Firebrand

by Antony John

  “Actually, I’ll go with Rose,” I said, joining her.

  “No, you won’t. You’ll do what I say because I’m in charge of this gathering. Is that clear?” He didn’t say it cruelly, but there was no mistaking his tone. This was another test, just like coming to Moultrie. Fail the test, and we might be looking for a new home soon.

  Fort Moultrie was set back from the water, and the flat land fronting it had been thoroughly planted. Kell pointed to a series of wooden posts that divided the area into parcels, each one with a different sun-shade balance that allowed for multiple crops, vegetables, and fruits. It looked familiar from the map he’d shown us.

  The plan was for each pair to gather food from one parcel. When everyone was ready, we’d enter the fort itself, where the chilly underground armories acted as storerooms for cured meats. I didn’t need to ask which part of the gathering would be most dangerous. There was a reason we’d be entering the fort together.

  No one moved when Kell finished explaining the situation. Being close to the boats felt safe, as hard to leave as a blanket on a cold night. I imagined tiny movements across the land even though I hadn’t seen anything.

  Alice was first to go. She probably did it to wipe the smug expression from Jerren’s face. I followed her, and Nyla came with me. When I looked back, Rose was moving too, fear hidden behind a stoic expression.

  “Kell didn’t want you coming today,” I remarked to Nyla.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Kell thinks girls should stay inside the fort. Doesn’t take years of practice to wash a shirt, though, and I’m not going to be stuck inside Sumter every day of my life. This is my chance to show what I can do. So keep your eyes open. I’ll never get another chance if you catch the Plague.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I promised. “Griffin wouldn’t accept anything less.”

  I thought she’d like hearing his name. Instead Nyla frowned and pressed ahead to our parcel.

  Back across the harbor entrance, Sumter appeared tiny. Hard to believe so many people had lived there for so long, like wasps in a nest, always busy but always together.

  “You keep lookout,” said Nyla, kneeling beside a row of kale. Some of the leaves had been eaten. “Rabbits,” she explained, without turning around. “They’ll eat anything, but Chief likes us to pick the leaves anyway. He uses them in hot infusions and ointments.”

  I listened without answering, split between watching for rats and keeping an eye on Rose and Kell. They were about fifty yards away. I didn’t like the way he stood so close to her as she pulled roots from the ground.

  “Here.” Nyla handed me her bag, already full, and took mine. She wasted no time, tearing leaves recklessly, eyes flashing from left to right. She didn’t trust me as her lookout.

  When she’d filled my bag too, we placed them beside a nearby water barrel and switched roles. While she watched the land around us, I filled the two metal buckets that had been left out and watered the roots of the plants, exactly as I’d seen the Guardians do back at our original colony. It didn’t take long, and I figured we’d be the first to finish.

  We were last. We walked briskly to where the others stood waiting for us. Together again, we followed a path around the perimeter of the fort. Where earlier we’d cast shadows, now the sky was clouding over. It cooled the air and allowed me to stop squinting.

  Finally we reached an arch in the western wall. Through it, a tunnel stretched ahead of us. It was maybe ten yards long, but felt more like fifty. Doorways to the side remained in shadow—a haven for anything that wanted to remain unseen.

  Suddenly Rose grabbed my hand and pulled me back. “There!” she screamed. “At the end.”

  I stared through the darkness, trying to find the rat. “Where?”

  “It . . . it’s gone now.” Her hand shook wildly.

  Kell circled around us. “Gone, huh? Are you sure you saw something?”

  Rose hesitated. “I think so.”

  Jerren placed a hand on Kell’s arm. “Come on,” he said calmly. “Whatever it was, we should keep moving.”

  Kell glared at Rose, and turned his attention to the rest of us. “The powder magazine is through the tunnel. We’ll take a left at the end, follow the path around, and go through the gate. The entrance to the building will be right in front of us. Everyone got it?”

