I’m so thirsty, but no amount of water could rinse the dryness from my throat.
In a few minutes, a hundred men have come round the bend. But they’re in no rush. I imagine the hundreds more following behind. Why don’t they just get it over with? I hate crouching here, waiting for the end of the world. Won’t they just hurry up?
A clatter of voices and murmur of boots churning the dirt into mud floats up from the valley, getting louder as the snake slithers its way toward the bridge. Turner and his small group wait there like stupid mice.
“Lupay,” Garrett whispers in my ear as he tugs my sleeve. “We should go. We can’t do any good here.”
I can’t look at him. I can’t look away from the valley. If this is the end of Tawtrukk, I need to watch it. I know Turner is wrong. But what if he isn’t?
“Lupay.”
Garrett’s voice buzzes around me like an annoying mosquito. I push his hand off my arm but keep watching as the snake lengthens.
Another mosquito buzzes in my other ear. “Garrett’s right, Loop. We can’t do any good here. C’mon.”
I focus my attention on ignoring them and look straight ahead, but already my imagination is showing me what I know will come next. The snake will strike, will eat the mice at the bridge, will swell with three hundred years of ravenous hatred and sweep into Lower to swallow all the other mice cowering in the square.
How can I be so thirsty and still produce tears? I bite my teeth together to make them stop, but they don’t.
“Loop.”
My voice trembles, but who cares? I speak just to shut them up. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want to go, then go. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
They shut up, but they don’t move. I feel their closeness, on either side of me. I’m glad they didn’t leave. This is bad enough with them. I can’t imagine it without them.
Garrett taps my shoulder and points into the distance, south. A gray tower of smoke rises from behind the ridge where Lodgeholm used to be. The tower of smoke stands motionless, slender and white and piled high straight up. At its very top in the empty blue of the sky, high winds leap over the mountain tops and sweep the smoke across the lake. I feel like it’s looking back at me with a silent challenge. You let this happen, it says. You could have come straight back instead of lingering in Southshaw an extra day. You could have warned everyone, gotten them to leave.
“No,” I whisper. But it is my fault. It’s all my fault. Some of those people could be alive if I’d been stronger.
Garrett’s hand rests on my arm again in reply to my whisper, but I won’t tell him my thoughts. Not yet. I can’t admit to him, or to Shack, that I slept in a warm, comfortable bed, that I ate a feast at Southshaw’s head table, that I wore a clownish, frilly dress and joked with Dane… all while Darius drove his army, with only the death of my friends on his mind. How could I be such a selfish child?
I hear my own whisper echoed back to me. “No.”
Shack is looking at the bridge. More mice have gathered on our side to wait for the snake. And the snake is gathering for its strike. Darius has stopped fifty yards from the bridge, his army spreading out behind him as it arrives. Every man that comes around the ridge hammers despair deeper into my heart.
We don’t wait long. A small group of the mice scurries across the bridge. I count five, but Garrett squints and says, “Four. Turner, two I can’t really see, and…” his voice trails, his mouth closes, and he stares down into the valley but seems not to see.
“Garrett.”
“No, I can’t—I can’t see the fourth, either.”
He’s lying. “Bullshit,” I hiss. It’s sweet that he wants to protect me, but he doesn’t know how far beyond protection I am. All my barriers, all my shields, have been destroyed. I can’t be hurt any more than I’ve already been. And I can only blame myself.
I squint at the four Tawtrukk men walking toward Darius across the meadow on the other side of the bridge. They walk, Turner in front and the other three side-by-side behind him. My father is the fourth man. When I see his long stride, the little hitch in his left leg from his hip injury, the bald, hatless head shining in the morning sun, I feel… proud.
I know what’s going to happen, and I can’t watch but can’t look away. Still, as I watch him walk behind Turner, the emotions churn inside me, emotions I don’t fully understand. I hate him for his stupid rules. I hate him for giving in, for following Turner. But my heart also swells with respect, and pride at his courage and his conviction. He’s going to die out there in a few minutes. And then, probably, everyone else will die, too. But he’s facing it straight on, without fear, according to what he thinks is right.
