Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) (44 page)

Robert raised a hand to his forehead and pressed hard. The pressure only somewhat relieved the headache festering behind his brow. He gave Sarah a brief squeeze before speaking, “From what we can tell, they came from the western hills and took out the turbines while we were distracted down by the river. There’s nothing left. No power.” He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking we might have enough biofuel left to get some lights going by nightfall tomorrow. At least we won’t be completely in the dark…for a while.”

A brief silence stretched between them.

“Was anybody hurt?” Heather said.

“No. There wasn’t anybody up there. I posted the sentries closer to the city to make sure the convoy was safe.” He tittered, cradling his aching head in his palms. “Not one of my best calls.”

Silence, bar the crackling in the grate.

“Why would somebody do this?” Heather muttered.

Robert shrugged, shaking his head.

More silence, thicker than treacle.

Sarah hadn’t said a word, nor moved a muscle. She’d merely kept her head rested on his shoulder, her face masked by matted red curls, which looked like flames licking at her cheeks in the candlelight. Her knuckles were bone-white, locked tight around his forearm.

He caressed her shoulder with his free hand. At his touch, her death-grip loosened slightly, became less desperate. “McKay and a few of the others came back,” he said, intent on breaking the lull. He tittered once more, but not a trace of humour stirred in his gut. “He wasn’t happy.”

“The guard detail? They came back?” Heather asked. “They just left everybody else out there?”

Robert nodded. “I wasn’t thrilled either, but there was no convincing him. At the time, I was just glad for the help.”

“Are they still here?”

Robert shook his head. “He took off back to London just before nightfall. I suppose he finally came to his senses.”

Heather rubbed her head. “I hope they get there alright.”

Robert shrugged. “They’ll be fine. These people weren’t looking for blood today. They were looking to terrorise, weaken. Shock and awe.” He paused, catching Heather’s alarmed expression. “They’ll send help as soon as they can. We’ll be fine. We just have to hold out the night.”

She nodded slowly, blinked, seemed to take deeper notice of how Sarah was draped over his shoulder, and cleared her throat. “I’ll get you a drink,” she said, standing with delicacy and hurrying from the room.

Robert and Sarah were left alone amidst fresh silence. Heather seemed to be intent on making a meal of whatever she was doing, crashing pots and pans together. Yet the atmosphere in the living room remained strained until Sarah finally spoke.

“Did you find anything?” she mumbled.

Robert brushed a stray lock behind her ear, looking down at the curtain of hair shielding her face. “Not yet.”

She nodded fractionally and resumed her silence. She held up her hand to the candlelight, turning the ring upon her finger until it twinkled and flashed. The two of them looked at it for a long time, not saying a word.

She’d said that she wanted a white autumn wedding.

Did they have that long?

Eventually, she muttered, “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Robert tried to smile, but the tugging in his gut soon wiped it from his lips. He folded his hand over hers. “Me too.”

Norman was brought to the gate by the sound of the klaxon like everyone else. He joined the ranks of a growing crowd, aghast, as a ragged group of travellers filed into the courtyard. The sun had barely risen, but there was no mistaking the blood. It lay over everything, every scrap of cloth, every inch of bare skin. Their carts had been purged of goods and loaded up with piles of dead and dying. Their agonised cries filled the air.

Evelyn, Alexander and Lucian raced from the tower. “Mr Rush! What happened?” Alex cried.

A round-shouldered, powerful man stepped forward, visibly shaking, lips trembling. Norman was shocked more by the sight of his fear than the sight of the wounded. Rush had been on the council since its founding with Alexander, representing Southampton. He was a presence to put all others to shame, a commander on par with the messiah himself.

Now he was in tatters, tears streaming down his face. “They came from nowhere. We tried to run, but the way back was blocked. They…they killed…there were over a hundred of us!”

Norman’s stomach turned over. No more than a dozen were still standing.

The crowd rushed forward to help unload the wounded and carry the survivors away for treatment. Norman fought his way through to the spot where Rush had collapsed into Alexander’s arms. He was whimpering. “Portsmouth and Worthing have been hit,” he said. Norman had always known his stare to carry nothing but dignity. Now it was jelly. He shook his head. “There’s nothing left.”

None of them spoke. There was nothing to say.

As the sun rose, more groups arrived. People poured in, desperate for shelter, some unscathed, some not. None had been hit as bad as those from Southampton. Norman couldn’t help but feel they were an example.

Soon the representatives of almost every settlement on the council had arrived. The fact that none of the ambassadors had been harmed, despite reams of fallen aides, friends and family, only fuelled his suspicion. By the time the sun had crested the distant skyscrapers, the courtyard was stained red, and the gates slammed shut a final time. They couldn’t risk waiting any longer for stragglers. The council would convene in the coming hours, and their course of action would be decided.

But Norman was no longer sure there was anything to be done. Until now they had been the dominant power in all the land. In a single morning, they had been reduced to rats in a maze.

James stepped out onto the beach and took a breath of rich sea breeze. He surveyed the rough surf and half-buried remains of old yachts, pale in the early morning light, overturned and pitted below the tide line.

The world was moving on. After eleven years, the things mankind had created before the End were beginning to vanish. People were beginning to call everything before that time the Old World.

Lucian appeared alongside him, only a head taller even after his recent growth spurt. Without a word to one another, they ambled along the beach, stabbing their spears into the sand to give them purchase, watchful of the trees. James smiled. His feet felt sure, and his legs strong. The roll of the surf was music to his ears.

Yet, he was more tired than he would have ever shown, especially with Lucian around. They’d spent the morning hunting without success. He didn’t relish the thought of keeping it up for much longer, but he’d never complain. If they didn’t make a kill, they’d go hungry. The tinned food wasn’t as plentiful as it had once been. Now, it was currency in itself. A tin of mackerel could buy you a sack of coal. For corned beef, you could get enough rags to clothe an entire family.

