by Scott McCord
“Apparently this is a martyr’s mission,” I shout to the figures on the ridge.
Mim takes two steps down the hill. “Really Scorpion? How many martyrs did you bring?”
My blood seethes, and even though I shouldn’t let her provoke me, I give a sharp whistle, and two hundred soldiers step out of the tree-line in a magnificent show of force.
“You’re too easy, Scorpion,” Mim laughs. “I told someone I’d offer you candy-asses peace.”
“We’ll have peace after every Slitter is in the ground.”
“But not until Ayden strolls up and puts an arrow in my dead body…you know, for the history books.”
“Stop pretending, Mim, you know what you’ve done. The innocent act is insulting.”
“Gracious, Will, I didn’t know it was possible to insult a puppet. Don’t you see who’s pulling the strings, or do you even care?”
“I care about blood. I want blood for Gas.”
“Ha,” she scoffs. “Then we’re here for the same reason.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It was your own. A bunch of Scorpions put him down when he wouldn’t let them burn the bridges.”
“Liar!”
“Your head is so far up your Scorpion ass it’s a wonder you can walk.” She takes another step forward as a man and a girl wait on the ridge. She’s trying to get under my skin, make me do something stupid, but it’s not going to happen. I know what to do, and I’ll wait for the right time to do it. “Are you in charge of these men, or is there a bigger shithead hiding in the bushes?”
“I’m in command.”
She moves closer to make sure I hear her next insult. “Very good, I’m sure your dad would be so proud.”
Every nerve in my body pops like static, anger surges in my veins, and a sudden wave of heat flushes across my face. Mim puts her hand to her brow, taking the sun from her eyes to better see my troops.
“You men look pretty tough, and I’m sure you make Will 14 proud—going this way and that way, doing whatever he says. I think you should know, he is the reason I’m here.” She raises her bow tip to me. “And if you stay, he is the reason you will die.”
“That’s bullshit,” I shout. “If you have an army, why bring a girl to the fight?”
“Oh, you mean Rosie. Don’t you recognize her, Scorpion, the one who saved you from the big bad bears? She and Slate are only here to watch me kill you.”
Mim strolls closer, spewing threats she can’t make good on. She’s trying to rattle my men, back us down, make us leave, but she’s only one girl, and she’s pissing me off. I’m not afraid of her. She’s got nothing.
“Is Tommy with you?” she asks. Mim is loud, but she’s close enough now to keep from shouting.
“I arrested your boyfriend and threw him in a hole for helping you.”
“What do you plan to do with him?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.” Mim glances up and down the line of troops, itchy and waiting on my orders. “What about the other one, the one who used to be in charge, the dangerball captain? Where are you keeping him stashed?”
“Starter is in the hole with Tommy, waiting to be tried for the assassination of Ayden.”
“Wow,” she exclaims with false amusement, “Ayden—dead, Captain Scorpion—arrested…I take off a while, and the whole place falls apart. Who’s the new Supreme?”
“No Supreme, only Ven.”
“Ven? The Scorpion? In charge of Community? What could go wrong there?”
Mim is closer to me than she is to the ridge. She’s pacing, drawn down the hill by our conversation without realizing it. If I keep her talking a little longer, I’ll have her.
“We used to be friends, Will, really good friends. What happened?”
“You left.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You killed my parents.”
“No…I didn’t.” Her arrogance drops momentarily to sorrow. “I’m sorry, Will, you’ve been misled.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I know who you are. I know you killed those militia boys for a Slitter. I know what you’re capable of.”
“If you really knew what I was capable of, Will, you wouldn’t be here.” Her face hardens to stone and her eyes sink to the hue of death. “Toes up, nose up,” she says.
In a blur, nearly too quick to see, Mim raises her bow, nocks an arrow and lets it fly—my cheek simultaneously tears open, gushing burning blood before I can react. I throw a hand to the side of my face and take away a bright red palm. When I look up, Mim is already out of range, sprinting for the ridge. She missed. The wheels turn.
