All I know about it is what I’ve heard Jericho whisper. That it’s somewhere in the far western part of our Northeast Territory, where Adonis is. Somewhere close to the mighty ice flow that separates the Kingdom’s three territories along the east coast from the vast land Yellowstone rendered inhabitable. And that it’s a terrible, nightmarish “prison camp” where Hyperion sends prisoners to be reeducated or die.
I move the cross hairs to the fence. Standard chain-link. No doubt waiting for its razor-wire crown. My brow furrows. What could they possibly need a fence for?
The cross hairs drift back to Henny.
“Do we have an understanding?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s ‘sir’ to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Henny drops the soldier. “Now I’ll ask again. When will this fence be completed?”
“A-a week, sir.”
Henny nods. His hand inches to his rifle. “If even one of them escapes Hyperion’s public warning to the other settlements, you will wish you’d died with them.”
He turns the horse away from the soldier.
My cross hairs follow.
“All right you bastard,” I whisper. “Let’s end this.”
He sits taller in the saddle, one amber eye moving to look back. The stallion rises from the snow on powerful haunches, tossing its head back with a shrill squeal. A loud crack splinters the gully.
The bullet shears the tree trunk’s bark beside me.
I scurry behind the sticky trunk. A second bullet tears through the snow where I was kneeling. Clutching the rifle, I peer around the gash.
He stands in the stirrups, rifle aimed, and stallion dancing under him.
I shiver. How is that even possible? There’s no way he should have been able to—
The bark inches above my head tears away, forcing me back. If I run, he’ll kill me.
You’re dead if you don’t, that terrified little voice screams.
Distance. I need to get out of range and into that forest where he can’t target me. I fumble with the rifle’s safety and fight down panic.
He continues to watch my tree, making no move to retreat or pursue. It’s like he’s waiting for something. Biding his time. Offering the first move to me while his men ready their rifles.
“New orders,” he says, voice raised so that I can hear. “This fence will be complete in four days. It will also stretch two additional miles in all directions. Hyperion’s message won’t be delayed.”
My fingers move along the rifle stock.
He still doesn’t move. The stallion snorts and tosses his head, bit jingling and hooves dancing in the snow.
I draw a sharp breath and keep my head low.
Like a sudden wind gust, the stallion makes his move, heavy hooves thundering through the snow. Twigs snap and break as he shoulders through them. The icy earth fractures under his assault. A deep roaring grunt pulls through the animal’s flared nostrils.
I don’t wait for it to crest the hill.
The forest rises and falls in sharp embankments. I reach out, snaring a tree branch. My hip strikes the ground as I slide down an embankment and into a small gulley.
Large gray millow roots crisscross in a tangled mess around me, having crept in from the Western Ridge. It’s not much, but it’s cover for now. I vault over a fallen log, barely grazing it before immediately shouldering through flimsy branches.
I leap over another root cluster, heaving and struggling to draw cold air into my burning lungs. The trees’ thick, hollow trunks crowd together. A larger, more intimidating root cluster bars my path as I jump . . . and realize my mistake too late.
My legs twist upward at the same time my elbows and ribs plow into the snow, driving my breath from my lungs. Icy ground rushes up, grating the side of my face, and my rifle lands with a muffled crunch several feet away as my left foot doesn’t completely clear the root cluster.
Son of a—I bite back a cuss and drag my legs against the snow. Throbbing pain assaults my skull. I work my right elbow under me and push myself into a half sitting position, shaking.
The stallion shoves the branches out of his way with his hulking body. His hooves dance amongst the gray roots.
Snow soaks my buckskin trousers and sticks to its fringes as I pull my legs under me and crawl against the root cluster. Pressing a shoulder against the barrier, I make myself as small as possible, peering through a tiny gap between roots and struggle to calm my breathing.
The stallion swings its head over the root cluster and works the bit, ears swiveling and hot breath pouring over me.
Don’t see me. God don’t let him see me.
