The Watch (The Red Series Book 1) (25 page)

“Yes,” Farrell Dean said. His face was frighteningly white.

“Good man,” said Sir Tom. Shifting his gun to his other
hand, he dug in a pocket and pulled out a small silvery package, which he
tossed to Farrell Dean. “Unwrap that and get yourself around it,” he said.
“It’ll give you a little energy.”

Farrell Dean pulled off the silver to reveal a dark square.
“What is it?” he asked.

Sir Tom gave a bark of laughter. “Chocolate. A great
delicacy of which you hitherto have been deprived. Food of the gods, young man.
Giver of instant energy. It won’t heal wounds or mask pain, but it will get you
through the next little while.”

He glanced in my direction. “The next little while could be
a bit tricky,” he said. “Everyone stay close.”

We didn’t go in the direction I
expected, north toward the sea cave. Instead we headed further south, into
denser woods.

It wasn’t easy going. My feet were tough from being barefoot
for so long, but there were many rocks and sharp branches. Fortunately Judd and
I were the only ones without boots, and I actually didn’t mind the pain. Now
and then it made me think about something other than
Meritt
.

I was frightened for him, but when I thought about it, I
couldn’t believe he was dead. Though I felt panicked at the thought of leaving
him further and further behind, I didn’t feel a permanent absence.
Then again, I also didn’t feel as if
Rafe
were permanently absent, and he was most certainly dead and gone.

A pinecone cut into my heel and I stumbled. Just
ahead of me Farrell Dean soldiered on silently, his mother and Cline never far
from him. His shirt was tied around his waist, and in the mottled and shifting
light of the rising moon I could see thick welts and gashes on his back. Some
looked scabbed over, but some oozed fresh dark blood.

We reached a wide
rocky section. I tried to pick my way carefully, but there seemed no good place
to set my foot, and the rocks were small and sharp. After wincing through two
or three steps, I paused, trying to think of a solution. I wished I had
something to tie around my feet, but all I had were the clothes on my back.

Ezzie
tapped my shoulder and
then squatted down in front of me. After a moment’s hesitation I climbed on and
put my arms around his neck, careful not to strangle him, and he
hooked
his arms
behind my knees.

Up ahead Sir Tom was
saying something to Alice. She nodded and turned to Farrell Dean.

“This part is a bit
challenging,” Sir Tom told the rest of us. “But we’re almost there.”

He pointed to a steep upward
slope on our right. “I have a cabin at the top,” he said. “It’s easy to defend
because it’s hard to get to.”

That was an understatement. The
slope was loose dirt and pine needles—no rocks, no handholds. It looked
impossible to climb.

Sir Tom walked a few steps to a
large tree and slapped its trunk. “I will bring up the rear,” he said. He
gestured toward Joe. “You look like a climber. Am I right?”

Joe nodded.

“This young man will go first,”
Sir Tom said. “Follow him up the tree. Climb as he does. After a bit you’ll see
a rocky ledge on the right. You’ll have to stretch a bit, but once you get to
the ledge, you’ll be able to climb the slope to the top.”

As Joe started up the tree, Sir
Tom lined up the rest of us according to some plan in his head: first Alice,
then Farrell Dean, Cline, Liza, Harding, Shawna, and Judd.

“You’re my lookout,” he said to
Ezzie
, and turned to me. “And you stay right with me. Angel
is altogether too interested in you for my peace of mind. Even these two lovely
young women did not distract him, and they’re rather more his usual taste.” He
meant that Liza and Shawna were tall and more grown-up looking. At his words
they looked uneasily at each other and moved a little closer to the boys.

“Have no fear,” he
said as he cupped hands and gave Joe a boost onto the first
branch. “I will not surrender any of you to Angel.”

They didn’t look
particularly reassured.

Sir Tom sent us up at regular
intervals. One by one my friends grasped the lowest branch of the tree and
vanished into the darkness above. I could hear occasional murmurs—Joe
warning about a tricky patch, Alice urging caution, a sudden thud and scramble
as someone leapt from the tree to the rocky ledge.

