Last wild boy, p.19
Last Wild Boy, page 19
“Thank you, Aesop,” said Adam, reaching down to hold his other hand. “I’ll make you proud. I promise.”
Aesop moved his eyes from one to the other. A look of peace and happiness filled his old face and his eyes focused somewhere far away. A moment later, he was gone.
Chapter 34
When Nora and Adam reached the bottom of the cliff, there was no sign of Mabon anywhere. They picked up the two packs from where Adam had thrown them down from the cliff and headed into the dense evergreen forest, entering at the same spot where they’d seen Mabon disappear.
Nora tried to look for signs of which way Mabon might have headed, inspecting tall grasses to see if they’d been broken and searching the ground for footprints, but Mabon had been too good at covering his tracks. When they reached the edge of the rangers’ encampment, Nora stopped and put a finger to her lips. The camp was eerily quiet. The only signs of life were the smouldering embers in the fire pit. Nora and Adam skirted the perimeter of the camp as quietly as they could, keeping an eye out for rangers and for Mabon, but there didn’t appear to be a soul around.
There was a rustling in the trees behind them. Nora stepped in front of Adam to shield him from the intruder and assumed a protective stance. “If I tell you to run,” she whispered. “Run. Don’t worry about me, and don’t look back. Just get as far away from here as you can.”
“Okay,” Adam whispered.
They stood for a moment, waiting, their hearts beating through their chests. Suddenly a bush nearby shook wildly, and then Lucky’s head appeared from the foliage.
“Lucky!” Adam cried. He ran over to the dog, who jumped up on Adam and wagged his tail excitedly.
Nora came over and patted Lucky on the head. She noticed that there was blood matted in his fur, but when she inspected him, he didn’t appear to be wounded.
“Where’s Mabon, Lucky?” she asked the dog.
Lucky whined at the sound of his master’s name.
“Lucky!” Adam said. “Can you take us to Mabon?”
The dog didn’t move.
“Find Mabon, Lucky!” Nora tried.
Without any warning, Lucky bounded back through the bush and out of sight. Nora and Adam raced after the dog, trying to keep up as he skirted around trees and under bushes. Finally he reached a clearing. The bodies of three large rangers were splayed across the ground, but there was no sign of Mabon. Lucky ran over to a large fir tree at the edge of the clearing, stopped, barked once, and then crawled underneath. Nora and Adam followed him into the shadowy shelter.
They found Mabon inside, propped up against the tree trunk. There was a deep wound on his leg, and he was bleeding heavily. With his good arm he held up a bloody knife, ready to attack.
“Mabon!” Nora said, rushing to his side.
“Nora!” he said, dropping the knife. “Adam!” He smiled his crooked grin. “You’re okay! I was so worried.”
“We’re fine,” said Nora. She pulled a blanket from her pack, tore two long strips from one side of it, and wrapped them tightly around Mabon’s wound to stop the bleeding. “What happened to you?”
Mabon winced as Nora knotted the course bandage around his leg. “I was checking out the ranger camp, making sure it was safe for us to pass through. It seemed empty, so I went in for a closer look. While I was there, the three guard rangers came back and spotted me. I ran into the woods, but they chased me and caught up to me in the clearing outside the tree. I managed to fight them off, with Lucky’s help, but not before one of them got me with his machete.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Adam asked.
“I’ll be fine, now that your mother has patched me up,” Mabon said. “I’m so sorry. I should never have left you on your own. Did you have trouble getting away?”
Nora shook her head. “One of the rangers found us before we had a chance to get down the cliff. Aesop held him off as long as he could, but…”
“No,” Mabon said, clenching his teeth.
“I’m sorry,” said Nora.
Mabon squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. He sat silent for a long moment. “We have to get out of here,” he finally said. “They’ll be looking for us.”
“Will you be okay to walk?” Nora asked, pulling a bottle of water from her pack and passing it to Mabon.
