by D. S. Murphy
“Sneaking off to meet with your elite then?” he said, crossing his arms. I could see the pain in his eyes. He thought he’d won, but I wasn’t a prize. Plus, I knew he’d ask me to make a choice, just like he had before.
When he asked then, I didn’t have the power, the authority, to choose, or at least I didn’t think I did. Now, I wasn’t so sure. I had every reason to choose Trevor instead of Damien, and yet… I couldn’t force myself to feel differently about him.
I loved them both, for different reasons, in different ways. But this wasn’t the time to parse through my feelings.
“He’s already gone,” I frowned. “But there’s something I need to do. Something big. And important.”
“But you aren’t going to tell me what it is, or the others?”
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. Honestly I don’t even know where I’m going.”
“Sounds great,” he smiled, “I’m in.”
“This is something I need to do alone.”
“You’ve always been stubborn Em. But there’s no way in hell I’m letting you leave here.”
“You’re going to stop me?” I asked. I felt for the elixir in my pocket. Trevor was twice my size, but I was pretty sure I could take him if I had to, or at least outrun him.
“No, but I’ll follow you. To the end of the world if I have to. To keep you safe. But I’d rather do it at your side than sneaking around behind you.”
I frowned, biting my lip. I knew he’d do it, too.
“We can’t tell the others,” I said finally, the fight going out of me.
“Who us?” Jazmine asked. I hadn’t even seen her sneak up behind me. She was leaning against a wooden pole, casually gnawing on a chicken bone.
“Shit, what the hell?”
“You think you’re sneaky, but you really aren’t.”
“Going out hunting, huh?” she nodded to the arrows I’d picked up.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” I protested. “I don’t know how far I’m going. You should stay here, where it’s safe.”
“A top-secret mission?”
“If you want to go fast, go alone,” Jazmine said. “If you want to go far, go together.”
“That actually makes sense. I think.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Camina said, approaching from the other side, “we don’t exactly fit in here. We’re chosen, like you. I didn’t choose this path, not really. But I’m here. We will see this thing to the end.”
“There might be fighting. I don’t know what kind of guards we’ll face, security or otherwise.”
“Then you definitely need us,” Jazmine smirked. “In case you’ve forgotten, you kind of suck at fighting.”
“April has to stay here,” I said. “She needs to keep working on the cure, to find out what we missed. And Penelope will have to stay as well, so she can test it. What I’m trying to do, I don’t know if it’s going to work, but if it does, it’ll change everything.”
“What about Luke?” Trevor asked.
“What about him?” I asked.
“He’s resourceful. And without him, it’s just three chosen against, who knows what. We might need someone who grew up outside the compounds, who knows the wild, how to survive.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type to put his life on the line.”
“He’s a good guy, I know it. And even if he’s not, maybe we need someone who is determined to survive. In case we fail. Someone to keep the mission alive, after we’re gone.”
Chills ran down my spine. It was a good idea actually, but I hated thinking about it.
“Fine, if he wants to risk his life, but I’m not slowing down for him. We’re headed to Skormhead,” I said. “Jacob told me the ash is thicker there. It’ll take us a few days, at least.”
“Wait, but why would the ash be thicker there than anywhere else?” Trevor asked.
“Because,” I said. “The sky isn’t broken. It’s just hidden. And we’re going to fix it.”
We said goodbye to Sam and the others. Even though we’d only been there a night, I was sad to leave. It was like finding a family, a home, I never knew I had.
We walked all day, following the remains of a vast highway. Cars were half buried in mud, rusted and broken. We walked across them, hood to hood, like giant stepping stones. It was dangerous to cover this much distance in the open, but I didn’t have time to be subtle.
Before he said goodbye, Damien had given me three vials of elixir. His essence, pulled directly from himself, gifted freely to me.
If I was alone, I would have sprinted all the way to Skormhead, but the others couldn’t drink so much. We decided to ration it to two drops a day; what we knew was the safe limit given to the chosen at the citadel. It kept us walking all day at a brisk pace, though the others still felt like they were slowing me down.
I wished there was a faster way to travel, but motors would make too much noise. We stopped when it was too dark to see, taking turns sleeping and standing guard; nestled against the rocks, somewhere inconspicuous, with no lights or fire. Some nights we sheltered in abandoned buildings or vehicles, huddled together for warmth. By the third day the landscape was different. It was drier away from the coast, with rocky orange mountains and prickly shrubs. We wasted a whole day walking around what must have been a sprawling metro area, then another searching for a bridge that could take us across a deep canyon.
The fourth night we followed tracks to an abandoned train. Trevor forced the door open and we packed inside away from the ash and dust, which seemed to tear at us sideways sometimes due to the strong winds.
From further away, I could see the sweeping outlines of the mountains when the wind shifted. As we got closer, the ash was thick and heavy, worse than I’d ever seen it. Visibility was so poor we couldn’t see the mountains until we were in them; their jagged peaks tearing the sky above us. The dark, poisonous ash fell in heavy clumps, sticking and burning holes in our clothes. We had to help each other put out fires frequently, holding our masks tightly against our faces. Even with elixir, our progress was slow.
