Rivers of Fire (Atherton, Book 2) (16 page)

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devised, how I built Atherton to move, why it moves, and when it will stop."

"Stop talking about useless numbers!" cried Isabel. She couldn't believe what she was hearing and wished they would simply leave in search of Edgar, but Dr. Kincaid was unmoved.

"Tell me these things," said Dr. Kincaid, utterly focused on Dr. Harding. "I must know them!"

"I will tell you if you release me to get the boy," said Dr. Harding. "But you must send me alone. You must all move on, away from here, before it's too late."

Dr. Kincaid felt like a man crushed under the full weight of all the misery in Atherton.

"I don't trust him one bit," said Isabel. "I can't tell if he's Lord Phineus or Dr. Harding. And what if he is Dr. Harding? What difference does
that
make? He could still hurt Edgar if we let him go."

Samuel agreed. All of his life he'd known the man before him as the cruel Lord Phineus. No matter what anyone said, he was having a hard time believing he could be anyone else.

"We'll go instead," said Samuel, looking up at his father. It was a courageous notion, but one Sir William had no interest in pursuing.

"That's a valiant idea," said Sir William, "but I'm responsible for you and Isabel, and I can't think of a more dangerous place than Mead's Hollow. I can't take you back in there and I won't leave you behind. I'm afraid we can't be the ones to help your friend."

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"Fine!" shouted Isabel. She couldn't stand that Edgar was getting farther away while they stood arguing. "I'll go alone, without any of you!"

Out of habit she pulled a black fig out of her pocket and set it in her sling. Her hands were shaking, though she couldn't have said if it was anger or fear that caused it.

Dr. Harding knelt before her. "Isabel." He had a powerful but gracious voice up close, and it seemed as if he knew her better than she'd expected. "Whoever goes out there won't be coming back," he went on. "But I made Atherton, and I know how to save him."

There was something about his voice and the way he looked at her that made her tremble. She was at once awestruck and comforted by the close presence of Dr. Harding.
Could it really be true? Could this man have made Atherton?
She was determined not to believe it but found it impossible not to.

"It's my final wish," said Dr. Harding. "Please, just let me go and find Edgar."

Isabel nodded, convinced that if Edgar was to be saved there was only one person who could save him.

"Bring him back," she said. "Bring him back and I promise to take care of Atherton for you."

Dr. Harding smiled for the first time, and he nodded at Isabel as he stood.

Dr. Kincaid tugged on his ear, surprised at the momentary despair he was feeling, and then he, too, nodded his approval.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Harding--I truly am. I thought you could

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save the world." He laughed at the thought of it, seeing at once his own folly. "But it turns out no one man can do that. Atherton is irreparably turned to wreckage, like the mind of the man who made it. Even you can't fix it."

"Now, now, Doctor," said Dr. Harding. "Don't be too sure. It may not be as broken as you suppose."

And then Dr. Maximus Harding told everyone quickly and with purpose what was going to happen to Atherton and how the Cleaners might be overcome. They all sat spellbound in disbelief at the boldness of Dr. Harding's intellect. And when he was through, they truly believed there was yet a chance.

"I'm not going to live very much longer," he finally said. "You must let me be on my way."

They took him up the narrow corridor, and they told him how Edgar could climb if only he could get out of Mead's Hollow.

"He's an amazing boy," said Dr. Kincaid as Dr. Harding made his way up the ladder. "I believe you can save him."

Dr. Harding seemed to mentally check the time as he felt Atherton lightly shaking from where he stood at the top of the ladder. He dialed in the letters--m-u-l-c-i-b-e-r--and the round door opened with a wet, hissing sound. Water poured in around the edges like a little river and Dr. Harding cupped one hand, drinking his fill.

"When you feel Atherton move once more--I mean
really
move--you must be away from here. The next thing that happens will be more violent than all that has come before."

Dr. Harding hobbled up and out of the opening, glancing

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back only once, and was gone with the slamming of the door. It wasn't until then that Dr. Kincaid really broke down and cried. Vincent came alongside his old friend and put an arm around him.

