Читать книгу: «The Sign of One», страница 2

Even Mary, always so precious, screams her head off.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ asks Cassie.

‘It’s possessed,’ I explain, wincing. ‘Taken over by demons.’

Morana strolls towards it. The creature screams and hurls itself to meet her, skeletal arms outstretched, fingers like talons – only for the chains to snap taut, jerking its head back. The High Slayer doesn’t flinch, but stands just out of reach at a red line painted on the floor. She shakes her head as if disgusted and holds up one black-gloved hand. A guard steps forward with a disruptor tube. There’s a blue-white flash and the twist freezes, mid-snarl. On the screen I see it’s still twitching, its mad eyes full of hate, but that’s all it can do now.

‘Hard to believe,’ booms Morana, ‘that this evil, this monster, could once have passed for human. Yet I assure you it did. This is why these foul caricatures of humanity are such an insidious enemy. Why we must always remain vigilant and work so tirelessly to preserve the blessed purity of our human bloodline.’

‘Un-wrapp-ing! ’ howls the crowd, growing impatient.

‘What’s insidyus mean?’ asks Cassie.

‘Dunno,’ I say. ‘Something bad. Shut up, will you?’

Morana raises her voice, so loud it hurts. ‘Let the Unwrapping begin!’

3
UNWRAPPING

More blaring trumpets. Morana takes her place on a seat behind the altar. A tall man in a cloak, nose and mouth hidden by a black mask, emerges from the cage-tunnel and stalks centre stage, his boots thumping the wood. I overhear someone behind me telling a buddy that this guy does the Unwrapping. The masked man fumbles under his cloak and a screech of feedback almost takes our heads off.

One fool laughs out loud – he must be drunk.

‘Bring forth the first subjects!’

Subjects. I wondered what he’d call them. We try not to say words like ‘double’, or ‘couple’, or ‘two’ here on Wrath. It’s bad luck. There’s a rhyme we’re taught as kids: One, three or four, that’s the score. More than four is greedy.

Now some more guards emerge from the tunnel.

Held between them, ankles shackled so they can only hobble, are the first idents to be unwrapped. Skinny brothers, stiff with fright, both wearing a sort of sleeveless white smock, which covers them down to their knees. Thick leather belts go round their waists. If they’re any older than ten, I’d be amazed.

Scared little boys, who happen to be spitting images.

‘The family Anderson,’ declares the man in the mask, and now he turns towards the steps at the front of the stage, as if he’s expecting something.

‘What’s he waiting for?’ I ask Mary.

‘The parents.’

Oh yeah. I see a man and a woman climbing the steps now, grubbers like us, from their round shoulders and farm clothes. They bow stiffly, before shuffling to the side of the stage, away from the still-frozen twist. A murmur spreads through the crowd, which sounds like sympathy. On the screen, the mother sobs. And I see now what the belts are for – each boy has his right arm, the unbandaged arm, bound behind his back to a loop in the leather. Nobody’s taking any chances.

One of these idents may be a lot stronger than he looks.

A man with a camera scurries forward to get close to the action as the guards force the boys to kneel facing each other, either side of the altar. The boys hold their bandaged arms out, palm down on the cloth. The big screen switches to a view looking down from above. It zooms in nice and tight so we can see the bloodstained dressings on their puny, hairless forearms, then tracks along to show us their hands.

Only four fingers, of course. Little finger gone.

Bile fills my mouth. Guess I see now why they use a red altar cloth.

‘My money’s on leftie,’ whispers Mary.

‘You what?’

Stunned, I hear whispered wagers and watch as credits change hands around me.

‘Five says it’s the left one. He looks meaner.’

‘I’ll take that. Check out the eyes of the one on the right.’

On the stage, the masked man steps up to the altar. He pulls a curved knife from his robes and brandishes it for our inspection. Steel glints in the bright dayshine. And the crowd roars, nearly deafening me. ‘Un-wrapp-ing! ’

The man turns, his cloak swirling, and bends over the altar. His back is to us, but the screen shows us what he’s doing. I watch, cringing, as he slips the blade under each boy’s bandage and slashes it loose. With a practised flourish, he rips both bandages off at the same time, then leans in and inspects. After he steps aside, the camera lingers, teasing, then zooms in. Both boys have a single bloody slit across their forearm. An ugly, still-open wound. No signs of any healing.

