A World of Ash: The Territory 3 (21 page)

Lynn pushed herself to her knees among the shattered wood of the tower. Her right shoulder ached and her arm hung oddly at her side. When she tried to move it, it responded with a ripping jolt of pain that caused her to call out reflexively. She grabbed at the arm, holding it up and taking the weight to relieve at least some of the pain. Lynn knew her shoulder was dislocated, but other than that she seemed to have mostly superficial injuries, just cuts and scrapes. Despite the pain she was partly relieved it was her right arm that had been smashed out of joint. Her fingers on that hand were already broken and had proved themselves mostly useless anyway.

Lynn looked around for Knox. He was lying face down, unmoving. Her first concern was that maybe he was dead, but as he coughed and groaned she felt a rush of relief that this wasn’t the case. He didn’t look well, though. She sometimes forgot that he was an old man, and it was unlikely his body would cope well with a fall like the one they had just experienced.

Around them the people of the slums were fighting the ghouls. The sights, sounds, and smells of battle overtook her senses. It was so much like being back on that open red plain outside Dust, though here the screams of men and ghouls both seemed more intense, more emotive. The ghouls stuttered forward, scratching and biting and leaping at the slum-dwellers. The shouts from the people were more fearful, angrier, more unsure. Dust from the ground and from the disintegrating bodies of ghouls filled her nose and coated her tongue. Everything was amplified. It was as if the Battle of Dust had been nothing but a dress rehearsal for the fight that was happening now, but the people around Lynn could not fight like Diggers, and maybe she had been unfair in thinking they could ever have held the ghouls at bay.

As Lynn stumbled to her feet, a decayed, noseless face of broken skin and exposed bone snapped around to look in her direction. What was left of the ghoul’s bottom jaw opened impossibly wide. It hissed red-gray dust from inside its dead body.

“Knox!” Lynn grabbed her sword with her left hand as she stood, grimacing at the pain from her other shoulder as she released her hold on her right arm. “Knox! We need to move!”

A moan came from the Chief Minister. Lynn moved to where he lay, keeping an eye on the faceless ghoul as it was attacked by a slum-dweller. She struggled to move Knox onto his back, and was forced to drop her sword to get a better grip on the man. She roared as she pulled. Digging deep into what strength she had, she managed to turn Knox over. What she saw made her breath catch and the world drop out from beneath her.

Knox’s bloodied hands clutched a jagged piece of wood that had speared him through the abdomen just below the rib cage. Blood spluttered from his mouth as he coughed. He was plucking at the shard, trying to remove it from his body.

“Don’t,” Lynn said. “Don’t pull it out.”

As soon as she saw the injury she knew he wasn’t going to make it. It would have been touch and go in the best of circumstances but here, in the middle of battle, it was hopeless. Not that long ago she had considered Knox Soilwork an enemy. She had believed he was one of the people who had plotted to kill her father, and who had sent her and Squid into the world to die. In her eyes he had represented everything that was wrong with this world. Now she knew he’d had nothing to do with her father’s death, and that he had sent Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes to protect them in their exile. She knew that he wanted to save the people of the slums. In fact, during their time together she had come to think of him as a friend and ally, and now he was yet another person who was going to die beside her. Lynn felt a surge of overwhelming rage. Why was this blistering world so full of dust and death? All around her people were fighting for survival in a world that was too harsh in every way, a world that took everything and gave nothing.

With a grunt and a blood-spraying cough Knox gave up on trying to remove the wood from his stomach. Lynn looked at the ghouls who now came stuttering toward her. She picked up her sword and stood ready in front of Knox. She would do her best to protect them both despite knowing she was far less capable at fighting with her left hand and the constant stabs on pain from her right shoulder.

“Just go,” Knox said, a breathy whisper. “I’m not going to make it.” Lynn looked back to see him raise a finger. He pointed into the air and Lynn saw the dirigible floating almost directly over them now, its shape turning dark as it covered the sun. “You need to survive until they get here. Go.”

She wished she could talk to whoever was in that dirigible. If it really was Squid up there then now would be an excellent moment to do whatever he was going to do. And, as if in answer to her unspoken request, from over the sides of the silhouetted dirigible came a flood of what she thought were birds. Fifty of the things, maybe more, were flocking out from the airship as if an enormous aviary had been opened and the birds were escaping in all directions. At first she thought she was seeing things, hallucinating because of the heat, exhaustion, and fear, but as they spread out she saw that yes, they were indeed birds, metal birds. They flapped silver wings that shone in the sun, and dove and weaved away in all directions.

