“I can't imagine it being like this for an entire year,” she said.
“That's what the legend says happened.”
“Why?”
“I don't know, I wasn't there. By the time the sun returned the technology to find out was dead. There are probably still a few satellites up there somewhere that might have the answer but most of them fell out of the sky long ago.”
“When I read about it, the whole thing just seems so strange, so different.”
“It was.”
She rolled onto her side and pulled the lip of the bedroll up under her chin. Then she looked at him sat there, prodding the fire from time to time without taking his eyes off it.
“I'm nearly there,” she said.
“Where?”
“The point where I believe you.” He laughed. “You could've already known about the scar on Papa's back.”
“How?”
“From when you were younger or something. I'm not sure yet. And you could've made up all those words in those books of yours. Books are just stories after all. Fiction or non-fiction.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, finally looking away from the flames to stare at her. She couldn't help but grin which gave way to an uncontrollable burst of laughter.
“I'm sorry,” she said, trying to compose herself between fits. “You don't realise it but you're a funny guy.”
“How am I?”
“Your expressions. They're priceless. You could never lie, you'd be terrible at it.”
“Thanks. I think.”
She let the joke carry her along until her breathing came under control and she was able to wipe the stray tears from her eyes. Then she resumed her inspection of the flames, watching them struggle to reach up to the sky with their glowing fingertips, only to fall back down again, their place taken by others.
“That's what bothers me,” she said after a moment or two of silence.
“What's that?”
“That you could never lie to me. It means you're telling the truth.”
She slept fitfully that night, often waking to turn over in her bedroll or pull the hood up over her face to stop her nose from freezing. She noticed him tending the fire on each occasion until eventually she woke nearer to the morning and found him lying on his side in his bedroll, staring at the flames with heavy eyelids. Still he stubbornly refused to sleep, or she suspected that something else was stopping him, something that gnawed at his heart and kept him awake.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Too much coffee,” he said.
“Lie.”
“The cold.”
“Lie.”
“The past.” She smiled.
“Truth. Someone you loved? Someone who loved you?”
When the words passed over her lips along with the steaming cloud of hot breath, she felt a sudden pang in her stomach and a rush of fear. Where had that question come from and why was she suddenly so concerned with his answer?
“It's nothing,” he replied. “Forget about it.”
“Lie.”
“You're a persistent one, aren't you?” he said. “I'm sure...” He stopped.
“What?”
“It doesn't matter. I'm fine, Sarah. Thank you for asking though. Not many people do.”
She watched him for a bit longer before sleep came and carried her back into the warm slumber of her bedroll. The next time she woke it was morning and the fire was out, leaving a chill where a memory had once been. As she considered the man laid opposite her she wondered if that memory would ever see its own dawn. Alan's had seen many such mornings and yet still it haunted him even into the daylight.
On they rode, following the trail as long as it was visible in the compacted, frozen earth beneath the hooves of their mounts. Throughout that day they only lost the path once when their prey had crossed a stream coming down from the hills and for a moment Sarah feared that they'd been given the slip. It was only when she led Ziggy across the water that she saw that the fugitives hadn't gone down far enough and that their tracks could be picked up again a quarter mile to the south.
“They're the sloppiest travellers I've ever known,” said Sarah as they resumed the pursuit. “I'd have gone down for quite a way, maybe even come up a few times to throw us off the scent with false tracks.”
“I'd agree with that,” said Alan. “Unless they really didn't think they'd be followed this far.”
“That's a good point. I'm not sure where this settlement is to begin with. We might be nearer than I-”
Sarah, holding up a hand, pulled on the reins and stopped. Alan did the same and together they listened.
“What did you hear?” he asked.
“I'm sure I heard-” She cocked her head. “Hammers? A forge maybe, someone working metal... There!”
The faintest metallic sound pierced the normal woodland background noise and reached their ears like the peels of a far-off bell. Alan nodded as he heard it too.
“Sounds like it's coming more from the north than the west. Maybe the path loops around that way a little.”
“We'd best take a look.”
They drew their rifles and carried on, watching as the path of the horse's hooves led them around a sharp, rocky outcrop of grey stone and through a gap in the trees where the slavers had passed through in single file. Moll ran on ahead, sniffing at every print the horses had left behind and burying her muzzle into anything soft or interesting.
“Perfect site for an ambush,” he said. “We should spread out a bit further.”
“Agreed.”
Sarah pressed on and Alan fell back a little, his head turning this way and that as the oppressive forest grew thicker the deeper north they went. The air was cool but stale with hardly enough of a breeze to move it from out amongst the old trunks of weary looking oaks and pines. Even the spongy ground with its ferns and patches of wet moss seemed oppressive and close like the forest was trying to choke the life out of the intruders before they penetrated too deeply into its ancient secrets.
She stopped again, hearing the sound of the hammer even closer now and she turned in her saddle to signal Alan. She pointed in the direction it was coming from and nodded. He returned the gesture and then pointed off to the right where a parallel path had been trodden in years past and slipped behind some rocks out of sight.