The crowd sighs with obvious disappointment.

Thank the Saviour, I think, biting my lip.

‘First-timers,’ says Mary. ‘They hardly ever manifest that young.’

‘What’s that mean?’ a voice says in my ear.

I’d almost forgotten Cassie who’s still on my shoulders; she’s been so quiet. ‘It means we can’t tell which one is evil yet.’

‘Why can’t we?’

Quick as I can, I tell her how twists are sneaky – exactly the same as us purebloods when they’re little, so impossible to tell apart, but how when they’re older they start to show signs of the monsters they will one day turn into.

‘Like being faster and stronger than us?’ says Cassie.

‘Yup. And they heal quicker too. Impossibly fast. That’s how we tell.’

She shuts up at last, seemingly satisfied.

I catch myself rubbing my forearm as the parents are led away, both sobbing. They aren’t allowed to visit their children in the camps, so this is the one time they get to see them every year. How must this feel? Relief that both their children are spared for another year, or regret they don’t get one son back today? Or just despair at the whole proceedings? Despair – it’s got to be.

‘Bo-ring!’ sings Cassie.

That does it – heartless little maggot. I yank her off my shoulders.

She complains loudly, like I care. I fend her off as she tries to clamber back up again. In the relative hush, this makes quite a commotion. When I look up, my heart pounds. I hold my breath and freeze. Morana is looking towards our section of the crowd. I can’t be sure, but it seems like she’s staring straight at me.

Cassie kicks me again, but I hardly notice.

The High Slayer looks away and I breathe again.

The guards drag both boys to the front of the stage. They parade them around together now, holding their arms up to the crowd, making sure we all get a solid look at their unhealed wounds before they pull them offstage, back through the tunnel, back to their cage and another year in the ident camps.

Next up, two much older boys are hauled out for their unwrapping.

‘The family Bachmann.’

I crane over the heads of the people in front of me, but this time there’s nothing to see. No slope-shouldered, sad-eyed parents haul themselves on to the stage. Which makes me wonder – do these idents have no parents, or have their parents chosen to stay away? I’ll never know. But, for some reason, it matters.

Me, I’d have thought it impossible to look defiant in leg irons, dragged along by four brute men to be tested for evil. I’m scared half to death just watching them, safe out here in the crowd. But these lads manage it. Where the Andersons were white-faced and petrified, these idents hold their heads high and meet the curious gaze of the crowd. I stare up at the expressions on their identical faces, magnified massively on the big screen. I shouldn’t be impressed, but I can’t help it. I see scorn and contempt, but not a flicker of fear.

‘One good, two e-vil, one good, two e-vil,’ chants the crowd.

The ident on the left, just before he’s forced on to his knees before the altar, pulls away from his guard and sends a big gob of spit into the front row of the crowd. The people there don’t appreciate it. They howl and throw stuff at him.

The guards drag him back to the altar.

Mary’s dad grins at me. ‘A credit says it’s the spitter.’

‘You’re on,’ I say. What else can I do? I can’t look like I feel sorry for twists.

The masked man wields his knife again. When he steps back, we have a winner. Or a loser, I should say. And I’m shiny, up a credit. The kid who spat has five scars and one open wound. His brother – or the twist pretending to be – only has five scars. A big yellow crust comes away, stuck to the bandage. Where the cut would have been is smooth, pink skin. A deep cut healed overnight.

Don’t need to be a healer’s son to know that’s unnatural.

The arena erupts. A thousand little fingers slash the air with the Sign of One. All around me, people jump up and down, emptying their lungs in an orgy of hysterical shouting and screaming. I scream too. I yell nonsense until my throat is raw from yelling. It’s impossible not to – fear needs a way out.

Suddenly, the crowd starts chanting something new.

‘Pu-ri-fy! Pu-ri-fy! ’

Now what? This time, only the twist is paraded. On the screen, I see his brother watching, mouth turned down, as a guard removes his leg irons. They push him towards a fire basket, but he struggles so they have to force him.