Finally Sir Tom pointed at me.
“You next,” he said, and then turned toward where
Ezzie
had been keeping watch. Something
in the old man’s
face
made me follow his gaze.
Ezzie
was gesturing silently
at three forms—four—crouching on a large boulder just visible
through the trees. From here they were merely shadows, dark forms silhouetted
against the
pale rock behind them.
As we
watched, one of the crouching figures stood.

“Up,” Sir Tom said shortly, but
before I could move someone spoke from the branches above.

“I can’t!” The voice was high
with anxiety, and it took me a second to realize it was Shawna.

Harding said something in
response, but she cut him off. “No, I can’t! It’s too far.”

“Brace yourself against the
trunk,” Harding said, his voice louder. I shot a glance toward the wild men;
sure enough, they had turned toward us, were sniffing the air.

“Get good and steady, and then
jump. I’m right here. I’ll catch you.”

“I’ll fall!”

The wild men were sliding down
from the boulder.

“Get going,” Sir Tom said. I
reached for the lowest branch and he boosted me unceremoniously up, the rough
bark scraping my arms. The branches felt sturdier than I’d expected, but all
the same I was careful to stay close to the trunk as I began to climb, hurrying
to get out of the way so
Ezzie
and Sir Tom could get
up too. I glanced back to see if they were coming.

Below me
Ezzie
was reaching for the lowest limb. Sir Tom was behind him, standing on the
ground, facing away from the tree. There was a flash of movement, and then he
was slamming the butt of his gun against a human face—ugly, vicious, with
strangely long and pointed teeth, but human. The wild man covered his face with
his hands, blood pouring from between his fingers, and howled in rage or pain;
above us Shawna shrieked as if in answer.

Sir Tom turned away and swung at
another creature. Why didn’t he shoot? He had a gun.

Ezzie
was
in the tree now but he wasn’t climbing. He was crawling out on a lower limb,
toward Sir Tom. As Sir Tom knocked the second creature to the ground, a third
came out of nowhere and lunged at Sir Tom’s back, and
Ezzie
locked his arms around the branch and swung down, kicking the wild thing,
knocking it off its feet. Before
Ezzie
could pull
himself back up the first wild thing lowered its bloody hands from its face and
leapt for
Ezzie’s
dangling legs. I screamed a warning
and
Ezzie
jerked away, almost falling, kicking at the
crazed thing scrabbling
and snarling at him.

A cracking sound
split the air—not a gunshot, because Sir Tom was grabbing a limb, pulling
himself up into the tree fairly far from the trunk, his gun slung over his
shoulder.
Ezzie
gave one last violent shove and the
wild man fell away.

“Climb!” Sir Tom
said, and I looked up and caught a glimpse of Judd, quite high now, moving
fast. I followed him as quickly as I could, glancing down only to make sure it
was
Ezzie
breathing hard behind me, not a wild man.
Sir Tom, I could see, was right behind him.

A flurry of anxious
voices came from above. Judd said
something I couldn’t catch. Shawna was
crying and talking at the same time. Harding yelled a warning. Then the tree
seemed to shudder. A large limb crashed down, breaking smaller limbs as it
fell, catching against another branch just below the place where I stood
clinging to the trunk.

“
I’m
thinking we’ve about had enough drama,”
Ezzie
said
dryly. But our trouble wasn’t over. There was Judd, standing safely on the
rocky ledge; and there was the white exposed wood where the limb to the ledge
had broken off. Now it was just a
stubby projection, a foot or two long,
reaching nowhere near close enough to the ledge.

I stared at Judd across the gap,
and he stared back at me round-eyed, his blond hair standing on end. I could
hear the others scrambling up the slope above him.

“What happened?” I said.

“Harding came back to help
Shawna. Both of them on the limb—and he’s so big  . . .”

“You went across it after it
cracked?” He could have been killed.

“That finished it off. I’m
sorry, Red. I thought it would hold.”

 
“Is anyone injured?” Sir Tom called from
below.

“No, Sir,” Judd said. “At least,
not bad. Shawna twisted her ankle or something. They’re getting her up the
slope.”

