by J. Thorn
Strom held up the long shaft of an arrow. It was thin, and the tip, made of metal, was light, not flint or iron. It’s dark black feathers were large and clumsy.
Unmistakable.
Valk arrows.
Donast cursed as he jumped from his bed and grabbed the club and axe that lay nearby. He was still dressed and hadn’t even removed his armor from the night before. He was up and halfway across the tent before the drowsiness left him and his mind began to clear itself of the dream.
A minute later they were standing at the barricade left behind by the Elk. It was tall, reaching almost to their shoulders, and mostly built from scrap wood and sheets of hammered metal salvaged from old vehicles. Donast had already spotted several other arrows sticking through the weaker parts of the barricade and wondered how many had already been fired.
“How many are there out there?” he asked, turning to a warrior nearby.
“We don’t know, Lord,” said the man, “but it’s more than one. We keep seeing the shadows move in different places through the trees. They’re staying well hidden, keeping their distance, and the damn sunlight makes it easy for them to see us.”
Even with this comment the Nikkt leader did not crouch as the others did. He would not be pushed to cowardice by some tunnel worms.
They stood there for what seemed like hours before the first movements returned. Donast watched, peering into the gloom between the trees, deeper into the woods, and at first it was a few shadows moving around, which his warriors eagerly pointed out, that he had spotted before they even noticed them, but then, as the sun crept higher and early morning dawned, the shadows gathered together into a long, thick line of darkness and began to move forward.
There were dozens of them, armed and armored in metal plates. They moved forward as one, their pale forms ghostlike as they moved through the dim light of the forest until they stepped out into the sunlight fifty yards from the barricade.
Donast shuddered. He had not seen the Valk like this before. They were always in small numbers, hidden in the shadows of the tunnels. Slight, waif-like figures that gave the impression of weakness. But here they were, in great numbers, armed as warriors, and ready to walk in the daylight.
“Warriors to me!” Donast bellowed, and his men came running from all directions. They lined up along the barricade, weapons ready, and prepared to face the inevitable onslaught to come.
Chapter 53
Declan used one of the Cygoa’s undershirts to wipe the blood from his face. Jac and the others did the same. Declan watched them closely. Their hands shook as they handed bloodied rags to one another. None spoke.
“War. We have to do things. All of us.”
Jac nodded, but Declan felt the judgment in his eyes; the way he looked at Declan for only a second before letting his eyes drift back to the mangled, mutilated Cygoa corpses at their feet.
“You two drag the bodies into the trees. Bury them or cover them but don’t spend a lot of time on it. The main scouting party at Rocky Mount thinks these men have already left. They won’t be looking for them. Jac, come with me back to our camp.”
Declan led Jac back through the forest to their camp on the other side of the summit. The fire had gone to sleep, save for a few coals that glowed orange at the bottom of the pit. The rest of Declan’s scouting party slept in their rolls, silent except for the occasional belch or snore.
“Are you okay?”
Jac nodded his head.
“Killing ain’t easy. It shouldn’t be.”
“I shot deer. Lots.”
“Not the same. I get it.”
“No,” said Jac. “I mean that I shot deer in a hunt. I never…tortured them.”
“Those bastards we killed—what do you think they’d have done to us if they caught us? Huh?”
“But we—”
“We protected our clan. That’s what we did, Jac. We got intel and we sent it back to Jonah. Rista should arrive by morning. Now Jonah will know that some Cygoa leader named Carlossa is heading this way. Jonah will arrive at Rocky Mount prepared. And that will save lives. Elk lives.”
Jac stood up and bowed. “You’re right. I should not have questioned your decision.”
“You should always question the decisions of your leaders. But you need to listen to their answers as well.” Declan looked to the sky and back to Jac. “Daylight in four or five hours. Go get yourself some sleep. I’ll take guard duty.”
Declan heard the other two men return from the disposal of the Cygoa bodies. Jac wished them both a good night before crawling into his bedroll. They then did the same.
Declan smiled and decided he had earned a smoke. He felt the blood on the leaf satchel he had taken from one of the Cygoa. It was still warm and sticky but the tobacco inside seemed preserved. Declan took a whiff before rolling his smoke, savoring the sweet, rich, earthy scent.
***
He woke up to a new odor. The air smelled of burning wood, but it also held the unmistakable stench of melted plastic. Declan hadn’t seen anyone burn plastic in years, but the odor never left his olfactory memory.
Dammit. You dozed off.
Declan looked around to see the rest of the scouting party still asleep in their rolls, including Jac. The stars had twisted through the night sky, but not enough for him to tell exactly how long he had been asleep. It was the soft, orange glow from the other side of the summit that caught his attention.
He stood and shook a cramp from his left calf muscle. Declan grabbed his axe and ran for the summit, toward the light and Rocky Mount on the other side. He pushed through thickets that tore at his face and a tree root grabbed his ankle, pulling him to the ground. Declan inhaled the scent of moldy leaves, his face planted in them. He jumped up and ran up the hill, realizing that he had no cover, no subterfuge. If his enemy had intended to lure him out, the plan was working.