“Well Xanthos, where could our little Ragamuffin have vanished to?” I hear the leather reins snap in the cold. “Is she up a tree?”
Froth drips down the stallion’s muzzle.
“Or under the roots?” He leans over the stallion’s neck and pretends to study the roots. “Well, Ragamuffin. Since I know you can hear me, I have a message for you. Run. Run as fast as you can to your little settlement and tell them to say their prayers because Hyperion’s hell will rain down on your home and all will see the purifying of Rondo’s rustlers.”
The leather strap rubs against his jacket as he swings the rifle over his shoulder. He clucks his tongue and turns Xanthos around. With an arrogant, knowing look over his shoulder, he spurs the beast back the way they came.
Large hoofprints in the snow are the only evidence of his existence. I draw a shaky breath and offer up a silent prayer of gratitude. A cold chill settles over me, the clearing quiet. Grabbing a flimsy branch, I haul myself onto trembling legs.
I’ve been hunted before. It comes with the job. But I’ve never been hunted by someone like him. No one’s ever stupid enough to give a rustler the advantage.
He’s far from stupid, though. The way he toys with me confirms that. He’s doing this intentionally, letting me turn all the tricks I know for his amusement.
He doesn’t just think he can win. He knows it.
Chapter Seventeen
I need to warn them. A fence like that in the gully, or anywhere around here can’t end well for us. They only put fences up to keep people out, or . . . to keep them in. My hands wrap around the rifle, clinging to it as I cast a look over my shoulder again to make sure he’s really not following in the shadows.
He let me go. And made damn sure I heard every word he said. Four days—Rondo will be destroyed. No one does things like that unless they know something you don’t. Trusting his words though is stupid, but right now, it’s all we have to go on and the others need to know that the Kingdom is planning something big.
Tracker’s not going to be happy about this. A wiser rustler knows better than to follow the enemy like I did, but angry or not this can’t be ignored.
My pace slows on the ridge overlooking the snowfield. Our remaining militia patrols like rattled foxes, much thinner than it should be. The fact that Jericho was able to wrangle anyone to take up arms to even consider patrolling in this mess is nothing short of a miracle.
Something red moves at the far snowfield edge near Addison’s farmstead, drawing my attention. My rifle’s cross hairs magnify the landscape just off the big, weathered gray barn’s left-hand side as I peer through them.
Nothing. Great. Now I’m seeing things.
Another brief reddish flash at the barn’s front catches my attention. I struggle to capture it with the cross hairs. It sneaks behind a snowdrift. Okay, so not seeing things. Something is out there.
Too small to be an animal. And the only thing remotely reddish we have over there is Nigel. He’s not outside today though, or at least, he shouldn’t be unless the K. C. tried to steal him.
I pan the drifts with the rifle’s cross hairs.
Movement by the grain hothouses now . . .
Human. I grit my teeth. Today just keeps getting better and better.
It doesn’t look like a K. C. soldier. No helm
et. No rifle. Not even the K. C.’s standard issue uniform. He really did pull his forces back after all.
Rustler. The last thing Rondo needs today is a rival rustler moving in on our hothouses when we’re wounded.
Snowdrifts bog down my legs, making the half-mile distance feel longer. I cringe. A good rustler will make excellent use of every extra second it takes for me to get there.
Rusting fence posts form a makeshift pasture as I slip around the pipe gate Nigel and I were jumping the other night and kneel down to examine the trail. Combat boots, likely Kingdom Corps or this rustler got extremely lucky and took out a soldier. And they lead toward the hothouses up ahead.
I move past the large, weathered barn, stopping long enough to peer through a crack in the door. Various snorts and grunts respond, the dull light sneaking through the dusty windows in the wall showing three sets of various-sized ears in the shadows. No one was stolen at least.
Addison’s farmhouse is tucked back a few yards between the barn and the first of two hothouses grafted into the mountainside. Their steel rinds are domed to prevent the snow from collapsing them. Steam rises from small tin chimneys sprouting every few feet along their roofs.