I looked down at Sir Tom,
waiting for direction. The rocky ledge was about fifty feet above the ground.
Now, with the limb gone, it was impossibly far away from the tree.

“Go on up to the next branch,
Red Girl,” the old man said.

Clinging to the trunk I climbed
to the next
good branch on that side of the tree,
several fee higher but not nearly long enough for my taste.

“Ease on out,” Sir
Tom said. “Young man, clear the way.” Judd disappeared from view. Cautiously I
crawled out, above the broken branch, my palms slick with nervous sweat. Now I
could see the ledge again; I was more or less above it, but it was a long way
down.

“Go as far on the
branch as you can, Red Girl,” said the old man from beneath me. “Get a good
grip, ease off the branch, and then drop.”

I did not like this,
not at all.

“You can do it,
Red,”
Ezzie
said, his voice sounding oddly strained.

What choice did I have? I took a
deep breath and lowered my legs off the branch, balancing on my stomach.
Cautiously, I shifted my weight and let more of me slide off, the bark of the
limb pulling up my shirt and scraping at my skin, until I was dangling in thin
air, held up only by that
slender limb.

I was afraid to let
go. What if I hit the ledge and rolled off? The ground below was a long way
down, and if the fall didn’t kill me, the crazy things who’d attacked Tom and
Ezzie
probably would make me wish it had.

 
“Go!” Sir Tom ordered.

I let go. There was
a split second of falling when I thought I had missed the ledge, but then I
landed hard and fell to my hands and knees. I didn’t roll off the ledge, and as
best I could tell, nothing was twisted or broken. Hurriedly, my heart pounding,
I scrambled away from the edge and up the slope, and immediately
Ezzie
dropped from the high limb to the ledge behind me. He
landed on his feet, staggered, and fell against the slope of the hill.

Sir Tom was right
behind him, landing smoothly in a crouch just a couple of feet from
Ezzie
. He grabbed
Ezzie
under the
arms and pulled him to his feet, then hurried us up the slope before I’d had time
to catch my breath.

“Go, go, go,” he
said, nudging me forward. He still hadn’t let go of
Ezzie
.

The slope was doable
but still not easy. Though rocks and thick roots were plentiful, the soil was
loose and every handhold had to be checked. More than once a handful of dirt
broke free and sprayed down into my eyes. Half-blind and coughing from the
dust, I had to focus completely on putting one hand in front of the other, on
not making a mistake that would send me sliding back down.

At least it would be hard for
the wild things, too, I hoped. How well could they climb? And why was Sir Tom
rushing us now—were they chasing us?

That thought gave me enough
energy to claw myself up the rest of the steep slope, finally pulling myself
over the edge, where I collapsed onto my back, panting, my eyes watering and
stinging with dust.

When my heart
stopped pounding in my ears, I sat up. Nearby the others were moving around,
talking in low, worried voices. Shawna said something about blood—her
voice was thick with tears, but she sounded like she was giving orders.

“Use this,” Sir Tom
said, and I stood and hurried forward.

Ezzie
was
lying on his back, his arms flung wide, his fingers twitching. Harding was bent
over him, ripping his pants leg open. Shawna took a small jar from Sir Tom and
brushed Harding aside. She touched
Ezzie’s
leg and he
cried out. Harding braced
Ezzie’s
arms to hold him
still, and Cline and Joe stepped forward and held his feet. They were pinning
him to the ground, just like they’d pinned Jensen.

I got up and went to get a
better look.

Ezzie’s
left
leg had four long angry cuts, running from just above his knee almost to his
ankle. Shawna was sprinkling the gashes with yellowish powder from Sir Tom’s
jar. A burnt smell reached me;
Ezzie
cried out again;
beside me Liza turned her face away.

Then Sir Tom’s voice rang out.
“Carry him inside,” he said, and I raised my head and finally noticed my
surroundings.

Sir Tom was standing at the door
of a tightly built cabin made of whole logs. It stood in a narrow, rocky
clearing, from which the land dropped sharply away on all sides. Below us on
three sides were trees.

On the fourth—
with the moonlight shining on it
—was the sea.