Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series (24 page)

Decide: run, or go for the whip? The whip. I lunge to my left and grab the coil, rolling into the crevice in the rock and popping up to my feet. Now run. As I plant my foot on the boulder to launch myself away into the trees, a heavy weight thumps down on my shoulders. It crushes me to the ground, knocking out my breath.

A man has flung himself down on me from above, big and soft. His weight presses me into the dirt, and it takes all my strength to keep my ribs from cracking. I groan with the effort. The pain is unbearable. But I suppose it will be over in a moment. I was stupid to let go of Patrick.

Blackness swims around my brain, and I can’t move. Sounds come and go as I fight for air.

But the end doesn’t come. The weight eases and lifts. Breath returns, blackness recedes, and I can hear.

“Don’t hurt her!” Patrick’s voice again, I’m sure of it.

“She was going to—”

“No, she wasn’t. Listen, she’s exactly what we need.”

What they need?

“I don’t know, Pat…”

“Come on, help me.”

Hands grasp my arms and shoulders, lifting me out of the dirt. My ribs and back may be broken, they hurt so bad. I open my eyes and see colors as if from the bottom of a deep pond. I try to stand, and the hands release me, but only for a moment. I wobble, and they prop me up again.

“Grab her whip, and her knife. She’ll need them.”

I hobble along guided by Patrick’s strong, lean arm. My left leg doesn’t seem to work right, but after a few minutes heading downhill through the thick underbrush, I push him away and walk on my own. I try not to limp.

Another five minutes, and the pain in my ribs has subsided to a dull ache. “My whip,” I say, and I hold my hand out to Patrick as we walk. He slaps it into my palm, and I squeeze it as I concentrate on making each step as perfect as the next, looking strong.

“Where are we going?”

Patrick smiles and replies, “I think we’re about to walk off a cliff.”

CHAPTER 19

“I know this place,” I say as I follow Patrick through a curtain of thick ivy into a small area walled by ivy-draped stone. The blue sky above is graying with wispy autumn clouds and fading sunlight.

“You do?” Concern is tight in Patrick’s voice. “Is this a well known spot?”

“No,” I answer. “But it’s not as secret as you think.” I look at the ground, remembering the blackened patch of grassless dirt. It’s clear a fire was lit here not long ago, and the ashes have been stirred into the soil. “How long have you been hiding out here?”

“I wouldn’t call it hiding out,” he says with his hands on his hips. “We just need somewhere… private. To discuss things.”

“Okay, whatever,” I say. “How long?”

“Just yesterday. We went looking for all the people. We got hungry. Saw a deer. Sam shot at it, but his arrow missed and sailed right through the ivy. That’s how we found it.”

How long have I been away from Garrett? If they were here yesterday, they left in the night… I slept the night on the hilltop, then found them today… “Twelve, fourteen hours, I’d guess.” I didn’t mean to mumble it out loud.

“What?”

“Oh. Nothing really. Maybe fourteen hours since I came through here myself.” I keep thinking out loud. “Give them six or seven hours each way, another hour to gather the children…” I’d guess Garrett and Tom and the others might be along any time now. Unless I missed them already.

“Children?”

“Yes,” I say, not really thinking about it. “Susannah’s girls, and the other families.” But didn’t Patrick just say something about… “What did you say? A moment ago?”

“I asked why you were talking about gathering children.”

“No, the other thing. Before that.”

“I said… I don’t know. We saw a deer. The arrow—”

“No. Something about looking for all the people.”

“Right. We came out to look for all the people.”

“What people?” Is this guy an idiot, or what?

“What do you mean?”

“What people? What people were you looking for?”

“All of them. Everyone.”

I give him my best
go on, you idiot, your answers had better improve quick if you want to live much longer
look.

“You know where they are, don’t you.” He stares into my eyes, his blue gaze boring into me and making my heart race. “You don’t have to tell us,” he says after a moment, finishing with a dismissive wave. “We don’t really want to know. It was just an excuse to get out of camp.”

“What people,” I growl, “were you looking for?” Did they discover that some of us had escaped Sikwaa? Do they know of the tunnels?

Patrick and Sam exchange a perplexed look. “The people of Upper Tawtrukk. The village was deserted when we arrived.”

“What?” That doesn’t make any sense. Unless they were alerted somehow, days ago. Like I intended to alert them before Shem caused that cave-in.

“Everyone gone,” Patrick says. “Looked like they left in a hurry. Meals still on tables, carts and wagons empty in the streets, even doors left open and unlatched. A few dogs, chickens wandering around.”