  He didn’t wait for us to nod or say yes. Whether or not Rose had really seen a rat, this needed to be a quick mission. In and out. The good news was that our destination was close to the entrance.

  Our footsteps echoed against the brick walls as we crept through the tunnel. At the end was a bright yellow building—no doors or windows as far as I could tell. Kell walked around it and through a gateway. Here was another yellow building, but this one had an arched doorway and windows at the end. It wasn’t very light inside, but peering through the metal bars in the door, I could just make out crates stacked against the walls.

  Kell yanked the door open. “Over here,” he said, pointing to the back. “Leave your bags by the door. Open each crate slowly—we don’t know for sure what we’ll find inside.”

  He and Jerren went in and we followed right behind. They pulled the lid from the first crate and removed two small boxes before retreating to the door.

  Alice made eye contact with Rose and me. “Ready?” she asked, fingers placed against the seam below the lid.

  We pulled the lid off so slowly, the crate creaked. Alice leaned over and swept her hand around inside, a puzzled expression across her face. “It’s empty,” she said.

  There was a strange sound from behind us. Alice’s eyes grew wide.

  We spun around together, darting for the door, but it closed before we got there. After that, there was nothing but a resounding clunk as a lock secured it.

  With us inside.

  CHAPTER 27

  Alice threw herself against the bars. “Are you crazy, Jerren?”

  He stood back to admire his handiwork. “Crazy? No, but you are.”

  She thrust a hand through the bars, snatching at his tunic, but she couldn’t reach him. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Is that a serious question?” Jerren shook his head. “You turn up out of nowhere. There’s only a handful of colonies left, but no one’s ever seen you before. Oh, and somehow you managed to steal Dare’s ship.”

  I looked for a way out, but there wasn’t one. The whole thing was a setup. They’d even made us leave our bags outside because they didn’t want to waste the food when they left us behind.

  Jerren placed his box on the ground as Kell took a step back.

  “You can’t do this,” said Alice, still defiant and hopeful. “You haven’t got it in you to watch us die.”

  He opened the box. “We won’t be watching.”

  “Correction,” said Kell. “I won’t be watching. Now please get your hand away from there, Jerren.”

  Jerren froze. He kept his hand over the open box.

  “Don’t be the first victim, boy. It’s not worth it.” Kell stepped forward and placed the barrel of a gun against Jerren’s head.

  Somehow Jerren smiled. “Boy, huh?”

  “You think I don’t know that it was you on the ship the other night?”

  “It was me and Rose,” I said.

  Kell looked up. “Yes. But who helped you get back into the fort without being seen?” He laughed in the face of my silence. “You shouldn’t have hidden from us on the ship, Jerren. If you’d just stepped out, we’d have known you had nothing to hide. But then, you did have something to hide, didn’t you? Wanted to scope it out, see if you could sail it.” He tsked. “I guess your parents would’ve approved of that.”

  “Not after you killed them.” Jerren gritted his teeth. “I always knew it was you. Always.”

  Kell raised his hand, but before he could strike Jerren, a figure leaped off the
wall and landed on him. His gun bounced harmlessly away.

  I’d completely forgotten Nyla had been with us. In his haste, so had Kell. Now Jerren had picked up his gun, as well as the one from his own box. He pointed them both at Kell.

  Jerren’s hands were shaking from anger, not fear. I could see it in his rigid shoulders and the set of his jaw. “I begged our father not to come to Moultrie that day,” he muttered. “I told him it was a trap, but he said I was wrong, that you’d never betray us. Said Mother needed him. And that you were his closest friend.”

  “Your parents stole supplies and hid them,” spat Kell. “They planned to steal our ship too. Chief decided having people like that wasn’t good for the long-term health of the colony.”

  Jerren slammed one of the guns against the bars. The ringing sound reverberated around the tunnels. “Was this where you locked her? Right here? Did she really get bitten at all?”

  This time, Kell didn’t answer.

