To the right is a corridor filled with doors. To the left, a window letting in a bright square of sunlight and the sound of a crowd chanting. Willow hurries toward the window and wrenches it open, letting in the fresh morning air and the deafening bellow of hundreds of Rowansmark citizens screaming in unison, “Punish him! Punish him!”
Willow makes a small, agonized sound and reaches for her bow as I rush to her side and look across the throng that fills the square to see James Rowan standing on the pain atonement stage, whip in hand, while beside him, stripped to the waist and chained to a post, is a boy with golden skin and dark hair.
Quinn.
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CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
LOGAN
“Quinn!” Rachel calls, but he can’t hear her.
The crowd chants, “Punish him! Punish him!” They sound excited. Hungry to see Quinn bleed. It makes me sick.
“I can’t shoot the people holding him captive. It’s too far.” Willow looks at me, her eyes wild. “We have to rescue him.”
“Find the stairs!” I yell, and we race through the building’s basement.
The stairs are at the far end of the northern corridor. We take them two at a time and burst onto the porch. People are pressed against the wrought-iron fence that encloses the building’s tiny yard, staring at the stage where a short, older man with olive skin and a crisp military jacket is unfurling a whip to the wild delight of the crowd.
“Move. Move!” Willow shoves past people, spilling their drinks and causing panic as they take in our swampy clothes, our weapons, and the furious determination on our faces.
She reaches the edge of the yard, grabs the fence, and vaults over. The rest of us immediately follow suit. The crowds on the other side of the fence are worse. Densely packed. Cheering and screaming. Making it nearly impossible for us to move toward the stage.
The sharp crack of a whip fills the air. Willow starts shaking as she shoves another person aside only to find three more blocking the path. I crane my neck to look at the stage and see Quinn’s back, still unmarked. The man with the whip cracks it again, close to Quinn without actually touching him, and the crowd screams, “Punish him! Punish him!”
“He’s not hurt yet,” I say because Willow looks like she’s about to start shooting arrows at everyone between her and the stage. “We can still make it.”
“But he will be,” Rachel says. Her voice trembles with anger and fear. “The man with the whip is James Rowan.”
My heart speeds up even as time seems to slow down. “That’s the man who had you whipped?” Who ordered my father’s pain atonement. Who sent Ian to destroy us.
“Yes. Come on. We’d better hurry.” Rachel elbows her way to Willow’s side, and together they push and shove their way through the crowd.
“Punish him!”
I try sliding around a large man with a fistful of fried bread, but he blocks me.
“Get out of my way,” I snap.
The whip cracks.
The crowd closes in, a throng of frantic revelers smelling of sweat and sugar.
“Punish him!”
I lower my shoulder and ram the man out of the way. Pushing past him, I find that Willow and Rachel have only moved forward another few yards. The crowd is impossible. Behind me, Frankie, Smithson, Nola, and Adam have been swallowed up by the heaving, chanting sea of people.
Lunging forward, I grab Rachel and Willow. “Move to the side.” I nod toward the very edge of the town square, the strip of sidewalk shaded by the buildings on that side of the street. The crowd is thinner there.
Together, we claw and shove our way toward the side while around us people scream in our ears, throw fried sugared bread in their mouths, and then scream some more.
Just as we reach the far sidewalk, the whip cracks again, followed by a sharp whistle. The crowd quiets almost immediately, and we hold ourselves motionless. To move toward the stage while everyone else is standing still would be to invite instant death from the solid wall of trackers who line the front of the square.
“People of Rowansmark!” James Rowan’s voice echoes across the square. “Today is the day we display our true power. Our true honor. Today is the day we defeat our enemies once and for all!
“We have caught the criminal responsible for burning our government facilities.” He points to Quinn.
“Punish him! Punish him!” The crowd screams for his blood.
“You aren’t going to reach him in time.” A familiar voice speaks quietly behind us.
I spin on my heel and come face-to-face with Ian. His eyes are shadowed, his expression grim.
“Punish him!”
I grab my sword hilt, and Rachel asks, “Where’s Marcus?”
“Inside.” Ian nods toward a rooftop just visible beyond the edge of the square.
“Punish him!”
“They won’t let you up on the stage, Logan. They’ll kill you—all of you—before you come within fifteen yards of Quinn. You can’t get to him.”
“I’m not wasting my time with this lunatic,” Willow snaps. “You deal with him, Logan. I’m going after my brother.” She takes a step toward the stage, and Rachel grabs her arm.
“He’s right. Look at this crowd. Rowan won’t even have to ask his trackers to lift a finger. We’ll be crushed by a glut of people who came determined to see blood today, and it would give Rowan an excuse to kill Quinn.”
“Punish him!”
James Rowan’s voice fills the square. “We will punish the criminal as is just. But he is not the only enemy that must be dealt with. Today, Commander Chase’s army marches against us, hoping to steal our technology and take over our city. Hoping to dishonor us.”
