Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin Page 13

  “Come on!” Olga screamed, stamping her foot against the dusty ground. Her face red, she shrieked, “That’s three nil. We can’t go down to these losers!”

  The easiest point yet, the hunters moved through them like smoke and went four nil up.

  William panted and the dust from the pitch coated his sweat-drenched skin. His entire body throbbed from how many times he’d slammed into the ground. He’d both held his line and broken it. The results were the same. He’d focused on the ball until now. Maybe he needed a different approach. What else did he have to lose?

  At the end of the next drumbeat, Olga shrieking like a banshee, William charged Slate. If nothing else, he needed to show the prick he wouldn’t be pushed around. Sweat stinging his eyes, his legs on fire with lactic acid, his arms pumping, he ran straight into Slate’s palm. The lead hunter hit him so hard it threw his head back first. His legs swung underneath him before he landed on his back, the hard ground driving the wind from his lungs. He had an upside-down view of Slate punching Cyrus and knocking him out cold.

  The drumroll signalled five nil, and two teenage boys dragged Cyrus off by his ankles.

  “Great!” Olga said. “We’re five nil down and there’s only four of us left. Can we make a sub?”

  Slate laughed and shook his head. “Not in this game, sweetheart.”

  Her teeth clenched, Olga spoke to her teammates in a low growl. “We can’t let these clowns run away with this. We’ve got to do something. We need to work doubly hard now we’re without Cyrus.” The boy lay on the sideline, conscious again, but clearly in no state to rejoin the game.

  As Slate walked back from going six nil up, he blew Olga a kiss, and the boy with the scars around his neck slapped her arse.

  Max’s face turned red.

  One point for them to win it. Cyrus had gotten to his feet on the sideline. Before he could return to the pitch, one of the older hunters pulled him back and shook his head. He called to William, “It’s too dangerous to let him get knocked out again.”

  Slate reached the ball first. Again. This time he gathered it up, but he stopped, throwing the small rope sphere into the air and catching it, grinning at Olga. “Will you accept women are weaker than men now? You need to learn your place, princess.”

  The crowd screamed as one. “Man on!”

  Before Slate could react, Matilda slammed her forearm into his nose. Even William winced from the crunch of cartilage being crushed.

  Slate went down and the ball went up. Matilda caught it before it hit the ground. She paused for a second, giving William, Olga, and Max a chance to get in front of her and form a shield.

  Three against four, Max spread his arms wide as he dived forward, taking two of them down with him.

  Olga met the one with the scars with a right hook. It stunned him, giving William and Matilda an opening.

  One left, the fast one, William tackled him around the waist, dust burning his eyes when they slammed down together. He climbed on top of the boy and got two licks in before the boy fought back. Older, stronger, and more experienced, he caught William on the chin, knocking him backwards as Slate thundered past on Matilda’s tail.

  Just before the hunters’ defence zone, Matilda threw the ball. Slate jumped at her a second too late.

  Although Matilda went down under Slate’s attack, the drumroll signalled a goal. And not only a goal. The drummer stopped drumming and called, “Two points!”

  Matilda’s nose bled, the bottom half of her face crimson as she danced in the court to the drummers’ beat. All of the women in the crowd cheered and most of the boys. The stony-faced retired hunters watched on, some of them shaking their heads at the mockery of their fine game.

  Three loud drumbeats at the end of the roll, and Slate’s team tore through them again, scoring their seventh and final point. The crowd celebrated William’s team like they’d won the match, charging onto the court and lifting the five of them in the air. They gave them three cheers, led by Rita and Mary, Dianna also close by. They danced and sang, many of them rolling their tongues.

  The jubilation died down after about five minutes when Slate grabbed a vacated chair from where the retired hunters had sat, and stood on it.

  The spread of two black eyes, his face a swollen mess from where Matilda had taken him down, he smiled, and it looked like he genuinely meant it. “What can I say? If nothing else, I’m a man of my word. From this moment on, women are allowed to play tri-rings. Well done, you’ve done better than anyone else has in years.” He smiled at Olga and Matilda. “You’ve earned it. Now if you’ll forgive me, I need to get cleaned up. I’m not sure I’ve been hit like that before. But before I head off, we’d like to invite you to a party tonight to celebrate our new guests and how you’ve made a positive impact on the community already. Will we see you tonight in the main hall?”

  William’s friends looked at him. If they were to get a proper understanding of this community, they needed to take part. He nodded. “Sure. It seems like something worth celebrating.”

  Chapter 27

  “I wonder why they wanted us to come here after dark?” Matilda said as they crossed the tri-rings pitch towards the main hut at the heart of Umbriel’s complex.

  The dust kicked up around their feet, the smaller particles swirling in the wind, lit by the moon. The tri-rings Matilda had scored in on their left, William smiled. “I know I’ve already said it, but what a shot!”

  “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” Matilda pointed at the hut. “Why go in there when it’s so dark? Surely the party’s better outside in the moonlight?”

  An inky blackness filled the hut. William squinted as if it would help him see better. “You think they’re setting us up for something?”

