Fire Country

by David Estes

  When Lye finishes her story about the Killer attack, I let out a deep sigh. Profound sadness rests upon me like a dark cloud. So many innocents killed. However, I realize it’s not only a sigh of sadness, it’s a sigh of relief at both having not been there when the Killers attacked and at being bailed out. The Heaters won’t come for us, not after being decimated like that. Will they?

  “The Hunters are on their way,” Lye says, and I gasp.

  “What? But they’ve just been slaughtered by the Killers. How can they…?” My voice is high and quivery and draws stares from everyone.

  “Your father’s hatred for us runs deep,” Wilde says. “The Killers may have killed many of his people once, but we take girls every six full moons. And not just girls, Bearers. Those who have the ability to add to the population. Without Bearers, the Heaters will wither away to nothing, like a carcass picked clean by scavengers. He’s coming to take us back.”

  “They left three days ago,” Lye says. “I managed to get around them as they slept and arrive here ahead of them. We might have two days, but it could be less. They were running hard.”

  It’s all my fault. I led them right to us. I hid the truth of my stupidity from the very people who coulda done something about it. My heart’s as hard as stone, cracking and crumbling away. “What do we do?” I ask.

  Wilde meets each pair of eyes in the tent. “We fight,” she says.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Fighting against friends, where the victor extends a hand to help the loser up at the end, is one thing. Fighting to the death is another.

  But that’s what we’ll do. Not just for our freedom from the oppressive Laws that my father stands for, but for each other, for ourselves. For those we’ve lost: for me, Circ and my mother.

  To the death.

  With his typical arrogance, my father’ll expect to catch us by surprise. That’s our advantage. So we’ll play into it, pretend to be caught unawares, with our britches down so to speak. Really we’ll be ready, with tricks a-plenty up our sleeves.

  By Lye’s estimation, he only brought fifty Hunters with him, less’n half our numbers. Again, his arrogance playing right into our hands. Either he doesn’t realize how many we have, or he thinks he’ll crush us like a powder moth under his treads.

  Our turf. Ours. We’ll let him come to us.

  We expect the Hunters to appear at dawn over the horizon, running at full tilt, heavily armored and equipped. Instead, they come at dusk.

  After a long day of preparation, we’ve just sat down to eat, when the scouts run into the camp, preceded only by their shouts. “They’re here!” they yell. “The Hunters are here!” A shiver passes through me. The night air is warm.

  Silence. First everyone stares at the scouts, who are panting, their elbows on their knees, fear in their eyes. If we look at them long enough maybe they’ll disappear like a bad dream. Eventually though, reality sets in. This is happening. All heads turn to Wilde, who stands, her unfinished meal in her hands. “Prepare for war,” she says.

  Chaos ensues and I find myself walking aimlessly ’round the camp, my legs like lead, my head in the clouds. This can’t be happening. So soon after escaping him, my father has hunted me down to bring me back. And not only me—everyone. My fault. Mine alone.

  Skye grabs my hand, but I don’t respond. “Siena!” she screams, right in my face. I say nothing. She clamps her fingers ’round my cheeks, squeezes, forces me to look into her eyes. My sister’s eyes, the same but different. “Do you see the fear?” she asks.

  I see only fire. I shake my head.

  “Follow me,” she says.

  She leads me to one of the elevated caves, the one I shoulda gone to as soon as the command was given, with the other archers. I may not be a sharpshooter yet, but Wilde thought I’d be more effective here’n on the ground. The rest of the markswomen already have their satchels of pointers strapped to their backs. Skye helps me with mine.

  “I can’t do—” I start to say.

  “Yes. You can,” Skye says. “Do it for Circ.”

  A cheap shot, but just what I need. If it wasn’t for my father Circ wouldn’t be dead. He sent him on that mission on purpose, ’cause it was dangerous. ’Cause of me. I won’t let him take more of my friends. I won’t.

