“What’s up Tibbles?” Fabal said in a shaky whisper. “I don’t hear anything.”
Standing like petrified statues, squashing boot steps sounded loud in the confines of the coppice. Tibbles vibrating snarl and in a ready to attack mode made Doogan’s flesh crawl. He pushed Fabal behind him, shielding his son.
“Hey, Doogan, it’s me—Ennis. Are you close by? I’ve been following your footprints.” A grating sound blurted from Tibbles jaws. “I assume that’s a yes.”
Doogan’s tight nerves uncoiled as a pine bough shook loose clumps of snow and Ennis walked through. “The bear can discern boots of a Mediator,” Doogan said. “Good thing you said something or he might’ve attacked and sniffed later.”
Ennis glanced up at the formidable bear as Tibbles glared down his snout at him. “Hey, Tibbles ol’ pal. It’s just me. You’re friendly Mediator. Not much meat on these bones.” He patted his chest to prove it and squirmed uneasily on his feet. “Still can’t get used to having this big galoot know what I’m saying.” A comical grunt radiated from the bear as he sat on his haunches.
“Why are you out here?” Doogan asked, tensing again. “Is something wrong at the site?”
“Everything’s fine.” Ennis propped his rifle on his shoulder. “Wanted to know if I should find someone else to volunteer to fly out. Didn’t know how long it’d take you to get Knox settled.”
“I have what we need, for now.” Doogan sounded confident. “Let’s get back.”
***
The craft reached an acceptable altitude and Ennis gunned the helio in a northerly direction. “Fulvio wants us to check out this valley before meeting them. Is this where he plans to settle?”
Doogan kept his eyes peeled to the encompassing land below. Searching for much needed fresh water springs. “He traveled this way years ago, trying to round up as many people as possible that the Mediators threw to the wolves, so to say. No offense against you, Ennis.” His gaze cut to the young man flying the craft.
“We’ll need more firearms.” Ennis steered over a high ridge and banked a little to the left. “I still say we should go into Tallas with an army of men and take over Management.”
“What army of men?” Doogan showered him a sarcastic sneer.
“Hey, with practice that Gus boy could shoot two guns at once. We have a decent supply of men and women that could get the job done. Who knows what’s going on there right now? We should join the revolution. Citizens are fed up with the Elites.” Their bodies leaned as the craft veered to the right. “Most citizens are good and decent people.”
“Most of them. Yes, I agree. They concede to Management due to regulatory punishment doled out by Mediators, and everyone is afraid of being shunned. Tossed into the woodlands is like certain death. I’m repeating history you already know.” Chilled, Doogan cinched his coat tighter. “And you’re talking about a great loss of life. Personally, I’ve seen enough dead bodies to last a lifetime.”
“You’re forgetting about the moles.” Ennis bit down on his bottom lip before saying, “What’s going to happen to those children?” He glimpsed Doogan. “Management is still rounding up kids to burrow into underground tunnels. And we both know they’re not only looking for clean water.”
Perplexed, Doogan crunched his eyelids. He didn’t forget about the moles. Management’s laws stated after attaining the age of thirteen, boys and girls were considered adults and compulsory to enlist with the Controller for placement. A myriad of assignments were issued: Elites handpicked apprenticeships to work the Infirmary, and Mediators trained moles while Executives assigned children for farming, livestock, industrial units and more.
Management chose the smallest children, nicknamed moles, to excavate interred sewage ducts, to water spotting, as well as several diverse and often lethal procedures. Inadequate machinery hampered the mining process in the contoured burrows where boys and girls crept through oxygen-deprived passages. Fatalities had risen with collapsing tunnels, drowning from gushing springs and poisoning. And recently he learned the children not only searched for water.
As a substitute for using cadavers, two immoral, physicians implemented living malformed people to accelerate their medical studies. What better and quicker way to conquer the transmuted gene than to slice and dice a mutant. However, mutated people were striking back, killing Mediators. The Elites reckoned that when children entered their domicile, Mediators were less likely to be killed.
“Do you recall the rumors Mediators were spreading about mutations?” Doogan paused and looked at Ennis. “Or were you still in diapers?”
