“Lemuel is among them,” I mutter.
I run as fast as my legs will carry me, my skin perspiring so much that everything I wear to protect it from the sun is already drenched. My breath comes easily, and I thank Gaia for the stamina of my warriors who keep pace with me—thirty strong, summoned from the various Shipyard tribes.
The other chieftains are too old to make such a journey—braving the goblyns and the elements. They remain behind, along with the women with child. I am the only chieftain in my prime, and while Gaia has not blessed me with the speed of my warriors who’ve already reached Luther’s cave, I have made good time regardless. And Gaia be praised, we have yet to cross paths with a single goblyn roaming the wastelands.
After everything those UW scouts have been through—some of it at my own command—it is a wonder they have not already radioed their ship for evacuation and left this land far behind. Will they continue on to Eden? I hope Luther convinces them to join forces and rescue his unborn children. Gaia-willing, my warriors and I will be with them.
Those infants gestating in Eden represent the UW’s last hope for survival, but their kind is about to become extinct. The survival of the fittest demands it. I am now more determined than ever to see that happen, and I fully intend to have a hand in their demise.
“He hasn’t shown any signs yet, has he?” The warrior at my side is named Asaph. A dark-eyed, raven-haired young man a few years older than Lemuel, he is little more than a sycophant. “One would think Gaia has passed him over!”
I nearly chuckle at that.
“Perhaps when Lemuel becomes a man, his abilities will manifest themselves,” Asaph suggests.
Images flash through my mind of young Lemuel and Victoria together in the bedchamber. That was not their first time; she made that much clear.
“Exile was too good for him.” I clench my jaw.
“Perhaps an accident might befall him during our quest?” Asaph watches me a moment as we run side by side. “Leave the matter in Gaia’s hands, Lord Cain. She will take care of that miserable cur. You showed great restraint by not executing him on the spot.”
How much of the story has already spread throughout the tribes? The Shipyard thrives on gossip, one of our primary entertainment sources. But I hoped my sentries would keep the matter quiet.
“What do you know of his disrespect?”
Asaph frowns pensively. He knows only enough to try and ingratiate himself with his leader. My cursory glance at his heart rate proves such to be the case. His pulse has quickened anxiously.
“Only that he disgraced the tribes by—”
“His disgrace was against me alone.”
“All the more reason to punish him severely, my lord. A disgrace against our chieftain of chieftains is a disgrace against the tribes—against our people as a whole!”
I imagine shoving Asaph forward as he runs and driving his face into the dust. That would shut him up. Of all the warriors able to keep pace with me, it has to be this one?
“Gaia will decide whether the quality of mercy has been strained enough for young Lemuel.”
Asaph nods, satisfied for the moment.
Fifty meters ahead, a large, black vehicle sits alone at the base of a cliff. I signal the group to halt. Without a word, I point to the dust-caked vehicle, the frame pocked with bullets, the windows fractured but holding. I raise three fingers before pointing westward. My warriors nod to show they understand: the three figures hiding behind the vehicle are UW scouts. I point at the top of the cliff where a jagged ridge runs crosswise, providing ample cover, and I hold up all five fingers of my left hand: five sentries at their posts.
I slip the strap of my rifle down from my shoulder; the warriors behind me do the same. Judging from the heartbeats of the three UW personnel behind that vehicle and the five sentries hidden above, our presence has already been noticed. Only a miracle from Gaia could have masked our arrival across the dusty terrain. There was no cover to be found.
So it was her will that we arrive in plain sight.
I stride forward boldly, and my warriors follow.
“Show yourselves.” My booming voice echoes off the cliff side. I hold my weapon at the ready but keep the muzzle aimed at the ground. “You would have fired upon us by now if that was your intent.” I pause. “We see you have one of our own among you. A young pup.” I release a disgusted chuckle. “Feel free to keep him.”
Lemuel’s pulse races as he stands up behind an outcropping of rock high above us, struggling against a figure garbed in sand-colored cloth. They fight for possession of a rifle, its stock glinting under the sun.
