Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2) (20 page)

Will’s jaw works from side to side.  His eyes are smooth, turquoise stones.  His gaze slides to Sully.  “But we are outnumbered.”

One side of Sully mouth slants upward.  “Jericho, toss one into the ten Urthmen at the rear of the convoy.”

“With pleasure,” Jericho replies with a wicked grin.  He dig
s into a satchel attached to a long strap that crosses his chest.  He pulls out a rectangular package and throws it over the bushes and into the procession. 

The line of Urthmen stop and look toward us.  Sully stands and aims a small metal device at them and depresses a button at its center.  The package detonates and a blast rocks the world around me.  Limbs careen through the air and rain from the sky, landing all around us with gory
thud
s. 

“I think their numbers just shra
nk,” Sully says with impish cheer just before he takes off toward the Urthmen. 

Will looks from Sully to me.  His expression is hard, but tenderness sparkles in his
gaze for the briefest of moments, sending a wave of flutters pulsing through my belly.  “Stay here,” he says to me and pleads with his eyes. 

He dashes off after Sully and Jericho, and my fluttering stomach plummets to my feet. 

“No, no!  What’re they doing?” June asks me, a deep crease forming between her eyebrows.  “Why are they going?”

I worry that they’re charging in to their death.  Hot tears scald the backs of my eyelids.  I feverishly blink against them. “They’ll be back,” I say.  My voice cracks.  “I hope,” I add. 

I turn my attention back to the scene on the street.  Dismembered legs and arms litter the road along with fragments of other body parts that I cannot identify.  A few heads are intact and roll down the road.  Sully immediately fires into the crowd.  Three Urthmen fall before they even raise their clubs.  The remaining seven swarm and he squeezes off another five shots.  Three more fall.  Confusion and mayhem ensues and I panic thinking I’ve lost track of Will and Sully.  Jericho rises like a mountain, among the beasts.  He grabs the first Urthman he sees and picks him up over his head.  The Urthman squawks, a horrid, shrill sound that claws at my ears, just before Jericho slams him into the side of the carriage.  Bones crack loudly.  The Urthman slumps to the ground in a broken, lifeless heap.

Jericho turns and ya
nks his mallet from a sheath at his hip.  He swings it in a wide arc.  It connects with the head of a nearby Urthman, sending him flying to the pavement with half of his skull missing.

Seeing the carnage all around them, the two remaining Urthmen in the convoy drop their clubs and raise their hands in surrender.

The Urthman with the crown watches, wide-eyed, his fatty lips parted and jiggling.  His pasty skin is flushed to an unhealthy shade of magenta.  “What is the meaning of this?” he demands, spittle spraying in every direction.  “You must defend your prince!  That is a royal order!”

The surrendering Urthmen do not respond. 

“This is treason!  You will be punished! I am Prince Neo and I hereby accuse you of treason!”

“We surrender,” one of the Urthmen says. 

Sully approaches them, his gun aimed between them.  “There is no surrendering,” he says.  I hear two loud
pop
s and both fall.  He then leaps onto the cart.  He slowly walks to the portly Urthman. 

“So, you’re a prince?” he asks, his voice dripping with malice. 

“Yes, and I can give you wealth beyond your wildest dreams.  My father is King Leon.  He will pay you whatever you want.  Name your price.”

“Money, huh,” Sully says and scratches his chin with one of his weapon-wielding hands.  “Hmm, that’s some offer.”

“I know it is, especially for a human.  But I can arrange it.”

A long pause
passes between them, I start to believe Sully is considering Prince Neo’s offer.  The notion nauseates me. 

“See, I don’t want money from your father or you.  I only want one thing.”

“Anything! Land, food; name it and you’ll have it!”

Sully lowers his head and makes a clucking sound with his tongue.  When he lifts his chin, he is unnervingly still. 

“Nah, I don’t want any of that,” Sully says through his teeth.  “All I want is your life,” he adds with icy certainty before two more pops ring out and I see Prince Neo collapse to one side.

