The boy glanced up and down the street, searching for any movement, human or otherwise. Nothing stirred—as it had not for days. The terror of the geists had sent many running for the hills, while others had taken their own lives or fallen into madness from it all. Those that remained kept themselves hidden—which was the sensible thing to do.
Except now that the wind changed, Eriloyn’s senses brought another terrible blow. It was the smell of baking. It pierced the boy through and made any sensible thoughts impossible. The primitive needs of the body overrode anything else.
Wrapping his arms around his middle, the boy darted across the road, borne aloft by the tempting smell that promised food of unparalleled delight, scuttling from spot to spot like a rat that dared not be caught in the light. His first sanctuary was an overturned cart near the edge of the town square. It was not a food stall, but rather a toy display. Broken wooden dolls lay scattered about where citizens had trodden on them in their mad dash to escape some horror.
The second refuge he scampered to was the remains of a carriage. Once it must have been very grand, because the cerulean paint on the side was a sign of nobility—his mother had taught him that much. The boy dared a peek inside, and had the ravages of the geists not already beaten him into a wreck he would have screamed. The perfectly preserved head of a woman was turned to him from her seat within the carriage. Whatever geist had come upon these travelers had turned their flesh to the consistency of jerked meat. The shriveled eyeballs of the woman seemed to regard Eriloyn with disdain.
If it had been only a few weeks earlier, he would have lurched back screaming for his mother, but in the decimated and unrecognizable town that his home had become, he’d learned to control such instincts. His hands clutched the edge of the carriage, but he stayed where he was, pulling his gaze from the woman and toward the town hall. The smell of warm bread baking thrust itself into his nostrils and made all other thought impossible.
Abandoning all attempts at covert approach, Eriloyn leapt up and sprinted for the door of the Council building, the smell of bread luring him on, as if he were a hungry trout and there was a hook jammed in his snout. The huge oak doors of the building loomed over him but were slightly ajar. Eriloyn looked over his shoulder, but the street was silent.
The town had not been silent for a long time: screams, wails and people begging for their lives. He’d prayed for silence during those horrible days, and yet, now it was here, he was terrified by it. He turned and slipped into the building.
As a young boy, Eriloyn had gone with his father to pay his taxes in this building. It had seemed huge and beautiful back then: high oak beams, blazing fires, and people bustling around on important matters. Now only the oak beams remained. Chairs were overturned, books ripped from the shelves, and the remains of the fire from the great hearth scattered everywhere.
Eriloyn walked on haltingly, feeling his breath choking in his throat, and his heart beating in his ears. As terrified as he was, the hunger was greater.
He stumbled and staggered through the broken room, down hallways smeared with blood and other terrible things. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could hear voices; and not the voices he’d been used to in recent weeks. These were not screams; they were of genuine laughter . . . maybe even children like him.
Eriloyn’s feet began to quicken all by themselves. He slipped and slid down the stairs of the hall into the lower floors. Now the smell of fresh baking was overwhelming, and already in his mind’s eye he could see other orphans playing, both hands full of warm bread.
The tread of a stair broke under his foot, trapping his leg for a moment. With a sob Eriloyn tore it free. The pain of the wood ripping into his flesh was a distant thing to the hunger. He was almost passing out from both of these by the time he made it down to where the kitchens of the town hall were. It had once produced bread for the poor and the needy, now surely it was doing it again.
For a moment the boy was confused. He stood there in the wreck of the kitchen, blood pouring down his leg, stomach cramped with hunger, and looked at the broken crockery lying on the floor. Everything was turned over and rotten. The hearth itself was snapped in two, the great stone smashed as if by an iron fist.
“Quite the sight isn’t it,” a voice hissed behind him.
Eriloyn spun about, but he couldn’t see anyone there—only the shadows in doorways he was too terrified to enter. His skin was crawling, and the darkness was now creeping into the edges of his vision. Fingers were creeping over his skin, and he couldn’t find the strength to rip himself away from them. Terror that he had been fighting off for weeks flooded over him, like an ice-cold tide that he could no longer hold back.
“Give in. Give up. It’s all right to surrender,” the voice at his back whispered into his ear. “You’re tired. Rest for a while.”
It made complete sense to do so. He’d been running and terrified for a very long time, so he listened to the voice and fell into its cold embrace.
For the longest time that was all there was, but Eriloyn could not hide in unknowingness for long. Slowly, his eyelids fluttered open. He hurt everywhere, but his leg ached worst of all. Suddenly the need for food was not as important as he had thought it was. Survival now loomed large.
All of this flashed through the boy’s mind even before he took in his surroundings. He’d made a promise to his dad to survive, and he had to keep that promise. So slowly he levered himself upright, feeling the grind of hard metal and straw under his palms. He looked straight into the eyes of a girl. She couldn’t have been any older than he was, and she had long matted dark hair, blue eyes and a massive bruise that covered half of her face. Her gaze, when it locked with his, was empty, though, as if the light had been snuffed out behind them.
Eriloyn would have smiled in normal circumstances, but here and now he merely nodded. Looking down, something caught his eye, a gleam of metal. Shackles. He and the girl were shackled together by the ankles. Tilting his head, the boy saw that they were not alone; other children, silent and huddled, ran in a line behind the girl. They were in the basement, and there was no longer any smell of bread in the air; there was only the odor of frightened children.
Eriloyn pushed his hair out of his eyes and tugged on the chain. It was pointless, he knew that, but he had to try.
“Don’t bother,” the girl whispered to him, her voice hoarse. “He’ll be here soon enough. You’re the last they needed.”
A little voice in Eriloyn’s head was screaming in horror, but somehow he stuffed it down with a hard swallow. He turned his head and saw that night had come on while he’d been wrapped in unconsciousness. The night was the worst. Something about the darkness gave the geists bravery.
While that thought possessed him, a very real man made an appearance. Unlike those men left in Waikein, he appeared well fed, well cared for, and with not an ounce of pity for the children. They began to sob, but quietly, as the man unhitched the chain from the wall and began to lead them away.
Eriloyn however would not go quietly—not with his father’s last words ringing in his head. Promise me . . . survive.
As the man wordlessly swung away to tug the captors upstairs, the boy dashed forward, throwing himself at the stocky man’s legs. He was young, small and poorly fed, so the adult swung at him, knocking him down as if he were nothing more than a fly. The tunnel seemed to spin, but Eriloyn felt the nameless girl’s hands on his shoulders, guiding and holding him up.
“It’ll be over soon,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.” Her damp hand clutched onto his. It seemed to be her mantra.
Eriloyn tried to clear his head, struggling to hold himself up. The town hall flashed past him in a series of blurry images. The chain between the children dragged them onward.