The Vagabond Codes

by J D Stone

  With a blood-curdling howl, the monster lunged at him. Ben fumbled around hopelessly in the bones, trying to find his gun; but the sword was about to cleave his skull, so he rolled twice to the side as the blade came slashing down.

  Ben reached down to his right boot and pulled out a knife and drove it into the Witcher King’s leg.

  The monster stepped back with a roar, and Ben got back up on his feet.

  They circled each other, the Witcher King with its crackling blade and Ben with his six-inch knife.

  The monster began to chant in an unworldly tongue, and Ben felt like he was going to throw up again.

  Suddenly a gunshot rang out, and the Witcher King staggered backward, clutching its stomach.

  “Ben!”

  He spun around. Danna was propping herself up — barely — with her gun in her hand.

  “Catch!” She tossed the pistol underhand and collapsed back onto the dolly.

  Ben caught the gun in his right hand, and his finger found the trigger.

  He heard the sword whistling in the air as it thirsted for his neck, and he launched backward, feeling the wind sliced by the sword that was inches from his face.

  Landing on his back, he raised the handgun and pulled the trigger, delivering armor-piercing, flesh-shredding bullets to the Witcher King’s chest until the gun clicked.

  The monster stood there, absorbing the slugs as if it was a possessed scarecrow stuffed with rot; then it began to totter, the red eyes faded into the black nothingness of its soul, and it collapsed upon a pile of maggot-ridden animal remains.

  Ben stood over the slain Witcher King. The extinguished sword lay at his feet, and he thought about decapitating the monster. But that thought passed as soon as it entered his mind — I am not a monster, he said to himself — and he simply spat on the corpse and said: “Ha! ‘Black and deep desire.’ You ripped that line from Macbeth, loser.”

  As soon as Ben vanquished the Witcher King, an ear-shattering explosion hit the far side of the room, sending down a rain of animal carcasses, bones, and filth. Light poured in through the door, and he now recognized that they were in the cargo bay – and, by the looks of it, the Witchers’ temple.

  A large shadow formed on the outside wall. Ben was about to pick up the sword when Oswald burst into the cargo bay with a machete.

  “Sammy!” he hollered as he rushed to his son, faster than Ben thought was humanly possible.

  Sammy met his dad halfway and leaped into his arms.

  Several shots were fired outside. Then Cameron charged in and shouted: “The place is burning down!”

  Ben stifled a giddy laugh. He tossed the night vision goggles in his pack and grabbed the dolly. “Let’s go, kids.”

  With a grunt, he pushed the dolly through the bones and dead animals, taking care not to ram into the Witcher King’s body.

  An armored black dump truck was idling outside, and the Stranger and Jade were standing on the tailgate and lifting children into the truck bed.

  “Danna’s been shot,” Ben shouted as he pushed the dolly out onto the dock. Drenched in sweat, he shivered. The air was cold, and the stars sparkled above like frozen tears.

  The Stranger jumped down from the truck, and he, Ben, and Cameron lifted Danna into the bed; then they helped the children up, followed by Oswald and Sammy.

  “Ivan’s driving,” the Stranger said. “Jasper is up front with him. Poncho didn’t make it.”

  “Where’s Kaela?” Jade asked. Several children had climbed on her lap and were resting their heads on her shoulders.

  “She died,” Danna said weakly. “Protecting us.”

  “Then let’s not make her sacrifice in vain,” the Stranger said. He smacked the side of the truck three times, and it began to rumble forward.

  Ben turned to the Stranger. “Where the heck were you? I turned around and you were gone.”

  “Long story, but I ended up finding them hiding in a closet.” He pointed at the children with his thumb. “Oswald led us out and finished off two Witchers who were guarding the exit. And it was his idea to blow that door open.”

  “Way to go, Ozzy,” Ben said with a grin.

  Holding his son tightly, Oswald nodded gravely in acknowledgment.

  At that moment, the dump truck hit a large bump then smashed through the gate and down the road. Danna let out a sharp cry.

