Hope's Ruin

19 | Under Siege

Pepper had wanted to bury Alderson and the rest of Hope's Rejects. But Raven had furnished her with a diatribe about the fickle nature of time and that the desert would conceal their bodies of its own accord.

She flew now, beneath the stink and swish of Bone's mighty wings, Alderson's staff held tightly in her grip. Ribbons of dark cloth fluttered along its length while the grisly human skull pointed forward, like the figurehead of a proud airship.

Pepper thought about Number Twelve—a monster, a consuming darkness, with an army of undead at her back—speeding through The Great Wastes on her stolen quad bike. Where was she heading? And why? What fuelled the dark spirit she'd let slip from the ground beneath Coldharbour Farm? What did it crave, covet, desire? Where was she taking her army? And what was her plan for the stragglers and nomad reanimates she scooped up along the way?

Lavigne's desire to survive did not surprise her.

Alderson's sacrifice felt right too.

Pepper wondered what she would do under those selfsame circumstances. Would she deny the dark spirits like she had on the wetlands around BootHill? She hoped so. But what if she couldn't get away? What if they had her cornered, surrounded? Had weapons to her throat? Or, heaven help her, had Fisk under their blades or wrapped in tentacles of blackened smoke?

Could she really do what was right, even if it meant death?

Alderson was braver than she could comprehend.

Lavigne as weak.

"Contact!" trilled Raven.

Winter joined him to the head of the column. Together, they disappeared towards the ground. Pepper strained her eyes across the arid landscape. Even with the silver threads of moonlight anchoring the clouds, she could make out nothing but a black smudge on the horizon.

Ten minutes later, the birds return.

"Follow me," Raven ordered, turning west and descending slowly.

They congregated behind an upturned school bus whose yellow paint peeled like giant rusty scabs.

"What did you see?" Erin asked.

"A township," Raven told her. "A mishmash of badly erected structures and desolate-looking inhabitants. A high wall constructed of trash and debris surrounds the town and, at its centre, a monstrous tower looms. The smell was villainous."

Erin and Marshall looked questioningly at Pepper.

"Oh my," she said. "That's Hope's Ruin."

"There's a siege," Winter added.

"What the—?"

"It's a military tactic," Raven explained testily. "A blockade if you will, to starve or break the will of those inside by attrition."

"Yes. Thank you. We know what a siege is," Erin said.

"It's a cowardly policy," Winter said, hopping about on a deflated tyre. "If victory is your aim, then an honourable battle should be fought—to death and beyond!"

"The scarecrow sits before the gates," Raven went on. "Her army positioned at advantageous intervals around the crumbling walls."

"I fear for the city," the dollarbird said.

"We should turn back," Raven advised.

"No!" Erin and Pepper said at once.

Erin scowled at the blackbird. Her lips quivered.

"We have to get my brother," Pepper said at last.

"We have to get Number Twelve," Erin added.

Raven clicked his beak. "Your devotion to your loved ones will be your undoing."