She tricked me, drew me out to put an arrow in my skull…but missed. She lied. She’s a liar. This was never going to be a battle, only retribution. Mim set me up just like Gas. She’s a lowlife assassin, and now she’ll pay…no way she escapes this time.
“To the hill,” I shout. Two hundred men thunder into the meadow at full gallop, howling and yelling as they storm over the grass. I’m running out front as Mim reaches the ridgetop and turns to survey the army crashing in. She pauses a moment to watch as we come before disappearing over the hill to make a break for Outside. She and her friends won’t get far. I’ve anticipated their escape plan. As soon as my men are at the top, I’ll give the order to fire, and we’ll chop everything on the other side to wet salad. A deluge is coming no Slitter will survive.
My cheek streams and hurts like hell, but I stay ahead of my men. The incline steepens and I force my legs to dig harder. The higher elevation will give our arrows better distance on the other side, but Mim didn’t think of that when she chose this place. She thought I’d be dead, assassinated, and she’d slip away in the confusion.
My legs churn for the top. Anticipation of Slitters fleeing before me quickens my step as I crest the hill. I draw an arrow from my quiver. I want the first shot, but as I start to string it, the terrible sight on the other side steals my breath.
Fire explodes in my left bicep. The bow falls from my hand. I stumble forward, blinking at the fletching in the meat of my arm. The arrow is pushed through, so only the feathers show at the entry point. I haven’t drawn half a breath before Mim puts two arrows in my legs, driving me to the ground. The pain is numbing.
“Stay down, Scorpion,” Mim calls. “This is all on you. You’re the reason I’m here. You’re the reason this is happening.”
I crane up enough to look down at hundreds of Loppers, standing docile, Outside, just beyond the Edge, corralled by a single rope. They stand content, probably wondering why they’re here. The stink of them wafts over the grass as they moan and hum like a giant nest of bees.
“Fall back,” I croak, but my men don’t hear me.
“Now, do it now!” Mim shouts.
The rope is dropped.
“Yah! Yah! Get up there, get up there now!” Slitter voices rise above the groaning herd, and Loppers lurch forward spilling into the Ark. The beasts instantly transform into a sea of snarling devils the moment the rich oxygen touches their lungs. They howl and scream so it’s hard to tell if they like the Ark air or it causes them pain. I cover my head with my good arm to keep from being trampled as victims of goose, goose, duck, mutate into abominations five arrows can’t put down.
“Yah! Yah!” the Slitters keep yelling. Hundreds of feet plow over me, grinding me into the ground. My ribs crack under the weight, and it feels like I’m drowning in the hot grass. I swallow the pain, and as I lie there, helpless and wounded, trying to survive the flood of monsters rolling up and over the hill, shrieks of soldiers sounding more like women are all that return from the other side.
I dance around consciousness until I get the sense people are standing behind me, surveying what’s left of my army. I want to strike at them, but I’m no more than litter on the ground.
“That’s a lot of dead soldiers,” the girl comments.
“Doesn’t look like they loosed a single arrow,” a m
an says.
“When do you think the Loppers will stop?” someone else asks.
“Not before Community, if that’s what you mean,” Mim answers.
“Innocent people are in Community.”
“Some...maybe.”
The conversation fades as the Slitters look over the field of dead.
“What do you think Cassandra will say?”
“She’ll be fine. I did what she asked, I offered them peace.”
“What’s your dad going to think?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not here.”
The sky is blue and the voices behind me only buzz in my ears. I’m slipping but I’m not sure if it is just to sleep.
“Mary.” Mim’s face hovers above me. Several others stand out of focus behind her.
“What?” I shake my head, and a tear finds its way out. My voice is far away, like it belongs to someone else.
“The woman you shot in the back, her name was Mary. You should have believed me, Will. I told you this would happen.”
