“When this is over,” she said. “Do you think he'll let us leave?”
“Who? Tarrick?”
“Yes.”
“Possibly not. If he thinks I know about more caches he might try and squeeze them out of me. I'm not sure he'll let us leave with our horses anyway, especially not yours.”
“Yeah, I noticed they don't have many here. They'll want some of their own and they know that I can help them. We walked into a trap, didn't we?” He nodded. “Any ideas?”
“Not just yet but I find they usually present themselves sooner or later. You?”
“One. Might be tricky though. Can you spare me for a moment?”
“Sure. But if you hear the cannon fire again, get down as low as you can, okay?”
“Will do.”
Sarah, thinking of Ellen, began climbing down the wall but this time Moll followed, charging along the walkway until she felt she was low enough to attempt a jump. When she caught up with her she was limping on a paw that was clearly broken and bent out of shape.
“Moll!” she cried. “What have you done, you silly girl?”
The dog looked at her, holding the injured limb up in front of her until it suddenly cracked and popped back into place all by itself. She licked it once, put it down on the ground and began walking along quite normally.
“I don't think I'll ever get used to that,” said Sarah. “Not in a thousand years.”
The chaos within the settlement had spilled out beyond the site of the explosion and scores of terrified, frantic people ran in every direction trying to put out the fires or rescue people from the rubble. Everything was splashed in a fiery glow as the flames licked up from one of the little knots of tightly packed houses where, according to a more lucid young girl who stood watching, the shell had landed.
“How many are hurt?” asked Sarah.
“I don't know. It landed on one of the bars; there were dozens inside and now the flames are burning the other homes too,” she replied.
Sarah walked on with Moll beside her. She found some of the people she remembered from the pub gathered around a collapsed wall, tearing out pieces of timber and rusty metal, trying to get down to something or someone there. Others were fetching buckets of water from the great barrels to try and put out the flames. It was both terrifying to watch and also eerily calm. People were doing their best to be quiet, to listen for the sounds of survivors buried under the rubble but to also direct others into controlling the flames.
Rounding a corner she came upon an open space that she hadn't noticed before. It was made from hard-packed earth and was dotted with hastily made screens that had been set up here and there to hide the crude wooden tables and instruments of the triage team. Already stretchers were being dragged or carried towards a waiting booth and the cries of pain or weeping of the loved ones soaked the atmosphere of the place, drenching anyone nearby in sorrow.
Sarah and Moll headed over, dodging those who were speeding past her with the dead and dying in their arms. To the right there were bodies under blankets and people were walking up and down them, identifying who they were and sometimes bursting into tears when they found someone they knew.
Ellen was in the third booth along and she was just putting the finishing stitches to an enormous tear in a woman's thigh. The casualty had long since passed out from the pain but Ellen, calm and cold as she had been in her home, was deftly passing the needle and thread through the sides of the wound like she was darning a sock. When she looked up and saw them standing there, she gave a faint smile and bowed her head.
“Sarah. What brings you here?” she asked.
“A word, if I may? I wouldn't disturb you unless it were serious.”
“More serious than tending to the dying?”
Sarah blushed and was about to walk away but the woman broke her icy features into a smile and signaled that the patient could be taken away. Two men came in and lifted off the stretcher.
“Come with me,” said Ellen. “I need to wash my hands before another arrives.”
Sarah followed her behind a curtain at the back of the booth to a row of wash tubs that had been setup for just that reason. Taking a bottle from the side, Ellen poured the strong alcohol over her hands and began cleaning off the blood so that the horrible mix ran into the bottom of the cracked porcelain bowls. She also dipped her instruments into pots filled with the stuff.
“It kills disease,” she explained to Sarah. “It's not perfect, but it's better than fixing their wounds and then killing them with poison.”
“I see,” she replied.
Ellen finished washing and held her hands up in front of her to let them drip-dry, fixing Sarah with that usual cold stare.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“It's about Tarrick.”
“You've realised then?”
“Realised what?”
“That he plans to keep you here. You and your guns and even your horses.” Sarah nodded. “I did warn you, remember?”
“Yes.”
“And now you want me to help you escape if we win the day, correct?”
“Yes.”
“I suspect that's because you know that I want out of here too. Correct also?”
“Yes.”
“Like I said, you're a smart girl. Rare these days. I thought I'd said enough to throw you off the trail but clearly I was wrong. What gave me away?”
“It wasn't anything you said,” she replied. “It was what you didn't say. You tried to hide your grief and you failed. Your eyes gave you away.”
“I guess I can't do much about that.”
“No one can.”
She leaned back against the tub and shook her head slowly.
“It's a funny thing, grief,” she said. “It's a sneaky devil that creeps up on you unannounced and slips under your guard. One day you could be doing some simple task, years after that person you love has gone, and the next thing you know you're on the floor, broken all over again. He's been my companion for many years now, Sarah. I thought I'd hidden him from view. I was wrong.
