Maybe William had recognised the man’s face, and maybe the spear he carried at his back gave him away. But if he needed confirmation, it rested on the man’s hip. He wore a knife similar to the one in Artan’s hand. “You’re one of the retired hunters.”
Peter whipped his knife from his belt and widened his stance. His soft face sharpened and he raised his top lip in a snarl. “Just let me past, boys, and we won’t have any trouble.”
“Seems to me,” William said, “that you’re the one who needs to avoid trouble.”
Peter slashed his knife through the air. “Let’s see, shall we?”
Chapter 37
A steel guardrail ran around the edge of the palace’s roof. A bar about an inch thick, it looked like a small fence. It stood about a foot tall. Exiting Grandfather Jacks’ bedroom via the window, Olga grabbed it and pulled herself up onto the tiles, the rooftop of the large palace stretching away from them in both directions. The wind reminiscent of the funnel, it dragged loose strands of hair from Olga’s ponytail and threw them into her eyes.
Barp! The tone from the asylum was much easier to hear now they were on the roof.
The patch of blood on Matilda’s bandage had spread. “Are you okay to run with that?” Olga said.
Matilda spun the knife she’d taken from Grandfather Jacks’ room and slipped it down the back of her trousers. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned with keeping up.”
Wounded or not, Matilda had stepped into her element on the rooftops. She took off along the angled tiles as if she were running on a flat road.
No discussion about which way they should have gone, Olga chased after her friend.
Male voices called after them. Several hunters with spears had already climbed from other windows, and more were climbing out all the time. They might have been thirty to forty feet behind, but Olga recognised some of them. One of them the rookie hunter from Umbriel who’d won the first trial they’d witnessed. “We need to lose them, Matilda.”
Matilda turned a sharp left and Olga followed. A spear shot past them. Had they not turned, it would have taken at least one of them down.
They moved faster than the hunters, opening up a lead with every passing second. Until—
“Shit!” Matilda stopped.
Olga’s stomach lurched as she peered over the drop. At least twenty feet to the roof below. Too far to jump. “We can’t turn back,” Olga said.
The chink of a spear hit the tiled roof close to them.
Into a crouch, Matilda grabbed the guardrail and leaned over the edge. “There’s a drainpipe here. It’ll hold your weight. You go first.”
“What about you?”
“I need to make sure they don’t follow us. Now go.”
It turned Olga’s legs weak to lean over the edge of the roof. Thank god she had the guardrail. Hanging down from the thick bar, it took her a few seconds to find the chunky metal pipe with her feet. Adrenaline made her arms shake when she lowered herself. She dropped one hand down to catch the pipe. Rough with rust, she tugged it. It held fast.
“Hurry up, Olga.” Matilda’s voice had changed in pitch, her words quicker. A spear sailed above them before it landed with a clatter on the roof below.
Olga let go of the guardrail and dropped, halting her slide as she gripped the pipe with both hands. By the time she’d shimmied down a few feet, Matilda dropped over the edge and caught the pipe with barely a pause.
Fifteen feet to go, Olga slid quicker than before. The vibration from Matilda above ran through her tight grip.
A scratching of metal against metal, Matilda had stopped at the top of the pipe, the knife she’d taken from Grandfather Jacks’ room in her hand. She used the pointed tip to dig into the wall surrounding the bolts that held the pipe in place.
No time to question it, Olga slid quicker than before. The rough and rusty surface burned her palms. She jumped off several feet from the bottom, the tiles cracking beneath her landing. A thick metal clip fell next to her. She jumped back in time to avoid the next one. The drainpipe leaned away from the wall at the top, Matilda hanging on.
The first hunter peered over the edge. “Matilda, they’re on you.”
About eight to ten feet down, Matilda detached the section of pipe she’d separated from the wall and dropped it onto the roof below. A hunter threw a spear at her and missed.
Olga hopped back another step, edging towards a bend in the roof that would take them away from there.
Still ten feet to fall, Matilda slid down the drainpipe and dismounted. She landed like a cat. She took off towards Olga, several more spears missing her as they smashed against the roof tiles.
Matilda caught up to Olga as she vanished around the corner. She spoke through heavy gasps. “That’s bought us some time.”
“But how much?” Olga said.
Matilda shrugged. “Hopefully enough.”
Chapter 38
“Yeargh!” Max raised his hammer and charged towards the man, shoving William aside as he bore down on him. But before he reached him, Artan threw his knife. The blade sank into the man’s throat.
A deep barking gasp, the retired hunter tore the knife free with a spray of claret. He clamped his hands to the wound and fell to his knees in the long grass. Blood escaped his grip, glistening on his hands.
It tightened William’s chest to watch a man run out of breath. Not sympathy, just empathy for what looked like a violent and torturous end.
As the man’s last strained gasp left him, Cyrus said, “What’s that sound?”
Other than the wind, William heard nothing. “What sound?”
“Wait!” Cyrus raised a halting finger.
A deep bass note. It came from somewhere distant. It came from—
“That’s where we’re heading,” Artan said.