Darius appears to be facing his army, his back to the four Tawtrukk men. As they arrive, he turns to them, and the five men on horseback slip off their horses and come to his side. The two sides talk for a moment, and a moment turns into a minute. I would expect more gesturing from both sides, but they stand motionless.
Garrett peers down at them with his hands shielding his eyes from the sun. “Oh god,” he suddenly whispers.
Quick as rattlers, the five men behind Darius leap forward and bring hatchets down upon the four Tawtrukk men. My father flings his arms up to protect himself, but it’s useless. In two seconds, all four lie on the ground. Three are motionless and one writhes in pain, a red puddle spreading out from his head. As another stroke of the axe stills him, the sound of the sudden attack finally reaches us. It’s a chilling cry of hatred and death.
I will never, in my whole life, forget that sound. I will also never forget the image of my father flinging his arms up. I try not to imagine that moment for him, how it must have sounded in that instant, how he knew death was upon him and how the axe glinted against the blue sky before it came down on his forehead and crushed his skull.
I try not to imagine it. I try.
A roar goes up from the army, and hundreds of men run toward the bridge. The mice on the other side scatter away, but I know they’re doomed. They can’t run fast enough, and even if they could, there’s nowhere to run. Had they left when I told them, some would survive.
I look south to the tower of smoke, still standing in judgment over me as we watch the battle between us. I can’t stay here anymore.
“Let’s go.” I stand. My legs want to wobble, but I won’t give them that satisfaction, or give Garrett and Shack any reason to pity me.
“Loop,” Garrett starts, but I stop him.
I stare straight into his eyes. “I’m good. Don’t worry.”
He grabs my shoulders and stares deep into my eyes, but I know there’s nothing to see there. The only thing I feel right now is a cold, black rage, at the bottom of my soul. It’s too deep to show in my eyes.
“We need to go,” I say. “We need to try to warn Upper. We can still get there in—where’s Shack?”
He’s gone, and I never saw him go.
“He said he needed to go do something. He wouldn’t say what, and I couldn’t stop him. Loop, you must—”
“Leave it, okay?” I don’t yell, but it has the same effect on him as if I did. “My father’s dead. I get it. My mother’s going to be dead soon, too. I get it.”
I busy myself with picking up my pack and pretending to adjust the straps on my shoulder, tie some loose ends that aren’t really loose.
“I hesitated once, and everyone in Lodgeholm burned up because of it. I won’t do that again.”
“Not everyone,” comes a voice from behind, and I glance at the two men who have silently been watching behind us.
The other steps forward. I’ve already forgotten his name from the Council.
“I knew your father, Lupay, and I promise I’ll do whatever you ask me to do if it will get revenge for that cowardly attack.” I can see he means it. And I’ll hold him to his promise. Our eyes hold each other for a long moment, the pains of the last few hours shared between us. I don’t know what he lost at Lodgeholm—wife, mother, children, dog, wh
atever—but our pain is beyond individual losses. We’ve both lost more than things, more than people we love. It’s deeper than that, something that connects us even though we didn’t know each other before today’s sunrise.
The jumbled sounds of yelling, metal clanging, cows howling, all sorts of noises drift up to us on the warm, morning wind. I turn my back on the slaughter below, pick up two of Shack’s abandoned satchels, and force one foot to step forward, away from the cliff. It’s unnatural. Difficult. But I force another step, then another, and within seconds I’m rushing along the ridge trail, west through the trees.
Garrett trots up behind and drops into rhythm with my steps. “Loop, where are we going?”
I can’t get any words out. I concentrate on the pebbles, sticks, dirt passing beneath my feet.
“Upper?”
He shouldn’t have to ask, should he? Where else would we be going?
We walk in silence for a couple of minutes, the two from Lodgeholm trudging along behind us.
“Think we’ll get there in time?”