“Why put a compound here?” Trevor asked. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
I frowned at him, gesturing vaguely.
“We must be getting close. The ash is getting worse right? If we passed the source already, it would be getting lighter again. So, we must be getting closer.”
“But what are we even looking for again?”
“I don’t know. The opposite of a purification engine. We’ll know when we see it. Let’s just find Skormhead first, we should be close. Maybe someone there will know what we’re looking for.”
With our faces covered, we had to shout to hear each other. And even with the mask, I could feel the poisonous air deep in my lungs, burning me from the inside out. The foul smell accosted my nose and each step was a battle.
We’d used half of our elixir already, which meant, if we didn’t find something soon, we wouldn’t have enough to make it home safely.
In the end, we didn’t see Skormhead until the gates loomed over us, a dark scar on the landscape, at the roots of the jagged black mountains. A smooth, rock wall, taller and more rigid than the one surrounding the citadel, stretched between two steep cliffs framing a narrow ravine.
The settlement crawled upwards like giant stairs, a multi-leveled city built into the rocks. Massive statues guarded the entrance, armored elite with shields and raised swords. I wondered if they knew what they were guarding.
The air seemed to roar and we were blasted by heat, before I realized it must be the purification engines within, creating a bubble of breathable air inside the compound, but also a wall of burning projectiles that stung us like murderous hornets.
As we got closer, the statues towered above us, the round heel of their boots stomping through the concrete barrier like they’d been carved from one piece of rock. Their helmeted faces were stern; t
heir eyes covered. I couldn’t tell if they were beckoning us to shelter or warning us to stay away.
“Stay back,” Trevor said, pulling us down behind a sharp ridge in the desolate landscape. “They’ll have spotters on the walls.”
I scanned the compound, which looked more like a military outpost than a human settlement. Narrow ledges cut into the earth were linked with steep staircases carving zig-zag patterns up the face of the rocky mountain, and through the ash I could see great blooming trees and statues of onyx and gold. It was like an oasis in the middle of hell, garish and ostentatious.
“Look,” I said, pointing up at the top of the city, barely visible through the ash. Above the rigid, blocky houses leaning haphazardly out from the rock, a structure of glass and steel jutted forward proudly.
And on top of everything else, a tall circular door cut into the side of the mountain. Even from this distance it dwarfed the buildings beneath it.
“How do you know what’s in there?” Luke asked. “It could be anything.”
“But the ash is thick here, right? It seems to be coming straight out of the top of that mountain.”
“Why build a compound here, this close? If it’s meant to be this massive secret? I mean, wouldn’t the compound notice, and know the truth?”
“We don’t know what King Richard’s been telling them,” Jazmine said. “Maybe they have their own myths here. Maybe they tell people what they need to know.”
“Did any of the other compounds have a giant, ominous steel door built into the side of the mountain?” I asked. “Maybe Richard keeps a military presence here to defend his big weakness, maybe it’s all engineers and mechanics. They might not all know what’s really going on here, they probably never leave the compound. From inside, would you even know which way the ash was blowing if you never saw it yourself?”
“I’ll bet Richard keeps them fed and comfortable, and they don’t ask questions,” I said. “They just breed and pay their blood tax and live in blissful ignorance. I mean, look at that place, it’s practically a palace. Maybe this is where his guards go to retire after years of service. All I know is, if there’s a machine brewing ash, it would be here, and probably that’s the way in.”
“Okay fine,” Trevor said, “but it’s not like they’re going to let us in like in the other compounds. I’ll bet they don’t get many traders or random strangers rolling into town. They probably shoot trespassers on sight.”
I frowned, staring up at the sleek wall of massive stones, too smooth for even a toehold. Even full of elixir I wouldn’t be able to jump it, and if I did, there would no doubt be dozens of guards waiting inside.
But I couldn’t just give up, and going back wasn’t an option now that we were this close. My eyes scanned the surrounding rocks, squinting into the flaming ash.
“What about that?” I asked, pointing to the rocks to the side of the city.
“What?” Luke asked.
“I see it,” Camina nodded grimly.
High above the town, spanning a fissure in the rock face, was a feeble-looking bridge of wooden planks and wire.
“If there’s a way to cross, that must mean there’s a path.”
“It’s just solid rock,” Trevor said, scanning the cliffs.
“There must be a trail. Maybe it’s an old service road from when they were building this place. It’s probably not even used any more.”
“But how can we reach it?”
“The elixir will help. Keep your masks tight.”
I pulled out the vials Damien had given me, frowning at the half-empty vial. “We had two drops earlier. Two more drops now should be enough?”
“Four drops still isn’t that much,” Camina said. “Not if we have to fight.”
“Then let’s try to stay quiet.”
“Just two or three of us should go,” Jazmine said. “Use more elixir, and see what’s up there. It would be safer.”
“I’m not letting you go up there alone,” Trevor said.
“Fine by me,” Luke shrugged. “I’m not too keen on heights anyway, or falling to my death.”
