D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

We were near the river. The area between us and the wall was a wide stretch of concrete. It reminded me of an empty parking lot at a stadium. That’s how big it was. Weeds grew up through the spider web of cracks that spread out everywhere.

“Earthquake?” Patrick asked through chattering teeth.

As if in answer, we heard a grinding, machine sound. To our left the cement surface began to shift. One of the cracks wasn’t a crack. It was a seam. It split apart, creating a gap that stretched from the bank of the river in front of the destroyed bridge, all the way to the wall. The two sides lowered and retracted beneath the ground to either side, creating a gap that was maybe five yards wide. At the bottom of this gap, running the length of the newly formed channel, was a single metal track.

“Get down!” I yelled, and pulled Patrick toward the river’s edge. Not knowing what we were dealing with, I figured it would be better if we weren’t seen. We jumped down beneath a cement ledge and peered back at the wall to see what the Ravinians might be up to. We were looking the wrong way. The sound of rushing water pulled our attention back to the river. It looked to me like a whirlpool was forming, creating the sucking sound. A moment later something rose up out of the water in front of the bridge.

“Did King Kong swim?” Patrick asked, transfixed.

A wide tube pushed up from out of the center of the whirlpool. Its steady movement showed that it wasn’t alive. It was mechanical. I heard a faint whirring sound beneath the sounds of swirling water. The tube rose up from beneath the surface at a steep angle, until it reached the edge of the long trough that held the rail.

Another mechanical sound followed. Gears were turning. It was coming from the direction of the wall. One of the huge red rectangles began lifting up like a garage door. The rail led right up to it.

“This is our chance,” I announced. “We gotta get in there.”

“What?” Patrick shouted in horror. “What if it’s a prison? What if it’s one of the Horizon Compounds?”

“We have to know,” I answered while looking between the tube that had come up from the water and the rising door.

“But we can’t just run over there and walk through!” Patrick whined. “There’s no protection. Nowhere to hide. How are we supposed to get there without being seen?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Hey!” he announced. “We have the power. Why don’t we turn into birds and fly in?”

I gave him a sharp look. “For one, I don’t know how that works, and I don’t want to try. And two, we’re not supposed to be using that power, remember?”

“Then come up with a better idea!”

A shrill whistle sounded. It was coming from the water tube. I felt another slight rumble. The whistle sounded again. It was coming closer.

“It’s a train,” I declared. “That track must run along the same route as the old ones. The bridge is history, so they went underwater.”

A moment later a sleek, golden train glided up out of the tube. It looked to me like a cross between a fancy, old-fashioned steam engine and a monorail from Disneyland. It had to be electric, because it moved silently on the single track. The nose came to a point, with a cockpit just above. The body of the train was covered with fancy golden sculptures that looked like vines. They didn’t seem to have any other purpose than to be decorative. The engine was short, and pulled two more longer cars, where I guessed the passengers rode. This was not a freight train. It was a mode of transportation for people who traveled in style. It moved slowly and smoothly. I glanced ahead. The massive red door was open. The train was almost all the way out of the tube. I felt sure that once it was out, it would pick up speed.

“Now or never,” I declared.

“Now or never what?” Patrick replied with surprise.

I scrambled to my feet and climbed up over the lip of the cement embankment. Patrick didn’t.

“Pendragon!” he wailed. “You’ll get us killed.”

I turned back to him but kept moving. “So what?” I said. “We’ll just end up in Solara and come right back here. That’s what you did, right?”

“Yes, but… it hurt!”

“So then, let’s not get killed.”

I ran for the train. A quick look back told me Patrick was doing the same. The train was picking up speed. If we were going to jump on, it would have to be right away. The only place that seemed logical to do it was the space between the two passenger cars. I sprinted to the spot where I guessed it would be when I reached the train, and miscalculated by a few feet. The train was accelerating faster than I thought. Instead of grabbing on to the platform between the two cars, I grabbed on to a chunk of the decorative sculpture that was affixed to the side of the train. I trusted it was strong enough to hold me. I jumped, using my arms to climb the sculpture like a jungle gym. I found myself dangling off the side of the train car as it gathered speed. My idea suddenly didn’t seem so bright. I looked back to see Patrick sprinting to catch up. I didn’t think there was any way he would climb up the way I did, so I made my way forward, scrambling carefully along the sculpture until I reached the front of the car. From there I swung my legs over the safety rail, onto the small platform in between. I was on!

“Let’s go!” I yelled to Patrick.

The train was speeding up. Patrick wasn’t.

“Can we please just turn into birds?” he gasped.

“No! Pick it up!” I yelled.

Patrick dug in and sprinted forward. He reached out to me. I grabbed his hand and strained to hoist him up and onto the platform. We were on. That was the easy part. We still had to get past the wall, and the guards. We both crouched down, so as not to be seen from inside either car.

“I hope this wasn’t a mistake,” he wheezed.

Mistake or not, we were on our way. The monorail train continued on toward the mysterious wall.

“What do we do if we get in?” Patrick whispered.

“Let’s worry about that once we’re in,” I answered.

Truth was, I had no idea what we would do. Or what we would find. Though I felt certain we were in the right place. Whatever this monster wall was, whether it was keeping somebody in or out, it had to have something to do with Saint Dane. That much I was sure about.

A moment later we arrived at the massive wall. I held my breath, as if that would do any good. We both pushed ourselves flat against the platform to try and look as inconspicuous as possible. Neither of us moved. Patrick looked one way, I looked the other. When we reached the entrance, I saw two Ravinians standing next to the track, looking the other way. I winced, expecting an alarm to go off. Or a guard to shout that there were stowaways sneaking in.

There were no alarms. We weren’t seen. Seconds later we glided through the door and into another world.

The first thing I noticed was the smell.

It was good. Sweet even. Until I caught a whiff of the air beyond that wall, I hadn’t realized how truly dead the city we had just left had become. On this side of the wall, the world smelled alive. It gave me hope that we hadn’t entered a prison. Or one of the Horizon Compounds. The smell alone told me that this was a better place than the one we had left. The golden train glided slowly over the single rail, bringing us deeper into this new and mysterious place.

“We gotta get off,” I whispered to Patrick. “This thing is probably headed toward somewhere with people. Until we know whose side they’re on, we better be invisible.”

Patrick nodded and looked over the safety rail of the moving platform. He swallowed hard. He wasn’t thrilled about having to jump off a moving train.