“Do you want me to put you in a hunting party?” Magma growled as he stepped forward, Ranger falling back onto the bed. “I’m running out of jobs for you. When we put you in carpentry, you almost cut your hand off. I know if I send you out on a hunt, you’ll come back with nothing. You think I want to have to make an example of you in front of everyone? You have no skills in anything, so you get a job that allows me to justify keeping you here. We have no place for deadwood. You and I have to live by that example more than anyone.”
Ranger hung his head again, his voice a febrile whine. “But I’m your son.”
“And had I known you’d be this useless, I would have drowned you at birth.”
Ranger sneered at his old man. “You were lucky Mum even let you in her bed.”
Magma backhanded his boy, the blow connecting with a thunderclap.
It threw Ranger to the ground. Hunched on all fours, tears stood in his eyes when he looked up at his dad, his lips twisting as he spoke. “What was that for?”
“You need to learn your place. I pulled favours to get you through the apprentice trials. I’ve carried you since your mum died.” Magma held his hand above his head. “I’ve had it up to here with you. So give me an excuse to cut you loose, I dare ya.”
Ranger slowly got up until he stood in front of his dad again. William’s skin tingled and his body tensed, willing the boy to attack his old man. But he sat back on the bed.
“You’re pathetic!” And with that, Magma left his boy sobbing and alone in his hut.
“Wow,” Olga said, speaking in a hushed tone. “I almost feel sorry for him.”
“I’m not there yet, but it makes sense why he’s such a dick. But what about the others?”
Olga opened her mouth and then closed it again. She shrugged.
“They’re not here, are they?”
“If they are, I can’t tell you where.”
“So what do we do?” William said.
“I think we should get out of here. It’s not safe, and I’m out of ideas.”
“But we won’t get back in again if we do.”
“Do we want to?”
William’s cheeks puffed as he exhaled. The back wall behind them, the top of it carved into spikes. The roofs of the huts were only two feet lower than them. “We could vault that.”
Olga raised an eyebrow. “I could vault that.”
“You worry about you and I’ll worry about me, yeah?”
By way of reply, Olga jumped up, took a two-step run, and vaulted the back wall, vanishing from sight.
William followed her, gripping one of the spikes to propel himself over the others. Weightless from the fall, if only he’d heard the diseased scream before he’d leaped.
Chapter 14
As Olga fell to the ground—her sword still strapped to her back—four diseased surrounded her.
William landed on one of the creatures, the foetid beast cushioning his fall. When he rolled away from it, both his sword and the uneven ground dug into his back. The beast lunged for him before he got up, snapping yellowed teeth no more than a foot from his face. He held the thing back, his arms shaking beneath its weight.
Olga jumped up and drew her sword. While she fought the others, William brought his feet up, pushed the soles of his shoes into the creature’s stomach, lifted it from the ground by rolling back, and kicked it over his head.
When the beast charged him again, William met it with a hacking blow to the side of its face. His sword buried into it with a crunch and the beast fell.
Olga kept the other three at bay with stabs and swipes, but none of her attacks were fatal.
The closest one had its back to William. He drove the tip of his blade into the base of its skull.
The opening she needed, Olga stabbed one in the face and the next one in the chest. All four of them down, she took off into the ruins.
Every time William followed Olga up what seemed to be an impossibly tall structure, it took him back to being a kid, following in Matilda’s wake as she defied gravity and sense with her bravery. This time they climbed a collapsed bridge made from the same grey rock and twisted steel littering the landscape.
The gradient so steep it burned his calves, William shook with fatigue. His feet slipped with every step. Nothing to hold on to, he placed his faith in his boots’ grip.
A section of the bridge had fallen away, rusty rods of steel hanging from the broken path. It left a gap of only two feet to cross. Two feet wide, and two feet higher up. The rods were waiting to pierce his stomach like a hunter’s arrow through the belly of a boar.
“You ready?” Olga said. But she didn’t wait for a reply, leaping the gap and landing feet first on the grey rock on the other side. She sprinted just a few more feet and grabbed onto a large steel upright.
Matilda always told William his doubt came because he opened the door for it. If you don’t stop to think, and if you let intuition guide you, you’ll always do better. Become too aware of the risks and you’ll magnify them. He nodded to the memory and jumped. His landing foot slipped as he fell forwards. His next foot slipped. Before he completely lost his footing, Olga reached down and caught him. She pulled him the rest of the way.
About twenty feet from the ground—the wind stronger because of their height—William’s stomach tingled while he clung to the steel upright. It had been a tricky climb, but getting back down again would be much harder. “Remind me why I followed you up here again?”
The steel girder rang when Olga slapped it. “This hides us from them”—she pointed at the community they’d just left behind—“and we’re about as high as we can get. It might show us something we haven’t seen from the ground.”
William’s knuckles ached from where he clung on. They did have a better view than before. There was still plenty of space inside Magma’s community, yet they were already extending it over to William’s left. “It must have taken weeks just to clear the road for the extension down there.”