I’m so sleepy it takes all my strength to keep my eyelids from falling shut. I have no spit left, and my throat is bone dry, but I manage to get out her name. “Mim,” I say, “what have you done?”
47
Will
I wake once to find a waterskin lying on my chest. I don’t remember dragging myself back across the ridge, where I’ll be easier to find, but that’s where I am. I take a long pull from the waterskin, spilling most of the contents over my chin and down my neck before blacking out.
§
I open my eyes. I’m in a Community tent, dressed with fresh bandages. A nurse stands by, but I don’t stay conscious long enough to get her attention.
§
Days later, everything hurts, but I’m able to stay awake. The girl watching over me checks my wounds and brings me a concoction of crushed fruit and chipped venison to eat. I roll to my side and take the spoon.
“Well look who’s finally awake,” Ven says, slipping into the tent. He tips his head, and the nurse steps out. “You know, hero, you were wrong. You were so, so wrong about the Slitters. I almost left you out on that hill for fly bait. And then I thought about tossing you in a hole—”
“My men?” I ask.
“But I’ve already bounced Starter and arresting another people’s favorite might look like I’m clearing the board. Besides, Community needs a hero from the ridge, so you’re eating compote instead of dirt.”
“My men?” I croak.
Ven narrows his eyes deep into my face. “You’ll have a nice long scar on your face. Won’t be as pretty as you used to be, but at least you’ll look like a Scorpion.”
“Please, my men?”
“Hero, you have no men…they’re gone…all of them.”
My stomach curdles like rotten milk. “I knew she didn’t have an army, but I never guessed—”
“She could weaponize Loppers?” He chuckles. “I think I recruited the wrong surveyor from Group 14.” He glares down at me. “Slitters are a little more amphibious than you led me to believe.”
“I thought it was a weakness I could exploit. They’re slow—”
“A weakness? A weakness? They go Outside, do you have any idea what that means? They have access to resources way beyond our reach. No, it’s not weakness, it’s power. A handful of Slitters routed an entire army and tore Community to the ground.”
“I know how to defend against Loppers.”
“So do I. The builders have every man, woman and child constructing an abatis already. What happened here, won’t happen again easily.”
I roll to my back, staring up into the tent. “All my men?”
“Everyone but you.”
“What about Community?”
“We survived.” Ven waits for a response, but I don’t have one. “Well hero, get your rest, I need you fit as a bowstring. There’s a whole new world out there, and we have to figure out how to get our piece of it. I’ve got plans for you.” Ven pauses to watch me not looking at him, and then slips quietly out.
I eat and sleep, and two days later I push to my feet for a convalescent’s stroll through Community. An impenetrable barricade of sharpened poles encircles the perimeter, leaning outward, waiting to impale any man or beast foolish enough to charge in. From the treetops, the compound probably looks like a porcupine’s ass. Men adding sharpened sticks to the abatis don’t pay any attention to me as I limp by, heading for Group 1.
The days are all smeared together, so I can’t say how long it’s been since Mim unleashed her monsters on my home, but the wounds here are barely healing. Tents are shredded, clothing is strewn over the ground, hide stretchers are broken apart, looms are split, and spinning wheels are smashed to pieces among the refuse. An ox cart is toppled, and a dead goat lies where I have to step around it. People I pass are gray and without expression as they pick through what’s left of Community. I hobble into Group 3 where a woman sits stitching a tent.
“Hello,” I say.
She looks up, nods, and goes back to work.
“Is that your tent?”
She pulls her needle through the tent skin once more, lays her hands in her lap, and sighs. “Are you accusing me of stealing, sir?”
“No, no, I’m not doing that.”
“Good,” she says, “because between burial detail and working on the barricade, I’ve had no time to pull my life together…no one has.” She picks up her work and pushes the needle in. “So if you’ll excuse me.”
“I wasn’t here when it happened, can you tell me?”
