The Forsaken (25 page)

He sprawls facedown on the dirt as we cluster around him. His body is slimy with the substance of the barrier. For an instant, a large indentation remains where his body was. But then the jelly surges forward and the hole slowly disappears.

I look down at the drone. Now that he’s been liberated, we’re all a little wary of him. Gadya picks up her bow again. We stand in a semicircle, watching and waiting to hear what he says. The rain is finally letting up.

The drone takes deep, shuddering breaths. He coughs, gurgles. Hacks up phlegm. His limbs look thin and weak.

“Tell us your name,” Veidman gently instructs.

The boy can’t even raise his head. “They call me . . . Jump.”

“Dumb name,” Sinxen snickers.

“You’re one to talk,” Gadya retorts.

Veidman silences them both with a look. But the boy has heard.

“You’re right,” he manages in a breathy whisper. “It’s dumb. . . . But they call me Jump ’cause that’s what I do.”

“Is that how you ended up stuck in the barrier?” Markus calls out. “Jumping around like a monkey? Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

The drone has another coughing fit, and Veidman leans in closer to talk to him. “My name’s Matthieu Veidman. We’re from a village in the blue sector, near the big river. We’re searching for a way through this barrier and off the wheel.”

“Then you’re infidels. . . . You don’t believe in our Monk’s eternal powers.”

“No, we don’t. But we’ll give you water and food. And a chance to rest. In return you have to tell us everything you know. About this barrier, and about why you’re here. About your Monk, too.”

“Why?”

“Why?”
Gadya cuts in, sounding incredulous. “Because if you don’t, we’ll leave you here to die! That’s why. We just lost most of our friends. You mean nothing to us.”

“Jump, do we have a deal?” Veidman asks. Jump squirms around, like he’s trying to sit up. “Someone help him,” Veidman adds, but the drone waves everyone off with his good arm.

“I can manage,” he gasps, although it’s pretty clear that he can’t.

Veidman glances at Rika. “Get some water and food from my pack.” Then he looks at me. “Alenna, grab some blankets.” He peers back down at Jump. “We’re going to help you, and you’re going to help us. We don’t have to be enemies.”

Jump presses himself off the ground a few inches, using his good arm and shoulder.

“Okay. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I’m listening.”

“Come closer,” Jump pleads. “I don’t want everyone to hear. What I have to say is just for you. You’re the leader, right?”

Veidman reluctantly crouches down next to the fallen drone. “Fine,” he says. “Whisper it to me, then.”

I strain to listen, and everyone else does too. I hear Jump start whispering. I can’t see his face, only Veidman’s. But Veidman’s expression is blank. Emotionless.

And then everything changes.

Jump emits a gurgling shriek, like his lungs are imploding. Veidman instantly lurches up, eyes filled with total inexplicable horror.

At first I don’t understand.

But then I look down.

Sticking out of Veidman’s chest, at the level of his heart, is a silver dagger. And Jump’s hand is wrapped around the other end of it. “I sure got the jump . . . on
you
!” he says, cackling madly, bloody saliva dribbling from his lips.

Before I have time to scream, an arrow flies straight from Gadya’s bow right through one side of Jump’s neck. The impact snaps his head back.

“It’s a trap!” Sinxen yells.

Everyone explodes into action.

Sinxen grabs Veidman, whose shirt is already soaked with blood, and pulls him to safety. Jump lurches to his feet, displaying more energy than I thought possible. He yanks at the arrow impaling his Adam’s apple, and gurgles blood.

“
Death to all infidels!
” he hisses, his voice a chilling, mutilated rasp, barely audible because of the hole in his throat.

I stand there paralyzed.

An instant later, Markus and the other hunters come down on Jump like a ton of bricks, their fists battering his face. I catch a glimpse as his head lolls back. I see that he’s laughing like a maniac, blood dripping off his chiseled teeth.

“Don’t kill him,” Veidman calls out weakly. He sways, going into shock. He glances down at the dagger sticking out of his chest. “We need him alive.”

Everyone hears, but nobody listens. Markus brutally rips the arrow right out of Jump’s throat. Blood sprays up and paints the barrier red.

Markus steps back.

Jump is dying now. His throat is torn out, leaving a gaping hole. But a satisfied smile lingers on his lips.