Asaph takes aim.
“Hold!” I command. My people will not be the first to fire.
Surprisingly strong for one so lacking in muscle, Lemuel nearly has the rifle free. But then a woman identical in garb to his opponent advances on him from behind, the end of her weapon poised for a head strike. I savor the moment, awaiting the sound of gun metal colliding with bone. But the youth seems to have eyes in the back of his head. With an ungraceful spin kick, he drives the woman back, yanks the rifle free from his opponent, and has the muzzle trained on me before I can fully grasp what just happened.
Asaph fires.
With a burst of crimson across his chest, Lemuel jerks upward, eyes wide with surprise, arms suspended loosely. The stolen rifle falls down the sheer drop, and he follows after.
There is no time to watch the youth’s body break among the rocks below. Later I can pause to regret missing the sight; for now, I must find cover.
The ridge above has come alive with weapons fire, and my warriors scramble for their lives. Moving targets are more difficult to hit, but we will not survive long out in the open. Most of us return fire, running straight for the vehicle while shooting blindly upward. From what I can see, none of my warriors have been wounded. Did Luther order his sentries not to take kill shots? I have given no such command to my men. It is only a matter of time before another death occurs.
I drop into a crouch once I reach the vehicle’s rear tire. I squint up at the scorching sun through my sweat-spattered goggles. It is the hottest hour of the day; of course, Lemuel chose it to launch his idiotic scheme. He thought he could shoot me? The fool. I almost smile under my hood as I imagine telling Victoria of her young lover’s demise. But perhaps she already knows, thanks to her telepathic gift.
“Who goes there?” a man’s voice demands from the opposite side of the vehicle.
I gesture for my warriors to join me as rifle rounds pierce the earth like heavy rainfall, and puffs of dust plume upward. There won’t be enough cover for all of us here, but it certainly beats scurrying around out in the open like frightened vermin.
A short cry pierces the air as a body tips forward from the cliff’s edge. A trail of crimson streams out behind, staining the cloth garments. I grind my teeth. Luther’s people will strike back with a vengeance now that one of mine has killed one of theirs.
As if on cue, three of my warriors go down face-first into the dust with rounds puncturing them through the head and the heart. The sentries on that ridge have been well-trained, and my warriors are easy targets. I curse out loud and beckon sharply for the others to join me, but they are too intent on returning fire, dropping to their knees to take aim. They too are good shots. A pair of snipers from the ridge sail downward and crash into bloody heaps below. That leaves only one more shooter above, and three other potential hostiles on the other side of this vehicle.
“Throw down your weapons,” I shout at the UW personnel, and I am instantly met with a single shot fired under the vehicle. I cringe behind the tire.
“We’re not going down without a fight, pal!” calls out the same voice. “Tell your people to drop their weapons, or we’ll take them out one at a time!”
The shooter on the ridge has withdrawn, undoubtedly to gather reinforcements. Luther will not be pleased by the recent turn of events. I curse Lemuel for starting the whole debacle.
> But perhaps this is exactly what Gaia wanted all along: for Luther’s people and my people to unite under my leadership. I already have my swiftest warriors planted within Luther’s Homeplace, deep behind enemy lines. I need only give the word, and they will overwhelm Luther’s fighters, assuming control of the situation while they await my next order.
Everything is falling into place, after all, and they are the best-laid plans I could have possibly imagined. To think, it took the idiot Lemuel to start this chain reaction. And now the sentries, save one, have been dispatched. No one is guarding the entrance into Luther’s cave.
I motion to my surviving warriors, directing them to climb the mountain and take position along the way up. They will lend a hand when my warriors inside escort all of Luther’s people out.
Time for a trip, folks. That’s right, we’re going to Eden. Think of it as Paradise Regained. Lord Cain will be your tour guide on what promises to be a fateful journey. No, you won’t need to bring anything. Leave all of your weapons, we insist. But we’ll gladly make use of them, thank you very much.