I bypass the first hothouse where the orchards and gardens are, pursuing the fresh footprints. They continue to the second hothouse, one we dedicate to corn and other grains. A long, fresh section of upturned snow trails from the steel door.
Oh no you don’t. Not while we’re under siege. Freeing one hand from the rifle I rest it over the metal lever. It resists under a coating of freshly broken ice but disengages the latch.
Thin green cornstalks tower several feet above me on the left and right. They still have their ears, the natural fuzzy tassels flagging them to be picked by week’s end. Hundreds of them crowd together in the dedicated square, half-acre plots lining this row.
The hothouse’s humid air sticks to my chilled flesh. Above me, artificial lights cast shadows over the damp cement floor. Large fans hum from the far sides and I listen for the water drizzling somewhere in the back, where the corn plots give way to the wheat and hay plots.
I ease the door shut and once again grip the rifle with both hands.
Up ahead, heavier footsteps slap against the cement floor.
I move to the side, feeling the starchy cornstalk leaves brush my jacket.
The footsteps’ owner hesitates at the narrow intersection up ahead.
My fingers tingle against the rifle stock. Whoever it is keeps moving as though this is an open-air market ripe for the picking. I pause, finger on the trigger and raise the rifle. In an instant, I’m out in the open, aiming for the left corridor.
A cold metal barrel presses against the back of my skull. Every muscle goes rigid, cold sweat coating my forehead at a sound no rustler ever wants to hear.
Leather creaks behind me in agonizing slowness, my about-to-be murderer curling his finger around the trigger. The odor of vanilla and diesel fuel sharpens in the humid air.
His breathing stays even. His hand doesn’t tremble.
Mine doesn’t either, the rifle butt sinking deep into the soft spot under his ribcage.
A shrill yelp, coupled with an instantaneous crack pierces the air. The bullet surges past my right cheek as I turn on him, barrel swinging up, catching just below his neck and knocking him off-balance.
He falls flat on his back against the cement floor. The pistol skitters into the cornstalks.
Our eyes meet across the cherry stock.
His are green. Not emerald. More like a rich, grassy color like the pitiful grazing pasture in Hothouse One. Short, yet shaggy ginger hair frames his pale, boyish face. He looks close to Henny’s age, maybe a little younger but not as “mature” as he or Matthew. A spattering of ginger freckles adorns his cheeks and carves its way across the bridge of his nose.
His wrinkled sorrel jacket hangs open to reveal a sooty white shirt. Around his neck hangs a thin, golden chain. Faded denim jeans, worn thinner on the left knee than the right, are soaked from wading through the snow.
The redhead who carried a crossbow the other day in Hydra . . . Don’t tell me he followed us home too. Where’s his crossbow though?
A stupid grin creeps over his face.
“Well, that went well.” A thick Edmondan Irish accent coats his words and makes him difficult to understand. Tracker and Matthew told me stories of Edmonda, capital settlement of the Southeastern Territory, and about some of the many languages and accents blended together there due to its rural role in the Kingdom.
This young man’s is way different from Matthew’s southern drawl. Not unpleasant to the ears and deceptively alluring, but definitely not from the Northeast Territory.
“Why are you here?” If he’s really from the Southeastern Territory, this is almost as big of a problem as Henny. Any rustler willing to travel that distance is beyond serious about their craft and just as dangerous as Tracker and me. One stupid enough to follow us home from Hydra though deserves what he gets.
The young man’s stupid grin grows and he tries to hold a hand up.
I move the rifle in warning.
His hand halts but it doesn’t stop him from staring at my eyes.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
If I had a silver Kingdom kik coin for every time that’s been uttered by a rustler, I’d be a moderately wealthy young lady.
“Not good enough.” I continue to pin him with the rifle.
“Maybe I was cold.” Mischief and confidence sneak into his eyes; like Matthew used to do when he was scheming.
No, I mentally snarl—not like Matthew. This young man’s are darker, lecherous even. Matthew warned me about young men like this.
