Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) Read online

  There was no way of telling. Only thin slivers of light made it down through the dense canopy, and she was lucky if she could tell whether it was night or day. All she had to go on was her thirst, which by now had become a smouldering fire in her belly, slowly creeping out towards her arms and legs. She had tried to eat some dried berries a while ago, but they had caught in her throat and she had choked, as though her mouth were full of sand.

  It was fetid and still amidst the forest’s vastness, the air close and old, so humid that moisture seemed ready to bleed onto every surface. She had been licking leaves for a while now, but the scant drops were nothing compared to the torrential slicks of sweat pouring from her skin every minute. Her head was buzzing and an odd ringing had taken hold in her ears, while her muscles ached and her feet grew clumsy.

  She was afraid, but what scared her more than her weakness was the fact that she wasn’t as afraid as she should have been. Some part of her was already beyond the point of computing the severity of her situation.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! she thought. Daddy always told me New Land was dangerous. I should have stayed with him. He needs me.

  She had left Daddy all alone back in the cabin where they had been hiding the last few weeks. He had been sick since they had left home and come across the ocean to New Land, but now he was stuck in bed all day. Most of the time he slept, and it was all she could do to get him to wake him long enough to get some food and water into him. They had been hiding from the monsters who had attacked them and taken Grandpa.

  Billy had thought they had gotten away, too. The old cabin they had found was perched on a cliff by the sea, and she hadn’t seen a single sign of another person in all the miles she had covered searching for scraps of food. But then she had come across an encampment of travellers, and found a secret copse to watch them as the days dripped by, and Daddy grew weaker. Though Daddy had warned her to stay close to the cabin, and to run if she saw anyone, she had been drawn to them. They hadn’t seemed so bad, and they had had food, lots of it.

  She had been on the verge of walking into their camp the morning she had come to her copse, and saw the place had been burned to the ground. The travellers had disappeared, along with all their food. Her last chance had vanished along with them.

  And then Panda Man had appeared. Before, she had been alone, and the next moment, there he had been, standing in the grass beside her. The man from Daddy’s nightmares, and one of the faces Billy had been seeing in her dreams since coming to New Land. Daddy had told her he hadn’t been real, he was just imaginary, a boogie man they made up.

  But there he had been. He promised that unless she did what he said, Daddy would die.

  She had been scared, but she had listened, and though she hadn’t believed he was really there—Daddy had warned her that as they got hungrier and thirstier, their eyes might start playing tricks—he had hauled her up out of the grass and set her on her feet. There had been no mistaking that he was there after that. He had been strong, too strong. He had thrown her around as though she had been a leaf.

  Standing over her in his long dark coat, his beautiful yet pale young face blemished by two dark streaks under each eye, he had spoken strangely. She could hear his words echo even now. “Something is brewing on the horizon, something you’re a part of, something that will decide the fate of not only this world, but many. Maybe all. There will be time for answers later. Right now I need you to find some people.”

  He hadn’t needed to say any more, not really. Because she had already known who she had to find: the other faces from her dreams. Two men, one old and one young: dark haired and blond.

  When she had asked where to go, she had received a final reply from the Panda Man. “It’ll come to you. Find them, Billy. Find them.”

  Then he had been gone.

  She had stood there in the copse for a long time after that, confused, wondering whether her mind really had been playing tricks. Daddy would have said so, but he was sick. Somebody had burned the travellers’ camp to the ground, and there was danger in the air—she had felt it.

  Going away in the wilds of New Land was against everything Daddy had told her. With no food or water, what hope had she of finding anything or anyone before she became too weak to go on? But the Panda Man had said Daddy would die if she didn’t do it. And Daddy was barely strong enough to feed himself; there was no way she could burden him with what she had seen.

  Grandpa would have known what to do. But he was gone now.

  Grandpa. It burned in her chest to think of him. At night she could still hear him humming the Old World rhymes. He had given himself up so she and Daddy could escape. Losing him so soon after Ma, it was too much for her little heart to take. She had died for her as well, starved herself so that Billy could eat a real meal once a day, wilting in secret in front of Daddy and Grandpa. She had made Billy promise not to tell.

  And now Daddy was sick, so sick. He wouldn’t let her go for help or look for a doctor; not while the monsters were out there. “They’ll never get my angel,” he had been saying in his sweaty half-sleep, beet-red with fever and coughing up bloody phlegm.

  She couldn’t lose him too. She wouldn’t let it happen.

  And so she had set off without returning to the cabin, afraid she wouldn’t be able to leave Daddy if she laid eyes on him. Setting out from the copse without a clue which direction to take, she had let her feet guide her. They had taken her first into the travellers’ camp, and she had rooted in the smoking ruins for a few scant treasures that had survived the conflagration. Amongst the detritus she had found mostly ash, but her luckiest discovery had been a small, yet razor-sharp paring knife. It had been well cared for, without a hint of rust despite the Old World markings on the tang, and she had tested it by throwing it against a tree trunk. It had rolled end over end and snicked into the bark clean up to the hilt.