Max still held his war hammer, desperate to use it. He stood over the old hunter’s corpse. “You think it has something to do with Grandfather Jacks’ community?”
William bounced on his toes. “There’s only one way to find out.” He took off. “Come on.”
Had the wind been blowing into their faces, they would have heard the noise much sooner. It took no more than five minutes for a giant industrial building to loom large on the horizon. “It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen,” William said.
The large structure cut an imposing silhouette. Tall and angular, it had square edges and towers of differing heights. A steel filigreed tunnel of gothic beauty led up to the place, which continued to belch the loud barp out into the landscape. It must have been louder on the other side.
Cyrus scratched his head. “Do you think that’s Grandfather Jacks’ place?”
“I think it’s the asylum,” William said.
While they were talking, Artan had walked away from them to the left so he could see past the large structure. “Hey,” he called over the howling wind, “I think this might be his place, and I think I now understand what that noise is about.”
William and the others joined Artan. Around the front of the industrial building, a horde had gathered. Thousands of them, nearly as many as in the swarm they’d encountered. “You think they’re responding to the noise?”
“I’d assume so,” Artan said. “Also, look at that building.”
The diseased had taken all of William’s attention. He’d not seen how the large and ugly building had not only blocked the horde, but it had also blocked the ornate structure on the other side. Unlike the asylum, the second building had plenty of windows and light brickwork. It might have been dwarfed by the larger and uglier building out here, but it was ten times the size of anything he’d seen in Edin.
Max, who still clung to his war hammer, said, “What if it’s a trick?”
“Huh?” William said.
“To make people think he lives in the nice building when he actually lives in the nasty one.”
Cyrus said, “The asylum does look much better protected than the smaller one.”
; “Do you think Grandfather Jacks is the kind of person to choose to live in that place?” William said.
But Max took the conversation in another direction. “Look over there! I don’t believe it.”
When William saw the boy, he said, “Shit! He made it here, then?” Hawk, armed with a spear, charged around the side of the asylum.
Max took off towards the boy, his hammer ready to be put to use.
When Hawk saw them approach, he raised a halting hand. “Wait!”
Artan readied his spear.
“He’s mine!” Max yelled, still at full charge.
Hawk threw his own spear into the ground and lifted both hands above his head. “Please wait. You have to hear me out. I know where Olga and Matilda are.”
The words took the pace from Max, allowing the others to catch him.
“What did you say?” William said while wringing Jezebel’s handle.
“I know where Olga and Matilda are.” Despite the strong wind, the grass swaying around them, Hawk stood semi-naked, seemingly unaffected by the cold. “You came here to rescue them, right?”
“How can we trust you?” Max said.
“You were lying at the bottom of that pit of dead diseased in the funnel, weren’t you?”
“Huh?” Cyrus said.
“Why do you think I convinced the others the diseased had died when falling. I had to stop them being too curious. You didn’t do a very good job hiding yourselves.”
Max stepped closer to him. “You let us lie there for hours.”
“I knew we needed to move on, but if I’d have been too pushy, it might have blown your cover. I left the deer meat behind on purpose. We never normally do that. And why do you think I gave Harvey a hard time about being able to piss in front of everyone?”
Max shrugged. “Because you’re a dick.”
“Because I saw you were already climbing out of the pit. I mean, you’d waited all night, what harm would it have done to have waited a little bit longer?”
Cyrus looked at his feet.
“If he’d have gone anywhere near the pit,” Hawk said, “he would have seen you. When the others stopped in the cave to avoid the rain, I pretended they’d upset me so I could come back to keep you away. You were getting too close. It sounded like we were being followed by cattle. I don’t know how the others didn’t notice.”
William stepped closer. “So why do all this for us? You hated us.”
“Things change.”
“Like what?” William said.
“Grandfather Jacks took Dianna. She’s like a little sister to me. I never liked the man anyway, but at that point I had to question whose side I was on. I think we both want him dead. Once I get Dianna free from the asylum”—he held up a bunch of keys, the ring hanging from one of his fingers—“I’m going to track him down and cut his throat. I can’t do anything about what he did to me as a child—” he rubbed the purple scars around his neck “—but I can make sure he doesn’t do it to anyone else.” His voice broke when he said, “Especially her.”
Hawk wrapped his thick fist around the keys. “Now I can’t stay here all day. Also, you need to hurry. Grandfather Jacks took the girls to his bedroom early. He normally waits until after the ceremony, but he’s taken a shine to Olga—”
“He’s not the only one,” Max said.
“Let it go, Max,” Artan said. “Olga kissed him, not the other way around.”
“The girls are in his bedroom in the palace.” Hawk said. “You need to get moving. We all do.”
When Hawk ran in the direction of the asylum, William pointed at the palace. “So we’re agreed?”
Max nodded. “Let’s go.” He led the charge.
Chapter 39
They’d stopped so Olga could catch her breath. “We’re safe for now,” she said, “but it won’t be long before they find us again. We need to get the hell out of here.” She shrugged. “But the second we go to ground, the guards will see us. There’s nowhere to hide for miles.”