  Cameron unrolled his wool blanket and tucked it around her. “We gotta keep her warm,” he said. “Otherwise she could go into shock.”

  “Is Miss Danna going to be okay?” a young girl asked timidly.

  “Not now, kid,” Cameron snapped as sweat formed on his brow.

  “Here, let’s lay her on her side.”

  “What about the bullet?” Danna groaned.

  “We can’t waste time looking for it,” Cameron replied. “Doc Roylott can deal with that when we get back.”

  “You better give me some antibiotics.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  “Lift her leg up,” Ben grunted, shoving his pack underneath her leg.

  Danna clenched her teeth and grimaced.

  “Any sign of internal bleeding?” Cameron asked.

  “There’s no swelling around her leg,” Ben replied; “and her pulse is stable, so we’re looking good.”

  “I’m looking good, Ben,” she rasped. “Not you. Me.”

  “Not if you have a peg leg,” Ben answered. Cameron tossed him a special forces Israeli bandage, and he waved it in front of Danna. “So, you better be nice to me while I fix you up.”

  He spun the bandage around the gunshot wound once; then, to put pressure on the wound, he twisted it the other way and wrapped it around her leg; finally, he clipped the closure bar into place. Patting her on the shoulder, in a low voice, he said: “I think you’re gonna be okay.”

  “Think?”

  “You are gonna be okay.”

  Danna groaned.

  “What?” Ben and Cameron asked at the same time.

  “What are we gonna do with all these kids?”

  Ben turned around. Eleven filthy faces were staring wide-eyed at them. He imagined their teeth rattling as the dump truck tore across the gravel road.

  Orphans. Just like us.

  He gave them a small smile. “We’ll take care of them.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Torn

  FOUR DAYS THEY stayed at the Arx.

  After two anxious hours, Dr. Roylott was able to remove the bullet from Danna’s leg, and he announced after surgery that she would make a full recovery. Claire Marie reunited with her mother; and Sammy, filled with joy and admiration at his father’s mighty deeds, hardly left Oswald’s side.

  The orphan children were given fresh clothing and were slowly being nourished back to health. But the horrors of the Witcher’s fortress wouldn’t soon be forgotten. Indeed, Ben was startled more than once during the first night by screaming children in the throes of nightmares.

  By the second day, however, the sound of kids’ laughter filled the morning air. Their energy brought joy and delight to the Arx, emotions that seemed lost and forsaken forever. Many of the residents were parents who had lost their own children to unspeakable tragedies, and Danna predicted the children’s arrival would repair the cracks in more than one heart. She was right.

  Ben slept in past noon for the first time in over a year. He never got to sleep in at the retreat, which made him feel stunted and deprived of a constitutional right of a teenager. Especially because Mom had always let Cameron sleep in when he was Ben’s age.

  When he finally woke up, every muscle in his body ached. He’d never been sorer in his life, and his left wrist felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. No doubt it was sprained. But he kept it to himself, and he quietly bandaged it while the others were distracted.

  He spent that day limping around the vegetable gardens, sneaking a cherry tomato here and there, and marveling at Whit’s ingenious Tower and all its complexities of pipes, peopl
e, and strange sounds.

  His free time didn’t last long, however, because the Arxians somehow learned of his repair skills. He soon had a line of fawning “customers” seeking repairs of solar-powered generators, hand-cranked flashlights, and other non-electrical devices.

  Ben didn’t bother to feign inconvenience; he could barely mask the joy he got only from tinkering. The “Techno-wizard,” that’s what he’d call himself.

  The night after the rescue, Cameron and Ivan geared up and disappeared into the moonlight. His brother said they had a job to finish. The following sunrise, a pillar of gray smoke swirled from the direction of the Witcher’s fortress; and Cameron and Ivan returned shortly after dawn, ashen-faced with blackened hands.

  They had taken a pickup truck from the compound, and the bed was filled to the brim with military-grade weapons: automatic rifles, grenades, pistols, and mountains of ammunition boxes.

