Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3) Read online

  Heather’s long equine features had contorted into a blank-faced stare. Her hands rose up slowly, her fingers waggling. “Don’t shoot, sheriff, it’s just the deputy.”

  Sarah lowered the gun slowly. “You don’t want to be my deputy,” she said.

  “Too late for that now, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not too late to go down there.” She nodded to the cathedral.

  Heather spread herself into the window frame, bracing her hands upon the sill and leaning out. Her face darkened. “You think I’d do that? Back out on you now?”

  “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Bollocks, you wouldn’t. Those people are just sticking their heads in the sand.”

  “Maybe, but I know you wouldn’t be one of them. Agatha’s doing good work down there. Those people need… something to keep them together. They look to you.”

  “I haven’t worked the clinic in days.”

  “Doesn’t matter. People trust doctor’s orders.” She looked to Heather’s drawn, exhausted face, and with some effort, laid a hand on her arm. “You could help them through this.”

  Heather snorted. “While the bullets fly and everybody else dies for me? No thanks.”

  Sarah caught her retort between her teeth, just: You’re not the right person for this. War’s no place for a healer.

  Look who’s bloody talking! she thought.

  A fit of giggles rolled through her, unstoppable and gut-busting. It took all her willpower to stifle it, but still a snort escaped her nostrils.

  She felt Heather’s eyes on her and kept her gaze resolutely on the barricade forming below. Still she could feel the pressure of that stare. She sighed and smiled—her cheeks stretched and complained at the contortion. It had been a long time since her last smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  The ghost of an appreciative glint flashed behind Heather’s eyes. “Ew, girly gushing.”

  They settled into companionable silence for a while. Inevitably, their gazes fell upon the pigeons wheeling overhead. There was no ignoring them nor the undulating patterns, the eerie strictness with which the flock adhered to the city’s border. Like a bullseye.

  Here be lambs, ripe for the slaughter.

  “They’re coming, aren’t they?” Heather said.

  Sarah didn’t reply for a while. She felt sure the image of those flocks would be forever burned into her retinas.

  Wrenching her gaze away, she turned to the treeline at the city’s edge. A moment of terror bolted through her when she saw leagues of figures racing across the fields towards them. But it was just the shadow of the birds upon the crop-heads.

  She drew a long sigh. “Funny, isn’t it? I think we all feel it.”

  They were out there, somewhere. Marching.

  A hand wandered into her peripheral vision. She resisted at first, tightening her jaw—knowing she had to stay strong until the end—but of its own volition, her hand wandered down to Heather’s and gripped it. Coupled like that, they hung there in the window and watched the city prepare for its last stand.

  “We’ll be fine.” Her own words fell flat on her ears, but she said them nonetheless.

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because. They’re still out there, and they’re coming back.”

  Robert and the others. She felt them in her gut just as strongly as she felt the marching footsteps of their would-be destroyers.

  The radio message from the north might have come through. If they found the Scots’ ambassadors, perhaps they’ll bring back help. Perhaps we could put up a real fight. And maybe, maybe, we can win.

  Maybe.

  Either way, Robert was out there. And he was coming back. Whether it was in paradise or amidst blasted rubble, they were having their damn honeymoon.

  Heather gave her hand an extra squeeze as though sensing the internal struggle, and Sarah gave one in return. They returned to watching the city, and this time Sarah ignored the birds, focusing instead on the militia’s efforts. There was no chance they would ever really be prepared, but they were making progress.

  And that was something.

  Her gaze wandered back over the fields, and this time she saw only the pigeons’ shadows. She didn’t see the people wandering across the field until the clouds shifted and a sunbeam poured momentarily down upon the land, lifting the shadows clear. There were people everywhere, walking through the young crops towards the city.

  Sarah tensed, on the verge of launching herself through the window to sound the alarm. Heather gripped her hard, keeping her in place. “No, wait. Look!”