  I nod. Skye leaves, gone to join t’other warriors.

  ~~~

  My heart pounds. Sweat pools in the small of my back. My muscles ache from a month of training, but feel stronger’n ever. Revenge burns in my chest.

  From my elevated vantage point I can see the entire camp. Skye and t’other warriors sit ’round the still-burning fire, eating and joking and carrying on as if nothing is different. An act for the Hunters.

  My eyes dart to the canyon entrance, which dances with flickers from the fire. Shadows play on the walls, making me tense up. I relax when I realize no one’s there. Breathe, I think, forcing the air in and out of my lungs.

  Beside me, a dozen other archers wait as I do.

  A Hunter creeps through the entrance, bow drawn, pointer strung. Aimed at the warriors ’round the fire. Aimed at Skye, who, along with t’others, pretends not to see the intruder. I want to let my pointer fly, but when I glance at our lead archer, she don’t give the signal. As planned, we hafta wait till more Hunters are in sight. Skye could be dead by then. My jaw clenches so tightly it hurts.

  Six more Hunters flank the first, pointers nocked and at the ready. An almost imperceptible shake of the head from our leader. Not time.

  The first Hunter says in a booming voice, “By order of the Greynotes, you are our prisoners!”

  Skye and t’others jump up, as if they’re caught unawares. They raise their hands above their heads, as if to say, “No threat here!”

  “Where are the others?” the Hunter says.

  Brione answers. “In the tents, sleepin’. We’re early risers ’ere.”

  Even in the darkening night, I can see the Hunter’s smile, lit up by the firelight. An easy victory. He’ll be rewarded by my father. He whistles, high and loud. A signal. All clear. Clean up time.

  Dozens of Hunters pour into the canyon, wielding spears and blades and bows. I’m surprised to see Hawk stride in with them. He almost looks uncomfortable, his face twisted, like he’s got a prickler stuck up his bum. A far cry from the confident new Hunter I saw ’fore.

  Then he comes. At the back of the pack, protected by five guards. My father, hate-faced and narrow-eyed. After the Killer attack, it’ll be a much needed victory for him. At least that’s what he’s thinking, what he’s telling himself. We’re thinking something else.

  Our lead archer gives the signal.

  Magnificently coordinated, the other lead archers tucked in the cave-pocked canyon walls give the signal, too, and suddenly the air is full of pointers. Hunters fall, pierced and bleeding. Other Hunters, including Hawk, drop to the ground, on their bellies or to one knee, to avoid the pointers flying overhead. “Trap!” one of the Hunters yells, as if someone really needs to point it out.

  My pointer is still aimed and I realize I haven’t shot it. I’ve just been watching in morbid fascination as my Wilde sisters do the durty work for me. Sliding my hands, I try to find a target. A pointer zips past, narrowly missing my shoulder and clattering off the stone wall. A group of Hunter archers have spotted us and are shooting into the cave mouth. A girl beside me cries out as she’s hit. She slumps over and I can’t take my eyes off her. Without checking, I know. She was dead ’fore she hit the ground. Pointer through the heart. There’s blood. So much blood. I can’t…I can’t…my chest is tight and my throat’s closing and I can’t do this, not any of it.

  “Target the archers,” the lead cries, and I close my eyes, try to get a grip on myself. Sky’s down there. I hafta help her the best I can from up here.

  I swivel back, locate an archer, release a pointer. Twang! A misfire; my pointer tumbles end over end like an injured bird, dropping harmlessly in front of the archers. A Skye-worthy mouth
ful of curses tumbles from between my lips as I grab another pointer.

  One of my Wilde sisters takes out one of the archers. Three more pointers sail through the cave entrance, two connecting. Not flesh wounds. Death wounds. My sisters are dying ’round me.

  I aim and fire. Too high. My muscles are too tense, I can’t get a rhythm like I can on the shooting range when there’s no one trying to kill me and my friends. When the targets are just targets and not people, not shooting back at you.

  Don’t give up.

  Nock another pointer, shoot again—an archer cries out in pain. A leg shot. Another well placed pointer could finish him off.

  ’Fore I can shoot again, however, Skye is there, swinging her blade like a scythe, cutting down the surprised archers ’fore they have a chance to run. In training she’s magnificent, full of speed and grace while kicking the blaze out of someone. She’s every bit as magnificent now, but her every move is surrounded by darkness and violence, soaked in blood and anguished cries. ’Fore any of the archers have a chance to throw down their bows and draw the blades at their belts, they’re all dead.

  There’re as many Wilde warriors as Hunters in the Canyon now, fighting hand to hand. An ill-aimed pointer could kill our own, so we lay down our bows, watch the action, safely removed from the carnage. Although we’re winning, it’s not without significant loss. I cringe as a well-muscled Hunter gut-slashes a Wilde, discarding her in a bloody heap.

  Something snaps in me, like ’fore. Like when the Killers attacked the Hunters. Like when the Glassies attacked the village. A force beyond my own takes over, draws my knife, pushes me outta the cave. “Where are you going?” the lead archer shouts.

  I shrug and climb down, my knife clamped firmly between my teeth.