  Grandpa had taught her that. They had practised together on the days Daddy had gone to market to barter. When there had been food, before the big hunger, he had impaled rabbits against their barn door. She had never been quite that good, but she had been learning on wooden targets. Daddy would never have let her carry a weapon. But he wasn’t with her now.

  Armed with her new knife, a water skin, and a small pouch of dried berries and venison jerky, she had left it all behind. Her heart had rattled around in her chest every step of the way, and she had wept, but she had to be strong, for Daddy. She had let the tears fall to the grass, hadn’t once wiped them away, and had kept her course, trusting her legs to carry her away from the cabin and the smoking ruins. She hadn’t looked back.

  She had come to the forest after only a few hours of trekking across fields and meadows. They had crossed through one just like it when they had first landed on the beach of New Land, but Grandpa had been with them then. He had known how to read the sky, the stars, and their magic compass talisman. Billy had never wandered out of sight of a grownup before she had come to the cabin. And in all the long weeks she had been foraging for food while Daddy lay bedridden, she had never strayed more than a mile.

  Yet the forest had stretched from one horizon to the other, a vast wall of greenery that towered over her, creaking and whispering in all its impenetrable mystery. She could have tried going around, but her gut—no, her feet—had known better. There was no way around. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.

  So here she was, lost amidst endless tracts of moss, bracken, bark and leaf litter. Her feet itched to go on, as though possessed of an alien will that would not bow to the weakness invading the rest of her body. But though they longed to go on, there was no fighting that weakness for her. The water skin had been empty for hours, and the berries had only made her gag.

  Presently, she stopped and sagged over a hanging bough, gasping for breath in the humid fug. A single sunbeam cut down from the sky and lit the ground around her feet, its golden radiance alive with pollen and dust motes. Above her head, birds twittered under a baby blue sky, a
nd higher up, she caught a trace of a whistling breeze. But it all seemed so far away, another world.

  Her feet itched. She had to go on. If she stayed here, she would never get out.

  She steeled herself, let go of the branch and put one foot in front of the other. She made it only two steps before crashing to the ground, sinking into a pile of mulch and brown leaves. The world revolved around her in a nauseating blur. Her head throbbed to the beat of her pulse, and for a few moments all she heard was a dull ringing. When it cleared, she managed to raise her head just a little, enough to take in her surroundings afresh.

  A carpet of green and brown, woven together by twisting vines and embalming lichen, lay basted over everything, in every direction. Black shadow smothered any gaps in the foliage, and the air was alive with swarming insects, desperate to suck away the last of her body’s moisture. The air was heavy and stank of rotting plant matter. It all looked the same. There was no telling which way would lead to bright open escarpments, which to killer bogs, and which led ever deeper into its eternal mass.

  She couldn’t even tell which way she had come any more. Yet still her feet itched. Still, she knew which way to go. It was almost as though a glowing line in the compost was drawn out ahead of her, cutting right through a thick screening of ferns and vanishing into the darkness. Her destination lay beyond.

  But how far? A warning voice in her head told her that if she didn’t get up soon, she never would. But even if she moved now, she wouldn’t get far. She could feel her senses withering, her mind numbing to reason. She could keep walking perhaps, but what if she ran into danger? By then, she might have become a gibbering idiot, walking mile and mile until her body gave out.

  Daddy was counting on her. He was back there in the cabin even now, fading even more. She had to get back to him. Without her to bring him more food, he would starve. And if she failed … well, the Panda Man had promised he would die for sure.

  She felt new life steel into her legs—just a dribble, but enough to push her to her feet. Mud and leaves clung to her face, but she didn’t bother wiping them away. Her arms were like lead blocks. Instead, she staggered forward, following the glowing line that was at once not there, and yet blazing with the intensity of a bonfire before her eyes.

  She shuffled on for a long time, how long she had no idea, with the endless trees slipping past and her dirt-caked feet plodding away beneath her. But just as she had known, she didn’t last long. Soon she crashed to the ground again, and this time, she was too weak to even break her fall. A branch gashed her across the cheek, but she barely felt her skin tearing.

  The awaiting bed of leaves was as welcoming as the softest mattress. Suddenly the forest seemed very far away, as did her thirst. All the worry about Daddy didn’t seem so bad anymore. Even the itch in her feet had faded to a distant winking pearlescence in her peripheral vision. Silence enveloped her. It was alright; she would stay here.

  The silence stretched on for what seemed an eternity. Then there were voices around her, unfamiliar and excited.

  “What’ve we got here?”

  “Poor thing! Sweet little angel’s all alone, she is.”

  “Alone, indeed, my dear friend. All alone …”

  She tried to lift her head, but all she managed was to open her eyes a fraction. Blurry faces loomed over her, studded with smiles full of yellow teeth, and a sticky stench filled her nose. Then she felt hands gripping her arms, and she was being lifted into the air.

  They were laughing.

  CHAPTER 5

  Alexander stood before the wall-height window and glimpsed his own haggard reflection in the weathered glass. He had ascended close to the tower’s peak, hundreds of feet up, climbing dusty stairs that hadn’t seen another person for months. Rich finance types had once worked in this office, coordinating the stocks of people halfway around the world. Now it was all entombed in cobwebs, the computer terminals so much plastic.