Food had ceased to become a given. If you couldn’t hunt, gather, or trade by now, you’d starve. And, from what they’d seen on their travels, many had. The unskilled survivors who’d gorged themselves on the Old World’s resources without a thought for how long it would last had followed the rest of humanity into oblivion.

James listened to branches snapping in the forest as the others followed a path parallel to the beach. Sensing that Lucian’s gaze was directed towards the trees, he allowed his eyes to droop for a moment. Walking along with half-closed eyes, it almost felt like sleeping.

“Doesn’t it bother you, kiddo?” Lucian muttered.

James brushed windswept hair from his eyes and frowned at his brother. “What?”

“You have no time to yourself. You were up all night reading again. You’ve been out with us since dawn. Soon as we get back, I’ll bet my dinner that Alex has a class waiting. Then what? More reading?”

“I like to read,” James said, though his gaze fell to the ground. Then he did a double take. “And I can hunt better than the rest of you put together.”

Lucian laughed and ruffled his hair, smearing it back over his eyes. “Of course you can.”

“I can. You’re all too loud. And clumsy.”

Lucian appeared to take offence, but at the same time seemed unable to mount any kind of counterargument, so let it pass. “But you've always got to be
doing
something,” he said. “If you haven’t got your head in a book then you’re in the classroom, you’re taking care of the birds, you’re milking the cows or you’re out tending the plants.”

“Crops,” James corrected.

Lucian was uncomfortable with that word. Like the others, he thought that their field was too small to justify using it. Most of the others merely frowned at its usage. Lucian said it was ridiculous. Paul said things far worse, things James wasn’t allowed to hear—Aggie always covered his ears.

But Alex insisted they were raising crops, that their one patch of earth was just the start of something much greater, that one day entire meadows would grow six feet tall with wheat and barley, and they’d be able to feed hundreds of people—maybe a thousand. That was more than enough for James.

“But don’t you want to do other things?” Lucian said.

“What things?”

“I don’t know…kid things. Don’t you want to play?”

James shrugged, frowning. “I play all the time. I love games.”

Lucian scowled. James shrank away instinctively, conscious of his bad temper. “Backgammon Night isn’t playing,” he said.

James shook his head, nonplussed. There was no time for play, no reason for it. Even if he’d wanted to, there was nobody to play with. The nearest people were a few hours’ ride away.

No, play wasn’t for him. His time was for learning, for collecting the Old World’s treasures. For saving the world.

“Don’t you sometimes wish that you didn’t have to do all those things?” Lucian said. “Don’t you wish that you could be free?”

James paused mid-step. His mind had fallen blank. Somewhere, deep down in his gut, anger stirred. “I’m free,” he said. His voice was more high-pitched than he’d intended, but he didn’t care. He was too busy searching Lucian’s face.

Lucian had stopped a few paces ahead. His brow constricted into a deep crease, something he always did when unsettled—James was sure he’d wrinkle early—as though sensing the pain in his voice. “I know,” he said.

“I have a job to do. It’s important.”

“I know, I know, it’s your destiny,” Lucian muttered under his breath, shaking his head.

James felt his face bunch up as the anger in his gut swelled, but it was quickly overshadowed by sadness—not for the insult, but for Lucian’s disbelief. “You don’t think so?” His spear had dropped to his side. “You don’t think I have a destiny? You don’t think… I’m important?”

Lucian’s eyes flickered from anger to soft melancholy, and then a diamond-hard look of wonder. “I hope you are,” he said.

“You do?”

The look of wonder lingered long enough for Lucian to utter, “If anybody’s going to help us—all of us—it’s going to be you.” Then he cleared his throat, shrugging his shoulders with a gruff jerk. “Who cares what I think? It’s your business.”

James smiled. The anger’s spark fizzled, yet the sadness remained. “Then why ask?”

“I just want to make sure that you’re happy doing…whatever it is you’re doing.”

James thought about all those things over the next few moments: all he did, and all he was meant to do. He could feel it all ahead of him, so close that he was sure he could almost reach out and touch it. “I’m happy,” he said finally.

Lucian nodded, looking away, now ensconced in his gruff exterior. “Fine. Sorry I asked.”

James didn’t miss the flicker lurking behind his eyes, something satisfied, maybe even pleased.

They both turned as a scrabbling issued from the forest, just in time to see Oliver and Alex burst from the trees and sprint along the border between sand and soil, spears held aloft. For a single, dangling second, there was a strained silence. Then, from the forest, came the long and reverberating cry of a stag, followed by an almighty rumble that could only have been made by dozens of hooves.

James watched Alex charge along the beach for a moment, glanced at Lucian, and then gave chase. They passed into the shade thrown down by the canopy and caught up with the others in a few bounding strides.

Alex was swinging his head back and forth, glaring into the trees. He seemed to see things the others could not. They followed his lead, sprinting alongside him until he gave a grunt and veered off from the sand, plummeting back into the forest.

James sprang after him, slipping between the thick brambles without breaking a single twig, leaving the others—heavy-footed and uncoordinated—in his wake. He vaulted deeper into darkness, passing between narrow gaps between trees, bounded shrubbery and rocks without effort, and ducked overhanging branches without a moment’s thought. His footfalls made only the lightest of patters. His breathing was deep, calm and unhurried.

He and Alex had spent countless hours in the wilds, honing their senses. But while Alex had grown sharper—his eyes, especially, had become indispensable during a hunt—James had become something else. Over the years, he had felt himself become at home in the forest, one with it.