Watershed (13 page)

They traversed the mountains' roots for seven days before Sarah began to notice any change in their surroundings, slight at first,
more obvious the further they walked: the sun rising more northerly, each ridge less steep than the one before it, and every ravine less deep. They'd changed direction. But there was little cause to celebrate; indeed, when they climbed the last hill and stood for a moment above a steep drop to survey the flatlands below, Sarah wanted to weep. It seemed that they'd made it through that monotonous grey moonscape of rock only to stumble into worse: the dead black of a barren world, scorched earth stretching on and on, an endless carpet of crisp soot and charcoal. And no sign of any Citadel.

Despite everyone's best efforts, the food packages were running low and, although everyone welcomed the added chance to rest, another morning was wasted while the lieutenant and his cross-bowed scout sought to replenish supplies, returning with a clutch of lizards, two snakes, and three hawks; a feast, thought Sarah, if only they'd been able to cook the meat. No fires, replied the lieutenant, when they asked. The raw meat didn't diminish anyone's appetite.

They pressed on, descending the cliff like a string of goats before venturing out onto the plain, caterpillaring their way over cinders, and already Sarah missed the rugged hills that continued their line further east before curving south, rock that had bruised bone and cut skin with every handhold, but had offered some protection too. On the plain, the ruined ground squeaked as they walked, protesting their intrusion, and the wind stirred black ash fine enough to sting eyes and filter through face coverings to clog noses and slime teeth and tongues. But worst of all was the heat, relentless, the dark earth absorbing sun and air so it felt as though they were stepping on fire, roasting slowly from below while, above, the sky shimmered and teased with the promise of moisture, its thick haze making it impossible to judge any distance.

There was no knowing when the fires had passed through, how old the destruction, but one thing was clear: the inferno had
spared little. Mounds of tree stumps glittered like clumps of black diamonds; any structures – buildings and barns and fences – stuck askew from the earth like dark stiff-limbed carcasses, too slowly buried beneath the ever-shifting soot. And there was no sign of the road they'd followed through the mountains – had it disappeared, too awash with ash for them to see, or had they simply left it behind to wind its way east without them?

Without a road to watch, the lieutenant began watching other things, every now and then stopping to brush at the ground, checking the direction of footprints – whether they were the trudge of many feet, or the steps of one. Depending on what he found he'd alter their course, tacking west or east without explanation or discussion, the group forced to follow, silently trusting. For two days they suffered that wasteland before he suddenly made them walk at night, with black sky meeting black earth and not even a sliver of moon to see by.

Why now? Daniel asked.

Coz here's where it starts to get interesting, was his answer. When Jeremiah laughed suddenly, the lieutenant stared at him for a moment before nodding. Reckon he knows what I mean, he said, and his eyes smiled.

Interesting was a fallacy. There was nothing interesting about the stop-start of their progress, one minute walking, the next being pushed to the ground to swallow grit and ash until the lieutenant gave the all-clear and they moved on, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for hours, before having to drop again. There was nothing compelling about the glowing fires they could see, some distant, others closer, bright little beacons dotting the darkness that did nothing to warm their hearts as they picked a careful path between and around them, skirting the light and the noise; Sarah couldn't help wondering what those people had found to burn. Or why.

And there was nothing fascinating about the lieutenant's sudden change of demeanour, his new grimness, his icy determination, or the stealth with which he carved a trail when no alternative presented itself. That he could be sure he was cutting down foe rather than friend didn't appear to be a concern; hadn't Burns already explained that they were choosy about who they let in? The first time it happened, guarded only by the scout with the rifle, Sarah had huddled into Daniel, Jeremiah between them, and blocked her ears to muffle sounds that seemed to drift too easily on the night air: grunts and gurgles, a quickly stifled scream, and the sickly squelch of metal cleaving flesh. Then nothing but quiet shadowy movements as the lieutenant and the other scout rifled the dead, before the fire was stamped out and everyone resumed their trudging. Sarah soon stopped counting dead fires.

Daniel was more concerned with the hundreds still lit. Is it a siege? he asked; finally a question to warrant an explanation.

No, the fuckers were all just waiting for a chance to get in, the lieutenant told them. Wouldn't happen though; they'd all wipe each other out eventually. There was a pause, and another smile as he nodded to the bodies he'd heaped on a still-smoking fire, and added: Course, we're always happy to hurry things along when we can.