“Especially with only a handful of workers. How long do you think they’ve been building the compound for? Five years? Ten?”
“Maybe even longer. Who knows how many generations of protectors have been using this place as their clubhouse.”
“While they were pretending to help us out,” Olga said, “they were prepping for Edin’s downfall.”
The lock on the back gate of the fortress clicked. The small door swung open, pulling into the compound. Two people emerged. Rayne led the way. A Viking of a man, he wore the scowl of a sadist. With him, he had—
“The girl from the fire,” William said.
“But where are they taking her?”
The twisted and rusting girder hid William and Olga from Rayne’s line of sight. William nodded at the protector and his prisoner. “You think we should follow them?”
“The second we step out from behind this metal, it’ll blow our cover.”
“He might lead us to the others.”
“Maybe. But I’d rather be certain he will than risk it. How do we know where he’s going? And why would he have that girl with him if he’s going to see Max, Matilda, and Artan?”
The mousy girl still had her hands tied behind her back, stumbling several times from Rayne shoving her forward with his boot. On about the third or fourth shove, he pushed so hard she stumbled and tripped over a large piece of rock, falling to her knees with a yelp. William twisted where he stood. How could they stand by and watch?
Rayne leaned over the girl and screamed, “Get up, you pathetic cow. If you think this is bad, you wait.”
Olga leaned forward, closer to William, as she whispered, “I wonder where he’s taking her?”
Rayne clearly had little care for the diseased as he walked over a large sheet of metal, the clang an alarm to anyone who wanted to hear. A confident swagger, he held his war hammer as if it were an extension of his right arm.
The shrill call of diseased pinched the base of William’s neck. Only three of them, and t
hey had to get through Rayne to get to the girl. A deep laugh, the massive man wound his hammer back and took all three down, one after the other, using the weapon’s weight to smash the beasts’ skulls.
“It’s hard not to be impressed by that,” Olga said.
Rayne continued to smile.
“Sure”—William shrugged—“he’s effective, but he looks awfully complacent for someone who’s out in the wild. Surely he must have come across larger groups than three diseased at a time? Why doesn’t he fear a horde? I don’t care how good he is, a pack large enough would take him down in seconds.”
“But it’s quiet down there,” Olga said.
“The war must have cleared them out.”
“Maybe there’s another reason.”
“Like what?”
Olga shook her head. “Dunno. But I reckon there is.” She pointed at Rayne. “What’s he doing now?”
The metal sheet had been just another part of the devastated landscape until Rayne bent down and pulled one side. His prisoner continued to cry as she watched on, unable to get to her feet because of her bonds. The screech of steel against rock made William’s teeth itch. Any more diseased in the area would be on them soon—if there were any more diseased in the area.
Rayne exposed a large pit. He pointed at the girl with his hammer. “You stay there. Trust me, you don’t want me running after you if you decide to go walkabout.”
The girl shook, her eyes bloodshot, her cheeks damp. Snot ran from her nose.
“You hear me?” Rayne said.
She nodded so quickly, William reached up and rubbed the back of his own neck as if he felt the pain of the action.
Rayne watched her for a few more seconds as if daring her to challenge him. He then backed into the hole, climbing down a ladder to the bottom. Ten feet deep, maybe more, the large protector then vanished from sight.
“A tunnel,” Olga said. “Where do you think it leads?”
“I’m not sure, but I think this is our chance to help that girl.”
“Are you mad? How will that help us get to the others?”
“Look at her, Olga.”
“I am. She’s pathetic. Even if we do try to save her, she’ll probably be too scared to come and we’ll both die in the process. Where will that leave Max, Artan, and Matilda?”
“Fine,” William said, stretching his right leg down the bridge.
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. You stay there and look after yourself. I’ll go and help her.”
The screams of another girl burst from the tunnel. William froze.
Rayne reappeared with his protesting prisoner.
“You carry on making a noise,” the large protector said, “and I’ll feed you to the diseased. You hear me?”
The girl pushed her lips together and nodded. At least five feet six, she had more muscle than the mousy girl. Despite her bulk, Rayne lifted her above his head and threw her from the hole.
Her hands were also tied. She landed on her side with an “ooomph”.
“And you wanted to go down there,” Olga said.
Rayne threw his hammer ahead of him before climbing from the hole and picking it up again. He leaned over the downed girl. “Up! Now!”
Both girls got to their feet while Rayne dragged the metal sheet over the tunnel again. He pointed into the ruins. The girls took his direction, both of them with lowered heads, both of them clearly doing their best to stifle their cries.
“Before you say it,” Olga said, “I’m not going to follow him.”
“What if he leads us to Matilda and the others?”
Olga grabbed his shoulder with one hand. “You need to focus, William.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“If Rayne just pulled a prisoner from that pit, or tunnel, or whatever the hell it is, there might be more of them down there.”
It seemed so obvious now. “Like Matilda, Max, and Artan?”
“There we go. Got there in the end, didn’t ya?”
