A Shroud of Night and Tears (Beyond the Wall Book 3)

by Lucas Bale

  He found no comfort in the man’s jerking spasms as the bullets found their target, nor from the spray of red that burst from the back of the hunter’s head. It was all too late—another failure to add to the litany that had begun to consume him.

  He shouldered the rifle, then took the chukiri's heavy Peacekeeper weapon too. He climbed quickly, if not efficiently—stumbling, in truth—up to the track, then staggered through the soft snow of the avalanche until he eventually reached the navigator.

  She lay propped up against a boulder, a single hand attached to her shoulder like a claw. Blood seeped through her fingers and ran down her forearm in thick rivulets. It still glistened in the misty half-light. Her skin was pale, like bone, and she had hair similar to the chukiri, only it was light-coloured, almost grey or brown like sand. Sweat poured from her forehead and face, and she shivered. Her lips were blue.

  He knelt beside her.

  ‘Who are you?’ she hissed through the pain.

  ‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘It’s not over yet. We still have work to do. There’s more of them out there.’

  She swallowed hard and bucked as he tended to her wound. The projectile had gone straight through and hadn’t nicked any major arteries. She was bleeding heavily, but he might be able to stem most of that for now. She’d still need proper medical care, but the freighter would have better supplies, if they were still there.

  He experienced a strange sensation as he worked. This woman was the subject of an enquiry, an investigation into a murder; she had led him to Jieshou and then to here. He realised that he had only ever seen her through pixelated images from surveillance cameras. But now, as he felt her cool skin beneath his fingertips and the warm, sticky blood ooze between them, she was suddenly real to him. No longer was she a hazy phantom, a collection of conclusions from evidence he had amassed. She was real. Here, now, bleeding out.

  So much had happened to him because of her. He considered, for a moment, whether justice would be served by leaving her here to die. Yet he found his hands continued to work on the wound, stemming the flow of blood, dressing it. Lifting her to her feet and carrying her across the snow. Over the bodies deeply buried beneath them, about which he cared little, and towards the body about which he cared a great deal.

  A fine mist curled up from the foot of the basin. Gant gazed down on it, on the freighter that had brought his people to this frozen crucible. Strewn around it were the charred, broken bodies of the dead. It seemed almost strange to him to see those he had feared for so long, the chukiri, now lying lifeless alongside his own kind—next to the people he had shared meals with. Shared freedom with.

  He watched Abraham walk among them, accompanied only by Matthias. He looked for Joern, but saw no sign of him. He watched them carry the wounded into the freighter and then emerge a few moments later and do the same again. He staggered along a vague path down to the basin, scouring every inch of it for some sign of Kayt. When he finally saw her, gathering those who had survived, hugging them, and directing them towards the freighter, he could hardly contain his joy. He half-ran, half-stumbled towards her, shouting her name again and again. She turned to him and her face softened. She opened her arms and held him tightly. He kissed her face, her neck, her lips, and she laughed, shaking, crying.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said, his voice catching.

  ‘You don’t need to,’ she said, smiling at him.

  ‘So many gone—’ he began to say, but she stopped him.

  ‘We can’t mourn them now,’ she said. ‘You were right. More would have died had we not fought like this.’

  He nodded, wanting desperately to believe her. Instead he hugged her again.

  He felt an arm on his shoulder and turned to see Abraham standing beside them. His smooth face was dirty, his hair matted and wet, but otherwise he appeared unhurt. There was blood on his hands and clothes.

  ‘We must leave,’ Abraham said. ‘More will come soon.’

  ‘What about Nikolaj?’ Gant said.

  ‘We can’t wait for him.’

  Gant turned away. ‘I have to go and get him,’ he said. ‘I’m not letting anyone else die.’

  ‘Look at these people,’ Abraham said. ‘They are exhausted, some of them wounded badly. If we leave now, most will live. If we wait, they will either die from their wounds, or at the hands of whatever chukiri are left to hunt us.’