But they had to admit that his skill in getting them across the plain virtually unseen was commendable. Nothing escaped his notice, and when he wasn't scouting the ground he was looking ahead, or around, or up at the sky, reading signals the rest of them couldn't see. Without the aid of the moon, and with little guidance from the faint stars, he seemed to know instinctively their direction; no matter how many times they were forced to change it, he always brought them around again to continue south. He knew how to shelter them in the open and under the sun, in deep hollows, covering them with their cloaks and a layer of dirt and soot, while he and his men lay prone around them, each facing a different
direction and taking turns to rest. Only once were the three forced to defend their position, and then it was the scout with the rifle who took honours, picking off the unwary intruders, any noise from his gun disguised by the wind, while the group cowered in their graves; just as he had done in the tunnel, the lieutenant's sudden laugh signaling when the danger was over.

He roused them earlier than usual on the last evening; the sun was still to sink below the horizon and they crawled from their hideouts, shaking off their sandy second skins, spitting and blowing grit from mouths and nostrils, a little bewildered by their unexpected exposure. The lieutenant shrugged and reassured them it was safe enough; he thought they might want to get a look at where they were headed.

Turning to follow his gaze, seeing the uneven rise of what looked like a wall, columns of smoke rising behind and in front, and partly obscured by clouds of dust that could only have been stirred by mobs, they fought to swallow their disappointment. No yellow brick road and no fabled emerald city, Sarah thought, bitterly. No magic cure for all the ills they'd suffered. No waking from this nightmare. And no wonder none of their questions had been answered.

That's it? Cutler was the first to voice what all were thinking.

That was it, the lieutenant replied, before laughing. What had they expected? The fucking Promised Land?

They parted ways at the end of a long tunnel, the lieutenant giving them no chance to thank him or his men, simply handing them into the care of another who bustled them up a set of iron steps and out into the open air of the Citadel. Sarah had turned once, at the foot of the ladder, expecting to see him still standing there, watching over them to the very last, but he'd already disappeared, perhaps returning the same way he'd come, to reclaim his woman.

In the weeks and months that followed, whenever she saw a lithe figure striding the wall or return, laughing, from another skirmish; when she tried, and failed, to set those perfect features to other faces in a crowd, she would wonder what had become of him. But after the first wall had been secured and work on the second began, when the raids finally subsided, the mobs self-destructing as he'd predicted, the rest slaughtered or driven off, and the young lieutenant's fate remained unknown, she stopped wondering and any thought of him slipped through the cracks of her memory and was gone.

When I woke, the sun was past its midpoint and Alex still slept, wrapped and over-bundled and probably melting slowly in the heat. My position against the rock gave some shade, but he – no,
she
– lay in the open, exposed to the worst of the sun. Idiot. Still, there were plenty of things she was going to learn over the next few days. I figured that was the least of them.

There was no need to worry about disturbing her, the wind so much louder than I was, seizing any sounds, lifting them with the dust and blowing them away. I checked the jar and was relieved to see she'd not disturbed the tube. Tipping the contents into a gourd, I managed to refill the pot before capping it again with the funnel and leaving the sun to do its work.

Back at the rock, I ate and drank and, still keeping an eye on Alex, unstrapped the bow to wipe sweat and grit from the raised welt on my arm. My first tag. And it would've sufficed too if others hadn't messed with theirs, cutting them out, or scoring them and obliterating the code, outraged they'd been branded like animals. That's when the Tower had come up with the new tags, the discs no one could mess with. It had taken them a while to get it right, experimenting on the already-condemned,
but now we all had them, just a little scar at the back of our necks the only thing to show for it. C5M81235: Citadel, Year 5, Male, and a sequence. That was me. Numbered, just like the stars. Course, everyone was still branded so they could claim their water, but it wasn't too much of a stretch to believe it was done just to keep the Guards happy.

And that brought me back to the problem of Alex. I watched her sleep and considered the best course of action. Why was she here? And why the disguise? Why pretend to be a boy, when everyone knew the Guard took on a few women? Was it fear of me, or something else? I remembered the look of concern on Cade's face as he'd watched her leave.
You know what to do.
What? What did she know?

Still wondering, I dug the staff into the ground and draped my cloak over it, making a tent of sorts, before removing my vest and knives and the new shirt, which was already dirty and stained. Using the small vial of seawater I'd collected at the shore, I washed my chest, dabbing at the new marks, freeing any matted hair and wincing at the sting. They'd been rubbed raw and were seeping, but the fluid was clear enough. The problem was the jagged skin around the edges, catching on my shirt and tearing further under the straps of the pack. Flicking open a small knife, I began slicing away the worst of it, smoothing then cleansing.

