Eugene Lambert - The Sign of One

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Electric Monkey,

an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2016 Eugene Lambert

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978 1 4052 7735 8

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1695 6

www.egmont.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

To Martin

who shares my DNA

and my dreams

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Text copyright © 2016 Eugene Lambert The moral rights of the author have been asserted First e-book edition 2016 ISBN 978 1 4052 7735 8 Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1695 6 www.egmont.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

Dedication To Martin who shares my DNA and my dreams

PART ONE PEACE FAIR

1 GIRL WITH DARK GREEN EYES

2 HIGH SLAYER

3 UNWRAPPING

4 THE ROAD BACK

5 AWAKENING

6 NEVER SAY THAT WORD

7 A BAD DECISION

8 I SAY SOME TERRIBLE THINGS

PART TWO ON THE RUN

9 WAITING

10 CAPTURED

11 IN THE SLAYER WARPLANE

12 HATCH CLOSED AND LOCKED

13 CUTTING LOOSE

14 CRASH

15 HEALING AND DEALING

16 MAKING TRACKS

17 CROSSING OVER

18 GOING HOBO

19 OLD FRIENDS

20 LEAP OF FAITH

21 DEBT PAID, TRADE MADE

22 HAGGLETOWN

23 PICKING UP THE PIECES

24 SANCTUARY

25 MAN BEHIND THE GRILLE

26 ANSWERMAN

27 TRUTH

28 CONSEQUENCES

29 DECISIONS

30 CHANGE OF PLAN

PART THREE ENDGAME

31 TRADE

32 IN THE PALACE

33 THE FACILITY

34 A TWIST OF FATE

35 ONE LAST EFFORT

36 A GAME CALLED SCREAM

37 PAYBACK

38 A FINAL RECKONING

39 WIND STILL BLOWS

Acknowledgements

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The Cutting was yesterday. We missed it. Soon as we hit the trail out of our valley, I knew we would. I’ve seen dirtworms slither faster than some of our lot walk. Three boggin’ days it’s taken us to get to Deep Six. On my own I could hike it in one, but that was never going to happen. Out here in the Barrenlands, you go mob-handed and in dayshine or you don’t go at all. Our wildlife’s too nasty and there’s always the chance of running into Reapers. It’s a curse, missing the Cutting, but at least we’ve made it to the Peace Fair in time for tomorrow’s Unwrapping.

‘C’mon, Kyle,’ Nash says to me. ‘You done yet?’

Our men have cleared off to do some catch-up drinking, the women and the girls to check out the merchants’ stalls. Nash and me, we’ve been left behind with the wagons, stuck with setting up camp and finding fodder for our fourhorns. Now we’re supposed to sit tight and look after everything. Don’t think so.

I hammer the last guy rope in. ‘All done.’

We head towards the roars of delight from the nearby fairground. I feel sick with excitement and sweat pours off me. See, this is my first Fair.

‘I’m going to tell them,’ says Nash.

He’s only a year older than me, but he’s been to loads of Fairs already. We both know I could be flogged for not attending sooner. Once you’re ten, the Saviour’s law says you must go, at least once every three years.

‘Give us a break, Nash.’

He sniggers. He’s such a gommer.

It’s Rona’s fault. She won’t say why, but she never attends the Fair. She gets away with it because she’s the only healer in Freshwater. Which is fine, I guess, and none of my business. Except every year she comes up with some excuse why I can’t go neither. Last year, I kicked up. Told her I was going, no matter what. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back with swamp pox, the only dose in the three valleys. Rona denies it, course she does, but I swear she gave it to me deliberate. And you can die easy from the swamp pox. It’s a miracle I wasn’t scarred for life.

Well, she might be my mother, but I’m sixteen now.

At the gate, we hand over credits and flash our ID tags. I worry the gate man will figure out mine is fake, but this is the Barrenlands – he couldn’t care less.

Nash keeps his poisonous little mouth shut, for once.

We hurry through a dark tunnel to emerge blinking back into evenshine, halfway up some stone-built terraces, which curve round to form an immense arena. The size of the crowd rips the breath out of my lungs – I’d no idea there were this many people on Wrath, let alone in the Barrenlands. Stalls and show tents stand out like brightly painted islands in a boiling sea of bodies. It’s fierce loud. A madhouse of hoots and rough laughter and merchants yelling their wares.

‘Are those the idents in the cages?’ I ask.

‘What do you think?’ says Nash.

At the far side of the fairground is a stage, loads of cages stacked like crates around the back of it. Even from here I can see each cage has two child prisoners inside. So it’s true. We get to gawp at them between Cutting and Unwrapping. They can’t mess with their wounds without someone seeing.

Nash dives into the crowd. I follow him to a food stall.

Surprise, I end up paying for both of us. A credit buys a beer each and steaming bogbuck steaks wrapped in purple leaf. While I wolf the meat, I stare at the faces around me. Most are thick-fingered grubbers like us, but I see plenty of hunter and scavenger folk too. The locals are easy to spot, their pale miner faces scrunched up against the sun. Nearly as many women wander around as men, many with straw still plaited into their hair, to celebrate the recent harvest.

‘You don’t eat the leaf, you donk,’ says Nash.

‘Oh,’ I say. It was chewy.

I watch him as he takes a long pull from his beaker. His eyes water, but he doesn’t drop dead or anything, so I sip mine. It’s fierce strong beer and tastes foul, but he’s watching me back. I smack my lips and pretend to like it.

‘Rona’d kill me if she saw me drinking this.’

‘Rona ain’t here.’

After I finish it, I feel floaty. Can’t stop smiling, even at strangers. It’s like the hoots and yells and laughter get louder too. The crowd’s excitement is more catching than swamp pox. My heart starts pounding.

Why was Rona so worried about me coming here?

We bump into some girls from our valley then – Vijay, Mary and her little sister, Cassie. They tag along, which is no hardship. After a while, we end up near the stage and its wall of cages. Nash and the girls push on to watch jugglers, but I see two pale faces peering from the nearest cage and hang back.