‘If I was him,’ I say, ‘I’d be jumping for joy that my blood isn’t twisted.’

‘You don’t have a brother, do you?’ says Mary’s mother.

‘He’s not a real brother,’ says Mary.

Her father scowls and hands over my credit. Mary winks at me, obviously delighted, maybe hoping I’ll spend it on something for her later. She’ll be lucky. Up on the stage, one guard holds the innocent youth. Another, leather gloved and aproned, pulls an iron rod from the hot coals. Without any hesitation, he plants the glowing tip on to the boy’s left bicep. I wince, seeing smoke curl and hearing the amplified hiss. The boy staggers, but doesn’t cry out.

‘Scabb-er! ’ chants the crowd now.

Scab. That’s what we call the pureblood ident. The lucky one.

‘Why’d they burn him?’ asks Cassie, as guards haul the boy off the stage.

I let go a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. ‘Now they’re sure he’s pureblood, they brand him with a big P. Like your dad brands fourhorns.’

‘So they can tell who owns him?’

‘Nobody owns him.’ I sigh. ‘It’s so he can prove he’s pureblood. He gets his life back today, but if we didn’t mark him people would see his missing little finger and think maybe he’s an ident on the run. This way, he can just roll his sleeve up, show his brand and you know he’s all right. Now do you get it?’

‘But won’t the mark heal and go away?’

I scowl down at her. ‘It won’t, mud for brains. You saw him unwrapped. Only twists can heal a scar away. That mark’ll be on him till the day he dies.’

Cassie sucks her thumb doubtfully.

‘What will he do with no family to go to?’ I ask Mary.

‘Who cares?’ She laughs. ‘It’s what happens now that makes it worth dragging ourselves all this way. You get to see what the Peace Fair is all about!’

Even as she says this, a tall frame hisses up from the floor of the stage. I stop wondering when I see the noose hanging down from the cross member. It’s a gallows. The guards drag twist-boy over, both his hands bound behind his back now. He struggles, his bare feet hammering the stage, but they stand him up, slip the rope round his neck and give it a vicious tug to tighten it.

No way – I’m going to witness an execution.

‘Pu-ri-fy! Pu-ri-fy! Pu-ri-fy! ’

Desperate to see, Cassie starts climbing up me, but I push her away.

Commandant Morana stands. She holds her fist out, palm down. The crowd shuts up in a heartbeat. After the uproar, the silence is so empty, I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff. A lammerjay caws high overhead.

She opens her hand.

Thunnkkk! A trapdoor opens in the stage.

The boy drops like a stone into the dark hole and out of sight. The rope jerks iron-bar taut, then twitches and swings as he kicks his life away. I want to look away, but I can’t. The crowd around me hoots and applauds.

Twists are fighters, I’ll say that. It’s a minute before the rope goes still.

In the Barrenlands nobody dies from old age, so I’ve seen plenty of death. Like that old guy gored by a bull blackbuck, who died screaming, still trying to shove his guts back in. Or my mate Keane, after they pulled his fish-gobbled body out of the lake. I thought I was used to death, but this is just so . . . cold-blooded. Sweat stings my eyes. I can’t stop my legs shaking.

This I did not see coming.

Maybe I should’ve done. Twists are the bane of Wrath. If we take our foot off their necks, they’ll gang up again to slaughter us. I do get that. That’s why the Saviour’s law demands we mark idents and cage them and test them when they’re old enough. All this, when the simplest thing would be to kill both. Proof of the Saviour’s infinite benevolence, Fod likes to preach. A system put in place to protect us, while sparing the innocent. Harsh and cruel perhaps, but merciful.

I knew all this before I handed over my credits.

But knowing is one thing; seeing the grim limits of the Saviour’s mercy another. I swallow hard, grateful at least for not having to watch the twist thrashing at the rope end. Why the hell hadn’t Rona told me about this Purification?

‘What’s with you?’ says Mary, eyeing me. ‘The thing was evil.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I say. ‘Sure.’

