"She's right," Elliott said, picking up Sarah's rifle and belt kit and handing them to Chester. "We have to leave now."
"No, I'm not going without my mother," Cal insisted, seizing Sarah's limp hand.
As Cal talked to his mother, tears flowing freely down his cheeks, Will took Elliott aside.
"There's got to be something we can do," he pressed her. "Can't we take her with us some of the way and hide her?"
"No," Elliott replied emphatically. "Besides, moving her isn't going to help her any. She's probably going to die, anyway, Will."
Sarah called Will's name, and he immediately rejoined Cal by her side.
"Never forget," Sarah said to the boys. She was really struggling now, her face contorted with pain. "I'm so proud of both of…" She didn't finish the sentence. As Will and Cal watched, her eyes slid shut and she was still.
"We've got to go," Elliott said. "The Limiters will be here soon, very soon."
"No!" Cal shouted. "You did this to her. We can't—"
"I can't undo what I've done," Elliott answered him evenly. "But I can still help you. It's your choice whether or not you let me."
Cal was about to object again when Elliott began to walk away, with Chester close behind.
"Just look at her, Cal. We wouldn't be doing her any favors if we tried to shift her," Elliott added over her shoulder.
Despite Cal's continuing protests, both he and Will knew in their hearts that Elliott was right. There was no way they'd be able to haul Sarah with them. They, too, began to move away. Their mother might stand a better chance if another renegade were to find her and tend to her injuries, as Elliott had told them. But both Will and Cal knew just how unlikely this was and recognized that Elliott was trying to give them what little comfort she could.
As they rounded a corner in the tunnel, Will stopped and turned to look back at Sarah where she lay. With the mournful, unremitting howl of the wind all around him, it was such a forlorn and chilling thought — that she could die there in the dark, with no one by her side. Maybe his fate would be the same, to breathe his last in some far corner of the earth, alone.
Maybe he should have been suffering the most intense sorrow that his real mother was bleeding to death there in the tunnel. But all he felt was just a cloud of confused emotions. To Will, Sarah was little more than a stranger who had been gunned down due to an unfortunate mistake.
"Will," Elliott urged him, pulling him by the arm.
"I don't understand. What's she doing down here?" he said. "And why did they give her Bartleby?"
"The Hunter belonged to Cal?" Elliott asked.
Will nodded.
"Then it's simple, really," Elliott said. "The White Necks knew you and Cal were together. So what better than to let Sarah use the animal to track its master and lead her straight to you?"
"I suppose that's right," Will said, frowning. "But what did the Styx think—?"
"Don't you see? They wanted her to find you and kill you," Chester cut in, his voice measured and dispassionate. He had remained silent until now and was thinking more clearly than Will. "They obviously tried to make her believe you were responsible for Tam's death. It's another of their vile little schemes. Just like this Dominion thing she spoke about."
"Now can we just hurry it up?" Elliott said, sprinkling some Parchers on the trail behind her.
They continued along the main track with Cal walking apart from them, his prancing and overjoyed cat by his side.
And before long they emerged out onto a thin strip of a ledge, the wind still blowing hard. They stopped. They could see nothing before them, and no way down.
48
"What now?" Will asked, trying to put all thoughts of Sarah out of his mind and focus on their current situation. Elliott had brought them to the edge of a crevasse, but what lay beyond or below, he couldn't tell.
Will was aware of Chester's cold stare upon him, and it made him extremely angry. It still felt as though his old friend was silently blaming him for everything. Considering what Will had just been through, he'd have expected Chester to cut him some slack. Clearly he was expecting too much.
"So, are we going to jump for it?" he said, peering at what he assumed was a sheer drop.
"Sure, be my guest. It's several hundred feet down, as the stone falls," Elliott replied. "But you might want to try over here instead."
At the very edge of the ledge they saw two prongs. They went as near as they dared, the combination of the high wind and the sheer drop making them move with caution, and discovered that it was the tip of an old iron ladder.
"A Coprolite ladder. Not as quick as jumping, but much less painful," she said. "This place is known as the Sharps — you'll see why when we get down."
"What about Bartleby?" Cal suddenly piped up. "He can't climb down this ladder, and no way am I leaving him here! I only just got him back!"
Cal was kneeling with his arm around the cat, who was rubbing a huge cheek against the side of the boy's head and purring so loudly it sounded like an overcrowded beehive.
"Send him along the ridge. He'll find his own way down," Elliott barked. "If he's any kind of Hunter, he'll seek us out at the bottom."
Cal humphed indignantly. "What do you mean? He's the best Hunter in the whole Colony! Aren't you, Bart?" He ran his hand affectionately over the creased, hairless pate of the cat's domed head, and the beehive sounded as if a riot had broken out.
Elliott went first, followed closely by Chester, who pushed past Will to the front. "Excuse me," he said brusquely.
Will chose not to say anything, and as soon as Chester disappeared from view, he went next. He found it disconcerting as he took hold of the two rusty uprights and edged his legs over the brink until he found a rung with his foot. But once he'd started to move, it wasn't too bad. Last to follow was Cal, who had dispatched Bartleby on the longer journey down via the ledge but was having huge misgivings himself as he descended the ladder, stiffly and deliberately.
It was a long climb and the ladder trembled and creaked ominously with their combined movements, as if some of the fixings had broken loose. Their hands soon became coated with rust and so dry that they had to be extra careful not to lose their grip. The wind gradually dropped off the lower they went, but after a while Will noticed that he couldn't see or hear Cal above him.
"Are you OK?" he shouted up.
There was no reply.
He repeated the question, louder this time.
"Fine," came the begrudging reply from Chester below.
"Not you, you dork. It's Cal I'm worried about."
As Chester mumbled something in response, Cal's walking stick swished past Will, spinning end over end as it fell.
"Cal!" Will exclaimed, thinking for one awful moment that his brother had slipped and was going to follow after it. He held his breath and waited, but still there was no sign of the boy. Reversing his direction, Will began to climb. He soon came across Cal, who was completely stationary, both arms wrapped tightly around the ladder.
"You dropped your stick. What's up?"
"I can't do this… " Cal gasped. "Feel sick… just leave me alone for a minute."
"Is it your leg?" Will asked, concerned. "Or are you still upset about Sarah? What is it?"
"No. I just feel… feel dizzy."
"Ahh," Will said, remembering. There'd been signs of it before when they were Topsoil. Cal wasn't used to heights after spending his whole life in the Colony. "You don't like being up here; it's the height, isn't it?"
Cal swallowed a yes.
"Well, just trust me on this, Cal. I don't want you to look down, but we're almost at the bottom… I can see Elliott there right now."