  “Here are your grenades,” Cameron had told Oswald.

  The Stranger spent a lot of time with Whit and the other leaders of the Arx, giving advice, drawing plans, solidifying defenses. Sometimes he would stop and play with the children, but Ben never saw him rest except at night, when he’d clean his weapons while softly humming a bittersweet tune.

  The group ate together at every meal, setting up a makeshift buffet next to Danna’s bed. It was during dinner on the third night when came the inevitable conversation.

  “I thought we’d leave tomorrow,” the Stranger said in between mouthfuls of acorn bread. “At sunset.”

  Cameron nodded. “Yeah, me too. Now that we have the dump truck, we can make up for some of the wasted lounging around we’ve been doing.”

  Danna shifted uncomfortably in her bed.

  Ben took a sip of water and cleared his throat. “So, are we just gonna drive all the way into the city now that Danna’s hurt?”

  “Well,” Cameron began, but he stopped himself.

  “What do you think we should do?” the Stranger asked Danna.

  Danna handed her salad bowl to Ben and began to twirl her hair around her index finger. “I guess I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Cameron asked bluntly. “Can you walk?”

  Ben shot his brother a dark look. “Can you think?” he barked. “She was shot four days ago. She’s not going to be able to walk for weeks.”

  Cameron softened his face, and he looked down at his boots. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Let’s face it, guys,” Danna said, propping her head up with a hand. “It’s over for me.”

  Ben pressed his lips together in a slight grimace. He knew this was going to happen, but somehow, he felt like a freight train had hit him.

  There was a heavy pause. Downstairs, two people were laughing, and a wind chime sang to the night breeze.

  “Nobody’s going to say anything?” Danna said, throwing up a hand.

  “What’s there to say?” Ben said. “Yes? No?”

  “Anything would be nice.”

  The Stranger set his fork down and pushed his bowl away. “It’ll be your decision,” he said plainly. “We’re here for you, but ultimately you need to decide what you think is best for both yourself, Izzy, and the mission.”

  Danna leaned back on her pillow and closed her eyes. “And for you guys, too,” she said emphatically. “There’s no way I can go anymore. I’ll only slow you down. I mean, that’s an understatement.”

  “Ben could build you a hover wheelchair,” Cameron offered with a shrug.

  “With built-in machine guns?” Danna replied sarcastically. “Let’s be serious. I’m stuck in this dump.”

  “It’s not all that bad here,” Ben said mildly. “Now that Kaela’s gone, they’ll need someone to oversee security.”

  The Stranger nodded. “Whit’s getting up there in years; and after talking with their other leaders, I’m not too confident in their ability to keep things going.”

  “Tsk, so you’re saying I should help run things around here?” Danna asked. “A sixteen-year-old girl?”

  Ben jerked up. “Sixteen? I thought you’re fifteen.”

  “My birthday was last week.”

  “How come you didn’t say anything?” Cameron asked.

  Danna shrugged. “Kind of hard to celebrate a birthday when it’s always somebody else’s ‘deathday.’”

  “All the more reason to celebrate,” the Stranger said. “Life is precious. Well, a belated happy birthday.”

  “Thanks,” Danna mumbled, her cheeks blushing.

  Ben ran a hand through his hair and thought: Now she’s two years older than me? I’m like the baby here.

  “So what if you’re sixteen?” he said after a pause. “Age doesn’t matter anymore. Especially after what we did at the Witchers’ fortress.”

  “I think you’d do great,” Cameron added.

  Danna’s face brightened.

  The Stranger nodded. “I agree. I’ll mention it to Whit first thing in the morning, tell him to give you some time to rest before getting started.”

  Danna shot him a quick look. “So, you’re saying I should stay?”

  “Not necessarily,” the Stranger said slowly. “It’s entirely up to you.”

  “No, it’s not,” Danna replied bitterly. “We all know there’s no choice. And unless we find a tank and put together a small army, there’s no chance of me seeing Izzy anytime soon.”