“I hurt Michael Nibbs and his family. I hurt them deeply and when I saw those little figures again I knew... I knew that it was his way of forgiving me. He'd sent me a message; one that father never got to hear. We were forgiven. Forgiven for driving them away to a life on the road where, as you already know, their lives were so brutally taken.”
Somewhere on the other side of the curtain, someone was calling Ellen's name. If she heard it, her face failed to show it. She was staring down at her hands, dripping and almost blue with the cold.
“I must get back,” she mumbled. “I must help them.”
“Will you help us too?” asked Sarah. Ellen looked at her and smiled.
“There's a tree standing in a park about three miles south of here. When this is over, you and your friend should go there.”
“Why?”
“I have to go now. Remember - the tree.”
With that, Ellen passed through the curtain and disappeared. The moans of her casualty were quickly subdued by her calming, soothing words that healed more than perhaps any needle or knife could.
When Sarah returned to the wall, she saw Alan peering over the top with a steaming mug of hot wine in his hand. When she climbed the ladder, he offered it to her and she drank. It was spicy and warm and smelled faintly of cinnamon.
“Well?” he asked.
“Ellen said she’d meet us at a tree in a park three miles south of here,” she replied. “She said we should go there but she never said why; I guess we'll just have to see.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“No.”
Alan nodded and returned to looking over the wall. Sarah took another sip from the mug and passed it back to him as he held out his hand. He didn't seem to want to take his eyes off whatever it was he was looking at and Sarah, peering through a gap in the sheet steel, failed to see what it was.
“Well?” she asked.<
br />
“Well what?”
“Are you going to tell me what you're looking at?”
“I can't quite make it out from here,” he replied. Sarah reached into one of her belt pockets and took out her monocular, offering it to him.
He took it and when he'd stared through it a couple of times he laughed to himself and passed it back.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There, just to the left of the tank and a bit further down.”
She looked through the lens and tried to find whatever it was that had him so amused. The view through the small opening allowed very little light but when it got nearer to the searchlights she could see more. Red coated men and women were milling around the monster, working at something nearby that, to her, looked like some kind of enormous puzzle.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
“They've thrown a track,” he said. “That must be why it's not moved since it arrived.”
“So it's crippled?”
“For now. They're pretty busy trying to fix it so I'm guessing that their next move will be to advance on us in force for one last push.”
“Can't we just strike now?” she asked. “It's a sitting duck!”
He looked across the open ground and was clearly giving it some thought. To her it made perfect sense; the thing couldn't move - now was the time to attack.
“No,” he said after a moment or two. “It's still too risky.”
“Why?” she cried. “People are dying down there! If it fires again it might-”
“No.”
“For pity's sake, Alan - this will be the best chance we have. You've got to take the shot now! Please!”
Behind them, people were turning from where they stood to listen to the argument. They began murmuring and agreeing with her, taking up the same cry to launch the weapon now while the tank was immobilized. The words rippled across the wall and she watched as he began to buckle under the pressure. She didn't care - the answer seemed so obvious that she couldn't understand his hesitation.
“If the driver is still inside he'll launch his countermeasures - he'll deflect the first shot and I'll only have one more chance. The time it'll take to reload is too long and despite what you think I wouldn’t survive a direct hit from that shell.”
“But it's better than waiting, surely!” she said. “Please Alan - trust me on this! We should strike now!”
The men and women manning their posts were all closing in on him now and the cries of their agreement with her could be heard even over the shouts of the people working frantically below to rescue the survivors. Alan, looking back into the camp at the flames, didn't look angry or confused. More than anything he looked sad. Disappointed perhaps.
“Okay,” he muttered, taking off his coat and laying it down beside his rifle. “Okay.”
Sarah smiled but for the first time since they'd met he didn't return it. In fact, he didn't seem to be able to look at her directly. Was he sulking, she wondered as he climbed down the ladder. Was he annoyed that she'd seen the obvious before him?
She watched him walk away towards the weapon, his shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly like the weight of the world had settled on them. He'd get over it, she thought, returning to her spiced spirits and staring at the searchlights, soon to be extinguished. He'd realise she was right.
A minute or two passed and the next time she looked back he was stood beside the weapon, just a shadow in the inky black of night. Something lit up, bathing his bearded face in a greenish glow. Seconds passed. Sarah looked back at the tank which suddenly began to whirr into life, moving its cyclopic eye in his direction.
“What's happening?” asked a woman next to her.
“I don't know,” she replied, feeling a panic start to rise in her stomach.
The weapon suddenly fired and the rocket, tearing through the night's sky like a firework, shot upwards, arcing over the wall to come crashing down like lightening on the tank but it didn't even get close. Plumes of bright white light shot up from the top, spraying the air with glittery fragments of metal. The rocket changed direction, flew off towards the south and detonated harmlessly.