“How about getting skewered by a dozen arrows?” Jazmine said. “They probably have guards sweep the area every few hours. Good luck fighting them off without us.”
“We should all go,” I said. “You’re overthinking it. Maybe the climb isn’t even that bad. It couldn’t be too hard or nobody would use it.”
28
Twenty minutes later, I was dangling from the cliff face with sweat dripping down my brow.
“Not that hard, huh?” Trevor grumbled from behind me.
After sweeping the edge of the mountains, we found a scalable portion of large boulders. Blackened roots twisted into sharp brambles, that would have drawn blood if we weren’t already covered up in dark clothing. I tucked my scarf into my jacket so it wouldn’t get in the way as I hauled myself up the rocks.
Once we were up high enough, we stumbled onto a narrow path that wove between the jagged cliffs and around the great pillars of stone. Where the path got too steep, narrow planks of wood had been secured to the wall, along with ropes to hold on to as we inched our way across the narrow incline.
Every time we seemed to face a dead-end, there would be a hidden staircase or hard to see handholds just out of reach, cut into the wall. It was almost fun at first, but after a few hours, my muscles were shaking and I was out of breath. I began feeling nauseated and dizzy because of the toxic ash. The elixir was keeping me moving, but my muscles and lungs ached for oxygen, and there wasn’t enough in the harsh environment.
I wanted to tear off my scarf and choke down air, but I knew breathing in this much ash could be fatal. Camina gave me a hand up to a narrow ledge and then made room for the others. I pulled out my canteen, which was nearly empty, and dripped water down my parched throat.
From this vantage point, we could see into the heart of the city down below us. It was a vision of white marble and gold statues, with sleek glass and gray buildings and storied apartment buildings that formed a moon shape before the gate, almost like a shield. In between the buildings were lush gardens and fountains, and a commercial district marked by outdoor stalls. People moved like ants. Rather than the colorful blues of Crollust or pink and teal of Algrave, these people were in gray and black. A few older women wore purple dresses and coats of black fur, despite the heat. It was blistering out here in the open, but perhaps the fountains kept the temperature down in the compound.
Further up, the compound rose into a near vertical city, carved into the rocks, connected with tight steps, long ladders and an electronic cable car system.
Most of the men carried some form of armor and many wore swords or weapons. The actual guards were easier to spot, in full suits of armor, carrying large double-edged axes.
“They’re armed,” Luke said.
“No shit,” Jazmine sniped.
“No, look at their belts.”
I was surprised he could see so well from this distance, but squinting through the ash, I realized the dark shapes at their hips were pistols.
“I thought the elite didn’t allow guns in their compounds.”
“They don’t,” I said. “At least not in Algrave.”
“There were guns in Iklebot,” Camina offered. “The men rarely needed them, despite the harsh conditions. It was looked on as a weakness to use them in battle, but they were there for our protection. And... many of the guards carried them on patrols, for the slagpaw.”
“To shoot them?” Trevor asked.
“No. If the slagpaw took you, a pistol would do little good. It was so that you wouldn’t die a slow, painful death having a giant canine feast on your intestines. The bullet was for themselves.”
“Thanks for that mental image,” Jazmine said, sticking out her tongue.
“I promise,” Trevor smirked, “if I ever lose control, I’ll eat you quickly.” Jazmine punched him on the arm and strutted around
the corner.
“Uh, guys?” she said, turning back, her dark eyes wide.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“You know that bridge we saw earlier? Bridge might have been a bit of a stretch.”
I peered over her shoulder, looking into the deep ravine. It was much bigger than it had seemed from a distance, probably a hundred feet across and several hundred feet down straight down.
A thin wire bridge stretched the gap. At one time, it had been lined with wooden planks to form a path, but most of the boards were broken or charred, and halfway across they gave way completely, leaving only a thin string of wire.
“I mean, it’s not that bad,” I said. “We faced worse in the trials, right?”
“Um, excuse, me,” Luke said raising a hand, his voice muffled from the thick scarf and mask.
“Not all of us were chosen and trained to live with elite. Not all of us fought for our lives in Lord Richard’s human games or whatever they were. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? I mean, that wire probably won’t even hold us.”
“I’ll go first,” Jazmine said, stepping forward.
I was the only one still wearing a bracelet, the one April made for me. I was down to 2.3 percent, which was better than nothing. However, even though I knew I was faster and stronger right now than I was normally, I still had less elixir than was coursing through my veins twenty minutes ago, and my body seemed to be burning through it faster due to the ash; to keep the poison from destroying into my lungs.
Normally, at two percent, after what we’d done in the trials, this shouldn’t seem all that terrifying. But with the gusts of wind, the noxious gas and smell in the air, the heavy flaming embers that fell like tiny comets around us, a tingling dread spread through me.
I watched Jazmine walk carefully across the wooden planks. A few wobbled and the bridge bounced dizzily as she stepped across it. When she met the wires, she turned sideways and shimmied across the cables until she’d reached the other side. Luckily she hadn’t tried anything flashy this time.