by J. Thorn
“I’m afraid Abernathy is out in the city, somewhere, otherwise he would have been here to greet you,” came Katrina’s voice, almost as though the woman had read Seren’s thoughts. “I’ve sent an alert to him, so he knows you’re here. Maybe you could proceed to the theatre and meet him there. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you again, as we all are. Be careful in the ruins, my dear, we had some unexpected visitors recently, and although we’re almost sure there are none left, we did lose track of a few of them. Nothing to be alarmed about, just keep your senses about you and get to the theatre.”
Seren nodded and lifted a hand to wave at the camera again. “Come on you lot,” she said, and started heading along the street. She passed the familiar rows of rundown shops and flats as she made her way further into the city but didn’t slow to look.
Intruders. That was interesting. Who could that be? There were several, as well. Maybe some of the Elk or some of the clans had sent scouts forward, though she hoped they would have been sensible enough not to enter the city before she spoke to Katrina. That was the agreement that Jonah had conceded to her.
Could it be Cygoa? Had they managed to already spread their claws this far through the forest? She had been followed a long way, but not all the way to the ruins. But they were, it seemed, quite serious about their expansion, and they certainly had the ambition. They’d shown that by following the Elk all the way out to the East.
The Valk? No. They were following the clans, but they had been seen infrequently for the last two weeks. They couldn’t have reached this far already. How would they even know that Galax was the clan’s destination?
Seren shrugged off the thought as she headed further along the street, trying to remember which turn she’d need to take to get to the theatre.
“If we come across them,” she said, looking at Sorcha, “We will have to deal with them.”
The Wolf sniffed in reply but didn’t seem on edge.
“Let’s get moving, anyway. It will be dark in an hour, and this city gives me the creeps.”
Chapter 5
“My lord.” The man had been out of breath, his ax shaking in one hand. He was not a priest, but instead, one of several mercenaries who had fallen in with Gaston after the battle of the causeway.
“What is it?”
“The creatures are everywhere.” The man’s eyes shifted from left to right and his boots scraped the dirt.
“What creatures?”
The man leaned in and stared directly into Gaston’s eyes. “The dead flesh eaters.”
More shouting came from inside the camp as the man ran off under the command of a higher—ranking soldier. Gaston rubbed his head and stared out at the mist—filled woods just beyond their reach. He could not lie to himself. He understood the primal fear enshrouded within the forest that hadn’t been traversed in decades.
He hadn’t seen the Valk in many years. He knew of the people who lived under the ground and only came to the surface to feast on the flesh of dead warriors. Gaston had to remind himself that many of the men traveling with him had never even heard of the Valk, let alone seen them.
Several priests reignited the night’s fire from the early morning ashes. Then they scurried through the camp trying to attend to their morning duties and personal responsibilities as news from the front filtered back from the war band that had been out there fighting.
Gaston’s dream lingered, just out of reach like the tendrils of smoke rising from the fire. He knew to leave it well enough alone. Those memories mixed with images from his subconscious would return another night as they always had. There was nothing he could do about it.
He reached around to massage the soreness out of his lower back. Gaston had spent most of his adult life on the road, traveling from one clan to another and sharing his book and the stories within it. His time in Morlan’s fortress had made him soft and the muscle aches and stiff joints came back to remind him, ground him in who he was. Gaston realized the book had bestowed a power upon him that would be a responsibility he could not take lightly. The priests had spent years listening to fools and vagabonds. And now they would listen to him.
The leader of the war band approached the man in charge of the camp. “I need more bandages,” he said
“Then make them,” said the man running the camp. “We don’t have any more.”
Gaston looked at the leader of the war band. The soldier was caked in mud and dried blood matted his beard. He had stumbled into camp with another man under his arm and a limp of his own. Gaston knew of the Elk and the Cygoa. Given their prowess in battle, he was surprised anyone from the war band had returned to the camp alive. He addressed both men.
“There is nothing to be done here. We have retreated from battle and are cut off from most of our supplies. We will all make do with what we have available to us right here and now. Wasting time and energy blaming each other for things we don’t have or things we think we should have, will not help us.”
The war band leader limped off in one direction while the camp leader went in the other. Gaston knew they would share their supplies. But now would be a difficult time in the aftermath of the fighting when good men would bleed and die simply because they didn’t have the most basic medical attention. So be it. There was nothing to be done about an unfortunate circumstance except leaving the bodies for the wolves or the Valk.
He thought again of Wytheville. Maybe he could lead his men back to the settlement. The earth had shaken and disturbed nature. And the clans had fought, upsetting the balance of power between the men. Whatever alliances and strategy had existed in previous years could not be counted upon now. If he took his priests and bedraggled soldiers back to that settlement, it would be quite possible that he would be leading them into an ambush. And that was only if the surviving clans had managed to beat back the vile creatures of the dark forest.
