Siege Line

by Myke Cole

  As weak as this human body was, it was still plenty strong. Even though he had barely eaten over the last few days, Yakecan had a lot of muscle under the fat, and Schweitzer found himself having to slow his stride to avoid pulling out of synch with Mankiller and Ghaznavi. It didn’t take long for the three of them to find a rhythm, and the crunching of the snow and whisper of the sledge runners became Schweitzer’s whole world. It helped him to forget all he had lost, first his family and then his body and finally his power, and what lay ahead of him at journey’s end: the remnants of his brother’s army, complete with the remaining Golds, not to mention Peter’s terrible strength. Schweitzer hadn’t been able to beat him when he had all the power granted by his unlife. What chance would he have now? Don’t think about it. The only way out is through.

  But even if he wasn’t thinking about it, others were. “So, you’re sure,” Ghaznavi said eventually. ‘No powers at all? I mean, you’re pulling the sled awful hard.”

  Schweitzer rapped a thick knuckle against one leg, thick as a tree trunk. “Yakecan was a big boy, and he worked out.”

  Mankiller snorted. “He never did a stitch a work in his whole life that he didn’t have to. Even if there was a gym in town, he wouldn’t ’a gone to it.”

  “Well, he’s plenty strong, regardless,” Schweitzer said, giving an extra yank on the harness to underscore his point.

  “Yeah.” Mankiller sounded wistful. “I guess he was.”

  “Well, doesn’t that just take the fucking cake,” Ghaznavi said. “We haul our asses all the way out here, go through that spooky Beltane Fire ritual . . .”

  “That’s not the Beltane Fire,” Plante said. “Beltane’s . . .”

  “You know what I mean,” Ghaznavi said. “Anyway, my point is we took all that risk and lugged all this way, and the sum total is we get one more body in the fight. One more regular human body when we need Superman.”

  Mankiller stiffened, and Schweitzer knew she was offended at the implication that Yakecan had in any way been regular. “You watch your mouth.”

  “I’m not speaking ill of the dead,” Ghaznavi said, gesturing to Schweitzer. “He’s up and breathing, Sheriff.”

  “Still,” Mankiller grumbled, “ain’t nice.”

  “Nice?” Ghaznavi asked. “Nice isn’t going to count for a skinny fuck when we get back to town and have to face those things. We needed Schweitzer as he was—turbocharged.”

  Schweitzer supposed she was right, but he was flying too high on the rush of simply being alive to let it bother him. He stretched his cheeks in a wide smile, a human smile, a proper smile, unrestrained by the limits of the metal armature that had been a dress mannequin for his corpse-face. He could feel his cheeks rising, his eyes crinkling. Yakecan’s eyes. But it didn’t matter. Yakecan was naked in a field of flowers, smiling beatifically into the middle distance. He wasn’t using them, and possession was nine-tenths of the law.

  “Still turbocharged,” Schweitzer said. He was getting used to Yakecan’s deep bass, starting to think of it as his own. “I’m a SEAL. That doesn’t go away.”

  Ghaznavi rolled her eyes. “We rolled in there with six hard operators out of SAD and JTF2. Hasn’t exactly evened the odds. You’ll forgive me if I’m not terribly reassured by the addition of a single SEAL trapped in the body of an overweight—” Mankiller shot her a glare and she stopped, raising a hand in defeat. “Sorry.”

  Schweitzer saw her point, but he remembered the last gunshots he’d fired when he was alive. One had arced across five hundred meters of churning ocean to drop a target on the pitching deck of a ship. Another had caught a man’s wrist mid-throw from around a doorjamb. There were SEALs and there were SEALs, Schweitzer supposed.

  The bear had stayed behind to guard the cabin, but the wolves provided a dark and stumbling escort. Their stiff and jerking strides, coupled with the golden flames of their eyes, were clearly making Ghaznavi nervous.

  “Jesus,” she panted, waving to Plante. “You can’t put them in harness? Make a dog team out of ’em? I thought you knew how to do stuff like that out here.”

  Plante laughed. “We do, but do those look like dogs to you?”

  Ghaznavi shot a glance at the sleek gray-black shapes of the wolves. “I mean, kinda.”