How I wish Garrett would shut up and just let me walk. I step up my pace and try to hide how hard I’m breathing.
“To warn them, I mean.”
That’s it. I stop short, spin, and grab his sleeve as he stumbles past. He’s heavy, but I steady him and haul his bulk back to stand in front of me. He’s a head taller, and I glare up into his face. I curl my fingers so tight into the fabric of his sleeve that I might tear it apart. I struggle to stop trembling, try to calm myself before speaking. He’s startled, and a little scared. Good.
I’m breathing hard, not just from the fast hike or heavy pack.
“Will you…” I begin, but I can’t bring myself to say “shut up.”
“Will I what?”
Clueless boy.
“Will you please…” I try again, through clenched teeth, but I still can’t tell him to shut up. If it were Shack in front of me, I’d have punched him in the chest and shouted it at him. But Garrett. More fragile. Innocent. Clueless.
A shout from behind startles us both. “Hey!”
We turn to look at the two Lodgeholm men. One of them points down at the river. We all look and see a single rider on a horse galloping up the road, heading toward Upper. I can’t see who it is, but he’s pursued by two others, Southshaw men. They’re hundreds of yards behind, and falling farther back. We can see a good portion of the ravine where the road winds alongside the river. It dips and dodges in and out of view behind outcroppings and trees, but we can see the rider, head down and speeding along. After a quarter mile, the Southshaw men stop and turn, heading back to the valley.
I feel a terrible urge to look back at the valley of Lower, but I fight it. I don’t think I could stand the sight of burning houses, blood soaking the dirt, bodies strewn across the meadow. I won’t even glance that way, no matter how much I need to.
“Thank god,” mumbles Garrett. “He’ll get there in a few hours. It would take us all day, maybe more since we’d have to bushwhack it along the ridge.”
I nod slowly in silence, my eyes locked on the place where the speeding rider disappeared around the last visible turn in the road. He’ll get to Upper by nightfall, maybe earlier. I only hope he has better luck than I did at the Council. Hell, they might not even believe him.
Without thinking, I ask, “Was that Shack?”
“What? No.” Garrett looks at me with confusion. “I don’t know who it was, but it definitely was not Shack. Have you ever seen Shack ride like that?”
Good point. The boy is great in a fight, but there’s not a horse on Earth that could carry him that smoothly or that fast without dumping him.
Garrett begins walking onward. “Besides, her hair was too dark. At least, I think it was a girl. I couldn’t really see. Too many trees.”
We’ve begun walking again as we talk. It seems easier now, now that we’re not carrying the burden of saving Upper. Someone else is doing that. We go a half mile, descending into the forest and away from the ridge, toward the trail split. We walk in silence, listening to the quiet with gratitude. Either the battle is over, or we’ve wandered far enough away that we can’t hear it. I don’t want that to make it easier, but it does.
We turn the corner and reach the trail split, where we pause. My mouth and throat are dry with dust and the late morning. God, how I wish I had some water. The whispers of the river are so tantalizing. We could turn left and drop down into the valley, hike along the road beside the river. But what if the army is already on the road?
“Hello,” says a voice from nowhere. “That took you long enough.”
It’s Shack, but in the forest it sounds like his voice falls on us from overhead. We all look up, startled, and see him on an enormous granite boulder. He stands tall, then leaps to one side, swings on a thick branch, and bounds down the steep hillside to stand before us with a huge, smug grin on his grimy face.
Does he not know what’s happened? How can he play around like this? How can he smile? I mean, I’m a little glad to see him, too, but no amount of happy would make me smile. I might never smile again as long as I live. At least, not until I see Darius dead at my feet.
Shack looks at us each in turn, his grin fading and a grim recognition creeping into his eyes.
“You…” He begins but trails off. “You don’t know, do you?”
He squints at his brother, then looks at me.
“Lupay, you were right. About most things.”
Most things?
“But not everything.”
Why can’t the fool just spit it out?
