The Ishim Underground

by Carrie Bailey

CHAPTER TEN

  Waimate.

  A sickening spectacle.

  In the middle of the chaos, nomads chased nomads. They raided tents and scavenged others who had fallen.

  Eron watched a man jump on woman’s bindle. He tore it open from the side and pawed its contents to the ground. Then, the wretched man who was little more than bones with a beard attached to its wrinkled skull, wrestled with the woman for possession of the few bits and scraps she had owned before running after another victim.

  There were so many bodies heaped on the ground. Eron could not distinguish between the ones that were tied and the trampled dead, but he held his tunic to cover his mouth as he ran as if it could spare him from their fate. The smoke, more than the guards, threatened them all.

  Eron made his way, hacking and wheezing, to the Northern gate where the bulk of the frightened people huddled together pressed against the wooden gate. Nomads were surrounded by rings of Red Guardsmen with blood on their pikes and intolerance in their eyes.

  And when a guardsman speared a man through his upper thigh with his pike, Eron gasped at the surreal horror of the man’s howl. In the guard’s other arm, the dark brown hair of a woman held tightly. Her mouth stretched open in terror as the next blow went through her lover’s abdomen. The guard dropped his rope and the dark haired woman clawed at the top of her head pulling away from him as the guard swung her around.

  “Slaver!” she screamed. And she wailed. But, it wasn’t the sound of pain. It was despair. A darker and more hollow sound than Eron could bear.

  The Red Guards were everywhere. The Auckian guards had to be resettling the nomads, Eron told himself with limited conviction. Waimate is too big, too permanent. There were too many people in one place that did not recognize the Municipal Code. They were a threat. They had to be resettled. They were not taking slaves.

  But, in another game of hunter and prey, the nomads were again corralled between the burning tents, against the stockade that had built to protect themselves and into a trap. With hands bound behind their backs, the captured nomads kneeled in lines strung together by long ropes linked to leather collars secured tightly around their necks. They were tethered the way rigging holds a sail.

  Surrounded. There would be no escape.

  “We’re all slaves now,” a man whispered to Eron.

  If he was discovered among the nomads, Eron would be taken with them, but then, most likely transferred to the custody of bounty hunters. He scanned the crowd for hope, but those left standing free huddled together seemingly resigned to their fate as the guard took them one by one.

  They had grown calmer.

  A short haired highwayman, with leather pants and beaded armor, stood in front of a line of guards. The man made a sweeping gesture and twenty or thirty of the people charged. The rest remained. Only a few passed the guard and others were taken among the highwayman who was quickly impaled upon the tip of a guard’s pike. Although the nomads outnumbered the guard ten to one, only fully a coordinated charge might break their line, but they had no training. No organization. Many were holding their children.

  Eron was filled with shame. He and the other men should have joined the charge.

  “Elemnope,” came a picked screech from above.

  There was Amit clinging to the post of a toppled tent, looking over the stockade. Eron waved both arms and the boy dropped to the ground just as the guards closed inward taking more of the nomads with their ropes.

  He gestured Eron to follow him.

  No stopped them as they made their way to a storage shed that leaned against the stockade. Inside were empty flasks and a few bladders of wine. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling. There were tools piled on the dirt floor. Amit wasted no time pulling down the poles set precariously against the wall that was formed by the back of the stockade. A hole. A large one of rather recent and hasty construction from what Eron could tell.

  As soon as he knew what the wild boy had planned, Eron began to help move the poles until there was enough room to pass through into the dark inner structure.

  A nomadic teenage boy, with barely enough growth on his face to call a beard, had obviously seen them. He stepped into the shed and pushed Eron aside disappearing into the interior of the stockade. The shed door opened again. Another nomad. More were coming behind him. Eron and Amit plunged into the hole before they were knocked over again. Smoke, which they could feel, but not see, filled the space between the walls of the stockade. Only shreds of light illuminated it as it wafted warmly through the structure. A wooden lattice framework that held the platform between the two rows of logs secured deeply into the earth created a maze, but outer wall of the stockade was solid from what Eron could see. The slivers of light that shot diagonally through the air from the gaps between the logs did not reach floor, but had there been an exit, it would have been immediately obvious. Amit was already navigating the debris far ahead of Eron and he was loosing sight of the boy in the smoke as they followed the curve of the wall.

  “Halt!” bellowed a guard from behind.

  Eron did not halt, but the sound of the guard's voice sent chills through him.