  ‘And go where, Abraham?’ Gant shouted. He waved a hand towards the stricken freighter. ‘Look at it. It’s never going to get us up there, let alone through a tunnel.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to,’ Abraham said. ‘It simply needs to get us away from here. There’s another ship.’

  The words stunned Gant. For a moment he couldn’t respond. Then he stammered, ‘What other ship?’

  ‘The Flame of Tartarus.’

  C H A P T E R 22

  IN THE moment it took Gant to recover from the shock of that revelation, Abraham had already turned away from him. He ducked inside the wreck of the small freighter and began moving purposefully between Engineering and the cockpit. Gant followed him, suddenly nauseated. It can’t be, he thought. It isn’t possible. He reached out and seized Abraham’s arm. ‘You damn well wait,’ he growled. ‘You need to tell me what you mean.’

  ‘The Flame of Tartarus is functional,’ Abraham replied. ‘If we get to it in time, we have a way to leave this planet. But only if you allow me to work.’

  ‘How do you know it’s here?’

  ‘There’s no time to explain.’

  ‘Make time,’ Gant said tightly, seizing Abraham’s arm roughly and holding him back. Anger bled into his grip. ‘How long have you known? Why haven’t we gone there before? If we had a way off this planet—’

  Abraham pulled his arm away. ‘There are no answers that will satisfy you,’ he said. ‘And the longer we stand here speaking, the more inevitable it will be that the chukiri reinforcements, who are surely on their way, will reach us before we’re able to get this ship in the air.’ He turned away and disappeared into Engineering, emerging moments later with tools.

  ‘People have died, Abraham, and we could have escaped,’ Gant said, but Abraham didn’t respond.

  Gant watched him work, this stranger, fluently and like someone who might once been a spaceship greaser, ducking down beneath panels and removing them to get at the internal workings of the ship. Gant couldn’t think clearly, and there was an ache in his fists where they were too tightly clenched. He was hardly able to process the fact that the Tartarus might be here, or why Abraham had said nothing about it before. In truth, he doubted they could have got to it, even had they known it was there. The planet’s landscape was vast and, in places, unforgiving—and if they had tried to traverse it, the chukiri might have found them, away from the safety of the mountains. A large group, moving as one. They’d all be dead. But this didn’t stop the anger building inside him. And somehow he knew Abraham would remain silent no matter what he said to him. Abraham was right—there was no time to discuss this now.

  Reluctantly, he focused on a different task, one that filled him with dread. He went first to the hold, to ensure Kayt and the others could treat the wounded. He found her kneeling next to Elisabeth, a young girl from Sippar, just like Nikolaj. There were deep, bloody gashes across one of her thighs, and Kayt was engaged in the painful process of cleaning them. They had been friends, Nikolaj and Elisabeth—perhaps even more than that. Nikolaj had left his own hut to join hers, although he would never admit to any feelings for her.

  Gant took Elisabeth’s hand and forced himself to smile at her. She squeezed his own hand, her face still twisted in pain, and he nodded. I’ll find him, he thought. I promise. He leaned down and kissed Kayt’s hair, and then lied to her for the first time in his life.

  ‘I’m helping Abraham fix the ship,’ he said. ‘Are you okay here?’

  She nodded. ‘Is there anyone watching for the rest of the chukiri?’

  ‘Tomas and Matthias are outside.
I’ll be back soon.’ He kissed her lightly again and turned away.

  He was looking around for another rifle when he first heard Benrubi shouting. He was almost ready to leave, to sneak away to find Nikolaj and the Caestor, when the shout came. His heart thumped hard and cold in his chest and panic rose inside him. Could the chukiri have gotten here so soon? Abraham wasn’t nearly finished; they couldn’t lift off. If more of them were soon to breach the rim of the basin, he needed everyone back inside, even the lookouts. The hull was armoured; it might just last long enough. His hand closed around the rifle’s stock as he heard a shot echo outside.

