THE MARK Read online

  “We should get some rest before we look for Meg and Micah,” Digs said.

  “She needs to graze and drink. I’ll find some water.”

  Digs stood and took the reins. His eyes were bloodshot, and she wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he looked even paler than usual. “I’ll take care of her. Rest. I’ll be back soon.”

  She wanted to argue, to say that she was fully capable and that she knew more about horses, but the adrenaline she’d been running on had worn off long ago and her eyes were so very heavy. Chris let go of the reins and stumbled a couple of steps back to slide down the tree’s soft innards.

  “You okay?” Digs asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. A little tired,” she said. He nodded and led the horse out into the morning. Chris said “I’ll do it,” and then promptly fell asleep.

  * * *

  It was bright when she finally woke. Digs was asleep on his cloak nearby. Molly nibbled at some bark. She looked hungry but alert. She must have gotten some rest, too. Chris slowly got to her feet, sore from the ride and sleeping on the ground, and Molly blew out a puff of air at her in greeting. Chris untied her reins and led her outside to graze. Nothing else seemed to move beneath the trees’ canopy even though it was midday. It was as if the forest was paying its respects to the horrors of the previous night.

  It still didn’t seem real to Chris, what had happened. And even though she wanted to remain under the forest’s cover, to hide in it as long as possible, she knew they had to leave and find their friends. Like it or not, they were going to have to leave its safety and face whatever realities that lie beyond.

  Digs was awake when she got back, and they ate some scraps of food they managed to salvage from the fire at the inn. Chris’s memories of that night, of the wormding festival, and even Polaris already felt like memories from long ago. So much had happened, so much life—and death—in so little time.

  After they ate and gathered their things Chris rubbed Molly down one last time before putting her saddle back on. Then she checked the bags, checked them again, and got a drink from the creek before Digs finally insisted that they move on.

  “There’s no escaping what we must face. But we must face it if we’re to find out what has become of them,” Digs said.

  He was right. No more stalling. It was time.

  When they hesitantly cleared the tree line Chris saw exactly what she had feared she would. Bodies littered the ground, scattered across the landscape, left to rot where they were slain. Their blood watered the low grasses while birds pilfered their remains. A pelican with dagger-like teeth ripped a chunk of flesh from the side of a man and scooped it into its deep gullet before taking a look at Chris and Digs and then flying away.

  Digs walked over to the man and searched his bags before the bird was even out of sight.

  “What are you doing?” Chris asked, horrified. She tried not to gag. Intestines spilled out of the man’s open wound.

  “We need food and water,” Digs said. “If we are going to look for Meg and Micah we need food and water.” Coming up empty, he threw the bag back on the ground and searched a woman that lay nearby.

  “Have some respect for the dead,” Chris said.

  The woman he searched was lying with one arm unnaturally folded behind her back, palm up. There was grass in her hair, clumps of mud in between her fingers and under her nails. Her blue eyes stared ahead. “Take whatever you want,” they seemed to say.

  “Stop it!” Chris yelled.

  Digs jerked upright, searching for danger.

  “This isn’t right.”

  “Are you trying to get us killed?” Digs said. “Why don’t you just run around yelling and waving your hands? That will bring them back even faster!”

  “They would have found us by now if they were still around.” Chris scanned the area just in case then said, “We need to get going.”

  “One more minute.”

  “No. Looting corpses isn’t right. Leave it.”

  “I’m sorry, Chris, but now is not the time to worry about such things.” He dumped the contents of the woman’s bag onto the ground.

  She hated to admit it, but he was right. Even though this was one of those moments when she didn’t want him to be. They could use some supplies, but the thought that just hours ago she’d been talking to these people, that she’d survived the attack on The Middles with these people, didn’t make it any easier.

  Chris put a foot in Molly’s stirrup and swung her other leg over the horse’s back. Digs finished gathering what he could then pulled himself up to sit behind her.

  “So what now?” he asked.

  “Now we find Micah and Megland.”

  Chris took a deep breath and they started their search, mindful of all the lost souls that paved their way.

  CHAPTER 18

  It had been days since the attack on the caravan and images from the massacre kept cycling through Chris’s mind. Sometimes she saw the woman with the blue eyes, but mostly it was the man. He appeared in her dreams, except in her dreams he was a piñata. He had been destroyed in some ruthless game. Strands of licorice spilled out of the hole in his side and Digs picked through them looking for one of the good pieces. Sometimes the old folks with the donkey would show up, too. They would all be riding the animal, sitting on an extra-long saddle. They were always sad. Then the donkey would gnaw on a piece of bubble gum, trying to make them happy by blowing a bubble. The pink glob would expand bigger and bigger until it encompassed the donkey and its riders. Then, POP! It would burst and they would all disappear: the donkey, its riders, and finally all of Kellet. The entire planet blown to smithereens.

  It was at this point that Chris would wake up, usually out of breath but always sweaty and with a racing heart. They hadn’t found Micah and Megland yet. Digs had agreed with her that the best thing they could do was keep following the chasm, keep riding south, and if Megland and Micah were still alive they would eventually find them. They could only hope.