The seething mass of people boo and jeer. I lock eyes with Ian and pull my sword from my sheath, the memory of all the people we lost across the Wasteland a lightning rod to the anger burning within me.
“It’s like I was meant to find you today,” Ian says quietly. The cocky confidence is gone from his voice. Weariness and resignation have taken its place.
Willow’s voice is desperate. “If you think I’m just going to stand here and watch that man whip my brother—”
Ian turns on her. “You can’t save him. You’ll be instantly identified as an outsider come to rescue him, and you’ll be killed. Only someone from Rowansmark could get close enough.” He looks at Rachel. “Tell Marcus I became the son he thinks he has.”
“What are you doing?” Rachel’s voice is sharp.
“I was lied to, and I did things . . .” Ian looks at the stage and then back at me. “Take care of Dad. Promise me.”
I don’t even know how to answer him.
“Promise me!” His voice shakes.
“I promise,” I say. My sword is heavy in my hand as I raise it. “But I also promised I would deliver justice for the people you killed.”
“You won’t have to.” Ian squares his shoulders and pivots toward the stage. “I’ll do that myself.”
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CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
LOGAN
As Ian stalks toward the stage, James Rowan says. “We will not be taken. We will not be dishonored. Our enemies have met their match.” His voice rises. “We will teach them a lesson they will not soon forget. Starting with this criminal. Judge and be judged!”
“Judge and be judged!” The crowd takes up the chant, swelling in volume until I can feel their words in my bones. “Judge and be judged!”
The whip cracks, and the crowd screams in glee as a bloody welt rises on Quinn’s back. Quinn’s face is stoic, but his lips are pressed tight, his fists clenched against the pain.
“Logan! Let’s go!” Willow grabs my arm, and together with
Rachel, we edge our way closer to the stage, keeping to the fringes of the seething mass of people. Behind us, Frankie bellows at someone to remove themselves from his path or be ground to dust beneath his boots, and in seconds, the rest of our people have caught up to us.
We’re still too far from the stage to get to Quinn, though. Pushing and ramming, we manage to move forward another ten yards before becoming stuck behind a wall of people who look like they’ve been drinking ale since sunrise.
Flashing the tracker insignia on the front of his cloak, Ian parts the crowd like water. The whip snaps again, and another bloody wound opens across Quinn’s back as Ian vaults onto the stage.
James Rowan frowns. “What are you doing up here?”
“What I should’ve done the last time I was here. Stopping you.”
Ian draws his sword. Instantly, the soldiers who surround the stage grab their weapons and surge toward him. He has seconds to either run, fight them off, or kill James Rowan.
I grip my own sword with bloodless fingers as Ian raises his weapon while the soldiers rush forward. His eyes meet mine for a moment, and then he turns and slices his weapon through the ropes that bind Quinn to the whipping post.
Quinn rolls away from the post and comes up in a crouch. The soldiers converge on Ian, their swords slashing. He doesn’t try to defend himself. He simply drops his weapon and holds my gaze while they drive their blades into him. Pain flashes across his face, but in seconds it’s replaced by peace. He opens his mouth to say something, but chokes instead, blood leaking from his lips while his knees give out and his body crumples to the stage.
My heart slams against my chest, and my throat tightens. Unexpected grief mixes with my anger until I can’t tell the difference. I want to rush the stage and pull the soldiers away from Ian. So I can scream the truth about the pain he caused. So I can hurt the man who turned my brother into a monster. So I can tell Ian I wish I could go back in time and save us both from all of this.
Tears sting my eyes, and I can’t tell if I’m mourning the boy who would’ve been my brother if life had dealt us a different hand, or the boy who gave his life for us because he understood he’d made the wrong choices and that justice required sacrifice.
When the soldiers step back, Ian lies bloody and unmoving, his eyes staring up at the sky. Seconds later, he explodes, and there’s nothing left of him. I swallow hard and look away from the bloody mist that coats the stage.
The crowd panics, shoving one another to get away from the stage and the terrifying sight of a tracker standing up to their beloved leader. Quinn, free of his ropes, is caught between James Rowan’s whip and the trackers who just killed Ian.
Using the panicked crowd to our advantage, we let Frankie bulldoze his way through to the stage. Willow leaps onto the platform and dashes toward Quinn. “Run!” she screams at him as the trackers turn toward them.
The rest of us vault onto the stage, draw our weapons, and scramble to get between Quinn and the trackers’ weapons. On the city wall behind us, someone blows a long, low note from a horn, and soldiers begin running toward the gate or climbing ladders up to the cannons along the wall.
James Rowan locks eyes with me and smiles like he just found gold.
He whistles again while the trumpeter on the wall plays another long, low note. The crowd obediently falls into an uneasy quiet, and in the wake of their screaming panic, the unmistakable sound of hundreds of boots marching toward the city filters over the wall.
The Commander is here. Rowansmark is under attack.
“My people, the traitors sent against us are already in our midst. Evacuate now.”