E
xcitement rings through me with the clarity of a bell tolling.  It resonates through my core and vibrates to my fingertips and toes.  I am glad to see him die.  If that makes me as bad as an Urthman then so be it. 

Not everyone shares in my happiness to see the prince fall
, however.  A quick look at Will reveals that he is among those who do not.  He stands eerily still, a troubled expression veiling his features.

“Let them go!” Sully shouts
and recaptures my attention.  “Free our people.”  His voice echoes down the street, resounding with truth and righteousness through the cavernous hollows of my being.  Goose bumps cover my skin.  A part of me feels like clapping, applauding everything Sully has done until now.  When Jericho unsheathes a machete from his thigh and hacks at the leather straps until they break, tears stream from my eyes freely. 

“You’re welcome to join us,” Su
lly approaches one of the newly freed men and says.  But the man doesn’t respond, and his eyes dart from side to side. 

In fact, a
ll of them are wild-eyed.  They babble and wander, mumbling incoherently to one another.  Frightened and cagey, they resemble injured animals. 

As soon as the last of the six is loose, they run off, rambling incomprehensibly. 

Sully lowers his chin to his chest. He holsters his guns and shakes his head slowly then rakes his fingers through his hair.  I resist the urge to run to him.  I can feel his disappointment, his frustration.

“Their minds are broken,” Will says.  “
They’ll wander around aimlessly until they get themselves killed.  They’ll be dead before the day’s end.  We just risked our lives for nothing.”

Anger flashes across Sully’s face.  For a moment
, he looks every bit as deadly as he did when battling against Urthmen.  “No,” he says, his tone so calm it is threatening.  “We didn’t risk our lives without reason.  Those men will live and die free, as every human should, not live and die chained to a cart like an animal.”  He looks to Jericho who nods solemnly in agreement.  He then turns and begins walking back toward the bushes, toward June, Riley, and Oliver; toward me.  “Let’s go,” he says and does not look back.

I realize in the brief time it takes him to close the distance between us that I am honored to fight alongside him.  He represents all that I have been taught, all that I am and will ever be.  I realize that like June, Will, Riley and Oliver, Jericho and Sully are my future.

Chapter 13

We travel for several more miles after Sully killed the convoy of Urthmen
, crossing the street and remaining hidden by the trees that line the other side.  While we do, the scene continues to replay in my head over and over.  I search my heart for regret or remorse for what happened, even though I did not do the killing.  But I come up empty.  Maybe I am not better than the Urthmen as Will implied when I was about to kill the family of them back in town.  Maybe he is right.  Maybe I am a monster.  If being a monster means wanting to live for more than just a day, to try to secure some kind of future for my sister and I, then I am every bit a monster.  I want more than today, I want tomorrow, and many days, months and years thereafter.  I want a life.  I want to live.  I wonder whether Will understands the difference between surviving and living.

Several times while we jog along, Will’s eyes meet mine.  His expression is always the same: troubled.  He’s likely seen more death and gore in the last week than in his entire life.  Seeing his parents die at the hands of Urthmen has scarred him, of that I am confident.  How could it not?  All the other carnage only serves to further
widen the aching chasm that has been opened within him.  He did not approve of what Sully did earlier.  He’d made that plain enough.  I enthusiastically approve, but I still feel bad for Will.  The wound of his parents’ deaths is still fresh.  I try to convey to him with my eyes that I am sorry for his pain.  There isn’t much I can say in front of everyone else.  Preserving Will, Oliver and Riley’s privacy is important to me.  They can share what they want with Sully and Jericho when or if they want to.  It is not for me to determine that for them.

“Where are we going?” June asks Sully and distracts me from my brooding. 

“We are going to the place where Jericho and I live.  But listen June, and everyone else,” Sully addresses not just my sister, but all of us.  “You need to do exactly as I say.  The next turnoff will take us to the edge of a heavily wooded area.  As soon as we get in there, everyone needs to follow my orders, okay?”