No. They would stay here for now even though food and supplies were in great demand. Some of the soldiers would need to hunt or fish or find some other way of keeping themselves alive until the next opportunity presented itself. Gaston smiled as he watched more of the war band arriving to camp covered in copious amounts of blood. Now would be about survival. Men would need to dig deep and find an inner resolve that would keep them alive. And if they couldn’t do that, then they would die on the side of the road like a wild animal. He couldn’t feel any remorse about that situation because that was how Gaston had spent most of his life—like a wild animal looking for a den.
“What if the Valk come here?”
Gaston turned, expecting to see a soldier but instead seeing one of his priests. The man had wrapped a cloak around his head, a hood pulled down low over his eyes which could not hide the fear inside them.
“Then they come here. They are beasts beholden to the powers of darkness and without reason. No method, magic, or madness will matter. So, what are you really asking me?”
The man looked down at the ground and shrugged.
“Fine. If the Valk come, they come. In the meantime, assist the camp leader with the fire and we will wait for further instruction from Morlan.”
Chapter 6
Nothing had changed as Seren made her way through the streets. Her memory of the trail on the way out came back to her, easily. She walked past each ancient relic and pile of rubble, recalling each familiar landmark that she had noted on the way out of the city, something she had done to help her remember the way back. There was a shop front with the sign still intact, bright blue and glaring on one crossroads, a block of apartments with a strange graffiti painted on the wall of the bottom floor, and further in, a car turned on its back in the middle of the road.
She wondered if the people in the bunker still used the city at all, and whether it would change even the slightest over the years, decades, and centuries to come. Probably not, she thought. Generations before them probably would have scoured the entire city for anything that they needed, anything that could be of use.
Sh
e remembered that Abernathy had said that he was one of the few that even bothered to leave the grounds of the base any more. They were all old. She didn’t suppose they had much use for what was in the outside world, when they had everything they needed within the grounds of the base.
It was only as she got closer to the wide plaza near the center of the city, just two streets away from the theatre, that she noticed something different, something that had changed, and it seemed that Sorcha and the other wolves sensed something too, for they began sniffing the ground and peering ahead more frequently. Sorcha became agitated, pacing backward and forward.
Seren readied her bow with an arrow but aimed it at the ground. The last thing she wanted to do was fire in panic and hit someone from the base just because the wolves were fidgety.
One of the buildings at the far end of the plaza had been completely stripped bare when she had last been there, even the rubble inside the huge open space on the first floor of the building had been cleared away for some unknown reason. The windows had long since lost the glass and daylight streamed in, but now the windows along the front were half boarded up with broken furniture, planks of wood, and sheets of metal.
Someone had rushed to build a camp there.
Except the barricade must’ve failed somehow because now the main doors were blocked by piles of broken wood, most of it scattered across the floor inside the entrance. Seren thought of putting the bow away and switching to her gun, but decided not to lower her guard even for that moment. She stood opposite the entrance, watching, waiting.
Sorcha edged forward, sniffed at the ground a few feet from the open entry, but although she was still a little agitated, Seren noted that she didn’t seem to appear threatened. Seren moved with caution across the plaza and stepped inside the entrance of the ruin. There was a large burned out campfire in the center of the open space, and a scattering of bedrolls had been laid out across the floor, a dozen of them, rough, and mostly made from animal skin, but there were also old and dirty pillows, and rucksacks laying around.
She spotted a hammer, several spears — two of them already broken. Why would anyone leave their weapons behind? And all the gear? The rucksacks looked filled. She looked around, noticing that the walls on the interior of the building were covered in scorch marks.
Then she saw a dark patch on the ground not far from where she stood. It was dried now, but Sorcha sniffed at, made a low whine, took a step back, and then sneezed.
“What is it?” She walked over to the dark patch and knelt next to it, reaching forward, about to touch it, when she realized it was dried blood. She pulled her hand away and stood up, moving away from the large stain. Someone had lost a lot of blood.
Trying to ignore the dark patch, she made her way around the room, looking through the discarded equipment and supplies. There were other patches of blood, some of them smeared across the floor as though a body had fallen and been moved, like someone had died there and then been dragged away afterwards. To where? There was no one here now.
She moved further into the back of the building and found more bedrolls — another half a dozen. Whoever it was that had camped here had come in force. But they were all gone now, she thought, as she stared at another patch of blood.
She noticed two things on the floor nearby that stood out. The first was the severed half of a human finger laying there in the blood with flies buzzing around it. The second was a scattering of bullet casings. Seren tried to ignore the finger and picked up one of the casings, examining it.
It looked familiar, like the ones expelled when she used the handgun. She was sure the people in the base must’ve been involved somehow. They killed these people.
Katrina said intruders. She’d said that they had been dealt with.
But who?