  ~~~

  The world swarms, red and black and beyond real. From up above, away from it all, shooting a pointer, trying to kill, felt so easy, a simple act of releasing the tension in a bowstring. Down here, in the thick, to take a life is to lose your soul.

  And yet Skye seems to relish it, slashing, hacking, taking a skin-splitting, blood-spilling Hunter’s blade across her arm, growling like an animal, half-laughing as if she enjoys the pain, stabbing back, killing another.

  Two warriors are struck down by a fearfully large Hunter. I hafta help them ’fore the Hunters finish them off. Moved by the surge of hot blood in my veins, I charge the brute, jam my knife into his back, so close to the dead I can taste it on my tongue. Blood spills over my hand and arm, but he doesn’t go down, doesn’t die like he’s s’posed to. He whirls on me, nearly wrenching my shoulder out of its socket as I hang onto the knife, which is still stuck in his back. Bucking like a cornered tug bull, he wrangles me off, slings me to the ground. Stomps on my chest with a sledgehammer boot. Every last bit of air is expelled from my lungs as stars flash across my vision. His blade glints as it catches the shimmering glow of the fire. A drop of sweat drips from his chin onto my cheek.

  This is what I deserve for bringing this scorch upon the Wildes. This is why the unseen force moved me to leave the safety of the cave. To die. To die for my mistakes. His blade flashes down.

  The ring of metal on metal shrills in my ear as another blade crosses the Hunter’s. Surprised, he’s thrown back. Skye stands over me.

  “It’s burnin’ over,” she growls. “Retreat while you have the chance.”

  Through her legs I see the ogre-like Hunter scan the area ’round him, and then, sensing the truth of Sky’s words, he lowers his head and runs.

  I gasp, suck at the air, come up empty. Fire licks at my chest, splinters of glass pierce my skin. Not really, but that’s how it feels.

  “Breathe, Sie,” Skye says, kneeling over me. I close my eyes, disappear to a place where Hunters and Wildes don’t exist.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Twenty-six dead Wildes. We dig holes and bury them instead of lighting them on fire, ignoring yet another Heater tradition. Their blood’s on my hands. Brione says it’s an honest mistake, but I think she only says that outta respect for Skye. Wilde says my father is the only one to blame, and I can tell that she means it. But I know she’s wrong. Crya glares at me every time she sees me. She don’t say anything, just stares, which feels worse.

  No one else knows it was me that brought this on us. ’Cept Lye, and she’s gone away again to spy, so that we’re ready for when they come back. Which they will. My father doesn’t like to lose. And next time it’ll be with lots more Hunters, maybe all of them, and they won’t be so easily trapped. They’ll be ready.

  Yeah, my father got away. Skye said he saw her but she’s not sure if he recognized her. By the time I scampered into the middle of things he’d already disappeared, the first to retreat when things went sour. Typical.

  Hawk wasn’t among the dead Hunters either, so I guess he slipped away too. I’m glad for it. If his life was good enough for Circ to save, then there must be something in him worth keeping ’round.

