Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2)

by Harry Manners

  Goddamn cobbles are going to break my ankle. All this used to be so easy. Christ, I’m old.

  The three-storey Victorian red brick apartment block appeared up ahead. He burst in through the doorless entryway and took the stairs to the roof four at a time.

  Gunshots still buzzed afar, the whip crack of small-arms fire, probably pistols and .32 rifles. It was coming in volleys, each preceded by that same barking voice. He could now tell it was far away, beyond the borders of the city in the fields, but that did nothing to quell his hammering heart.

  He reached the rooftop and stopped just before the doorway. “Passage,” he called breathlessly.

  A voice came from just beyond the threshold. “Password?”

  Robert felt a moment’s relief at how calm the voice was. Maybe they weren’t as defenceless as he’d thought. “Creek.”

  “Alright.” The sharp click of a firearm hammer being lowered.

  He stepped out onto the roof and nodded to the trio perched close to the ledge on their haunches.

  His relief evaporated almost immediately.

  They each flicked clumsy salutes, holding onto their weapons with grim determination. Weapons too big and heavy for muscles used to suburban chores. Weapons they hadn’t known how to fire only hours ago, let alone hit anything.

  Robert had tried to assign at least one veteran guard to each team, but there had been too many volunteers and little more than two dozen guards. And if he had made the teams larger, they would lose any semblance of stealth. He had been forced to put guns in untrained hands and leave them to make do.

  It hadn’t seemed so very foolish at the time. How tired he must have been to become that deluded. He couldn’t afford to let himself get in that state again.

  Mr Higgins was by far the oldest of the three, a grizzled stick insect of a man with a clump of frizzy white wool for hair. “Mr Strong, sir, you’re awake,” he bleated.

  “I am.”

  “Maybe I could suggest you go back to bed a while longer. You were in quite the delirium when you left us.”

  “And you don’t look so great now,” one of his young companions said. Robert thought his name was Mark Pegg, but it could have been Danny Succo. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and he cringed when Robert turned his gaze on him.

  The other young man, himself twenty at most, was pale, his eyes fixed on the street.

  “I’m fine,” Robert said.

  They all fidgeted at the bass of his reverberating impatient tone.

  Two boys and an old man, sweaty-faced and shy because they’re afraid of … What, being reprimanded? Or are they afraid of not being up to scratch?

  The fact that they worry means they’re not up to scratch. I need soldiers, not farmers and children.

  But that was all New Canterbury had to offer. Ironic: the city was arguably home to the most powerful man in the known world, was the crown jewel of their order; yet, of all the alliance strongholds, it was also the most defenceless.

  He looked at their holds on the rifles again, awkward and unsteady, as though each barrel were in fact a great twelve-foot lead pole.

  Could they even fire those things if a parade of these monsters came stamping up the street?

  He suppressed a sigh of anguish. The spell of optimism he’d felt before was now a distant memory.

  The hissing firecracker-burst of gunshots came again, and he turned to the city in search of the source. Higgins and the boys didn’t seem perturbed. “What’s going on?” he said.

  “First try-outs, as ordered,” Higgins said, puffing out his chest.

  “We helped pick from the long list,” Mark/Danny said, giving Robert a fawning approval-seeking smile.

  Robert’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you talking about?” he said.

  The three looked at one another uneasily.

  “Your orders, Mr Strong,” Higgins said with care. “The ones you asked to be relayed.”

  “What orders?”

  “About forming the militia.”

  Higgins’s face fell slack when Robert surged forward and seized him by the lapels. Mark/Danny looked ready to faint, while the other lad had taken to once again scanning the streets.

  “I want you to think very carefully about what you say next,” Robert breathed. “Who gave those orders on my behalf?”

  The corner of Higgins’s mouth twitched as though he thought for a moment Robert’s outburst was a joke, or a test. But Robert had fixed him with a gaze honed over a long childhood of hard lessons in the far north, where you killed your dinner, and often had to kill again to keep it.

  The gaze had been a gift from his father. Pa had been in the ground almost fifteen years, but now Robert heard his voice bubble up from the black ooze of distant memory. “It’s all in the eyes, boy. You kin hold a gun to some men’s heads and get nothing’ but gab for yer trouble. But you get your killer’s stare down pat, and you kin make a man do anythin’.”

  It had been a long time since he’d used that stare, but some things you never forgot, especially things that had kept you alive.

  Higgins stammered, “Your fiancée, Mr Strong.”

  Robert dropped him in shock, and Higgins crumpled to the ground. In his haste, Robert hadn’t been aware of holding the man a foot off the ground.

  Then he was hurtling down the stairs again. They shouted after him but he didn’t hear what they were saying, then he burst out onto the streets and kept running, bounding across the cobbles.

  *

  The firing squad was spread out along a thirty-yard stretch, each member facing a humanoid target made of sandbags, lashed twigs and spare rags. Holding small-calibre pistols that were dwarfed even by the women’s hands, they each took aim, their faces screwed up in concentration, and waited for the signal.

  “Fire!” Sarah called, and a host of waspish explosions sounded in quick succession.

  The targets leaped on their fixings, quivering and throwing off puffs of sand and showering splinters into the high grass.