  When Chris couldn’t sleep, she saw Digs going through the same thing, the same nightmares as she had. She wished that he would bear it in silence like her, that he wouldn’t scream out when he saw the bodies or when the riders chased him through the woods. Chris kept it to herself. There were times when she’d wake from a nap and her jaw and teeth would ache from the clenching and gnashing, but she kept herself under control. Always.

  They were caught in the middle at the moment. The gap formed by the tunnel collapse had grown larger as they followed it instead of shrinking like they had hoped. The pit had deepened and they could no longer see the bottom, the far wall of it getting further away, retreating toward the setting sun. They had no choice but to keep riding south, hemmed in between the trees and the canyon. There seemed to be no end to the fracture created by the collapse, though logically, Chris knew there must be one. The world was not cleaved in half.

  “Someone is following us,” Digs said.

  Chris twisted in the saddle. He was right. A man in tattered burlap clothes, a beggar from the looks of it, was about a hundred feet behind them. A young boy with scabby knees and elbows and a woman carrying a baby were also walking the forest’s edge. Chris pulled back on Molly’s reins when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Clusters of people began to emerge from the tree line. They timidly broke through the shadows, first a trickle, then more stepped out and the dam burst. Soon there were at least fifty people, some walking, some riding in their direction.

  “It’s The Middles,” Chris said. The stream of people moved past them. Its motion and colors blurred, and Chris realized it was because she was crying, an honest-to-God kind of crying, a whole-body kind of crying.

  So many survivors. She had thought they were the only ones, but all these people had lived. After everything, after a freaking massacre, they were reforming the line.

  “Meg?” Digs said from behind Chris. He scrambled down Molly’s side, landing on his feet. “Meg!” he yelled. Digs ran to hi
s sister who was walking beside Micah and hugged her fiercely. Shaking from head to toe, Chris climbed off the horse, too. Micah walked up to her and looked her over as if he couldn’t believe she was really there, really alive and standing in front of him. There were tears in his eyes, too.

  “Thank God,” she said, and they hugged each other as tightly as they could. “Where did you go?” she asked, barely able to suck in a breath.

  “We hid in the trees,” he said, his voice muffled in her hair. “They almost found us. It was so close, Chris. I thought we were dead. I thought you were dead.”

  They stood there for a long time, each afraid to let the other go, until Megland put a hand on Chris’s shoulder and Chris pulled away from Micah enough to smile at her. Whether or not Megland wanted it, Chris considered her a friend.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” Chris said.

  Megland smiled warmly back at her. “Thank you for taking care of my brother.”

  Micah finally let Chris go and turned to wipe his face with the palm of his hand.

  “Where are your horses?” Digs asked.

  “There were people who needed them more we did,” Megland said. “We’ll be just fine without them.”

  It was hard for Chris to believe this was the same Megland who had been so practical, so cold, when she’d first arrived on Kellet. She had changed so much in such a short time.

  “We need to get going, cover as much ground as possible before dark,” Megland said. She didn’t have to say why. They all knew that they needed to put as much distance between themselves and the northern kingdom as possible. They didn’t know where Karniv’s soldiers were but it was still too close.

  * * *

  The sun had set, but the line kept walking until it became hard to see. They needed to settle down for the night. There were reservations about it, of course. Some thought stopping and lighting fires would make them targets for Karniv’s Riders. That was what many in the group had started calling the men who had slaughtered most of The Middles. Chris wasn’t sure it was the best idea to give them what sounded like a gang name. It gave them more power over the survivors somehow, but it did make it easier when talking about them.

  After much debate, they reached an agreement. None of them would get much further without sleep, food, and the tending of wounds. Some people had developed ghastly, oozing blisters on their feet. Fortunately, the village healer survived the attack. He used nearby herbs to make a salve that he applied to the patient’s feet, then wrapped the sores with large leaves.

  Their group had joined the family Chris had first seen coming out of the woods. The campfire they huddled around was as small as they could make it so as not to attract too much attention. Its flames sputtered every so often, threatening to extinguish entirely. Whenever it did, Chris tossed twigs onto it. It was the very least she could do.

  “Are you still awake?” she asked. Micah was lying on his back, one hand resting on his forehead. The small family they camped with was still awake, the mother trying her best to nurse her baby. He fussed, wriggling, refusing to latch. When Micah didn’t answer, Chris knew he was already asleep. Digs was asleep, too. Boys, she thought.

  “I’m still up,” Megland said. She was lying with her eyes closed. “I’m just trying to give her some privacy.”

  “She’s just feeding her baby.” Chris had whispered, but the woman heard her and chuckled.

  Megland turned to face Chris, shielding her eyes. “If I were doing that I wouldn’t want people watching. I was just being considerate.”

  “Oh, okay.” Chris thought a moment about how best to approach the subject. “I’ve been wondering something since The Middles. I know it sounds crazy, and it might be, but do you think this all might have something to do with me being here? I mean since I came to Kellet?”

  Chris listed her concerns about the timing of events since she’d arrived on the planet and how all of the tragedies they’d witnessed and suffered seemed to correlate with her presence. The world before her arrival was a clock—an evil clock that ran off the souls of Marked—but a functioning clock, nonetheless. Now it seemed broken beyond repair.