On they went, even slower now that the sounds were near. Soon they heard the distant shouts of people, puncturing the air like gunfire and she knew that they'd found the settlement only spoken of in whispers back at Pine Lodge. The thoughts of what went on up there chilled her to the bone and she remembered some of the rumours, the dark tales of people who claimed to have been up there once and lived to tell the tale. She hoped that none of it was true.
As she lost sight of Alan again, she clambered up onto a narrow ledge in the hillside that afforded her a better view over the lower treetops behind her. In the distance she knew that Pine Lodge was there and a little to the right, Abbingdon. The land before her looked wild and untamed and, she suspected, maybe as unfamiliar to Alan as the towering cities had been to her. That was the one universal fact that seemed to be everywhere now in the post-disaster country of England; the realisation that the land was taking back its rightful property and it was carrying out such a strategic campaign that if they weren't careful they'd wake one day to find themselves surrounded by malignant green fingers and long brown arms, pinning them to the hovels in which they hid.
There was a sudden muffled cry behind her and she spun round, raising the rifle to her shoulder as two shapes burst through the trees and fell to the floor. They grappled on the ground with such fury that it was hard to make out more than the rough outline of Alan who was trying desperately to pin down the knife-hand of his attacker. The free hand of her enormous friend was clamped over the man's mouth, silencing his cries for help.
Leaping from her saddle, she lunged towards the knife and missed just as Alan lost his grip on the man's arm. In an instant the b
lade disappeared into the folds of his coat and drew out a thick jet of blood before plunging in again.
Sarah stifled a cry and, reaching for a stone by her feet, went to cave the man's skull in.
“No!” hissed Alan. “I need him alive!”
With a nod of his head, he indicated the spot beneath the man's hand and she threw down the stone. Then, with a grunt of effort, he slammed the wrist onto the sharp edge of the rock and the knife flew from his grasp. Bones snapped and the man howled into the palm of Alan's hand. All resistance left the man and he was able to flip him onto his front and force his face into the grassy floor.
“Tie him!” said Alan. Running to Ziggy she grabbed his reins, threw a simple knot around a tree and went in her pack for cord. With trembling hands she bound the man's ankles and wrists, feeling the broken bones moving beneath the skin, making her stomach roll. “Use his scarf as a gag.”
She did so and when Alan seemed satisfied, he got back on his feet, and sucked in huge lungful’s of air.
“He stabbed you!” said Sarah. “Are you okay?”
He undid his coat with bloody fingertips and she rushed in to see what damage had been done. Lifting his sweater and shirt, she felt for the horrible cuts and he flinched at the touch of her fingers.
“Where did he get you?” she asked, unable to find anything.
“Here,” he said, taking her hand in his and guiding it to the spot above his hip.
“There's nothing there!” she cried. Her fingertips came away bloody, but there was no wound, no cut. Nothing.
“I know.”
“But I saw the blood - here!” She pulled at the holes in his clothing. “It must have hit you, it must!”
“It did, Sarah. But like I told you, I can't be harmed. See for yourself.”
She searched his side again, running her bare fingers over his skin but found nothing, not even a nick or a scratch. Still stunned, she hardly noticed Alan take her hands off him and tuck his shirt back in.
“Now do you believe me?”
“I think I have to,” she whispered. “There's just no other way...”
Moll, sniffing the ground as she walked, came into the clearing and looked up at them both. Without any prompting, she picked up a log in her jaws and dropped it at Sarah's feet.
“I think you've broken her,” said Alan.
“Not now, Molly - we're kind of busy,” she said. The dog sat back on her haunches and waited.
They dragged the man squirming into the cover of some bushes and sat him upright. Sarah noticed that his broken hand was turning purple already underneath the leaves of his animal skin coat. His whole garb was patched from badly tanned hides and his long, untidy hair fell lank over his twisted features. He stank of sweat and other body odours and she took a step or two back from him to avoid breathing it in.
“This must be one of them,” she said. “Some people called them the Mountain Men, the people of the hills. I can see why now.”
“He's a man like any other,” he replied, squatting down in front of him. “I saw him hiding near the path, ready to jump me. I think he was on his own.”
“A scout?”
“Maybe just a hunter we stumbled on. Either way we're not letting him go just yet. He might bring the whole tribe down on us.”
He took a handful of the man's greasy hair in his fist and yanked his head back until he was looking into his pale grey eyes.
“Do you speak my language?” he asked. The man nodded. “Good. Let's keep this simple - we're following three riders with a girl. Did they come this way?”
The man said nothing but his eyes darted back and forth between them both like a terrified rabbit caught in a snare.
“Well?” said Alan. The man shook his head. He sighed. “I think you're lying to me. In fact, I think you're lying to me about things I've not even asked you about yet.”
Suddenly the man was on his front with Alan's knee in his back, his face buried deep in the grass. Twisting the broken wrist in his hands, the man screamed into the ground and bucked under the weight on his spine. Sarah tried to look away but all she could see was her friend, Gail, at the mercy of someone like this, having who-knows-what done to her and a little pain wasn't going to put her off from rescuing her.