  “Eron! Stop!”

  The faster nomads passed him as he slowed down and turned to see the one person he wanted to see the least. It was Aden. Eron stopped, because he knew he could not outrun him. Though the smoke obscured their view, he was facing his older brother.

  In all the years he'd been bullied, Aden had never really hurt him. Even helping to banish him to Dunedin, he had done no lasting harm. But as Captain Aden of the Red Guard approached him, Eron did not see his brother in the man's expression. He saw only a guard in Auckian guardsman’s leather. He saw Auck City itself. His home. His people. His family. His legs felt like coiled springs. He wanted to run.

  Aden commanded the loyalty and the fervent passion all Auckians felt for their home, he was its primary protector, and this was the first Eron could not answer that call to patriotism his brother's authority represented.

  “Why are you here!” Aden roared in a confused fury.

  More nomads filtered past as Aden stood shaking in anger like an alchemist’s kettle. Eron watched his sharp features contort in the dim light. His light brown hair shone wildly, caught in a beam of light, and as always, his broad shoulders spanned an intimidating width.

  But, Eron couldn’t answer him.

  There was nothing he could say that Aden would understand. Bo was an infinitely more reasonable captain and at that moment, Eron wished it was she who had caught him escaping.

  Aden had killed guardsman who abandoned their posts.

  Over his shoulder, though barely visible, Eron could make out the outline of nomads blocking the light from an opening in the outer wall, one after another as the left.

  “Why is my brother running with the gypsies?” yelled Aden.

  Eron remained still.

  Silence.

  Gypsy was not a term Aden normally used. In the city, he would have gone home and told his mother if he had heard someone say it. Thadine would not have approved and she would never have accepted it from her son.

  Eron was still paralyzed when Aden began to advance on him.

  “Raider!” Amit screamed. "Slaver! You stay away from him!"

  "Go on," said Eron to the boy who was hiding somewhere in the shadows, watching.

  “Aden, I needed supplies. Dunedin was robbed. I’m going back,” he lied.

  Cough, cough.

  The smoke was growing denser and every one remaining inside the stockade were starting to choke.

  “You were in Dunedin three days ago,” said Aden coldly. “Quarantined with the flu. Cough. You hardly recognized me and now you're here.”

  “Was my condition serious?” Eron asked.

  Silence.

  Brother stood facing brother.

  “I think you’ve done something unthinkable,” said Aden raising his pike.

  “Unthinkable? You
’re taking slaves, Aden,” Eron yelled, clenching his fists. He didn't know if it was true, but a force inside him, more powerful than himself, seemed to speak for him.

  Eron was not brave. He was not strong and he had no great fortune to manipulate the lives of others, but had his intuition and his intelligence. And there had been a few moments in his life, when he had absolutely nothing to lose, and logically, knowing the odds, he was able to speak his mind.

  He backed away from his brother almost imperceptibly.

  “We’re bringing them into the fold. They will get contracts. Even the old and the infirm will be given everything they need. I can’t promise the same for a deflector.”

  Cough.

  Eron was breathing faster, but still choking on the sheets of smoke that floated around them.

  “Into the fold? Whose propaganda is that?" said Eron. "Forced contracts are slavery."

  "It's crueler to leave them without protection from the state," said Aden, but his confidence was obviously waning.

  "You’re taking them from their homes," said Eron.

  Cough, cough.

  "They'll have new homes," said Aden. "Safe, settled homes."

  "Have you seen the dead? Have you seen them? How many did you kill?" said Eron with such blind rage that his words seemed to be speaking themselves.

  “You have to come with me,” said Aden.

  “If I come with you," said Eron. "I'm already dead.”

  “You deflected. Cough,” said Aden quietly.

  “I’m in Dunedin unless you tell someone otherwise,” said Eron taking a gamble. “So, either you kill me now or let me go."

  Aden lowered his pike and looked at the ground.

  "Does Thadine know what you're doing?" asked Eron playing the last card in his hand.

  “Mother,” said Aden lowering his eyes. “Has been contracted, too.”

  Eron starred at his brother in disbelief. Cough. Cough. Cough.

  “The archivist promised to provide her medicine while she'll tend their house.”

  “And the workshop?”

  “She lost it. Her hands. She didn't tell anyone," said Aden almost tearfully. Eron could hardly stand to look at him.

  "What about the workers?" said Eron.