My eyes stray to the back of the stage. The idents are making some kind of fingers-crossed salute to the dead kid through the bars of their cages. Slayer guards are rushing up and down, clubbing at them with their rifles to stop them.

The crowd sees and jeers even louder. All part of the fun.

But the screen shows none of this. It sticks with the bigdeals on stage clapping their delicate hands, then pans to Morana, hiding a yawn with her gloved hand. Over the next hour, twenty more pairs of idents are unwrapped. Seven more twists test positive and make the drop into the trapdoor, three of them girls. The youngest, a girl with a face full of freckles, looks about eleven. Even she gets a cheer from the crowd when she drops. The scabs are branded, but only four are claimed by their families. Mary, enjoying herself hugely, pulls my leg about my long face. Cassie stuffs her face with sweets and pesters me to try one as Maskman summons the Lynch family. The crowd has a big laugh at the unfortunate surname, but I can’t join in. The Lynches are those redhead ident girls I saw yesterday. A woman, an older image of the girls, hauls herself on to the stage, but collapses. Last time I saw these girls they were petrified, but now they look calm and resigned. It’s the loving look they give each other as they’re forced to kneel at the altar that undoes me. I can’t watch any more – just can’t. I’ve had it with the Unwrapping.

I peer round at the Slayers, wondering if they’ll blast me if I make a run for it back to camp. I don’t care what people think. I have to get out of here, away from this madness. And that’s when Cassie’s greed does me a favour.

She pukes her guts up, all down her front.

‘Oh, Cassie, no!’ says her mother.

‘No bother,’ I say, hastily. ‘I’ll take her back and clean her up.’

4
THE ROAD BACK

Such a nice young man. That’s what Cassie’s mother is telling everyone, ever since I hauled her puking daughter out of the arena for her. I reckon she’s got her eye on me as a match for her Mary. Well, one person who disagrees is Nash.

Surprise, surprise – he isn’t taking his split lip well.

It’s three days after the Peace Fair and we’re almost back to Freshwater. Five klicks back, we crested the pass through the foothills. Nash is still picking on me every chance he gets, which is loads. Thing is, the few men with enough spine to tell him to leave me be are out on the trail, scouting ahead for trouble.

I’m looking forward to seeing my girl Jude. Okay, she might not be quite so pretty as Mary, but she likes a good time and I can talk to her about anything. She’ll kill herself laughing when I tell her about the windjammer girl.

I wonder, does she miss me like I miss her?

The trail drops down, following the bank of a tumbling peaty river through forests of hash-willow. By midday, we’re less than ten klicks out. Even the fourhorns hauling our wagons – the dumbest animals on Wrath – sense this and pick their pace up without me prodding. Best of all, the sun comes out at last. These past days we’ve been battered by storms; now we can put our rain gear away.

I sniff the air. ‘Do you smell that?’ I ask the Zielinski woman.

She says she doesn’t.

A musky stink, but it’s gone now. Animal maybe?

Apart from this, the forest smells fresh after its scrubbing by hail and rain. There’s plenty of shade here too, so we don’t go from cold to boiling hot. The hash-willow leaves look incredibly yellow. Wildflowers sway in the ever-present breeze. Reds and pinks and whites and blues. I even recognise some of them too, the ones Rona grinds into her healing pastes. I don’t know their names, but they look so bright and cheerful you’d swear some kid’s been at them with a brush.

I’m not going to sing or anything, but I’m cheering up.

And I need to. I picture our isolated little shack, tucked away under the trees, and me walking through the door with a long face on. Soon as she sees this, Rona will launch straight into one of her I told you so routines. You won’t listen to me, what do you expect? On and on. I mean, as mothers go, Rona and I get along pretty well, way better than most, but still. I’ll never hear the bogging end of it.

That’s not what’s been dragging me down though.

I’ve always been a bit of a loner – I guess because of all that moving about we did when I was younger – but now I feel even more left out and alone than usual. It’s like I don’t know these guys any more, even the ones I’d almost call friends. I watch them as they walk or ride the trail, happy and laughing, teeth flashing as they chat away. Okay, so everyone’s keeping a wary eye out too, but it’s been like this ever since we left Deep Six. Even when the hail was rattling down, everyone was banging on about the Fair and how good this or that was. Hey, look, see what I bought? The food was crappy this year, wasn’t it?