  Olga, Max, and Samson walked just a few paces behind them, Samson’s expression as stony now as it had been when they shaved him. Artan and Cyrus were even farther back. The two boys chatted to one another, something Artan hadn’t done since they’d freed him from the political district.

  Olga said, “Matilda’s right to be cautious. We’d be fools to trust them so early on. I know Slate accepted we scored against them in the game, but he has an ego as large as that barn. I can’t imagine he’s let it go so easily.”

  “Although,” Max said, “they’ve had plenty of time to do something to us already. We’ve been seriously outnumbered since we got here. Sure, we should keep our guard raised, but they’ve gone to a lot of effort if they wanted to screw us over. Why not just kill us when they caught us at the beginning?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting they were going to kill us,” Matilda said. “I just feel uneasy is all.”

  They were just a few feet from the barn’s entrance, the inside still a mystery. The night snapped a chill through William, and the skin at the back of his neck tightened. In a voice only his friends could hear, he said, “We’re here now. Let’s just be on our guard and make sure we have each other’s backs.”

  The blanket of darkness inside the barn took form. A crowd of silhouettes had been waiting for them. William’s legs threatened to betray him, urging him to halt lest they throw him to the ground. Then one of the silhouettes stepped out to meet them. Taller than the rest, broad-shouldered, his hair shaved to stubble.

  William nodded at the hunter, who remained naked from the waist up. When he’d gone out hunting, his war paint had been animal’s blood, dried brown against his skin. Now he had lines of blue, yellow, and green in a swirling pattern centred around his navel. “Slate, how are you?” William’s voice warbled. “Bit dark in there, isn’t it?”

  Slate paused in the doorway and spread his arms wide, as he liked to do. The entertainer, the showman, the young pup who would one day be top dog. Probably sooner than the retired hunters might like. “Welcome to our main hall. Tonight we wanted to celebrate our new guests and someone scoring points against us in tri-rings.” If the lead hunter resented them for it, he hid it well. His broad smile was as white as the moon, his
eyes alive.

  William and Matilda entered the hut first, Slate stepping aside for them. Their friends followed a second later. As much as William wanted to check they were okay, he kept his eyes ahead and his chin raised.

  They reached the middle of the hut, and the silhouettes closed in, encircling them.

  Matilda squeezed William’s hand so tightly it hurt. If they needed to fight, they would. There might have only been seven of them, but they’d battle like there were twenty. They wouldn’t go down easily. William balled his spare fist.

  The first drumbeat went off like a thunderclap.

  William jumped at the sound.

  Then silence.

  “Before we start,” Slate said, “we want to give praise to Grandfather Jacks. The provider. The high father.”

  The response came in unison. One hundred voices at least, a shock wave of sound slamming into them from all sides. “Grandfather Jacks.”

  The silence so complete, William heard the caw of a bird outside. The stillness rendered him mute. Who the hell was Grandfather Jacks?

  “You inspire us,” Slate said.

  The crowd copied him. “You inspire us.”

  “You guide us.”

  “You guide us,” the crowd responded.

  “You teach us.”

  “You teach us.”

  Slate’s voice circled the group as he walked around them like a shark toying with its prey. The drumbeat again. Then again. It came from a corner of the hut, the steady pulse gaining velocity. “Grandfather Jacks, you light up our world.”

  The hut then turned from night to day and William screamed, his eyes stinging with the sudden change. He dropped Matilda’s hand and shielded his vision against the burn. No matter how many times he blinked, he couldn’t see. More drums joined the one from the corner. They hammered the same steady pulse, which gained momentum, galloping towards a drumroll.

  William’s head spun and he called over the chaos, “Tilly? Where are you?”

  Shouts and screams, tongue rolling shrills of celebration, William grew dizzy. His sight slowly returned. The drumrolls slowed and morphed into a strong rhythm, a thudding pulse. The groove inspired the community to dance.

  It still hurt his eyes, but William looked at the light source above. A large square covered with glass, it shone as bright as the sun. He only realised he’d had his mouth open when Slate leaned in towards him, dancing to the beat and grinning. The light cast deep shadows across his face, a grotesque mask, his eyes blackened from where Matilda had slammed into him on the tri-rings pitch. “Grandfather Jacks provides.”

  “Who’s Grandfather Jacks?”

  “All in good time. Tonight, we party!”

  Of all William’s friends, Samson seemed the most at ease. Solemn, but at ease. “Do you know what’s happening?” William said.

  The large and once jovial man shook his head. “It looks like some kind of magic to me.”

  Although, did it? If any of the others had said that, all of them gawking at the source of light attached to the ceiling, he would have accepted the assessment. Even Artan, who rarely reacted to anything, remained loose jawed as he stood still. But Samson didn’t wear the shock of someone in the presence of magic. Nor did he wear the shock of someone caught unawares. Before William could question him, Samson nodded in Cyrus’ direction. The boy had been dragged away from the group by the two older women, Rita and Mary. “You want to watch that one.”

  “Why do you say that?” William said as Dianna joined them, her hips swaying.

  “He seems awfully friendly with the people here. Like he knows them.”

  “He’s a friendly guy.”

  Samson paused for long enough for William’s words to echo through his own mind. For him to take in Cyrus’ now wide grin while he danced with the two older women.