  We buried the dead Hunters. Among the lot of us, we were able to identify most of the dead. Skye says she killed eight of them, more’n anyone else by double. The few that were injured we bandaged up and sent packing into the desert. They get to live if they can make it back to the tribe.

  There’s talk of moving our camp now that the Heaters know where it is, but no one has any ideas as to where. It’s unlikely we’ll find another spot as perfect. In the end, it’s Wilde’s decision, so things sorta go back to normal while we wait for her to tell us what to do. We train every day, cultivate the prickler fields, eat, sleep. But no one’s heart is in it. Everyone lost a friend, a sister.

  Lara survived, although, to her joy, she received several nasty-looking wounds that’ll most certainly leave “beautifully jagged scars,” as she says.

  Char died, as did two of t’others from my Call. I still cry every night for them. I should be the one in the ground, not them. They deserved better.

  The only thing that keeps me going is knowing my father’ll be back. I don’t care if he brings a hundred, or even a thousand, Hunters. I’ll get to him one way or another, kill him with the knife my mother gave me. Avenge all the lives he’s so ruthlessly taken.

  He coulda saved my mother’s life.

  That statement alone keeps me going.

  For the first coupla quarter full moons, everyone’s kinda jittery, as if the Heaters might show up at any time, even though we all know the scouts’ll let us know in advance. But things settle down as soon as Wilde makes the announcement that we’re not leaving. Leaving now would mean abandoning much of the food we’ve been growing all spring. And doing so just ’fore the fiery heat of the summer sun burns everything away’ll mean our certain death anyway. So, no, we’ll not flee. We’ll stand, fight, defend what’s ours.

  Her decision suits me just fine.

  Another half a full moon passes without word from any of the scouts. The pricklers are full grown. The fields of scrubgrass are thick and high. I train harder’n ever in the mornings, and help to harvest the food in the afternoons. My body is lean and dark and sprouting muscles in places I never knew I had. I’m still the skinniest Wilde, but not by much anymore.

  I’m strong. I’m determined. Like Skye, I’ve changed.

  ~~~

  The first scout appears just as summer does. You can always tell when spring moves to summer ’cause the rains stop. We finished the harvest just in time, too, ’fore the sun goddess’s eye could take everything as recompense for the gift of life.

  The scout’s not Lye, but she looks like her. Small, dark-eyed, and weary. She goes straight into the leaders’ tent. This time they don’t request my presence. My sister does, however, go with them. She seems to be included in everything, as if she’s an unofficial leader.

  I wanna stay close, to wait for Skye to come out so I can ask her what’s going on, but Lara pulls me away for training. We’re back in the same group now, ’cause it’s conditioning and agility. Running, jumping, that sorta thing. Although I’
m ahead of most of t’others in speed, I’m behind in coordination thanks to my two left feet.

  My body is fully engaged in running through the boulder slalom course they’ve set up for us, but my mind is elsewhere, back at the leaders’ tent, trying to figure out what the scorch is going on. What’s the scout found out? If it was another Heater attack, wouldn’t it’ve been Lye returning to deliver the news? Where has this road-weary scout been spying?

  “What’s on your mind?” Lara says, as I trip over the boulder I’m meant to be going ’round. She helps me up.

  “There’s a scout in camp today,” I say.

  “There is? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  It’s a good question. It seems ever since the first Heater attack, my relationship with Lara has been fully one-sided. She talks, I listen, offering very little in return. I realize how unfair it’s been to her, and how understanding she’s been. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m distracted.” A weak explanation. Who’s not distracted after everything that’s happened?

  And yet she nods, her eyes wide with compassion. “Your father has done so much evil,” she says. She does understand, which takes me by surprise considering how little I’ve offered her lately.

  “Lara, I know I haven’t really been there for you. Char was your good friend. I shoulda…”

  “I’m fine,” she says quickly. “You’ve been great actually. It’s easier for me not to talk ’bout it.” I can’t help but laugh. For once one of my screw-ups turned out to be a good thing.

  “Thanks, Lara. For everything.”

  “If your father comes back, we’ll get him,” she says. The strained look on her face tells me it’s not just talk.