  “Well, they ain’t. They’re wolves, which is nothin’ like dogs. You and me both got two legs and two arms, but it don’t make us the same. I’m Dene and you’re Bescho Dené, which is why you’re pulling the sled and I’m supervisin’. Now mush.”

  “Yeah, Jala,” Schweitzer added, grinning fit to split his face. “Mush.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Ghaznavi said. “We’re all gonna die.”

  • • •

  Mankiller insisted they halt about halfway to the town. At least, she said it was halfway to the town. It looked to Schweitzer exactly like the rest of the unending woods and frozen bog that made up the countryside. Ghaznavi was impatient to press on, but Mankiller cut a hand angrily across the ground, ending with a thumb jerked in the direction of her grandfather, who had given up walking and had taken to sitting on the back of the sledge for the last few hours. Schweitzer was surprised to find that he couldn’t feel the old man’s weight at all.

  “Grampy needs a rest,” Mankiller growled. “And so do I, for that matter. Ain’t gonna be no good to nobody, we go stumblin’ back there dead on our feet.”

  “Fine.” Ghaznavi slumped angrily down against the mound of supplies. “Instead, we’ll go dancing in like ballerinas amidst the burning wreckage and corpses of our people.”

  “Ollie’s good people,” Mankiller said. “He’ll figure a way to hold ’em.”

  “I’m not worried about him.” Ghaznavi shot an accusing glance at Schweitzer shrugging off his makeshift harness and sliding down to join her on the ground.

  “Not my fault,” he said, fishing a bottle of water out from under the tarp and unscrewing the cap. “I thought I’d keep all my powers.”

  He tried to keep the humor and joy out of his voice and failed utterly, and Ghaznavi buried her face in her hands in disgust.

  They sat like this for a while, the silence broken only by Mankiller’s efforts to unpack a small camp stove, then set about preparing a pot of canned beans and franks big enough to feed them twice over. Plante stood with a groan, produced a package of dried fish, which he tossed to the wolves. A few nibbled tentatively at them. Most ignored them entirely.

  “She’s got a point,” Mankiller said later, when they’d all caught their breath. “Gonna be a hard fight when we get back.”

  “Yeah,” Schweitzer said, “I guess.”

  “We should probably have a plan before we go in.”

  “Plan is to hold what we’ve got and wait for the QRF.”

  “Bad guys might feel different.”

  “So, we fight ’em. You still got those flamethrowers, right? And you can make more TATP?”

  “Yeah”—Mankiller looked at her feet—“but I don’t think the bad guys are gonna hold still for it.”

  “Don’t need them all to hold still, just one of ’em.”

  Ghaznavi looked up. “They’re animals, Jim. You said so yourself. What makes you think they’re even going to notice that you killed one of them?”

  “Wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about the people. Might knock ’em back on their heels to see their magic zombie boss get knocked down a peg. Look, we just have to make them hold off, right? Just get them to think twice. They’re not stupid. They know they’ve got company inbound. They might just give up, try their luck in the woods. They’re not concerned about the town. They want the sheriff to give up her grandpa. They might fuck off if they think the Canadian Army is inbound and it’s too tough a nut to crack.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Ghaznavi said. “They’re probably pretty pissed off by now.”

  “Bu
t they’re pros,” Schweitzer said. “Tell me, if it were you, what would you do?”

  Ghaznavi thought about it for a moment. “I’d have bugged out the minute I thought there was going to be a real fight. Laying siege to a town? I have no idea what the hell they’re thinking.”

  Schweitzer had an idea, but he said nothing of his brother’s gray, leering face, of his burning silver eyes. “Yeah, well, this is the thing. I fought the Director, and I got a bit of a read on him.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “We talked.”

  “What?” Mankiller looked up. “In the middle of a fight?”

  “Just like in the comic books.” Schweitzer grinned.

  Mankiller shuddered. “That’s Joe’s smile you’re wearing. Freaks me the hell out.”

  Schweitzer shrugged. “We’re sharing it. It’s a good smile.”

  Mankiller nodded, stirred their dinner.

  “Anyway,” Schweitzer went on, “he’s the problem. He’s not feral like the rest of them, but he’s also not . . . in control of himself. He’s impetuous. I think he’s running that outfit based on fear. The Golds I saw kowtowed to him like beta dogs in the presence of an alpha. We take him out, we snap their spine.”

