The morning air was crisp to the touch and cold to the lungs. However, the suns had already made their appearance in the morning sky, hanging just above the brim of the lake. It was beautiful. We all stood and watched as Gerald looked at the lake and suns for the first time in his life. A tear formed up underneath his left eye, and I could tell he was trying to hold it in. I am sure this would be the same reaction from most of the people below us who have never gazed at a beautiful sunrise before. The look on Gerald’s face made everything worth it. Because of me he has been able to receive this gift. What he doesn’t know is he is going to have to fight with his life on the line in order to keep it. This did bring up a good point; he has never been out here, so how was his maps so detailed? Maybe we should check out his first point for good measure. If it’s compromised then something is definitely amiss.
We walked for a good thirty minutes in a staggered out v formation. Boe had the lead a good ten meters in front of the rest of us. He was ready and vigilant and I trusted him. He was as good a point man as any if you ask me. We reached the bowling ball rock which is where Gerald had pointed out was our first rest stop. I went to the left of it and wanted to get a little closer for a look. The map showed we would come in from the south, so coming in from the east would be unexpected. This would give me a good idea if anyone else knew we were coming. If they had gotten wind we were out for blood, this is where a party would be waiting on us to try and change our minds. At least that’s what I would do. Demoralize my enemy right out the gate and make them go home. Also, if someone was waiting on us here, that meant that a certain someone could not be trusted. That would mean Gerald was a rat. If there is one thing that I hate, it’s a rat.
Boe tensed up and I could tell he caught the scent of a hunting party and I had caught the scent of a rat. I knew it was too perfect, the routes all planned and highlighted. The rest stops pin pointed. Something was amiss here, and when I finish with the punks down at the bottom of the bowling ball, I will deal with Gerald. All signs are pointing to that kid right now and it’s not going to be pretty.
“Gerald, bunker down right here…ok bud. Chuck and I will be right back.” I instructed the rat as I motioned for Chuck to head over my way. I took him up to the edge of the bluff and we looked down amongst the rocks and saw our enemy, all six of them. Once again, huge guys awaited my entrance. “Chuck, take your cross bow and circle around, without being seen ok. Boe will go in first and that will be your signal. When he takes his first guy I want you to send two dudes to the grave from your angle and rush in and finish them by hand, got it? I want to send a damn message to anyone who is watching that we will not surrender. I am for real here. If you bitch out on me, I will kill you myself I swear it. I need every ruthless bone of your body to come out right now. Remember slow is smooth and smooth is fast. When you get to the hand to hand part, make it bloody.”
Chuck looked at me with a fire in his eyes. “Too easy Will. Two arrows, two guys, kill shots. I go in and we finish the rest by hand and be brutal. What are you waiting on, let’s roll!” Chuck whispered to me in a loud excited whisper. I could tell this is what he had been waiting on for a long time. A chance to do some damage and this was his time to shine.
Chuck took off at sprint and circled around to the right side of the rock. What the party at the bottom of the hill didn’t realize, is you always have to use your terrain to your advantage, and right now, they were fish in a barrel. I motioned for the other members of my team to come to me. “Ok boys, here’s the deal, Chuck is going to send in two arrows, take down two guys and move in to kill the rest by hand. I want you two to go in through the middle, ok? I want you to break these men in half. And you…wait here with Gerald; don’t like that bastard out of your sight till I get back. I promise you will have time to go down there and do some dirty. I just need to get this party started. I will deal with him when we are done here. Move out.” With military precision my troops moved out, just as eager and excited as Chuck.
Once lined up in my position, I glanced around at the heads of the rocks on the corners. Everyone was in place, and they were itching for a fight. The group at the bottom of the hill looked like they were getting ready to pack up and take their positions to attack us. I put an arrow in the notch and drew back my bow, steady now. The pain in my Chest started to slowly throb. “Now is not the time to be in pain, Will,” I told myself. My arrow left with a soft thwak and melted right into the middle of the leader’s head knocking him from his feet and sending him teen feet back landing on his face. Everyone at the bottom looked stunned and surprised as the big oaf did a complete backflip and laid there no longer moving.
Not even two seconds had elapsed when three more arrows began flying into the center of the arena, each arrow sinking right where it was intended. There were only three of them left so I sent Boe in, who obliged without regret. That dog wanted blood as much as I did. Once Boe let out a bark both of my soldiers stormed the valley. I sat and watched as my herd of dominions did what they did best, they killed. I went back and grabbed Jerold by the scruff on the back of his head, dragging him over where he could get a better look. The boy that was watching Gerald took off to catch up with the rest of the team. They wanted this. “Will, you’re hurting me, what did I do!? I don’t understand!” The rat cried and moaned as I drug him to the edge of the cliff, where he would have a first class view of the slaughter.