“Come on.” Seren turned away from the carnage and headed for the doors. The younger wolves waited impatiently at the entrance, but Sorcha hung back for a moment before following her into the street.
She hurried the rest of the way, passing a broken sign for a coffee shop, and only briefly stopping when she finally reached the plaza. The huge open space was eerily quiet, and Seren peered across the span of open ground, registering each void where a window had once been, each door entrance, each alleyway leading from the ivy covered gap in the sprawl of the city.
She wondered if the people who had camped in the ruin had come this way, or if there were more hiding out there. If they were, they would probably stay hidden, and be terrified of coming out to face the same fate as those they travelled with. She would have to ask, she knew, and she hoped that it was not a small clan from among the mass that followed Jonah.
She hurried across the plaza and entered the theatre, noting that the doors were still wide open from when she had last visited. The wolves, including Sorcha, hurried along with her, but she was nervous now, and couldn’t tell if they were also afraid or were just keeping up. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. A familiar shadow appeared, and the figure of Abernathy stepped out from the darkness at the top of the stairs.
“I’ve been waiting,” he said, with a smile, but Seren could see there was an edge to his expression, one maybe of regret, and she hesitated to answer. “And looking forward to seeing you once more.”
He started down the stairs, still smiling, and as he drew closer, Seren thought she saw the edge disappear, his smile becoming more cheerful.
Just your imagination, she thought.
“It’s good to see you too,” she said. “Ah. There’s something I need to tell you quite quickly, about those that are following me.”
Abernathy stopped smiling. He looked concerned. “Trouble? We can deal with it. You would be surprised at how many threats we’ve had over the years. We’ve gotten quite good at mitigating our risks.”
“Not exactly trouble,” said Seren. “My people.” She glanced back toward the street.
“What of them?” Abernathy asked.
“They’re kind of not far behind me,” said Seren. “And will arrive in a few days. Jonah has united many clans and those that have been incorporated into the Elk walk with him as one. But you should know that we’ve been unsettled. Our annual journey south has not been as it was before. Nothing like it was in Jonah’s father’s time.”
“How many are coming?” asked Abernathy, a little surprised.
Seren nodded. “All of them.”
Chapter 7
“My mistress. The call has been made.”
Ruk looked around at the strongest, most fierce Valk warriors to have ever lived. She smiled, and her sharp—toothed grin made the rest of them look down at surface of the table hewn from cavernous stone. A single torch flickered on the north wall as the subterranean air current threatened to extinguish it. Two guards stood at the entrance although none of the Valk would be foolish enough to interrupt Ruk’s meeting with her highest—ranking lieutenants.
“And?”
“Our warriors have gone to the surface, but they, they are unsure...”
“Unsure of what?” Ruk asked, almost spitting out the last word.
“Of our enemy. They fight among themselves.”
She’d been rash. The thought of a rival king sending her a decapitated head had raised her ire and Ruk had responded in a flash of red. The quiet hush around the table in the deep, dark room of the cavern gave her pause.
“We have been given the sacred honor of delivering the children to Galax. In return, the uplanders stay out of our tunnels and they do not contest us for the bodies of the dead on the battlefield. The uplanders have always fought among themselves.”
The Valk warriors looked up, now certain that their leader had not brought them here to berate them or make an example out of anyone.
“I understand your doubts. This is something we’ve been able to do for a long time, without hardship or hindrance. But it seems as though that has changed. As you’ve all witnessed.”
“They are but another clan. We’v
e destroyed many of this kind in the past, and we’ll continue to do so in the future...on your command, my lady.”
She turned and grinned at the warrior brave enough to speak without being called upon. “Wrong. But I commend your resolve. They are not a new clan, they are the joining of many clans. Once called the T’Yun. The last time that the clans were one we were forced to hide in the deepest tunnels, unable to set foot upon the land above. We did not, for that time, have the freedom to surface. Until the T’Yun ceased to be. Now they are one again, and for reasons we do not know they have converged on the holy place. This must not be.”
Ruk couldn’t be certain if even her best lieutenants could tell the upside clans apart. Those people all looked the same. But if she were to taste immortality with the dead flesh of their leader, she would need to position his clan as the real threat he posed to both the Valk and Galax. She saw her manipulations as a means to motivate albeit with hidden objectives. In the end, legends were judged only on the accomplishment, not the atrocities it took to achieve it.
“And of these new people? This new clan that our scouts say live in the very ruins of the holy place, and may have done so for many years? I’m not sure how they have done that without us knowing, but we must know more of them. Have they discovered relics from the old times that they should not have? Have they delved the ruins of the sacred city and discovered things that we have not? We have too long respected the holy grounds, and not sought it secrets, but it seems that must change soon. If we don’t find out and put a stop to it, the sacred city is in danger. Worst still, the T’yun gathering in Galax draws the Cygoa from the north. Another clan vying for the city. We will destroy them both.”