Blah, blah, blah. And – I – just – don’t – get – it.

See, I couldn’t give a toss what the fishcakes were like, or what such-and-such might make from that reel of synth-cotton she bought. How can they laugh and joke so soon after seeing such horrors? Am I the only one here who wants to talk about what really happened? Am I the only one still feeling sick to my stomach?

I was freaked out by what I saw at the Fair, but they loved it.

Maybe Nash is right – maybe I’m the weirdo.

I know what he’d say. We live on a dump world. Life is hard, get over it.

And speak of the devil . . .

‘What’s the matter, Kyle?’ says Nash, sidling up to me where I’m leading the fourhorns hauling one of our wagons. ‘Missing your girlfriend?’

I ignore him. Best way with bullies, Rona says.

Tell the truth, I’m not so scared of Nash and his thug mates now, after the Fair. I know they’ll give me a kicking and I know it’ll hurt. But here’s the thing, I feel kind of numb about it. What’s a few bruises compared to a hanging?

‘Took you apart, didn’t she?’ he says.

Oh right – he means that psycho windjammer girl with the dreads. I taste bile again, remembering being sure I was going to die. I’ll be glad if I never see her again.

And there it is again on the breeze, that weird musky smell.

‘You wait,’ says Nash. ‘We’re going to give you such a beating. You’ll still be sucking your food through a straw when the snows come.’

I stare at the hash-willows by the trail. Did something move there?

‘You hear me?’ he says.

‘No,’ I say, distracted. ‘Something’s not right.’

That’s when I hear Clayton shout, his voice high and scared.

‘Rea-pers! ’

Next thing, I hear the thump, thump, thump of our scouts’ pulse rifles rapid-firing in the woods high to our left, and glimpse several bright acid-green flashes through the trees. A woman screams from somewhere up front.

Nash clutches my arm. Not such a tough guy now.

The Reapers leap up from hiding places in bushes and drop down from branches overhanging the trail. Everywhere I look I see more, loping towards us like human wolves, howling and shaking their spears and long knives. I’m rooted to the spot by the sight of their half-naked bodies, plastered in filth and twigs and swirling blue tattoos, their savage Reaper faces all twisted with bloodlust.

Too many – I see that straight away. We’re screwed.

‘Don’t run. Fight!’ roars Clayton.

I can’t do either. I can’t even breathe. It’s like I’ve been zapped by that Slayer muscle-lock. All I can do is stand here, gawping like a fool as Clayton leaps down from his wagon. He drops to one knee, aims his pulse rifle and snaps three thumping shots off before an arrow gets him in the throat, toppling him sideways into the mud. With a curse, Nash knocks me aside and sprints forward along the trail. He snatches up Clayton’s pulse rifle, throws himself down behind our leader’s crumpled body and starts shooting. Thump! Thump! One Reaper, almost on him, flies backwards, a huge hole in his chest.

‘Ammo!’ screams Nash.

He fires again and again into the charging Reapers. One goes down. Another spins round and screams, half his arm gone. Other men are firing now, but the Reapers are on top of us. My muscles unknot themselves. I gulp a huge, sobbing lungful of air. Every nerve in my body screams at me to run, but I swear and dash back to the wagon. If a gommer like Nash can fight, I have to help him. Spare pulse-rifle magazines should be in a box by the bench seat. I clamber up, straight-arming the panicking Zielinski woman out of my way. But I can’t open the box. Some idiot has padlocked it. I plant my feet and howl curses and pull like crazy, ignoring the pain in my fingers. The hasp gives way in a shower of splinters.

No mags in the box, only dirty grey bugwebs.

I look up, just in time, as a Reaper spear flashes towards me. How I twist myself out of the way I’ll never know, but it hisses past. I throw myself across the seat, drop down on the far side of the wagon and pull my hunting knife out. It looks so small in my hand – a child’s toy compared to that Reaper spear.

Sweat pours down my face and screws with my seeing.