  “You were going to put me in there too, huh? How was I going to die? A bullet to the head? Or was it going to be slow? Starvation or Plague—a nice, painful death for a traitor.”

  “As you say, boy: a traitor.”

  There was a click as Jerren cocked the gun. “Where did you put my parents?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kell sounded bored now, but I wasn’t fooled. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead to hide the perspiration. “I think it’s time you gave me back my gun.”

  Before he could move, Jerren fired. The shot was loud; the scream that followed, deafening. Kell creased up, right hand clasped against his left biceps. Blood was already seeping through his sleeve.

  “You shot me!” he yelled in disbelief. “You . . . you shot me.”

  Jerren lowered the other gun so that it pointed at Kell’s leg. “A flesh wound to the arm. Next time it’ll be your leg. Now, where are my parents?”

  “Let us out, Jerren,” Alice implored him. “We can help—”

  “Shut up! You’re staying right there. You’re not one of us, and you never will be.” He jabbed the gun closer to Kell’s right leg. “As soon as Kell tells me what I want to know, we’re done here. But you won’t be coming back with us.”

  Jerren’s words must have reassured him, because Kell began talking. “They were buried in a storeroom under one of the cannons. There are dirt mounds there.”

  Jerren took a deep breath. The tension that had marked his features slowly disappeared. He beckoned Nyla to him and handed her one of the guns. With his free hand he removed a key from his pocket and gave her that too. “Let them out,” he told her.

  Kell’s eyes opened wide. “But . . . you can’t. They’re not like us.”

  “Us?” Jerren snorted. “There’s no us, Kell.”

  Nyla fumbled with the lock. As soon as the door was open, we burst through. Alice snatched the gun from Nyla and pointed it straight at Jerren.

  “That’s right,” said Kell. “Tell him to end this, Alice.”

  Jerren didn’t flinch or turn toward her. It was as if he’d expected nothing else. “Who do you trust right now, Alice?” he asked calmly. “After what you’ve just heard . . . who do you trust?”

  She kept the gun on him a while longer, but then lowered it. When Jerren held out his free hand, she returned it to him.

  “There’s rope in my bag,” he said. “Tie Kell’s hands behind his back and throw him in there. Give him a taste of what it’s like to be locked up.”

  Alice and I tied Kell’s hands and legs securely and pulled him to his feet. Rose stood behind him and pushed him, shuffling, into the cell. Immediately, Nyla closed the door again and locked it.

  I stepped forward to stop her and felt a click at the side of my head. “Rose stays in there too, Thomas,” said Jerren. “I’m not going to risk you three turning on me.”

  Alice shot him a furious look. “Let her out, Jerren. This is stupid.”

  He kept the two guns on us. “No, it’s not. She’ll be fine. Something tells me your knots are as good as anyone’s.” He smiled. “Even Kell here will be free soon, as long as those directions work out. If we dig up those mounds and find nothing there, though . . . well, then Kell’s stay here will get extended.”

  Kell broke eye contact.

  “Want to change your mind on those directions?” Jerren taunted.

  Kell spat through the bars. “Your parents are under the lookout tower. Go through the iron door and down the steps to the end of the corridor. There’s a chamber on the right. It’s sealed. They’re inside. Can’t promise what kind of state they’ll be in, though.”

  Jerren flicked his hand, signaling for Alice and me to go. Rose shuffled to the corner of the cell, as far from Kell as possible.

  “Please, Jerren,” I tried again. “Rose doesn’t need to stay.”

  “It’s all right,” she called out. From the shadows, she fixed her gaze on Jerren, not me. “I want him to understand that he can trust us. And if locking me in here with his parents’ murderer pleases him, then so be it.”

  If she was trying to make him feel guilty, it didn’t seem to be working.

  “Let me stay instead,” I pleaded.

  Rose huffed. “No, Thomas. Just hurry up so we can get back to Sumter.” She watched Kell from the corner of her eye. “I don’t think Kell is acting alone.”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. I’d figured all of this was just one more twist in the secret battle between Kell and Jerren. “Did someone put you up to this?”