Then a final arrow flies through the air from Gadya’s bow, striking him right between the eyes. His body tenses, hands seizing up, and then he relaxes again. Drooping. The life is gone from him now for good. And so is his smile.

“A dirty trap!” Gadya rants, brandishing her bow. “The Monk probably sent him here and stuck him in the wall. He was waiting to get us!”

“I bet they’ve been putting drones in the barrier as sentries, ever since the tunnel collapse,” Sinxen mutters glumly.

Gadya flings down her bow in anger. “This never would have happened if Liam were here. He would have protected Vei.”

Sinxen is sitting down now, cradling Veidman’s head. Blood wells from Veidman’s mouth, coming up from inside him. The knife is still in his chest. I know that if we try to remove it, it will just make things worse.

“Keep his head elevated,” Rika warns.

We all crowd around our fallen leader. I understand that Veidman is probably going to die because he tried to save someone.
Just like Liam.
Generosity is clearly a character flaw in the twisted microcosm of the wheel. Gadya was right.

Veidman’s breath hitches in his chest. His neck arches.

“He needs air! Give him room!” Gadya yells.

“If you get back to the village, tell Meira what happened,” Veidman murmurs. He sounds sleepy. I feel an overwhelming sense of dread. “Tell Meira that I love her.” He coughs, his chest rattling. The knife handle moves up and down.

“Fight!” Markus says. I see tears running down his face. “Don’t give up!”

“Tell Meira she has to forget about me. And continue our mission alone. . . .” His words disintegrate into a breathy gasp. His mouth remains open. I think he’s about to start talking again, but then I realize he’s dead.

“Veidman!” Gadya yells. “No!” Everyone starts screaming and yelling.
Liam and Veidman were not supposed to die.
Without them, we have no real leaders.

In desperation, Markus pulls out the knife and tries to breathe life back into Veidman’s body, giving him CPR. But it doesn’t work. More blood flows from Veidman’s corpse onto the grass and dirt.

Rika wipes at her eyes.

“It’s not fair!” Sinxen yells at no one in particular. He looks around, frantic.

“Damn this place forever!” the builder curses.

It’s then that we hear the rumbling noises.

They emanate from the thick wall of forest that we stumbled out of just minutes earlier. It sounds like an army is marching toward us.

We’ve all been preoccupied with Veidman’s death. For once even Gadya doesn’t have her bow ready. Most of our weapons are down, scattered on the grass.

I spin toward the trees. The others hear the noises too, and grab for their weapons.

But it’s too late.

Armed drones step from the forest in all directions. At least fifty of them. All of them have arrows and spears pointed directly at us. We’re outnumbered, backed against the barrier, and there’s no time to run.

A few hunters race for their bows anyway, but arrows fly and strike them instantly. They fall at once, screaming in agony. The builder dashes for a spear, but gets an arrow through his back.

All movement ceases. The drones watch the rest of us silently. For once they don’t shriek and yell, or toss fireworks. I’m in shock. There are only a handful of us villagers left standing now: Gadya, Rika, Markus, Sinxen, and me. Everyone else is dead or dying.

None of us dares move or speak. If these drones fire more arrows, we’re done for. Maybe we can take a few of them out with us, but it won’t matter.

I don’t want to die.
Not before finding the signs of my parents, and the rocks with their messages on them. Not after I’ve come so far, and after Liam sacrificed himself for me. I stand as still as a statue.

Then I notice something strange beginning to happen.

Four drones with painted faces slowly emerge from the trees. They aren’t clutching weapons. Instead, they carry a cushioned platform on their shoulders. On top of the platform is a reclining chair, ornately carved from black oak. A small, dark figure sits inside it, bundled in heavy woolen blankets up to his neck.

I stare at the terrible sight unfolding before me.

Where the figure’s face should be is a malevolent wooden mask, with two eyeholes and a twisted grin carved into it. It looks like some sort of ritualistic death mask from a lost primitive tribe. In fact, I’m not sure if this figure is alive or dead. He looks so old and hunched over. The drones carrying the chair walk closer.

I stand there, still afraid that arrows are about to fly through the air toward my heart. We are the victims of a perfectly executed ambush.

