Shadows (Ashes Trilogy #2)

Shadows (Ashes Trilogy #2) Page 58

“Yes, you do,” she said. “Daniel, you’ve fought them all this time.”

“But I’m so tired,” he said. “I can feel it gr-growing. I think . . . I have to.”

No, she thought, wildly. This is a cancer, too; this is a monster. “Daniel, you know me. You’re talking to me. You’re not one of them. You’re still you.”

“But I won’t be for much longer. I can feel me . . . going away. Like trying to c-catch f-fog. Can’t . . . can’t grab myself anymore.” His chest heaved and then he was panting, forcing out the words. “Y-you can’t . . . you don’t kn-know what it’s l-like to l-lose yourself piece by p-p-piece.”

But she did. She pulled in a shuddering, sobbing breath. “You have to try. Daniel, if you do this, it wins.”

“I kn-know.” His head sagged back against the rock and he closed his eyes, but only for a second. “Jack, oh, Jack . . . all m-my fault. I’m s-so sorry.”

“Daniel,” she began.

He pressed the muzzle under his jaw.

“Oh, God,” he said.

79

She heard it twice: the blast five feet away and then, ten seconds later, its shadowy distant cousin—that, she thought, must be her mind finally blowing itself apart.

The burn of gunpowder hung in a hazy curtain. Everything else was a shock of red and black. Then the walls shuddered and the ground twitched. She was shaking that hard. Her first—her only—thought was that she was in shock. She was falling apart, her mind splitting into pieces, maybe for good. Maybe the monster was tired of the game and had decided to flex it muscles, take that great, big, drippy—final—bite. She thought that might be all right. But the world didn’t fade. She didn’t pass out, or die, or go crazy. Her eyes were a camera, and with every blink, the snicksnap of a shutter took the same picture: red and black, and red and Daniel’s eyes, and black and Daniel’s eyes, and Daniel’s dead, dark eyes.

The rock shimmied again. This time, she heard the tick of stone bouncing over stone.

And the distant rumble of an explosion.

80

Chris might have seen it coming if he hadn’t insisted that Nathan sleep first. He’d pulled the last watch before they moved out, and he wasn’t on top of his game or thinking very straight.

Big mistake.

The trail they followed was a line of utility poles erected down a narrow stripe of clear-cut hemmed by a thick tangle of hardwood and pine on either side. The woods knit together at intervals in a dense canopy, but the way through was largely obstacle-free. At ground level, the clear-cut was a straight, open shot and might shave off a good five miles that they would otherwise spend in a looping meander through woods. The trail was a temptation that, in other circumstances, Chris would’ve been smart enough to avoid. Staying under cover and blending in with the darkling shadows was always a better option. It was that canopy that gave him a false sense of security as well as the fact that they were moving at night. Both would hide them well enough, and the full moon was painting the trail into a glowing Green Brick Road that was just too good not to take.

Two more days, just two more. Chris’s head thumped with weariness. The wind was a knife, the cold making him stupid. His snowshoes were lead weights. He was dead on his feet, moving out of habit more than design. Then we’ll be there and maybe we can find those kids.

Nathan’s sorrel was breaking trail about forty yards ahead, just past a wedge of ghostly verdigris shadow. A big gap. Normally, they were no more than ten yards apart. But Lena had been sick again, and Chris waited for her to finish.

“Just another couple hours, and then we’ll stop to rest,” Chris said as he helped her back onto the saddle. The roan did an unhappy tap dance as Lena sank into the saddle, and then Chris saw the horse’s ears pin back and felt the animal tense. “Lena, pull its head up and tighten the reins . . . easy,” he said as the roan tried an abortive buck and then settled, blowing hard.

“Maybe it’s tired out, too,” Lena said. There was a small yellow splash of vomit on her jacket. “We should stop.”

From further on, Nathan called back: “There a problem?” Chris turned. Nathan was now fifty yards away, and he saw Nathan starting to turn the animal around. “She bucking on you?” the old man shouted. “Want to stop and rest awhile?”

“Yes,” Lena muttered.

“We’re fine,” Chris called back. They needed to catch up. All this shouting made him nervous. Nathan should know better, too, but they were all tired. He waved the old man on, saw Nathan’s head move in a nod, and then the sorrel was angling back around and heading toward a small rise.

He was just turning back to Lena when he saw Nathan’s sorrel stumble. A quick hop. Nothing fatal.