"We'll never see the likes of him again," said Dr. Kincaid, for he knew Dr. Harding would be dead before night fell on Atherton.

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*** CHAPTER 19 A CLEANER IN THE GROVE

Gill had never raced a horse so fast in all his life. He had already passed into the trees, and it was hazardous going between the branches. He was hollering as he went for anyone who might be in the way, zigzagging down row after row of second-year trees until he reached the clearing where Mr. Ratikan's house had once stood.

"HORACE!" he yelled. He wasn't one for yelling very often, and it came out papery and weak even at his best effort. But Horace was sitting before a table with Maude and Wallace and knew Gill was coming before hearing the call. It was hard to miss the pounding of horse's hooves through a grove of trees.

"I'm here, Gill," said Horace. He and Wallace stood up and walked off the porch with Maude right behind. "What's the matter?"

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Gill pulled on the rope around the horse's neck and came to a stop in the clearing. The animal was soaked with sweat and breathing heavily, its broad tongue searching the air for something wet.

"Cleaners," said Gill as he dismounted and stood in front of them. "Cleaners are coming,
big
ones."

"How many?" asked Wallace. "And
how
big?" asked Maude.

"It looked like eight or nine, but I couldn't be sure." He looked at Maude. "You said they were six or seven feet long, but these looked larger than that."

"How much larger?" asked Horace, concern rising in his voice.

"I don't know.
Bigger.
Maybe ten feet, but I didn't get that close." Gill sniffed the air and caught a scent that shouldn't have been there. "Who's cooking rabbit?" he said. "That's a bad idea."

Nobody answered him.

"How long before they reach the grove?" asked Wallace.

Gill tried his best to guess, because he really couldn't be sure. Cleaners moved faster than a man but quite a bit slower than a horse at full gallop.

"I'd guess half an hour, maybe a little less."

Horace was quick to action in a military sort of way. He sent Maude and Wallace to different parts of the grove to maintain order. They would carefully hide the mothers and children up high in the biggest of the third-year trees, for though these were not especially good places to hide, they were the best

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places available to them. They would set up groups of men around the trees in ever-widening circles, and if there were women among them who wanted to fight, they would let them fight. Better to protect the children in the face of a coming fury that could bring an end to everything.

And finally, Wallace and Maude were to make absolutely sure that Horace's wife and young boy were safe. Horace simply could not go to them now, not as the commander at so perilous a time.

"Wallace," said Horace as his friend was about to depart deeper into the grove. "Your peaceful ways are needed now more than ever. The people will need to feel comforted."

Wallace stepped closer and touched Horace on the shoulder. "I'm glad a person like me can be of some use at a time of war. It can feel as if there's no place for me, but you help me find my way. I can ask no more of someone I would follow."

He said these things to bring encouragement to a man thrust into leadership at a hazardous time.

"If you can make them feel as I do when you speak to me, you'll have done well," said Horace.

After Maude and Wallace parted, Horace turned to Gill. He waited until they were completely alone before speaking.

"Bring the fighting men to me, all who remain from the Highlands and the few we picked from the rest," said Horace. He was suddenly a commander speaking to a soldier, full of authority. "All of the horses, the longest spears, those who have mastered the sling and the black fig--get them all here this instant."

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Gill mounted his horse and started off, but Horace stopped him before he was free of the clearing.

"Wait!" he said. "Bring as many live rabbits as can be carried."

"Whatever for, sir?"

Horace waved him off and turned back to the porch of Mr. Ratikan's broken-down house, mumbling to himself. Ten minutes passed and he began to feel uneasy, wondering if Gill had been right about the timing of the coming Cleaners. He heard the sound of many hooves in the grove, coming at a charge, and was stern-faced and solid as a rock when the group of men on horses burst into the clearing.

The horses looked tired just from the short gallop through the trees, and Horace knew that they needed water he could not provide. This would be one of maybe two good fights he could get out of them. After that, he wasn't sure how he could even keep them alive.

