A World of Ash: The Territory 3 (22 page)

Just as Squid had asked, Sydney kept the dirigible flying beyond the slums, over the Wall and out across the city of Alice. Squid watched as the mechanical birds they’d released flew outward. They formed a star shape as they flew outward over the slums, and some of them had even doubled back when they’d reached the edge of the battlefield, as if to ensure that no area was left uncovered by vaccine. Squid was amazed. These birds were mechanical, he was sure of it, machines like any others, like bio-trucks or mechanical rifles, but they seemed to be able to think. They knew what their job was and they did it perfectly, ensuring not a single person was missed. Two or three of the first birds thrown had looped back over the airship, covering the crew with vaccine too. As they released more of the birds to fly over the city their behavior changed, adapting to the new environment. The birds swooped down much lower to the ground, and while the majority of them followed the lines of the streets, zigging and zagging around corners, others split off and flew through all the open windows and doors they could find, entering the buildings and presumably spraying the people inside.

Even as he watched the misty rain of vaccine fall across the people of Alice, over Insiders and Outsiders alike, it took Squid a long moment to realize he’d achieved his mission. They had done what they had set out to do when he and Lynn had left Alice what seemed like so long ago. No matter what happened now, the people of the Central Territory could not be turned into ghouls and the ghouls, who would not give up on their overwhelming thirst, would bite and they would die. Eventually all of them would die.

Squid dropped to his knees on the deck of the dirigible. The wood beneath him glistened, still wet with spray from the birds, and his body began to shudder. He let his head hang as his shoulders heaved with body-shaking sobs. Unable to hold them back any more than he could stop his heart from beating, tears began sliding down his cheeks, leaving silvery tracks through the dirt and sweat on his face. Was he laughing or crying? He didn’t even know. Both, he supposed. Or neither. A crushing weight had been lifted from him, and that had pulled loose whatever plug had been holding back his emotions. Now, he was free.

“Squid?”

Squid turned his head sideways to see his mother crouching beside him. She placed her hand gently on his back and Squid turned his body and let her embrace him. His sobs continued unrestrained. No one had ever held him like that, certainly not his uncle and aunt, but it didn’t feel unnatural to let her do it. He knew the others would be watching, those he was supposedly leading. Right then, he didn’t care. He knelt and cried in his mother’s arms.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I know you’re exhausted. It’s okay.”

After a moment he calmed. At first he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to look up and see the others watching him.

“Sorry,” he said to his mother, and then louder to everyone else as he stood, “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry, lad,” Ernest said, putting his hand on Squid’s shoulder and squeezing. “You’ve done more than should ever be asked of anyone.”

Ernest turned to the men from Reach, who still stood along the sides of the dirigible. “Get the rest of those birds over the sides. We might as well ensure we don’t waste any.”

As the men followed Ernest’s order, Nim approached Squid. He put his arm around Squid’s shoulders and leaned in close to speak to him.

“No one thinks worse of you for that,” Nim said. “I know that’s what you’re worried about, but they don’t.”

“How do you know?” Squid said, unable to shake the embarrassment he felt at completely breaking down.

“Because I was watching them,” Nim said. “Trust me. What I saw on their faces was concern, not pity. You have won these people over. Just like you won Lynn over, and you won me over, and you won over the prisoners of Pitt. They will follow you still, maybe even more so now.”

Squid looked at his friend. “We aren’t finished, are we?”

Nim shook his head. “Probably not yet, Storm Man, but we’re close.”

Squid knew what was still left to do. The people in the slums had begun to cheer as the birds had spread out above them. Those in the city had tried to run, unsure what was happening. But Squid knew that even if the people below had expected salvation to come from the sky, even if they suspected that what had been dropped on them was the fabled weapon against the ghouls, they were likely expecting the falling rain to destroy the ghouls, just as he and Nim had. Squid needed to show the people how to defeat the ghouls, and then they could finish this where it mattered: they would find the High Priestess and stop her once and for all.

“Sydney,” he called back to the bridge of the dirigible.

“Aye,” came the reply.

“Please take us back out over the battle.”

“Aye.”

“And bring us in low enough that I can jump.”

“Belay that order,” Ernest said immediately after Squid had spoken.

“Ernest—” Squid started to protest, but Ernest raised his hand and called to Sydney again.

“Don’t fly us in low, put us down on top of them. You don’t go alone, Squid. We all fight with you.”