“I don’t want to,” she says without looking up.
“Please.”
“You’re a soldier, where were you?” she asks, pulling her twine through.
“At the ridge.”
“Really? You sure you’re not one of those who ran off?”
“What do you mean?”
She lays her work to her lap and wets her lips. She’s not as old as I supposed, just…ragged.
“It’s not hard to see troops ordered back in the middle of the day. Scorpions, militia, the whole lot, up and left…high-tailed it in the opposite direction, pulled out by High Command. I guess the army is more precious than the people.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was a nightmare come to life. Every time I close my eyes I see those devils in broad daylight…how can they be worse in the daylight?” Her hands tremble in her lap. “The smell and the god-awful screaming, I…” She shakes her head and her face fills with pain. “…lost my boy and my pair. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you lived.”
“Because of Starter.”
“You know Starter?”
“The patron saint of Group 3—I used to. He’s from here.”
“What happened?”
“He and the other prisoner are dangerballers. You put two of them in a hole together and they’re going to get out, especially if the guards run off. Starter and the other one could have escaped, but they stayed… got us up in the trees. Loppers don’t climb. Eventually the beasts up and left, the army came back, and put us all to work.”
“Did Starter and the other prisoner make it?”
“They’re back where they were—arrested.”
She picks up her sewing. I watch her a moment more before limping off without saying thank you.
§
In a one-man court over a plate of breakfast, Ven declares Tommy and Starter certs—guilty of treason. There are other charges, but those don’t matter, Starter and Tommy can only be strapped to a culling post once. I hobble down to visit the prisoners, but Scorpion guards turn me away. Access is restricted by order of High Command.
For three days I sit at the back side of Group 1, watching the culling posts draped with men who used to be my friends. No one is allowed contact, so I can only imagine our good-byes and parting words. We all blame Mim for the tragic events.
The next afternoon, a slight breeze picks up shortl
y after lunch. Border guards with their dogs come into view, and sheep are herded in behind Community. The Ark begrudgingly pushes off, in no great hurry to get wherever we’re going, reluctant to leave Tommy and Starter behind.
§
The migration isn’t a robust one. We’re leaving a lot of dead behind. No sedans or litters carry the elite on this journey, every member of The Body has perished in the combined treachery of Starter and Mim. I linger on Gas’s bridge until most groups have crossed over. I think of my friend and miss him terribly.
Brother Ark carries us beyond the Slitter camp and out into the sea of wild grass where Mim threatened to rip Community to the ground. I step around a decomposing body with Scorpion arrows in its back. I take the one that belongs to me as I walk by. Ven has no use for antiquated religion, but I take the dead woman and the return of my arrow as a sign. The Ark is being drawn somewhere new. I can’t say where, but it feels like the end…the fulfillment of a prophecy I learned as a child, but never really believed. In another life, I may have wanted it, but The Body is gone, a Scorpion has risen, and my only purpose is retribution...vengeance. Before all others, I will be the instrument of Slitter destruction.
I touch the scar on my face. Mim gave me this right before she murdered my men and ravaged innocent people who used to be her own. She’s cost me…everything, and now she is out there hiding like a coward, waiting to strike. She and her people have to be stopped before they hurt us again. They have to be punished…there is a price for what they’ve done.
I don’t know where Mim is, but I feel the distance between us growing smaller with every step. My thoughts stay with her as Brother Ark moves southward over the grass, promising me the opportunity to balance the scales…and when I find her, I will…balance the scales.
Coming Soon
Brother Ark Book III
The Dark City
1
The air of damp earth and urine fills my nose until the taste of it soaks my tongue and drowns away any chance to dream. A shallow cough strikes like a mallet to my lower back, rattling my ribs and every joint in my stiff body. I haven’t been able to move around much for days. I guess it’s been days, but how many I can’t say for sure. The circle of light overhead is dim. I push to my feet in the dark and stumble into Starter.