June agrees first, followed by Oliver and Riley’s mumbles of approval.

“Avery, are you good with that?” Sully asks me directly. 

“Yep,” I reply stiffly after a quick glance at Will.

Will’s upper lip is lifted higher than usual.  He shakes his head slowly, as if disgusted.

“How about you, buddy?  You good with that?” Sully addresses Will. 

“Do I really have a choice?” Will snaps.

Amusement dances in Sully’s dark eyes.  “You always have a choice.  Just this one is either listen to me, or be blown to smithereens,” he says with a wink.  “Choose wisely.”

Will is left with his mouth agape, a question or angry comment burning somewhere beyond it.  Not waiting for it, Sully shrugs and turns from everyone.  He continues leading us until the line of trees and shrubs we follow gives way to thicker clusters of growth. 

The sun is not as high in the sky.  I am hungry and exhausted.  I would love nothing more than to eat and rest in a safe place.  But we are out among Urthmen, in their territory.  I doubt such a place exists. 

We cross a small seasonal stream, swollen with water and leaves.  Once we are across it, we are immediately swallowed by an abundance of thorny bushes and brush.  Branches, crisscrossed at every turn, threaten to gouge our eyes and undergrowth tugs at our pant legs.  Trees grow larger the deeper we delve and canopy our path, filtering much of the sunlight.  Wherever it is we’re headed, I doubt any Urthmen would bother to look.  The landscape is downright hostile.  More than once, I hear June say, “Ouch!” and assume that, like me, she is getting pricked by spiny burrs and limbs. 

As if the thorns aren’t enough,
a riot of tangled vines slithers at our feet, waiting to trip us as we plod along.  Sully and Jericho, of course, move easily, gracefully even. 

Fortunately
, the bushes and undergrowth start to thin and walking becomes a little easier.

“Okay, everybody stop,” the bass of Jericho’s voice pours from him like heated honey.  He
freezes, his massive body eerily still as his eyes sweep the surrounding area.  He points to something I do not see at first.  When I strain my eyes, though, I realize it is a nearly invisible wire about chest height.  “You see this?” he asks us.  We lean in and look.  “This line leads to explosives.  Animals indigenous to this area pass beneath or around it easily, but it is rigged to trigger those explosives when something heavy, like an Urthman, walks into it.”

“
Each of us has to step under it carefully, then wait for further instruction,” Sully chimes in.  “There are more like this one throughout the woods.”

June slips her small hand in mine.  It is clammy and cold. 

“Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll be fine.  We’ll go together and just wait for Sully or Jericho to tell us what to do next,” I tell her. 

Will expels air from his nose loudly.  I snap my head toward him and tip my chin while furrowing my brow, as if to ask what the matter is.  He rolls his eyes and frowns.  I guess he is not a fan of Sully and therefore not happy about following his orders.  I would prefer not to be blasted to bits as the Urthmen were in the convoy.  I hope Will shares my wish to stay in one, whole piece.  He gestures for June and I to go before him.  I nod and turn my body sideways then
dip my head and upper body beneath the wire.  June does too.  We repeat this process about ten more times, navigating an intricate labyrinth of lines, until I see a white clapboard structure with sooty streaks smudged from the upper windows to the roof.  The paint is peeling and weeds have grown over the first-story windows, but I can clearly see that it is a house.  Beside the house, two vehicles are parked.  One is a truck and the other is, if my memory serves me correctly, a camper.  I have never seen the latter, only heard of them and seen creased and faded images.  Regardless, both appear to be in decent shape.  They do not resemble the cars I saw lining the streets when we first ventured out of the forest. 

Next to me, June’s grip on my hand tightens.  “Whoa, is that a house?” she asks. 

“Ah, home sweet home.  Well, kind of,” Sully steps up beside me and says.  His shoulder brushes mine and heat spirals from the point of contact, twisting down my arm and spreading through me like fire. 

“This is where you and Jericho live?”
June asks.