‘So the stories are true,' Alex said, and I looked up to see her watching me.

I grunted and kept working. Finally satisfied they'd no longer be a problem, I closed my eyes and settled back against the warm rock to let the wounds dry, keeping one hand cocked to brush away the flies, and ignoring the girl opposite. My head ached, the heat making it worse. The bruise had swollen to a lump, still pulpy, and in a day or so I wouldn't feel it, but now it throbbed, and I cursed Garrick.

‘How many?' Alex asked, not taking the hint.

When I didn't reply, she asked again, a little louder, thinking maybe I hadn't heard her the first time. And it was there, in her voice raised above the wind: that higher note she'd been able to disguise the night before when all had been still and quiet. But there was something else that gave her away too, something no new Guard would express if he saw the marks, coz don't all men dream of killing? Disgust. And I smiled to myself, reassured that she wasn't quite as good as she thought she was. That she was new to this.

‘How many marks do you have?' She could've counted, but perhaps she didn't know how. So many didn't.

‘Not nearly enough,' I said.

She kept on. ‘Do they hurt?'

Not as much as my head, so shut the fuck up.

‘Did it hurt when they made them?'

What was with all the questions? ‘What d'you think?' I half opened one eye. I couldn't see hers, because she had her hood pulled low, but I watched her mouth curve in a smile.

‘I think, yes.' I heard the hope in her voice.
Bitch.

‘Then you'd be wrong,' I lied. ‘Now shut up and let me rest.'

Silence for a few minutes, and I started to relax, thinking she'd finally got the message. Then she spoke again, more annoying than the flies.

‘Shouldn't we get moving?'

This time I didn't waste energy looking at her. ‘If you wanna walk in this, be my guest. I'll bury you where I find you. Or maybe I won't bother.' And I drew my knees up, putting a barrier between us, shutting her out.

I dozed for another couple of hours, and when I woke she was crouched beside me in the shade. Not quite as stupid as I'd thought. The sun was sinking at last, and I figured we had an hour left. Pulling on my shirt, I freed my cloak and rechecked the pot. It was empty and I drank straight from the cylinder, saving some of the water for her.

She shook her head. ‘I've already drunk.' Kind of prim, and nothing like a boy. Already she was getting careless.

I thrust it at her, making her take it. ‘Drink more. You'll need it. And make sure you eat something. We won't be stopping.' The water was hers by right, though she didn't know I knew that. In her eyes, I was just being helpful; I hoped she'd buy it.

She sipped reluctantly, grimacing at the stale smell and its heat. But she drained the cylinder and I packed it away with the pot.

‘You're gunna have to take off some of those layers. We start climbing tonight and you won't get far in all that.'

She glanced up then and I saw her face fully for the first time. On looks alone, not knowing what I did, she could easily have passed for a boy. Her body was basically shapeless with all her wrappings, and her face was strong and lean, without any of the more delicate features many girls had. I wondered then at her age. I'd assumed her to be younger than me, or at least the same, but maybe she wasn't.

Standing, she slipped off her cloak, and I watched her remove the outer vest and a couple of thin shirts, unwinding the long scarf from around her neck, which was flushed and wet with sweat; wasting water. Slimmer than I'd thought, and suddenly a whole lot less shapeless; then the cloak was back on and she was hidden again.

‘Loosen those leggings a bit too. Around the knees.'

She did as I said, unwinding the leather strips and rewinding them more carefully, before nodding. ‘Better. Thanks.'

I pointed to the pile of discarded clothes. ‘You'll need to carry those, for later. You got room in that pack of yours?' I wasn't offering mine.

But somehow she found room, stuffing everything into it, stretching it out even more. I was glad I didn't have to carry it. Rummaging in a side pocket, she pulled out some saltfish and ate, while I saw to my own pack, checking it, making sure everything was in place. Shouldering it, and satisfied the straps would no longer be an issue, I nodded at her. ‘When you're ready.'

Not waiting, I turned and started walking into the lighter wind, head down and covered, and it was a little while before I heard her shorter steps behind me. It took her another few minutes to register, and the steps stopped.

‘This is the wrong way,' she called out. When I didn't turn, she bleated again, ‘Hey, Watchman! We're supposed to be heading east.'

Concern had driven her voice high again and I smiled. After a while, I heard her behind me, but this time she kept her mouth shut.

