“From the south.”
As though expecting to see the answer writ in the clouds, Sorrel and Einstein turned to look towards the southern skies.
Sensing the change in mood, Tailwagger stopped fussing for Sorrel to throw the stick and sat by her instead, leaning heavily into her leg.
Though the question of where Tailwagger had come from hung like a storm cloud on the horizon, the following days passed in as quiet a manner as Sorrel could remember. Unlike the Wild Woods, the forest here was bountiful and home to few hazards. Sorrel saw no signs of badgers or boars or any other large, meat-yielding beasts, but wood prawns were plentiful and didn’t fight back. It made her wonder why there were no other people here.
“We are in an undefined place,” Einstein said. “The Wastelands are to the north, scorched earth to the south. This place has flourished undiscovered, trapped betwixt the two.”
“We are in the Betwixt,” Sorrel said.
“It seems so.”
It was the third day after Tailwagger joined them and it had begun as peacefully as the previous two. Sorrel and Einstein were in the forest, foraging for bladdernuts and blackberries, while Tailwagger rooted around in the undergrowth, sniffing and scrabbling at the earth.
“You said you thought we could winter here,” Sorrel said, “but maybe we could do more than that. I haven’t given up on Eli – or David. The Betwixt would be a good place for us to start anew. There’s more than enough food and water – we even have a place to stay.”
She’d been thinking on this for the previous two days and now that she’d given voice to them, her thoughts came tumbling out in a torrent.
“Eli – he’s not much more than a baby really – too young to understand about Brig, about what happened. But he’ll come around, and when he’s older, he’ll understand that I’m his sister – that he belongs with me. And David – there’s an explanation – I know there is – he wouldn’t have left us like that – not even after what happened. I shouldn’t have argued with him. It’s my fault he left, not yours.”
Einstein stopped picking berries and looked at her.
“Sorrel, whatever happened to David is not your fault and at least you know Eli is safe. When the time is right, we will reach out to him. We will try again.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Of course.”
“What about Brig?”
“Brig is not our master. He does not get to tell us what we can and cannot do.”
Einstein’s words flowed into the chasm inside Sorrel, filling the void with renewed hope and determination.
“No, he doesn’t. Einstein, what I said the other day, I didn’t mean it. I’m truly sorry.”
“I have already forgiven you on at least three occasions. You can stop apologising now.”
“Sure?”
Before Einstein could respond, Tailwagger froze. She stared intently at something Sorrel could not see, her body leaning forward, ears pricked, tail up, her only movements a twitch of her nose and a quiver running through one of her hind legs.
“What’s the matter?” Sorrel knelt beside the dog.
Tailwagger paid her no mind, but Einstein crouched down beside her and placed a finger to his lips. He pointed through the woods in the direction Tailwagger was staring.
At first, Sorrel could see nothing amiss, but then, in the dappled light amid the trees she caught sight of a figure, a man with closely shorn dark hair and the shadow of a beard. He was poking around with a machete.
“What’s he doing?” Sorrel whispered.
“I do not know,” Einstein replied, “but whatever it is, I do not like the look of him.”
The man was too far away for Sorrel to make anything of his features, but he carried himself with an air of tension as though he was looking for a skull to crack.
“Nor me,” Sorrel replied.
A moment later he was gone, absorbed by the shadows of the forest.
“Whoever he is, he did not look like someone out to make friends,” Einstein whispered. “We should leave.”
Sorrel followed Einstein as he crept away in the opposite direction of the man, but stopped when she saw that Tailwagger was not going with them.
“Come on.” She tried to coax the dog, but instead of paying her any heed Tailwagger took a few steps the other way.
Sorrel caught another glimpse of the man as he wended his way through the trees towards them. Einstein tugged at her arm, pulling her away, but Tailwagger crept further forwards, her head now low, her tail straight out behind her.
Sorrel looked at Einstein. His mouth was set grim as he shook his head. There was no choice but to leave Tailwagger, and now there was no time for them to flee – the man was too close – their movement would catch his gaze. Instead of bolting, they ducked down out of sight behind a fallen tree, concealing themselves within the tangle of ferns growing in its shade. They peered through gaps in the fronds as the man spotted Tailwagger.
“You! So, this is where you disappeared to.”
Tailwagger cowered before him, her ears flattened back, but she stood her ground.
“Not running away? Getting brave, huh?”
The man slid his machete into a leather scabbard hanging from his hip. He was close enough now for Sorrel to make out the sneer on his face as he approached the dog.
“About time, you useless cur. I might make something of you yet.”
He softened his tone to hide his ill-intent, but could not disguise the menace in his words.
“Come on then dog, let’s see if we can sort you out.”
He reached out to grab Tailwagger by the scruff of the neck, but she snapped at his hand, barely missing sinking her teeth into his flesh.
“You little –”
He went to take a swipe at the dog, but pulled back at the last moment. He straightened up and regarded Tailwagger through narrowed eyes.
