“What’re you doin’?” demanded Samson, but Coll ignored him and twisted again and again. “Stop that! Stop—”
Coll’s arm spasmed.
A bright white-blue arc flared out, and Coll cried out in pain, and so did Samson, as the electrical feedback flowed through his hands.
“Aargh!” For a moment, the man’s grip seemed even tighter, and then he recoiled and let go, and Coll tumbled away and down to the ground. He collided with the packed earth and groaned as his left leg took the force of the fall and his knee buckled.
He stared up. Samson was glaring at him in fury. More heads appeared, and now someone was clambering over. Coll couldn’t move, could hardly breathe.
“Get him!” shouted someone.
Coll tried to tell his body to respond, but it lay exhausted and battered, refusing.
“Get him!”
And then—
“Coll!”
Coll blinked. Who was that?
“Move, you idiot!”
“Rieka?”
Coll groaned, rolled over and stared. It was Cub! The Construct was running towards them – running! – and on board Rieka and Brann and Fillan were shouting.
“Coll, come on!”
Coll crawled down the hill. He heard a thump as someone landed behind him, and he pushed himself to his feet, took a tottering step towards Cub, yelped in pain and almost fell, but kept going. A cable flicked down.
“Take the cable!” shouted Rieka.
Coll took one more step and threw himself forward. His left arm was still dead, but he caught the cable with his right hand and held on tight. Something scrabbled at his ankle but couldn’t grab hold, and now Cub was moving, dragging him through the thin scrubland and away. The cable pulled him up and arms reached under his shoulders, heaving him on board.
“Coll!” Fillan’s face loomed up in front of him.
Coll was too winded to speak, but he held up a thumb and Fillan grinned. Something flickered past, like a bird, and hammered into the deck beside him. It was a crossbow bolt. And then another and another.
“Heads down!” he heard Rieka shout. “Get out of here!”
Coll pulled Fillan down and stared back at Scatter. The front gates were open and townsfolk were spilling out – some on foot, some on bikes. One or two even had electric bikes, with a rider at the front and a bowman behind. They chased after Cub, and Coll could hear them screaming in fury.
“Where?” shouted Brann.
Arrows flashed past. Coll and Rieka looked at each other.
“South!” shouted Coll. “Into the Glass Lands!”
Rieka stared at him as if he was mad, but he felt Cub responding to their Call, turning and running. The Construct ran with a weird broken step, like a wooden toy. There was more screaming from Scatter’s soldiers, as they realised where Cub was going.
Up ahead, Coll could see the dirty yellow river that marked the end of Wolf’s territory, and the start of the Glass Lands, two or three kilometres away. The grass petered out as they approached and became straggly and sparse, with patches of pale brown between. Now he could see the water, murky and covered in scum. The riders on their electric bikes were catching up and bolts thudded into Cub’s sides, but they were nearly there.
“Ready?” Coll shouted.
“No!” yelled Brann.
“Then be ready!” he roared.
Five steps away from the edge. Four, three, two, one—
“JUMP!”
Cub leapt, driving with his back legs and stretching forward, and for a moment they hung in the air before crashing down. Cub landed on the edge of the riverbank and the Construct scrabbled desperately, slipped, then found a grip and heaved them across with a shriek of hydraulics.
Coll risked a look behind. The Scatter townsfolk had stopped on the other side, glaring at them. He thought he could make out the mayor in his top hat. No one wanted to risk touching the poisonous water, and no one was brave enough to try to jump it. An arrow fluttered towards Coll but fell short.
Coll collapsed with a sigh. “We’re safe,” he said. “They won’t try to follow us here.”
“Yeah,” muttered Rieka. She stared at the desolate, dead world ahead of them. “Because who’d be crazy enough to enter the Glass Lands?”
The ground was dark, sandy brushland, streaked with black and only a few yellowing thorn bushes for vegetation. There was no water anywhere, and the air was sharp in the back of Coll’s throat. Parts of the ground glimmered like glass. Metal spars stuck out like strange trees, scorched and rusted into tattered ribbons. Coll had never been here but he’d heard the stories.
These were the Glass Lands, where nothing lived.
“How’s your arm?” asked Rieka.