There's something real spooky about a dead tree. It's not the bleached white of the wood, any moisture leached out long ago through widening cracks and split skin. It's not the spiked jagged tips, where the wind's torn away the weaker branches and left fuck-you fingers to jeer at the sky. It's not even the stillness of it, or the leafless muteness, its voice fallen away and scattered. It's the desolation, the look-what's-left-of-me condemnation. One dead tree is bad enough. Thousands of them are a whole lot worse.

The Hills had once been filled with trees. Live ones. My grandmother had described them as a palette of green and gold, swaying and shifting in the breeze, the noise as restless as the Sea. She'd often talked of colours: the blues of sky and Sea, the white yellow of the sun, the lime of spring grass, the red of autumn leaves and the bright rainbows of flowers. But it was hard to imagine those colours when all we had were brown dust, grey water, black soot and white salt; the rest were just words – most of them irrelevant now – and soon even the memory of them would die. And looking up at that first spiky hill, it was just as hard to imagine the birds and other animals she'd talked about too, high up and low down, busying themselves beneath a living canopy. It was as though someone had taken the pale, picked bones of giant fish and stuck them headfirst into the ground, every planting a grave marker.

But the dead could kill too and, with shrivelled roots barely clinging to the dry, sloping soil, the trees were always tilting, toppling to thump the earth with a last desperate bellow. And if you happened to be in the way, well, that was just too bad. It was safer further east, and over to the west of the plain, where the great fires had ripped through, taking out the giants and leaving vast blackened tracts, all rounded coal stumps and cindered earth. Safer, but not a whole lot better.

By the time we reached the foot of the range the wind had died off, which was a good thing because I was going to have to rely on my ears as much as my eyes while we climbed.

‘Stay behind me and walk where I walk,' I told Alex, as we started up.

But it was easier said than done, even at the beginning where the first hill teased with the laziest of slopes. My legs were longer and stronger than hers, and clambering over the fallen debris was more difficult for her. Plus, I had the staff and she hadn't had the sense to bring one for herself. When I could, I kept away from the bigger fallen trunks; there was no way of knowing how settled they were and whether even the slightest movement might dislodge them and send them rolling downhill. By the time we crested that hill, she was grunting and panting, but I didn't let up because we had to make up the time we were losing by not taking the road, and I reckoned that was her fault.

So while she grunted, I kept listening for the telltale creak of a tree on its last legs; that whimper before the crack and rush of its fall. On the slopes, it always seemed to happen more at night. In the heat and the wind they stayed defiant, parrying every blow, but the quiet and the cold became that final thrust, cutting to the heart of them and felling them mercilessly.

So it went, hour after hour, slope after slope. We'd climb up and clamber down, and a couple of times we'd pause as a tree moaned and splintered and crashed, toppling others, sweeping them in
an avalanche of timber and earth while we just waited and held our breath.

Around midnight, I had to call a halt. It was safer at the top of a hill, where most of the trees were already gone, the wind too strong for them. If I'd been on my own I'd have kept walking, but Alex was exhausted, and a liability. One wrong step, one slip, and she'd start an avalanche of her own, taking me right along with her. I hadn't factored that in, and it irritated me that once again she was messing up my plans. In fact, it was becoming a serious problem. Briefly, I thought of killing her, getting it over with. No one would find her up there, and I wouldn't bother retrieving her tag. But Cade's voice stopped me.
You know what to do.

‘You've got an hour,' I told her. ‘And rub your legs, keep 'em warm, the blood moving.'

Almost meekly, she did as she was told, pausing only to drink and eat, while I cast around for a decent stick, nothing too weighty. I stripped it back with a knife and handed it to her, and though I could see she was grateful she didn't thank me.

I left her alone then, and stood on the edge of the ridge, getting my bearings. Ahead, I could just make out the dark outline of the mountains. We wouldn't cross them. No one ventured that far except the salvage crews, and they didn't always return. The mountains were the great divide and none of us – not even desperate Dissidents – were eager to try their luck on the other side. Used to be, raiders would spill over once in a while, making for the settlements and the port, and we'd beat them back again before counting the cost and rebuilding. But that'd been years ago, and now we just beat on each other instead. Coz men always had to be fighting something.

All Alex and I had to do was get to the foot of those mountains before turning east to follow the long line of the hills to the settlement.

‘How much further?' she asked, beside me.

I looked at her. ‘I had planned to reach the mountains by morning, but you're not up to it. So maybe another three or four hours tonight. Reckon you can make it that far, boy?'

I kept the last word soft, sneering my contempt like I should have, and she squared her shoulders in response, just as she was meant to, both of us following the script I'd already written in my head.