  Samson shrugged. “Maybe I’ve gotten him wrong. Look, I don’t fancy this tonight. I’m going back to our hut.”

  The big man cut a path through the dance floor, knocking people aside on his way out of there. A Samson with hair would have smiled and danced like the rest of them. And did he have a point about Cyrus?

  Slate and his hunters then closed in, dancing and hollering as they moved towards Olga and Matilda. The hunter with the thick thighs, deep scars, and dark glare grabbed Olga’s hands and danced with her. If Max had been anywhere nearby, the hunter might have thought twice. Maybe Max’s apparent rejection inspired Olga to get involved, letting the hunter spin her around before he grabbed her hips with both his large hands. William’s entire frame tensed when Slate went for Matilda.

  The urge to grab the lead hunter coursed through William. To drag him away from the girl he loved, but they were only dancing.

  His head spinning from the noise, the light, the writhing bodies, William saw Max move too late to stop him. He shoved the hunter dancing with Olga. The large hunter sent several people flying before he fell, shaking the ground as he landed on his arse.

  The drums stopped. The dancing halted. The hunter with the scars remained sitting on the ground, his face red, his hard glare fixed on Max. Before he got to his feet, Slate stepped between them. He raised a halting hand at his friend, which seemed to be enough to calm him. “What’s going on, Max?”

  As puce as the hunter he’d shoved, Max looked from William to Olga to Slate before he turned around and followed Samson’s path out of there, leaving a deeper silence in his wake.

  “It’s been a long few days for us,” William said. “Thank you for the party.” He turned on the spot to address the entire hut. “Thank you, everyone, but I think it’s a bit soon. The noise, the number of people. We’ve had a hard time. We’ve seen thousands die over these past few days, so we’re all a bit tightly wound. I think we all need to rest.”

  “I don’t need to rest,” Olga said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  Olga clenched her jaw, and although she looked like she might respond, Matilda backed William up as she walked over to Slate. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much. Maybe we can get some rest and start again tomorrow?”

  The hunter with the scars stood up and Olga said, “I’m so sorry.” He nodded.

  William and Matilda led the way. Artan, Olga, and Cyrus followed them out of there.

  By the time they’d reached the hut, the drums had started again, the shrill calls and whoops of those partying starting anew.

  Olga overtook William and Matilda and burst into the hut first. “What the hell was that, Max?”

  Max stared at the ground.

  “What? You’re not going to say anything now? After making a scene like that, you’re not going to give me an explanation? If you like me, tell me, because the way you’ve been since we got you out of that cage makes me think you want nothing to do with me.” Tears stood in her eyes and she held her hand in his direction. “You know I like you. I’m here if you want me.”

  Max continued to stare at the ground, the seconds of silence stretching into what felt like hours.

  “Do you want me?” Olga then tutted, shook her head, and walked over to the edge of their hut, sitting down on one of the beds.

  Max kept his head bowed.

  “I think we’re all tired,” William said. “How about we rest up for the night? Tomorrow’s a new day; we can start again then.” From the look on everyone’s faces, none of them believed it would be that simple. Hell, he didn’t believe it, but they had to find some way to move on. And they all needed the rest.

  Chapter 28

  It had been the best night’s sleep William had had since Edin fell. Light streaked through the gaps in the hut’s walls. After stretching, he sat up in bed. Everyone else was already awake.

  Matilda had slept in the bed next to him. Her hair disheveled, she scratched her head and smiled. “Morning.”

  “Hey.” His voice was croaky. “How did you sleep?”

  “Clearly not as good as you.” She shrugged. “But fine. I feel rested.”

  Deep b
ags sat beneath Olga’s eyes.

  “Have you had any sleep?” William said.

  She raised her eyebrows and looked at Max, who’d slept on the opposite side of the hut from her. He focused on his lap.

  Artan and Cyrus talked to one another in hushed tones while Samson lay on his back staring at the ceiling, his hands behind his bald head.

  After he’d checked his back pocket for the map, feeling the crunch of the folded paper, William coughed to clear his lungs. “It looks like a nice morning.”

  “Does it?” Samson said. “I’ve had enough of this place already.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Cyrus said.

  “For you. But you know how to suck up to people, don’t you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Also, you and Artan seem to be getting really friendly, whispering to one another like little schoolchildren. It’s messing with the mood.”

  Matilda shook her head. “If anyone’s killing the mood, it’s you. You’re the oldest of all of us by far, yet you’re behaving like a petulant teenager. Cyrus and Artan haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Besides,” Olga said, “Max is the one who’s made everything awkward.”

  Max looked up. “So you’re going to blame me?”

  “Your actions last night were hardly appropriate. I would have danced with you had you not been avoiding me.”

  “Avoiding—?”

  “That’s enough,” William said. The clangs of pots outside showed the residents of Umbriel were clearly awake or waking up. “They don’t need to listen to us arguing.”

  Olga spoke again. “You think we can show our faces out there after last night? After how he behaved.”

  Matilda said, “What else are we going to do? Wait in here forever? We have to go out there at some point.”

  “Maybe we need to thank our hosts and move on?” Samson said.