Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3)

by Manners, Harry

“That doesn’t change anything.”

  “I know.” He nodded, raised his arms out to the side. “I know.”

  Charlie raised a pistol to Lucian’s chest, hand shaking, eyes budding with angry tears. “I have to.”

  Lucian nodded. “It’s okay.”

  Charlie’s eyes twitched, tears welling up in great clots and spilling over down his cheeks.

  “Do it.”

  Lucian took a breath and looked off towards the tower.

  “Do it!”

  Lucian blinked, for in the next moment Charlie dropped the pistol and reached for him. Lucian struggled and they rolled over the ground, yelling into one another’s faces as they came to rest under the stable awning. Lucian pounded Charlie’s side and dragged himself up on top of him, reaching up to pound his face.

  “Wait!”

  Lucian paused.

  Charlie spluttered between his teeth: “I need your help.” He arched his head towards the swirling black clouds that had now engulfed the tip of the tower. “We have to stop it.”

  Breathless, Lucian tightened his grip and pulled Charlie up to face him. “What?”

  “The cold, the dark, we have to stop it.”

  Lucian looked once more and realised just how monstrous those clouds were, how ominous, as though the gods themselves were reaching down to wipe them all away like ants.

  “How?” he said.

  “The others, we have to stop them. That’s how it’ll end. We brought the storm, and the storm will take us all.”

  “How can you know that?” But as Lucian spoke, watching the tower slowly vanishing into the bowels of the tar-slick sky, he knew it was true.

  Lucian’s gaze flicked back and forth between Charlie and the tower. How could he throw in his lot with a kid who had tried to kill him for countless weeks—kidnapped him, tortured him?

  What choice is there?

  Lucian scowled and yelled, “Robert, I need your help—”

  Robert was gone.

  Christ, they even took him.

  Steeling himself against a spate of cursing, he turned to Charlie. “Can you do this?”

  Charlie blinked and hesitated, and in that moment Lucian saw him as he really was.

  He’s still just a bloody kid. A stupid kid.

  He reached out and took Charlie’s shoulders. “Pull yourself together. We can do it.”

  Charlie stammered, “How? There are so many…” He gestured to the lobby, writhing with people squeezing inside through the ragged bottleneck of broken glass.

  “We’ll do it by doing it.”

  They ran for the tower as the last of the warmth left the air, and from the ether built a distant, low buzzing.

  Lucian’s gut twisted into a tight knot at the noise. He didn’t recognise it at first, but some primal part of him knew it well. By the time they reached the lobby and began waving their arms, calling for attention, he realised how he knew that sound: he had heard it once before, only once, on a day when he had been but eight years old.

  The day the world went away.

  “It’s coming,” he yelled to Charlie. “Hurry!”

  VI

  The woman was young with bright grey eyes. A pretty round face, the kind that sweeps away the cobwebs of the day’s comings and goings. Latif had seen her before, he realised. In the mad jumble of memories that was his life, shuffling back and forth between the workshop and his bunk, he had caught flashes of her bright smile, glimpses of her face. A face now in his arms, pale and frozen in a last gasp for air that would never come. The girl’s shuddering stilled and he slid to the ground with her, touching the knife sticking from her back.

  Blinking stupidly at his hands, slicked with crimson, he groaned.

  Everywhere, screaming. Those whom he had worked with, dished out meals with, washed clothes with, played games with: all caught in howling frenzy; dignity scraped clean away as they scratched, chocked, and pounded. The spears had gone now, snapped and thrown to the floor as the first wave of invaders had been impaled upon them, pushed ever forwards by the next wave at their backs.

  Latif had actually thought they might have had a chance at stalling them, right until the lines broke and people poured into the tower. Outside they had seemed many; inside they became countless, a single unbroken wave come to sweep them away. When the wave broke over them, the snarling beasts became people, just as afraid as him.

  The horror was nauseating: there were no good guys, no bad guys; no justice to be had; no victory to be taken.