  Sarah looked again more carefully, taking in the slow plodding pace of those in the fields, strung out in a long ant trail, wandering, uncoordinated. She hadn’t seen them because they moved so slowly, and they were so scattered. Scattered but plentiful: dozens, maybe hundreds. There was nothing hostile about them, nothing predatory.

  Instead, their approach spoke of the dull death march of cats who crawl to a place of comfort before they lie down to die.

  They were heading for Alexander’s house.

  IV

  “Are you sure about him?” Norman muttered to Billy as they sat before the desk.

  He kept his gaze fixed on the pale-faced man, sensing the others keeping their hands on the butts of their pistols. One false move, and they’d blow him away.

  That would be bad. Suspect or not, Norman knew the man was important—probably their only chance of getting back home in time.

  “No,” Billy said, not without a hint of venom, “but he’s not one of them.”

  “Them?”

  “The Bad Men. He’s on our side.”

  What side would that be?

  “Uh huh.” He paused, no more comforted, hovering an inch above his seat. He flinched when Billy’s fingers alighted on his hand. “Trust me,” she whispered.

  Norman blinked. He didn’t know this girl, had met her perhaps three hours before.

  I do know her. I’ve seen her. And through her, I’ve seen other things.

  He suppressed a vague shudder and turned his eyes once more on the pale man. “Fine, we’re sitting,” he said.

  The man, himself seated behind the desk, kicked his heels up onto the mahogany top. Mercurial, hard to read, his features shifted ceaselessly between extremes of sorrow and mischievous delight. He ran a hand through his hair, which didn’t yield an inch. The jagged spikes were no feature of styling but instead almost part of his skull; a jagged tear where some protuberance had been torn away—

  “Spill it,” Lucian grunted. “I’ve had enough of this macabre goop. We got one mission here: get home.”

  The man spread his hands in placation. “Like I said, I think a few answers are in order.”

  “I don’t need any bloody answers. The time for talk is past.”

  “On the contrary, talk is the flavour of the moment!”

  Robert seemed to pop some spigot of self-control. “Lucian’s right. We don’t have time for this, Norman.” He nodded to the desk. “This stinks, and I can’t get distracted now. They all need us.”

  Norman cut Richard off before he could join in. “Just… wait.”

  “Norm—” Lucian hissed.

  “I said, wait.” Staring down Lucian was like playing chicken with a charging horse, but Norman refused to give in.

  The silverback’s jaw tightened, but he nodded and sat back.

  “Your name was…,” Norman said, rounding on the desk.

  The stranger tipped his head, acquiescing. “Fol, of Highcourt.”

  Norman made to introduce them in turn, but Fol waved a dismissive hand. “Not necessary.” A smile crept into the corners of his mouth. “I know.”

  Of course you do. You’ve been watching me for a while, haven’t you? Maybe you’ve been watching us all.

  “Fine, Mr Fol. I’m going to make this really clear. Whatever’s going on, whatever you’ve got planned, forget it. We’re not interested. Billy says you know a way to get us home. I�
�m going to take a chance, because I can’t see any other way. But if this is some kind of trick, I promise on behalf of every man, woman, and child still free in this world”—their eyes locked in sizzling stalemate—“I’ll kill you.”

  Fol’s light and easy smile drooped into a stony glare with jarring rapidity. “Good,” he said. “I hope you mean that.”

  Norman blinked despite himself. “Why?”

  “Because you people are among but a handful who can stop what’s coming.”

  “That’s why we’re trying to get home,” Richard said. “If the Alliance falls, everything of the Old World we’re keeping alive will disintegrate, and the whole country will slide—”

  Fol waved a hand. “I’m afraid you don’t understand. I’m not talking about a mere descent into anarchy. Empires rise and fall, civilisation comes and goes; such is the way of mortals. I’d never be concerned with natural order.” He stood slowly and leaned over the table. “I’m afraid that none of you, for all your threats and concern for your friends, are anywhere near scared enough. If you had known before now what the stakes really were, you’d have had me against the wall with a gun in my mouth the moment you laid eyes on me.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Lucian growled. “We said no more gab. Get to the bloody point!”

