Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) Read online

She took him under the shoulder, and together, they stood and faced the crowd beside Alexander.

  He looked down at the pale young girl in his arms. She still breathed, but with all that she had lost, she would never be whole again. Her face joined those of the dead outside, and the endless shadow parade behind them. “Two hours,” he called. “Two hours, and the council convenes.”

  The crowd dispersed with vigour, milling and whorling as people piled into the lobby and disappeared into the tower. In moments the courtyard had almost emptied, and the only ones left were the guards, the council members, Marek, and Norman. While the guards stared away across the city with their ears sealed decidedly shut, the others all stared at Alexander.

  “You should be full of holes, chief,” Marek said quietly. His leg had been haphazardly bandaged, already soaked through with blood, but he was standing on it nonetheless, staggering yet determined. “They gunned down some good fighters today, no easy targets. And you run right towards them across open ground and …” He looked Alexander up and down, speechless.

  “What were you thinking?” Evelyn breathed.

  Alexander swallowed. There was no answer to give.

  “What if we had lost you? How would we go on?”

  Alexander smiled automatically. He swept an arm at Norman Creek, and all eyes turned upon him. “For that, we have our champion. I was never going to lead the world back to glory, remember? That job belongs to Norman.”

  Silence. Nobody would ever question Norman’s destiny; Alexander had made sure of that. The story of his succession had become sacred religion. They believed in him as much as they believed in Alexander. The council members were old, wise, and powerful, but everyone needed their comforts, even if they had to blind themselves to the truth.

  Because the truth was Norman had never wanted any destiny. Even now, he cringed at the mention of his own name.

  Marek took the girl from Alexander’s arms, and they departed to make preparations, leaving Norman alone with Alexander.

  “Where’s Lucian?” Norman said. There were tears in his eyes.

  Alexander touched him on the arm, but he recoiled. “Alive. I’m sure of it.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. He disappeared.”

  “How could he just disappear?”

  “We found their hideout, in the woods—at least, what was left of it. Their slaves had fought back … It was a massacre. We searched inside, and …” Alexander thought of the note he had found in a dusty old office, the one that had so distracted him, which rested even now in his pocket. “We got separated. And then he was just gone.”

  Norman glowered. “We have to find him.”

  “We will, but not now. We have much to do. And in any case”—he eyed the wall—“we couldn’t leave if we tried. Not now.”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t abandoned me here, I could have saved him.”

  “Norman—”

  “Maybe I could have done something!”

  Alexander whirled to face him, his patience bowing. “Norman, you’re injured! The attack on New Canterbury was just a few weeks ago. Broken ribs take time to heal. I’m sorry we left you, I am, but there was little time, and in your condition …”

  Norman’s eyes swam with hurt. “All those years you raised me to believe in that stupid destiny, and told all those people they could look to me. When the time finally came for me to step up, you just left me, right in front of everyone.” He blinked. “I’ll never forget that.”

  Alexander didn’t answer. “Like I’ve said before, our past isn’t all roses. It never has been.”

  Norman smouldered awhile as they circled the courtyard. Inside the tower, a great hubbub had kicked up. People were making ready for the summit, the one thing that might still save them. And beyond the wall—no, through it—Alexander could feel the enemy, feel them all around, pressing in closer.

  “Marek’s right. You should be dead,” Norman said finally, and stopped abruptly, turning Alexander forcefully to face him.

  Alexander nodded.

  “They didn’t shoot. They know you.”

  He nodded again. “Yes.”

  “You know more than you’re telling us. You always do.”

  Alexander didn’t reply.

  Norman waited a moment longer, then shook his head in disgust and ambled upon his cane toward the tower. “One day, you’ll learn to trust your family,” he spat over his shoulder.

  Alexander was left alone.

  The truth was he knew everything. And that was why he was still alive. In reality, the great hordes and burning and mass-killings weren’t about food or land or hunger at all. It was all revenge for the wrongs Alexander had done, all stemming from the man at its head—a man who wanted to watch all he’d created burn to the ground.