  Each member of the squad then carefully put on their safety catches, handed the gun to the next person, and then made their way to the back of the lines strung out behind them. In all, there must have been sixty or seventy people.

  “Better,” Sarah said, a satisfied smile crossing her face as she stood with arms akimbo. She even managed to keep composed when Robert thundered into the clearing and gave a wordless cry that brought deathly silence down heavy over the congregation.

  Despite a mounting medley of disbelief and fury, he had to admire her for that.

  He didn’t stop his barrelling approach until he towered over a foot above her, staring straight down into her naked eyes. They hadn’t been able to find replacement glasses for her yet. She looked strange without them. Squinting to compensate, furrows had appeared in her peachy face, making her look more severe, waspish and older.

  For a moment he was inarticulate, strangled by his outrage, then he growled low so nobody else could hear. “Have you lost your mind?”

  He was using the same stare that had made Higgins a jabbering ruin. In truth, he wasn’t prepared for a fight. He expected her to crumple into a mass of nerves and apology.

  That’s what I think of her, when all’s said and done. Nice to know I’m just as chauvinist as Pa underneath.

  But she remained with her hands resting on her hips, maintaining her gaze. She didn’t even flinch. She didn’t answer, just waited for him to go on, for his mounting rage to spill over.

  He could feel the stares of the others pressing hard into his shoulder, but he ignored them. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? Putting guns in these people’s hands? Giving orders in my name? Bringing them out here with no guard, no scouting party, no perimeter—I can’t believe it!”

  A glimmer of hurt flashed behind her eyes, but she held fast. Her arms dropped to her side, and she leaned closer. Her voice was low, but he was taken aback by how calm she sounded and … how cold. “I’m giving the
m something they haven’t had for a long time, the chance to stand on their own feet. You said we haven’t got enough guns on the streets to put up a fight, and you’re right. I’m correcting that.”

  Robert made to retort, but she sliced the air with her hand with such viciousness that his words stopped in his throat.

  “No!” she breathed. Her voice shook, a moist thrumming deep in her chest. “No! I will not sit and wait for them to come marching in here and kill us all. I will not! And the only way we can even the odds is if we take these guns out of your precious armoury and actually use them. It’s dangerous, sure. And no, there’s no extra hands to stand guard. For all we know, they could be getting ready to charge down here right now and slaughter all of us.

  “But how is that different from sitting at home? We haven’t got any chance. We all know it—we can smell it. Even if every person in the city were a seasoned soldier, they’d still overrun us. So what’s the harm? At least we’re doing something, even if it’s all just smoke and mirrors. Maybe we can take a few more of them with us when they finally stop playing with us.”

  The icy glimmer lancing out through her pupils cut a great wedge off his momentum. And she sensed it.

  Before he could move, she leaned over to peer around the bulk of his arm, and nodded to the queues of waiting volunteers. “Next up, take aim! Go on, now.”

  The hissing of dozens of feet traipsing through grass sounded behind him. “No!” he cried. “Stay where you are. This is crazy.” He turned and was shocked to find that only a few remained unmoved, watching uncertainly; most of the volunteers had moved into position before the targets, raising the pistols and squinting along the sights.

  “Remember, calm, smooth. Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull. Squeeze.”

  A chill ran through Robert. How long had it been since he had been the one saying those same words to her? It couldn’t have been more than twenty-four hours. How fresh and frail she had seemed then, a lamb set to turn to jelly at the first sign of trouble.

  She couldn’t have had time to become a good shot herself, not in the few hours he’d been asleep. Her authority was an act; a clever act, but an act, nonetheless. Yet she was pulling it off with a cool assurance that was smooth as any of Alexander’s speeches. He could feel the others respond to it, eased by her confidence. The fear had made them her puppets, and they were glad for it.

  “Steady, now. Take your time. Ready to fire.”

  Two dozen hammers were pulled back in quick succession, and Sarah muttered to him, “It was now or never. You needed to rest. You still need to rest.”

  “You’re giving doctor’s orders, now?”

  “No, but Heather’s behind me on this. She’s teaching whoever wasn’t fit to shoot how to fit field dressings, tie a tourniquet, whatever might help us hold out a little longer.”

  “More than that,” Heather said. “I’m tired of hypochondriacs looking to hold my hand.” She bristled. “God, that’s awful. But it’s true. I’ve been living for this city, but I’m done. I want to really take back some bloody control.” Her equine face seemed firmer, hollower. “Put me to work,” she said.

  Sarah was smiling. “I plan on it.”

  Robert gripped her arm and muttered, “You didn’t even ask.”

  “If I’d asked, you’d have said no. There would have been no discussion, no debate, nothing. You would have sent me back to babysitting, and that would have been that.” She folded her arms. “I did what I had to.”

  With that, she leaned to the side once again, and said, “Fire!”

  The gunfire filled the air with splinters. Then silence once more. The pigeon flocks at the distant treeline burst into the sky, wheeling in a wide circle before coming to rest in the canopy once again.

  He blinked, turning full around to face the targets. There had been a few misses, but most of the targets had taken hits to the torso and abdomen. A few sported ragged holes in the stalks that stood in place of neck and chins.