  Kell hesitated. He knew he was supposed to keep quiet, but couldn’t resist the power of his knowledge. Wanted to see its effect on us. “Chief knows everything. Everything. What interests me is what he has planned for your parents and siblings.” He bowed his head, but kept his eyes fixed on us. “I’d say it can’t be any worse than this, but history tells me that’s not true.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Jerren turned and ran. Nyla was right behind him. They had the key to the cell, which meant we had no choice but to follow. I wouldn’t let him leave the island until Rose had been released. And from Alice’s expression, I could tell that she wouldn’t either.

  We crossed the undulating grounds, eyes flitting from right to left, taking in every detail of the sun-scorched grass. Rats might be big enough to see with the naked eye, but missing one could be so costly. Only Jerren seemed to be focused on what was in front of him, as if seeing his parents again could override the dangers we were facing.

  Moultrie was no bigger than Sumter, but I was disoriented. Gaps appeared in man-made banks, dark tunnels leading who-knew-where? Jerren knew where he was going, though. He moved from grass to path and sprinted up a series of steps to the lookout tower. From here we had a clear view to Sumter, a mile away. Were we being watched at that very moment? Or were Chief’s men busy dealing with the remaining members of our colony?

  Jerren stopped beside a green metal door. He wasn’t waving the guns at us anymore—barely seemed to notice us at all—but Alice and I didn’t take advantage of the situation. This was a quest to find his parents and put the past to rest.

  He took a moment before opening the door. Stairs led down to a corridor that felt more like a tunnel. The light was low, the temperature strikingly cooler than outside. To either side were rooms, full of furniture encased behind glass. Parallel bars ran vertically along the entire corridor. From the way he walked slowly, I knew that this part of the fort was new to Jerren, and he was as uncomfortable to be here as we were.

  Another dozen or so steps and the light grew dimmer still. Jerren nudged forward and drew alongside the next room. He glanced left and jumped back so suddenly, his back collided against the glass wall behind him.

  “What is it?” shouted Alice.

  He pointed into the room, eyes wide. “It’s . . . a person. But not a person.”

  Sure enoug
h, there was a man sitting beside a desk, pretending to write. But as realistic as he looked, he wasn’t human. “What was this place?” I asked.

  Jerren exhaled slowly. “A long time ago it was a fort, like Sumter. But that must have been over a hundred years ago.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Alice. She followed Jerren a little farther. “Did you know it was Dare’s ship as soon as we arrived?”

  He didn’t answer, but Nyla did: “Yes. There aren’t many ships left. They’re as easy to tell apart as people.”

  “So why didn’t someone say something?”

  “Because Chief wanted to find out what was going on,” replied Jerren. He flicked his head at me. “He watched you dumping that body overboard, which is suspicious enough. Next thing, the ship drops anchor and you swim ashore instead of Dare. Like you’re the captain. He knew something was up.”

  “Who cares? It’s a refugee camp. What difference does it make how we got here?”

  Jerren stopped walking and faced her at last. “Exactly how many refugees have you seen on this island?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Put it this way: How many people look like Nyla and me?” His muscles tensed as he gripped one of the metal bars beside him. “I saw you all staring at us when you got off the ship. Point is, they stopped taking refugees after my parents died. That’s how I knew they’d worked out my parents were trying to escape, because they shut the place down. Any boat that made it as far as Sumter was greeted with a long line of guns.”

  “So why do they keep broadcasting that message?” I asked. “The one calling refugees to Sumter?”

  “Because the colony’s falling apart. There’s not even enough wire to mend the chicken coop. But Chief can’t go after ships like Dare does. He has to lure them here instead.”

  “Does it work?” Alice asked.

  Jerren nodded. “If the ship is well-armed, he’ll try to trade instead, then send them away. But if it’s weak . . .” He didn’t bother to complete the thought.