  He took the note he had found in the dusty office from his pocket and unfurled it:

  Know this, brother: if there had ever been a time in which you could have saved them, could have ever truly saved anyone, it was the last time you looked into my eyes—when you chose your dream over your family.

  Destiny calls, Alex. I’ll be seeing you, soon.

  — J

  CHAPTER 2

  Light. A metallic squeal amidst total blackness.

  Lucian lifted his head, breathing stale, stinking air, and blinked fiercely. His eyes streamed, the optic nerve throbbing at the intensity of the square of orange radiance pouring into the room. How long had he been in this damp, dark cell, his hands and feet bound to this unyielding metal chair?

  He thought it might have been hours, but days would have better suited the ache in his back and the numbness in his legs. He had heard others beyond his four walls, begging and babbling, some screaming. But they had seemed far away, removed from his own private darkness, as though their beatings and torture had been going on in some distant land.

  A figure broke the perfect orange glow and stepped into the room with a heavy limp, accompanied by a fug of sweat, ash, and the gamey tang of coagulated blood. He would have recognised that limp anywhere. “Untie me, Charlie,” he growled.

  Charlie stood over him, his young face made old by pain and hatred. It had been weeks since the people of New Canterbury—in no small part led by Lucian himself—had dragged him through their streets and trampled over him like an animal, yet still his body bore the marks, the gashes still seeping pus, the great bruises on his face and arms only now fading from green to yellow. His lip twitched. He dropped a box he had brought with him onto the ground and sat with difficulty, angling his fractured leg out to the side. “My father taught me that violence was the refuge of the uncivilised mind,” he said, his eyes trained upon a spot past Lucian’s shoulder. “He was a good man, gentle and kind. He believed in things, he had principles and morals, and he stood by them, even when nobody else would. Even when we had to steal so that we could eat, or cheat a tradesman out of his wares, he would make amends somehow. He’d leave a cloth full of bread crusts under a nearby tree, or send help back for them when we came to the next village. He was a seer from before the End. He thought we could be something again, live in the big skyscrapers and drive motorcars again someday. He hadn’t given up.” Charlie’s eyes flickered to Lucian, and his gaze bore through to Lucian’s memory of the night he had gunned Charlie’s father down. “And then they came and took us and made my father go out on those little jaunts into your city every night. During the day, he would rest real quiet and tell me everything was going to be fine. Meanwhile, every now and then they took one of the other families outside and shot them while they grovelled in the dirt. But he was my dad. He’d never lied to me. And he said we would be fine.” A twisted mutant of a smile flashed upon Charlie’s lips, threaded with pain. “I believed him.”

  The expression vanished suddenly. “Then he ran into you. I know he wouldn’t have done anything to hurt anyone. He was just doing what he had to.” He inched closer to Lucian, stinking of grease and other people’s spilled blood. “I know yo
u must have sensed that he wasn’t one of them. But you still shot him in cold blood.”

  Lucian eyed Charlie’s hand, hovering close to his belt, where a rusted old pistol hung in its holster. He waited until Charlie’s fingers had stopped spasming over the handle before he said, “I did what I had to do to protect my family. They attacked us, put Norman on crutches, killed Ray, scared hundreds of people half to death.”

  “And for that you murdered an innocent man.”

  “I made a mistake, Charlie. A lot of people got hurt that night. And your father was among the enemy.”

  “He had no choice!”

  “Neither did I!” Lucian surged forward against his restraints, ignoring the pain of the wire cutting into the flesh of his wrists. “People were desperate. You know how things were then. Anyone would have slit a stranger’s throat for a bag of grain.”