  Silence filled the room. After a moment, the Stranger got up, patted Danna on the shoulder, and walked out.

  Cameron stood up and said: “Cheer up, kid. We’re not gonna let you down, and you’ll see Izzy before you know it.” Then he followed the Stranger out the door, leaving just Ben with Danna.

  “You okay?” Ben asked softly, leaning forward in his chair.

  Danna gave a slight shrug. “Depends on your meaning of ‘okay.’”

  Ben’s eyes wandered out the window, trying to think of something to say. He smiled. “You remember when we first met, don’t you?”

  Danna tilted her head back and groaned. “The picnic. It was so awkward!”

  Ben chuckled. “At least you had your phone! I was just stuck there.”

  “What did you think of me?”

  “Mean.”

  Danna laughed. “Yeah, I remember I was mad because my mom threw out my AR set the day before. I was ‘waging a silent war of retribution,’ as my dad said.”

  “I didn’t know that! I just thought you hated me.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “Because you probably thought I was a nerd.”

  “You are a nerd,” Danna said. “I mean, c’mon, you actually brought that flying thing to the picnic.”

  “That was a prototype drone,” Ben said in defense. He hated being called a nerd. “Half of my school would’ve died to have seen that thing fly.” He caught himself. “Bad choice of words.”

  Danna ignored his comment. “And remember Izzy? She found those rabbits. My mom was flipping out because she said she was allergic.”

  “But it’s not like she was gonna take them home!”

  “She said the hair would still get on Izzy’s clothes.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ben said. He paused. “How come you were more talkative the next time we all got together?”

  “Because my mom took away my phone and said that she wouldn’t give it back until I talked to you.”

  Ouch.

  “Aren’t you kind of glad you got to know me?” Ben asked with a crooked smile.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me that you were always such a troublemaker at school. I just can’t put two and two together; it doesn’t seem like you at all.”

  Ben shrugged. “I know. Sometimes I feel like two people wrapped in one.” He glanced at Danna. “Why? If I’d told you about it, you’d have thought I was cooler?”

  Danna smiled coyly. “Maybe. But we did end up having a bunch of stuff in common.”

  “Yeah, we both had weird English teachers, I rem
ember that.”

  “But be honest,” Danna said, cocking her head to one side. “You kinda had a crush on me.”

  Ben clicked his tongue. “Me? No way! My dad always talked about your family like you were like our new cousins or something.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

  “No way,” Danna replied with a laugh. “You were too much of a—”

  “Nerd,” Ben said flatly. “Got it.”

  “I do like that about you now,” Danna said with a little smile on her face. “In fact, your nerdiness has saved our skins more than once.”

  He scrunched his nose at her. “I guess. But if you’re going to call me a nerd, then I get to call you a brat.”

  “Not fair. You can’t call a sick girl names.”

  “Well, you better heal up quickly then!”

  Danna fell silent.

  “What?”

  “It’s Izzy,” she finally said, sighing. “She probably thinks I’m dead.”

  “It’s too dangerous to go back to the retreat. Like the Stranger said, you’re better off waiting things out here for a while.”

  “Do you think she’s safe? I miss her so much, it hurts.”

  “Of course she’s safe,” Ben replied confidently. “Safer than anywhere else in the world.”

  “Maybe. Don’t you ever think there’s someplace out there, someplace where people are getting things back together? The way things used to be?”

  Ben crossed his arms. “I don’t know why that’s important as long as we have the retreat.”

  “You miss it there, don’t you?”

  “The retreat is everything to me,” he replied.

  “And HULC,” Danna said. “Don’t forget about HULC.”

  “Right.”

  Ben looked away.

  “What?”

  “I just thought you were gonna be with us until the end,” he muttered.

  “Well, this is kind of the end, but if you think about it, it’s also a new beginning, and we get to be together for both.”

  “Yeah.”

  Danna perked up. “Which reminds me . . . hand me my shoulder bag.”

  Ben reached for the bag on the floor and set it on the bed.