  Soft pops in the distance, the faintest echo of a roar carried on the wind. Schweitzer stiffened, glanced at Plante. The sounds were just barely audible to his human ears, but he still knew what they were. “That your bear?”

  “He’s his own bear,” Plante said, “but yeah. Sounds like he got the drop on someone and they’re shootin’ at him.”

  “Enough rest.” Schweitzer got to his feet. “We need to move.”

  “Now, jus’ wait a minute,” Plante said. “Could be hunters. Might even—”

  “No, Grampy,” Mankiller cut him off. “It’s the bad guys. Huntin’ rounds don’t sound like that.”

  Ghaznavi was shrugging the harness back on. “We have to assume they’re following the sledge tracks. They’ll catch up to us before too long.”

  “Well, let’s get a move on.” Plante looked tired, but he began digging under the tarp for rope. “I’ll get in harness. I can pull some of the load.”

  “No,” Schweitzer said, “but even if we did put you in harness, we’d still be moving slower than them. We’re pulling a loaded sledge.”

  “Maybe we can still beat them back to town,” Ghaznavi offered. “If we start moving now and—”

  “No,” Mankiller said. “No way.”

  Ghaznavi cursed, looked at her feet. “So, we dig in and make our stand here.”

  “And if we lose?” Schweitzer asked. “What then?”

  “Then”—Mankiller spoke slowly as Schweitzer’s reasoning dawned on her—“then, they get Grampy.”

  “Not if we beat them,” Ghaznavi said.

  “We can’t take that chance.” Schweitzer turned to Mankiller. “How long a walk is it to civilization? Besides Fort Resolution.”

  “About a day’s walk to Hay River.”

  Ghaznavi whistled. “That’s a long walk. Especially for an old man.”

  “You’ll drop dead long before I stop walking,” Plante said. “I can hack it.”

  “They’re going to be looking for a heavy sledge loaded with supplies,” Schweitzer said. “It’ll be tougher without my help.”

  “Will be,” Mankiller said, “I see what you’re aimin’ at, but we gotta keep Grampy safe. You take ’im and head south. Might be by the time they realize what’s up, you’ll be someplace safe and the cavalry will have arrived.”

  “Me?” Schweitzer asked. “No, I’ll stay with the sledge. You go with your grandpa.”

  Mankiller shook her head. “You know the way back to town?”

  “No,” Schweitzer admitted.

  “Then, what happens if you win the fight? You gonna just huddle up under the sledge till somebody finds you?”

  “We could.”

  “You wouldn’t make it out here in the open. Not even with all the supplies. You gotta go with Grampy. I’ll stay here.”

  “But what if they get you?”

  Mankiller tapped her pistol. “They won’t. I’ll save the last round, just in case.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Ghaznavi said. “Maybe your diversion will work, but it’s just as likely they’ll catch you out alone, and you’ll be fucked.”

  “We’re fucked already,” Schweitzer said.

  “Our first priority is to keep that man”—Ghaznavi stabbed a finger at Plante—“out of the Director’s hands. Convince me that reducing his guard from three, and eventually dozens, to one, in the middle of a wilderness with no help to hand is the right move.”

  “He don’t gotta convince you of nothin’,” Mankiller said. “Grampy, are you okay with this?”

  Plante nodded. “I want to see the Fort—”

  “Not now, you don’t,” Mankiller said.

  Plante nodded and continued. “But I’ll swing back around once you get all this wrapped up.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Ghaznavi said. “We need Sch—”

  “You don’t need me,” Schweitzer cut her off. “I’m just a man now. I’m skilled, to be sure, but so are you. Plenty of folks would be just as happy to have a SAD operator as a SEAL going into a firefight.”

  “Grampy’s okay with it,” Mankiller said, “I’m okay with it, Jim’s okay with it. You’re outvoted.”

  “This isn’t a vote,” Ghaznavi said through clenched teeth. “This is a holding action until rescue arrives.”

  “Aren’t you cute,” Mankiller said, pulling back the tarp and wrestling a backpack out. She dropped to one knee and started packing it full of supplies.