I reached around and put Jerold into a sleeper hold, but waited to apply the pressure. I wanted him to feel helpless and terrified as he watched his counterparts get slaughtered with no mercy. I cinched tighter and tighter around his neck letting him feel the darkness fade in then back to reality. He saw the whole scene. I wanted him to know I was going to do the same to him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Chuck ran up on the first man, who was easily three times his size. While jumping off a rock he launched himself at least six feet in the air, thrusting his knife into the side of the oaf’s neck, which sent the big man to his knees. He let out a huge blood gurgling scream that I am sure the kids in school back in the caves could hear. Gerald was shaking with fear, and I smiled. Chuck continued brutalizing his enemy, slamming him in the ribs with some sort of axe, ripping chucks of flesh straight from his body. Boe jumped on him and ripped a good handful of flesh from the big man’s lower kidney area. It was definitely a gory sight.
The other two were doing exactly the same; our enemies fell to their death at the hands of my mini platoon of men. This was too easy, and quite enjoyable if you ask me. I laughed hysterically as the two boys, Boe and Chuck, just demolished these men. They stood on top of their victory, giving themselves high fives and congratulatory praises on their accomplishment. Once the fight was over Chuck and his friends crawled their way up from the valley, hooting and hollering the whole way. I could tell this was their first real kill. Once we all sat around Jerold, I realized that he had passed out at some point during the fight. I had become so overwhelmed with the fight that I couldn’t see that I had been squeezing tighter and tighter around Gerald’s neck. We all had a good laugh and waited for him to wake up. For when he did…it could very well be the last moments he spends in this world, or any world at that matter.
Chapter Sixteen
“Who’s running this show”
When Gerald woke up I slammed him with about a thousand questions, “Who are you working for, who knows we are coming, and did you possibly think you could drag us out here and we would just roll over and die?” “I swear guys, I didn’t do anything. I just approved the route that was laid out; it looked the safest to me. I am with you guys, I swear it!” Gerald screamed trying to prove his innocence. His tears were convincing enough, but if I knew I was about to be gutted by five ruthless guys and a dog, I would be crying too.
“Number one… kid, who laid out this route?” Gerald’s face got bright red as he continued screaming. “It came from higher. I haven’t even
left the caves before. How could I have drawn it? It was given to me! It’s not my job to plan…just approve… I swear it! I don’t know who planned it!” This kid sure does a lot of swearing. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth you rat?” I asked as I pulled the rope I had been making for the past couple weeks out of my bag. I know a good way to get him to talk. He knows more than he is letting on, that’s the least I can tell from his little charade. I tied a noose into my rope and slapped the loop around his neck, tightening it up all the way until his Adams apple was bulging on top of my roughly woven rope.
Gerald screamed for his life as I drug him to the edge of the cliff. Now, I am not good at judging distances, but I would say it’s at least a good hundred foot drop to the bottom, and I know I had at least a good fifty feet of rope. With no quick snap on the end, the weight of his body against his neck is enough to cause a painful suffocating death. Gerald didn’t even make it to the cliff’s edge before he put two and two together and started spilling like a can of baked beans.
“Mr. Mason, Mr. Mason. It was Mason! He said I was to tell you this was my entire plan so you would trust me! So you could see that I was an asset to your team! I didn’t plan anything, I was just told what to say. I promise you that I would never set you up, and I can prove it! All I did was take the crap maps I was provided, and draw a new one! I came with you why would I jeopardize my own life!” I dropped the rope immediately and removed it from his neck. Gerald continued to breathe heavily as tears fell from his eyes.
We all surrounded him, still unsure on whether or not he was trying to save his own skin, or if he was being truthful. From my experience in the field, I can tell whether or not someone is just telling me what I want to hear, or if he is really being truthful. And the fear in this kid’s eyes didn’t come from me, well partially me; I would like to think I can instill some sort of fear if I have to. But he was scared of something else, something bigger. Now I was curious and wanted to know more.
Why would Mason sabotage the freedom of his own people? This didn’t make any sense. This is the same place that I was shot, which means I was on the lowers’ territory still. There should not have been any hunting party here. Any way you slice it. This was a setup. “When did you realize that Mr. Mason wasn’t rooting for the home team?” I asked him calmly. “I never did, he is the leader of our people Will, why would he do that? It doesn’t make any sense. I figured at the most he was going to set you up on the way home to have you killed,” Gerald was thinking out loud. Well, for once he got something right; it made no sense at all. Well, it made partial sense, I figured he would try and have me killed…but on the way home. Not on the first hit outside the gate. This made it seem like he didn’t want the mission itself to succeed.
“Here are your choices Gerald. You can come with us, and finish the mission on our team this time, or… you can go home and tell the rest of the people what happened here, expose Mason to your people, and we will finish the mission…alone,” I told him. I figured I could give him an out. If he went home, I knew he was in on it, and we shoot him. If I was dirty, I would leave. If he came with us, he was down for the cause, and could most likely be trusted.
