Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (37 page)

Robert wanted to move them away to a more private spot. Leaders couldn’t be seen to have any weakness, especially not the domestic kind. But the thought of suggesting it made his insides shrivel.

Sarah took a step forward so that her chest pressed against his navel, and she stared up at him at a sheer eighty-degree angle. Her eyes radiated twin hairline beams of focused energy that he was sure cut through the back of his skull and cleaved the clouds in twain high above. “We
are
going to be married before you set foot out of the city. I don’t care if the entire place burns to the ground around us. I don’t care if the very last things I see in this world are your monkey shoulders squashed into some rotten Old World tux. I’m marrying you, Robert.”

He considered resisting, considered voicing the sheer ridiculousness of what she was saying. Dozens of people they loved and would call their friends were relying on them, and thousands more needed them to stand fast. The rush to the finish line was almost upon them, and they were being called upon.

And they were going to hold it all up to tie the knot?

God alive, she’ll be the end of me.

But she was right. The suddenness with which he agreed struck him hard.

If they were going to sacrifice everything, they deserved it. It was true, they were being called upon. But the vast majority of the people for whom they were set to give everything would forever be unknown to them.

How could they ask any less than to put their own affairs in order?

He swallowed, and his throat emitted a sharp crack that echoed out over the silent fields. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

All the commotion could have fooled one into thinking things were bound to fall apart, that the centre couldn’t hold, things were going awry, and a load of other poetical jazz. But the truth was that the plan was sublime in its simplicity.

The brains would stay in the tower; the muscle would act as runners.

The rest would march north. They were travelling light, with no wagons, extra sundries or foodstuffs to weigh them down. They were taking saddles, bedrolls, a small sack of food apiece, water canteens, and their weapons. There would be no leniency for those who couldn’t keep up. People were going to be left behind.

Some would die of exposure or stupid accidents before they even arrived in Radden, of that there seemed little doubt. But the hundred riders all stood fast, and said their goodbyes: some stonily, some weeping and beslobbered; others holding their loved ones trembling, white-lipped, their eyes fixed on the middle distance.

Norman had been relying on Robert to lead the charge. He balked when the messenger dispatched to New Canterbury arrived back and announced that Robert would be delayed for ‘personal reasons’.

“But
why
?

Arnold, the rider, moved restlessly on his saddle as he trotted for the stables. “Part of getting the son of a bitch to come at all was on the condition that I leave his business out of this.”

Norman cursed and set to wandering the tower, easing his aching chest as things came together into something resembling an organised force. They were sending as many of the wounded away as they could, though dozens were in too serious a condition to even lift.

What went unsaid was that they were moving the wounded because they were too stark a reminder of what was to come. Morale was all they had left to keep them going. It was hard to stay brave and chipper with a hundred screaming, bloodied friends and family lying riddled with holes on the sixth floor.

Now that decisions had been finalised, everyone was itching to move. The time for sentimentality had evaporated, and they longed to take the steps that might just save them.

Behind the discussions on the best route to ride north, which weapons to take, what they would do if the radio transmission turned out to be a genuine distress call—and what they would do if it was something more sinister—Norman’s stomach tap-danced, as he wondered how he could ride north on a few fractured ribs without doing himself serious damage.

He was well on the way to healing, but this kind of exertion was plain stupid. If Heather had been there, she would have surely had him laid up to rest somewhere. The very idea of her signing off on him traipsing away into the unknown with a hundred burly men was enough to get him laughing—exactly what somebody with broken ribs didn’t need.

But he had to keep that to himself, even if it was killing him inside. Even if he ended up a cripple for the rest of his life. Even if riding north killed him. That was his lot.

John DeGray and Richard had formulated several strategies and contingencies in short order and had given a crash course on the terrain they would be covering. Norman had expected that they would cover a little politics and negotiating tactics; Old World libraries were full of that kind of academic spiel. But they hadn’t said a word about it. Instead, they had done something that would have been funny, had their faces not been so grave and fearful.

“We’re going with you,” John said, his rotund bulk emphasized by a glum slouch. He sounded resigned to it, as though he were relaying orders received from a higher power.

Norman would sooner have taken Oppenheimer’s daughter. The professor was lithe as a two-hundred-pound boulder and on a good day was bound to fall off his mount at the sight of uneven ground.

But it wasn’t DeGray that troubled Norman the most. It was Richard. He didn’t look resigned at all, but eager and excited, like a younger sibling pacing around the feet of his elders, itching to be part of the football game.

It’s like the attack on New Canterbury all over again, the night Ray was killed.

Neither of them had any place out there in the wild lands. They were too insulated from the grotesqueries of the world. It was a strange thing, to have people so senior in their order be so naive and innocent, but that was a by-product of the Old World way.

They belonged in the classroom, cataloguing the books and records brought back from the wastes, laboriously passing that knowledge on to the next generation.

Yet they seemed set on Radden. The fear in their eyes indicated they knew they would probably not come back, but that they also knew the expedition would go to ruin without them.

Norman didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that Richard had saved his life during the New Canterbury attack. He would be dead if Richard hadn’t pulled him from the crossfire.

Might as well accept it
, their faces said.

What could he do? There were more messed up things about the expedition anyway.

Things are backward: those in the lead are broken, nervous wrecks, and the hundred at our command are holding things together. This is going to be a weird couple of days
.

