Chapter 40 Part Five: Rise Again Chapter 40: The Pyre
A soft hand lifted me, guiding my leaden body forward as another gently plaited my hair and washed my skin with a rough, perfumed cloth. A dream? A cruel fantasy of comfort? The burning rawness in my throat and the deep, tearing ache in my muscles said otherwise. My arse felt flayed, turned inside out, this was no dream. The pain was a brutal anchor to reality. My wrists, freshly abraded, were bound again, this time in front of me with a coarse rope.
A deep drumbeat pulsed through the stone floor, hollow and relentless, a vibration like the dying heart of some great beast. The silent, veiled attendants led me to the door, which swung open to reveal the same four guards, the ones whose faces were etched into my nightmares, the ones who had taken turns breaking me the night before. They held wire-tipped whips now, not their cocks, and their eyes were empty of everything but duty. They fell in around me, marching me in time to that terrible drum, down a winding corridor of cold stone, through a heavy oak doorway…
Then, blinding, searing sunlight.
The drums didn’t just sound; they roared, a physical force that vibrated in my teeth, mingling with the incoherent scream of a faceless crowd. My vision swam, white spots dancing from the sudden assault of light after the perpetual twilight of my cell. They dragged me forward over rough cobblestones. As my sight cleared, I saw them, hundreds of faces, twisted in grotesque glee, mouths open wide, spitting curses and rotten vegetables that splattered against my skin.
Ahead, a wooden stage rose above the seething mob. And beside it, the pyre, a mountain of dry, splintered branches and tinder, and at its centre, a single blackened stake.
Cold, unforgiving iron clamped around my neck, a heavy collar chaining me to the post. Before I could even gasp, a bucket of liquid was thrown over me. It stung my eyes and soaked through the thin robe; the sharp, acrid smell of lamp oil dripped from my carefully braided hair.
Then Charles’s voice boomed over the noise, amplified by a crackling speaker:
“Citizens of New Eden! You know well that Nate has betrayed us, conspired with our enemies and sealed his fate!”
The crowd howled its approval, a single, monstrous entity.
“Mark my words, he will be caught! He will face justice!”
The mob roared, hungry for it.
“As the sole candidate for mayor, I will continue to lead you, to build a safer, stronger future for all hardworking citizens!”
Cheers erupted, a wave of sound.
“And my first act?” A dramatic, hateful pause. “To carry out the sentence of Nate’s accomplice. Tillyanna No-Name has been judged by the Machine Church and she will burn as the witch she is!”
The screams of the crowd became a wall of sound, drowning out all thought, all hope. This was it. There was no last-minute reprieve, no miracle. I was going to die here, a spectacle for these madmen.
He raised his already booming voice to a thunderous, triumphant roar. “TILLYANNA NO-NAME! TIME TO MEET YOUR MAKER!”
The drums began a frenzied roll, swallowed by the screaming crowd. The four acolytes from the Church closed in on me, their expressions hidden by hoods, each gripping a torch, the flames dancing in the morning air. My time was up. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Then - BANG! - one stumbled and fell, a dark flower blooming on his chest. BANG-BANG! Two more hit the cobblestones. The last took two desperate steps toward me, arm cocked to throw his brand, before a massive, cloaked figure materialised, blocking his path and wrestling him down. BANG. The final acolyte collapsed.
There was only one rifle that precise, that fast and maybe only two people in town who could shoot like that. I was one. Georgy-Porgy was the other.
The large, hooded man was joined by another, even bigger. Before the stunned crowd could process the violence, they were on me, Nate and Rebel, faces grim beneath their hoods, their scents of gunpowder and sweat a beautiful, real thing. Rebel’s huge hands found my iron collar and, with a grunt, tore the hasp from my neck like paper.
Fireworks exploded somewhere, adding to the chaos. Fights erupted at the edges of the square as confusion took hold. Then I was being dragged away, half-carried, my feet stumbling, pulled into a nearby building and shoved through a heavy door into sudden, blessed quiet.
Nate was still struggling to bar the door when a familiar, lilting voice drifted from the shadows.
“Did you like the party the boys put on for ya? Barbecue’s all set up out there,” Seamus stepped into a sliver of light, grinning from ear to ear. He took a long, appreciative swig from a tarnished hip flask and passed it to me. “Sláinte, girl. You look like you need it more than I do.”
I took a large, burning gulp; the whiskey jolted my system, shocking me back into my senses. “Sláinte,” I croaked, my raw throat protesting. As Nate and Seamus exchanged terse, familiar greetings, I took in the room, a spacious, well-kept set of living quarters that smelled of beeswax and old paper, dominated by a solid oak bookshelf covering the entire back wall.
Seamus noticed me looking. “Nice gaff, ain’t it? ’Twas me mam’s. We use it for business these days.” He tugged at my arm like an excited child. “Come, take a gander. You have to see this.”
He reached out and pulled a specific leather-bound volume. With a soft, deep click, the entire shelf swung inward, revealing a dark, yawning passageway that smelled of damp earth. “Grand, ain’t it? We use it for moving things the Church wouldn’t approve of. But you and your lad here better get a shift on, Mary and John say hi. They were proper worried when ya didn’t show. Real worried.”
Everything was happening too fast. The pyre, the rescue, this hidden room, my mind couldn’t stitch it together. “How long?” I whispered, horror dawning. “How long have they held me?”
Seamus’s grin faded to a look of profound pity. He didn’t answer; instead, he shoved me and Nate firmly toward the passage. “It’s been three nights since anyone last saw ya, but now’s not the time for stories. You need to move on with all of God’s speed.”
I glanced back at Seamus, the closest thing I had to a friend in this damned town. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
He stepped forward, pressed a quick, whiskery kiss to my grimy cheek, and shoved a wrapped bundle of food into my hands. “Away with you, girl. You’re movin’ up in the world, no place for an old Seamus there. Mind your P’s and Q’s now.”
The bookshelf door swung shut with a final, echoing thud, the lock engaging with a definitive click. It left me alone in the dim, cold silence of the passageway with Nate, the scent of earth and whiskey the only things left of my rescue.