  “It’s not something that I can just explain. To really understand, I’ll have to show you.” With that, he gestured for them to rise, nodding to the crest of the pendulum upon the table. “Come closer and put your hands here.”

  Norman had no intention of moving. All this reeked of some gigantic waste of time; a red herring leading down some cosmic avenue of freakery, one that would leave everyone back home to die.

  Billy stood without a word, stepped lightly over to the desk, and with a glance of contempt in Fol’s direction, laid her hand on the crest. The brass glyph dwarfed her, making her rosy fingers seem so very tiny and delicate.

  She asked me to trust her. But can I really trust the fate of us all to some mystic trip?

  Norman had no idea what he believed until he found himself standing to join Billy by the desk. He glanced at her, and any doubt ebbed under her long-suffering stare. He gave her a wink and turned to the others.

  He wasn’t going to force them. He had chosen, but he wasn’t going to force this on them. If they were going in pursuit of insanity, they all had to jump together, or they wouldn’t go.

  Robert was first to stand, a blazing look of mixed warning and gratitude emanating from his rounded head.

  Norman knew what that meant: if they succeeded, it would be Norman who had led them to victory; but if they failed… it would be Sarah’s blood on his hands.

  No, that won’t happen. We won’t let it.

  Still, the mental images flashed before his eyes, an unending cascade: bullets, running feet, the quaint cobbles of New Canterbury splashed with blood.

  Richard came next, shaking his head. Every step of the way, he muttered, “This is mental. Mental.”

  Everyone, Fol included, waited for Lucian to make his choice. He glowered at the ground when he finally rose, not meeting a single eye until his hairy digits slapped down onto the crest, then locked onto Fol. “Like the boy said,” he glowered, “if this is a trick, you die.”

  Fol gave a small bow, his stony look having once again blossomed into a light-hearted, almost facetious grin. “Understood. Now, shall we?”

  The next moment, the cavern was gone, and Norman almost screamed for darkness rushed in on all sides, and he was flying. He endured a nauseating sensation of falling, but in no direction his internal compass could parse; some other flavour of sideways that boggled the mind. A brief instant of pain followed as the chill in his chest rushed out, pain and cold so intense he felt he might shatter, and then his entire body folded up through impossible angles like an origami swan.

  Then darkness again, and the other five were before him again. They all hovered amidst nothing. Just nothing. At first he thought a black canvas had replaced the world. Then he looked down what seemed a hundred feet at least, and he saw them.

  Them.

  His heart stopped. The sight was a horror to outstrip all others, but it wasn’t the sheer oddity of what he was seeing: it was that he had seen it before with Billy. In his dreams.

  “Oh my God,” Richard said, his voice infantile and on the verge of tears.

  There are so many of them. So many…

  The floor of the strange other place undulated in constant motion, its colour a rusted palette ranging between chalk and charcoal.

  People. Endless, screaming, flailing people. A carpet of human beings without end, stretching away into infinity in all directions. Blindly pressed together amongst the accumulated filth of decades, starving and agonised, yet without death; crushed face-to-face, yet entirely alone in their own personal hell.

  “Is that…?” Richard stammered.

  “The Vanished,” Billy said. “The people from Before.”

  “Trick.” Lucian’s voice had lost its gravelly edge and seemed on the brink of snapping. “It’s a trick. I’ll… I’ll kill you. I said no tricks.” He made a loose grab for Fol, but there was no fight left in him as though he had taken twenty rounds in a boxing ring.

  Fol’s voice was gentle. “It’s no trick. Nobody should ever have to see this.” A brief pause. “But you’d never believe me otherwise.”

  “It can’t be,” Richard said. His voice had devolved entirely to that of a child’s, his eyes wide and staring.

  “It is,” Fol said.

  Richard swallowed sharply.

  Norman and Billy said nothing more. It seemed outrageous and almost funny, but the truth was the two of them had seen this enough. It was horrific, gut-wrenching, sure to haunt their dreams for the rest of their lives. But he didn’t disbelieve it one iota.

