Norman felt a weight lift from his chest. Raised high over the landscape, they could now see for several miles in every direction. The sun was dipping below the horizon, sending the world into a deeper state of shadow.
Below were the remains of what had once been Canterbury. Surrounding it on three sides were wild fields and barren farmland, growing darker by the second, being consumed by a monochromatic haze. On the remaining side were cultivated fields, but the crops lay limp and dying, close to the ground, in various stages of decomposition.
The city itself looked much like it had done many decades before. Most of the buildings were crafted from solid stone, and had been built long before the previous century. In the mere forty years since the End, they had changed little. The jagged architecture was lent a stark beauty by the dying light; the winding streets and quaint cobbled roads rendered in a picturesque golden tint. After the horrors of the coastal ruins, it was a sight born of fairy tale and dreamscape, brought forth by the magic of dusk.
The city was now home to eight hundred people, the largest settlement for at least thirty miles. As the trio watched from the hilltop, distant booms echoed from the riverside, and a portion of the city became illuminated by sharp artificial light. The lampposts of the north-eastern labyrinthine streets blinked to life in rapid succession, leaving the uninhabited, unlit remainder to darken further towards obscurity.
Snaking through the city’s centre, the river Stour reflected a thousand twinkling lights—a thin ribbon of silver-white, meandering its way through the city’s heart. In the distance, the great cathedral was outlined in profile against the sky, its innards emanating a spectral glow through its many-coloured windows. Its mighty spires thrust towards the sky, towering above their surroundings, monuments to a bygone era, lording over their own private Lilliput.
They simply sat for a while and watched. Norman sighed, comforted by the sight of the city’s lights rallying against nature, pushing back the shadows. In his twenty-nine years, he’d never seen anywhere quite like it.
Here, at least tonight, nobody would starve. Here was home.
It had only been a few days since he’d last laid eyes on it, but it felt as though it could have been years.
Ablaze with light, the inhabited pocket of the city looked like a glowing torch, suspended in fading limbo. In the growing darkness it was becoming quieter atop the hill, and the lights drew them like sailors to a siren.
“I need a shower,” Allie said, setting off down the hill.
Norman and Lucian watched her go until she was out of earshot.
“She’s right. The time’s now. You need to start taking charge,” Lucian muttered.
Norman ground his teeth, but kept his voice level. “I’ve told you… I’ve told all of you: I don’t want this.”
“We’re going to need somebody to step up soon. Alex isn’t going to be around forever. And you need to be ready to take over when the time comes.”
“If somebody needs to step up so bad, then why don’t you do it?”
“Because it was always going to be you. Alex has spent the better part of twenty years getting you ready for it.”
“That’s just it: he picked me. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Your parents thought you could do it. They died as much for Alex as they did to save you, to make sure you had the chance to be what we need. You might have your doubts now, but it doesn’t matter. You are going to lead.” Despite his emphatic delivery, Lucian’s words were flat, regurgitated. Not his own, but Alexander’s.
Norman had heard it all a million times over. He whirled on his saddle, his teeth gritted. “This conversation’s so worn that it’s like a bad joke. But no matter how many times you spit out that same old speech, there’s some part of me that thinks maybe you don’t believe it at all. The others might think I’m some kind of saint, but not you.”
Lucian didn’t reply. A breeze kicked up, casting a cascade of long-dead leaves against their calves. He drew a ragged breath and, for the briefest of moments, looked as though he meant to say something. Instead, he merely kicked at his horse’s sides and descended the hillside.
Norman watched him go until the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and the brute that inhabited the base of his skull prodded him forwards, towards the light. He followed soon after, a curse passing his lips.
III
The Stour trickled seaward, glassy-smooth in the evening hush. Only occasional shallow wavelets sprayed the cobbled street running parallel to its meandering path. A small wooden rowboat rocked close to the water’s edge, against archaic stonework, its oars jostling within its depths with each resounding bump. This part of the city was not directly illuminated, but only caught the glare of the streetlamps across the river.
Alexander Cain stood alone at the edge of the path, where stone gave way to water. From even here he could identify Lucian McKay, with his slim build and steel-grey hair scintillating in the youthful twilight, which made him recognisable at a fleeting glance.
Two more dark forms were also descending into the city, and soon the snuffling of horses was on the brink of audibility. They were still some distance away, but they would reach him shortly.
Alexander had crossed the river only minutes before, rowing up from the cathedral as the streetlights had spluttered alight. People had seen him go, but none had questioned him. Nobody had thought to doubt him for a great many years.
Enough time had certainly passed since the End to have cemented the kind of look that people gave him: the downcast gaze, aimed not at his eyes but the ground over which he walked; the respectful nod—in some more of an awkward bow; and the slight trace of awe, as though he carried in his pockets not fluff and lint, but tablets inscribed with divine wisdom.
Long ago, when his struggles to unite the fractured tribes of the Early Years had begun to gain traction, he had tried to dispel the special status that people had awarded him. But the more effort he’d made to sit around campfires and work in the fields along with the everyman, the stranger the looks had grown, until eventually all eyes had turned to him whenever he made an appearance, and he had stopped bothering.