Squid nodded, feeling his cheeks redden with pride. Sydney didn’t need further instruction. Squid felt the breeze push harder against his face as the speed of the dirigible increased. As they passed back over the Wall the dirigible began descending toward the slums. Looking down at it now, full of the people of the Central Territory fighting to keep back the creatures that had destroyed the entire world, it reminded Squid of the colosseum. And just as the prisoners of Pitt had fought for their freedom there, so too were the people in this colosseum fighting for their freedom here. Squid had jumped down into that arena and showed them that he and Nim could destroy the ghouls. Now he would do the same for the slums.

“It might sound like the last thing you want to do,” Squid said to those on the deck of the dirigible, “but when we get down there we’re going to make our way to the front of the fight.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, lad,” Ernest said.

“I know,” Squid said, “but I want you to let the ghouls bite you. Let as many people down there as you can see the ghouls bite you.”

There was silence from the patrolmen, as if everyone was unsure they had heard Squid correctly.

“Now that you’ve been exposed to the vaccine,” Squid continued, “you won’t turn, and as soon as they bite you, the vaccine in your blood will kill them. That’s the way the weapon against the ghouls works – it must be transferred from your bodies to theirs.”

“Makes them explode,” Nim said.

“Explode?” Ernest asked, his confused tone obvious.

Squid looked at Nim and saw the enormous smile on the Nomad boy’s face. He couldn’t help but smile back at his friend. “Yep,” Squid said. “Makes them explode.”

The dirigible came down hard near the center of the slums, and startled people scattered out of the way as Sydney executed a less than graceful landing.

“Sorry ’bout that,” he called from the bridge as Squid and the rest of those aboard righted themselves from where they’d been knocked off-balance. “This thing’s a bit heavier than the airships back in Reach.”

Two of the men dropped the wooden gangplank over the side and Squid hurried down, followed closely by Nim, his mother, Ernest, and the men from Reach. In all the furious chaos of the battle and with the landing of the dirigible the people of the slums watched in wordless confusion, parting before Squid as though he were an angel descended from on high. Either that or they thought he was a crazy person, since he was now charging toward the front line of the fight.

“Move!” Squid was calling as they weaved through the army around them. As they approached the main line of fighting, people were, understandably, less concerned with the airship that had landed behind them and more focused on the bloodthirsty monsters bearing down on them.

As he made his way forward, the smell of blood and dry rot, the sound of men and ghouls shouting, hissing, screeching, and moaning, and even the ashy taste of disintegrating ghouls all took Squid back to the Battle of Dust. That battle had terrified Squid. It had left him traumatized. So many nights he had dreamed of it, and of coming face to face with his disfigured and partly decomposed uncle. He had forced himself to go willingly into that battle, motivated by the knowledge that Lynn – Max as he’d known her then – had needed him. He had dived into a pack of ghouls to recover his key, but that had been instinct rather than bravery. Thinking of his key drew Squid’s hand to his neck and he realized he couldn’t remember doing this in a long time.

He wasn’t the terrified boy he’d once been. His key had made him feel safe, but he didn’t need it anymore. The ghouls could no longer hurt him, but that was only part of it. He felt excited to fight now. He felt eager to bring this to an end. He wanted to charge into the madness of the fight. A small part of him warned that maybe feeling like he wanted to slash the heads off ghouls and let them bite him so they would explode into ashen dust was a feeling he should be wary of, but for now he would embrace it.

He let out a roar, a war cry like the Diggers had done when they’d charged into battle, a guttural, mindless, primal wail. The men from Reach, Nim, and even his mother joined the cry. Squid saw the ghouls ahead, the army of the slums fending them off with whatever weapons they had. Pale gray ash floated in the air and he saw one of the ghouls stumble back from a victim it had bitten in sporadic stutter-step before it burst, momentarily leaving a blurred shape of itself in ash before the particles floated away. The vaccine had worked. Maybe some of the Outsiders had realized what was happening, but Squid needed everyone who fought the ghouls to know.

In front of him Squid saw a young woman fighting with a ghoul. She was swinging a wooden staff, maybe an old broom handle. A long-bladed knife was strapped to the end with wrappings of fabric. Her dark hair flicked about her head as she turned her body to slice the knife through the neck of the ghoul she was fighting. Her brown skin, tattooed with lines of white as Nim’s was, shone with sweat. Squid looked back to see Nim watching her. He seemed surprised that others of his people were here to fight the ghouls.

Squid continued past the Nomad girl, past the final line of humans and out into the wilderness of crazed ghouls. There were bodies on the ground, both headless ghouls and humans who had been bitten and were still in the process of changing. Some of the ghouls around him moved fast, freshly fed or freshly turned. How many of those who’d stood against the ghouls had died and turned before they’d released the vaccine? How many had they been too late to save? Squid felt a pang of anguish, but knew there would be time to mourn them later. Right now, the ghouls were jerking their heads to look at him, tilting them at varying angles, their dead eyes fixed on this water source that had come charging among them.

