by Scott McCord
I shrug my shoulders.
“Is he dead?”
“No…just lost,” I say.
Ven rubs his chin, regarding me a moment, perhaps trying to detect a lie. He sniffs, puts a hand on the corner of the table, and pivots into Ayden’s chair. “Report,” he says…so I tell him everything.
“I sent you for recon only. Your primary orders were—do not engage, yet you do whatever the hell you want, don’t you, Will? How do you think we’re going to maintain compliance? How do you think we’re going to protect Community, if I can’t trust my officers to follow orders? I should have known better. You’ve put us in deep shit now, hero. A horde is coming, and we’re going to have casualties.”
“Mim doesn’t have an army. There isn’t going to be a horde. If she comes, she’ll come weak, a few men only, for some sort of hit-and-run symbolic bullshit to make us think she’s more than she is. But I don’t even think she’ll do that. Mim won’t risk lives for a gesture…she’s not coming…not at all.”
Ven leans out of Ayden’s chair, hammering his fist on the tabletop. “You killed a boy and then turned around and shot some Slitter woman in the back. You shouldn’t have done that. You made it personal.”
“It was already personal.”
Ven shakes his head. “I saw your girlfriend pin Jule’s face to a post without batting an eye and fade away where you couldn’t even find her. She put down two of your best Scorpions, and you tell me you saw her leave the Ark—walk around Outside. You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe she’s the type to make idle threats.”
“Mim won’t come. She doesn’t have the forces to meet us in battle. Slitters are nothing more than thieves and cutthroats who sneak into Community and murder innocent men and women while they sleep. I doubt there are more than a hundred of them…probably fifty fighting men at most. But even if they do come, we’re prepared. You have two hundred Scorpions and four hundred militia trained and ready to fight. We’ll crush the Slitters down and rub them out before they get within a bowshot of our tents.”
“You’re an idiot, Will. Community requires the threat of war, not an actual one. Strings have to be pulled and situations orchestrated to give people cause for rally…to make them happy…you make them afraid…and they prosper. You see it yourself. We have more meat, more weapons, more hides, more clothes, and more candles than ever before. Where do you think that comes from? The war-effort. The trick is, to have the effort without the war.” He runs his hand back through his hair with a sigh of disgust. “But you, Scorpion, and your stupid vendetta have tipped the bucket.”
“They won’t come,” I say.
“My rise to High Command has taken some doing, and if you don’t let an antiquated religion cloud your judgement, I think you’ll agree we’re better off with a visionary at the helm instead of an anemic priest. The things I’ve done, I’ve done for my people…to better their lives, and I will burn the Ark to the ground before I let my sacrifice be wasted. I will protect my place in this new era. The hitch we have now is because you ignored my orders. This is the second time you have disobeyed me, and the consequences on both occasions…” he takes a slow, pensive breath, “…have been dire. If I can’t count on you, Will, you have no place here. Fail me once more, and you will be the first I hang on a culling post. Do you understand?”
“I do,” I say.
He leans back in Ayden’s chair. “Good.”
“What are your orders?”
Ven smiles. “If they come, there are to be no prisoners, no interrogations, no questions about their resources or numbers. Shoot them on the ground, shoot them in the back, cut their throats—I don’t care. Not one Slitter is to be left alive. They all must die…even your girlfriend.”
“If they don’t come?”
“If they don’t come, I will give you sixty men to hunt them down and eradicate every man, woman and child you find. There is to be no mercy. Execute them and dump their bodies over the Edge. I was happy to play war, but you’ve provoked a real one, so now the only Slitters I’ll tolerate are the imaginary kind. Kill them all...but leave the myth. People need to stay afraid.”
“Every story needs bad guys.”
Ven smiles. “And good guys to undo them.”
“What happens if Mim brings a horde?”
“You said she didn’t have one.” He folds his hands underneath his chin and looks up. “But as you point out, we have six hundred well-armed fighting men. I suspect that will be enough, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“I guess we’ll see what happens in three days,” Ven remarks, flipping his hand to wave me out of the tent.
I step into the setting sun and the smell of dinner meat wafting over Community. Freedom and prosperity appeared right along with Slitter incursions and the war-effort. If full bellies and warm blankets are the price of patriotism, Ven pays the bill in spades. Like-minded, happy people don’t ask many questions, and that’s not a bad thing. We’re better off than we ever were with Verick or Ayden as Supreme. My parents would love the changes, but they’re not here…Gas is not here…Ellie is not here…and everything good happening in Community is tainted by their absence. Nothing is as nice as it should be…not even close. Maybe after I’m done, when justice is done, things will be better, but for now, all I hear is Ven telling me to kill them all.
I feel like talking to Tommy, but they threw Starter in the hole with him, and a squad of Scorpions is keeping watch with orders to let no one pass. I’m turned away, too tired to argue.
I believe Tommy was telling the truth about the small Slitter numbers, but he’d probably lie about it now to make me second-guess myself. I think he’s in love with Mim, and he’ll try to help her if he can. Too late. He told me all I need to know while we were still friends.