“So… you didn’t kill them all?”

“Didn’t kill a one, actually.” He sets down his satchel against one of the ivy-covered rocks. “Sam, bring in some firewood, will you?” Patrick uses the side of his boot to swipe away old soot and smooth a spot for a new fire. “Probably the only really happy moment for me since we first arrived in Tawtrukk,” he says without looking up. Then he pauses, his boot stopping in mid-swipe, a cloud of dust swirling up from his toes. “No,” he says, looking up at me. “The first happy moment was when I saw you walk into that meadow. I could tell right away you weren’t there to give yourself up. And I’d been wanting to see you in person. We all wanted to see Forsada for ourselves.”

“Don’t call me that.”

His face darkens. “But the worst moment was when I saw the look in your eyes when Travis… when your friend—” He frowns at me. “What was his name?” He stares at me with deep pain in his eyes.

I whisper, “Shack.”

“Shack.” He nods to himself. “When Shack—”

“William,” I say. “His real name was William. William Shiver.”

Patrick nods again, distracted. His hands tense and relax at his sides. He continues slowly, “When your friend William Shiver was killed.” He looks into my eyes again. “The look in your eyes. That might have been the worst moment of my life,” he says.

I believe him.

It was certainly the worst moment of mine. I feel guilty thinking that. Shouldn’t my worst moment be watching my father get chopped down at the river? But watching Shack die, in that way, knowing he expected it, maybe even welcomed it… I lower myself to the ground to sit before my knees give out. Weakness spreads throughout me.

Patrick takes one quick step but stops. I sink against the granite wall directly opposite the hidden entrance to Subterra. I try to breathe deep, ache returning to my ribs.

Patrick crouches in front of me and asks softly, “When was the last time you ate something?”

As I shake my head—could have been a day, maybe two, I don’t know—he retreats and rummages in his satchel. He extracts a small hunk of cheese and an egg and hands them to me. I take them without thanking him, and his fingertips brush my palm as he places the things in my hand.

As he goes back to sweeping a smooth area with his boot, he speaks again. “So anyway, I figured if I volunteered to find the missing people, I could stall. Give them more time to get away. Travis was eager to hunt them down and finish them off.”

“This Travis,” I blurt through a mouthful of dry, tasteless cheese, “does he have a long, black braid?”

Patrick stops in mid-swipe again. “Yes.”

“Oh,” I say, and keep chewing the cheese. It sticks to my mouth and my teeth and fights against swallowing. “You don’t have to worry about him  anymore.”

“I don’t?”

“Do you have any water?” Patrick gives me his flask, and I take a long sip. The water is warm.

“Why don’t I have to worry about Travis?” Patrick asks after he’s given me some time to clean the glue-like cheese from my teeth.

“Because I killed him,” I say. Maybe I’ll try the egg. “This is hard boiled, right?”

“Yes. Sorry. You what?”

I crack the egg on my knee and roll it around as I peel off the shell. My stomach growls.

“I killed him. Stabbed him in the chest.” The shell peels off easy. “With this knife,” I add, nodding down to my side. “Him and a big, red-haired guy with a voice like he’d been eating this damned cheese. Mixed with pebbles.”

“Clem, too?”

“What about Clem?” Sam slips through the curtain of ivy with an armload of firewood. “Hey, that’s not my egg, is it?”

“No,” Patrick says. “I gave her mine. Don’t worry.”

“I killed him,” I say.

“What? Who?” Sam drops the firewood next to the smoothed dirt.

“Clem. And Travis, apparently,” I add as I pop the whole egg into my mouth. It’s cool and moist and fresh and wonderful. The best thing I’ve had to eat since… since the last time Susannah cooked for us all, which was the night before Shack was killed. I glance over at Sam. No. I don’t remember him being among the eight apes up front on that morning.

“Both of them?” He glances from me to Patrick to me to Patrick. We both nod. “Well, that there’s some good news, then.”

“Not entirely,” Patrick says.

“How’s that?”

“Everyone will think we did it.”

The two men look at each other for a long, serious moment, then Sam stacks the wood for a fire as we all sit in silence. As the afternoon overhead darkens to twilight, our snug glade sparkles and dances with the fire’s light.

Eventually, Patrick asks Sam, “Think the other two are okay?”

“Yeh. They’re fine. Should be here soon, I’m guessing.”

Only a few minutes later, heavy footsteps intrude on our quiet. “Patrick! Sam!” A man pushes through the ivy curtain with a deer over his shoulders. He has to stoop and turn sideways to get the animal through. Even so, its small antlers snag on the ivy, and it takes the other three men to untangle it. Once they’re settled, the dead deer placed in the corner away from the fire, they stand over the blaze and rub their hands together.

