Morningside Fall(93)

Gamble didn’t respond, and the group fell silent. Even Wren. He’d cried himself out, and was now just lying with his head on Cass’s shoulder.

Down below, Swoop and the brothers cautiously approached the low wall that marked the boundary of the compound, and then slowly worked their way through one of the gates.

“Might as well get comfortable,” Gamble said. “It’ll be a while.”

The team didn’t budge. Cass figured Gamble’s comment was meant for her, so she carried Wren over to a nearby building and sat him in her lap while she leaned back against a wall. No one spoke much. Cass could tell the team was checking in at regular intervals from Gamble’s occasional one-sided responses, but otherwise they all just waited.

It was over an hour before they got word that it was clear for them to join the others. Sky reappeared a few minutes after they got the signal, and then they gathered up the packs that had been left behind and moved to the compound.

From a distance, Cass hadn’t really gotten a sense of how extensive the damage was. Walking through the compound made everything all too real. There was no doubt that people had been living here not all that long ago. Belongings were broken and scattered all across the grounds. It was almost as if some great wind had scoured the little village for every last person and blown them from their homes.

The walk was both heartbreaking and mind-boggling. Everywhere Cass looked, she saw lingering signs of a carefully cultivated existence. An outpost of human life, here on the border of the Strand. And at the same time, she couldn’t fathom how in the world people had ever managed to survive in such a place.

There were no strong defenses, no high walls, no bristling gun towers. If Wren hadn’t told her so many stories of the people he’d met, she would never have imagined anyone could’ve lasted here for more than a few days.

They met Swoop and Wick in front of one of the larger structures in the compound, at the bottom of a set of stairs. Wren sat down on the steps and just stared vacantly at what was left of the place. Fire had consumed portions of the surrounding buildings, and there were clear signs of battle. Dark splotches spotted the ground, especially around the area where they now stood.

“What do you think?” Gamble asked.

“Weir, definitely,” Swoop said. “Too much stuff left behind for it to have been scrapers.”

Cass sat down next to Wren and rubbed his back.

“A lot of ’em, too,” Wick added. “Judging from all the tracks. I’d say sixty at least. Maybe more.”

“Sounds like an awful lot just to be prowling around,” Sky said.

“Yeah, that’s another thing. Looks to me like they all came in the same way, from the north-east.”

“Not from the Strand?” Cass asked.

Wick shook his head. “My guess is the people put up a fight near the wall, and got pushed back. Tried to make a stand here.”

“I don’t understand what people would be doing out here in the first place,” Sky said. “They couldn’t have thought those walls would do anything.”

“We aren’t animals that we should live in a pen,” Wren said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him.

“What, sweetheart?” Cass asked.

“It’s what Chapel used to say. The people were their own protection.”

Sky started to make a comment, but a sharp look from Gamble shut him up. “Damage looks pretty recent,” she said.

“Yeah, three days, maybe,” Wick said. “I’d guess five at the most.”

“There was an attack when I was here before,” Wren said. “A big one. Some people died. But they won. I just… I can’t believe they’re all gone.”

“Well, I don’t know about all,” Wick said. “I think there were survivors.”

“Got a guess on numbers?” Gamble asked.

Wick shook his head. “Not many. But I don’t know how many there were to begin with. Do you remember, Wren?”

Wren shook his head slowly. “Not exactly. Two hundred? Maybe? I don’t know really, I never thought to count. There were a bunch of kids…” He trailed off and put his face in his hands. Cass pulled him closer and laid her cheek on top of his head. She wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

“Think you could track ’em?” Swoop asked Wick.

He shrugged. “Probably. Not sure how much help it’d be.”

“We’re gonna need a plan here pretty soon,” Mouse said. The overcast sky made it tough to judge exactly how late in the day it was, but it was pretty clear they didn’t have much time to travel.

“Wick, what you got?” said Gamble.