“Now perhaps you’ll believe me” the old woman said. “There is no escape.”
CHAPTER 14
Isaiah and his companions stared at the crumbling city.
“How do we even know they’ve come this way?” Roman asked.
“The tracks lead this way,” a scavenger said. He pointed to the hoof marks in the dust.
One of the brethren stepped forwards and shielded his eyes with his hand. “So what is that place?”
Nobody replied.
Roman started walking forwards. “Come, on, let’s get closer.”
The group trekked towards the nearest building. As they approached, Isaiah saw the human bones lining the road and he blanched. “Have you seen those?” He pointed at the bones.
Roman nodded. “I think we’d better fall back.”
Before they had time to move a flock of birds erupted from one of the ruined buildings, shattering the silence, making one or two of the men jump.
Then Isaiah noticed something up ahead and he stepped cautiously forwards. Fresh blood splattered the ground, along with remnants of clothing. He crouched down, lifted a section of it up, and jumped back, jaw open, when he spotted a severed head.
“We need to get out of here. Now.”
A shout went up and dirty looking figures rushed out of the buildings. The figures had fresh blood around their mouths and were brandishing primitive weapons, knives, axes, and swords. The lead figure reached one of the enforcers, leapt through the air, and chopped his head off with a sword. The body crumpled to the ground, spraying blood everywhere.
“Demons,” Isaiah shouted.
Shocked into action, the Sanctuary troupe fought back. They opened fire with their guns and crossbows. One bolt pierced a man’s chest, knocking him back while a bullet passed cleanly through a woman’s head. She crumpled to the ground, unnoticed by her fellow savages.
Undeterred, the savage people continued to fight. Some of their weapons were fashioned from human bones and the attackers emitted a savage war cry as they hacked and slashed, moving lithely among the rubble with almost acrobatic skill.
“Retreat.” Roman stumbled backwards, arms flailing in the air.
The men followed, the enforcers firing wildly as they went, shooting from the hip to deter their pursuers. They ran off the road and into the undergrowth. Isaiah’s legs burned from the exertion, but he didn’t stop even though his lungs were on fire. Fear provided the fuel to keep him going.
He skipped over logs; scrambled through bushes and clambered uphill, until eventually he collapsed exhausted against a tree. He puffed and panted, hands clutched to his chest. The men around him hadn’t fared any better and they were all red faced and exhausted, sweat dripping from them as they stared wide eyed back the way they had come, fearful of pursuit.
“It looks like we lost them,” Roman said after a while.
Isaiah wiped his brow. “Those people. They were…”
“Demons,” a brethren said.
“Those bones. They must eat their victims.”
“Like the Gods?” an enforcer asked.
Roman crossed himself. “They’re nothing like our Gods. Did any of them rise up? No, they were mortal men and women. Savages that try to act like Gods by imitating them.”
“Is that what you think they were doing?” Isaiah asked.
“Why else would they eat human flesh?”
Isaiah frowned but didn’t reply.
“We’ve lost a few good people back there, and we’ve lost a lot of time, so we need to get moving if we’re to catch up with your blasphemous wife.”
“My wife is not blasphemous.”
“She’s threatened the safety of our community by angering the Gods. In my book, that’s blasphemy.”
Isaiah swallowed. “She wouldn’t have done it on purpose. She… she probably wasn’t thinking straight.”
Roman turned to one of the scavengers who had taken off his chain mail and was wafting himself to cool down. “Which way now?”
The scavenger pursed his lips. “Best I could tell they were heading back towards Sanctuary.”
“Why would they be heading for Sanctuary?” one of the brethren asked.
“Probably to try to pillage it,” Isaiah replied.
“Well we won’t be able to beat them back to warn everyone,” the brethren said.
Roman stroked his chin. “We might be able to if we cut across the mountains.”
He pointed at the distant peaks.
Isaiah studied the mountains, his expression pensive. “Come on, there’s no time to waste.”
Isaiah and his companions scrambled over fallen rocks. They were now high up in the mountains, and they all laboured, puffing and panting at the exertion. Tall trees lined the rocky precipice, their lower branches providing useful handholds.
Isaiah scrambled on all fours up another sharp incline. Shingle skittered beneath his hands and feet and his heart missed a beat as he lost his footing and slipped towards a cliff edge, the drop below hundreds of feet. He fought to grab hold of something to arrest his fall and managed to seize a sharp rock that cut into his palm. Breathing heavy he pulled himself back up and caught Roman scowling at him.
Pain pulsed from his palm and he opened his hand to see a deep cut welling with blood. Wincing, he wrapped it in a piece of cloth from his backpack and stood up.
Isaiah was about to scramble back up to the rest of the group when he glimpsed movement behind them.
“Look out,” he shouted, but his warning came too late and a figure shuffled from behind a rock and grabbed one of the brethren, sinking its teeth into his wrist and tearing out a lump of flesh. The priest screamed in agony and instinctively started striking the God.
The rest of the party scrambled away. Isaiah hesitated for a moment, and then scurried up the rocks and tried to prise the figure off.
“Leave him. You can’t interfere with a God,” Roman said.
Isaiah gritted his teeth and ignored Roman. He pulled the man off and pushed him aside. The man tumbled down the incline, and Isaiah helped the priest to his feet and hauled him up to a plateau with a high precipice on one side. The priest’s wrist was chewed and dripping with blood and he appeared pale and shaken as Isaiah lay him down. Roman rushed up and forcibly pushed Isaiah aside.
“I told you not to interfere.”
“I couldn’t leave him. We’ve lost enough men already.”
“Well what good’s it done him? Look, he’s dead.”
Isaiah glanced down to see that Roman was right and he sighed in annoyance. About to turn away, he saw the man’s hand twitch. Then his arm moved, his eyes snapped open, and he sat up and staggered to his feet. Isaiah backed away while the priests started chanting.
Before Isaiah could react, Roman rushed forwards and pushed the priest, sending him hurtling over the precipice.
Isaiah ran across and stared down, shocked to see the brethren lying far below, splattered across the rocks, his head cracked open like an egg.
“You’ve killed him.”
Roman snorted loudly. “Like those others we found, he wasn’t ordained. That’s why he died. A true God would have survived. Now I think we’ve had enough interruptions. Let’s move on.”
CHAPTER 15
Isaiah scrambled over the rocks. He was aching in places that he didn’t realise existed, but for the sake of his wife and family, he disregarded the pain. He recalled Anna wanting to talk to him before she ran away, and he berated himself that he hadn’t taken the time to listen. When he thought about everything, he had been ignoring his family. He had taken them for granted and now he was paying the price.