A door slams. Then gunshots from behind tell me that the ten seconds are up.
Panic lances through my chest. I could tell him that the Oasis has all the camels he could ever need along with rivers of water and feasts beyond imagination, but I can’t bring myself to lie.
“If you’re not coming, you’d better run.” I turn toward the van’s open door.
“What?” he shouts.
I scramble up to the passenger seat and wrap my fingers around the handle. “Don’t come to the gates because they won’t open. You’ll be surrounded by wild men, and they’ll drag you—.”
My breath catches from a surge of emotion. “They’ll drag you off the camel and eat you. If you can lose them, come back to the gates later, but you can’t come in with your herd.”
“They’re here,” Sabre snarls. “Close that wretched door!”
I yank on the handle, slam the door shut, and glance out of the windscreen to find the wild men less than a thousand feet away. A pair of tethered camels dash to the left, but a group of wild men break away and chase the animals.
Sabre turns the vehicle around, and I peer at the wild men through the rearview mirror. They’re naked, wear bones as ornaments, and seem to leap through the air. Long, flowing locks fly like strands of silk as they move. A shudder runs down my spine. How could a few centuries change the course of human development?
According to Prunella’s commentary, their nervous systems are different from ours. They can process pain, but while a regular human flinches from it, the wild men will endure lethal amounts of torture to catch their prey.
My gaze tracks the escaping camels. One of the wild men takes an inhumanly long leap, wraps his arm around the front camel, and wrestles it to the ground.
“Ha,” says Sabre. “That guy has changed his mind.”
“What?”
“The camel lover is running toward us.”
I lean across the dashboard and gaze into the monitor. Thomas didn’t follow my advice, and I can guess why. Berta once told me that wild men had more stamina than even the fastest animals. They can run for hours or sometimes days, not stopping until their prey collapses with exhaustion. He’s probably seen what happened to those camels and decided he won’t make it without our help.
A spasm of pity squeezes my heart. I know what it’s like to cherish what little I have, but I also know with no kernel of a doubt that Thomas won’t outrun the wild men.
“Uh-oh,” says Tizona.
“What?” I say.
“He thinks he can sneak in through the gates at the same time as us.”
“That won’t happen,” Katana mutters. “They’ll just leave us outside until the wild men will tire of the armored vehicle and leave.”
“Stop the van,” I say.
“Why?” Sabre taps the screen on the dashboard, giving us a close-up of Thomas and his camel. “So that idiot can stuff his animal into the back?”
Foam flies from its mouth, and Thomas beats the creature with the desperation of a man about to die. The camel looks on the verge of collapse and sprints behind us with erratic, jerky movements.
My throat thickens. “We can’t leave him out there.”
Sabre ignores me and continues driving.
Angry heat floods my body, and blood roars through my veins. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve seen die or almost die. It’s not too late to save Thomas, and I couldn’t live with myself if he got torn apart by wild men.
“Colonel Victorine put me in charge,” I bark. “Stop the van, now.”
Sabre slams her foot on the brake. The movement of the van lurches me forward, and my head hits the dashboard. Pain radiates through my skull, making me cry out. Katana’s angry shouts drown out the moans echoing from the back.
“Why?” I raise my head, swing my fist at Sabre’s smirking face, but she blocks.
“Just following orders,” she says. “Ma’am.”
Someone outside screams, and I tear my attention away from the Amstraadi girl. Thomas jumps down from his camel and lands on his hands and knees. The wild men are less than five-hundred feet behind. The cloth over his face slips as he scrambles to his feet and races toward us.
I push the van door open and rear back at the rush of desert heat. “Hurry.”
“Why don’t you jump down and carry him?” Sabre starts the van and creeps toward the Great Wall.
Ignoring her, I wrap one hand around a wall grip, brace my legs on the vehicle’s interior, and lean my body out of the cab. With one arm stretched toward Thomas, I scream at him to keep running.
Thomas’ eyes bulge, and his open mouth twists with terror. He’s a lot younger than I imagined and doesn’t have a beard like the others. A few of the wild men tackle his camels to the ground, but most of them continue running toward him.
“He won’t make it,” Tizona shouts. “Get back inside.”
“Shoot over their heads,” I scream.
Gunfire rings through my ears. Some of the hoard scatter, but those at the front continue their relentless pursuit. Thomas’ nostrils flare with a newfound determination, and he runs faster. Our fingers brush.
“More!” I shout.
My gaze fixes on the man’s hand, but on the edge of my vision, I see a wild man drop to the ground. His comrades trip over his fallen body, and the others run around the writhing mass.
I stretch toward Thomas so far that my muscles ache.
He grabs my hand. His weight yanks my arm out of its socket, and a scream tears from my lips.
Sabre slows the truck, bullets sound from a distance, and the wild men fall. Thomas grabs the passenger door with his free hand and hurls us both inside. I fall onto Sabre, who shoves me back into the passenger seat.
“Close the damn door,” she snarls.
The triumphant cry of
