Firebrand (17 page)

I
couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. I'd seen Kyte shot right in front of me, but I hadn't realized what was happening back then. Plus, the Guardian's wound had been so small. But there was no way to ignore Kell's blood spattered against the ground, or the remains of his head, sliced open like one of Rose's fish—gutted, discarded. It was gruesome.

I had to look away, which is how I saw the rats were converging on our path. Even the sound of gunfire wasn't enough to deter them anymore.

“Run!” I yelled.

Alice took Jerren's arm and pulled him from the carnage. When he dropped the guns in disgust, Nyla calmly picked them up again. As the rats closed in on her, she adjusted the bags on her shoulder like there was no hurry at all.

I looked her in the eye and she returned my gaze. As much as I hated Jerren for putting Rose in the cell with Kell, he'd never frightened me the way that Nyla did in that moment. As she left the bloody scene, she swung her arms loosely, a gun in each hand.

I staggered backward through the tunnel, unable to take my eyes off the rats. They were completely still, just watching us.

“They remember your flame,” said Nyla.

When I was halfway down the tunnel they swarmed Kell's body like flies on a horse. There were sounds of clawing and tearing. When one by one the rats turned away, they carried a souvenir with them: a piece of Kell's flesh. Each one ate greedily. Then, sensing that they wouldn't be able to fight the tide and return for more, they pursued us.

I turned around and ran, pounding out one footstep after another as Rose bounced against my back, a dead weight.

Nyla quickly passed me. She followed the others out of the tunnel and along a path. When it forked left, they followed it toward the beach. I could see the water sparkling just ahead of us.

Jerren took another left turn and suddenly they were running parallel to the coast, hidden behind a row of trees and bushes. Sweat poured down my forehead. Rose moaned with every bump.

“Go this way,” I yelled, veering straight toward the water.

About thirty yards ahead of me, Alice spun around. “No! Someone'll be watching from Sumter. We need to stay hidden.” Her face darkened then, and it wasn't hard to imagine what she saw so close behind me.

Jerren stopped too. “Fire a shot, Nyla. It'll frighten them away.”

“They might hear it on Sumter,” yelled Alice.

Jerren raised his hands. “They won't.”

Nyla pointed the gun at the ground and a shot rang out. For a moment, Alice seemed to relax. But only for a moment.

“Come on,” Alice shouted. “It's less than fifty yards to the cove.”

We were running across grass now. The footing was uneven and I stumbled but didn't fall. My head throbbed with the sound of my breathing.

From the corner of my eye I saw a rat just behind me. Then two. Then several more on the other side. They were flanking me, grouping in preparation for an attack. I had no idea what the attack would be like, only that it was inevitable.

Alice waited for me at the tree line. Seeing the rats, she threw a stick. It landed beside me, knocking a few of them aside. But others took their place. They filed between my legs so that I almost stepped on them.

Nyla turned to fire, but the gun just clicked. Empty. She tossed it at them instead.

She and Alice sprinted through the trees and I followed right behind them. The change of direction caught the rats off-guard. The water was only a few yards away.

“Thom, jump!” screamed Alice.

I leaped forward and crashed into water only a few inches deep, Rose on top of me. My face was driven into the water and against the sand. My mouth filled with both.

Someone pulled Rose off me and I pushed myself up to the surface, gasping for air. When I looked back up to the beach, the rats had formed a line along the water's edge.

I stayed crouched down in the water so that I could hold Rose. She was breathing, but her eyes were half-closed. The blood that had soaked into her tunic made the water around her cloudy.

“Remove her clothes,” said Jerren flatly. “The salt water will clean the wounds.”

He was right, but it was his fault Rose was in this state at all. None of this would've happened if he'd listened to us. The contrast between him and Rose made me sick—he hadn't paid at all for his stupidity. Suddenly I couldn't see anything but Kell standing behind Rose, the knife against her neck.

“Here, I'll do it,” he said when I didn't move.

“Get away from her.” I slammed my hand into his chest, knocking him backward.

He bounced back up but I was ready for him, fists raised.

“No way,” said Alice, stepping between us.

“So you're taking his side,” I snapped. “What a surprise.”

She gritted her teeth. “Not even close.”

She swung her fist around, catching Jerren square in the gut and sending him to his knees. “You knew this was going to happen, and you let us walk into it.”

“I saved you,” Jerren moaned. “If I'd told you what Kell planned, you never would've come along.”

“Exactly.”

“And Chief would've had you shot. He thinks your parents are the dangerous ones—never would've sent me and Kell alone to deal with you if he'd known the truth.” He rubbed his stomach. “He's scared of you all, especially your parents. And when Chief is scared, he doesn't take any chances. Coming today kept you alive. Now you can help the rest of your families.”

