still now they were looking to him for strength.
Some things never changed.
“We’ll make it!”
“Good. We’ll cover you.”
Alex leaned back and swept his gaze over the others. Determined, twinkling pairs of eyes bobbed in the gloom, all trained upon him, all ready to give their lives for the mission; the mission to preserve the world’s knowledge, art, and science for future generations, and prevent the backward slide to barbarism that had already consumed so much of the world.
They would follow him to the end. That was the story of his life. How many had followed him to their own ends while he had lived on? How many lives had been saved by his hand, against all those cut short by the storm that had raged around him all these years?
“Are you ready?” he breathed.
They all nodded without hesitation, and as always, his heart skipped a beat at the recollection of all that had nodded just as solemnly before all the skirmishes that their mission had brought down on their heads. If only they knew of the carpet of blood upon which he walked, or how many of their predecessors’ bodies he had walked over to get to where he was now.
“The horses?” Marek said.
Alex looked over to his white mare, milling in the recesses of the lot where they had reined up, watching him patiently in spite of the echoing racket. She had served him well for many years, her white coat as much a symbol of their mission as himself. She watched him even now.
“Leave them,” Alexander said.
Tension stole amongst their ranks, for their mounts were among the few horses that hadn’t succumbed to hungry mouths during the long famine. In the vastness of the empty British Isles, where human settlement was as common as in the Arctic Circle before the End, these animals had sometimes been the only friends they had. There would be no replacing them. But still the others stayed at his side, ready.
“Once we break cover, nobody stops until we’re inside.” Alexander hesitated, then added, “Leave the fallen, even if I’m one of them.”
The compound gate’s klaxon buzzed, and in the corner of his eye, Alexander saw the gate swing inwards. The parking lot was filled with the rumbling echo of their breath sounds, sharp and shallow. Their window was moments away.
Then from somewhere out in the street came Oppenheimer’s voice: “Alexander!”
“Geoffrey! Where are you?”
“The subway station. We thought we could get under the wall this way. I led them all in here …” A lonely sob rang out across England’s former capital.
Alexander cursed. They had sealed the old tunnels with concrete just before the siege had begun. There was no way out of the station but the glass-roofed bank of escalators that served as the entrance. “How many are you?”
His old friend’s harried voice was broken, panicked. “Ah … seven. We have wounded.”
Alex suppressed the urge to swallow. The others were listening close. Sweat tickled the small of his back as it ran in a stream down from his neck. There had been over thirty people in Oppenheimer’s convoy. That had been the way of all the ambushes thus far. Only the ambassadors themselves and a few lucky stragglers had been left unharmed—the rest, slaughtered.
The gate clunked open. The guards began calling out from the upper catwalks, balking in protest. But Alexander hesitated. He looked to the others, saw them looking to him now with an air of desperation, and screamed internally. He turned back to the street.
The enemy skyscraper was still derelict, but there were at least two hundred metres between the station and the gate. It would be only too easy to pick Oppenheimer’s group off once they emerged. Yet the only chance for any of them was now. “Geoffrey, the gate’s open. On five, we’re all going to run. Don’t stop, not for anything.”
“We’ll be killed!”
“They’ll cover us from the wall.” Alexander ignored the slick of self-hatred that slithered in his gut, and readied himself. There would be time to make amends later. If any of Oppenheimer’s group made it.
“One … two …”
Over a dozen sharp inhalations filled the parking lot, and rifles were slung over shoulders.
“Three … four …”
Alexander took one last glance at the enemy position, a black abyss twenty storeys above the ground. Any number of things could be trained upon them right now. But what choice did they have?
“Five!”
The world smeared into a medley of colours. Alexander launched himself out into the light, and the air was filled