  For every person that fell, the room grew colder, and the air thicker, as though the atmosphere froze to the lining of his lungs, working away at him from the inside out.

  He still stared at his bloody hands.

  Move, Latif. Get your arse going or you’re dead.

  Still he stared, until a gnarled, white-haired fist closed over his arm. Lincoln’s grizzled face had grown pale and was twisted by a grimace so deep that Latif suspected his wrinkles would never flatten. He had somehow kept hold of a length of table leg. “No time to stop, boy!” he yelled, throwing Latif ahead.

  “What do we do? We’re cut off.”

  “Hold them!” Lincoln boomed above the sound of another explosion rocking the tower. The shelling moved progressively downwards, bombarding lower and lower floors. Soon destruction would be wrought upon them directly.

  That’s if the fires don’t burn or suffocate us first, he thought.

  He never thought he would die this way: trapped between raging lunatics from below and flames and smoke from above.

  “There are too many!”

  Lincoln seized the post of a bed in which an unconscious man lay. Around a hundred such beds lay before them, their occupants barely conscious. With their last stand rapidly crumbling, nothing lay between them and the army’s ranks. “We have to get them back. Hold them as long as we can.”

  “Why? What’s…”

  What’s the point? Latif thought, a sour taste in his mouth.

  To his astonishment, Lincoln smiled and pointed out through the windows behind them.

  Latif whirled to face the window and gaped. The city was almost invisible through the barrier of clouds, but still he could see the ant trails moving towards the tower from all directions. Trails not part of the army’s ranks, neither blackened nor marching under the sigil of the pigeon. Hundreds of people hurried along the roads in a vast uniform trickle, as though the tower were a beacon calling them forth from the wild’s enormity.

  But that means…

  Then he was laughing with such force that his insides seemed to be crawling out through his nostrils, great hacking peels that doubled him up. “They heard us. They heard us!”

  The radio transmission had worked. He had hoped that somebody, somewhere, might have heard it. But not this, never this.

  The first of the newcomers reached the crumbled wreckage of the concrete wall and sprinted into the courtyard.

  Lincoln thumped Latif’s side. “Let’s get these people out of here.”

  “Right.” Latif turned from the window. They took an end of the bed each and shuffled back into the building, moving through old office doors until they reached the cavernous council chambers. Others close by took up the initiative, shuffling more beds behind them. Soon a trail started up, and the last survivors retreated into the chambers that had once reigned supreme over the land.

  “All we have to do is hold out until they get here,” Lincoln said.

  Laughter turned to bile in Latif’s gut, for as they passed through the mahogany doors he squinted at strange striations all around. Frost grew on the walls like growths of mould, blossoming icicles and spreading spindly arms to floor and ceiling. Before his eyes the arms joined together, icicles spread onto seats, entombed light fittings and tables and guard rails. Inside him, Latif felt it slowly freezing his blood in his veins.

  Not just chill anymore, but arctic cold with intent to kill.

  They ran back for more beds, and Latif prayed the others
would hurry.

  VII

  Allie groaned aloud when she and Norman found themselves back at the stairs.

  A circle, Norman thought wildly. We’ve gone around in a big circle.

  They hadn’t had a glimpse of Billy or Jason since the lobby. Each time they ascended to another floor, there was only one thing for it: scour every room, calling her name, pushing through anybody fighting on the upper floors. If Billy had gone up even a dozen storeys, they would never find her. Not in time, anyway.

  We will find her. We have to.

  “What do we do?” Allie cried. She turned in a wide circle with her hands over her head as the echoes of battle floated up the stairs in haunting echo. “We can’t keep this up, we have to find her now… Norman?”

  “Look.” Norman stared at the wall beside the stairs: a wave of whiteness swept down from above, blanketing cracks and dust. “It’s here.”

  Allie moaned. “Norman, what if she’s—”

  “She’s not.”