Lynn allowed herself a moment to marvel at and wonder about the majestic flying machines before she returned her focus to Knox. She didn’t want to leave him. It tore her up to do so, but she knew it was the only smart option. She could fight to protect him but either way, whether it was because of his injury or because of the ghouls, he was going to die, and if she was stupid she would die too. She didn’t want to die, and if that dirigible above really carried Squid and Nim then she didn’t want to die before she saw them again. They were the only family she had left.

“I’m sorry, Knox,” she said as she made to leave.

“Lynn.” His voice was even weaker now. He didn’t have long left. “He … He wouldn’t have … betrayed us. The Administrator. I don’t think … know … he …” Knox stopped speaking and stared blankly up at the sky, and Lynn knew he wouldn’t speak again. She
did
believe the Administrator had been the one who had betrayed them and left them stranded out in the slums, unable to bring the Outsiders in through the Wall and with no choice but to fight the horde alongside them, but she really had no proof of that, and she had been wrong about him before. But more than anything she was sorry that Knox had died believing the man he had treated like a son and stood beside since he was eight years old may have turned on him. She hoped she was wrong about the Administrator. Not that Knox would ever learn the truth now. It was better this way, though; better that he’d died before the hands and teeth of the ghouls who were encircling them reached him.

Lynn knew there was no time for sentiment. She would reflect on all those she had lost if she survived this. Right now she had to focus on staying alive. The ghouls who’d been scattered by the collapsing tower were now moving toward her with increased speed. She knew her only chance was to fight her way back among the slum-dwellers and join the fight there. They had to stand together. She had seen first-hand at the Battle of Dust that if you were surrounded by ghouls and cut off from those you fought with, the chance of living longer than a few minutes was close to zero.

Several ghouls were coming at her. The first of them was a bent-backed old crone whose limbs were so thin and decayed that Lynn had no idea how she, or it, had managed to keep up with the rest of the horde. The ghoul lunged at her. Lynn slashed at it with her sword. Despite using her left arm her aim was true and her blade sliced through the side of the creature’s neck. The skin split open and the dry spine snapped. The ghoul’s head dropped over to the side, hanging on by strands of tendon, but it was enough to make the monster fall.

Lynn met the next ghoul in its loping stride toward her. This one was taller, a ghoul that had been a young man when he turned, and not just any young man – Lynn saw by the faded uniform he wore that he’d been a Digger. She knew that many hundreds of the ghouls would be Diggers turned at the Battle of Dust, but it still gave her a momentary pause and feeling of guilt as she swung the sword again. Her left-handed aim was not as true this time, though. She connected just as the ghoul was opening its mouth in a hissing screech, so instead of taking off its head her blade cut through both sides of its face, the brittle bones shattering as its jaw fell free. The undead monstrosity seemed stunned long enough for her to bring her sword back the other way, and this time she found its neck.

Another ghoul came toward her from the side, part-lunge and part-stumble. She kicked out with her right leg and the sole of her heavy right boot landed across its face. The ghoul’s rotten skull collapsed inwards and it dropped to the ground, legs and arms flailing in its impossible strobe-like motion like a broken clockwork child trying to make a sand angel face down in the dirt.

Lynn tried to weave her way back toward the army of the slums but each time she felled a ghoul or managed to dodge a grasping hand another took its place. Ghouls began to encircle her. She spun around, defending herself as well as she could. Her right arm roared in pain with every movement. Sweat poured from her, sticking her black uniform to her back and turning dust to paste on her forehead. It dripped into her eyes and stung. She wasn’t far from the front line. She knew that even there among her fellow humans she wouldn’t be safe; she would still face the same brutal fight for survival, but she would feel more comfortable than she did now exposed on all sides.

She slashed and hacked, but it was not enough. One ghoul, left legless by someone, had crawled in close while she had been fighting off several others. She felt its dry, crusty fingers close around her leg, up above her ankle. It had managed to slip its hand up her trouser leg, and where its skin touched her own she felt a sensation something like burning as her skin stiffened and dried, the sweat and moisture leeching straight into the ghoul’s thirsty body. As Lynn frantically tried to free her leg from the ghoul’s grasp, it grabbed her other leg and dragged it as well, with much more strength than Lynn was expecting, and her legs were pulled out from under her.