“What are you up to, dog? Standing your ground – trying to take a chunk out of me – what are you protecting?”
He slowly scanned the surrounding area. Sorrel caught her breath as his gaze settled on the fallen tree. The cunning, hostile pits of his eyes probed the shadows between the fronds. After a moment he took a step towards them.
He’d barely taken a second when Tailwagger leapt at him. He retaliated with a savage kick, catching her mid-leap. The dog yelped as she was hurled through the air.
The piteous sound, the first Sorrel had heard Tailwagger make, drove her to break cover, knife in hand, but Einstein grabbed hold of her and held her down behind the tree trunk, shaking his head at her.
“We need to know where he came from.” He spoke the words under his breath.
The man sneered at Tailwagger as she lay on the ground. “Finally, a sound from you, pathetic though it was. What use is a dog with no bark? But if that’s what it takes, I’ll gladly kick one into you.”
He swung his foot at the dog, but before his boot made contact Tailwagger leapt to her feet and bounded into the forest away from Sorrel and Einstein. The man had his back to the fallen tree as he yelled after her. “Next time I see you, I’ll break your neck.”
He took a cursory glance around, then grunted to himself before heading back the way he’d come.
“Tailwagger protected us,” Sorrel whispered. “She stopped him coming to us. She saved us.”
“She did – but we need to follow him,” Einstein whispered back.
“What about Tailwagger?”
Sorrel had stored the sound the dog had made as she was kicked inside herself, another pain absorbed.
“She is wily enough – she will take care of herself. Come on – if you really want to make a home of this place, we need to find out where he came from and what he’s doing here.”
They kept as much distance as possible between themselves and the man as they followed him through the forest. He’d taken his machete out again, and every now and then he stopped and used it to prod around, occasionally picking, plucking or cutti
ng something and dropping it into a knapsack.
After a while of this, he called out, hailing someone. Sorrel and Einstein watched as he was greeted by two others, each with similarly shorn hair. Though the timbre of their voices carried, their words were absorbed by the forest. A volley of harsh laughter erupted from them as the man mimicked kicking Tailwagger.
The three men made their way to the river, following it upstream while Sorrel and Einstein shadowed them from the cover of the trees. Sorrel kept glancing around, hoping that Tailwagger had found them, but there was no sign of the dog.
“I hope she’s okay.”
“Who?” Einstein’s attention was on the three men.
“Tailwagger.”
“She will be fine.”
“It was a hard kick.”
“Look – they have stopped.”
“What are they up to?”
“They are going to cross the river.”
The men launched a simple log raft from the riverbank. It was shackled to ropes which had been tied to trees on opposite sides of the river. They climbed aboard, and though the river was fast-flowing, the shackles stopped the raft from being carried downstream and they were able to use the ropes to pull themselves across.
“Clever,” Einstein said.
“Not clever enough.”
Before Einstein could stop her, Sorrel darted to the tree where one of the ropes had been tied and began hacking through it with her knife. It was a strong rope, its fibres caulked and tightly bound, and her small knife made heavy weather of it. She looked out from behind the tree and seeing that the men were almost halfway across, she redoubled her efforts.
“Let me have a go.” Einstein swiped his blade back and fore across the rope, slicing through a few fibres at a time.
The men worked in unison, pulling hard on the rope.
“Hurry, they’re almost there.”
“Watch out.”
Einstein swung the knife back and thwacked it into the frayed rope. It was stretched tight, all the stress on the last few strands.
“Watch out!”
They ducked down as the rope snapped and whipped across the river. The sudden loss of tension threw the men off balance. They cried out as they tumbled into the river.
“Serves them right,” Sorrel said.
They’d made it most of the way across when the rope gave way and the men churned in the water for only a short time before making it to the shallows at the opposite bank. Although she had acted in the moment, drowning the men had not been Sorrel’s intention and the sight of them soaked but very much alive gave her no cause for concern. But the appearance of two more men with their hair cut in the same cropped style and sporting similar beards, provoked a sense of deep unease.
The pair ran to the river’s edge and pulled their companions from the water.
“I don’t like the look of this,” Sorrel said.
“Me neither. We need to know what is happening over there,” Einstein replied.
“How do we find out?” Sorrel eyed the river. Taking another dip in its coursing waters held little appeal.
But Einstein wasn’t contemplating the river, he was looking up. Sorrel followed his gaze and found herself staring at the branches of a towering wych elm. She grinned. Climbing trees was much more appealing than trying not to drown.
Einstein hoisted her up to give her a start and Sorrel clambered up through the sturdy branches. The remnants of her grin faded fast when she was high enough to look over the river and beyond.
She stared at the scene for several moments before climbing back down to Einstein.
“I can tell by your face that the news is not good,” he said.
“Beyond the river there is a vast plain. The plain is swarming with people.”
“Swarming – how many?”
“Too many to count. They have dogs – and other animals – but I could not tell what they were. Something about the place – how it was organised – the tents were set up in neat rows – it spoke of purpose.”