He kept walking, trying to ignore the creeping frost biting at his fingertips and stabbing at his earlobes. He couldn’t fade away to that dark place, not now. Not again. He sensed that if he sank back into the shadows, he might not be able to get back.

And what then? He might be lost to that alien place, between worlds, in that non-space where all those Old World people bawled. Or, the alternative: he really was crazy, and would spend the rest of his life a vacant drooling idiot.

Shaking his head, trying to ignore the edges of Echoes slithering in his peripheral vision, he kept on walking until he left Richard and DeGray behind, and was walking at random through the crowd.

He didn’t stop until Alexander appeared amongst it all, the spider at the centre of the vast web—

Spider. At the middle of it all, there’s always a spider, spinning the web of reality under the Pendulum’s swing.

Norman blinked away a mental flash of eight enormous, arachnoid eyes, and approached Alexander. They fell into step on a parallel path, so as not to arouse attention.

“Be honest,” Norman said, hating the tap of his cane on the ground. “Just once. Tell me, did you think this time would ever come? Really believe that I could do what you promised them?”

Only a beat passed before Alexander answered. “No. I didn’t.”

Norman nodded. He expected a swell of rage to twist his hands into claws. But he didn’t feel a thing. In fact, he felt relieved because he knew that, finally, what Alexander said was the truth.

He had earned that. It was a small victory, but it was more than he had had before.

“Then why?” he said. “You didn’t need me. They always looked to you like you were a god.”

“I’m just a man. No matter how many people believed in the mission or in me, it could never have matched the kind of belief that comes with something greater.”

“But I’m just a man, too.”

“It doesn’t matter. They were taught to dream of a man who they didn’t see before them. But all they need is faith in the idea that the
metamorphosis
was possible.”

“You played with my life for an idea.”

“And I’d do it again.”

There it was. It had finally been said.

Would it really have been so hard to tell it like it was a long time ago? Couldn’t he have respected me enough to tell me that I was expendable, just another pawn? I knew it, and he knew I knew.

Still, it had finally come out.

He stopped and turned to Alexander. “Thank you.”

Alexander’s eyes softened for a moment. “I’m leaving within the hour.”

Norman flinched. “
What?
”

“I’m leaving.”

“To go where?” he hissed, gripping Alexander’s arm.

He stumbled a tad and his ribs screeched in unison, but he ignored the pain. The Echoes drifting in his peripheral vision faded, and the cold numbing his fingertips was suddenly gone. He had been shaken back to the here and now. But that didn’t detract from the strength of his grip, nor the panic boiling in his gut.

Alexander’s gaze remained cool. “Away from here, before I get anyone else killed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You saw what happened when I went after Oppenheimer. They’re after me. All of this is because of me. Maybe if I go, this place stands a chance.”

“Without you, we definitely don’t stand a chance.”

“I’ve done all I can—all the damage I can. It’s you they’re going to look to now. I might be able to warn a few others.”

“You can’t be serious. We’re all staring death in the face instead of running for the hills because we believe in your mumbo-jumbo about saving the world.

“I know this … revenge kick, or vendetta, or whatever it is—it might make sense if I could remember just what the hell happened, but I don’t, because of this.” He pointed to the scar at his hairline. “You don’t want to tell me? Fine. You want me to play ‘good dog’ anyway? That’s fine too. But I am not going to let you run for the hills and let all these people burn so you can save your sorry skin.”

Alexander’s expression hadn’t changed at all. “I don’t care what happens to me. If I stay here, I’ll make the tower a giant bull’s-eye.”

“What would be the point? They’re gone. They wouldn’t know you weren’t here.”

Alexander looked up at the surrounding skyscrapers, his face screwed up against the sun’s glare. “They’re still watching. They’d never give us too long a leash. I bet they could have overrun this place long ago, if they wanted. All this is just a game to him, to teach me a lesson.”

Norman’s heart skipped a beat.

“Him?”

A dark frown crossed Alexander’s brow, and he looked away from the distant spires. They had reached the stables, where a small pile of goods had been laid out. He threw a tattered brown cloak over his back, slung a leather knapsack upon his shoulder, and took up a long staff.

Sometimes this messiah complex can be a little hard on the nose
.

“They won’t understand,” Norman said helplessly. “None of them will.”

“I know. But I still have to go. It’s your job to keep them together.”

“I can’t. I don’t even know if I can get on the back of a bloody horse.”

“Yes, you can. I believe in you.”

“You just said you never believed in me.”

Alexander looked at him afresh, all the way up and down, and Norman was surprised to see a lack of that certain disappointment—something bordering on disdain—that he had always noted behind his eyes. “I do now. You’re … different.”

Norman couldn’t help laughing. “You sound surprised.”

They headed toward the main gate, Alexander now a mere amorphous pile of rags, unrecognised by the crowd.

“What do I tell them? They’re going to notice that you’ve up and disappeared.”

“That’s why I have to move fast.” He nodded his cloaked head to the catwalk above the gate, and the klaxon sounded. The gates squealed open and the guards trained their rifles upon the streets, but amidst the heavy preparations, not many people seemed to notice.

Alexander turned back to Norman, adopting a pronounced slouch to hide his face. “The other councillors know I’m leaving. But you’re right. The others won’t understand. Keep this under wraps as long as you can.”

“
What do I tell them?
”

Alexander shrugged. “That you’ll have to figure out for yourself. Use your head. You’ve got a good one on those shoulders.”