Declan was within one hundred yards of the top of the hill when a flash of light lit the sky behind him, in the direction of his camp. Dry pines raged in flame and he heard shouting and screams in the near distance. He froze, looking at the summit and then back toward his camp. Back and forth.
Blurred figures moved through the darkness which gave way to higher and higher flames. Declan thought he saw Jac. Then he thought he saw Rav and Gunney. He rubbed his eyes as clanging metal and more cries coming from the direction of his camp.
Declan pushed on, his thighs now thrumming with a dull pain as he ran faster and faster up the steep incline. He looked over his shoulder twice, and each time he saw more movement through the trees. The flames cast Cygoa warriors in silhouette. He couldn’t tell whether it was the shadows that made them seem taller or if these were in fact a monstrous breed of humans.
He trudged onward, his pace slowing the closer he got to the summit. A thin band of darkness ran overhead, the light from his burning camp on one side and the glow from Rocky Mount on the other. Declan reached the peak and grabbed the trunk of a tree to keep from falling down the other side. When he raised his head, he had to squint and give his brain time to process the scene before him.
Three figures loomed ten feet in the air. It took Declan a moment to realize that the bodies were not moving. They had been put upon spikes and raised into the air. He knew before seeing their faces that these were the Cygoa they had tortured and killed hours before. Declan stumbled forward and grabbed the nearest pole, cold slick blood on his palms. The Cygoa had found the bodies.
He turned to the side and vomited.
Declan looked past the crucifixions in the direction of Rocky Mount. An orange halo surrounded the settlement as flames licked at the sides of the ruins. The entire Earth seemed to be on fire, even the wheat fields of Rocky Mount burned.
A handful of Cygoa warriors ran down the main street from Rocky Mount in the opposite direction, heading toward Wytheville. Declan’s feet felt like they had been tied to cinder blocks, and no matter how much he tried, he could not inhale as much air as he needed. His mouth went dr
y and his eyes hurt. The smoke clung to his clothes and destroyed any lingering scent of the sweet herb he had smoked a few hours prior.
Declan turned and saw fighting on the summit. Cygoa had engaged his men and were battling in the light of the burning settlement. The corpses hung above him and he could have sworn he heard them laughing, even in death.
“Hey!”
One of the Cygoa warriors spotted him and approached, taking long, even strides as if running wouldn’t be necessary. Declan took one last look at Rocky Mount, the entire settlement in flames. The ruins, the fields—everything was being consumed by the fire.
Declan saw an opening in the trees halfway down the hillside sloping into Rocky Mount. He looked at the Cygoa warrior, flipped him the middle finger, and then ran for the trees.
Chapter 54
Seren dropped the trowel into the dirt and shifted her position. Her calf muscles were beginning to ache. For a moment, she leaned on the low brick wall that surrounded the large plant bed she had been tending and looked down at her handiwork while she waited for the pain to ease. She shook her head. For all her efforts, the plant bed looked pretty much the same as when she had started.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and stood up. At least her ankle no longer hurt. She had no idea what was in the salve that Dr. Henson had given her to rub onto her skin, but it had healed within a few days.
The heat that came through the windows in the glasshouse was surprising. Even though the air outside was still quite brisk, inside what the people at the base called a greenhouse, the air temperature was surprisingly warm. She wondered what it would be like in the summer. Probably stifling. Behind her, near the entrance, Sorcha lay shaded from the sun underneath a metal shelf that held containers filled with some powder that they called fertilizer. There was a gap underneath, where the sun rarely reached until later in the day, and it was big enough for the young wolf to stretch out lazily and watch her friend work.
They called it a greenhouse, and yet it was much larger than any house that Seren had ever seen, easily a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. The tall, arched ceiling was entirely made of metal and glass, just like the walls, and this was only one of a dozen such buildings that were scattered around the grounds. Farming, they called it.
Seren picked up the trowel once more and prodded the tilled soil with it. The tool was made of metal, a possession she now cherished. They had given it to her on the second day of her visit, when she showed an interest in how the crops grew so well in the glasshouses. The tool itself was almost like a small spade, made specifically for digging low to the ground with delicacy, rather than the brawn used with a shovel.
She had learned much in the days that she had stayed with the people at the base, mostly about farming. Something so simple in its concept made her wonder why it had not been tried elsewhere. Of course, her people couldn’t do it. They never stayed in the village long enough to see the entire process that she had learned. The times that they would have to be planting crops was spent traveling back to the village, or to Wytheville before moving on to Eliz, and by the time they got there, the best month for planting would have passed.
Artemis had said the crops would be small, and the fruits from the crops unappetizing, but Seren insisted on learning more, in the hope that someday she could make her own greenhouse, one that would withstand the cold of winter.
The door at the other end of the greenhouse opened quietly, and Artemis stepped inside with a small wave and smile. He crossed the length of the building and stood a few feet away.