Lynn slammed into the ground, landing hard on her back, the air forced from her lungs and sudden pain flaring in her injured shoulder. It was enough pain that, even lying down, she suddenly thought she might faint. Winded, she gasped as she tried to fill her shocked lungs while simultaneously grabbing at where her sword had landed. With two slicing blows she cut both the ghoul’s hands off, ignoring the one that stayed clasped around her lower leg like a prisoner’s manacle.

She tried to scramble away from several decaying monsters which were reaching for her feet but she sensed, then heard, that there were more moving in behind her. She tried to regain her footing but with her dislocated shoulder she wasn’t as fast as she needed to be, and one of the ghouls grabbed her shoulders from behind and pulled her back down.

The ghoul’s long hair, stuck together in thick tangles of blood and dust, and smelling of years-old grime, dangled across Lynn’s face as it leaned over her. The creature was a woman, or had been, but her face was almost unrecognizable now. Even if she hadn’t been upside down it would still have required a double-take to realize she had once been a living, breathing human. Her nose and the skin from there down was missing, leaving nothing but yellowed bone and a blackened tongue. Her eyes bulged from deeply sunken sockets and were so dry and wrinkled they looked like old prunes. Flakes of dried bone and skin floated off the creature’s face to settle on Lynn’s. Lynn spluttered as she tried to stop the disintegrating flesh from entering her mouth.

She lashed out and hit the ghoul with the butt of her sword as hard as she could. She connected with where its nose should have been, snapping its head back. Above her Lynn saw the silvery birds swoop low. They all seemed to be spraying something from their metal bodies, misty droplets of liquid that slowly floated down across the ghouls and the people of the slums alike. A desperate hope bloomed in Lynn’s chest. Was this it? Would this kill the ghouls?

Lynn’s view was again obstructed by the half-faced ghoul, which had recovered and clambered back over her. It looked even worse now. Lynn had smashed a dent in the front of its skull. She struck again and again, making the monster’s face cave in even as two other ghouls grabbed her legs. She kicked in a panic, her boot smashing one ghoul free, but she could not shake off the other. It bit down on her leg. She felt its fingers tighten, its nails press in, and as she looked down she saw its teeth cutting into her flesh. Warm red blood, her blood, flowed out from the corner of its dried mouth, and it looked very much like someone biting down on a juicy cob of corn. She felt removed from the truth of what was happening; disconnected from the fact that she was witnessing the moment of her own death.

She gave up. She had tried. She knew she couldn’t have done any more. All that remained was the hope the metal birds were the weapon they so desperately needed, and that they would destroy the ghouls. As she felt the drizzling rain on her face she watched it fall on and soak into the ghouls around her, too. But nothing happened. It did nothing to them. More ghouls covered her, pinning her to the ground, pushing their hands in toward her eyes and mouth, biting her, beginning to drink her.

Lynn felt despair flood in. She felt the moisture leaving her. She was doomed. She wanted to think of her father and her mother and Ms Apple, about how she hoped Squid and Nim would succeed at stopping the ghouls and save the people of the Territory even without her, but as a gray darkness crept in around the edges of her vision she couldn’t think of anything but the pain and terror of dying.

The Administrator stood on the ramparts of the Wall a short distance from the hole the slum-dwellers had blown in it. Even after that had happened the High Priestess had still demanded he attend her as she watched the purification of the world take place. He looked over at the woman, and what he saw terrified him even more than the thousands and thousands of stuttering monsters who were devouring their way through the slums. Her eyes were wild with mad glee. She was relishing this, relishing the ghouls feasting on the people who lived outside the Wall. Perhaps what Lynnette had said was true. He had never done enough for the Outsiders during his time as Administrator, but the idea of looking down on them with joyful fanaticism as they were killed and turned into ghouls disgusted him.

The Administrator realized then that all the time he had been competing with the High Priestess, wrestling with her for control of the Central Territory, he had been destined to lose. How could he not lose against someone as insanely cruel as this? Certainly the Administrator had made some harsh decisions in his time. He had made some unpopular decisions, and some bad ones. He had done things that had turned some of his people against him. But he had never been like this. She had managed to cover it for a long time with her prim and proper stature, her white dress, and her tightly bound hair, yet beneath that religious façade she was mad.