The people scatter, racing into buildings, climbing ladders, moving quickly but without the panic they displayed before. They’ve clearly been drilled on what to do in the event of an emergency. A bell begins tolling in the center of the city, warning residents who weren’t at the stage.
Ignoring the movement around him, Rowan drops the whip, pulls a small black box with a raised button in the center from his pocket, and raises it high. His gaze finds mine, and his smile turns my stomach.
“Today we call forth an army that cannot be defeated. Today, we sacrifice our enemies on the altar of justice. Today, we show the world what we are capable of!” he yells as he slams his finger down onto the button.
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CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
RACHEL
A deep boom shakes the ground around the city’s wall and rattles all of the buildings.
“He used the summoners,” I say as the trackers onstage close ranks and lunge toward us. “The tanniyn are coming. He’s going to destroy the army.”
Seconds after the boom dissipates, the ground outside the wall sounds like it’s shaking. The tanniyn are going to surface outside the wall and crush all of the innocent soldiers who got caught up in this war because they obeyed orders from their leaders. Leaders who simply want to stop James Rowan and destroy the tech that would enslave them all.
I look at Logan as Adam, Smithson, and Willow meet the first wave of trackers, swords clashing. “We have to use the staff.”
Before he can answer me, a tracker slams into him. Logan barely keeps his footing and parries the blow in the nick of time. All around me, my friends are battling for their lives. The only reason I’m not yet fighting a tracker is because I’m in the center of the stage, and none of them can reach me yet.
Outside the wall, a rumble grows. We don’t have much time left before the tanniyn destroy the army, and with it, our chance to break Rowansmark’s seat of power.
Making my decision in a heartbeat, I lunge toward Logan, grab the staff, and wrestle it free of its ties while Logan fights.
“Rachel, I’ve got it,” he says, but he doesn’t have it. He’s got his hands full defending himself against a tracker. So does everyone else. The only one who can call the tanniyn to surface inside the city is me.
Finally, the right thing to do is in front of me, and I don’t have to think twice. Pivoting to put Frankie’s bulk between me and the trackers, I race along the back of the stage and leap to the cobblestones below.
“Not so fast.” James Rowan coils the whip that is once again in his hand and snaps it toward me.
I flinch, but suddenly Quinn is there, letting the leather tip hit him so that he can grab it, wrap it twice around his forearm, and yank it out of Rowan’s grasp.
“Good to have you back,” I say. “I was getting really tired of constantly saving myself.”
Quinn laughs, but then he grasps the handle of the whip and gives Rowan a look that should fill the man with terror.
“Stay away from her. From all of us.” Quinn’s voice is coldly furious.
Rowan laughs. “Or what?”
“I’ll stop you.” The absolute certainty in Quinn’s voice raises the hair on my neck as I hurry toward the edge of the square, where Rowan’s gracious lawn meets the cobblestone pavement.
The ground quivers, and outside the wall, screams are rising as a few of the beasts surface.
I certainly hope there’s more where those came from.
Across the square, Logan drives his sword into the tracker he’s fighting, and turns to help Smithson and Nola. His eyes find mine, and for a second, there’s only the two of us, but then I turn away, raise the staff, and drive it into the ground.
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CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
RACHEL
This time, the boom doesn’t stop. It’s a rolling wave of deafening thunder that pulses from the staff every few seconds. The ground shudders and twists, throwing me to my knees as cracks split the grass and race through the cobblestones like snakes.
“No!” James Rowan screams and runs toward
me. “What have you done?”
I push myself to my feet as Quinn leaps in front of Rowan to stop him from reaching me.
“What I had to do.”
Rowan’s voice shakes with rage. “You stupid girl. You’ve ruined us!”
The ground heaves, throwing all three of us onto our stomachs. I land on a crack that splits with a rending noise that sounds like the earth is tearing itself apart.
“Move!” Quinn shouts, dropping the whip so that he can crawl toward me. The dirt writhes, tossing him away from me and into Rowan.
The older man attacks, swinging his fists at Quinn’s face. Quinn deflects the blows with cold precision, his entire focus on the crack that is widening beneath me in quick jerks.
“Hold on,” he yells. As if I’d planned to let go.
I dig my hands into the ever-shifting ground and try to push myself away from the crack before it swallows me. Grabbing onto one side of the split, I hang on as it shudders and belches damp, loamy air tinged with the acrid stench of smoke.
I have to move. Roll to the side. Do something before the tanniyn surface and either slice me to shreds with their razor-sharp talons or burn me to a crisp.
Shoving my boots against the crumbling cobblestones behind me, I scramble frantically for leverage, but the ground crumbles beneath me. The cobblestones turn to dust. The grass buckles and shudders like a living thing.
Rowan is screaming, but I can’t make out the words. I think Quinn is yelling at me too, but all I hear is the terrifying roar of the tanniyn barreling toward the surface directly below me.
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Deliverance Page 35