Then something very large blurred off to Nathan’s right. The shape was so out of place and so far off the ground—head-height— his mind couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

The log bulleted from the woods, so huge and fast it cleaved the air with a whistle.

“Nathan!” Chris shouted, but he was much too late. It had been too late the moment the sorrel stumbled over that trip wire.

The mace—a huge battering ram fashioned from a single, solid log—slammed midway down Nathan’s right side. The log swept through, the arc of its swing driving it completely across the trail to crash into the trees opposite. Nathan’s head snapped left, some heavy bone cracked, and then his body lifted from his saddle— but did not fall. His right boot tangled in the stirrup, so when the mace’s tethers spun out and caught and the swing reversed, Nathan was already slumping as the sorrel panicked and reared.

So Nathan’s head was just at the right spot. Maybe he was only stunned or already unconscious. It didn’t matter.

The heavy butt of the log smashed into Nathan’s left temple with a wet, hollow thunk. This time, Nathan’s head spun fast enough that Chris heard the snap as the neck broke. A jet of blood spurted from Nathan’s mouth, and then a spongy, black crater of gore and pulverized bone formed from the implosion of his skull. Screaming, the sorrel went down, tumbling to the snow.

All this took no more than four seconds, but Chris was already moving after one. “Nathan!” He churned through the snow, his shoes slowing him down. Behind, he could hear Lena’s horrified shrieks. He stumbled, then swarmed up again. This was his fault; they should never have tried moving at night, and now it was too late, too late, too late.

And also, too late, he remembered: where there is one booby trap, there is, frequently, another.

His left foot plunged into the snow. An instant later, something thin bit into his shin, grew taut, and then snapped. He was pitched forward. At the last second, he rolled to take the force of the impact on his shoulder instead of his outstretched hands, but the snowshoes slowed him down. He smacked down on hands and knees, the tips of his snowshoes jammed tight in deep, hard snow.

Above, he sensed movement. Then he heard a loud, snapping, crashing whir as something barreled out of the trees. His head whipped right, but there was nothing coming for him. Not another mace. Not from the side. Not there. But there was something, because he heard a monstrous, splintery smash—and then he understood.

Too late.

The deadfall hurtled down from above: not a log like the mace but a flat, heavy wooden square. If this had been day instead of night and he had thought to look up instead of side to side, he still wouldn’t have spotted it because of the thin, dark green net strung just below as camouflage. Now, in the green of the moon, the thing was near invisible.

The tiger trap rocketed for his face. He saw nailed boards, a green twinkle of glass—

The bristle of iron spikes.

81

A five-foot time fuse with a burn rate of forty-five seconds per foot meant four minutes, give or take, and he’d cut his in half. By the first minute, Tom was pelting down stairs. By the second, he was racing down the tunnel toward the stope where Luke ought to be.

The boom was very loud, and more than just a quick doublebang. The explosion tore the air, and the rock shook hard enough that a rain of dirt and grit bounced and showered from the ceiling. A few seconds later, a gush of pulverized rock and spent gases spilled into the narrow tunnel in a choking rush. Coughing against the grit, he careened down the tunnel, not bothering to be quiet, ears alert for another bigger blast—but none came.

Okay. He thought the stope itself had not gone up, and that was very good. That also answered a question about the concentration of hydrogen sulfide, too. But he had a feeling that if there was another way in, this part of the mine was going to get crowded pretty soon. The clock in his head ticked. Eighteen minutes.

Close to the stope, he smelled Luke’s work as a tarry sting of nicotine. “How many more you got?” he called.

Luke was just lighting up another cigarette. He sucked, the tip crisping to an angry coal. “Six,” he choked, and then hacked. Using duct tape, he secured the filter end of the burning cigarette to the time fuse. “God, these things are nasty.”

“Tell me about it.” He’d been the only nonsmoker in his platoon. “I had to go through six brands. Then I figured it was Luckies or bust. Keep testing brands much longer, I was going to die of lung cancer.”

Luke coughed out a smoky laugh. “Think you blocked it off ?” “Sure hope so.”

“Good. Thought I heard another shot, but—”

“No one here but us.” Tapping out a smoke, Tom lit up, sucked, felt the acrid taste balling in his mouth, and quickly exhaled. His mouth instantly pooled, and he turned aside and spat as he taped his cigarette to a time fuse. “Not yet anyway.”

“Can they get here from somewhere else?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just have to hope not.”

Weller was waiting, propped in his corner. “What’d you do?” the old man rasped. “First I heard the shotgun and then that explosion. You hadn’t called out, I’d have taken your head off.”