  The certainty came from the shard of ice in his chest that had plagued him for so long. Feeling all that pain and confusion, seeing the Echoes; all of it had been building towards this. Something had known that eventually he would need to find Billy. He felt her, as though the cold bound him to her.

  She’s so bright. If she hadn’t fought it, the darkness would already have taken the tower. Maybe London, maybe everything.

  A new voice spoke from the cold itself, close to his midriff. She can’t win. She can only hold it back. It’ll take all of you to stop it.

  How? he thought.

  No answer.

  He cursed while the Frost spread past them and down the stairs. Watching it go by, Norman caught sight of something that made him curse aloud. Their head start was up. Thirty people came wheeling up the stairs and fresh struggle broke out. Norman pulled Allie back and they ran for a desk, crouching behind it. Hiding like this would have crushed him any other time, but they needed their strength if they were going to get Billy back.

  They watched carefully, waiting for a break to appear close to the stairs.

  “We haven’t got long,” Norman said, pulling his hand from the desktop as ice oozed across it.

  He was on the verge of making a dash for the stairs when Jason skidded around a corner. His shoulders were hunched in the unmistakable pose of a stalking predator, head darting up and down the corridor.

  “There!” Allie said.

  Billy must be close, Norman thought.

  Norman grunted as Allie sprinted off ahead of him and gave chase. He bawled for her to stop—all Allie had left was a blunted hatchet. Besides the sabre Norman found outside, they didn’t have anything to fight with. If they were going to bring Jason down, they would need a lot more.

  His words fell on deaf ears. Allie yelled wordlessly as she charged and headbutted Jason’s chest, sending them both toppling end over end. Norman put on a spurt, but Jason was already spinning around on his back.

  Jason gripped Allie by the ankle and slid her over the smooth marble to face him. She writhed as he climbed snarling atop her and gripped her throat. “You bitches don’t give up!—”

  Jason barked as something soared in from the side and caught his flank, spilling him over the ground. The blur tumbled aside and landed beside Allie, resolving into Richard. Wide-eyed and armed only with what looked like a curtain rail, he wheeled back from Jason’s growling form.

  Norman yanked them up from the ground.

  “No, I’m going to gut him!” Allie roared, pulling against him.

  Jason was already on his feet, shaking his head back and forth like a disoriented mutt.

  A tiny figure in Norman’s peripheral vision sent him spinning to see a flagging length of flame-red hair, squeezing onto the stairs.

  “Billy!” he yelled.

  The others whirled in turn as the briefest glimpse of red hair appeared once more, vanishing upstairs. A moment of agonising stillness pursued in which Norman willed his legs to move, but his body seemed stuck in quicksand. He was thrust aside as Jason came hurtling past, loping with the gait of a gazelle. Norman’s mind offered a replay of the instant Jason had passed by: his face contorted into a bloody sneer, inhuman and wrought with fury.

  Time snapped back into place and the three of them were in pursuit. Richard took the lead and ran bawling for a trio of men blocking the stairs. He breasted the curtain pole in his grasp and caught all three men across their chests. “Get the girl!” he cried, his heels slipping as the men pushed back with strangled cries.

  “What are you doing?” Norman yelled.

  Richard gave him a queer look. “Earning my stripes.”

  The three pinned men gave a united yell, and he returned his own. Their feet skidded on carpet as Norman and Allie eased past and reached the staircase. As Allie raced up out of sight, Norman paused and looked back just in time to see Richard press the men against the railing, his teeth bared and his young academic face transformed into a warrior’s grimace. With a grunt he gave one last shove, and the men toppled together over the rail.

  Richard let fly a whoop of victory as one of the men’s hands took his sleeve in a death grip. Richard slammed against the railing, his shocked gaze trained on Norman, then he was gone over the rails.

  Norman blinked. Tearing his gaze away from the banister was like tearing apart two halves of Velcro.

  Then he and Allie were running again, driven by the distant wails of a little girl being chased by a monster.