Alice joined me and together we lifted Rose out of the shallow water and onto the catamaran. We cleaned her wounds and used what was left of my tunic to bandage her neck. “We need to get back to Sumter,” I said.

“Not in daylight,” said Jerren. “The guards will be expecting only one boat. And I'm guessing they're only expecting one person too.”

A rat ventured into the water then. Another too. Alice grasped my hand and we combined to make a flame. It was smaller than before, but enough to deter them for a while longer.

There were still a few strikes until nightfall. What was happening to our parents right now? How long before the rats attacked again?

Alice looked right past me to the shore. The rats formed a line at the water's edge, waiting for us to return. “It's not possible,” she murmured. “The way the rats work together . . . I've never seen anything like it.”

“That's why we call these trips suicide squads,” said Jerren. “The rats here work together. No one knows how, but they've had years to learn. Chief says they're adapting to the new world, and they're doing it better than us.”

Alice reached into her bag and removed the fresh-picked greens. “We should eat this. It won't keep now it's wet. And who knows when we'll get something else.”

She passed around handfuls of leaves. I didn't even look at them, just shoveled them into my mouth and chewed over and over until I could finally swallow. I checked on Rose to see if she was awake enough to eat. She shook her head.

Nyla barely ate at all. She sat in the water, watching Alice and me. Her expression was neutral, alarmingly cool.

“So Alice's element is fire,” she said finally. “But what's yours?”

I stopped chewing. Alice didn't look at me, but I could tell that she was focused on me, waiting for my answer. My instinct was to play ignorant, but it was too late for that.

“We're not sure,” I said. “Until a week ago, I didn't know I had an element at all. The Guardians have kept it a secret all my life. I think I can channel energy, but that's about all . . . for now.”

Jerren narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean: for now?”

“The elements don't work as well here. I don't know why,” I added hurriedly. “Anyway, what do you know about elementals?”

Nyla toyed with her food, but she still didn't eat. “There have always been rumors. Even at Fort Dauphin, people said they saw things.”

I mulled this over. I didn't know exactly where Fort Dauphin was, but I was sure it was even farther from Roanoke Island than Fort Sumter. In which case, how had people's elements worked at all? Were there more of us elsewhere?

“So when we reach Sumter,” said Alice, “will our families be alive?”

Jerren nodded. “I told you: Chief won't waste ammunition, and he's protective of the children. Doesn't want them seeing anything bad.”

The water was warm, but we were cooling down from our run now. The sun was obscured by dark clouds gathering to the southwest. We climbed onto the catamarans and lay across the canvas sheets.

I beckoned Alice over to me. “What Kell was saying—”

“No.” She huffed. “I know what you're thinking, and Dare's dead, all right? You saw him drown.”

“I saw him go underwater and not resurface.”

“Kell was just trying to scare us. Make us think we needed to keep him with us.” She waved a hand in the direction of Sumter. “Did you see another ship arrive during the night? If so, where's it hidden now?”

“Dare could've anchored it behind one of the islands,” suggested Jerren.

“We'd see the mast. Unless you think he made the voyage in a cutter.” She gave a disdainful look. “Listen, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Kell wanted to get inside our heads, and distract us. It's working too.” She turned to me. “You know as well as I do, there were no other ships back on Roanoke Island, right? And no boats big enough to make a voyage like ours, either.”

“No, there weren't,” I agreed, but my pulse continued to race.

From the corner of my eye I noticed Nyla watching me. She opened her mouth, but it was a while before she spoke. “Does Griffin . . .
see
things?” she asked.

Her question put me on my guard. There was no way she should have known about Griffin's element unless he had told her, and he'd never do that. “What do you mean?”

“Something happened before we left. Something . . . weird.” She clicked her tongue. “Chief came for him this morning before we left, and Griffin went crazy.”

I froze. “Crazy, how?”

Nyla seemed to be regretting the conversation now, but kept going. “He was holding my hand. It was the first time. Felt nice. Then Chief came over and patted him on the back. After that, his grip got real painful. I tried to pull away, but I couldn't. It was like . . . he wasn't even himself anymore.”

So that's why they'd kept Griffin away from me. He'd had a seizure, a vision of something terrible that was about to occur. I hated knowing that I hadn't been there for him. Or that Nyla sounded so calm about it.

“When we were in the fort,” I asked her, “did one of the rats bite you?”

She didn't answer at first. Then, slowly, she lifted the fabric of her pants. Though the water had rinsed the blood away, the wound remained visible: a bite mark just above her ankle.