He had been forced into a costume and mask to match, to play Fearless Leader to the masses for year upon year, until now he was to the people of New Canterbury naught but a wandering Messiah.
Keeping even this tiny corner of the world from slipping into ruin had demanded it. Time had done the rest, just as surely as it had ravaged his body. He was a sprightly teenager no longer. Weathered by years of hardship, his cheeks now hung lank upon his skull, and his hair sprang from his head in a heavy thatch, heedless of brush or scissors.
He’d never been one for complaining about the ageing process—there hadn’t been time to slow down, not for a single waking moment—but right now, surrounded by wilting plants and half-starved critters, he felt old.
Before he could dwell on it, he forced his gaze towards the city—his city—and searched for the returnees. As the snuffling grew closer, the smallest of smiles played upon his lips, but was quickly replaced by a frown. Tonight, away from the city lights, he felt unnerved.
The feather clutched in his hands had driven him here. Wreathed in shadow, its delicate edges curled and parted at his fingers’ touch. He had been holding onto it all day, and whenever he became aware of holding it, a thousand emotions reared up in his chest, the most prominent being acute disbelief. The gut reaction was so strong that he found himself suspecting it had a lot to do with the unsettled rumblings in his stomach.
But he knew better than that. The rumblings were down to hunger, pure and simple.
The smell of a cooking meal was dancing across the water, making his stomach ache with longing. They had sent parties out foraging for scraps in all directions during the months of hardship, and Alex was sure that many had suffered due to their pilfering, but they had felt the effects of the famine nonetheless. Even the meals he had eaten lately had been sparse at best. Now that the last
of their stores were truly depleted, they were all fast becoming undernourished.
The snuffling continued to grow closer, but the scavenging party would be hidden by the narrow, winding streets until they were right on top of him. Eventually, he could hear the telltale clip-clop of hooves emanating from somewhere nearby.
They appeared a short time later. He recognised Norman instantly: the slightest of the three shadows, tall and lithe, with an angular jaw and an unruly crop of black hair. Beyond, he glimpsed a flash of silver, and knew that Lucian was close behind. The last figure resolved into a young woman he vaguely recognised, one of the newer arrivals from a few years before. He tried to remember her name, and settled on Abbie, but that didn’t sit right.
Norman paused momentarily as they rounded the corner, but his surprised expression was replaced by brief warmth, which itself then sank towards an even, polite smile—the one Alex knew, and had always known, hid a distant resentment. In turn, Lucian simply nodded, while the young woman—Allie, that was her name—gave one of the respectful bows he hated so much.
“Evening,” Lucian said. He looked towards the illuminated oasis across the river and then back to Alex, as though questioning his presence. He then turned his head a fraction, enough to reveal his furrowed brows, but not enough to catch the attention of Norman or Allison.
Alex shook his head minutely, and Lucian turned away, accepting the message.
The four of them began to move along the street, towards the distant lights.
“You’re leaving the boat?” Allie asked.
“I’ll get it in the morning,” Alex answered. “My arms hurt from all the rowing.”
In truth, he felt the unbearable need to accompany them. Despite the lazy atmosphere of the riverside, even the short distance between them and the stables now seemed fraught with unseen dangers. It wasn’t safe, not tonight, even within the confines of the city.
He felt their eyes on the nape of his neck, and so made a concentrated effort to keep his voice casual. “How was it?”
There was a brief pause, during which the hoot of a lone owl floated towards them from the spires of the cathedral.
“It went fine,” Norman said, “but we still need more food.”
“We need a lot more,” Lucian growled. “Whole world’s running on dregs.”
Norman sighed. “We’ll go back tomorrow. There has to be more somewhere.”
Allie interrupted in a hurried, high-pitched babble. It was as though a great swell of words had dammed behind her tongue and they were now spilling from her mouth in a torrent. “There were others.”
Alex stopped and looked at her. Under his gaze she grew timid. He waited patiently for her embarrassment to wane. “Just like we’ve seen everywhere else,” she continued. “They’re all starving. Everybody’s starving.”
Alex was quiet. They skirted the edge of the river and headed towards the illuminated portion of the city. Voices calling from near the cathedral were now reaching their ears, bouncing off ancient slate chimneys and reverberating along the intervening cobbled alleyways.
When he glanced at her once more, he saw that her embarrassment had been replaced by a dazed frown. “There were so many,” she said thickly.
“We’re not going back, not there,” Norman said. “We’ll go somewhere else. If we take anything more from the coast then we’ll be killing them.”
Alex shook his head. “It’s too late to worry about that.”
A strained silence followed, but Alex made a point to keep his steady pace. The feather in his hand kept him moving, even as they passed beneath the first of the illuminated streetlights.
“We saw a lot of people today,” Lucian said.
Alex cleared his throat. “How did they look?”
“Skin and bones.”
They rode along in silence for a moment. They were now only a hundred metres away from the row of restored buildings that the people of New Canterbury had come to know as Main Street.
“We shouldn’t go back,” Norman said.
Alex sensed the tension in his voice. By the sound of it, they’d had a rough time in Margate. He decided to offer no resistance this time. If things were about to take a turn for the worse, he needed to keep Norman on his good side. “Alright, not yet,” he conceded. “But soon we’ll have to.”