But that still left the question as to how far the blame actually went. This could be bigger than just Mason. Did Cory know the truth? Is that why he didn’t want me to go at the last second, because he knew we were going to be ambushed? There are too many questions and not near enough people to dangle over a cliff and answer them.
Jerold walked over to his pack and put it on his back, looking at the horizon that led towards the caves, and sighed. “I’m coming with you, Will, and I will prove to you I am not a traitor, whatever it takes. I have had a lot of questions about Mr. Mason and his actions. A lot of things don’t add up. This might be my only shot at figuring out the real truth on why I have to live underground. The man has always been a little off and I have just been doing my job. I don’t like this anymore than you do so let’s go.” He stepped off into the new direction and took the lead. Well, at least he will get shot first if we walk into anything else unexpected. The kid was right, he had a lot of proving to do and I will be watching him like a hawk.
Three hours into the walk we reached the outer limits of a city that was well marked on the map. The map said to outskirt this place, so I think we’re going to stop for a few and take a breather. It seemed like a safe secluded area. Jerold begged to differ with my opinion and whined, “Uhm, this area is always raided by the rebels. I don’t think that it is safe for us to be around. It is one thing to fight one Army. But if we get into it with two forces at once, I don’t think our odds of survival will be very good at all.” I have heard small talk about these rebel forces, and I for one would love to meet them. I am all for a rebel. Besides, Cory had mentioned that he was related to one of them.
Heavy wood line covered everything that the eye could see. A man could stay hidden in here for days. To the left of us, a good three hundred meters away, sat the town. There were no roaming guards floating around, no sentry’s posted for a lookout, nothing. This town didn’t even know we existed, and I wanted to keep it that way. “Does anyone need to stop and take a break?” I asked everyone, and everyone shook their head no. “Can we actually pick up the pace a bit, we’re taking forever here,” Chuck chimed in with his smartass tone that has become more prominent since the last battle.
“Well, yea we could but I didn’t want to break you little girls off, so eat first. Two pieces of meat per man, and one canteen of water a piece as well. I want it done in ten minutes.” I handed out the rations and watched them all pull their canteens out of their bags reluctantly. I felt like I had just told my kid he couldn’t play anymore because we needed to go home. I didn’t need any of them falling out from dehydration or hunger.
The next stop I will have them air out their feet, it is about that time. After everyone ate, we picked up and moved out into the new coming night. The suns were starting to set and I liked the night. We could move faster without being seen, make up for lost time at the bowling ball. We slowly made our way through the quiet town. There were only a few glowing lights in the windows of the buildings that lined the streets. These building looked like log cabins, some bigger than the others. I could tell this town had been assaulted a few times in the past. Door jams were splintered on abandoned homes and some of them were burnt and charred. No one had been here with negative intensions for a little while, so for right now it looks like no rebels.
It was late into the night when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. That feeling you get when someone is watching you. I noticed that Boe had kept looking back as well. I halted the movement and took time out to listen. I heard nothing, but I am most definitely positive that we were being followed. I motioned for everyone to form a line and follow me into the heavier wood line. I was going to set up a three hundred and sixty degree perimeter about three hundred meters out, that way we can for sure see if we were being followed. If not, it would at least serve as a good resting point. We could all use a few hours of sleep. We had covered roughly twenty-five miles since the suns left us. The boys could definitely use some rest.
Once we were all formed up, I instructed them to get some sleep. Boe and I would take this watch; it wasn’t like we hadn’t done this before many times, just the two of us. The night was alive with crickets and coyotes. The sounds of nature were all around us, which is comforting in more ways than one. It meant that the surrounding wildlife had forgotten about us and started in their nightly rituals of singing songs to Mother Nature, and it meant that they would shut up if they heard anyone coming. That was one thing you could always count on out here. If you pay attention to your surroundings, you can find out when someone is coming long before you physically see them or hear them.
After three hours the suns had started to make their struggle back into the sky. I started to drift off to sleep with Boe leaned over my lap, whe
n I heard it. The sound of silence was so loud that it made me wide awake in an instant. There wasn’t a single sound in the woods anymore. Neither a cricket nor a bird chirp could be heard…complete silence. The silence that meant someone was following us. Twenty minutes later I saw three figures slowly and quietly making their way through the brush. There was one big man and two little men. Little men? Cave dwelling little men. There was definitely something going on, and I wanted to know what it was. They were clearly working together but why. Killing them was obviously a good option, and one that I favor personally. But this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. If I disable them, I can get information I want, and then kill them later. The big one was obviously for security purposes, so he isn’t the one that needs to be breathing at the end of this. I have to figure out which of the two little men was in charge, or are they both important?
The Night Shadow Page 10
