Sons of the Lost

by Glynn James

  He pushed through a patch of brambles and came to a low fence. Someone had bordered this patch of vegetation with rusted wire. The crosshatch of the fence sections would not keep out insects, but the pattern was tight enough to prevent squirrels or rabbits from getting through. Gideon lifted his leg and stepped over the fence, finding himself in the middle of five rows of pepper plants. His people had planted green peppers before, and Gideon could fondly remember how sweet they tasted, roasted over an open fire. But over the last few years, the Elk’s seeds had degraded. The plants they put in the ground had barely sprouted, and the ones that survived didn’t produce peppers.

  The tops of these plants came up to his waist, and each one was being pulled back toward the dirt by the weight of several green peppers. Gideon stood still. First the wildcat, and now this. He had much to tell his father. His stomach growled.

  The boy took two steps forward and reached out to caress a ripe pepper. He squeezed it gently in his palm, the way he imagined he would a woman someday. The pepper was firm, and Gideon had pulled it from the stem and put it to his mouth before he could second-guess himself. He bit into the soft flesh, the sweet taste on his tongue silencing his stomach. He spat out the seeds, devoured the rest of the pepper, and was reaching for another when he stopped.

  “Someone planted these,” he said to himself.

  Gideon turned around to see that several of the boys had lost interest in the dead cat and they had followed him to the pepper field.

  “What are these?” One of them asked.

  “Peppers. Green peppers, I think. But if you leave them on the vine long enough they turn red. And those are the sweetest of all the peppers.”

  The boys walked past Gideon and were about to feast on their find when one of them said, “Weird.”

  Gideon was about to ask the boy why when he continued speaking.

  “My dad, in the northern lands, he’s planted stuff. They gave up on peppers because they use a lot of water. Ain’t no river or lake near here.”

  He thought about what the boy said, and Gideon looked again at the size of the green pepper plot. They had seen no source of water other than what fell from the sky. He paused, his brain cycling on that last thought.

  Gideon walked the length of the pepper plot and stepped over the fence on the other side. He was now halfway down the wall on the north side of the building. A bright blue patch of color three feet off the ground caught his eye. He pushed some weeds and low hanging branches out of the way to reveal three plastic drums. They had found a few of these over the years, and the old folks called them “fifty-fivers.” It had something to do with the amount of water they could hold, in some arbitrary measuring system of the distant past. He put his hand on the one closest to him and shook, hearing the water sloshing around inside the barrel. The other two blue, plastic drums also contained water. He looked up and saw a white plastic pipe extending from the top floor of the building and down into the barrel. Towards the bottom of each barrel, Gideon saw a thin white pipe connecting them.

  The peppers needed adequate water to grow, and the only water they had seen had fallen from the sky. Someone had the intelligence and skill to rig this. A clan—one they had probably not encountered before—had figured out how to capture the rain, store it, and redistribute it in precise and strategic ways.

  His father needed to know this. Immediately.

  Chapter 31

  They had managed to keep east of the Ninety-Five trail, staying ahead—and out of the way—of the Valk. But no man could endlessly march down the trail, let alone through the wilderness. Despite the danger of discovery, Briar permitted the hunters to set up camp for the night.

  Rav let the wicked moonshine burn his throat while the low fire warmed his chest. Briar had dispatched another runner with a sequence of hand motions, and Rav had to believe that they had had a conversation earlier. But then again, he had seen some strange things since leaving his hilltop pass.

  Most of his wounds had turned into raw aches. It was a different kind of pain, something he could manage with a few tips of his flask. He had followed the hunters as the sun set. Briar led them to a set of ruins. The old crumbling structures of the old world did little to stoke his imagination anymore. They all looked the same, weathered and emptied decades ago. Now, they provided a support structure for young saplings and fast-growing vines.

  The hunters seemed at ease, despite evidence of the Valk being in the area. These men had spent their days tracking other living creatures through the woods. They had a sixth sense for their surroundings and did not feel compelled to explain that to him.

  “Your men can drink,” said Rav.

  Briar unscrewed his flask and tipped it at Rav in a mocking salute. “Yes. They’ve had many nights of practice.”

  Rav laughed, and a sharp pain tore through his rib cage and up to his shoulder. So much for the dull ache.

  “Will they sleep, Briar?”

  “They have no choice. They cannot fight against the night and its unnatural inhabitants.”

  Rav nodded, understanding exactly what Briar had meant by unnatural.

  As if on cue, the men began to peel away from the fire. Some unpacked their bedrolls while others found spots beneath low-hanging branches. Rav sat in silence, drinking with Briar, neither man ready to rest.

  A rustle came from fifty yards north. Briar’s head turned before Rav’s, but they both heard it.

  “After you,” Rav said as he stood and brushed the ash from his cloak. “You’re the marksman.”