While Rayne and the girls left, William studied the sheet of metal covering the tunnel. “It looks so obvious now it’s been moved. The metal sheet’s cleaner than the rest of the junk in the place. The area around it’s not quite as loaded with debris. Do you think it leads far?”
“I hope not.”
A momentary flashback to the tunnels in Edin. The diseased’s screams as they closed down on them from god knew where. He shuddered. “Me too.” While holding onto the rusting steel girder, he stepped on the downwards slope of the old bridge for a second time. The sharp decline turned the back of his knees weak: a slide of grey rock fifteen to twenty feet long with nothing but large chunks of debris at the bottom to halt their momentum. “I’m not sure we thought this one through, you know. I—”
Olga leaped past him, dropping into a crouch as she slid down the old bridge. The rush of her feet dragged over stone. William winced when she reached the gap. But she jumped it, landing on the other side as if it hadn’t been there. She transitioned at the bottom from sliding to running, weaving through the debris at a flat-out sprint before she slowed.
Adrenaline surged through William, his grip weakening on the girder. Did she seriously expect him to do that? What other choice did he have?
William let go of the rusting steel, his feet sliding over the old rock as he hurtled towards the gap in the bridge. Thick metal bars protruded from the other side, daring him to screw up. He jumped, his stomach lurching as he crossed the gap, his arms windmilling.
Landing in a crouch on the other side, William fell forwards, his knees slamming against the bridge before he rolled onto his back, his shirt riding up, the rough road cutting into his skin. He hit the ground at the bottom, rolled several turns, and came to an abrupt halt when he slammed into a rock. One of the metal poles hung just inches from his right eye.
Olga blocked the sun when she stood over him. She smiled. “I’d give you a ten for effort.”
Winded from his fall, William flipped her the bird.
“Come on, let’s see what this tunnel’s about.”
The metal sheet must have been lighter than it looked because although William had never doubted Olga’s strength, he hadn’t expected her to slide it clear as easily. The scraping of metal against rock, she opened a gap wide enough to climb into the hole.
The top of the bridge all over again. If he didn’t go in now, he wouldn’t go in at all. William followed Olga down the rusted and buckled ladder built into the wall. The ground had been constructed from the same grey stone as the road above. Cracks ran through it. A scream behind him. An approaching diseased. He gasped and spun around. He faced a solid wall.
Olga grabbed his shoulder and he spun around again. “Are you okay?”
“Was there just a scream?”
“It’s a dead end, William.”
William hugged himself as if it would somehow keep a leash on his mind. He had to concentrate on what he knew to be real. “Max and I ran through the tunnels in Edin.”
“I remember. Is this too much for you?”
It would have been nice to say no. A dead end behind, darkness stretching ahead. How far would they have to go? What would be waiting for them down there? How much time did they have to waste before they were too late for Matilda and the others? Were they already too late? “Can we track this thing above ground before we go down into it? We don’t have anything to light our way down here. Maybe we can work out where we’re going first?”
Olga drew a breath and opened her mouth. She paused. Her features softened. “Sure.” She climbed the ladder out of there.
William followed, breathing more easily above ground. “Thank you.”
“I wouldn’t say that yet. This might be a worse option. What if we find out these tunnels stretch for miles?”
William’s throat tightened. Before it got him with a two-handed grip, Olga jogged off through the ruins and he ran after her. At least there were no guards patrolli
ng the back wall of the fortress.
The space where they were extending the compound had been picked clean of debris and waste. About twenty feet square, they were building within their means. Slow and steady. A trench marked the base for the extension. It had been dug about four feet deep. Sharpened trees had been planted around a third of the perimeter. “The digging must have been hard,” William said, “but I bet this wall is much easier to build than the one outside Edin.”
A hill stretched off away from them. “Why do you think they’ve built their fortress in a valley?” Olga said.
William shrugged. “Not the best defence, is it? I reckon they wanted to make sure they couldn’t be seen from Edin. I suppose the enemy isn’t as advanced as humans with weapons, and the last thing these snakes want is to be found out.”
Although Olga opened her mouth, a tinkling bell stopped her.
“Where’s that coming from?” William said.
The tinkle again, faint, but it rode the wind towards them. Although they’d cleared a space where they were constructing the wall, the hill ahead had the remains of buildings much like the rest of the ruined city. It gave them something to hide in on their way to the top. They could scale it without being seen from the compound. “It’s coming from the other side of this hill,” William said. “Come on.” He darted for the ground floor of a ruined building.
When Olga caught up to him, she pressed her back to the wall, hiding from the fortress’ line of sight.
They climbed the hill, moving from hiding place to hiding place. The bell continued to tinkle. A chorus of discontent joined in. The tinge of vinegar and rot. The curdling of an environment that only came from scores of diseased in the same place.
Just before they crested the hill—William’s lungs tight from the climb—he stopped by a doorway and said, “You ready for this?”
Olga passed him on her way to the top.
William followed her and halted instantly. “What the hell?”
“I knew there was another reason why there weren’t many diseased around,” Olga said.
Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin Page 7