  "Some of the laborers have volunteered for contracts,” said Aden. “But, when the doctor saw her hands. He decided she couldn't manage. They took the workshop. She’s- Cough. She’s happy.”

  There was a finality to the why Aden spoke that was at once as unconvincing as it was pleading and desperate. Eron was shocked. He couldn’t imagine the looms being operated without his mother and worse, he could not imagine his mother without her looms. Her hands had been troubling her for years. They had knobs on the joints, but she had always had enough help.

  “I don't understand," said Eron, coughing harder. "They can't take the workshop when she has help."

  "Things have changed," said Aden, sounding defeated. He barely resembled the brother Eron had left behind. "People are hungry."

  "Hunger,” said Eron, “will make anyone volunteer.”

  A gust, heavy with smoke blasted across them. Both Aden and Eron fell down choking dangerously hard. Eron fumbled over the debris toward the exit where the nomads had escaped. Amit was waiting. Listening. Aden pursued his younger brother on all fours and caught Eron by the foot. The smoke continued to billow around them. Eron trembled less with fear than with anger.

  "I can't allow you to leave," cried Aden.

  “You abandoned our mother to slavery!” Eron screamed.

  “Do you still think she's your mother?” sneered Aden pulling Eron toward him across the dirt. “Father was dead years before you came.”

  Cough.

  “She took you in!," said Aden bitterly. "You could barely talk. Your real mother abandoned you. My mother found you wandering in the streets alone.”

  "No," said Eron. His heart sank through the dirt and the worms and the rock, a million miles below the surface of the earth. It hurt, because it felt true. “I don’t remember,” said Eron. Cough.

  “I know you don't,” said Aden. He was crying, something Eron had never seen before. "You could already write. Just a scrawny little child. I hated you."

  Eron looked at Aden. He bore no resemblance to the man still holding his ankle. They gasped as another gust of smoke and warm air hit them. It had always been a joke that one of them was hatched from an egg. Humor buried their secret until the obvious could not be recognized anymore.

  "I'm sorry," said Eron finally.

  Choking hard, Aden loosened his grip.

  “The Western Route. Cough. It's guarded,” said he standing.

  With a single smooth motion, he took his guard issue knife from his belt and flitted it into the ground between Eron’s feet. Then, the Captain of the Red Guard disappeared down the dark corridor inside the stockade in the direction of the shed, running like a man who wanted to forget. And Eron watched until he could not hear his brother’s coughing anymore.

  There were flames on the wood.

  Hacking and wheezing, Eron exited the stockade. Carts were strewn everywhere, toppled and their contents scattered and picked over. Outside, the hysteria had not abated, but the guards were not taking slaves.

  Eron's eyes still stung and it took a few moments to adjust to the sun and the surreality of their surroundings.

  That such horrible things happened under a sky so brilliantly blue that it could shame the takahe’s feathers, Eron couldn't understand, but his eyes were not teared with sadness, just smoke. He was in shock. With every step Eron took away from the camp, his lungs burned harder and harder until he surrendered to the ground between the vardos and nomads escaping the gruesome scene behind them.

  KABAM! KABAM! PUWUUUUUUU!

  A blinding light, a circle of flame and smoke, burst through the air above them and the vibrations thundered inside his chest as as they passed. A black cloud shaped like a toad stool rose over the platform near the East entrance. It was the Auck Fire. Nothing other than alchemist’s lab could have turned the air so red and orange.

  Eron was numb. He heard the first blasts, but his mind retreated to a place of pain and shadows close to the waking world, but entirely part of it. Carried by his own instinct, the would-have-been scribe, willed himself to stand and wove himself through the stalled train of carts until he passed some wreckage where two nomads in brown rags and a dozen children were busy moving shattered panels of wood to clear the road.

  Amit was there looting the bread from inside a tipped red vardo. As he leaned over, piling flat bread into his tunic, Eron saw not only Gil's canister, but the pouch the hags had stolen, dangling from his thin neck.

  His coin. Somehow, the boy had recovered it.

  Amit took one only glance at Eron before he started to run. Up the grassy hillside Eron trailed the much faster wild boy until in the shade of some sparse trees where Amit tripped, spilled his bread and Eron overcame him still coughing.

  “You traitor,” cried Eron pulling at the cords around the boy's neck.

  He broke the pouch free as the snotty, spotted bonepot slipped his grasp and shot up a tree like a young panthera. Eron could not hope to follow him, but at least he had his bread and the coin pouch.