“I was pretty young, but I still remember my mom telling me not to go near those people,” Ennis said, quoting with his fingers. “And Cletus and Basta announcing that mutants were harboring some kind of infection causing a rare disease.”
Doogan gritted his teeth, nodding. “A virus that physicians couldn’t contain. It had nothing to do with mutations, more likely poor sewage, and filth. And Fulvio’s been helping people outside of the village ever since.” He flexed his fingers.
“You were fifteen when Fulvio left, weren’t you?”
“How’d you remember that?”
“Because I was around ten when Cletus read a decree passing judgment on you.”
Air breezed from Doogan’s mouth, he added, “Pomfrey, Zent, and Cletus thought the scheme would bring Fulvio back into Tallas so they could hang him.”
“The Elites like to make a spectacle of public chastisements, that’s for sure.” Ennis pulled back on the throttle, easing the nose over the crest. “And executing an Elite, it would attest to loyalty under the law of Management.”
“For months my Dad stole provisions to subsist in the wild. We both know that’s considered treason. They waited a week, hoping Fulvio would miraculously turn up before carrying out my sentence.” Doogan knuckled his chin and rubbed, manufacturing friction to assuage the memory. “I was really pissed that he didn’t show, but then I knew what Pomfrey had in store for him. So I had to grin and bear it, for Fulvio’s sake. I admit, I was scared shitless when Mediators tied me to the whipping post.”
“I still remember when they herded you into the square,” Ennis said not looking at him, “and watching your scrawny body clutching the post.”
“You’re calling me scrawny?” He snickered. “We were all scrawny with that food rationing system.”
“When the Mediator threw the first lash, I thought I was going to puke when I saw your skin shred apart like that.” Ennis’s lips rumpled like he had a rancid taste in his mouth. “By the tenth lash, I couldn’t hold it. I puked on my only pair of shoes. Your back looked like a piece of meat.”
“It wasn’t the first time,” Doogan grumbled.
“Really?”
“I used to steal fruit from the orchards, eggs and the occasional chicken from the livestock in the middle of the night, and hand them off to starving citizens. I got caught one night when my leg got gored by the barbed wired fence. Mediators followed the trail of blood. Dad tried getting me off, but I lipped off to Pomfrey in front of the counsel. Five lashes that time.”
“Jeez, Doogan, I’m surprised Management let you study as a physician with that kind of track record.”
“Because Fulvio was an Elite. I’d been assigned to the Infirmary when I was thirteen, doing menial stuff. After I got caught stealing, Pomfrey was ready to throw my ass into the barns, but as fate would have it, I saved him from choking to death on a chicken bone. It kind of sealed my fate by becoming a physician, I guess.”
“One of the best from what I hear. I’m sure citizens are missing you.” Ennis banked the helio to the left. “Too bad you saved him. Things might have turned out differently.”
“Are you trying to make me feel miserable?” He combed hair off his forehead, pinning it behind his ears. “Around six months ago Goshen handed me a map from Fulvio. As you know by now, it led to him in the wilderness. At first I crinkled the paper, knowing I’d never leave Tallas. My dad must’ve know
n what Pomfrey had up his sleeves because when Keeyla received papers for Fabal to report for mole training, it made the decision that much simpler.”
“What I don’t understand is why?” Ennis sounded disgruntled, inhaling. “Moles have to be thirteen and you told me that Fabal’s only eleven. Well below the standard age requirement.”
“I don’t know for sure.” Doogan shook his head. “Maybe to penalize me or Fulvio, or it was because of that terrible casualty when eight children were killed when a tunnel collapsed.”
“There it is,” Ennis cut into his spiel. “The valley.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Fabal...Fabal, wake up.” Knox leaned with difficulty on his good shoulder, and peered at his friend lying next to his cot in a sleeping bag. “Fabal,” he said louder. “I’m freezing, wake up.”
Fabal stirred, poking his head from the bag. “Huh? What’d you say?” Scarcely registering the words, he scrubbed sleep from his eyes. He dragged in bitter air and sighted festering embers. With his dad and Fulvio off on an adventure of a lifetime, it appeared that no one had been attending the fire. He noticed the grimace painting Knox’s face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m freezing.” Knox dropped to the cot. “I need another blanket.”