“I think so,” he said, taking a sip. “But I’ll need some help.”
Nora and Adam helped Mabon crawl out from under the enormous fir and get to his feet. He tried putting all his weight on his bad leg, but it was too painful, so Nora put her arm around him and let him lean on her as he walked. They found they could move along this way at a fairly steady pace. Adam picked up the packs and followed along beside them as they walked.
The three travellers and their dog headed back toward the cliff face, and then followed the edge of the cliff toward the western side of the valley. When they arrived at the western side, they left the protection of the cliff and struck out into the dense forest and headed south, in the direction Mabon hoped would eventually lead them to the Manuhome.
They moved slowly and cautiously under the leafy canopy of the forest, aware that they were now vulnerable from all sides. It had started to rain lightly, and the sound of the raindrops dripping down from overhead meant that they wouldn’t be able to hear anyone approaching. Rain drowned all the voices of the wild but its own. But it wasn’t all bad. That same shower also washed away their tracks, so they were able to move quickly, if uncomfortably, along. Even so, they were constantly looking over their shoulders, aware that danger could find them at any moment.
They walked for hours, but in spite of Mabon’s painful leg and Nora’s fatigue from supporting his considerable weight, neither complained. When darkness came and their exhausted bodies could take them no further, they found shelter under a large willow, whose drooping branches formed a curtain around them and protected them from the drizzling rain.
They were gone again before the sun rose, and by lunchtime Mabon started to recognize signs that they were nearing the Manuhome. The rain had stopped by then and their progress had slowed slightly, since they kept needing to stop and cover their tracks. When they reached a tall, grass-covered mound of loose gravel that looked back toward the distant valley, Mabon dragged himself up it, with Nora’s help, and looked out over the surrounding lands, searching for signs of the rangers. They could just make out a plume of smoke rising like river fog above the trees a few hundred feet away, in the direction they’d just come from.
“They’re close,” Nora said.
“They must have caught our trail and followed us,” Mabon said, holding her tight. “We have to get out of here. We’ve got to make it to the Manuhome before they catch up to us.”
Mabon turned and looked toward where Adam and the dog had been standing at the bottom of the hill a few minutes before and realized they were no longer there. His heart sunk to the pit of his stomach.
“Where’s Adam?” Nora asked, alarm registering in her voice.
They scrambled down the gravelled incline, frantically searching the area for any sign of Adam or Lucky. It took Nora everything she had not to scream out Adam’s name, but she knew that would just put him in more danger. They reached the bottom of the hill and paused, trying to figure out which direction Adam went.
“Halt!” a voice snarled from close behind them. “Don’t turn around. There are machetes poised at the back of both of your necks. Drop your weapons. Now!”
Mabon felt the urge to push Nora aside and take his chances, but he knew there was too great a possibility that she’d be hurt. He cursed himself for not being more careful.
Nora took Mabon’s hand and squeezed it, silently trying to tell him that he and Adam were all she cared about. “Do as he says, Mabon,” she said as she stooped to drop her bow and quiver on the ground. “We have no choice.” She thought about Adam, and hoped he was getting farther and farther from them every moment.
Mabon reluctantly unslung his bow and quiver and dropped them to the ground.
“Step back a few paces, away from your weapons, and then you can turn around slowly,” the voice ordered.
Nora glanced at Mabon, looking for some sort of sign on his rugged face. He was smiling, but she could tell from the tight set of his crooked lips, his version of a grimace, that he was nervous. He was trying to reassure her, she knew, but his attempt at calming her down was only succeeding in making her more frightened.
“Step apart now and raise your arms high as you turn around. Move slowly and don’t try anything stupid.”
Mabon and Nora let go of each other’s hands and slowly raised their arms, turning reluctantly until they were facing a tall ranger holding two machetes, one in each hand, each weapon clearly trained on one of them.
“I’m going to ask you a question and I want an answer. Where is the wild boy?”