  Light erupted from his peripheral vision, and Lucian gasped, blown sideways. Nausea sent his guts heaving and he vomited bile across his shoes. Through the stars flashing before his eyes, he saw Charlie with his fist raised to strike again, teeth bared. “That was your fault! If you and your kind hadn’t scoured every nook and cranny across the whole country and stolen every scrap of food for your towns and cities, maybe so many wouldn’t have died.” He scowled. “Maybe now you wouldn’t have an army of orphaned kids, grieving widows, and childless parents burning and killing everything and everyone you hold dear.”

  “Like I said, what had to be done was done.”

  “You starved people to death. Your brothers and sisters, those to whom you’re so fond of preaching, about how you’ll save us all, bring back the power of the Old World. But because we’re not part of your little clique, because we don’t live in the wreck of some creaking city and spend all day reading dusty books searching for answers, we’re not worthy. We’re just dogs, cavemen.”

  Lucian said nothing.

  Charlie sneered. “You can’t even deny it to my face.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Lucian muttered. It took all he had to meet Charlie’s gaze, because those hurting eyes hanging over him were the spitting image of his father’s, the same ones that had silently pleaded for peace around the campfire, before the shooting had started—before Lucian had put a round in his chest. “I can’t change what I did.”

  “All I want is justice.” Charlie’s fingers waggled close to his belt once more.

  Lucian felt sweat break out on his neck. He knew the drawn, haggard look stealing into Charlie’s face all too well. It was the look men got when they were fixing to kill. “That could put you on a dangerous path, Charlie. Your father wouldn’t want this. You’re right. He did try to stop what happened. And I bet he wouldn’t have wanted this for you, signing up with the enemy on some revenge kick.”

  Another blinding blow caught him across the temple, and yet more stars flew in from nowhere, twinkling and fading. Then, Charlie’s voice, cold and seething, “What would you know about what he would have wanted?”

  “An old bastard like me gets to know a lot of people in his time. Some are bad, most are just trying to get by however they can, and a few are good—the kind of selfless good guys who don’t seem real, like they’re out of some book. Your dad was one of those.” Lucian swallowed hard. His throat was parched dry, and his tongue rasped the back of his throat, but that wasn’t why it was hard to talk. A hard orb had formed in his gullet, trembling and whispering evil things. “I killed him,” he said. “I did. And I’m sorry. I took your father away from you, and there’s nothing I can ever do to put it right—”

  “No, there isn’t,” Charlie said. His fingers had grown still again. There was noise outside, a lot of noise. His eyes darted away towards the concrete walls, as though he were seeing through them, and his brow furrowed. “Save your breath. We’re going to have to cut this short. We’re moving.”

  “I take it I’m not alone?”

  A smile flickered on Charlie’s face. “The End might have kicked us to the dirt, but you’d be surprised just how many pockets of the Old World are still out there. Like cockroaches. And I have to hand it to your kind: we burned plenty places to the ground and they still won’t bow, won’t sign up, and won’t even look at us like we’re men and women. They see us just like you do, like cavemen.”

  “Think there’s a clue somewhere in there?”

  “Don’t get smart. You get another day of living, but I can still make that day ugly.” Charlie pushed the door closed as someone shuffled past outside. He suddenly looked alert, perhaps even afraid.

  Lucian frowned, but waited until the shuffling dissipated before he said, “I’m not supposed to be here, am I?”

  Charlie didn’t answer, his ear pressed to the door.

  “Do the others know who I am?”

  Charlie was very still, facing the door. Lucian thought he caught a single muscle spasm in his neck.

  I’m onto something, he thought. But don’t push it, not yet.

  He let it pass and waited in silence. Eventually, Charlie seemed satisfied and turned back to face him, the half-healed slashes in his cheek thrown into sharp relief by the scant light shining in through the crack in the doorway. “We’ve been real busy, burning up all those little quaint villages and towns. A fair few sign right up with us to keep breathing, but you wouldn’t believe how many swear fealty to your ilk, to New Canterbury and your blessed little council in London.” He leaned in close, so close that Lucian could smell the dry, musky excitement on his breath. “It’s like you’re gods or something. They think you’ll swoop in and save them.” He smiled. “But we have faith in them. They just take a little convincing.”