With Gaia’s praises on my lips for what promises to be a quick victory over these infidels, I rise to my feet and stride around the rear of the vehicle. I find three members of the United World team huddled together on the other side: a tall woman pale from blood loss, not wearing a protective suit; an older man in a functional suit with utter shock frozen on his wrinkled features; and a half-sized fellow without his environmental suit, but with almost enough muscle mass to make up for his deficient stature. Each of them is armed with a snub-nosed automatic rifle. But presented with my imposing figure, they seem to have forgotten for the moment that they have me outnumbered.
Kill them, the voice of Gaia herself whispers in my ear. Kill them all, my son.
It is as though her spirit flows through me, guiding my steps. I level my rifle on the short man. Two rounds at close range nearly take off his head with a backsplash of crimson splattering across his stunned compatriots—but not before he is able to squeeze off a short burst of automatic fire. Two rounds catch me in the side, and I snarl, slapping down a hand to apply pressure at the site of the wound.
I don’t give the other two a chance to retaliate. Ending the woman with a single headshot, I move on to the older man, puncturing his helmet with multiple rounds that send him stuttering backward, his weapon firing at the sky in spastic bursts. He topples over limply, spraying blood. I nudge each of them with my boot to be sure they are dead.
“Long live the United World,” I mutter, wincing in pain.
“Lord Cain!” Asaph approaches, out of breath. “You’re wounded?”
He sounds as surprised as I am, noting the blood on my gloved hand as I stanch the flow.
“Nothing serious.” Gaia would not allow anything more than a sting. I am her chosen one. This is just a reminder that, unlike her, I am mortal. I will have to be more careful.
“Look!” He points at the cave above.
Luther stands in plain sight, a ghost of the man I saw months ago. Asaph and the other remaining warriors aim their weapons up at him, but they do not fire. I shoulder my rifle by the strap and raise my free hand in greeting. The other remains casually pressed against my side.
“Luther,” I call out. “We meet again.”
If a sudden gust were to blow up along the cliff at that moment, Luther would fall over. He sways on his feet, staring at the broken and bloody corpses below. Words fail him. The woman beside him is garbed as he is in sand-colored cloth and head wrappings, with black goggles shielding their eyes. Expressions are impossible to read, but I can tell from the palpitations of their hearts that they are experiencing the same emotion. Something akin to shock.
“What have you…done?” the woman manages, her words hanging in the air.
Others from Luther’s enclave swarm out onto the ledge only to stop dead in their tracks. The weapons trained on them would be enough to halt anyone without a death wish.
“We defended ourselves. That is all. We did not come here looking for trouble.” I gesture broadly at the carnage. “As you can see, I have lost men as well. The first to die was one of my own.”
Shot by one of my warriors—but I leave that unsaid.
Luther’s voice emerges, low and steady. “My sentries were given explicit instructions not to fire upon any of you.” He sounds mystified.
I shrug. “They seemed awful trigger-happy a few minutes ago.”
The woman’s goggles scan the scene below until they reach the black vehicle behind me. “How do you explain that?”
Murmurs ripple through her people as I half-turn to give the pile of UW bodies a cursory glance. “A kill or be killed situation.”
“Convenient.” She scoffs. “What did they do—line up for you?”
I like this one. Perhaps she will replace Victoria after the birth of my son. “When you’ve fought the goblyns as long as we have, you learn to make every shot count. But perhaps you’ve grown out of touch, perched as you are. So high and mighty.”
They need to be brought down into reality.
“There can be no excuse…for what happened here,” Luther begins, but he is interrupted by the appearance of a man in one of the bulky UW suits, shoving Luther’s people aside as he marches toward the edge of the cliff.
I curse silently. One of them is still alive. If he is able to radio the naval blockade—
Gaia knows all. I close my eyes for a moment, releasing the anxiety that twists my bowels. There is nothing to fear. If there were, Gaia would have warned me. All is going according to her plan...