“I don’t know,” said Nora, her voiced pinched but unwavering.
“What about you?” the ranger said, turning to Mabon.
Mabon’s voice was angry and curt, full of disgust. “He’s not here,” he said.
“So you want to play tough, do you, cleaner?” the ranger said, placing the blade of his machete against the side of Nora’s neck. “How about this? You either tell me where the boy is, or I kill the insider.”
Chapter 35
“You can’t let him do this, Mother!” Alice screamed. When day and night had gone by and her mother still hadn’t sent any word of Nora, Alice hadn’t been able to take it any longer. She’d barged back into the control room intending to demand an update. Instead she’d arrived just in time to hear the ranger capturing Nora and her outsider friend.
Blanchefleur said nothing. She just flipped a switch on the console and continued as if she hadn’t heard Alice at all.
“Mother!” Alice yelled hysterically. “You can’t do this to Nora! She’s an insider, a woman like you and me. You may have been able to explain away the deaths of the outsiders, but you won’t be able to do that with Nora. This is murder, and you know it.”
“Murder?” Blanchefleur stood and faced her daughter, the white flower on her lapel drooping and crushed flat. Her blue eyes were cold and hard. “It’s Nora who’s the murderer. You heard what happened with the old ones. None of this would ever have happened if she hadn’t stolen that outsider child. The blood is on her hands, not mine.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Alice spat. “You’re just as bad as the outsiders before the revolt, aren’t you, Mother? You and all those women from the council, talking about how horrible life was before the city. I listened to the slaughter in the valley. You were right. It sickened me to my stomach. All those old ones were already dead, you said. But they weren’t dead, were they? I heard their screams of pain. And I heard the screams of pain from the rangers. They were people, too. When you use other people to do your dirty work, it’s still your dirty work. It’s you who’s the murderer.”
“You ungrateful brat!” Blanchefleur screamed. She drew back and then slapped her daughter across the face, hard enough to leave five red finger marks across her porcelain cheek. “You think it’s easy for me to do this, but it’s not. I don’t enjoy sitting here, listening to the horrors of war, but I have no choice. I do it because it’s my job. I do it to protect the world from the will of the Central Council. I do it for the great city of Aahimsa. And I do it so you can enjoy the privileges of being the mayor’s daughter.”
“Don’t put this on me,” Alice said, holding her hand to her smarting cheek. Her icy eyes flashed with anger. “This is your mess. You’re the one who ordered the attack. And you’re the one who has to live with the consequences.”
“Fine,” said Blanchefleur. “I will. And since I no longer have to worry about what you think, I guess I can just go ahead and tell the ranger to do whatever’s necessary to find the boy.”
“You don’t have to do this!” Alice pleaded.
“But I do,” said Blanchefleur. “If I don’t, the Central Council will take control of Aahimsa. And the first thing they’ll do is terminate your precious Nora, and the rest of the outsiders, too. It’s too late, Alice.” She picked up the microphone and lifted it to her lips.
“No!” Alice shouted. Before she knew what she was doing, she had pounced on her mother and knocked her out of her chair. The two women wrestled wildly on the floor, each trying to gain control of the heavy metal microphone.
“Get off of me!” Blanchefleur screamed.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Alice told her through heaving breaths. “I can’t let you do this!”
“I have to!” Blanchefleur said, panting. Blanchefleur wriggled and kicked and somehow managed to overpower her daughter. She pinned Alice to the floor and held the microphone over her head, ready to strike.
“Mother, no!” Alice screamed, her eyes widening into saucers.
Blanchefleur looked down at her daughter’s terrified face, and paused. A look of horror crossed over her. “Holy Mother,” she whispered, putting the microphone down beside her and releasing Alice. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Alice. I don’t know what came over me.” She curled up in a ball and started rocking back and forth like a child. Tears filled her eyes, and she let herself cry for the first time in as long as she could remember.