The shouts and screams suddenly get louder. I can hear the desperate grunts and scuffles of hand-to-hand fighting now. Something else too, which makes me pant with disbelief – the bang and crackle of a blaster. I grovel in the dirt for a look under the wagon. Through the wheel spokes, I see a man’s boots staggering backwards, surrounded by bare Reaper feet. The boots lift and hang quivering in mid-air. I hear his death shriek, then his body falls to the ground.

It’s Nash I think – or what’s left of him.

The wagon bounces on its springs as something lands on it. A shadow flickers over me and I hear a splash as feet land in the mud behind. I whip round, wheezing with fear, and I’m face to face with a Reaper.

Once, I electrocuted myself. Got careless hooking up a live fuel cell. This feels like that as a jolt of pure terror rips through me. I stagger to my feet, meaning to run, only to find my legs are rubbery and useless.

‘Stay away from me!’ I shout.

This Reaper is short and scrawny, not much older than I am, although it’s hard to tell, he’s so plastered with mud and feathers. He comes at me, leading with his knife. I twist out of the way and he cuts my side, but not serious. I grab his wrist before he can have another go. We pant into each other and wrestle back and forth. He’s way stronger than he looks, however, and fights dirty too. When we end up face to face, he rocks back and headbutts me. I stagger and drop my hands.

What saves me is that Reaper boy’s a gloater.

He steps back, grinning from one filthy ear to the other. And I feel that terrible ferocity shudder through me again, same as when I punched Nash. When he struts back in to finish me, I’m not just ready – I’m looking forward to it.

If I die, then so does he!

I look into his bloodshot eyes and hurl myself at him.

Next thing I know, I’m shaking and down on my hands and knees. Reaper boy is on his back in front of me, legs kicking as he tries to slide further away. The bloody hilt of my knife is sticking out of his chest. Not a killing wound, but he looks as shocked as I am. His knife is beside me. I grab it, the handle slick and warm, and scramble up. His face goes rigid – he must think I’m going to finish him.

I should . . . but I can’t. It’s just not in me.

On the far side of the wagon, the fighting sounds almost over. I gulp air and try to think what to do. Behind me is the fast-flowing brawl of the river. I don’t swim too good, so that’s no use. But I’m the fastest runner in the three valleys. If I can get past their spears, I reckon no half-starved Reaper will catch me. The forest is their world, so it’s the trail or nothing.

But how to get past their spears?

I scramble to the front of the wagon. On the trail, I glimpse hell. Swarming Reapers. Bodies everywhere. A woman screams as she’s dragged away by her hair into the trees. Behind me, Reaper boy starts yelling. I hold my breath and dodge between the rearing, plunging fourhorns. Somehow, their lashing hooves miss me as I reach up and slash their trace ropes. I hack at their flanks. The stink of blood and Reaper does the rest. The maddened fourhorns, free from their harness, red-eyed and frantic with terror, stampede. Reapers scatter. I see one tossed into the air, but daren’t stop to watch. I slip along to the front of the leading wagon, pull my head down into my shoulders and take off running like I’ve never run before.

I make it past the spears, only to trip over a root.

Soon as I hit the ground, I know I’m hurt bad. I scramble up, but my ankle won’t take my weight and I cry out as Reapers come running. I limp backwards and they follow me. They’re in no great rush now, seeing I’m hurt.

It hits me then, like a knife in the guts.

I’m dead.

Something clobbers the back of my knees and sits me down hard. It’s a shelf of rock above the river. I haul myself backwards up on to it, sobbing, staring in horror at the red smears my hands leave on the limestone. My blood, or Reaper blood, or fourhorn blood? Guess I’ll never know.

I think about throwing myself into the water. But I can’t.

‘Not much meat on this one.’

I look into their hateful Reaper eyes. And I don’t know what shocks me more – that Reapers can speak, same as you and me, or that this is the end. Reaper boy struggles up to join them, grinning, my hunting knife in his hand.

At least I left my mark on him. That’s something.

I loved that knife. It’s about the only thing Rona ever gave me, apart from that dose of swamp pox. Slowly, painfully, I haul myself to my feet.

The sky’s so blue – not a cloud in it.

Biggest Reaper points a blaster at me and pulls the trigger.