  Before them writhed the last generation of the Old World, brought to this torturous purgatory.

  Robert swept a long stare over the carpet of Vanished, then calmly turned back to Fol. “Tell us,” he said.

  Norman’s throat tightened. Somehow, seeing the determination in those frank chocolate eyes hurt more than the sight of billions of screaming innocents.

  He’s getting home even if he has to punch through the devil himself.

  Richard, however, had started mewling. His hands reached up to his head, and he curled into a ball, not falling in this place without gravity, only turning in free fall, scrunched into a jittering foetal position. Tears dropped from his chin. “No, this can’t be happening. No, no, no, no…”

  “I-I…” Lucian scowled. “This… No. This isn’t real.”

  “It is real,” Fol said. “I promise you.”

  “No, this is the same trick as before,” Lucian cried. His eyes grew wilder with each word. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’ll never get me with your mumbo jumbo, not like you got him.”

  Him? Don’t crack on me now, Lucian. Don’t you dare, Norman thought desperately.

  Fol sighed. Suddenly his facetious gleam had punctured yet again. An ancient fatigue shone through for an instant, and Norman’s skin rippled with some extra perception, one he had only before received from Billy.

  He’s been waiting. Waiting for so long for this moment. For us.

  “You have to listen to me,” he said quietly.

  Lucian made another weak grab for him. “You won’t take any of us. You’ve already taken him away from me. I won’t let you do it again!”

  Norman’s lips parted in shock for there were tears in Lucian’s eyes. Never, in all his life, had he seen Lucian shed a tear.

  “Listen. Listen, now,” Fol said, his face draining of any remaining colour.

  “No, no, no!” Richard wept without end.

  “Lucian, stop,” Robert said. “There’s no time.”

  “Please listen to me…” Fol uttered.

  “I won’t be taken; I’ll fight you. I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Lucian barked.

  “No, no, no, no�
�”

  “You took my brother, but you won’t take me!”

  “ENOUGH!” Fol’s voice tore through them as though they were made of paper, a searing intensity so great he seemed ten times as large. For a brief moment looking at him was unbearable, like staring into the sun, and Norman glimpsed something else superimposed in Fol’s place: something elemental, beyond his comprehension. “I have waited too long for the time to be right. You people will listen to me now, or our last chance is gone. YOU WILL LISTEN!” His voice rose to a stentorian rumble, silencing any remnant retorts.

  They all watched, waiting, hanging absurdly in mid-air. Norman had time, before the man of Highcourt spoke again, for a single errant thought:

  This is just so bloody weird. Why couldn’t I have just taken a bullet to the head instead?

  “I told you that you didn’t know the stakes. Now you do,” Fol said. He gestured to the millions—perhaps billions—of screaming people below. His shoulders rose and fell as he took long, slow breaths. Some great unseen fire, one that could have destroyed them all in a flash, slowly died down. He sighed. “I need you to understand. So…” Astonishingly, a thin smile graced his face. “I have to tell you a little story.”

  This time, none of them interrupted. Instead, they all turned to the Vanished as though some secret magnetism drew their gaze. Fol’s voice washed over them in dulcet waves.

  “In the beginning, there were two. Both were wise and fair, servants of the creator: the Pendulum that must always swing, from which pour the threads that bind our universe together. One, the Great Weaver, would for all time hang from these threads and fashion the body of reality, breathe life into the stars and oceans, creatures and lives of men. The other, the Angelic One, would watch over them, guide the ultimate fate of all towards becoming one with themselves and the Pendulum. Thus, together, they would bring the cosmos towards greatness and peace.

  “This was the bargain set before them. An eternity of servitude in exchange for the knowledge that they would embody the true definition of divinity. So the Great Weaver fashioned a cosmos of myriad worlds of untold number and variety; all beside one another, yet apart, joined by threads unseen to all but a handful of Guardians, whom the Weaver charged with maintaining its creations.