Einstein gazed through the trees towards the river. “Those men we saw – I think they were scouts seeking the way ahead, looking at what resources they could use. That one we saw – he was collecting samples – did you see?”
Sorrel nodded. “They’re going back to tell them how good it is here. Then they’re going to come to the Betwixt and ruin it.”
“They will most likely deplete it.”
“But this is where we were going to come. Now we have nowhere.”
Sorrel’s words were bitter in her mouth. Giving voice to her ideas about living in the Betwixt with Eli and David had made them seem possible.
“They may pass through, but this is not their destination.”
“How do you know that? If they have come from a place of scorched earth and dead rivers, they will be looking for a good place – and they have found it right here – at the Betwixt.”
“No, I think not. They have come from the south, but their destination is north.”
“Oh!” Sorrel stared at Einstein, her eyes wide with dawning realisation.
“Sorrel, what is it?”
“They have emerged.”
“Who has emerged?”
“The Monitors – and their technicians and protectors – they have come out of their place under the earth. Juno said it would happen – she said that one day they would have to emerge. That day has come. They are going to Dinawl. They are going to Juno. I see it so clearly now. She and the other monitors, they have secret farms near the city. This is what they have been preparing for. The farms aren’t for feeding the people in Dinawl – they are to feed them.”
Einstein nodded. “What you say – it makes sense of the Monitors taking over Dinawl. This army from the south, they are many and will move slowly, but move they will. We need to be gone by the time they cross the river. That could be several days hence, but it could be tomorrow.”
“Einstein, if they are heading north then Brig’s place lies in their path. We must go there – we must protect Eli.”
“Yes, we must.”
Einstein replied without hesitation. Sorrel threw her arms around him.
“Einstein, you are more than a friend – you are as much my family to me as Eli.”
“And you to me, little sister.”
“Are you my brother then?”
“If you like.”
“I like.”
“Good, then we are family.”
“Okay, brother Einstein, let’s get out of here.”
Each was concerned with their own thoughts and there was no talk between them as they walked back to the bothy.
Sorrel’s horror at the army heading their way was offset by her excitement at the chance to see Eli again. She had expected too much from him before. He was so little – seeing her must have been like seeing a ghost. This time the shock of her appearing would be lessened by him having seen her so recently. She had overwhelmed him before. This time she would be gentle, so as not to upset him.
The last of the day’s light was fading when they emerged from the forest and the bothy was swathed in shadows. They were close to the building when one of the shadows broke free and bounded towards them.
“Tailwagger!”
Sorrel laughed as the dog leapt up at her and licked her face. “You’re okay, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
She petted and hugged the dog, laughing into its fur as Tailwagger pranced round her. “You are so clever, leading that horrible man away from us. Isn’t she clever, Einstein?”
Even in the gloaming, Sorrel could make out the grin stretching across Einstein’s broad face.
“She certainly is.”
Tailwagger leapt up at him, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. Einstein scratched her behind the ears.
“Good girl, good dog. You are one of us.” He looked at Sorrel. “Now, we are three.”
“And when we see Eli again, we will be four.”
Sorrel gazed at the sky, wat
ching as the first stars emerged. Where was David? She hoped he was safe and that he too could see the stars. Perhaps he was looking at them right now.
They were three, soon to be four. She hoped with all her heart that one day, not too far from now, they would be five.
8.
Dirt Worms
Even in the vast emptiness of the scoured Wastelands landscape, Lizbit stuck to David like his shadow. The rest of the group strung out as they walked, each occupying their own space; all except her. She favoured walking to the side and slightly behind him so that she was an irritant in the periphery of his vision, as annoying in her own way as a switch fly. He tried speeding up and slowing down, but no matter what he did, she was constantly not-quite-by-his-side.
The light in the Wastelands was different to anywhere else David had been. Reflecting off the mica in the rocks, it was dazzling but did not flatter. Instead it highlighted their imperfections, emphasising the bulge of Lizbit’s eyes and the scrawniness of her limbs, so that she looked like a giant insect. It stressed the depth of the furrows around Valen’s eyes, making him look more haunted than ever, while Cyrus’s weathered face looked as though it had been cured like animal hide. David was glad he could not see himself.
The only one flattered by the weird light was Kala. Her eyes, the colour of catkins when he’d first met her, were golden in the Wastelands and her skin glowed. Maybe that was why she spent so much time in the place. David wondered if she might be from there, but he’d learned his lesson in the Zeros’ settlement and kept his wondering to himself.
To take advantage of the few springs that had not dried up, she led them on a meandering route. Of those still running, many were little more than trickles, some so slight they could not fill their canteens, but had to suck the moisture directly from the rock.
Kala’s tiny lips pursed as she surveyed them. “These were once waterfalls in which you could drench yourself. The Wastelands is consuming everything within itself, and it’s spreading. Soon the Zeros won’t be living on the edge of it – they will be in its midst.”
The New Day Page 8