  *

  Charlie waved his arms and bellowed, and beside him Lucian did the same. Both of them stood upon the lobby reception desk, their voices eaten by the echoing roar.

  “It’s not working,” Charlie said.

  “Keep at it.”

  “I can’t stop them. I never could.”

  Lucian seized him. “You can. We just have to get their attention.”

  “How?”

  Lucian’s mouth worked, but no sound escaped. He was in the process of cursing when his eyes bulged and his face slackened. Charlie followed his gaze, and all the air punched out of him.

  The courtyard outside darkened with fresh masses of people coming in through the walls. As they passed inside, with shocking suddenness, the rumble of shells impacting the tower died.

  Who? How? Charlie thought, stunned.

  “You said there were no more!” Lucian hissed. “We can’t handle more.”

  Charlie shook his head. “They’re not ours.”

  Lucian stiffened, then a gravelly laugh erupted from his chest.

  The lobby became surrounded by the newcomers gathering at the shattered revolving doors. Unwounded, unfatigued by battle, they looked almost Olympian compared to the rest, most of who could barely stand. One person at a time, a wave of realisation swept through the lobby. At last ringing silence permeated the space.

  There’s enough of them to actually make a stand. Maybe… maybe they can win.

  But no. There were many, and they were strong, but they were nowhere near enough. All that could result was a stalemate. If they fought to the last man, there would be nobody left.

  Already Charlie could feel tension building, straining the armistice brought about by shock. A few were already stepping forwards.

  Lucian’s voice filled the lobby, rising even above the hammering rain. “Stop! All of you, stop now. I am Lucian McKay of the Alliance of the South, aide-de-camp to Alexander of New Canterbury. You will listen to me!”

  Charlie frowned.

  Lucian muttered from the corner of his mouth, “Never thought I’d say that kind of crap.”

  But it’s done the trick, Charlie thought. Everybody in the lobby span as though mounted on turntables.

  Lucian said, “This ends now. None of you want this. If we keep down this path, there won’t be anybody left to talk about it. I know you feel what’s coming. That’s no storm out there, it’s something worse.” He pointed to Charlie. “Those of you who marched on this city know this man. You k
now his station.” Lucian paused. “I killed this man’s father. I stole from him, beat him, did all the wrongs to him that the Alliance has done to you all.” Lucian looked to Charlie. “He’ll speak to you now.”

  Charlie could only stare back at him as though from a great distance.

  I hope you saw that, wherever you are, Dad, Charlie thought.

  Then he was looking over those he had helped bring here, numbed by their combined stares. “I…” He cleared his throat. “Some of you are like me: you got so scared you started to hate, and that hate brought you here. A lot of you never wanted this… We just took you. We took a lot of you. But none of us have to be scared anymore. We can stop this.”

  Blank stares speared him, and his stomach sank.

  They won’t listen. They don’t see me.

  “You don’t have to be afraid.” His voice echoed back from afar—a nasal kid’s voice.

  Somebody spoke from close by. “You know what we’re scared of. He still breathes.”

  Jason. How many did he kill on the march south because they wanted to stop?

  “Are you all going to die today because of a madman?”

  Blanket silence. The storm crackled outside. The cold deepened.

  Lucian gestured to the newcomers. “We leave them be.” He pointed into the storm. “We still have a lot of people out there. Draw anybody upstairs into the courtyard. Bring everybody into one place. We need to spread the word and cut down anybody who won’t stop, no matter what side they’re on. There isn’t much time.” When nobody moved, he slammed his hands together. “Move!”

  Then, astonishingly, they were in motion. Those who had been in death duels moments before looked to one another distrustfully, fawningly, but started heading towards the stairs. Charlie watched hundreds pass by with his heart pulsing in his mouth.

  “It’s a start,” Lucian growled.

  Charlie nodded numbly. A nagging truth ate at him, still: this wouldn’t be over until Jason was taken down. They might have won the lobby, but the army would never stop until the mad general was dead.

  VIII