“Rustler. You followed us home from Hydra.”
The redhead chuckles. He sweeps his legs under him, never taking those alluring eyes off me.
I want to look away, not give him the slightest benefit of seeing mine. But I don’t. Tracker taught me never to take my eyes off the enemy when you have them in front of you. It decides whether you return home alive or your corpse is left behind enemy lines.
I don’t plan on dying on my home turf, and I don’t have time for this today.
“What a cruel little lady to be so assuming.”
“Are you or aren’t you?” After all, you’re standing in Rondo.
“Now honestly.” His fingers snake over the barrel. “Would a ‘rival’ give you an honest answer to that?”
He inches the barrel downward as he stands, still not breaking eye contact.
I knock the barrel back into position.
“Answer my question.” My finger hovers razor-close to the trigger. “Rustler? Or not?”
“Tried to be.” He rests his elbow casually on the barrel and winks as though this situation is commonplace. “But good ol’ Hyperion’s got something against them. Got out of the last settlement with my life. Good riddance I say. Solstice is where the real action’s at anyway.”
“Solstice.” That settlement sits at the heart of “forbidden” things in our household. Unlike Rondo’s miserable past, Tracker spared no words when warning me about the lewd settlement just outside the Kingdom’s capital city, Adonis.
Liquor flows freely. Cheap whores are plentiful. It’s supposedly so far in bed with Adonis that it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s fair enough reason to stay the hell away from any of its riffraff altogether. It’s also on the other side of the Northeast Territory and nowhere near Rondo. So why would a potential Solstice rustler follow us to Rondo?
“Yes, ma’am.” He sports a wicked grin. “The women are pretty and the wine’s even finer. Not a bad view of the Kingdom’s riches either, if you know what I mean.”
He moves closer.
My heel inches back a half step against damp cement and I grip the rifle tighter. “No one going to Solstice passes through here.”
“Really?” He stands eye level, gloved fingers securely around t
he rifle barrel. “I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”
I try to raise the rifle.
His hand holds it securely in place and he reaches into his jacket for something.
Instinct takes over, both hands pulling the rifle toward me, drawing the foreigner off-balance. My fist catches his jaw, knocking him back with a painful shout before he hits the ground again.
I stand over him with the rifle aimed, breathing heavily and shaking.
“Okay, okay.” His eyes widen. “Unholy hell you’re strong.”
I can’t tell if the strain in his voice is forced or just part of his accent. “Seventy-two settlements and I’m sent to the one he’s in. Mother F—”
“Who are you?” The rifle levels with his chest. “What do you want from us?”
“Whoa.” He holds both hands up. “Take it easy—”
“Answer the damn question.”
“Yep, definitely met Henny.” His eyes dart from the barrel to my jacket sleeve. “And he’s marking his territory. Lucky indeed.”
“Henny.” My brow furrows and I grit my teeth.
“Blond guy, carries a rifle, rides around on a big black—”
“We’ve met,” a growl escapes my throat. “You’re going to tell me how you know him or I’ll shoot.”
Forget rival rustler. This guy’s something far worse—Kingdom Corps.
A smirk plays across his lips. “Now I wouldn’t be a very good prisoner if I just gave you that information, would I?”
“Don’t play games with me. I saw you in Hydra. And now you’re here in Rondo.”
“Aye, knew that would come back and bite me in the ass. Okay, look. You’re looking for a way to kill him before he kills you.” He shifts his lean frame and flashes a sinister grin. “But you won’t find it. There’s a reason he’s Hyperion’s right-hand man. And as you probably already found out, trying to shoot him is a pointless gamble.”
The rifle lowers a bit; his intense green eyes don’t back down.
“But what do I know?” He places both hands behind his head and rocks back on his heels. “Surely you Rondonians have him all figured out. The rifle, the fence, even that quirky pain-in-the-ass endgame move he ends a public siege with.”
The Bone Roses Page 11