  He stumbled through the ship, unable to believe they had gotten this far only to be cut down now. He ran for the rift in the side of the hull. Benrubi jumped through ahead of him, his rifle jammed into his shoulder, directed upwards towards the rim of the basin. Gant searched the basin walls as he ran to Benrubi, his own rifle in his hand.

  He traced Benrubi’s gaze and froze. A woman stood on the trail just ahead of Benrubi, hunched down, her hand held to her shoulder. Her skin was pale and she looked about ready to collapse. Her hair seemed to be tied similarly to that of the chukiri, but it was the colour of sand. Beyond her was the Caestor, carrying a body over his shoulder.

  Gant knew instantly who it was.

  ‘No,’ he said, a quiet, breathless whisper at first, but then louder and louder until he was shouting, riven by panic. He sprinted toward them, dread welling inside him, but he already knew. He had known the moment the Caestor took Nikolaj away with him.

  The tall man dropped to one knee and laid Nikolaj’s body carefully down. Gant fell to his own knees, his hands hovering over this precious young man who might just as easily have been his brother. Tears welled in his eyes and something hard balled in his throat.

  ‘What happened?’ he managed to say, but it half-caught in the grief welling in his gut.

  ‘I was attacked,’ the Caestor said. Gant heard the weariness in his voice, but he couldn’t find it within himself to feel any pity. ‘The boy did what he needed to, and saved me—but in doing so he gave away his position. I couldn’t get to him in time. I’m truly sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry,’ Gant said coldly. ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’ He stood, his vision blurred through the sting of tears. He lifted the rifle and levelled it at the Caestor. ‘You sacrificed him. For what? For her? Who is she?’

  The woman looked up at this, although Gant hardly noticed. She backed away, staring at the Caestor. Gant saw confusion in her eyes.

  Gant’s finger dropped onto the trigger. ‘An eye for an eye, Caestor,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what the preachers say?’

  He felt the projectile whistle past his face before he heard it. The air that spun around it brushed his face, almost stinging his skin. He turned and saw Abraham standing there next to Tomas Benrubi, the small man’s rifle in his hands.

  ‘Put your weapon down, Gant,’ Abraham said. ‘I’m sorry about Nikolaj, I really am, but we need the Caestor. He’s part of this.’

  Weaver watched Gant turn towards Abraham, and he took the opportunity to study the navigator. She was confused, backing away, staring at him. She’d heard what they had called him, but she couldn’t understand it. In her weakened state, nearly falling into shock, she couldn’t process it.

  He couldn’t take her back to the Core. Not now. Too much had happened for that. There were too many questions still without answers. She had brought him out here, and he had to know why. What she knew, if anything. Had she been an unwitting participant in this manipulation, as he had? The man she had killed in Brauron—had that been a setup, too, or was it simply something those who manoeuvred events had been forced to deal with? An opportunity they had used to get him to Jieshou? How much did he now seek justice for that man; how much did it mean to him? If it was once the reason he had come here, he doubted it was still driving him now. Jieshou, the Astratus, the blood on the rock and ice around him, the acrid smoke from the fires flickering in the basin—all of it had eclipsed the man’s death. He had allowed the events in Brauron to fade to the winter of his mind. And he was ashamed by it.

  Weaver took his rifle down from his shoulder and turned it towards the navigator. Her actions as she had fought the chukiri had given him one layer of understanding of her. The surveillance camera footage he had seen, the crime scene in Brauron, the body of the man she had killed—that gave him another. The look of surprise on her face as she realised the weapon was aimed at her, the momentary tension in her muscles, the instinctive movement towards a weapon of her own—all of this added more. The final layer of his understanding, that which would determine his assessment of her—if he could reach such an assessment in the conflicted chaos in his mind—would come from how she responded to his interrogation.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Weaver,’ he said. ‘As you now know, I’m Caesteri.’

  She paused, and he waited with her, allowing the information to sink in. He wanted her to process it, to understand it and all that it meant. He wanted to see her reaction to it.

