“Are you okay, Conrad?”
He nodded, tapped the side of his head.
“It’s just getting a little crowded in here at the moment.” He let out a long sigh, filled his cup.
“Do you think those people will know anything?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the convoy.
Conrad bit into a piece of hard biscuit, crumbs spilling over his lips. He washed it down with a mouthful of drink.
“What will you do when Stone finds her?” he said, quietly, refilling his surprisingly empty cup.
Nuria was silent for a moment. She didn’t answer him because she didn’t have an answer. Since meeting Stone, her life at moved at whirlwind pace, veering from one violent encounter to the next. Only during that handful of days in Dessan, before they fought the Collectors on the forest road, had she known any moments of calm. She knew what he was really asking but that place inside her was cold.
“I can still remember when we kissed,” he said, his words slurring. “That night, outside the tavern, a cup and a pipe, that’s all we needed to be happy.”
He toasted and took his pipe from inside his clothing and began to fill it from a small pouch.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Nuria stared at him, through a fog of smoke, as he puffed deeply and lifted the near empty bottle, drinking straight from it, not bothering to fill his cup anymore or offer her any.
“Maybe you should get some sleep, Conrad. You look really tired.”
He nodded, swigging the bottle.
“I am tired,” he said. “I’m tired of waiting for you to tell me if we have a future together. We really bonded before that prison. I was hoping we might …”
Nuria shook her head and glanced toward the road. She could hear muted conversation and the steady grind of wooden wheels.
“I don’t,” she began, shaking her head. “I don’t want that, Conrad. And I don’t know what I want after we find Emil.”
“Do you love him?” he asked, sweeping his long hair from his face, his pleasing features aglow in the fire.
“I just want to find Emil,” said Nuria, pushing herself to her feet. “Let’s go and talk to these people.”
Conrad shook his head and put his pipe to his lips. He puffed and Nuria waited. He looked into her beautiful blue eyes and saw the pain she felt. He tilted the bottle to his lips and she waited no more.
“No point robbing us,” said the short man at the top of the convoy. “We’ve got nothing.”
Little more than five feet five inches tall, he bravely shielded his family, a woman with tangled grey hair and three children, twin boys and a tall girl. Stone, over six feet tall, towered over the man, a monster looming out of the dark with his scarred face and a rifle strapped to his back. Then Nuria appeared at his side, a face of softened features with caring blue eyes and oddly chopped blonde hair.
“We’re looking for someone,” said Stone, holding out his hand flat. “A one-eyed girl about this high.”
He had purposely omitted the colour of Emil’s hair – bright copper – a very distinctive feature. If anyone in this straggling convoy of people had really seen her he wanted them to describe that aspect of her.
“I’m Nuria. This man is Stone. The girl we’re looking for is our friend and she was stolen from us by a bald man with a gun.”
The short man looked between the both of them. The tall man with the long scar down his face had mean eyes and carried a fearsome looking rifle but he had not taken it from his back and threatened them with it. The women possessed a kind voice and their story of a missing girl seemed genuine. He could already hear the mutterings and the questions from the line of families following; exhausted, traumatised, seeking only solace, fearful they were being set upon by wasteland bandits. The short man leaned toward his daughter and she bent down as he whispered in her ear. She looked about ten or eleven years old. Sallow skin ravaged with angry red blisters that she idly picked at as her father spoke to her. Lank black hair draped onto the frayed shoulders of a threadbare looking coat missing buttons. Skinny pale legs poking beneath the hem of a simple dress stitched from mismatched pieces of fabric. Grubby feet half-concealed in a pair of worn and chipped clogs. The girl nodded and trotted back into the gloom, leaving a message with each of the families, reassuring them that they were not being robbed.
“I haven’t seen a one-eyed girl, I’m sorry.”
The man was in his thirties and had pained eyes and wearied skin that clung to his bones. His breath was foul and his lips were dry and cracked. Nuria glanced back at the campfire she had built. Conrad was staring morosely into the crackling flames, consumed within a haze of pipe smoke, drunk.