43
Mim
It’s a hard walk, and by the time it’s done, all waterskins are empty and every piece of baggage with the exception of Mary’s trunk is dropped by the wayside. Boxes and packs once thought too valuable to leave, now string out behind us like a trail of worthless bread crumbs nobody can follow. The sun is tall, but empty-handed people muster enough strength to stagger on. Mouths are too dry to complain. I raise a silent fist once for an all-stop when I spot a thin black line on the horizon. We flatten to the ground, hoping to avoid the attention of a massive Lopper herd in the distance. The short rest brings cramping muscles instead of relief. I think about Mary…and then I don’t. We hobble on.
Rosie and Cassandra stay up front with me, navigating the ripples and eddies of good air, and as late afternoon fades to early evening, the shores of New Hope are in sight. The pace quickens to a near trot when the end is close. Rosie and I are the only ones to keep our feet when the rest of our band collapses into the arms of waiting people with worried smiles and skins full of water. Everyone made it…everyone except Mary.
I take a waterskin from an offering hand and look around for my father. I’m told he’s hunting, so I check on Cassandra instead. When I find her, she’s flat on her back—a young woman dabbing her face with a wet cloth.
“When you’re ready,” I say, “I’ll be at the meeting house.”
Cassandra looks up with fatigued eyes but doesn’t answer.
“Did you hear me?” I ask.
She nods.
“Dad isn’t here, so I’m guessing you’ll want to wait for him.”
Cassandra nods again.
“But we can’t wait long. I know what to do.”
She just blinks, too exhausted to speak, but when I turn to go, she catches my ankle and wheezes, “Thank you, Mim. You’ve saved us all.”
“Maybe I only saved you to die another day.”
“Another day is better than this day.” She forces a smile as she begins to regain some of her gristle.
“I guess,” I say, and traipse off to find a comfortable place to sit against a wall of the future meeting house. I think of Tommy as my mind fades with the day. When I wake, Rosie
is under my arm, and the shadows of three men are standing over me. One of them is Johnathan.
“The night’s nearly gone, Mim,” Dad says when I stir.
“They’re coming to kill us,” I say. “If the Ark lands on the island, New Hope is finished.”
“Cassandra told me.”
“Cassandra told you what?” I reclaim my arm from Rosie and push to my feet.
“About Jack, Mary, and the boys.”
“That’s only part. I saw Gas. I saw them kill Gas. He’s supposed to be one of them. People are dying and they’re blaming us…I think they want war, and they’ve got all of Community wanting it too.”
“Who does?”
“Ayden, the Scorpions…I don’t know, but they’ve got Will convinced.”
“And you want to save him.”
“I want to kill him,” I snarl. “We have no friends in Community, not anymore.” My eyes grow accustomed to the dark as my father considers what I’ve said. I don’t know one of the men with him, but the other is Slate. “I gave them three days,” I mutter.
“Three days until what?” Slate asks.
“Three days until I kick their ass,” I snap. “I want to hit Ayden so hard, he’ll pray to heaven his Ark doesn’t come anywhere near this place.”
“It will…it’s coming,” Dad says. “If not this move, it will be the next. Community will be in striking distance soon.”
“Then we need a treaty?” the man I don’t know says.
My blood seethes at his naïve suggestion. I grit my teeth to keep from coming out of my skin. “There is no negotiating with people who murder their own. You can’t reason with men who kill little boys like goats, shoot defenseless women in the back, and use children as bait. These are scum of the first order. There will never be a treaty,” I growl.
“You don’t know that,” the man protests.
“Yes…I do.”
“If we hit them, how many soldiers will we be up against?” Slate asks.
“Gas said there was a war-effort, some sort of Barbarian Resolution, so there will be plenty.”
“Plenty isn’t a very good answer.”
“What do you want me to say? There’s one hundred? There’s two hundred? How about seven hundred soldiers? Does it matter?”
“That’s a lot of men,” Jonathan remarks.
“That’s too many men,” the man who wants a treaty adds.
“We’ll never be stronger than we are right now. The Outside between New Hope and Community is our biggest advantage,” I say.
“What about weapons?”
“There is an awful lot of discussion going on,” Cassandra interrupts, stepping into our shadowy ring of four. “Were you gentlemen going to make a decision without me?”
“No, absolutely not. I thought you were resting. I was coming to talk with you again after I got a better handle on the situation. Are you feeling better?” Jonathan asks.
Cassandra ignores my father. “Mim, is there any hope for peace?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ask for it anyway.”
“If I get the chance.”
“Mim.”
“All right, I’ll offer them peace.”
“Good enough, what do you need?”
“Men.”
Cassandra looks to Slate.
“If I scrounge, I can probably get forty,” Slate says, “but—”
“Twenty is fine,” I say. “…and lots of rope.”
“And me,” Rosie pipes up.
“Okay, and you,” I agree, “but not you or you,” I say pointing to Jonathan and the man I don’t know.
“How about me? Can I come?” Slate asks.
“You’re good at getting things done, right?”
“I am.”
“Then I won’t stop you as long as you don’t try to stop me.”
“Cassandra, we can’t. We have to figure this thing out. You can’t let Mim go. It’s a suicide mission that won’t make a damn bit of difference in the end,” Dad protests.