Alice crawled over and put her arms around her mother. She held her tight, like she held Tish when she was frightened or hurt. When Blanchefleur had calmed down, Alice picked up the microphone. “Let them go,” she told the ranger. “Tell them to run, and to hide themselves well. And tell the insider that Alice says she’s sorry.”
Chapter 36
“Don’t tell him anything, Mabon,” Nora said defiantly.
The ranger didn’t say a word as he waited for Mabon’s answer, but it looked like he was concentrating hard on something. Mabon knew how it worked. The ranger’s control device worked the same way his had. He was probably communicating with his controllers using inner speak, waiting for their approval before he struck.
They waited what seemed like an eternity, but the ranger held his ground, his eyes set firmly on Mabon. Mabon remained stone silent the entire time, ready to attack the ranger if he made a move toward Nora.
Nora reached down, took Mabon’s hand, and squeezed it hard. “I love you,” she whispered, realizing that this was the first time she’d ever said it out loud. The ranger pressed his machete harder against her neck and she felt the blade pierce her skin. She braced herself for the impending blow.
Suddenly a confused look came across the ranger’s face, which quickly turned to anger. He raised his machetes threateningly, then, without warning, dropped them on the ground. They bounced off the hard-packed dirt and settled a few feet away.
“You can go,” he said coldly. “My controller said to tell you to run, and to hide yourselves well.” He paused and looked at Nora with disgust. “And someone named Alice says to tell you she’s sorry.”
Nora nodded and smiled. She turned to Mabon. “Let’s go find our boy.”
Nora and Mabon picked up their packs and weapons and ran off into the forest, leaving the ranger, alone and confused, in the clearing.
“What just happened?” Mabon asked. “Why did he let us go?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” said Nora. “But I’m not about to stick around to find out.”
There was a rustling of leaves and branches near the place where they had entered the forest, and the sound of running footsteps approaching. When they looked up they saw Lucky run out from the trees, followed by Adam, carrying his pack in one hand and his bow in the other.
“Adam!” said Nora, pulling him into a big hug. “Where have you been?”
“Lucky ran into the woods, so I chased after him,” Adam said. “By the time I caught him and we got back to the clearing, the ranger was there. I didn’t know what to do. He was too far away to hit with an arrow, and I knew if I ran out to you he’d probably kill you. I was so scared!”
“You did the right thing,” Mabon said, ruffling his hair. “Everything’s going to be okay, now, I think. We just have to get you to the Manuhome and get you hidden before they come after us again.”
Chapter 37
When Mabon threw the pebble at Dr. Ueland’s window this time, he hit it on his first try. Dr. Ueland must have been waiting right there, because his face appeared behind the glass almost instantly.
He met Mabon, Nora, Adam, and Lucky at Emergency Gate Three, and within moments they were back up in his office with the door locked behind them. The room still looked exactly as it had nine years before, and Mabon smiled when he saw it. “Still not one for change, I see,” he chuckled.
Dr. Ueland smiled wanly, but the stern look he usually wore didn’t leave his face. “There isn’t much time for catching up, I’m afraid. We’ve just been informed that the Manuhome has been put on high alert. Blanchefleur has ordered it locked down, but she won’t tell us why, other than to say it has something to do with the Central Council, and that it’s for our own safety.”
“What does she mean, ‘for your own safety’?” Nora asked. “Is it dangerous here?”
“I’m not sure what she means, but once we’re in lockdown it’s probably the safest place you can be. No one will be able to get in or out, not even me.”
“How long is this lockdown supposed to last?” Nora asked.
“I’m not sure,” Dr. Ueland said.
“So if we leave Adam here, we may not be able to get him back out?” Nora said, alarm registering in her voice.
“It’s possible,” said Dr. Ueland, “though I don’t imagine you’ll be back for quite some time, and I’ve never heard of a lockdown lasting for more than a few weeks.”