“We need to rev up the fire. It’s cold in here.” He writhed from the constricting bag and crawled to piled logs bordering the pit. Stacking an armload, he climbed to his feet and adding timber, built a teepee effect, sparks ignited devouring the wood. The glow pushed shadows into the corners.
Fabal perused the lumps of blanketed forms that made their sleeping quarters in the cave. An adjacent, smaller cave also housed many displaced families. Within the past three months, a few slap dashed huts had been erected, accommodations for people who liked their privacy.
When he veered back to Knox, Tanya was throwing a blanket over her son. She knelt beside the cot whispering to him. Her head lifted, meeting Fabal’s eyes. “Can we give him something for the pain?” she asked.
“I said I’m alright,” protested a surly Knox. “I don’t need anything.”
She palmed his cheeks and then smoothed over his forehead. “You feel feverish to me.”
“Go back to sleep, I’m fine.” Knox rolled his head toward the fire.
Tanya flapped her hand wanting Fabal to follow. He walked around a couple of lumped bodies to the cave wall. She placed bony fingers on his shoulder and squatted to look him in the eyes. “He’s trying to be strong. He doesn’t want to waste medicine, but if you say we have a plenty, he’ll believe you.”
“But we don’t have much. He’s right.” He felt awkward talking to Knox’s mom. “My dad applied the antibiotic paste to his wounds before he left. I’ll get my mom, maybe she’ll know what to do.”
“No, don’t wake her.” Tanya’s shoulders slouched. “We’ll wait a bit.” She padded away and laid next to a tiny figure. Tanya spooned a fair-haired Swan deep in slumber to her chest. They’d been awake half the night taking care of Knox.
Fabal shivered from the dampness and searched for his personal heater. It had become Tibbles habit to be within range, in particular at night keeping him toasty. His bestest friend in the whole world next to Knox and Swan.
He examined the cave for the fuzzy blue bear. He wasn’t hard to miss. The vast knoll of fur was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was taking his early morning constitutional, as Fulvio tended to call it.
He tiptoed over to Knox. He appeared to be resting in comfort, no need to bother him. Fabal robed in a coat of squirrel pelts, headed for the exit.
He didn’t like the idea of his Dad and Fulvio being gone, especially without him. He’d heard scary rumors of what lie in wait in the cities, and for some dumb reason, he wanted to be part of it. They said the trip might last weeks, even a month to gather and salvage stuff.
Fabal’s eyesight adapted to the murkiness as he strode to the mouth of the cave. He squeezed through ivy netting that camouflaged them from hunting intruders. He breathed in the frosty fresh air, prickling his nose hairs in the process.
He pivoted back to the cave’s opening to watch in amazement as ivy sprouted before his eyes. Slithering like viney snakes weaving any exposed holes that he’d created.
When Fabal had first encountered the anomaly, Fulvio talked about the wacky and unanswerable metamorphosis. Since the contaminants of nuclear warfare, nature, and humans had evolved, and not all in an ideal way.
Even though the cave was their optimal protection, it smelled dank and smoky, due to the eternal fire. Flashlights, batteries, and kerosene were a hot commodity. Items to be cherished and used wisely, even candles were getting scarce. He hoped the city would offer them what they needed.
Roughly twenty yards from the cave was a ramshackle lean-to where Tanya, Knox, and Swan resided for the past month. Tanya was a strange duck. Didn’t like the company of others and mainly kept to herself. Though, he figured it had something to do with the gruesome death of her husband by the hands of Mediators.
Three more shacks were to the left. Not meant to last the test of time, only dwellings to house people until their exodus. Fulvio spoke of a valley, and a promised healthier lifestyle.
After their calamitous flight from Tallas three months ago, they’d recuperated on the western side of the mountain. Doogan, Fabal, and Tibbles suffered from gunshot wounds, and Fulvio had been beaten to a pulp. An ingenious cave hidden by industrious vines had been their mainstay, equipped with barrels and containers of scavenged goods procured over the years. Not to mention eclectic weaponry to man a small army. The surrounding mountainside was home to numerous mutated people, though, deemed a perilous location since their altercation. Each day they waited with bated breath for Mediators to come hunting them.