“How long do you think the Holy Order can hold them back from that hole in the Wall?” the Administrator asked. “Eventually they will make it in and the city will fall.”

“God will protect the pure,” she said, without turning away from the battle below. “He is our Wall now.”

“What about the prophecy?” the Administrator said. “The end of the Reckoning will come with great cost. The city of Alice will be destroyed. Don’t you think that’s what is happening?”

High Priestess Patricia finally turned to look at the Administrator, her gray eyes boring into him. “I didn’t think you believed in prophecy.”

“Maybe I don’t, but you do. What if this is not just the purification of those you think are impure but the end of the Reckoning entirely?”

The High Priestess said nothing. She turned her face back to the scene in front of them. The sounds of ghouls screeching and humans screaming floated up with the dust from below, but the Administrator followed her gaze out across the battlefield to where it settled on the large dirigible that had been approaching just beyond the horde. It had slowed as it flew over the slums, dropping in altitude. Now the dirigible seemed to have released what looked like birds. The crew on the deck were throwing the birds one after the other, and now dozens of them were flying out in all directions, swooping down toward the people of the slums.

The dirigible had been identified a long way out by a clergyman on watch as a Holy Order dirigible, but according to the High Priestess’s orders there were to be no more flights in or out of Alice until the slums had been destroyed and the impure wiped from existence. No one could provide an answer as to who was flying the airship, or why it was approaching the city. The Administrator had his suspicions, though the High Priestess had assured him repeatedly that it was not possible, that the child was locked in a place far from here.

As they spiraled down, darting around each other, the birds made a kind of formation. They organized themselves so that they flew out in a star shape, covering the whole area below them, and as they flattened out from their descent they began to spray a kind of mist, droplets that would cover everything below them.

“If Squid Blanchflower is on board that dirigible, then could the prophecy not be coming true right now?” the Administrator said.

The High Priestess whipped her head around to glare at him. “He is in the prison of Pitt!” Her voice was entirely pointed anger, not the poised, strategic tone she normally used. The person he had glimpsed on the rare occasions when she had let her stony guard down had broken free, and it seemed she had no intention of bothering to cage the beast again. “My Black Sisters have assured me he is being kept in the darkest cell in the lowest bowels of that place.”

“Pitt?” the Administrator asked. “What is that?”

But the High Priestess continued, ignoring his question. “I have done what you wanted, Harold, what you couldn’t do. I have disposed of your son. When the governing of Alice is returned to you he will not stand in the way of Bren’s rise to Administrator. But more importantly, he will not stand in the way of God’s Reckoning. No one will!”

A Holy Order clergyman hurried along the ramparts toward the High Priestess.

“Your Holiness!” he was calling even before he reached them. “Your Holiness, it’s him. It’s him!”

The clergyman held a telescope in his hand.

“What?!” Patricia said.

“It’s the boy, he’s on the deck of that dirigible!”

The High Priestess’s eyes went wide.

“Give me that.” The Administrator snatched the telescope from the clergyman’s grasp and raised it to his eye. Sure enough, standing on the deck of the dirigible was Squid Blanchflower, his illegitimate son, waving his arms, seemingly giving orders to those around him. There were men in a white uniform he didn’t recognize and also a woman in a black dress. There was something about her … He focused in on her and suddenly felt a rush of dizziness overcome him. It was Sister Constance. Connie. Squid’s mother, and the woman he had shared an adulterous relationship with. The woman he had, in truth, loved, but the woman Knox had made him stop seeing because of the scandal it would cause, because she had been a Sister of the Church and had become pregnant. He had never told her that he loved her. He had never told her that he wished their relationship could have been so much more than it was. He had never had the chance to tell her many things before Knox had made her, and his son, vanish.

On the deck of the dirigible Squid moved forward. There were piles of the silver birds all along the outer edges of the deck, and each member of the crew, including Connie, stood beside them throwing them over the side. At the front of the airship Squid threw one off the bow. The Administrator dropped the telescope from his eye and watched the silver bird stretch out its wings and swoop down to spray droplets of liquid over the slums.

The Administrator didn’t need any explanation. He knew this was the vaccine. The vaccine the High Priestess would have stopped at nothing to prevent being released. Her reaction made it obvious that she understood this too.

“
No!
”