“Let them bite you!” Squid shouted, pulling up his sleeves and holding his arms outstretched. He spun to face the people who fought, knowing the ghouls would be coming from behind him. “The mist that came from the birds has made you all into a weapon against the ghouls.” Nim moved to stand beside Squid and did the same, his arms out wide, ready to be bitten.

Those in the throes of battle were too focused on the fight to pay Squid and Nim any attention, but the faces behind them stared at Squid in confusion. Their thoughts were obvious. Who was this boy? Was he crazy, simply allowing himself to be bitten by ghouls? Had the stress of battle caused him to lose his mind?

As the faster ghouls reached him Squid was knocked to the ground. One ghoul, all jerking limbs and whipping hair, bit him instantly. But moments later the creature was floating away as ash on the air. Squid looked up to see several ghouls bite down on Nim’s inviting arms. The grimace on Nim’s face spoke of his discomfort. Being bitten was still painful, but the ghouls immediately yanked away, screeching, and burst into dust.

Squid watched the expressions of the Reach patrolmen behind him turn from incredulity to determination. It was only natural they would have felt hesitant – being willingly bitten by a ghoul must have seemed as inviting as forcing yourself to jump off a cliff – but now they charged in after Nim and Squid. They swung their swords through the necks of ghouls or took their heads off with blasts of their shotguns, but their faces showed no fear. The first of the men from Reach to be bitten was Ernest. He had beheaded two ghouls before switching to his sword and dispatching two more. But more managed to get in close to him. He turned to look at Squid and nodded as the ghoul bit down on his neck.

At first nothing happened, and Ernest’s face drained pale and his features twisted in pain and concern. He was frightened, and for a horrible moment Squid worried that Ernest’s trust in him had been misplaced, that the vaccine really hadn’t worked for some reason, that he had allowed his friend to be killed. But just as it had taken time for the vaccine to have an effect on Squid and Nim, it was several agonizing seconds before the ghoul tore its face away from Ernest and howled as it disintegrated. Ernest grimaced and felt at his neck, but when he looked at Squid he smiled. Squid felt relief course through him.

Seeing their leader bitten and unchanged, the rest of the Reach Border Patrol let go of the last of their inhibitions and charged into the fray with reckless abandon. They decapitated some of the ghouls and let those who got close enough bite them. The men fought viciously and ghouls began dying and exploding into ash all around them.

“Let them bite!”

The shout came from somewhere behind Squid, from somewhere among the Outsiders.

“Let them bite you!”

“It kills them!”

The word was passed on until the cries filled the air. Squid, still on the ground and unable to get up as ghouls repeatedly fell on him, bit down, and then burst into ash, watched as Outsiders thundered past him. His heart leaped in his chest. They were now completely on the offensive. Everywhere ghouls were being beheaded or destroyed, poisoned by the vaccine flowing through the bodies of every human in the slums. The Outsiders roared as Squid had, releasing their fury at the enemy. They attacked as only those who no longer feared death could, because they now knew that the monsters of their nightmares could no longer harm them. The creatures they had all feared since childhood, that their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had feared their entire lives, held no sway over their hearts and minds now.

Even Squid was amazed by how quickly the front line of ghouls was pushed back. Each fighter hacked them down and sustained multiple bites. As the vaccine took greater hold inside their bodies the ghouls, as they had with Squid and Nim, seemed to burst at the merest touch, at the slightest intake of moisture.

Squid pushed himself up and stood watching the scene unfold before him. People who hadn’t been part of the fighting yet pushed to get to the battle, clearly wanting to be part of their enemy’s destruction. Perhaps they wanted to be able to tell their children and their grandchildren that they had been bitten by a ghoul in that final battle, and had watched it explode. Nim stood on one side of Squid, his mother on the other. Both had taken bites on their arms and Sister Constance even had red, teeth-shaped punctures on the side of one cheek. But they seemed unconcerned about their injuries. The three of them stood side by side and watched. Nim rested his arm along the top of Squid’s shoulders.

“Nice work, Storm Man.”

People continued to move past them, the young and old of the slums and everyone in between, as if they were a mammoth rock that had been set rolling and had begun to gain momentum. Soon Squid could hardly see the ghouls for the gray fog that enveloped the scene. The slums were clouded with disintegrating ghoul. It floated in the air; it clung to their clothes and hair; it settled on the ground. It was everywhere. The whole world had become a world of ash.