Barp! They were now much closer to the asylum.
Matilda turned one way and then the other. “So where do we go?”
“I’m not sure.” Olga pointed at the bandage on Matilda’s thigh. It glistened with fresh blood. “And how much more running do you have in you?”
“Do I have to keep repeating myself? I’ve told you already; I’ll keep up.”
So far, Matilda had outrun her and then some. Maybe Olga should worry more about herself. But would Matilda really be able to get away from the palace in the open meadow with guards and hunters chasing them? Another loud tone from the asylum. Even from this distance, the sound snapped a shudder through Olga. How long had some of those girls been in that place for? How long had they had to listen to that torturous note? They set off again.
A section of the roof ran around what looked to be a courtyard in the centre of the old building. Like with every other part of the roof they’d come to, it had a sturdy guardrail running around the edge. It seemed like a waste of steel. What purpose could it have served? Regardless, it had more than come in handy for the girls. Olga led the way over to it.
“What are those things?” Matilda said when she joined her. “And why do they have diseased down there?”
The vast courtyard had over one hundred large black panels, each one at least six feet long by four feet wide. All of them were set at an angle of roughly forty-five degrees. Wires ran from them. “Do you remember what Dianna said about electricity?” Olga said. “She talked about something called solar panels.”
“You think that’s what these are?”
“What else could they be? It’s certainly not Grandfather Jacks’ connection to the High Father powering this place. And why else would they have diseased in the middle of the house? Surely it’s designed to keep everyone away from this spot? He doesn’t even want his guards out here looking too closely.”
“But how’s it going to help us?”
A set of double doors down to their right. A gate had been pulled across them, and a red light blinked near the handles. “Everything here is controlled by electricity,” Olga said.
“So if we can destroy these, it will shut the place down?”
Olga shrugged. “Maybe? It’s worth a try. It might be the distraction we need.”
The barp from the asylum continued in the background, almost as if it counted down the seconds before another group of hunters found them.
Olga worked a roof tile free. The rough stone tore small stinging cuts into her hands. She held it like a plate and launched a spinning attack on one of the nearby panels. It hit the glass-fronted black sheet, a splash of cracks running away from the deep dent she’d driven into its centre.
Matilda copied Olga, both of them throwing tiles at the panels one after the other. Most hit, but some of them slammed into the screaming diseased. Those who hadn’t noticed the girls at first soon spotted them. There were at least one hundred of the vile things, maybe more.
While Olga went one way around the courtyard, tearing tiles free and launching them at the panels, Matilda went the other and winced every time she bent down. Her thigh must have been worse than she let on. But what could they do about it in this moment?
The diseased ran from one side of the courtyard to the other, weaving through the sea of black panels. They looked like children playing a game. Furious children with bleeding eyes. They might have craved violence, but they had no way of sating their desire. Olga sent one in every five tiles into a diseased’s face, nailing one of the creatures before she went back to destroying the solar panels.
The barp continued in the background.
When the girls met at the other side, every panel damaged in some way, Matilda pointed down at a metal box. Ten feet by six feet and four feet deep, it had wires leading from it back through the sea of black panels. “I think we might have to break that too.” She pointed at the double doors with the gate across them. “That red light’s still on. The electricity’s still w
orking.” The tile she launched at the box shattered against the hard casing. It left a scratch but nothing more. “One of us needs to go down there.”
“How’s your thigh?” Olga said.
“Honestly?”
Had Olga not mouthed off in the cell, Matilda wouldn’t have been cut in the first place. She stepped backwards so the diseased couldn’t see her.
Matilda opened her mouth to speak, but Olga shook her head. Hobbling more than before, Matilda ran around the courtyard to the other side.
Olga planned her route to the box and back. It would be tricky, but there were enough window ledges to use as a step up to the guardrail. The drop no more than ten feet, she’d make it down there and back if she kept her wits.
A thumbs up from the other side, Matilda sat on the edge of the roof and hung her legs over the guardrail. Still several feet from the diseased, and definitely out of their reach, but the prospect proved too much for the creatures. The mob swarmed over, reaching up and shrieking, some of them slamming frustrated blows against the wall beneath her.
Reluctance locked Olga’s frame. But what else could she do? They didn’t have time to waste, and they had no chance of getting off the palace’s roof and getting away from there unseen. This needed to end now. Her palms throbbing from the tens of cuts, she pulled another tile from the roof and slipped it down the back of her trousers before she too hung over the edge of the courtyard and dropped down.
A lock kept the box shut. A useless tug on the lid, it lifted a little way, but the lock resisted. The panels blocked her line of sight to the diseased, but the snarling, snapping, and rattling breaths were far enough away for her to work. Not that she could afford to be complacent.
A tight grip on the tile with both hands, Olga had one shot at this. She drove the edge of the tile hard against the lock. Clang! The bolt snapped. The diseased fell silent.
Olga crouched down behind the metal box. Maybe she should have run.
The diseased’s snarls and shuffling feet came closer.
Beyond These Walls (Book 6): Three Days Page 17