  ‘You came all this way for me?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘I did.’

  ‘For Brauron?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded slowly and closed her eyes. Her shoulders dropped. ‘He’s dead then? I did kill him.’

  That she said this almost as a question surprised him. He had expected her to say something else; he could not at that moment have explained what, but anything except that. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You were there.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  She looked away from him, her eyes narrowing. ‘I lose time. Black out, sometimes. I don’t know if it’s the stim, or… something else. I remembered Brauron for the first time, up there.’ She looked up to the sky, and Weaver knew she meant the Astratus. ‘Not much, just flashes.’ She turned to him and met his eyes. ‘Would it matter to you if he came at me?’

  ‘You weren’t defending yourself,’ Weaver said. ‘The body tells me that much. There came a time, very quickly in my estimation, where he was no threat to you. But you continued until he was dead. And then beyond that.’

  ‘Is it your intention to kill me?’ She glanced at the bodies of the chukiri strewn around them. ‘Why didn’t you let them do it? Or leave me up there to bleed out?’

  ‘It’s not for me to decide what your punishment is.’ Yet as he said the words, he heard his own uncertainty in them. Who do you trust to punish her? he thought. Who has seen what she did here? Who will listen to her words of explanation, if she has any?

  ‘You’re going to arrest me and hold me?’ she said.

  ‘Until we have spoken more about Brauron, yes. If you resist me, I will kill you. Regardless of your actions today. It won’t bring me any pleasure to do it, so I hope you’ll be wise in your choice.’

  ‘Where are we going to go, Caestor? I doubt these people will want to go back to the Core with you. You don’t have a ship.’

  ‘You let me worry about that.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Gant said. There was still anger on his face. ‘Whatever you intend to do, Caestor, none of us are going back to the Core.’

  Weaver glanced sideways at Gant and spoke quietly. ‘There are other plans for us, Gant. People who have manipulated us. I know that, and now, being here with this ship, I suspect so do you. For now, I’ll play along. But I warn you. I won't allow any of you to get between her and me. Is that clear?’

  ‘She’s your business, Caestor,’ Gant said. ‘She’s your prisoner.’

  ‘Then we understand each other.’

  C H A P T E R 23

  ‘WE DON’T need to gain much altitude,’ Abraham said, his fingers playing across the control panel. The engines began to growl as they spooled up, and the cold wind swirled around them inside the open cockpit. ‘Ju
st enough to clear the higher ranges and get some momentum. We’ll drop quickly—there’s not much manoeuvrability left in this ship—but it will get us where we need to go.’

  ‘Which is where?’ Weaver said. There were still flecks of blood on the shards of glass around the cockpit rim. Chukiri blood. There is some justice, he thought ruefully.

  ‘Six hundred and thirty-seven miles,’ Abraham said.

  Weaver felt the freighter rock beneath them as the thrust built up. ‘You know exactly where,’ he said. ‘On this whole planet, you know exactly where that ship is.’

  Abraham turned to him and raised his voice above the roar of the engines. ‘You have other things to attend to,’ he shouted. ‘I suggest you see to the navigator. It would be better if she doesn’t die.’

  Weaver gave him one last look, then strode along the narrow passage in the freighter he had once thought might be his tomb. He experienced a sudden chill crawling down his back. He felt the metal grille tremble beneath his feet and then push upwards. They were lifting off, but shakily. This thing could fall apart at any moment, he thought. It was too old to start with. He braced himself against the walls and made his way to the tiny medical bay.

  When he reached the blast door to the hold where they had set up a makeshift infirmary, he found Gant’s woman, Kayt, waiting for him.

  ‘She’s sedated,’ she said. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood, and I had to give her something for the pain.’

  ‘I want to see her.’

  Kayt shook her head. ‘She’s asleep. Whatever you’re looking for from her, whatever she’s done, she’ll still be here in an hour when we find this other ship.’

  ‘She’s dangerous,’ Weaver said. ‘Don’t underestimate her and let your guard down.’