Alice dropped her food and began to clean it right away. Jerren tore his tunic so that he could bandage it. “It's just one bite,” he said. “I've heard of people who survive.”

Through it all, Nyla remained completely still, just watching me. So that's why she'd been able to pull the trigger when her brother couldn't. Once she'd been bitten, she must've guessed what Griffin's seizure had meant.

Strange to think that with Rose so hurt and broken, it was Nyla, still perfectly healthy, who was as good as dead.

I
t was evening. The clouds had darkened throughout the afternoon as a storm rolled toward us. Occasionally we'd peer over the rocks at the edge of the cove and spy on Fort Sumter. It didn't look any different. Whatever horrifying things were going on were hidden behind those thick, forbidding walls.

Alice and I had repelled the rats twice more, but after each time, I'd needed to rest. No one disturbed me either. They knew that without me, Alice's element wouldn't stop anything.

Rose drifted in and out of sleep. When she was awake, I fed her morsels of food and held her head as she washed them down with sips of water. One time, she ran her hand around her neck and discovered that her pendant had gone, the cord no doubt severed by Kell's knife. Such a small thing really, but it caused a round of silent tears. She gave up eating and remained perfectly still as I brushed her hair from her face and wrapped my arms around her. A moment later, she'd drifted back to sleep.

Alice joined me. She held my hand, just as she had done back on Roanoke Island, but it felt different now. Same hand, same skin, same pressure as her fingers twined with mine, but this touch was all about reassurance and friendship. It was about letting me know she was on my side. Rose's side too.

I wanted to ask her about Eleanor, but not with Jerren and Nyla around. Besides, we'd seen enough death for one day. There was no need to revisit past horrors.

“You should give her mine,” said Alice, running her pendant along the cord. “It would mean more to her, I think.”

There was a deeper meaning to those words, and we both knew it. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She loosed my hand and turned away so that I could reach the knot. “It's a sheet bend knot though, right?”

“How do you know that?”

“I could tell by your movements when you put it on me back at Roanoke. I was kind of pleased actually—it's such a
permanent
knot—but now I think you were just nervous.”

I didn't reply. There was no need to confirm what she already knew to be true.

Jerren wasn't watching us, but he could hear every word. I wondered if Alice wanted him to know that something had happened between us, so he'd be jealous. But as I removed the cord and tied it gently around Rose's neck instead, I realized that wasn't it at all. She wanted him to know that she was letting go of whatever we had shared. Jerren would know the boundaries of our friendship now.

“We should go,” announced Nyla. She hadn't spoken since she'd shown us the rat bite, and hearing her voice startled me.

Jerren stared at the sky. “Thunderstorm's coming.”

“It's not here yet.” She tilted her head toward Alice and me. “And they won't be able to stop the rats forever.”

Jerren untied the first catamaran. “All right, then. Let's go.”

The breeze was strong and when we took off, we made good headway across the harbor mouth. The clouds mostly obscured the moon, but Jerren kept right behind us so that anyone watching from Sumter would only see one boat. At the sight of two sails, someone would raise the alarm for sure.

It took us only a quarter-strike to cross the water, and I held tight to Rose the whole way. Alice headed for our ship, still anchored a hundred yards from the shore. She let out the sail as we drew close, and we came to rest a few yards away. Here, no one would be able to see the catamarans at all.

Alice stared at the ship. “We need to get on board.”

“You could swim around and take the rope ladder.”

“No. I might show up against the dark of the ship. But if I can bring the rope ladder over this side, the rest of you can climb.”

I took in the sheer wooden hull. It looked gigantic. “How are you going to get up there?”

“Skill and strength.” She handed me the mainsheet. “So get us right next to the ship and let me work.”

I pulled on the mainsheet. There were only a few yards still to go, but progress was slow because the ship blocked the wind. Meanwhile, Alice removed her shoes and shimmied barefoot up the catamaran mast.

“This mast isn't as high as the ship's deck,” I reminded her.

“Doesn't need to be,” she called back. “I just need to get past the curved part of the hull.”

Sure enough, as the catamaran bumped gently against the ship, Alice leaned away from the mast and grabbed the ship's side. Her legs slipped from under her and so did her left hand, and for a moment I was sure she was about to fall, but instead she just dangled in the air. That's when I realized her right hand was clamped against the wooden ledge around a porthole. She eased her left hand up, and ran her toes across the boards until she found something that offered resistance. Then she took a moment to gather herself.

“There's only a few yards to go,” I said.

She peered down. “That's very helpful. Now if you could find me a ladder, that'd be even better.”

Slowly, painstakingly, Alice crept up the ship, finger by finger, toe by toe. When she finally reached the rail, I exhaled, unaware that I'd even been holding my breath.

