Dark Company (30 page)

“April!” Caddy screamed.

There was the slice and woof as another net was thrown. It fell over Caddy, heavy as chainmaille. She hit the ground, the air popping from her lungs. The Company man reined his horse around, galloped back and jumped over her. He pulled the horse in, its legs buckling under its hindquarters, and dismounted, clean as a switchblade. Caddy fought the net, kicking and tearing. The man stood over her, a predator savouring its prey. Without a word, he reached down, grabbed her by the throat and raised his knife. Caddy shielded herself with her arms, waiting for the blow. A spray of warm blood splashed over her. She drew back her hands in shock then realized it wasn’t her blood—it was his. The Company man loosened his grip and toppled to his knees.

Caddy looked up to see Poe, his face a death mask of blood and muck running in the rain, his eyes glazed with the heat of delirium. He didn’t acknowledge her, but ran for the woods, leaving her to wrestle herself from the net.

“Poe!” she shouted. He didn’t respond, so she began searching for April, scouring the field.

The Company men had gathered in a group on the edge of the woods, their horses rearing and stamping along an invisible
boundary. The men cropped and whipped, the horses refusing to advance. What was holding them back? Caddy wondered.

Twenty feet from the men, a body lay in a heap beneath a net. Caddy took a chance, hunching low as she moved. Edging nearer, she saw that it was April, cocooned and unmoving on the ground. Was she dead? The body of a Company man sizzled next to her, severed in half and scorched as if by fire. Caddy gagged at the smell. She yanked on the net, pulling her friend free. April groaned.

“Get up,” Caddy said. “You have to get up.” She hauled April to her feet, dazed and shivering, and together they limped toward the trees.

In the field, Skylark squared off with Francis while Kenji held a beam of light around the Company men. The men looked dumbfounded, unable to see the force that held them. They beat their frightened horses, trying to force them to move.

“You can’t keep killing people, Skylark,” Francis called out to her. “You’re creating a rift in the Light and the Dark’s getting in.”

Skylark glared at him. She didn’t have time for this. She needed to find Poe. “Get out of my way, old man.”

Francis planted his cowboy boots in the mud. “I can’t do that.”

She drew her bow. “Then I’ll make you.”

“Give it your best shot,” he challenged her.

Skylark growled and fired. The old man was quicker than she thought, deflecting the arrow with a bolt of light. It cracked in the other direction, hissing like a bottle rocket through the rain. Francis flew at her, landing inches from her face before she jumped.

Returning to the mountain, Skylark planned her next move. She focused her mind and could see Francis and Kenji still in the meadow, holding the men and their horses at bay. Where
was Poe? Her vision swooped to the edge of the woods. Poe was sprawled on the ground among the trees, her arrow lodged in his side. “No!” How could she have done this to him? She prepared to jump, to go to him, but the voice took control of her again. Her master was calling.

C
addy and April made it to the woods, taking cover behind a bush. They huddled in the downpour, watching for horses. A thin moan filtered through the rain.

“Did you hear that?” Caddy asked.

April hung her head, hands clasped around her knees. There were raw marks on her arms where the net had cut her skin.

Caddy strained to listen. “There it is again.”

“It’s just the rain playing tricks on you,” April said.

“I think someone’s hurt. I have to see who it is.”

April started to cry. “Please don’t. Don’t leave me here alone.”

“I won’t go far,” Caddy promised. “I just want to take a look.”

“What if it’s a trap? What if it’s one of them?”

“What if it’s one of the others?” Caddy said. “I have to be sure. You’ll be okay if you stay hidden and keep quiet.”

April withdrew, making herself smaller. Caddy held her breath, trying to find the sound again. Had she imagined it? No, there it was, between the sheets of rain. Someone was in trouble. Heart pounding, she crept between the trees. What if it
was
a trap? The forest closed in around her. The rain pushed the hair into her eyes. After fifty feet or so she stopped to get her bearings.
Everything was the same desolate colour of grey. Except for a red high-top sneaker sticking out from the gnarled mass of an uprooted tree.

“Poe.”

Caddy crawled through the mud to where he lay. She saw the arrow and her stomach tightened. It had pierced his side from the back. The arrowhead was protruding just above the pelvic bone. It looked blackened, burned, and was covered in strange blue filaments. She touched it, snatching her hand back in shock. It was colder than ice. Poe’s eyes were glassy and his clothes were drenched in blood. It ran, slick and red from his wound, staining the puddles around him. His breaths were shallow, erratic. He would have to be moved somewhere safe and dry or he would die. She would need April. She couldn’t possibly do it herself.

“Hold on, Poe,” she said. “I’m going to get help.”

The rumbling groan of a horse snorting against the rain stopped Caddy where she stood. Her eyes trapped on Poe’s sneakered feet. She had to hide them. She reached to pull Poe’s legs in but drew back when the horse and rider spirited into view from between the trees. Poe moaned and the Company man’s face snapped in their direction. Caddy held her hand over Poe’s mouth to quiet him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear.

The man and horse wove slowly toward them, stopping not ten feet from where they hid. Caddy held her breath. The horse stamped and blew. It pawed the ground, champing on the bit and tossing its head at the scent of blood. The man’s eyes skimmed over them, hunting, and for a quick second she was sure they’d been seen. A high whistle penetrated the rain, and the man turned his horse and disappeared into the forest again.

Caddy exhaled, though there was little to be relieved about. Poe was bleeding worse than before. There was no time to waste.

“I’ll come back with April,” she told him. “Hold on.” If April was still there. The men could have gotten to her already.

But April was sitting exactly where Caddy had left her.

“I found Poe,” Caddy said.

April lifted her head. “Where?”

“We have to help him. He’s in bad shape.” Caddy put her hand on April’s arm. “The Company men are out there. Keep your eyes open.”