The four drones bring the chair even closer, just fifteen paces away. Then, as if hearing the same silent signal at once, they gently place the chair down on the grass and step back.

The masked head suddenly moves, swiveling in our direction.

I gasp, despite myself.

Behind the eyeholes, I see demented-looking eyes, burning red with fever and sickness. I flash back to what Gadya told me all those days ago about the Monk. That he never talks, never walks. Gets carried everywhere.

Could this monstrous, disintegrating figure be him?
It must be.
But why is he showing himself to us now?

The head moves again, panning stiffly like a camera on a tripod. Taking everything in. All the drones are eerily quiet, like they’re waiting for something crucial to happen.

“Checkmate,” a raspy voice finally intones from behind the mask. It sounds like this man’s larynx has been burned away. Or maybe he just hasn’t spoken in a very long time.

“
Who are you?
” Gadya growls. I hear the fear and anger in her voice, intertwined like the vines that grow all around us on the trees.

“You’re the Can—” Markus begins softly, but then stops. Backtracks. He almost said “cannibal” by accident. “You’re the Monk, aren’t you?” I hear horrified awe in his voice.

The mask turns to stare at him. It’s like his head is the only part of his body that moves. “Some call me that, yes.”

I shut my eyes.

So this is the bogeyman.

Finally, right here in front of me. A myth made into flesh. I feel the blood rushing from my head. I think about what David said, that the Monk’s drones know my name. I wonder if the Monk himself knows it. Should I speak, or stay silent?

“We’re not here to fight,” Markus finally says. “We’re headed into the gray zone—”

Sinxen interrupts, his voice tense, “Please don’t kill any more of us, okay?”

I chime in, finding my own voice at last. “We’ll leave your sector. Honest. We were just trying to get through the barrier.”

The Monk’s head swivels in my direction. “I know. We’ve been following your group. Watching.” His words are stiff but oddly authoritative, and he speaks in clipped sentences.

“What do you want with us?” Gadya asks. “Why are you here? To massacre us?”

“I know about your plan. To find the aircrafts.” He pauses. “I need your help to reach them. Behind that barrier lies salvation.” I assume he means a way off the wheel, but then he elaborates. “Salvation for the sickness that ails me.”

Then I understand.

The Monk has the Suffering.

That’s why he wears the mask. Why he can’t move. Why his eyes burn so red. His face has probably rotted away in the tropical heat.

Gadya instantly voices my thought: “You’re infected.”

The Monk laughs, low and throaty. He slowly raises a shaky hand from under his blankets. He’s just skin and bones, his flesh dotted with sores like an old man with leprosy. The Suffering has ravaged his body. Most people this sick just die. But not the Monk.

At his signal, a drone rushes forward, flask in hand. He kneels before the Monk and dribbles water into the mask’s mouth hole.

“I’m going to kill you when I get the chance,” Gadya says to the Monk, with cold fury.

I flinch, terrified of all the weapons pointed at us. It’s clear the Monk’s drones won’t hesitate to kill every last one of us if he gives the order.

“Gadya—” Rika warns. “Not smart.”

The Monk waves his drone away and licks the wooden lips of the mask, lapping up the water. The wood around his mouth is a darker color now, stained by the liquid.

“You have information that I need,” the Monk continues. “Yes, I have eyes inside your village. I know that your hunters mapped the gray zone well. Better than my drones have managed. I need you to take me to the city in the gray zone. I don’t have long to live.”

Markus glares at him. “Why should we help you?”

“First, you have no choice. Second, I alone know how to get through this barrier. Without my help, you will fail.”

“I don’t trust you,” Gadya tells him. “You’re a maniac. A killer.” She glances down at the bodies of Veidman and the others.

He nods. “Yet we share a common goal. You want to leave this island. And I want to cure my condition, so I can resume leading my flock.” He clears his throat. It’s a wet, horrible sound. “In addition to the aircrafts, there is a laboratory inside the gray zone. Staffed with doctors who can help me. So let us go into the zone together.”

There is something seductive and vaguely hypnotic about his deranged rasp. His cadence sounds almost familiar, but I can’t place it.

“Why did you kill Veidman?” I ask.

“To get your attention.” I sense a sick, cruel smile behind the mask. “Besides, if our groups join forces, we only need one person in charge.”