Labyrinth Wall (9780991531219) (22 page)

Soll has made it to the wall now, but none of us are ready to move forward.

“We need to help that man,” Keelie insists.

“Who is that?” I turn to Rase.

She shakes her head. “You don’t want to help him, Araina.”

“Oh really? Because I’m thinking an enemy of Simul equals a friend of mine. You should start treating us like people and not dirt. Then I’ll hear you out.”

Rase grabs my wrist forcefully. “Araina, you deserve to live like this, but if you help that man, it’s going to end up hurting innocent people.”

“Innocent people?” Heat flushes into my cheeks. My heart rate shoots up, and I’m so mad it feels like my insides might boil over. “Do you think you’re innocent, Rase? Or Simul?” My wrist twists free of her grip. “You’re evil is what you are.”

They’re approaching the river bank now but aren’t heading to a bridge.

“What are they going to do?” Keelie looks at Rase with pleading eyes.

“I don’t know,” she tells Keelie, “but whatever it is, he deserves it.”

“Help him,” Keelie demands as she darts out toward the guards. Her small figure slices through the air before any of us can dissuade her.

Soll’s right behind her but doesn’t catch her in time. We all chase her up the bank, fearing what trouble she’s about to get herself into. As we approach, two guards are preparing to dunk the man’s head in the acid river.

Wait a minute. Why did Rase come along with us so easily?

Just as I turn to put my hand on her mouth, she yells, “Watch out.”

I punch her in the face with all my might. It feels good to finally do that.

She falls to the ground dizzy. I stoop down with her. The others could use my help fighting, but Rase can’t be trusted out of my sight. She’s squirming, trying to seize this opportunity to escape. If we lose her before the wall, it’s all over. She yanks at her ropes, hops to her feet, and attempts to flee.

“Stop!” Keelie shoots an arrow at the female guard trailing behind the others.

The arrow barely nicks her arm. The guard turns swiftly, launching her weight to attack Keelie.

Rase’s hands land on my neck, fingers eager to choke me. Another punch to her chin knocks her off again. This time, she’s drooling on herself. Yanking her arms behind her back, I roll her over, stomach to the ground. She’s not completely knocked out. There’s nothing nearby to string her up. The minute she’s left alone, she’ll probably wake then take off. I’m stuck here guarding her.

Keelie faces her opponent head on with her whip in hand. Her quick reflexes serve her well for using that whip. With a crack, it smacks the guard across the face, and she shakes her head. Soll is fast to join her, swinging his sword at the Creator guard.

Saige, Korun, and Laon approach the other two guards by the river, their weapons drawn. Attempting to extract their weapons, the guards fling the man in chains toward the river and charge their attackers. Part of the prisoner’s face scathes the acid before he’s able to hoist himself away from the water.

The tallest guard swings his sword at Korun. Saige comes at him with her spiked mace while Laon attacks the other.

Keelie and Soll have already killed the female guard at this point, and now Keelie is running to help the man in chains while Soll assists Laon.

The tall guard really puts up a fight. He seems exceptionally skilled with his sword, being able to fight off both Soll and Laon at the same time. Not good enough though. He gets one cut across Laon’s shoulder, but Soll’s dual wielded swords slice into his abdomen.

Meanwhile, the brown-haired guard swings then misses over and over, trying to kill Saige but taking a beating from her mace. Just as the guard tries to go for her throat with his sword, Korun stabs him through the back.

After the guards are all dealt with, everyone turns their attention to the man in chains, except Laon, who needs Korun’s healing hand. Korun quickly begins to mend Laon’s wound.

“Come on,” Saige yells to the group “We need to get back to the walls before someone else sees us!”

“What’s that?” Keelie cries out, looking past the man in chains and down the bank.

“We need to run, Keelie, don’t worry about it.” I point to the prisoner. “Let’s get him and get out of here.”

“No,” Soll argues. “Keelie’s right. I think there are people.” He starts running down the black rocky bank.

Now Rase has given up her fight. Defeat wallows in her eyes at the sight of the three dead guards.

“Can you deal with her?” I ask Laon, handing him the ropes attached to Rase’s wrists. I don’t wait for an answer and take off after them. Saige and I follow Soll and Keelie toward the supposed people they spotted. Korun is busy helping the man in chains discard his bindings.

Keelie stops so abruptly Soll almost runs into her. They freeze like they’ve seen Simul or something.

“What?” I yell, still trying to catch up. “What is it?”

My fingers hurt at the sight of the acid river. Dread dances in my throat. What is wrong? Finally, I join them. My stomach turns at the horror they’ve just discovered.

“Fate be,” Soll whispers.

In front of us lies a Mahk, his head submerged in the acid river. Lifeless, his body smells of death. Acid from the river has eaten away his hair and even parts of his teeth. His eyes are completely missing. Open wounds coat his face. The more horrific sight is the rest of the bodies lined down the bank, all dead.

Soll crouches beside the man and points at a scar on his ankle. “This is Doun. He was part of our colony.”

Keelie walks a little past Doun’s body and reaches another. “Reisa.”

Saige follows Keelie, tears streaming down her face. I’ve never seen her allow so much raw emotion to surface. As she had done in the den, she starts clicking her fingers together, and this time, she bites at her lip too. Again, the woman displays feelings which aren’t easy to identify.

Laon has now joined us, Rase in tow. Upon seeing the atrocity, he throws his weapon to the ground and falls to his knees.

They were right that the colony didn’t abandon them.

“I’m so sorry.” I count the bodies. About seventy are within my view on this side of the bank and approximately another eighty on the other side.