April started to panic. “Maybe we should wait until it’s safe …”

“There’s no time. We have to go now.”

April walked on Caddy’s heels, matching her footsteps as they scouted back through the woods. When they reached Poe, April took one look at him and fell apart.

“Oh, no …” She covered her face with her hands.

“Help me lift him,” Caddy said.

April choked and sobbed. “He’s dead … he’s dead …”

“Pull yourself together,” Caddy told her. “He’s not dead. But he will be if we don’t do something, now.”

April looked blindly around. “We need to find the others …”

“The others can’t help us. It’s just you and me. Understand?”

April continued to cry.

Caddy shook her. “Do you understand?”

April nodded, simpering.

“Good. Now, help me get him to his feet.”

Poe cried out in pain as they took his arms, hoisting him clumsily to his knees. He lost consciousness, his body going limp.

“He’s too heavy,” April said. “We’re killing him.”

“We need to find a better spot for him.” Caddy pointed to a large spruce tree. “Over there.”

Gasping from the effort, hands wet and slipping, they dragged Poe through the mud, his head lolling, his feet twisting unnaturally over the ground. At the spruce, they hunched below its boughs, knees buried in the bed of brown needles beneath its branches, and tugged Poe by inches under the shelter of the tree.

Caddy held her ear to his mouth.

“Is he dead?” April asked.

“He’s still breathing.”

“What do we do now?”

“You stay with Poe. I’m going to search for shelter. We found one farmhouse, maybe we can find another.”

April looked like she was going to cry again. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to come with you.”

“No. I can move faster alone. And someone has to stay with Poe.”

“I’m hungry,” April said.

“Me too.” Caddy squeezed her hand. “Stay hidden. And don’t come out unless you’re absolutely certain it’s safe.”

Caddy had no idea where to go, only that she would move in a direction and hope for the best. She was counting on the rain to conceal her movements, though it would make it difficult for her to find her way back. She would rather have stayed under the spruce tree with Poe, but she couldn’t rely on April for anything.

The forest floor dipped and rose. The mud sucked at her sneakers. After several miles Caddy stopped beside a boulder and pushed the strands of wet hair from her eyes. She was certain she saw movement. The trees seemed to breathe around her. She scanned the woods and a man’s face popped out of the rain. Caddy shouted, stumbling back, her feet sliding over the ground. The man was on her in seconds. He grabbed her arm and spun her around, grunting when her closed fist caught him in the chest. It was Red.

“Come with me,” he said.

“We need help,” Caddy blurted out. “Poe’s been hurt. He’s back a couple miles through the woods. April’s with him.”

“We have them,” Red said. “Come with me.”

Caddy pulled away from him. “I won’t go without them.”

“They’re waiting for you.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere safe.”

Caddy refused to move. How did she know he was telling the truth?

“We found them under the spruce tree,” he said, giving her just enough information to change her mind. “That boy doesn’t look so good. If you want to waste time out here in the rain, be my guest.” He walked away.

Caddy chased after him, struggling to keep up. Red moved as sure as a fox through the woods, his steps quick and light for such a big man. And he saw things she didn’t. Several times he made her hide until it was safe to continue. They went on like this, trekking to the base of a huge escarpment. Hugging the rock, they laced in and out of the pine trees to a stone outcropping the shape of a shark’s tooth.

“In here,” he said.

Caddy hesitated. Had she made the right decision in following him? What was the point of questioning her choice now? She squeezed through the opening in the rock. There was no light. She trailed Red closely. After twenty feet or so, they came upon a slender fracture in the rock. They pushed through the gap, faces turned, hands feeling the stone. It was so restricting Caddy was afraid she’d get stuck again.

“How did you get Poe through here?” she asked.

“We took him another way.”

“There’s another way?”

“There are many.”

“Why didn’t you take us all together?”

“Better to go separate ways in case someone follows.”

The passage abruptly opened into a deep cavern. Red lit a match and held it to a length of waxed rope. The cave walls jumped into the foreground, glittering with diamonds.

“Mineral deposits,” he said, when he saw the look on her face.

The rope torch threw moving shadows as they walked, the dark swelling and receding around them. Where the cave tapered, Red stopped and doused the light. He took her by the arm and pulled her in front.

“Go down here.”

“Where?”

“In the hole.”

Caddy couldn’t see a thing. She squatted, the blood thumping in her ears, her hands shaking as she felt around for the edge of the opening. Please, don’t let the bad feeling come, she prayed. Red nudged her to move. Caddy stuck her feet down the hole. They swung free.

“There’s no bottom,” she said.

He nudged her again. “Go.”

Caddy pushed off, sliding down a kind of chute, her back scraping against the rough surface the entire way. At the bottom, she fell, bashing her hands and knees against the rock. She groaned softly. A small chink of light perforated the dark. She was in a corridor. It was cold and damp. Water dripped a slow rhythm against the stone. She winced as she stood, and with hardly enough time to jump out of the way as Red came plowing down behind her. He landed easily on his feet, fumbled a set of brass skeleton keys from his pocket and jerked his head for her to follow.

At the end of the corridor was a small door. It looked ancient, with heavy, hand-forged hinges, and metal straps holding the wood together. It had a series of locks—seven in total—and Red set to work opening them. Some were turned, only to be relocked as others were opened. Caddy tried to memorize the pattern but it was too complex, and Red’s hands were a blur, they moved so quickly.

At last, when all the locks were released, Red pulled the door open. It complained loudly, creaking like the hull of an old ship.

“Go,” he said.

Caddy stepped into a dimly lit hallway. Red closed the door, securing the locks in another flurry of keys and turns. When he was finished, he stashed the keys back in his pocket and escorted her along the hall to an empty room.