sag beneath him and sank to the ground. Sitting on a busted up road might not be comfortable, but it was a damn sight better than staying upright at the moment.
He looked over at the body of the Dionite leader, still and silent, the blood pooled beneath him soaking into the white spikes of his hair. They darkened and wilted, turning from a bright crest to one more patch of shadow flopped across the road.
In a way he was kind of disappointed. Some small part of his brain, raised on Hanna Barbera cartoons and Quentin Tarantino movies, had expected a more spectacular result. That the edge of the stop sign would slice through the guy’s neck, send his head flying on a crimson fountain. Could that happen? He didn’t know if even Blood Dog had the strength, and he sure as hell didn’t know the science to work it out.
Still, there was something melancholy about looking at the corpse. Not that it was Noah’s first kill, just that there was always something sad about a body, whoever’s it was.
Except maybe Blood Dog’s. And one or two others he’d left behind, back at the start of his wandering.
He looked up, realized that Burns was looking down at him. She had her sword again, and she’d picked up the lead Dionite’s axe. She was holding it out toward Noah, and he thought she might have said something.