  But it was the ease of it all that really struck him. There was nothing nervy about these people anymore; they passed the weapons between them and reshuffled for the next squad without comment, without thought. They were a long way from combat ready, and they’d never have the time to get anywhere near it, but he was staggered by how far they’d come.

  Were these really the same jabbering, hopeless idiots who had accosted him in the cathedral last night?

  Sarah had done a real job on them. A better job than he had by a country mile.

  They came here because they heard I gave the okay, but they’re not stupid. None of them are looking at me now. They’re all looking at her. The same way they used to look at Alexander.

  He shivered. What had happened to her?

  They torched the things she loved most: her books. Her babies. Her life’s work.

  I wonder if they know how big a mistake it was, burning that warehouse. They’ve made their biggest enemy out of a librarian.

  Despite all the eyes pressing in on him and his lingering anger, he almost laughed.

  He was impressed. He hated to admit it, and there was no doubting they were still amateurs, no matter how good Sarah’s hold over them—they would be no match for even a handful of trained combatants—but he hadn’t been this surprised in a long time.

  Maybe this could be their saving grace. If I underestimated them, of all people, so could the enemy. We could use that.

  Careful … Wishful thinking can bite you in the arse real quick.

  But maybe, just maybe, we could use this. Maybe we stand a chance, after all.

  He took hold of Sarah’s arm and leaned in farther still, so close their noses were grazing. “You’re forming a militia, Sarah. That means these people are going to get in sticky situations real fast, and most of them are going to die. Are you really prepared to have them all turn to you and point fingers when it hits the fan? Because if you survive, and I have to stress the if, they’ll blame you. In their eyes, every drop of blood spilled will be on your hands.”

  Her eyes burned into him. “We’re already in a sticky situation, Robert. Most of us are going to die either way.”

  In that moment, he realised he had never wanted her more. He held her gaze, and for a time, he could have sworn they each emitted beams of pure willpower from their eyes, beams that made battle in the scant inches between their faces. He was in danger of losing. Then he licked his lips, nodded slowly, and grunted. “Alright, fine. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Good.” Her face was flushed, full of anger and sweat and blood.

  Oh God I want her. I knew this was in her all that time. That’s the truth of it: I always knew. Those idiots have unleashed what was hidden under the librarian, under the schoolteacher. The real Sarah.

  “Now show them what the hell they should really be doing,” she crooned. “They’re going to kill us, our friends, our children. Show us how to kill them back.” For just a moment, he saw an image behind her pupils, a writhing union of naked flesh.

  How could he be thinking about that now?

  Where there’s death, there’s sex, my friend. Eros and Thanatos.

  He turned to stand beside her, and folded his arms across his chest. “Again,” he called.

  But nobody moved until Sarah gave the nod. “Take aim,” she said.

  CHAPTER 15

  The cooing was driving her insane.

  Billy hadn’t noticed when the pigeons swarming around her had stopped being a curiosity and became a plague. Dozens swarmed overhead and, although the treeline was blurred by the haze of distance, she wasn’t fooled by the shadow of the canopy. They would be waiting there, too.

  Why would they follow her? For her whole life, birds had pounded their wings to escape her whenever she had tried to play. Grandpa had said it was because people ate all the stupid birds who stuck around.

  These pigeons were different. It was almost like they were being drawn to her, like the magic magnets Daddy had shown her with their invisible pulli
ng and pushing. She wished they would go away. The cooing was slowly loosening all the screws in her head, letting everything rattle around in there like it would all fall out one ear if she wasn’t careful.

  But at least she wasn’t alone. The bigness of the plain she had been walking over since the Arch was too much. She had never seen a place so flat, so vast and empty. It wasn’t just that there were no other Enger Land people here; it was that there weren’t even any trees, nor bushes or thorns or thickets. Just tall grass for mile after mile, growing right up to her elbow in most places. There weren’t even any animals to graze it short.

  The birds were company at least.

  Time was tricky now. She’d forgotten about night and day, and hours and minutes and seconds now seemed like funny, odd, formless things, just noises in her head that didn’t mean anything. At some point there had been night; then it had been day again. The sun had coasted through the sky, but in her memory, it all seemed a blur.

  A while ago she had seen another ghostie. It had been another skybird, way up above the clouds, pulling a pair of white puffy ribbons way across the big blue. She had watched it carefully to make sure it didn’t disappear like the last one—she knew in her bones that if she looked away then back, it would be gone, just like all the other ghosties. But it had vanished anyway, even though she kept her eyes on it. All it took was a single blink, a tiny moment of darkness. And when her lids had come up again, there was no skybird and no ribbons. Just clouds.

  She hoped all this would stop soon. Life was so much simpler before they left home and came to New Land.

  No monsters, no sickness, no hunger, no ghosties or Panda Men, and no stupid birds!

  But she tried not to think about that anymore, because every time she did she realised that things would never be simple again, not like before. It wouldn’t be like before because Ma and Grandpa had gone away, Ma taken by the same coughing that was taking Daddy even now, and Grandpa by the monsters in the night—the ones that had come with their knives and curses, looking for food.