Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (36 page)

Almost like Alexander
.
Well, not quite, but maybe something sank in, after all.

He could feel Alexander’s eyes on him, above all the other thousands of stares. And though he would never forgive him for what he had done to his life, he met his gaze and nodded.

He would see the job done.

Then he was speaking again, not by choice, but because the Chosen One had taken control. “We leave as soon as we’re ready. Make your preparations, and say your goodbyes. We ride for Radden.”

Just like that, it was over. The council disbanded, the corridors emptied of bodies like a tub emptied of water, and silence fell over the chambers, maybe for evermore.

“Fire!” yelled Sarah.

The answering bellow of two dozen pistols kicked up in perfect unison, and the long row of humanoid dummies lined up before the New Canterbury militia disappeared in a mist of woodchips and powdered straw. Some of them were cut clean in two, the obliterated heads and torsos toppling to the ground.

Each of those wielding a weapon flipped the safety catch without instruction and adopted two-handed poses, the weapons’ noses pointed into the dirt. There were satisfied smiles aplenty.

She’s done it, Robert thought. They’re actually landing hits.

Heather had taken to the front line herself. Her target had been sheared off at chest level. The good doctor’s face contorted into a snarl.

They were still amateurs, but they were fast learners. Already they seldom missed, even if they were only shooting at near point-blank range. But at least it was something. Guns were no longer alien to them.

And that was about as good as he would have ever dared hope for.

But it wasn’t them that instilled the triumph coursing behind his eyes. It was Sarah.

The librarian’s metamorphosis was complete. Somewhere behind the stiff posture and cold-steel glare, he could see the dim echo of the woman he had torn kicking and screaming from the massacre on the hill not two days before. In that short time she had shed the pall of softness that a lifetime behind bookshelves and teacher’s desks had afforded her.

But it was only that. An echo.

The woman before him now was capable of ordering a volley against live targets. There was a hunger in her eyes, a hunger for blood. On a usual day it would have sent his bowels itching with concern and fear; the juxtaposition of that emotionless glare with her soft pale face was alarming.

But this was no ordinary day.

“They’re getting better,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on them. She nodded emphatically and twirled her finger to indicate that those next in line should take position.

While guns changed hands and the dummies were put back into some kind of humanoid form, Robert let a smile pass his lips. “They’re much better,” he said. He tried to inject as much encouragement into his voice as possible.

She looked pleased under the icy sheen that had formed over her body. “You think we’ll be ready?”

To face off against what’s coming? Never in a million years.

“You bet.”

“Really?”

He looked her in the eyes. It was crucial he have hope, because he could see that she needed bolstering, even propped up by all her fury and lust for revenge. Even book burning wasn’t enough to turn her into a stone-cold killer. She needed a kick in the pants.

He sucked as much doubt from his gaze as he could muster and forced a toothy grin. “They won’t know what hit them.”

Her face glowed, and she was on the verge of replying when a cry rang out behind them.

Robert turned to see one of the boys on Higgins’s patrol racing across the open meadow, slinking between denuded fences and bushes in a scatty attempt at stealth. He reached them within the minute, doubled over with his hands on his knees, and said, “Coming … Someone’s …coming!”

Robert didn’t wait. He lifted the boy off the ground and ran with him, bounding back towards the city.

“Don’t shoot!”

The hooves rattling upon the cobbled streets of New Canterbury had in times past brought forth crowds of gabbling locals, eager to welcome whichever weary traveller had wandered into their midst. The world had been a shade lighter then.

Now, the city could have been deserted. Nothing stirred, and silence pressed on the ear like a buffeting wind. Robert watched the lone rider canter towards the cathedral, rifle held above his head in a clear sign of surrender. It could have been a trick—maybe the son of a bitch had a bomb strapped to his chest.

But that didn’t ring true to their style. And life was too short to keep tiptoeing around the first sign of trouble. He waved for Higgins and the boys to stay where they were, caught the eye of a few other sentries perched in their own hiding places, and received nods of encouragement from each. Then he descended the stairs and kicked the door open, back pressed flat against the wall.

“Who goes?” he said. His heavy voice made the rotting wall thrum and sent a cascade of cement dust raining down over his bald head.

“Name’s Arnold. From the tower. I bring word from the council of Cain’s mission.”

Robert needed no more. If he was lying, then he’d be blown away in the next moment, and they could go back to their business. He was tired of this piddly shit, creeping around.

Sighing, he stepped out and approached the rider, his rifle trained on the newcomer until he was only a few paces away. Then he slung his rifle up over his shoulder, and the two of them nodded to one another. There was a hardness there, and a harrowed callousness in the rider’s eyes, that removed the last traces of doubt from Robert’s mind.

“Well, Arnold from the tower, speak your piece,” Robert said.

“You’re Robert Strong.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“I was told you’d be in charge.”

“I suppose.”

I’d call it holding onto the reins of dear life, but who’s keeping tabs?

“What’s your situation?”

“I’m the one asking the questions, friend. For all I know, you’re of them.”

“I’m
not
one of them.” Arnold’s eyes burned into his, and Robert saw and a flash of something almost like an instant replay—an echo of something terrible. No man could fake that.

Robert had read the eyes of many men in countless face-offs. No man could fake remembering the screams of children. And now he was close, Robert could see Arnold had flecks of dried blood on his face.

“No, you’re not,” he said. He turned over his shoulder, scanned the empty streets, trying to see it through Arnold’s eyes. The cobbles were bare, every door shut tight—some nailed and boarded, others bearing windows bricked in. If tumbleweeds had been native to cities, they would have taken over this one in great swarms. “We’re holding on,” he said. “They were here not long ago, and I thought we were through. They stole, took things … They were playing with us. Then they just …”

“Left.”