She pulled herself onto the deck. A short while later, she reappeared with the rope ladder, which she tied to the rail and dropped over the side. I tethered our boat to the ladder and peered down at Rose. That's when I realized we had another problem.

She was still asleep. Even awake, she wasn't up to climbing the ladder. Which meant there was only one thing to do. I nudged her until she came to, and knelt down with my back to her. She understood well enough what I needed her to do, but it wasn't until Jerren had tied his boat to ours and Nyla had joined us that they were able to help her climb onto my back. She wrapped her arms around my neck and held on loosely. I hoped that she wouldn't let go.

Step by step I forced us up the ladder. The wind was stronger now, but our weight kept us in place. When we reached the rail, Alice helped Rose over. She collapsed onto the deck.

“Let's get her below deck,” said Alice. “She's going to have to stay on the ship.”

Nyla climbed over the rail. “I'll stay with her.”

We carried Rose to the nearest cabin and laid her on a pile of blankets.

“I can't see anything,” said Nyla, taking a seat beside her.

“My lantern's in the fort,” said Jerren.

I remembered the candles that Griffin had been using in Dare's cabin. “There might be another way. Follow me.”

Alice and Jerren came with me to Dare's cabin. The door was unlocked. I went straight to the desk and ran my hands blindly across it until I found the candle. I placed it in front of Alice and took her hand in mine. Combining our elements, she created a small flame. Jerren seemed fascinated rather than afraid.

I kept my hand around the flame, and my body between the candle and the windows. The stern windows shouldn't have been visible from Sumter, but I wasn't taking any chances.

In the light we saw other candles, which we lit from the first. Once we each had one, I figured we'd hurry to Nyla and on to the fort, but Jerren stared at the maps on the wall, transfixed. “This is Dare's cabin, isn't it?”

I nodded.

“Look at the detail on this map,” he continued. “Chief has maps like this, but he keeps them hidden. My father used to say that information is power. Chief keeps the power for himself.” He tapped the map. “Why do you think he marked this route?”

Alice looked closer. “He didn't. That was Griffin. He was tracing the route that Dare took to get to us. If the pages hadn't been ripped out of Dare's log, we'd have known he'd been here.” As she spoke, she grew quieter.

“What is it, Alice?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It doesn't make sense. Dare wouldn't have removed the pages unless he knew we were planning to steal his ship. But if he wanted that to happen, why did he attack us in the middle of a hurricane?”

“And why didn't he foresee his own death?” I added. “His element should've been working better on Roanoke than anywhere else. He's a seer. He must've known what would happen.”

Alice was perfectly still now. “Dare said he'd
deliver
us to you, right?” she asked Jerren. “Those were his exact words.”

“Yeah. Why?”

Alice turned to me but didn't speak. I knew what she was thinking, though. “You just said it was impossible for him to be here,” I reminded her. “You can't believe he's alive.”

“Why not? You do. Why else are you whispering?”

Jerren raised his candle. “I'm giving this to Nyla now. I don't need to hear about any more ghosts.”

He left the room, but Alice and I stayed. She perched on the corner of the desk. “What if Dare came on
this
ship?”

“Impossible. We would've seen him. Or heard him.”

A moment's silence, and then her eyes shot back to the map. She ran her finger along Griffin's route. “Oh, no. How did we miss it?”

“Miss
what
?”

Alice circled the room, dragging items of furniture away from the walls.

“What are you doing, Alice?”

She moved shelves, a table, and finally, the desk. It didn't scrape across the floor as it came away because the legs weren't actually touching the ground. The whole thing pivoted, attached to the wall with hidden hinges.

Now a part of the wall was missing entirely. Behind it was empty space.

Alice crouched down and I handed her the candle. When she'd taken a look, she moved out of the way so that I could see too.

It was a passageway. The candlelight shone several yards until it was swallowed in darkness.

“I think it goes right around the ship,” said Alice. “It's how Dare spied on his men. That's how he knew about the plot to kill him, even though they were hundreds of miles from Roanoke Island. His element doesn't work any better than anyone else's. He doesn't need it to. He just eavesdrops on his men instead.”

I moved the candle around and caught a glimpse of something on the floor a couple yards away. I crawled in and retrieved it.

It was the missing journal from Kyte's dune box—the one Rose had left on the beach at Hatteras, back when everything had started.

I flicked through it. It didn't look the same as the others. Griffin had said that it probably worked in parallel with them, in which case he'd finally be able to complete the story that presently made so little sense. But where he'd feel the relief of having solved a mystery, I felt only panic.

Dare hadn't delivered us at all. We'd delivered him.