  “It came from the ruins. I’m not sure that’s a place we want to be in the middle of the night. I’ve seen men break ankles and die from the infection afterward. The structures are dangerous even if they’re empty.”

  Rav understood. He spent years scavenging what was left of the carts and arranging them at the pass. A simple scrape or cut could turn into a red line beneath the skin that would leave a man dead within days.

  “I’d much rather sit here with my flask,” Rav said. “And I ain’t about to go inside one of those things. But I think we need to see what’s making that noise.”

  Briar stood, his bow in one hand. Rav followed with an axe in his. They walked through the camp and around the sleeping men. At first, Rav thought Briar might wake them up and bring numbers to the potential fight. But the chief kept moving, either not believing he needed his men or assuming it was nothing but a raccoon hoping to steal scraps from their camp.

  The two men went deeper into the woods and towards the ruins, leaving the warmth and safety of the fire’s glow behind. The noise had ceased—Briar’s concern had not. He kept looking over his shoulder at Rav, as if to make sure the older man was keeping up.

  “Over there.”

  Rav followed Briar’s gaze, the hunter using his eyes to point at the east wall of the ruins where two shapes moved in front of it.

  “Valk?” Asked Rav.

  Briar nodded, but he didn’t speak. Rav looked over his shoulder and saw that several of Briar’s hunters had followed—fanned out behind them, each one with an arrow in their bow.

  “Look,” said Rav. “They’re going inside.”

  The hunter hesitated, waiting for the creatures to crawl through the dark doorway. He then took several steps forward, and Rav followed. The odor lingered, forcing Rav to breathe through his mouth again. They stood at the top of stairs that descended into a black void. Briar held up one finger and twirled it before turning around and walking back towards their camp. When they were a safe distance from the ruins, Rav put his hand on Briar’s shoulder and spun him around.

  “They’re underground, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. I doubt that surprises you.”

  Rav raised his eyebrows and waited for the other hunters to follow them back into camp. “No, not at all. I don’t want to even think about how many of those fuckers are down there. They are like roaches. For every two you see, there are one hundred you can’t.”

  By the time they
made it back to camp and stomped out the fire, the sun was beginning to rise on the eastern horizon. The men who had followed Briar now gathered leaves for the morning tea, and those who hadn’t climbed from their bedrolls.

  Rav walked through the camp to a pile of rocks that could have been left by the last Ice Age or hunks of ancient concrete that had tumbled from one of the nearby structures. He pushed through some tall grass and stopped. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the tops of the trees, spiraling into the morning sky. He had never seen the vile creatures from below the earth use fire. Apparently, they preferred to eat their human flesh raw. Rav moved through the trees, keeping his feet off downed branches and avoiding piles of dead, brittle leaves. He stopped behind the trunk of a maple tree which concealed his entire body and peered around the edge.

  Cygoa.

  There was only a handful of them, but there was no question of their tribal affiliation. He saw the paint, the weapons, and the unmistakable gait of the Cygoa warriors. The scouting party camp was several hundred yards away on the opposite end of a huge field. The wind came from the south which was probably why they had not smelled the campfires in Briar’s camp. Rav watched for several minutes as they tended to morning duties, unaware of the hunters nearby—or the Valk most likely beneath their feet. Rav turned and jogged back to camp, less concerned with making noise and hoping to get to Briar before the Cygoa did.

  “We’re ready,” Briar said as Rav entered the camp. “Get your stuff.”

  “My stuff be right here,” said Rav, patting the flask tucked inside a pocket beneath his garb. “Don’t need much else.”

  Briar didn’t even crack a smile.

  “There’s Cygoa scouts over yonder.” Rav wasn’t sure how much time they had before a potential skirmish erupted between the factions. “We’re downwind, so they didn’t sniff us out.”

  “That’s why we’re packed. A few of my scouts kept an eye on them overnight. The Cygoa didn’t appear to know we were here—so we stayed. But the day is breaking, and we need to get on the move.”

  “Couldn’t agree with you more,” Rav said, looking past Briar and toward the other hunters lining up on the trail. “What we gonna do about the Valk?”

  “What are we going to do about the Cygoa?” Briar asked in return.

  “Too bad we can’t pit them against each other.”

  His last comment drew a wide grin on Briar’s face.

  Chapter 32

  “Dammit,” Declan cursed as he stood looking out over the burned field. “I knew they would be moving on, but I thought we’d cross them somewhere.”

  Seren kicked at a lump of burnt soil. “They must have taken a different route.”

  “Obviously,” Declan said and then cringed.

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” said Seren. “You’re the one who wanted to use the forest road.”

  Declan frowned. “Because it was the most direct route, and kept us off the main road, away from Cygoa.”

  Seren sighed and looked over at Sorcha. The wolf sat in the sun a few yards away, uncaring of human troubles. Around them were the charred remains of Rocky Mount. Seren remembered staying there each year, but now the place was a burned ruin. Where a few buildings had stood intact, now there were just scorched shells.