  Through the window, he could see for miles. Beyond the tower, London winked and sparkled under the afternoon sun. Forty years had given nature plenty of time to bring most places to rubble and rusted detritus. The other great cities in the north had suffered at the hands of warring tribes, and others still had been pulled apart by fledgling communities for materials. But here things were different; the capital looked much the same as before the End. The rising waters had flooded many of the low-lying areas, but some parts looked almost Saran-wrapped, preserved for all eternity, monuments to men and women long since vanished.

  Many people had given London a wide berth. It was too large a reminder of what they had lost for most to stomach. And there was nothing for them here in any case. The city flooded more each year, its great river barrier stalled and useless, rotting the great bounty inch by inch. Already the food had been long looted, the clothes that had carpeted the streets had been hoarded by traders, and any motorcars people had managed to fix had once again become useless when the gasoline ran dry. Even the endless mountains of electronics were useless, their circuitry reduced to dust in the flash of the End.

  But for Alexander, it held a special place in his heart. It embodied all they strived to save, and what they could be. So much knowledge, art, and culture lay hidden in its depths. They had chosen to make the council’s fortress here for that very reason. Here they could be seen as the last twinkling jewel of the Old World, residing in the dormant heart of their forbears’ domain.

  Now a dark mark lay over it all. They were out there, somewhere, watching and waiting.

  He wasn’t going to let this happen. All their work couldn’t come to nothing because of a few grudges. People had starved, but their sacrifice would live on in the Old World’s legacy.

  He bunched his fists.

  How can they not see that it was necessary?

  The mindless rabble could put an end to a lifetime of work. The darkness already had a foothold in the North.

  “Twingo’s been hit.” Evelyn’s voice washed over him like a wave from behind, shattering the silence.

  He turned to her. “How bad?”

  She was breathless from climbing the stairs. She looked old. That had been surprising him a lot of late, just how old they were all getting. They weren’t the young go-getters anymore. Soon Father Time would sweep them all away, and others would have to take their place. But there was still so much to do, so far to go.

  Her wrinkled face creased further into a grimace. “It’s gone.”

  He sighed, sinking into a nearby swivel chair, ignoring the great cloud of dust that puffed up around him. It creaked under his weight, but held, just. “I don’t believe it. They were a tough bunch of bastards. Vandeborn and Bates kept the northerners away from our gates for years.”

  “It looks like they put up a hell of a fight. But it’s all ash now. A lot of them are missing … They must have been taken.”

  Twingo had been a few miles away, a legendary trading post, a paradise for entrepreneurs and a nightmare for any unsavoury characters. It was the closest thing they had ever had to an army. With that gone, their last buffer against the north—and anyone else—was also gone. Hundreds of miles now separated them from their closest allies.

  “They’ll try to turn them,” Evelyn said, coming to stand beside him. “The ones that they don’t kill. We’re going to be fighting our own flesh and blood soon enough.” Evelyn was a woman who held her head high even at the worst of times, but right now her regal veil fractured, and her shawled arm wrapped around him. “For the first time in my life, I don’t see a way we can win.”

  Alexander folded his hand over hers. He had no words of comfort left.

  Who could have known they would end up here? Of all their accomplishments and victories, the thousands of dedicated people across the land that had fallen under their banner, precious little remained. All they had brought to bear was on the brink of going up in flames.

  It hadn’t always been this way. Once upon a time, when the echoes of the Old World were still fresh,
they had been almost unstoppable.

  FIRST INTERLUDE

  The hammer came down on the chisel with a final clink, and the engraving was complete. Stretching some fifty feet across the sheer face of the rocky bluff, the Latin alphabet stood capitalised and proud. It had taken two hours of painstaking work to etch the letters, and finishing touches had delayed them twice as long.

  James Chadwick stepped back, admired his handiwork, and wiped his brow. His critical eye picked out niggles and imperfections from start to finish, but he knew it would do; it was more than satisfactory. He had chosen his site carefully, within plain sight for half a mile around, yet sheltered from the elements. Fortune granted, it would last some hundred years before weathering began to blur its form.

  He inspected it critically, trying to see it from the point of view of virgin eyes, those who might stumble upon it in the high grass, once the ruins of the Old World had crumbled to dust. Would they see what he saw—see the beauty, a window to a whole world of knowledge and truth? Here before him was something the people of the Old World would have taken for granted: a key to the sumptuous bounty of the mind. Even if he and his kind failed to pass anything else down through the ages, here was something that might provide a window to a new beginning. This was one of many fail-safes built across the land, just in case it all came to nothing.

  But that would never happen as long as he had a hammer to hand. Not as long as Alexander Cain drew breath.

  “Crooked,” Alex called from the ridge afar.

  “It’ll do.”

  “When they bow down before these letters in ages to come, you might think different.”

  James rolled his eyes and stared across the meadow at his silhouetted form. “When they make statues of you and me, we’ll see who’s worrying about neatness. It’s all there.”