  But, it was empty.

  In the branches, Amit pulled the coin from his pants and held it up.

  “You take me with you,” the boy begged.

  “Why should I? You ran,” sneered Eron. He put all his hurt and pain into a glare, which he shot at Amit.

  “You were going to leave me,” said Amit.

  KABAM! Another blast from Waimate shook the air and the explosion rose over the camp.

  “You left me inside the camp,” said Eron, heaving and coughing. He kneeled over.

  “I came back,” said Amit. The boy sounded unusually desperate. "And I got your coin protoback."

  “Why did you run?”

  “I don't know,” repeated the boy shakin
g. "You were going to leave me." Amit's feral eyes studied the camp. “You already have a brother.”

  “No, not exactly,” said Eron. "We're leaving together. Just come down now."

  Amit hesitated, starring wildly at the sparse line of vardos, cards and refugees trudging down the road.

  “You can even keep the tube,” said Eron growing impatient. “Keep it safe. For us. We still need the coin to barter our way to the D.O.T. on the Eastern Route.

  Amit shook his head,“You’re going to leave me.”

  "Captain Aden said it was unguarded or at least, less guarded.”

  The boy had lost his bindle though his pockets were stuffed with goods he had acquired somewhat nefariously in the camp.

  “Look, I’m hungry,” said Eron. “If you come down and give me the coin, we can be blood brothers.”

  An ant was crawling up the mossy branch where Amit sat. The boy smashed in with his thumb and licked off the juices.

  “I suppose I'll never be that hungry,” said Eron.

  "Will you leave me?" the boy asked again.

  "I won't," said Eron. "You can't leave a blood brother."

  Amit dropped from the tree. Wiping a drop of blood from an abrasion on his leg, Eron pooled it on his open palm, which he held out to the boy.

  “That doesn’t count,” said Amit. “You have to postopen the wound yourself.”

  “I really think I’ve been cut enough today," said Eron reaching for Aden's knife. "Do we need to draw anymore blood? I could just rub this scratch against the cut on your nose.”

  In his silence, the straw haired boy seemed quieter and more innocent than before. Eron smiled at him.

  "We need to do it right," he agreed cutting a small line across his palm and handing the knife to Amit. He entertained a brief and fleeting thought about germs, but decided against pursing that line of thought. Sometimes, common sense ruined the moment.

  “Do you have to say anything?” asked Amit.

  “No, I think that’s all.”

  “Can you become blood brotherized by accidentification then?” he said, brighting at the mechanics of it.

  “I like you, Amit,” he told the boy holding out his bloody palm. "You're a thief and a vagabond, but-" They gripped each others’ hands. "But, you're the only real family I have now."

  Amit freckles on his cheeks gathered upward as he grinned at Eron. Eron put his arm around the pathetic creature and felt the muscles relax in the child’s shoulders. He had never been anyone’s blood brother, but it was an unbreakable oath that even a wild boy such as Amit understood.

  Together they walked along the Eastern Road passing the stalled caravans, which had been detained by another road block placed by the Red Guard. Eron was strangely unafraid. He was not sad. He was not happy. He felt almost as if he were floating through the remainder of the day.

  At dusk, shivering, they reached the last barricade and helped the nomads move the logs. They'd eaten Amit's bread with butter and honey, all taken from the camp. Eron was feeling stronger, but strange. Many of the nomads had set up tents where the masses of refugees huddled in blankets around an endless sea of hastily constructed fire pits. What few sleep lockers there were on the road, were full.

  Amit and Eron crawled underneath a ring of vardos where Eron gave the boy his extra tunic, hoping not to be noticed by the drivers. They slept back to back for a while until Eron woke to the sound of crying. The wails of the nomads pierced the night sky. In the distance, the loogaroo howled.

  They heard the sound of arrows loosed with a twang from the nomad’s bows. A giant wolf yapped. The giant dogs were close. Eron’s heart pounded. But, there were too many refugees. Hundreds of people. The loogaroo wouldn't be bothering them. Only watching.

  When Eron finally opened his eye at the first light of dawn and looked out from under the vardo, he saw four hairy legs and a bit of purple rag hanging down. The owners of the legs had him by the ankle and pulled him out where they slide a sack over his head before knocking him to the ground and tying his arms. The cool morning air raised prickles on his skin.

  From the smell of things, he knew it was the hags.