Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series by Peter J Dudley

Author:Peter J Dudley [Dudley, Peter J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-01-10T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

“Up! Up! Get up! Now!”

Frantic shouting raises me to my feet, half asleep and unsure where I am, but certain of my knife in one hand and my whip in the other. I wobble as the darkness spins around me, solidifying into: glowing embers nearby, a dozen other groggy people dim-lit, a door open on a blue-black night and filled with the shape of a man. Micktuk’s house. This is Micktuk’s house. And the shouting comes from the man in the door.

It’s Tom. “Come on!”

My mental haze clears, and in an instant I’m shaking the sleeping ones, lifting the waking ones. I find my boots and follow Tom out into the night.

“What’s wrong?”

Doubled over and gasping, he points down the hill. Flames leap up high into the night, a mile off but illuminating the treetops with its hellish light. Can I feel its heat, or is that my imagination?

Looks like a house fire, a big one. “Whose house?” I ask. “Anyone hurt?”

We need to get down the hill and put the fire out before it spreads. The parched hillsides will go up faster than that meadow did, and Darius is sure to see a fire that big and send his trolls to find the people who set it.

Tom shakes his head. “No, no one hurt. We have to go. Now.”

“Right. I’ll get the buckets.” I look around, trying to remember where I saw them. Maybe around back—

Tom grabs my arm as I turn to go.

He shakes his head again and stands, recovering his breath.

“The army. Darius. They’re here. They torched the house.”

The night air prickles all over my skin and freezes my nose as I try to breathe. So it’s finally happened, the worst possible thing. They’ve found us. How?

That doesn’t matter now. Garrett’s escape plans fill my thoughts. Three options: Make for Lodgeholm over the ridge trail, sneak around the army and try for Upper, or flee over the hills into the Desolation.

Think, Lupay. Which is best now?

Lodgeholm: familiar, easy to reach, near the lake. But exposed and vulnerable. Like escaping the bear by running into its den.

The Desolation: unknown, treacherous. No one has ever returned from there. It’s said to be scorched nothingness for hundreds of miles. Death from starvation or Radiation within weeks. Maybe days. Like escaping the bear by jumping off a thousand foot cliff.

“Upper,” I conclude. “Get everyone together. We’ll make for Upper, through the hills.”

Tom shakes his head. “No time. No way around them. They’re all over the bottom of the valley.”

“Then Lodgeholm,” I declare, and I’m a little relieved. I have no desire to cower behind the walls of Upper, waiting for inevitability.

Tom shakes his head again. “No. They patrol that now. There’s another place. Somewhere safe.”

What the hell does he know? He didn’t grow up in these hills like Garrett and me and Micktuk. He didn’t roam all over them, doesn’t know each house—

Tom’s white face almost glows in the night. I can see why a four-year-old might think him an angel.

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