Alan sat him upright again and stared him straight in the face.
“Let's try that again - have you seen the three riders we're looking for?” Nod. “That's better. Much better. And the girl?” He nodded again. “Excellent. Are they at your camp up ahead?”
The man looked like he was about to pass out. His face was pale and sweaty and his eyes were cracked with red lines as he hesitated to answer. Alan was about to turn him over again when Sarah put a hand on his shoulder.
“His family is up there,” she said. “That's what's scaring him. He doesn't know what you're going to do.”
“Then he'd better answer me or he'll find out first-hand,” he replied.
“Tell us what we want to know,” said Sarah, looking into the man's eyes. “Tell us and we'll spare them. We only want our friend back and the three riders have her.”
The man gave a frantic nod and tried to indicate the gag in his mouth. She undid the knot and let it fall.
“Well?” asked Alan.
“They wanted to sell her to us,” he said. “The girl. We didn't want her. We didn't want to pay such a high price. They wanted to speak to Calderbank. We sent them to meet them. That's all I know, I swear it.”
“What's in your camp up there? Anything I should know about?” he asked.
“Nothing. We're just farmers. We live off the land.”
“We'll take a look all the same,” said Alan. “If I find you've lied to us, if there's anything I'm not going to like in there, now's the time to tell us.”
“Nothing. Just farmers. Children.”
Alan fastened the gag again and the man tried to spit it back out. After striking him across the face with the back of his hand, he finished the knot and pushed the prisoner back into the bushes.
“Bring up the horses,” he said. “Then we'll take a look.”
“You think he's telling the truth?” she asked. He shook his head.
“Not in the slightest.”
In a depression made between two forested hills was a chaotic mess of tents, sheet-steel shelters and husks of old vehicles that the prisoner claimed was the home of at least fifty families. From the top of the eastern edge they were able to look down into the camp and see people moving around, all adults and all armed with clubs and knives and long serrated blades made from bits of old cars.
“Looks like a real family-friendly place down there,” said Sarah. “Where are the kids?”
“On the swings and slides,” said Alan. “Can't you tell?”
The prisoner and the horses were tied to the trees behind them with Moll sat watching, her crimson eyes locked onto the man like she knew what he was thinking and it wasn't pleasant. Whenever he tried to move she'd let a growl rumble up out of her chest and between her sharp, white teeth like thunder on a stormy summer night.
“It's possible she's down there,” she said. “Inside one of those shacks.”
“Possible,” he replied. “But I'm not so sure.”
“Why's that?”
“I think he's right - they didn't want her.”
“Why not?”
“She was a thin girl, correct?”
“Underfed is the term I'd-” She gasped. There, in the centre of the camp, something was happening and it looked like it involved a large grill that was being dragged near to a crude bench. A couple of women; fat things with hair missing and furs hanging from their enormous arms, began arranging knives and cleavers on the table.
Sarah felt her heart stop and her hands begin to tremble but she couldn't stop looking, she couldn't take her eyes away from the macabre scene that was getting ready to be played out on the bloody stage below.
“It's true!” she gasped. “Everything I've heard - it was al
l-”
“There's no time for that,” said Alan, shedding his coat as quickly as he could. “Stay here. No matter what happens, please stay here and don't follow me down.”
“What? You're going down there? Why?” she cried.
“I'm going to...” He didn't finish. Instead he drew a large, fat-ended blade from a scabbard on his tack and tied the leather cord dangling from the hilt several times around his wrist. He also took his hatchet and pushed the handle behind his belt. Then, commanding Moll to stay where she was, he dragged the prisoner to his feet and began to shove him down the side of the depression in front of him.
“Alan!” she cried. “What the hell are you going to do?”
He didn't reply. Instead he gave the man a firm kick and sent him sprawling down the slope, tumbling head over heels until he landed in a heap at the bottom. Stunned, he tried to get back onto his feet but Alan was soon on him, dragging him by the hair into the middle of the camp in front of the fat women and the armed men.
Suddenly she realised what he was doing and what would happen. She felt a hollow kind of emptiness inside her, a vacuum that sucked in all her sorrow and grief and made it as real as the ground beneath her feet. There was the reason he couldn't sleep. There was the reason his soft blue eyes were just feeble curtains in the windows of a house filled with horror and sadness. He was doing what no one else could and paying the price for it with his own soul. Like the sin eaters she'd read about from the past, he was delivering the justice the new world craved and which no one but him could minister.
The first kill was made by his own hand. The prisoner, still struggling in his grasp, tried to break free but found himself on his knees as his fellow murderers gathered around him. Alan said nothing as they bellowed at him, but instead he swung that deadly blade through the air, parting the prisoner's head from his shoulders with one blow. The camp erupted in shouts and screams. Standing firm, Alan threw the head towards the nearest barbaric warrior who caught it by instinct before dropping it in horror. Then, pulling the hatchet free from his waist, he stood ready to face them.
A moment of nothing.
Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3) Page 8