“After they got across the bridge, only a few of us fought back. Some tried to run but were chased down. The ones that fought were all killed. But the rest—Lupay, they’re prisoners. The Southshawans didn’t kill them.”
“What? Shack, if this is some joke, it’s sick.”
“No! It’s—”
“Seriously,” I continue, letting my thoughts just flow from my mouth. “I saw the attack. I saw them charge the bridge. No way they were going to let anyone live. Shack, I know a little about Darius and what the Southshawans think. They aren’t going to let any of us live.”
“Like I said, Loop. You were right about a lot of things. But not everything.”
Can he be serious? Could some of our friends still be alive? My mother? Could my mother still be alive?
I want to ask, but Shack reaches out and lifts two of the heavy satchels from my shoulder. “We should move on, Loop. The faster we get to Upper, the more time they’ll have to be ready.”
I let him take the bags, grateful for the relief on my aching shoulders. Garrett holds out two of his own satchels for Shack to take, but when Shack reaches for them, Garrett shoves hard and knocks him back into the dirt on the hillside.
“What the—” Shack stumbles and kicks up dirt, scrambles to his feet. I’m worried that they’re going to fight, but Garrett doesn’t dive on his brother. When they’re mad, they usually go at it pretty hard, like two dogs scrapping over some meat.
Garrett drops his other satchels with a thud to the path and straightens. His fingers curl into fists, but they stay at his side. As Shack rises to stand in front of him, Garrett gives him his meanest scowl. Which wouldn’t intimidate most children, let alone his brother.
Garrett growls out the words. “What a jerk you are, Shack. That’s it? Nothing about Lupay’s mom, nothing about our father, nothing about anything but ‘they’re prisoners’?”
“What!” It’s not a question so much as a verbal punch. “I don’t know, okay?” Shack dusts himself off, beating at his thick pants with hands that are more filthy than the ground he just fell on.
“How can you not know?”
It’s like Garrett is asking my questions for me. I hate when he does that. Before Shack can reply, I butt in. “Yeah. How do you know they’re prisoners if you don’t even know who’s alive?”
Shack stares from me to Garrett, Garrett to me. He frowns and
laughs at the same time. He shakes his head with a sneer. His long. brown hair is matted with sweat and dirt and twigs and leaves and soot. His face is blackened with ash and reddened with the morning’s fire and sun, and a purple bruise announces where his father’s fist connected just a couple hours ago. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh, should have toned down my voice a bit. He’s had a rough morning, too.
Instead, I cross my arms and stare harder. He doesn’t really deserve it, but he sort of does. The fool. It’s too bad his mother disappeared so many years ago. He really could have used a bit of motherly wisdom to go with his father’s tough teaching.
“Okay, so I’m sorry.” Like usual. He gets it now. It takes a minute, but he always gets it. “I should have looked, maybe. But I really couldn’t get that close.”
We don’t move. If we wait for more, he’ll give it.
“Hey, I got as far down the hill as I could without getting caught. By then, they’d already begun rounding up everyone. They dragged them all down to the beach.”
The beach? Maybe they’re planning on drowning them all. Why would Darius drive them to the beach? Cleaner to kill them all there than in the town. Makes sense. In a twisted, evil sort of way.
“I don’t know, a couple hundred. I couldn’t hear anything they were saying, but I can tell you this. It was planned. It wasn’t something they just decided after the first attack. No way could they have gotten the orders out in that chaos, been so efficient dragging them down the hill. It was planned.”
I soften a moment and let this sink in. Lambs to slaughter. Darius is efficient, and very clever. The way he set up Dane and used his own men to convince everyone Tawtrukk had attacked them. Probably Darius just wants to kill them all in one place. Easier to round them up and have one mass burial than to try to gather up dead, bloody bodies from all over town.
Garrett’s hand rests softly on my shoulder. “Loop. Let’s go. We can’t do anything now. But we can get to Upper and warn them.”
“No,” I say, surprising us all. “Not Upper.”
Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series Page 5