“Do you mind if we talk to your people?” asked Stone, nodding at the trail of shuffling bodies behind him.
“They’re not my people,” said the short man. “My name is Allain, this is my family.” His daughter had returned, having completed her task of passing on Allain’s message to the others. “We are refugees; you understand this word, yes?”
“Where are you from?” asked Nuria, rubbing her hands briskly together, cold in the biting wind.
“Maizan,” said Allain, pointing into the blackness. “It’s not a city to raise a family.” He placed a short arm around his children and hugged them.
“What’s wrong with the place?” asked Stone.
“How long have you got?” shrugged Allain. “Always fighting, always violence, you understand this? I want to bring up my children to know a different way. Take, take, take, that is all they do. The hate in that city.”
The woman, who had remained silent, clutched Allain’s arm and whispered to him. Stone saw the flash of alarm on the man’s face.
“My partner has seen someone hiding in the dark,” he whispered, giving an imperceptible nod of his head.
Stone and Nuria exchanged glances.
“Why don’t you people camp here tonight?” said Nuria. “We already have a fire going. We can build another. I’m sure we can spare some food.”
She looked at Stone. He nodded, patted her on the arm, took his rifle from his back and disappeared into the darkness.
Allain sent his daughter once more, her errand this time to spread the word they were stopping for the night. Nuria aided in herding the refugees from the road. The people looked frail and hungry. Conrad began to sober quickly as he was descended upon. More fires were lit. Blankets were shook out and laid onto the hard ground. Nuria began to mingle with the people but there were weary shakes of the head as she asked her questions. Conrad attempted to corner her for a short conversation but she snapped at him, harsher than she had intended, irritated by his drunken, self-pitying stupor.
“If you really care about me,” she had told him. “Then get some rations and drink for these people.”
Nearly an hour passed before Stone returned, shaking his head.
“A few tracks,” he said, to Nuria. “One person at the most. Gone now.”
“Do you think it’s safe here?”
“Can you suggest anywhere safer?”
He moved amongst the refugees, hand picking a few able looking men to stand watch through the night. The men seemed unsure of his demands but then Allain appeared, reminding them that these people were offering food and warmth. Though still reluctant, the men Stone chose listened intently to his instructions and took up positions.
“My daughter, Susana,” said Allain, finding Stone on the edge of the makeshift camp, cradling his rifle. “She wants to talk with you.”
Stone peered at the tall girl, nervously scratching at her skin.
“It’s about the one-eyed girl you’re looking for,” she said. Her voice was tiny, high-pitched. Allain attempted to hold her hand as she spoke but she wriggled free of her father’s overprotective grip. “I was out playing with my brothers a few days before we left when this man asked us about a woman he was looking for. He told us what she looked like but we didn’t know her. I’d never seen him before. He looked
ill. He had a hood over his head and was shivering. He told us he really needed to find this woman and that she might be with a young girl who had one eye and bright ginger hair.”
Allain saw a flicker in the scarred man’s eyes.
“I told him I had not seen either of them,” continued Susana. “He began pestering my brothers, asking them the same thing but they do not speak. Then he wanted us to give him some food but we had none to spare.”
“Thank you,” said Stone.
Once his daughter was out of earshot, Allain said, “Your kindness tonight will not be forgotten. Can you hear that laughter? I’ve haven’t heard laughter like that for sometime.”
Stone glanced at the refugees huddled beneath the dark sky, thick clouds blotting out the white lights. Though some bore sombre expressions others were swapping stories and humour around the fires, nibbling on bits of food they had brought with them and rations that Nuria and Conrad had distributed.
“Thank you,” said Allain, gripping Stone’s hand. “Thank you.”
The tall man nodded in silence.