Gill dismounted and pulled along with him two horses, his own and one he'd brought for Horace. They all waited, looking at Horace in the quiet peace of the clearing, as their leader listened to the sounds of the grove. At length, he spoke.

"It would be best if our enemy were turned back," he began. "If they make it into the trees, it will be harder to contain them, and there is a chance they could get as far as the outer circle that guards the children. If even one Cleaner were to make it that far, it might get past other circles and find its way to a tree that holds a child." He paused before stating the obvious. "That would be unacceptable."

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Everyone nodded their agreement, gazing back into the grove and thinking about the difficulty of containing a large, wild animal within the trees. But there was one from the grove who did not agree.

"What you say is true, to a point," said the man. "But don't forget we'll have to be out in the open with them if we leave the grove. There is safety in these trees you shouldn't overlook."

Horace nodded. He had thought of this, thought of the risk and the possible reward of fighting from within the grove. In the end, he had abandoned the idea.

"We can't risk having them loose through the trees. There are endless entry points, and they all lead eventually to those we must protect. We have to try, at all cost, to keep them from the grove."

The man, though not entirely convinced, signaled his approval.

"Who among you have mastered the sling?" asked Horace.

Six hands went up quickly and decisively, another four rose halfheartedly and stopped at half-mast. Horace called the six forward, then turned to Gill.

"Where are the rabbits?"

"Here, sir!" cried a man from the back. He and two other men dismounted their horses and came forward with squirming sacks of rabbits.

"How many in each bag?" asked Horace.

"About fifteen, sir."

"Back on your horses and keep the rabbits with you."

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Then Horace proceeded to lay out his plan in the two or three minutes he was willing to risk before leaving for the very edge of the grove. After that they set off, most of them unsure of what they were about to encounter.

***

"I'm not sure this is going to work," said one of the men with a sling.

Horace had heard this several times already, and he would have none of it. "You will make it work."

Together they were ten men alone in the open of Tabletop -- the three men who carried the sacks of rabbits with the six men who had claimed to have mastered the use of a sling, along with Horace, who was the only one on a horse. Fifty yards behind the ten men were forty men on horses, standing at the ready, spears in hand. The edge of the grove sat another fifty yards beyond that. And then there was what lay in front of Horace and his nine men. The Cleaners had come into view.

They were close enough that Horace could hear the snapping of their jaws and the clanging of bony legs. And he saw on their approach that they were massive in size. He could tell by their movement that they saw him and his men not as an enemy but as a source of food, for they showed no sign of slowing to regard the situation before them. They charged on as a herd of wild animals that had spotted easy prey and wanted only to be the first to sink their teeth into it.

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"Do it now," said Horace. "Before they get much closer."

There were two men with slings for each man with a sack of rabbits, the teams set apart by ten feet between them. Rabbits were quickly taken from the sacks and placed awkwardly into the slings in such a way that their bellies fit inside and their legs dangled loosely over the edges. The moment the rabbits were in place they were swung in a circle overhead, spinning faster and faster, and then they were released with a
snap! snap! snap!

Three rabbits flew wildly through the air, legs searching for something to hold onto, until they bounced and rolled on the ground in the distance. Two of the three hobbled up, limping but alive, and began moving about. The third lay motionless.

"Again!" cried Horace, "but with a little less force this time."

He wanted the rabbits as a diversion, not a meal, and they needed to be kept alive and darting in every direction if his plan was to work.

Three more rabbits were loaded and flung out into the open, and the result was the same: three more rabbits that were injured or killed in the effort. The Cleaners were gaining speed, a plume of dust building behind them, and Horace saw that another method would be needed.

"Give me the sacks!" he yelled, "and get back to your horses!"

The men hesitated only briefly, then handed the heavy sacks to Horace before dashing off in the direction of the grove. Horace could barely hold the sacks in one arm as he kicked his horse and sprang into action. The sacks dangled precariously at his side, threatening to catch in the horse's legs as he drove headlong toward the pack of oncoming Cleaners.