  “Sorry,” said Declan. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Seren. “No point us arguing, really.” She looked over the fields that had once held crops. It had been one of the few places that anyone had managed to grow anything with the shifting of the weather.

  “Who would burn all this?” she asked of no one in particular.

  “Cygoa did it,” Declan said. “I was here the night they lit it. We were sent out to scout ahead before the clans came this way. The Cygoa held the buildings and the ridge, and even though we were quiet, it didn’t matter. We caught one of them and he said they were told to burn the fields on first sighting. I guess in some way this is my fault.”

  “Hardly,” said Seren. “These Cygoa seem to need little reason to burn and cause harm. Makes me wonder if the tales of the T’Yun weren’t true after all.”

  “How so?” asked Declan. He lowered himself to the ground and sat in the dirt. His leg was healing well, and a lot of the time he barely used the crutch anymore, but the distances they had been traveling always took a toll on him when they stopped.

  “Well, when I was younger, I heard all sorts of tales about them. You know, the same old. They were cruel barbarians that deserved to be slaughtered, they sacrificed children, ate each other, all that. I wondered, though. A lot of it seemed to be over the top, too much. I couldn’t imagine a type of people that could be so horrible. The T’yun tales make our warrior ancestors seem noble and the Cygoa enemy like monsters, but to me it always seemed that the T’Yun were the ones burning down villages and killing people. It made me wonder if the Cygoa were just another group of people, trying to survive, and the T’Yun were the bad guys. Now I wonder if they weren’t just as bad as each other.”

  Declan nodded. “I see what you mean.”

  Seren looked at the burned ground and wondered if crops could ever be grown there again. She had learned a lot about growing things at the base, but that had been inside the greenhouses. The ground had not been burned there.

  “Don’t react quickly but there’s someone in the trees over there,” said Declan, breaking the conversation but keeping his voice the same, as though nothing had changed. “Don’t look too quickly or they will know we’ve seen them.”

  Seren tried not to freeze, and continued to kick the dirt, but Sorcha had already spotted the figure in the trees. Seren turned slowly and glanced in the direction of the tree line before looking away, trying to pass it off as a casual glance. She couldn’t see anyone at first. Then she saw a slight movement at the edge of her vision. Two figures moved to the edge of the tree line and stood silently watching them. “I see two near the copse of trees to the far end of the field.”

  Declan nodded. “That’s two more, then.”

  “What do we do?” asked Seren. Who is it? More Cygoa?”

  “No, worse,” Declan said, quietly. “They’re Valk. You can tell by how pale they are.”

  “The ones you said came from under the ground?” Seren asked.

  “Yes,” said Declan. “I’m going to get up slowly and we’ll walk off into the ruins. Act as though we don’t see them and they may just watch us, if we’re lucky.” He did as he said, slowly rising, grabbing his crutch and axe.

  They started to walk slowly toward the ruin, every step of it difficult as Seren fought off the urge to run. She tapped her side as she passed Sorcha, and the wolf obediently jumped up to walk by her, but unlike her, Sorcha had no qualms about watching the Valk in the woods behind them. Eventually they moved into the ruined building, and the woods were no longer in sight.

  “Now what?” asked Seren.

  “We move as quickly as we can,” he said. Speeding up, he used the crutch to propel himself forward across the broken ground, heading to the entrance on the other side. “We need to go through the old camp and quickly see if there are signs of which way they went. They probably took the Ninety-Five, so we need to head that way as quickly as we can.”

  “What if the Valk foll—” Seren asked as a figure stepped to block their path out of the ruin. The creature was pale skinned, just as Declan had said, more so than Seren had imagined, like they were dead already, and the dark armor, roughly put together from scraps of sheet metal, was painted black, making the Valk’s skin seem even more pale in contrast.

  It raised its blade and grinned at them. Seren reached for her gun but wasn’t quick enough. Sorcha leapt forward, growling, just as Seren managed to free the weapon. The Valk lurched backwards, screaming, it’s eyes wide, as it stared at the rapidly approaching she wolf. Sorcha lowered herself, ready to pounce, and growled deep in her chest.

  The Valk bolted back through the gap, smashing into the wall as it fled in blind panic. Sere
n frowned and took her hand away from the gun, but she thought twice and drew it anyway. Just in case.

  “What in the hell?” Declan asked as Sorcha reached the entrance, slowed, and then stopped, panting. Seren could still hear the shrieking of the Valk as it fled through the ruins.

  There was a noise behind her, and she spun to see two more Valk—probably the ones from the trees—step near to the entrance behind them, but they too seemed not at all interested in her. Sorcha stood once more, her teeth bared, and growled low. Then the Valk were gone. These two didn’t scream as they fled, but they went quickly, leaving a trail of dust behind them.