“Good news, I hope?” Seren asked. Even tilling the soil in the plant beds hadn’t been enough of a distraction for her to forget what was being discussed while she waited.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. We—well, the council—have pondered this almost constantly since you joined. We’ve talked about this much over the last week. That you wish to leave at all is disappointing to me—to us—but it is understood. We accept that you have family—your own people—and you wish to help them, and I can understand why you worry about what they must face when they reach this Wytheville place. Even though it is not that far from here, we are far enough off the main paths and roads that we’ve never had much contact with them.”
Artemus paused for a moment, seeming to be deep in thought. “This is also something we’ve contemplated. Your request to leave has been granted, of course. We could not force you to stay. But also, we think we have remained hidden for too long.” He sat down on the low wall and sighed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of us are old, now. We chose long ago not to bring a new generation of children into this world, although now some of us regret that choice. But it is done, and few of us are younger than fifty years old. Whereas once there were several hundred of us, slowly we are getting old and passing on. Another ten or twenty years and there will be no one left here. If we’re lucky, even the youngest of us will probably be gone.”
Seren sat, listening patiently, and wondering where this was going.
“We wish contact with your people, maybe even trade. What we have discussed is, if things do not go well in Wytheville, although there will be many of your people, and even with our substantial resources we may struggle to aid them all, you are welcome to bring them here if they are in need. Our food supplies cannot sustain all your people, but this place is mostly an untouched city. The lands around it would be ideal for your clan if they need somewhere else to go and cannot return safely to their—your—home. So, consider that when you go, and, of course, you will always be welcome here. Please do return.”
Seren grinned. “Of course I will. I’ve only been here a short while but it seems much longer.” She shook her head. “This place already feels like home to me. I’m not sure I can even consider going back to living a nomadic life permanently. I think even if they must travel to Eliz every year and back, well, maybe when the roads come to the sign for this place, I will turn off and come here.”
“That would be wonderful. When will you leave?”
“Probably sunrise tomorrow.”
Artemis cringed at this. “So soon? I had hoped you would stay longer, but needs must.”
Seren nodded. “I need to go as soon as possible, before they’ve passed this place and got to Wytheville. I need to get to them before that. They need to know.”
“Yes. Well, we will provide you with supplies. I’ll have it sorted this evening for both of you. Enough to last you a few weeks. Plus, we have something you can take with you, something we have discussed at length. You’ll have to look after it, make sure it never leaves your side and is kept secret, but it’s better than trying to take one of our old shotguns from the traps with you, which I’m sure we would never have been able to stop your curious mind from doing.” The old man turned and began to cross the greenhouse once more.
“Thank you for everything,” said Seren.
Artemis stopped at the door and turned his head sideways. “You are always welcome.”
Chapter 55
Jonah trusted Declan as he did his own son. But the son of Tikal still reveled in his teenage years, still prone to moments of forgetfulness and pointless rebellion. Jonah had waited for a full two days. And then some. He had instructed Solomon to have the Elk triple-tie their carts in case of rough terrain. He had wanted to wait until Declan returned with news, but now it was obvious that the scouts had nothing to report back, at least not yet. Hoping that Declan would return early wouldn’t drive away the mounting problems of restless clans.
He couldn’t wait. The clans had become anxious, and the leaders could do little to calm their jitters. The grumbles kept people edgy, while the threat of the Cygoa frightened them. And he couldn’t even think about the Valk. The rumors coming into the camp about attacks on clans on the plains seemed to be increasing by the hour.
“How far?”
Solomon’s question shook Jonah from his thoughts. He turned to look over a shoulder and then further down the old road, as i
f calculating their arrival time.
“Three, maybe four, hours.”
The bear of a man pushed his headband up and straightened his glasses. Jonah thought he saw more gray streaks appearing at Solomon’s temple. He had been through a lot. They had all been through a lot.
Jonah spoke again, filling the silent void between the two men. “Ninety-Five is just over the next rise, from what I can remember.”
Old Highway Sixty-Four had long since been scraped clean of the old world. Carts had been harvested and signs turned into armor by countless warriors marching down the broken asphalt, decade after decade. The wild brush and fast-growing trees had encroached so far inward that Sixty-Four looked more like a deer trail than a roadway. In places, even the middle part of the road had been covered by years of blowing dirt and disuse.
Jonah and Solomon picked up their pace, passing families and carts in the convoy. They maneuvered around others until they walked next to several Bluestone warriors leading the march. The Bluestone nodded, and Jonah followed their gaze.
The intersection of Sixty-Four and Ninety-Five appeared about three hundred yards out, at the crest of the rise, as Jonah had guessed. The roadway remained elevated to the west. Intact. But the highway to the east had collapsed and sat in disarray as far as Jonah could see.
He waved at Solomon, and the burly man followed Jonah up a slight ramp. They stood on Ninety-Five and looked to the west, where the highway stretched out into a relatively straight line. Unlike Sixty-Four, Ninety-Five had been used recently by clans as an east-west passage. The blacktop survived; the trees took root in the old gravel of the shoulder but not in any of the four lanes. A concrete barrier ran down the middle. Various spears had been lodged in the crumbling concrete and some had been painted with vivid colors, words and symbols from a lost time.
“You think it’s safe?”
Jonah turned to look at the Bluestone, fifty yards behind, the rest of the caravan another fifty yards behind them.