  When Chris finished it was quiet. The tiny fire snapped and fizzled, and she added more twigs. Finally, Megland spoke.

  “Why are you so willing to believe that tragedy follows you, and just you, like a stray dog?” she asked. “You are not the center of a malicious universe, Chris. All of this existed long before your arrival and it will continue to exist long after you’re gone. Everything that’s happened since you got here is a product of circumstances acting upon each other, the rules established long before you showed up.

  “You are not the cause, and you are not the victim. You are like the rest of us: present at this moment on this page in history. Stop blaming yourself. You are not as omnipotent as you’d like to believe.”

  With that, Megland rolled over and adjusted her crumpled cloak under her head. “Now be a human and get some sleep.”

  Maybe Megland was right. Maybe it wasn’t because of her. Chris tossed more twigs on the fire.

  Staring into the flames, she told herself, it’s not me. But at least if it was her then there was a tangible reason for things. She was the catalyst that got the clock running. If it wasn’t her then there was no clock. The gears, cogs, hands, numbers—all the mechanisms that should work together—were just free-floating bits haphazardly ricocheting off each other, bouncing all over the place with no purpose. What does somebody do with that? If you had no real control, what was the point? Just go about the business of living hoping that a tunnel doesn’t randomly come crashing down on you, hoping that none of the gears or hands of the clock bludgeon or impale you where you stand eating your morning bagel? No. There had to be more than that. Chris had to believe there was more than that. If she was the reason, then she could be the solution. They were going to get Hannah’s body and give her a proper burial, and then they were going to go home. Afterward, Kellet could get back to normal. Nobody else would die because of her. Never again because of her.

  CHAPTER 19

  The forest dwindled, becoming nothing more than spindly trees with large gaps between them. The creek narrowed, a thin snake to the east. Meanwhile, the canyon stretched even further out into the distance.

  “I’m worried about food,” Chris said. It was midday and the sun was hot. Digs was once again walking alongside Molly, even though his feet were wrapped in leaves. It was Chris’s turn to ride, but she kept insisting that they trade places or that he at least ride behind her, but he stubbornly refused. She didn’t know what kind of point he was trying to make, but she wished he would stop.

  “There has to be a village soon,” he said. “Or farmland. Maybe some fruit trees. We’ll be fine.” He sucked in a sharp breath when he stepped on a pebble.

  “Ugh,” Chris groaned. She dismounted, not giving him the chance to argue, and let her frustration do the heavy lifting as she boosted him into the saddle. He was lying across it, but at least he was off his feet.

  “I’m not an invalid!”

  Chris couldn’t take him seriously because his backside was facing her. “I know you’re not, but neither am I.” She helped him get situated, easing his sore feet into the stirrups then placing the reins in his hands. “Right for right. Left for left. Pull back to stop. A gentle nudge with your heel and she’ll go forward. But she’ll just stay with the group so you don’t really have anything to worry about.”

  It took him a while, but he finally thanked her. The quiet way he said it made her resolve that this was something she wouldn’t tease him about.

  Up ahead someone yelled “Halt!” and the line slowed and stopped. Chris couldn’t see what was causing the holdup. The front of the line curved around the edge of the forest. The tightness in her stomach let her know she should check it out.

  “Wait here,” she told Digs.

  Micah and Megland had hitched a ride in the back of a wagon but jumped out when it stopped. “Chri
s!” Micah called, running up to her.

  “I’m going to see what’s the holdup,” she said.

  “I’m coming with you.” It wasn’t a request.

  “What about Megland? Don’t you want to stay with her?” She was surprised at her own tone. It sounded jealous.

  “Nah,” he said. Thankfully, he seemed not to have picked up on it. “She’s alright, you know. She kept her cool when the four of us were separated.”

  “Yeah?” she said, turning to him.

  He nodded. “She’s strong. Like you.”

  Chris smiled at him and they walked together. Most people seemed to be grateful for the delay and took the opportunity to get off their feet or retreat into the tree line to relieve themselves.

  Chris and Micah wove their way through the line and when they rounded the bend the trees no longer obstructed their view. Then Chris understood why they had stopped. A wall of knives standing at least twenty feet high blocked their way. They were made of the same iridescent blue-green as the utensils in the mine and they shimmered in the afternoon sun. The blades towered over everyone, casting a long shadow like a massive sundial.

  Chris approached the people at the front of the line. “Can’t we go around it?”

  “Sent a couple of riders the easterly way,” a burly middle-aged man volunteered. His reddish-brown beard was dappled with mud like the rest of him. “They’ll let us know where we can get around.”

  A boy just old enough to have a light fuzz covering his jawline stepped forward. “I say we knock one loose and divide it.”

  “Divide it with what?” Mudbeard said, looking at the boy like he was an idiot. “And with what time? Here we are running for our lives, almost out of food, hardly any water left—”

  “We can buy whatever we need—”

  “Where? Do you see a village? I don’t. Or are you suggesting we turn around? Are you saying we should go back to The Middles? Because last time I check our blasted village was burned to the ground!”