  “Now, you—” Ghaznavi began.

  Mankiller cut her off with an angry stab of her finger. “Cavalry’s comin’, sure, but when? Heck, we might get back there and find everything’s cut to pieces. Jim’s got the right idea, and you know it.”

  “I can’t allow you to take a precious asset off in the company of an unknown quantity in the middle of the wilderness in a foreign country!” Ghaznavi seethed.

  “So?” Mankiller shrugged. “Don’t allow it.” She stood, handing the backpack to Schweitzer, who worked his arms into the straps. She then turned and waved the sledge harness in Ghaznavi’s direction. “Strap in and mush.”

  “Yeah.” Schweitzer grinned. “Mush.”

  Mankiller handed Schweitzer the Alaskan. “Best gun out here,” she said. “It’ll drop a charging bear.”

  Schweitzer took it reverently, slung it over his neck. “You sure? You’ll probably need it more than me.”

  Mankiller shook her head, jerked her thumb over her shoulder at Ghaznavi. “She’s right about one thing: keeping Grampy safe is priority one. So, you get the good gun. I got lots more at the station now that we got our pick of the ammo. Oh, and take this, too.” She handed Schweitzer her Glock, which seemed to weigh nothing compared to the Alaskan. He tucked it in his waistband and thanked her. “Grampy packed plenty o’ spares.”

  “So, uh . . . how do I cover our tracks in this snow?” he asked. “You got snowshoes in there, or—”

  Mankiller laughed. “You pray for wind to blow enough snow in ’em that they get covered up, and hope they don’t freeze solid. Or you get lucky and some animals foul ’em up or whatever. Unless you can walk on top of the snow without breaking through it, you’re gonna have to cut trail.”

  Schweitzer smiled. “Huh, I just thought that—”

  Plante laughed. “That us Indians all know how to pass without a trace? You’ve been watching too many movies.”

  “Good luck, Sheriff,” Schweitzer said. “Once we reach Hay River, I’ll get in touch with Yellowknife and get us linked up again.”

  “Maybe we’ll get there and find the cavalry’s already come,” Mankiller said. “Which case
, they can send a helo to pick you up.”

  Schweitzer grunted and turned away. Ghaznavi was pulling on the harness, grumbling under her breath. She made no effort to bid them farewell.

  Plante embraced Mankiller. “Neghânitâ, seyaz beyaz. Nanest’î lasã.”

  Schweitzer couldn’t resist running the phrase through Yakecan’s memories. The deputy’s command of Denesuline was incomplete, but Schweitzer was able to get the gist. Goodbye, I love you, until we meet again.

  Schweitzer cleared his throat. “Look, in case we don’t see each other again—”

  Mankiller stopped him with a wave. “Don’t. Ain’t no point in it. I guess whatever we’ve got to say’s been said. Just get movin’.”

  Schweitzer smiled and gave her a one-armed hug. “I’ll take care of your Grampy and your buddy,” he said, tapping his own . . . Yakecan’s chest. “Count on it.”

  Mankiller nodded and turned back to Ghaznavi, who was staring straight ahead.

  Mankiller was still struggling into the ropes at the front of the sledge when Schweitzer finally cleared the horizon and they were gone.

  CHAPTER XX

  LET ME HELP YOU

  They stuck to the woods in the hopes it would be harder to track in the tight confines of the trees. It certainly was for him. Within moments, Schweitzer had lost all sense of direction, but Plante forged ahead unerringly, eyes fixed on some point on the horizon that it seemed only he could see. Most of the wolf pack accompanied them—an absolute boon, Schweitzer thought. He doubted the Cell had any trackers with them expert enough to distinguish the tracks of tháydÿne from any other kind of wolf or coyote out here, though their gait was stiff and stumbling.

  Schweitzer insisted that Plante go first, though the old man’s plodding pace was maddening. “I’ve got a bigger footprint,” Schweitzer explained when Plante offered to let him take point. “I’m making sure I step where you step. Might be they’ll assume that it’s one guy who broke off, someone a lot bigger than you.” The trees blocked the slight wind, and Schweitzer held out scant hope the blowing snow would fill in their trail. Worse, the sky was clear and bright. No new snowfall threatened.