The scene is overwhelming. Keelie’s words in the den replay in my mind, that the Creators shouldn’t have been able to find the den. The display before us makes me wonder to what extent the Creators can see and control the labyrinth. Could Simul have discovered the den through some tracking system within the labyrinth? It’s even possible the Buyu attack was no coincidence. What if Simul knew where we were and sent that thing to us? If he knows we’re going to the wall, we don’t stand a chance. A deep breath courses through me, my mind burying the thought. Surely if the Creators were that powerful, they would have already killed us.

“I guess you were right, Araina,” Soll says. “Simul did find the colony, and they’re all dead.”

Shame stings my core. Sure, if Simul captured the colony, I assumed they’d be killed. But the colony was supposed to have abandoned the den. Looking out at the lines of lifeless Mahk shells, the truth is now painfully evident. Insensitive would be the kindest of words to label my behavior. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

This huge public display of power makes me wonder if it was Darith and me breaking into the castle that caused Simul to initiate the labyrinth attacks after all. Maybe he happened to find the colony around the same time of our break-in and that was the trigger. In fact, it makes more sense that such a large group of Mahk banding together would threaten him much more than our little break-in. Either way, it doesn’t really matter now. The Creators are trying to kill us, possibly wiping us all out to start over with more Mahk.

My throat tightens, and my stomach knots at the acid river of death. Mahk starving and killing each other has been brutal enough through the years. Even as bad as all that has been, or even the lava and the Buyu, retracing what these peoples’ last moments were like is the worst of all. My arms flinch when my mind uncontrollably imagines the pain of acid filling the Mahks’ lungs and eating away at their faces. The small sores on my fingertips accumulated while collecting obsidian always burn badly. That stinging magnified and running through my throat then insides would have been unbearable. Their last sight would have been the Creators. What a bitter reality to swallow as they died: the people who brought them into the world forcing them back out.

If we didn’t need her to get us through the labyrinth wall, it would be tempting to have it out with Rase right now. She probably knew something like this would happen.

This is a defining moment in my understanding of her. I look up to observe her face. She stands quietly, taking in the scene. There actually appears to be water in her eyes: tears.

“Are you just sad you didn’t get to help?” I yell at her. “I hate you!”

She doesn’t respond. A moment of drowning silence passes. Sometimes it seems like my existence is just one giant nightmare.

“And the Creators act like we’re the disgusting ones.” Keelie’s eyes have narrowed as she stares out at the sight of her dead community. For once, she isn’t screaming or crying. Whatever she’s feeling, it must be the first time. Maybe it’s all too much, and she’s numbing herself to the pain.

Soll wipes a tear from his cheek as he walks over to her, wrapping Keelie in his arms. A minute or so passes before he releases one arm to cradle around Saige as well.

“How could they do this? How could they individually kill each of them in such a brutal manner?” Soll pushes Rase.

Still, Rase refuses to speak.

The group hasn’t started their usual ritual. They’re so overwhelmed they’ve forgotten it. If they realize later, it will break their hearts, so I make the gesture. I raise my arms and clasp my hands up to my forehead then say the word, “We…” I pause for them to notice.

Then finally Keelie’s tears come out as she, Saige, Laon, and Soll join me. Our hands clasped to our foreheads, we say the heartfelt words, “We will remember.”

“Thank you,” Soll says to me as we let our arms rest at our sides. Completely oblivious to the world, we stand quietly on the bank.

Then Keelie stretches her hand up to her shoulder, crossing her arm over her chest. “And there will be justice,” she says.

Soll’s hand brushes beside Saige’s then clasps around her fingers gently. Never having seen him make any advances, it seemed her affections were one sided, but perhaps there’s something mutual there.

I’m intrigued by their interaction but too consumed with sadness. The bodies keep drawing my gaze back to the river. Their smothered screams still haunt the air. They were the best of the Mahk, the people who treated each other right, and the Creators killed them anyway. The Creators chose to make an example of the few Mahk who might have actually been decent people. I’ve never been more sickened by the world, by the injustice of our existence.

It’s unbearable to observe the horrific scene anymore, and every minute we spend in the open gets more dangerous. Still, it’s too hard to say anything to them as they mourn.

My attention tears away from the scene, unable to take it anymore. Turning away, I approach Korun. He could use some help with the man in restraints. “Are you okay?” I ask the man as we remove the thick chains from his body.

“I am now,” he responds quietly as he weakly crawls away from the bank. Grunts escape him with every movement, and his muscles continually tense up. It’s clear he’s experiencing a great deal of pain and in need of rest.

“Korun.” I point at the man’s wounds.

Korun nods, reaching his hands out at the man, who flinches fearfully.

“It’s okay, he can help you,” I tell him.

The man isn’t particularly muscular or skinny. Shoulder length blonde hair falls into his blue eyes, and he looks like he might be about thirty years old. The acid has damaged part of his face and eaten at one of his bushy dark eyebrows.

Korun places his hands on the acid burned portion of the face and repairs his open flesh before beginning to heal bruises across his arms and legs.

“How do you do that?” the man asks.

“Well, I’m not actually sure,” Korun responds.

The man looks at him. “You saved my life.” He grabs Korun’s arm emotionally.

Saige, Laon, Keelie, and Soll finally come walking toward us.

My hand rests on the man’s shoulder. “Let’s get you up and going. It isn’t safe out here in the open.”

He nods. The man tries to stand to his feet but passes out in Korun’s arms.

“I think I’m going to need some help,” Korun requests.

Soll comes to his aid. They lift the man’s arms over their shoulders, carrying him with us as we head back to the labyrinth walls.
 

Chapter 23
The Stranger

No one is in the best of spirits as we enter back into the labyrinth walls, working our way toward mine and Blue’s spot. Soll and Korun drag the man about twenty minutes before they have to rest.

We come to a little nook in the walls, a good area to recuperate. A small curve in the wall provides some visual obstruction down the passage. Nice tall trees in the space offer a good potential hiding spot if guards were to come our way.