It was a considerable defensive force, and old bleached bones lying along the road spoke to the effectiveness of their many preparations.
Saint John approved of the weapons, the clever design of the carpet coats and metal armor. All of it was more than sufficient to stop an attack by the living dead.
“Take them,” said Saint John.
The reapers of the Red Brotherhood, who had been poised like a fist, struck.
Arrows, carefully aimed, darkened the sky for a moment, and then bodies were falling and horses were screaming. Suddenly all those careful preparations disintegrated as predators far more dangerous than the walking dead proved what all wise killers already knew: that nothing was more dangerous than living men.
CHAPTER 50
Once Benny and the girls were back at Sanctuary, they parked their quads and hurried over to the bridge.
“We need to see Captain Ledger,” said Nix urgently.
The guards said nothing. They didn’t even look at her.
“Hey,” said Benny loudly, “we’re speaking to you.”
Nothing.
Riot pointed. “Look, y’all, the Lost Girl is breaking her fifty-foot restriction. She’s right here at the edge of the trench. I think y’all ought to report that to Captain Ledger.”
One of the guards looked at Lilah, smiled, then shrugged. It was the most extensive response any of the bridge guards had ever given them.
“Screw this,” muttered Benny as he tried to push past the soldiers and reach for the cotter pin that held the bridge.
The closest soldier shoved him. Very fast and very hard.
There was a rasp of steel and Nix’s sword, Dojigiri, flashed in the sunlight.
A hundredth of a second later there were guns pointed at them. One each at Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Riot. M16s, fully automatic rifles.
“I’m going to tell you this once,” said the guard who’d pushed Benny. “Walk away. Do it right now or we will fire. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a discussion. Walk away.”
“We need to see Captain Ledger,” insisted Benny.
“First bullet goes through your kneecap, boy,” said the guard. “You call it.”
They walked away, but within ten paces Benny broke into a run.
CHAPTER 51
“What did they find, my sister?” asked Brother Peter. He crouched like a pale ape on an outcropping of red rock.
The engine of Sister Sun’s quad was off, but she still sat in the saddle, resting her weight on the handlebars. She sighed and sat back, resting a hand on the satchel that lay on her thighs.
“This,” she said.
Brother Peter jumped down from the rock and took the satchel. He quickly and thoroughly searched the papers.
“The coordinates?”
“Gone,” said Sister Sun.
They looked at each other.
And smiled.
It was an unlooked-for piece of luck.
Not blind luck, though. It was, to them, proof of the power of their god.
CHAPTER 52
Benny hunched over the handlebars of his quad and gunned the engine.
“What are you doing?” yelled Nix over the roar.
“Remember in the Scouts Mr. Feeney said that survival requires a proactive attitude?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m being proactive.”
Any comment Nix might have made was lost beneath the roar as he shot past her, engine bellowing, wheels kicking sand behind him. He thought he heard her screaming his name, but he didn’t look back.
Benny shot past the playground and the orchard. The monks and the children all stared at him, but no one said anything. Or maybe he heard one of the older monks yelling even louder than Nix had. Something about slowing down, probably. Benny chose not to hear that admonition. This wasn’t a convenient time for obeying rules.
This was a time for taking action.
The trench was forty yards ahead. Once he cleared the last of the orchards, he angled left, heading toward the point where the steel bridge was lowered twice a day. There was a yard-long lip of metal that stuck out over the drop, and it was wider than the bridge. Good enough on either side for the wheel width of the quad.
Benny hoped.
On the other side of the trench there was only a metal plate. No bridge or other obstructions.
He had never done this before, of course. Not even in his head.
It was all a matter of speed and angle.
And luck.
“Come on, Tom,” he growled as he gave the quad more gas. “Little help from beyond would be cool.”
He gave the engine all the gas it would take, and the motor roared like a living thing. Feral and alive and powerful.
“Come on… come on!” Benny yelled.
The raised bridge was there, right there, the four soldiers flanking it. They gaped at him as if he was absolutely out of his mind. Benny could see their point.
Two of them brought up their rifles, and Benny flattened out over the steering column, making himself the smallest possible target.
Of course, if a bullet did hit him, it would nail him on the top of the head. That gave him a moment’s pause. The quad, undeterred by thoughts of mortality, kept racing onward.
“HALT!” roared the guards.
There was the hollow krak-krak-krak of gunfire.
Benny braced against the impact.
Felt nothing.
Kept going.
Benny hurtled toward the bridge, gathering every ounce of speed, and then at the last possible second he turned the wheels and the quad shot past the guards and past the upraised steel and flew out over empty space.
There was a single bump as one rear wheel brushed the edge of the gate. Just that one tap; Benny had done it right.
He screamed — loud and raw and free — as the sense of speed seemed to vanish and the quad hung in the air, untethered by gravity, a beautiful soaring thing. Below him the twenty-foot span of the trench seemed to move with a strange slowness, as if time itself had wound down. He looked down and saw, with a flash of panic, that the front wheels were already starting to dip toward the bottom of the trench, and the far side looked a million miles away. Benny pulled on the handlebars as if he could lift the whole machine through sheer force of muscle and will.
Then the lip of the trench was there, and the soft tires chunked down onto the ground inches past it. There was a second thump as the rear wheels hit, and the jolt rattled Benny’s bones and snapped his teeth shut. His hands were still rolled forward, still feeding gas to the engine, so there was a moment when inertia and impact and gravity collided into a grinding nothing as wheels turned and great plumes of tan sand kicked up behind him and the quad shivered like it was coming apart. Then the tire treads bit deep and the thrust of the engine overcame the downward pull of gravity, and Benny’s quad shot forward like a bullet from a gun.
Benny let rip a yell of rough joy and sheer excitement.
Krak! Krak!
He could hear the shots, but nothing hit him. Or he prayed not. There was no pain, no heavy thud of impact, no burn of ruined nerves and tissues.
He cut a quick look over his shoulder and saw that two of the soldiers were sprawled on the ground. Benny slewed to a sideways stop that built a wall of dust between him and the zoms. The dust seemed to freeze there — a brown stain painted on the moment. A third soldier — the one who had refused to pass along the message to Captain Ledger — leaned against the bridge, clutching what looked like a badly broken nose. The fourth was standing, unarmed, with his hands raised.