As warnings went, this one was masterful. Not only did it instill terror and revulsion, it also told us there were more Freaks hidden nearby. Watching. Waiting. And we had no idea of their numbers. Longshot thought we got most of them, but some had clearly hung back, then crept out after we left and eaten our dead. Horror crawled up my spine like a many-legged insect, insidious and inexorable.
“They’re trying to starve us out,” I said softly to Fade.
He nodded. “That’s not simple instinct. That’s—”
“Strategy,” Stalker finished. It was the first time he’d spoken to me since he came in my window, but apparently he judged this situation worth setting aside his personal grievances.
“I don’t like this,” I muttered.
“It’s a caution,” Stalker went on. “The gangs post similar messages, just not with heads.” He didn’t elaborate on the difference, and I was glad.
Genuine fright flared. Though there was plenty of food now, one bad growing season could destroy Salvation’s prosperity. Momma Oaks had a small kitchen garden for us to augment the crops planted for the whole town—and of which each family received a share—but it wouldn’t be enough to last the winter. Other families didn’t have the space or inclination to plant anything at all.
“What do we do?” a grower asked Longshot. “Do we clean up and sow a second time?”
It was an excellent question. But now that the Freaks had worked out the importance of this site, they could easily return. More substantial measures were required, and by his expression, Longshot knew it. He conferred quietly with other patrol leaders—all seasoned men who spent their winters guarding the wall. Finally, after some argument, and with the rest of us watching the horizon and sniffing the air, they came to an accord.
“We’ll put the problem to the council,” Longshot said. “Something’s shifted in the way the Muties act. No point in hangin’ around here waitin’ to be ambushed. Let’s get back and call an emergency meeting.”
As we returned to town, people discussed the problem in low tones.
“We could build a wall,” one of the growers suggested.
Another laughed with quiet scorn. “It’s all we can do to get out for planting and tending, idiot. How would the patrols protect builders and planters? And you know how much trouble it would be to fell and haul that much timber?”
I followed the man’s gaze out to the dark forest that bordered Salvation. Plenty of wood, sure, but it was also the staging ground for the last Freak incursion.
A second guard shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go in there, even to protect men sawing down trees for the good of the town.”
His misgivings made sense. There had to be another way.
“We could put a permanent guard on the fields,” someone else offered.
That sounded more doable to me, but it would be dangerous. There was no shelter, just the endless threat of a sudden, gruesome death. The isolation and uncertainty could crack a lesser soul.
It went without saying that I’d volunteer. I was distracted, trying to work out how I’d present this to Momma Oaks when the world exploded with tooth and claw.
The Freaks hit us at the gate this time; it was quite a process to get the wheels and pulleys moving so our party could pass through. They came in low, around the sides of the walls, instead of a direct assault. These monsters had learned a measure of cunning; they had camouflaged themselves—even their hideous smell—with natural earth and greenery, so when they came at us from the sides, they were already closer than anyone could have imagined. They must have hunkered down during shift change and waited for us to return.
Another two minutes’ better timing, and they’d have breached the walls, I thought, fear spiking in my head.
My knives slid into my hands by instinct alone. Those of us who excelled at hand-to-hand, including Fade and Stalker, planted ourselves before the gates while the other guards fired. It was pure madness with the report of rifles, howling, growling Freaks, snarling their intentions through blood-frothed mouths.
“Lock it down!” Longshot shouted.
And the gates groaned as guards towed on the ropes, slowly hauling the heavy wood back toward them. In their haste, one of them pulled too hard, unbalancing the mechanism and a metal piece sheared with a horrid twang. Behind me, the gate stood open by two feet, and over my head, men cursed as they ran for replacement parts.
The planters ran, screaming, toward that small gap. They thought walls still represented safety, but there was none outside of your own strength. I’d believed it down below, and I still did as I received the first rush, Freaks maddened by the possibility of success—and a feast greater than they’d ever known.
This is sheer cunning, and they have such numbers.
I became a creature of reflex and training, born to slash with my daggers. I fought three at once, wheeling away from claws and fangs. I knew firsthand how they could rend fragile human flesh—and how prone such wounds were to infection. My left blade opened one’s throat, and I wheeled to take another, my spin low so that I sank my right knife into the Freak’s belly. It keened, both clawed hands going to cover the wound, and its fellows paused to watch the death for seconds that cost them in other ways. But it was a gesture of respect that said the Freak I’d killed mattered to them. These weren’t like the ones we’d fought in the tunnel, at the ruin of the iron carriage, who cared for nothing but the meat.
Fear boiled in my veins. I fought it even as I lashed at the Freaks. If I let this feeling grow, it would overwhelm me. I’d break and run, and if I did, others would. The battle would be lost. The Freaks attacked; therefore, they would die, or I would. It could end no other way.
My hands steadied.
None shall pass, I told myself. It was a vow in the silence of my own head. I shut out the external distractions, inner dread, and focused on my enemies. They were stronger than those I’d fought in the ruins, better nourished. They ate well in the wilderness, plenty of big, meaty game, which made me think they had another reason for attacking us. Certainly, we were a food source, but their hate-filled cries told me they viewed us as real enemies. It was a horrifying thought.
To them, we are the evil ones. We are the threat that must be exterminated.
The idea shook me so much that a Freak pushed me back, unbalancing my stance. Its claw raked a runnel in my stomach. I lost sight of the terrain around me and stumbled over the corpse of its fallen brethren. I landed hard, and my right dagger bounced out of my hand.