There was more to say, more to argue over and report, but none of the three men said a single word further—not in Allison’s presence. He might not have known her name, but people had pointed her out to Alex before; it was common knowledge that the art of subtlety was as alien to her as the greater good. As it was, the least that they could expect was for the story of the encounter with the coast’s natives to be distributed overnight, as if by some infectious magic, to all ears within the city. The last thing they needed was gossip diluted by the hundred reiterations that would occur along such a chain of whispers.
And so their conversation petered out as quickly as it had begun. They each withdrew into their respective thoughts, their shadowed faces sheer white and bowed against the harsh glow of spluttering streetlights.
*
Norman was disturbed.
Guards—ghostly sentinels, hidden amidst shadow in the alleys overhead—were now appearing as they crossed the perimeter of Main Street. The detail, usually composed of one or two crack snipers, had swelled to a party of over a dozen. Norman had lived in the city for a long time, and not once had there been the need for such a heavy overnight guard.
Nevertheless, there they were, perched on roofs and balconies like fleshy gargoyles. To the casual eye they would have appeared to be no more than insomniacs staring out at the night. But from their stances and rigid orientation, spaced in a strategic barrier along the pool of light thrown down by the streetlights, Norman could spot them.
This was no doubt Alexander’s doing. Norman almost spoke of it, but then laid eyes on Allison, still haughty and quiet beside him, and the words died in his throat.
It was rarely loud, even here, and at night it was often just as quiet as the surrounding dead city. The sound of the horses’ hooves was accompanied only by the chatter of the few who remained in the street, standing outside what had once been a storage facility.
They used it as a town hall and kitchen of sorts.
As the gathering turned towards the returnees, familiar faces began to appear. The gaggle of night owls was gathered close to the main body of occupied housing, farther towards the cathedral.
A communal meal was afoot for those who had been lumbered with the night shift. Norman caught the deep, gamey aroma of roasted chicken and the tangy flair of stewed fruit.
To smell such luxury after only days of rotten soup flooded his mouth with saliva, and his mind with feelings of extreme guilt. To indulge in such things when thousands were dying of starvation beyond their walls seemed almost absurd, even callous.
Their arrival was heralded with great enthusiasm. Cries of welcome rang out in the night. Despite himself, Norman smiled.
Allison, the most sociable, leapt to the ground and was immediately immersed in conversation, disappearing into the crowd without a moment’s hesitation.
Alexander was also subsumed into their midst, beset by curious onlookers, but he merely spread his hands until they parted, wielding their attention with practised ease. He answered a few questions, smiled a few smiles, and then proceeded without further impediment. Norman watched with jealous awe. In similar situations, he was usually apprehended for what seemed like hours, tongue-tied and aghast.
As they reached the storeroom, Lucian jumped down from his mount and began transferring the bags of food and supplies from its saddle with the help of Robert Strong, whose coal-black skin and navy engineer’s jumpsuit had blended seamlessly with the shadows until he’d moved. Now in motion, however, he couldn’t be missed. He towered at least a foot above everybody else, built like a tank.
“I'll take these over to Heather,” Robert said, hefting their small packet of libe
rated medical supplies. “She’ll need them. Bumps and scrapes are getting infected left, right and centre. She says it’s our immune systems, shot because of the crappy diet, but I don’t know…”
He disappeared into the darkness, hurrying in the direction of the clinic.
“You’re coming in, aren’t you, Lucian?” Allie asked.
“In a moment,” he said. He clearly had no intention of joining the gaggle of chattering well-wishers, and continued his task of moving the remaining food with his head down, brow furrowed.
Unsociable to the bitter end, Norman thought. He considered helping to unload the mount, but another look at Lucian’s ugly grimace convinced him to pass on by. He was left looking down at the welcoming party, and realised that he wanted no more part of it than Lucian. He could sense their eyes upon him, silently expectant. They were waiting for him to follow Alexander’s lead and descend into their midst to give the latest on what was happening outside the city, dispensing wisdom and comfort along the way.
Even Allison’s earlier deference, however, had been more than he could manage. After the horrors of the day, he couldn’t stand being beset by a rapturous audience.
Before an uncomfortable stalemate could set in, he bade them each goodnight and turned his mount towards the stables, hurrying lest they replied or protested. A brief silence followed, but soon after he heard the others move inside.
“We’ll talk at breakfast,” Lucian said to him as he passed.
Norman nodded, firing off a brief temple-flick salute as he moved away. A moment later Alexander appeared at his side, leading Allie’s horse on foot. As soon as they were out of earshot of the storeroom congregation, the atmosphere between the two of them shifted to one altogether more frank and familiar. They were quiet at first, growing accustomed to their privacy, and then Norman sagged, breaking the silence. “So, what do you really think?”
“Of what?” Alex said.
“Of everything.” They led the horses into the gloom of the stables, and a concentrated odour of hay and manure filled his nose. “We work day in, day out to convince everybody that we’re the endgame, that we’re the ones fighting the good fight, and then…then we go and steal food from people’s mouths as soon as the going gets rough.”
Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) Page 4