“Now it is my turn to help you. If your friend came through these parts I cannot see how she could have avoided the Maizans. They patrol all these roads scooping up travellers, especially women.” He turned his eyes toward his daughter, sat with her young brothers. “Susana was beginning to draw their attention, that is why we left. These other people, well, they each have a story to tell. Maizan is a terrible city. There is a war. Maizans killing Maizans. There is nothing but misery in that city.”
Stone digested the information and told Allain of the Eastern Villages to the south where there was work and education, but to avoid the burnt out town, swamped with scavengers.
After, he sought out Nuria, half dozing with a blanket wrapped around her.
“Was it the Map Maker?” she asked, once Stone had told her Susana’s story.
“No, the man she described was tall and …”
Stone cut his words short as a shrill whistle sounded across the camp. He grabbed his rifle and sprinted to the perimeter where a stocky youth named Colm was pointing a wooden club into the dark.
“I saw someone, I swear it.”
Stone looked closely at the young man. He seemed out of breath, more through excitement than fear, though.
“Where exactly?”
“Over there,” said Colm. “Just a face looking at me. Then it was gone.”
Without another word, Stone disappeared once more into the gloom, half-crouched, sweeping out to the left, casting his eyes all around, putting himself a considerable distance from the spot Colm had indicated, wanting to loop round and catch them still in the area or fleeing from it. His boots grated against stubborn and parched ground. The lights from the camp began to fade. He breathed deeply. He dropped and listened, finger on the trigger, the wind keenly whistling across the plains. He saw a small flash of movement and pressed forward, rifle aimed, coming in fast now, the unknown person alerted to his presence, fuming they had been outflanked. He saw the figure dart from behind a low dune. He spotted bushy hair. It was definitely a woman he was chasing down through the scrubland. He saw no one else, no indication he was being led into a trap.
Stone fired. The gunshot echoed through the night and the woman stopped rigid, her back to him.
“Show me your hands,” he said, cautiously approaching her.
He could see she wore flat shoes and a long dress that wafted around her ankles. Her upper body was concealed by a thick jumper.
“Drop the weapon,” he warned. “I missed on purpose the first time.”
He lined up the shot. Slowly, she stretched out her arms and he saw an odd looking weapon dangling from one hand. She lowered it to the ground and carefully turned. Stone saw light brown cheeks flushed with perspiration and a white scar from nose to chin. Her clothes looked rough.
“How many?”
She frowned at his odd question and it took a moment to dawn on her what he was asking.
“Only me,” she said, laboured.
Stone heard footsteps behind him. Nuria emerged from the darkness, holding a crossbow, Colm beside her.
“I know where the one-eyed girl is,” said the bushy haired woman. “I heard you asking them about her.”
“Where is she?” asked Nuria.
The woman slowly shook her head and said, “Not whilst that animal has a gun pointed at me.”
Stone was unmoved, trigger finger ready.
“What colour hair does she have?” he growled.
“Dirty ginger.”
He lowered his rifle.
“Got a name?”
“Beatriz,” she said.
They offered her food and water and listened to her story through the small hours, Beatriz detailing her first encounter with Emil and the bald headed man who told her his name was the Map Maker and how she had suspected he was forcing the one-eyed girl to travel with him. He had seemed pleasant, in the beginning, with a keen eye for the past, an interest in history that matched her own, but he had soon revealed his true colours and she had forced him from her shop. Then the Maizans had landed on her doorstep, having learned she was trading small quantities of black energy from a canister that she had obtained from a man named Cristo. The Maizans told her the canister of bio-fuel was stolen and that four had been killed during the robbery.
“The bodies on the forest road,” said Nuria, nodding. “Cathy told me the Tamnicans and Maizans exchanged black energy for tablets.”
Beatriz had killed one of the Maizans and fled, holing up in the wasteland through the long, dark and bitingly cold winter nights, living off meagre scraps, drinking melted snow, waiting to die or waiting to be found. Her gaunt face and hollow eyes were testament to the hardship she had endured. Munching on pieces of fruit she groaned pleasurably at the taste and rolled her eyes. Spitting out a stone, she continued with her story of how she had witnessed the ambush of Cristo’s pickup truck, not far from where they now sat.