“Yes.”

“Same story everywhere, it seems.”

“Everywhere?”

Arnold’s eyes flickered. “They’re getting ready.”

“For what?”

“The last big push. We haven’t much time.”

Robert took a step closer. His rifle was forgotten on his back. “Tell me everything.”

Arnold spent the better part of fifteen minutes laying it all out: the siege and the carnage, the summit, the radio message, the final scrambling preparations, and the march on Radden. Robert’s guts twisted up at the mention of the journey north.

Fools. What good could they possibly do, now? They think they’re going to go skipping off to the far North for a wee chat with the Scots and find all the firepower we need waiting on a silver platter?

They don’t know the North. Not like I do.

“And Norman’s leading those idiots?” he said finally.

Arnold’s brow twitched. “Mr Creek, yes.”

He’s not ready for that, not by a long shot. I don’t think he ever will be. I can’t believe anybody would follow that beaten sack of nerves anywhere.

“When do they leave?”

Arnold looked encouraged for the first time. “They’re waiting on a few, sir.”

“Who?”

“Well, I can’t speak for most, but I was sent for one of them.”

“Damn you, who?”

“You.”

Robert blinked. He had known that was coming, of course he had. Yet to hear it spoken aloud now sent alarm bells ringing all across his head. Things had just been settling down; he had just been getting a handle on the situation.

Because, of course, he would go. He might hate it, might curse the names of anyone accompanying him, but he would go. He had to. He was the only one with any real experience of the lands north of Manchester.

Damn.

It had looked as though maybe, just maybe, he would have been able to keep them together long enough to hold out. Maybe even a few of them could have pulled through. The militia could have made a real difference if they had but another day to prepare.

And now he was going to be plucked from their midst. There was nobody else he could think of who had the mettle to stand as leader, nobody …

“Don’t worry yourself, the city will be fine.”

Robert fixed him with a sharp look.

Arnold was unperturbed. “Most of your ambassadorial convoy are returning.”

“Who?”

“I’m told that Agatha Fisher, of the elders, will be in authority. The convoy will be headed by Allison Rutherford.”

Rutherford! She was in charge?

She was a girl. A chatty Cathy at best.

What happened to Alexander? Or even DeGray?

And Agatha Fisher … She was a doll, a wonderful woman in her clear spells. But the dementia had taken a good strong hold of her now. She would be a burden if anything.

There was nobody. No leader—

Sarah.

She could do it. Even a handful of hours ago it would have been ludicrous, just asking for strife and bloodshed, but not now. Somehow, he knew she would never be the same again. They were all listening to her now; they looked in her direction before his despite all his stature and experience. Even rumbling, grizzled old men had lost any patronising tones. And, of course, the city’s children adored her, would throw themselves over a cliff-edge if she but asked.

He didn’t like it, not one bit. He’d sooner leave the city unguarded than single her out and make her such a target. But her newfound strength had left him so taken aback he was willing to believe she was capable of anything.

He had looked into her, just as he had looked into Higgins and Arnold the rider, and he had seen who she really was. And though he now had to face the fact he had never really known her at all before now, he knew he was wholly in love with that woman, the one who had been caged under those spectacles and that inch-thick sheen of soft-voiced pleasantness.

A hell-cat who could tear the balls off a seven-foot grizzly bear.

Even as he thought it, a distant flurry of whip cracks sounded out in the fields. She still had them at it, even with him having raced away to the city with the threat of impending attack a very real possibility.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go.”

Arnold took the news without comment. Robert suspected the man had been instructed to expect nothing else.

The cheek of them all
.
That’s Alexander’s doing, no doubt. They can’t put all this on me. And I know they will. They’ll turn right around to me as soon as I get there, and expect me to go right along with whatever suicide mission they’ve concocted. Hell, I bet they’ll be waiting for me to lead the charge.

“We haven’t much time,” Arnold said impatiently.

“Make time.” Robert was walking back along the street, his eye catching slivers of light shining out from barely cracked doorjambs and curtains just parted. The city was slowly waking in the presence of the visitor, crawling from its shell and blinking in the sun. But he didn’t have time to play den mother to them now. He was heading back towards the meadows. “I have to tell my fiancée.”

She said only one thing in reply. “We’re having our wedding, Robert.”

He swallowed despite himself. “I’m coming back, Sarah.”

He expected that to have some effect; he was even braced to lean forward and take her forearms in his hands as she softened. But her rigid frame didn’t yield an inch, nor did her eyes thaw a single degree. In fact, she folded her arms over her chest and cocked her hip. “I know you are,” she said. Her tone of voice said,
If you didn’t, I’d raise you from the dead so I could kill you myself.
“But I’m not talking about when you come back. We’re going to have that wedding, or you’re not going anywhere.”

She sounds like my mother.
The thought ricocheted through Robert’s mind without any help from him. He didn’t even remember his mother, not really; she had died when he was very young. But now, as he dwelled on it, murky flashes of a stern-faced, foot-tapping woman swam up from the inky blackness. He could hear her voice even now, eerily similar to the nasal honk Sarah developed when she was stressed, like now.

It would have been funny if he weren’t so mortified.

The militia were milling at a safe distance, occupying themselves with a sudden fascination with the city skyline, and plans to relieve the sentries who had now been posted on the rooftops for almost fourteen straight hours. Nevertheless, occasionally one of them would give the game away, and glance in Robert and Sarah’s direction. They couldn’t quite make enough noise to cover Sarah’s exclamations, and an uncomfortable tension had settled over the meadow.