“Warm in here, thank God,” the fourth man says.

The third, the big one that carried the deer, has been eyeing me. Finally, he says, “Sorry I jumped you from the top of that rock. I thought, well… you know.”

My eyes go wide, “It was
you
that fell on me?”

“More like jumped,” he says.

“No wonder I still feel like an apple in a cider press,” I say, and the four men laugh.

How strange a feeling to be among these men and enjoy the sound of their laughter. Yesterday, if I’d met them in the woods, I’d have treated them like Travis and Clem.

The two who brought in the deer drag it back out through the ivy curtain, into the night to work on it for our dinner. Sam, Patrick, and I sit in silence. Sam pokes at the fire every once in a while, stirring the embers and sending a flock of sparks fluttering into the starry sky. Patrick sits across the way, mostly in darkness outside the fire’s light, his back leaning against the rock wall. I do the same, but opposite him and a little off to the side where the fire’s heat warms my face and fingers.

Smoke snakes skyward, and I worry that our fire’s light could draw Southshawans to our hiding place. Patrick stares at the fire a little too intensely. I think maybe he’s watching me in secret, and every time I glance up he looks to the fire. I kind of like that. As we listen to the snapping of the flames, I start to drift into a half sleep.

A tiny pebble falls from above and hits my shoulder, bouncing into my lap. Suddenly I’m wide awake.

I press back into the side of the boulder, but another pebble lands in my lap.

If Southshawans are about to pounce from above, my best hope is to escape into the Subterran tunnel. Darius’ army doesn’t know I’m here with Patrick. I peer into the dark ivy across from me, but I have no idea where the tunnel is. Maybe six feet to my right. I can hit the spot quick, then feel my way—

Another pebble, bigger, stings me square in the chest like it was thrown. That didn’t fall from above. It came from straight ahead.

The ivy across from me, where I’m peering to find the opening to Subterra, wriggles and parts an inch or two. I glance over at Patrick and Sam, but they’re oblivious. The ivy spreads farther, exposing Garrett’s face. He stayed for me. He didn’t abandon me. I’m so excited I could scream. I could sing.

I start to smile, but he quickly holds one finger up to his lips. Quiet. Why?

He flicks a nod in Sam’s direction, then holds up his knife and points to it. He holds up three fingers.

Does he mean what I think he means? No, that can’t be—

Two fingers. One finger. As the final finger curls into his fist, I spring to my feet. “No!”

Garrett leaps through the ivy, into the clearing. Sam, startled, tips over sideways and scrabbles back from the fire, away from the commotion Garrett and I are causing. Garrett lunges for him, his knife twinkling blood red.

I dive at him but am too slow. No, no, no. This can’t happen. I snatch my whip from my side, but I’ve been lazy. It’s tangled in itself.

I start to scream “No!” again, but before I can a shadow slams into Garrett from the side, pinning him against the rock beside me. It gives Sam enough time to scramble to his feet. It all happens in seconds, and I am helpless.

Patrick bashes Garrett’s hand on the granite, and the knife drops to the dirt. Garrett punches low, and Patrick staggers but stays on his feet. Garrett pushes off the wall and lowers his shoulder into Patrick’s gut to slam him into the cliff. But Patrick jumps up, getting his feet on the cliff face and driving Garrett down into the dirt with his own momentum. They scuffle for a second, and finally I think to yell. “Stop!”

Sam yells it at the same moment. The two men on the ground grapple into a stalemate and look up. I stand on one side, my whip now ready to strike. Sam stands on the other, brandishing a blazing torch. We glance at each other.
We got them to stop. Now what?

Suddenly I’m mad. “Garrett, you squirrel, get up.” Garrett never used to be impulsive like this. Shack was always the one to foul things up, to jump into a fight without knowing why. “What are you thinking?”

Patrick, smaller and lighter but a much better wrestler, releases Garrett. They both stand, backing away from each other, swatting dirt off their clothes. Garrett has an insulted, embarrassed look, like a scolded dog.

I refuse to feel sorry for him. He could have ruined everything. I don’t need him to jump in and save me all the time. I know that’s what he thought he was doing, but he was wrong and he could have ruined everything.

He stands staring at me, the firelight caught in his brown hair which shades his face. I know from the way his feet are set and his arms are rigid that he’s frowning at me.

“Well?” I demand.

“Well, what?” He says, ignoring the other two men, who seem content for the moment to just watch.