“Stop, Jonathan…let your daughter do this.”
“Do what?”
Cassandra looks at me. “I don’t know,” she whispers.
I tilt my head toward the night sky. They’re waiting for me to answer, so I do. “Something terrible,” I say, and leave it at that.
44
Will
I’m up before dawn to muster every Scorpion in Community and handpick my sixty. Several officers complain about me taking their best guys, but I’ve already cleared everything with Ven. He wants this Slitter issue taken care of as much as I do, so he allows me an early prep to avoid losing time when Mim doesn’t show. I pull the best three sub-lieutenants I can find, break the men into hunting parties of fifteen, and run light maneuvers around Community the rest of the day. My officers are committed, the troops are jazzed, and I’m sure I’ve made all the right choices.
When the sun runs out, we eat together, and it feels more like a celebration than a simple dinner. In two evenings we’ll bivouac outside of Group 14, I’ll deliver the mission briefing, and we’ll start sweeping the Ark at dawn. The end is near, and I’ve never felt better.
Fresh faced men laugh through mouthfuls of venison under flickering torchlight. The revelry is impossible to resist. I smile and raise a silent cup to my friend Gas. Justice will be swift and without mercy. This is for you, Mom and Dad.
45
Will
Day three since our encounter with the Slitters and Mim’s threat to attack. The gray of first light is creeping across my tent, and the faint smell of an early fire carries on the breeze. I feel well. I feel rested. I’ve gotten better at sleeping since I’ve put a face to the enemy. Ven wants ghost stories, and in a few days that’s all the Slitters will be—ghosts.
My officers will be rousing the troops in a few minutes. They’re good men, handpicked, and I hope Ven lets me keep them after the hunt is over. I think he’ll have to if he wants the narrative of an enemy threat to continue after the last Slitter is cut to the ground. Maybe I should give my unit a name—the Red Devils, the Marauders, the Rangers—something cool, but not too scary. I wouldn’t want to frighten regular citizens. Rangers…I think…might be best. I’ll mention it to Ven.
“Fire! Fire!”
I fly from my bedroll, throw on my buckskins, grab my weapons, and I’m out of my tent before two breaths have gone by. I shout orders to muster my unit, and the officers comply with stunning efficiency. My sixty are the first in the compound, standing like statues, radiating enough order and discipline to calm other units falling into line. This isn’t like the night the bridges were attacked, these Scorpions are organized and ready. Messengers dart by with orders for the militia to come to arms, and in minutes, the fighting forces of Community are mobilized. An impressive feat for six hundred men.
A thin column of heavy smoke pushes up over the trees. Ven strolls over to watch it with me.
“Day three,” he comments, “and you said she wouldn’t come.”
“She’s on the southern Edge. There’s a field there with a knoll. She thinks she can hit us with a barrage of arrows and escape Outside. Come at us hard, back us up, and run...that’s what she’ll do. But I’ve seen how they move on the other side…they’re slow. There isn’t any cover beyond the knoll, just a grass plain. We’ll take the hill before they get out of range on the other side, and it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“What if this is a diversion to pull our main force away and attack Community from the woods?”
“Slitters don’t have the numbers to do much damage. This assault isn’t anything more than Mim keeping her word. It’s symbolic, that’s all. Pride has always been her undoing, and now she’s built a trap and stepped right in. It’s disappointing. I was hoping for more.”
Ven sniffs. “You seem pretty sure.”
“I am.”
“You were also sure she wouldn’t come.”
“I know how to beat her.”
<
br /> “How do you know she doesn’t have a horde waiting to rip us to the ground as soon as I let you take my men out of Community?”
“Are you scared, Ven?”
“No, just smart.”
“Okay, I’ll take my sixty plus half the militia and leave the rest here in case you’re right.”
“Not half, you can have one hundred…and forty.”
“Are those your orders?”
“They are.”
I return briefly to my tent, pull an arrow from my quiver and stand it in the ground. Fifty minutes later I’m leading two hundred troops through the woods toward the column of smoke. I run through every possible scenario in my head. She’d need five hundred men to defeat me, and she doesn’t have them. Mim won’t live beyond today. She can’t win, and she knows it.
46
Will
The shadows and underbrush end abruptly in a lake of tall, seed-laden straw lapping back against the tree-line. Hot grass rolls in the breeze so the whole field gives the impression of water. The grade is easy, peaking to a small ridge before falling out of sight on the other side. From where I stand in the trees, the field rises to an intermediate horizon, forming a line separating green and blue, with the Edge hidden on the other side. We’ll take the hill quickly and cut them down when they retreat beyond the Ark. I pull a limb back for a better view of the ridge.
Two silhouettes stand as a third adds green leaves to a smoky fire. I pass orders for my troops to fan out in skirmish formation and push up under cover. If I bring the men out from the trees another twenty yards, I’ll be able to rain arrows all over that hill, but so far I’ve only seen three Slitters, so I hold. Three Slitters. Is this a martyr’s mission? When messengers relay all soldiers are in place and waiting for the attack order, I step from cover into the field.