Fabal’s fur covered feet perforated the snow. Tips of conifers swayed in a sighing breeze offering patches of a leaden gray sky. Fulvio had been teaching him the art of telling time by the sun and moon shadows. By the looks of a waning moon, he guessed it to be roughly five or six in the morning. Before proceeding, he tested his pockets for his slingshot and then the opposite pocket for rocks. He’d learned the hard way to be prepared.
He explored the trodden snow for Tibbles graphic footprints. None to be found in the surplus of fluff, he trudged onward. Less than a quarter mile from the cave was a running stream. A water supply that ranged between drinkable and iffy. To play it safe, they boiled it whenever possible. And an abundant source of fish that seemed edible, though, they’d been fighting minor dysentery for years in the mountains, so Fabal had been told. Tibbles was more than likely consuming an early morning treat.
Fabal didn’t care for the stillness. His breath clouded around his head, looking right and left. The crunch of his feet sounded loud in the advent of a new day. Not until productive chirping filled the air, it relieved his feeling of impending danger. From the corner of his vision, he detected movement. He halted, scooting his eyes to the side.
In the mix of snow and ice stood an impressive sixteen-point buck. Their eyes locked, nature seemed to hush amid soldiering pines. Like Zennith and Tibbles, the buck had grown out of proportion. Funny, he’s not afraid of me.
Clouds ejected from the bucks nostrils. In a royal high-strutting turn, he then pranced from sight. Regaining his awed senses, Fabal heard the rushing noise of the stream and continued on. Once breaking into a clearing, he instantly perceived his furry friend bounding like a happy cub in the water. The morning rays catching his fur just right, making him appear extra blue.
“Hey, Tibbles.” It had become natural to wave and, natural for the bear to return his gesture. “Isn’t the water freezing?”
“Grrf, grrf, grrf,” Tibbles offered in his lingo. His blocky head bobbed toward the boy. He then pawed the flowing water. “Arra?”
Still learning is friends grunting verbalization, Fabal said, “No. I’m not in the mood for a fishy breakfast. But don’t let me stop you.”
“Ruff, ruff.” He trawled the water s
nagging three fish. He flung them on the streams bank where they floundered like jumping beans. Plodding from the stream, and again, black beady eyes peered at the boy.
“No. Really. I’m not hungry. You eat.” The bear’s rump plunked to the snowy surface and immediately gobbled one of the fish.
Fabal strolled to the water’s edge. Picking a stone, he skipped it across the babbling water. “I’m bored.” He wandered over to a boulder that weighed half in and half out of the stream. Like a practiced rock climber, he scrambled to the top.
Retrieving his slingshot, he then delved into his pocket of rocks. He let a handful clatter onto the boulder, making an untidy pile. Loading his weapon and setting his site, he targeted a tree limb on the far side of the stream. Upon hearing the crack of the bark, his mouth curved into his full cheeks.
He pretended he was being attacked by demons. His slender fingers deftly worked the slingshot, flinging poisonous darts into the hearts of his enemies. “Take that, demon of Satan.” One by one he hit his mark, stabbing limbs and branches. “What’d you think, Tibbles?” He said when his pile had been exhausted. “I’m getting pretty good.” Just then a shadow crossed overhead. He jerked his head to the sky.
Tibbles lumbered to his feet, waving his arms. “Hegg! Hegal!”
“What’s that?” Fabal cupped his eyes gazing into the sunshine. “Wow! It’s bigger than the heliocraft. Looks prehistoric like something I learned in school.” A ginormous brownish-gray bird soared through the air with ease. He was surprised to see Tibbles going ballistic, hopping and waving like seeing a long-lost friend.
The bird performed an aerial loop, swooped and, if Fabal read the move correctly, the fowl seemed to be returning his wave.
“So co-o-o-l.” Fabal watched its flight. A melodic timbre settled upon them as he glided from sight.
“Narf-f-f.” Tibbles calmed and returned to his fishy breakfast.
“You know what that was?”
One grunt and the bear finished the last tidbit, spine and all.
Snow on Cinders (The Tallas Series Book 2) Page 4