The UW man’s helmet darkens in the sun, shielding his face from its scorching rays. He faces me and freezes in that posture without a sound, without another movement. He looks like a robot that has powered down.
“Would it help matters if I apologized, Luther?” My voice holds the moment. “Very well. I am sorry for the deaths of your people, and I deeply regret the loss of my own. This is not what I had envisioned upon arrival. Trust me on that.”
“I believe,” Luther says deliberately, “that you saw the arrival of the UW ambassadors as an act of war, when that was not their intention. And by your actions here, you have fulfilled your own prophecy. Now the United World government will have no other recourse but to wipe your settlement from the shores you call home. Then they will move inland, intent on destroying us all.”
As if to punctuate his statement, a low thump like a sonic boom trembles in the west, and all eyes turn to look toward the horizon. But even those of us blessed with far-sight cannot see the Shipyard from so great a distance.
The UW robot raises an arm and a gloved finger to point down at me, but he says nothing. He just stands there like an ominous statue. A frail-looking woman beside him speaks up, as if translating the gesture.
“You’ve declared war on your own people,” she says. “The Argonaus is shelling your settlement as we speak. They will land troops within the hour.”
I grit my teeth. As long as we reach Eden before the advancing UW troops, I will hold the upper hand. “Where are my men? Markus, Vincent, and the others?”
“They are inside,” Luther replies. “They are well.”
“I wish to see them. To know for myself that they are well.”
Luther shakes his head slowly. Even with his covered face and eyes, the despair in his demeanor cannot be mistaken. “After what you have done here… I told you that your people would be safe—”
“If our positions were reversed, I’m sure you would be demanding the same.”
“You’re in no position to make demands!” the woman beside Luther shouts.
“You are mistaken.” I gesture at my well-armed warriors. “But I believe we are in agreement about one thing. Enough blood has been spilled here today.”
Another low tremor rumbles in the west. I fight to control the rage burning within me at the thought of the Shipyard exploding in shards and flames, of my wives left behind, of the casualties
. I clench my free hand into a fist and force myself to breathe easy, to steady my heart rate.
This is all part of Gaia’s plan. She knows best.
“Bring them.” Luther sends one of his people back into the cave. “The two he mentioned. Markus and Vincent—”
“All of them,” I correct him. “I want to see every one of my warriors and whatever possessions they had on them when they arrived. I want everyone and everything accounted for.”
Luther pauses a moment, staring down at me. Then he nods to his messenger, who dashes away into the cave’s yawning mouth.
“If you think you’re any match for United World troops, think again,” says the woman standing beside the last UW scout. Is something wrong with his helmet? Why hasn’t he spoken a word?
“What I’ve seen so far has not impressed me.” I shrug. “But don’t worry. I am not planning to take my people back to the coast for some kind of final reckoning. I am sure the goblyns will keep the UW busy if they’re foolish enough to land on shore. And while my people who remain there are not the strongest among us, you must remember: even the weakest of us are ten times stronger than anyone who breathes filtered air.”
Markus, Vincent, and every one of my warriors blessed with superhuman speed filter out onto the ridge, interspersed with Luther’s people who gasp in surprise at their sudden appearance. Luther’s messenger trails after them.
“No, we will not be going west anytime soon.” I smile broadly, my face hidden under my hood’s shadow. “The time has come, Luther. Our two peoples will be united as one, just as you have wanted for so long. We will go with you to Eden and rescue your children, to take back what is rightfully yours!”
I chuckle in the silence as Luther’s people glance at one other and at my warriors, who have not lowered their weapons. He must see the writing on the wall. His people do not stand a chance against mine. Will he risk more bloodshed?
Luther’s goggles remain fixed on me. “It is what I’ve prayed for…that our two peoples would become allies one day.” His voice breaks, as though he is suddenly overcome with emotion. “We must endeavor to put this tragedy behind us…and focus all of our energy instead on what lies ahead. As we…work together to—”
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 69