“The Maizans overwhelmed them,” she said. “They had more cars, more men. They took everything; the truck, all the canisters of black energy, the woman and the one-eyed girl.”
She explained how they had beaten Cristo and when one of them planned to execute him his weapon had jammed. Other Maizans had volunteered to shot the thief but Basile was having none of it.
“He is the shit that came into my shop and set one of his animals on me. He ordered his men to strip Cristo naked. They left him with nothing, shivering in the freezing cold, condemned to death.”
The Map Maker had spoken with the Maizans, waving maps at them, but had been clubbed viciously to the ground and shoved into the boot of one of the vehicles. The cars then snarled a path across the white landscape and the final thing Beatriz saw was the pathetic sight of Cristo, limping after them, arms wrapped around his body.
“The man who asked Allain’s daughter about a woman and a one-eyed girl might be Cristo,” said Nuria.
Beatriz found a spot and bedded down for the night, leaving Stone sitting with Nuria.
A gravely voice broke the stilted silence between them as one of the refugees began to sing. It was a mournful tune spattered with words that Stone did not understand. A few joined in, smiles on grimy faces as they sang, tired and worn eyes infused with a brightness, a stubborn determination. The two drifters exchanged silent looks as the song continued into the night.
“That was a good thing you did,” said Stone.
“I thought you would be angry,” said Nuria, the flames crackling. “Most of our food and water is gone.”
He said nothing. She looked at the long scar he bore from the Warden’s whip. He would never be able to forget Tamnica. The scar and the branding would stay with him until death. She wanted to curl against him and close her eyes and feel his arms around her. She wanted to ask him how he was feeling and if he wanted to share those feelings with her but she couldn’t construct the words into a sentence.
“I’m sorry about Justin
e,” she said, having nothing more poignant to offer.
--- Twenty Three ---
“Shem,” yawned Genny, scratching his mop of curly hair. “Come see this fucking fool.”
Genny was the lookout king, the big man of the top apartment, an entire tower block his domain, twenty ghostly floors of mangled pipes and twisted girders, shattered glass and fractured concrete walls scrawled with faded swirls. There were hundreds of empty rooms filled with stinking rubbish and the remains of fires and they all belonged to him. Eighteen years old, his realm had been bestowed upon him by the greatest and fiercest of the blue and white - Basile - feared throughout the city; the ultimate leader, the ultimate fighter.
“What are you chatting about?” said Shem, tossing a bucket of piss out of an open window in the back room.
He came in wiping his hands on his shorts and dragging his feet across thin carpet. The room was washed in early morning grey light, peeking through frayed blankets hung limply across the window frames. Shem sprawled onto a battered old sofa where patches of mould climbed the pitted wall behind him. He reached into a crate of supplies and took out a bag of crackers. He tossed a handful into his mouth, crunching loudly.
“You fucking eating already?” said Genny, sitting on a worn chair with his back to him, a pair of binoculars wedged into a crack in the wall, angled down toward the single road into Maizan. “You’re a fat fucker, Shem, you know that, man?”
Saying nothing, Shem pushed himself onto his feet, scattering empty bottles and wrappers and handguns. Picking at his crotch, he lazily pushed open the boarded up patio door. The sudden rush of cold air was sobering after a night of drink and tablets. Gingerly, he stepped out onto the balcony, sandaled feet crossing cracked tiles.
“Look at that fucking idiot,” said Genny, chuckling. “I should shoot him.”
Laughing, Shem raised his binoculars, sweeping his eyes across the barren landscape. His acne scarred face screwed into a sneer as he spotted the travellers who had fled the city a few days before, miles in the distance, a slow moving column pushing carts. Wasters, he thought, and spat on the ground.
The Wasteland Soldier, Book 2, Escape From Tamnica (TWS) Page 27