  “And this humble abode is where you do your convincing? With a hammer and chisel, no doubt?”

  “Pliers, too, if the occasion calls for it.”

  Lucian shook his head. He thought of Alexander and Norman, and all the others counting on him back home. He had to get back to them somehow. And if he couldn’t get back, he’d have to find a way to put an end to it all fast. He would have liked to say he would never hurt any of them, would never turn, but he knew better than that.

  He had seen some bad things. People could do horrific things to one another in the name of beliefs, ideals, even love. Especially love. And men were fickle creatures. Even the strongest broke eventually. In his experience, you could make anyone do pretty much anything, if you took enough away from them, and made them hurt enough.

  Charlie was the perfect example of that.

  What have I done to him?

  Charlie was watching him carefully, hovering only a few inches away, waiting for Lucian to make a move. But Lucian kept still and kept his gaze level. He wouldn’t give him his trigger. After almost a full minute Charlie licked his chapped lips and muttered, “Like I said, we’re moving you.”

  “Where?”

  “Far away. We’re done with this place. Nowhere left but your little bastions.”

  Lucian swallowed. “So why not finish it? Just get things over with?”

  “Because He has plans for your friends. And He hasn’t led us astray yet.”

  Lucian’s breath wheezed out of him. “He?” he whispered.

  “That’s right, He.”

  So it really was true. He really was behind all this, leading the scourge. Alexander had shown him all the signs, but he had never quite believed James was really still out there. It had been easier to half-believe it and keep it at the back of his mind. Because if his brother really had returned, it meant all this was their fault. They had bred a monster.

  Just like Lucian had done yet again with the young man before him.

  Charlie smiled. “You don’t need to worry about Him. You won’t live long enough.”

  Lucian scowled. The wire cutting into his wrists was starting to work its way deeper into his flesh. The pain was pulsing, raw. With the damp and the dirt, he was liable to get some nasty infection soon enough. He had to get out of dodge, or else he’d be suffering long before C
harlie got to him. He’d rather eat a bullet now than live through that. Dying from septicaemia was a messy affair. “I’m all for walking and talking a while longer, but why bother moving me if you’re just going to kill me? Why don’t you end this, Charlie? You’re only here to get revenge for your father. What’s to stop you pulling the trigger right now and walking away from all this?”

  Charlie didn’t answer, but Lucian heard the crack deep in his throat.

  “You can’t do it, can you?”

  “I can do it!” Charlie snarled.

  “Then go ahead.”

  A moment of silence stretched out between them, then snapped; and in the next, Charlie was holding his knife in his hand. The blade twinkled in the hallway light, reflecting Charlie’s wounded, terrified face.

  Lucian forced himself to keep his gaze level despite the snakes slithering in his gut and the ball of fear swelling behind his eyes. Not long ago their roles had been reversed; Lucian had held a gun right to Charlie’s head while he kneeled on the cobbles of New Canterbury, right before he had set him free. It hadn’t been loaded, but Charlie didn’t know that. He had threatened, bullied, and beaten the kid. It hadn’t been enough that he had killed his father. He had treated him as though he had been the one who had been wronged, rather than the other way around. And why? Because he had been scared and ashamed.

  He could have made amends, maybe, if he had tried hard enough. Maybe he could have at least stopped him signing up with the wolves at their door. He had failed him, just like he had failed his friends and his family. He had sworn to protect them. Yet here he was. And after everything he deserved no better.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

  I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry.

  Ringing silence stretched out for so long that the snakes in his gut quieted, and the sound of his own breathing returned to his attention. He peeked one eye open and saw Charlie standing with his arms by his sides. His knife was back in its sheath. In his hands was a black linen hood. “Like I said, we’re moving you,” he said.