“He missed!” cried the woman but Sarah realised now why he hadn't wanted to fire so soon. The time before he was able to fire again was too long, much too long. She turned and saw how frantically he was working the machine, loading the next missile into its tube.
Suddenly she dropped to the metal plating of the walkway by instinct as the screams of gunfire tore at the parapet like a million hammer blows. The tank was firing from its 12.7mm machine gun, stitching the walls with sustained fire as it searched for targets. Holes the size of her fist punched through the thin steel barricades and people were literally blasted in two by the enormous rounds. She cowered, covering her ears with her hands, letting out a scream that no one heard.
The firing stopped.
Sarah, trembling from head to foot, tried to stand but the fear pinned her to the floor. Others had managed to get up and were peering over the blasted walls. Silence. The smell of gun smoke and scorched metal. The sounds of the dying.
The weapon fired and for a moment Alan was bathed in light. Sarah could see him from where she lay and she watched as he followed the flight path with his eyes.
Leaping to her feet, finally breaking out of the grasp of her terror, she saw that this time the rocket stayed on target and managed to break into a cluster of smaller missiles. They detonated on the roof of the tank, rocking it in the mud where it began to partially list to one side. A fire was lit somewhere in its belly and the people on the wall let out a shriek of triumph.
“He's done it!” cried Sarah. “He's destroyed the-”
But it wasn't over yet. The tank may have been wounded, but it wasn't dead. The turret rotated on its damaged mechanisms and began to take aim. Suddenly the night was smashed by the cannon blast and the wall beneath her feet shook as the gates were blown wide open. Great chunks of metal and wood tumbled downwards and the people standing above the explosion were thrown backwards and killed in the fall.
Sarah grabbed on to a stanchion as part of the walkway fell and Moll, sensing the danger, leapt down and tumbled into a stack of crates.
“It's still going!” cried a man to her right. “It's going to fire again!”
Sarah could see that the thing now had a clear line of sight to Alan and the weapon and she turned, horrified as she saw him framed by the light of a dozen fires beneath him, still trying to load another rocket into the machine.
“ALAN!” she screamed but it was too late. The cannon fired again and the place where he’d been standing vanished behind a wall of fire. Someone was pulling at her arm, helping her back onto the walkway as she stared after him. She regained her feet and tried to see what had happened but there was nothing left now. The weapon, the platform, the entire building - it was all gone, just a smoldering pile of rubble remained.
She called his name again but there was no response. Nothing could be heard over the devastation below her as people tried to escape the fire that raged in the midst of the settlement. She stumbled, trying to get to the other part of the walkway that hadn’t been hit and she let loose the contents of her stomach and fell to her knees. It was all too much and too horrible to comprehend.
“There - look!” someone shouted and she turned. Something was moving down below, speeding through the hole made by the cannon but she couldn't quite see what it was.
“It's him!” someone cried.
“Who?”
“The man - the one who brought the weapons!”
Sarah pulled herself up and saw that it was Alan and he was racing across the battlefield on his mount, crouching low in the saddle and heading straight towards the tank. The Slavers hadn't noticed him yet but as he crossed the searchlights a cry went up and their guns started firing.
Sarah screamed but it was no use. She gripped the wall and watched in horror as the bullets tore through him, hitting him like tho
usands of lead fists, trying desperately to knock him from the horse as he sped towards the crippled vehicle. He almost made it. He almost got there but his mount suddenly skewed to the left, its legs blown out from under it and both of them went down in a hail of gunfire.
“No!” she cried. “Oh no no no!”
She fumbled in her pockets for the monocular and eventually found it, raising it to her eye to see what was happening. Alan was back on his feet, yards from the tank but the Slavers were already coming towards him, their rifles aimed. He took a step closer and they opened fire. He fell. Rose again. Fell again.
The hot tears ran down her cheeks and she slumped to the cold metal floor of the walkway, unable to watch. Horrible sobs racked her body as she clutched her face in her hands, trying to hold back the sorrow and guilt. Why hadn't I listened, she thought. Why had I insisted that-
An explosion, bigger than all the others, shook the foundations beneath her. People fell over on the walkway, almost spilling over the edge to the ground below. A gust of hot air swept over the top of the wall and burst through the gaping hole where the gates had been.
Sarah couldn't hear anything. The world had gone quiet and all the colour had drained from it. It was peaceful for once. Perhaps it was the only time she'd known peace since Meggy had died. She saw her then, lying in her arms, dozing in the summer sun on the porch outside the house. Papa was there in his usual seat, a cup of tea in his hands, looking out over the woodlands and smiling. Warmth. Comfort. Peace. They were forgotten things, long-lost things, buried long ago things. Would she ever know them again?
“He did it!” said a voice far, far away.
Sarah tried to turn her head but it felt stiff and sore. Someone was shaking her, trying to pull her to her feet. She felt like she was under water. The sounds were blurry and fuzzy, drowning in themselves.
Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3) Page 25