The Last Survivors (Book 6): The Last Conquest

by Bobby Adair

  A glimmer of movement drew his attention back in the direction of the Ancient City. Seeing the towers at a distance, it was easy to imagine they weren't crumbling, that the Ancients were still there, building all of their magic machines in the dark tunnels and sunny spires. But across the tan grasses of the rolling plain between Bray and those ancient megaliths, some of the dark patches of forest seemed to move and flow, oozing down a hill, flowing through a late afternoon shadow into a gulch, like a discolored blanket, some kind of parasite eating the land. Some Ancient monster that Winthrop's band of imbeciles had awoken in the ruins.

  Bray felt the hair on his neck prickle.

  He had the urge to spur his horse and race to the trail that the smugglers took to get through the mountains.

  Whatever was coming frightened him.

  Bray sat up straight on his horse and watched, straining his eyes to determine that the nightmare shadow wasn't one thing, but a herd, a mass of beasts bigger than any he'd ever seen.

  Demons.

  Holy shit.

  Bray felt a new surge of fear ripple through him. His hand instinctively went to his sword, as if he might need it, even though he was well hidden and far enough away that the demons weren't an immediate threat. He'd heard stories of war from his father, tales of hordes of demons large enough to swallow the earth. But he'd never laid eyes on a group that large himself. The demons were following the army. Were they stalking Winthrop and his men? Or was it a coincidence?

  Maybe his earlier premonition was true, and the army was leading them back to Brighton.

  His urgency renewed, Bray looked up at the face of the mountain range, eyeing the cut where the canyon spilled the river down to the plain. Winthrop's ragtag army would get there long before Bray had any chance at rescuing William. An attempt at night would be equally risky. If the demons pursued Winthrop's army into the canyon, it would be suicide for Bray to follow. He'd have Winthrop's zealots in front and what looked like every demon in the world behind.

  Bray was too smart for suicide.

  He turned his horse, pulled the reins, and led the other horses through the forest. As soon as the army cleared, he'd ride as far and as fast as he could and circle around the canyon. He just hoped William lived long enough to see the other side.

  Chapter 36: William

  After riding for most of the day and fighting several small bands of demons, the army began to tire and the horses were panting, slowing their pace, and fidgeting. They'd taken several breaks along the way, filling their flasks in a small stream and allowing the horses to drink. William watched the setting sun from atop his steed.

  Next to him, Phillip turned to Winthrop, suggesting, "We should stop soon."

  Winthrop looked annoyed, as if he'd been broken from whatever reverie he'd been in. "We marched farther on the way into the city," he complained. "I don't remember stopping near here."

  "The army is tired," Phillip said. "We've been fighting demons every night since we marched out of Brighton. Even with the sleep we got in the dome, the army needs need more. And I don't think the horses can go much farther."

  "They seem fine," Winthrop said, slapping the flank of his own panting beast.

  Phillip pointed ahead, where an enormous mountain rose into the distance—the same mountain they'd descended on the way to the Ancient City, as he'd told William. The long, winding ancient road leading up it was filled with turns, turns that would be even more difficult to travel on the way back.

  "Maybe we should camp at the foot of the mountain," Phillip said, pointing to a clearing at the mountain's base.

  Winthrop nodded. "So be it."

  The priests called out orders to the closest men, who passed the information along to the rest of the army. Soon they'd reached a clearing at the base of the mountain and were hopping from their horses, setting up bags, and gathering kindling in the nearby woods. William tied up his horse with the others in a small cluster of trees and helped find wood for the fires. By the time the sun had set, fires dotted the valley, and men hovered around them as they cooked the bodies of the demons they'd killed during the day.

  The priests had created a fire that was impressive, though much smaller than the massive one they'd built at the dome. Winthrop sat close to the flames, eating something his priestesses had provided from one of his bags. Several of his priests conversed with him about travel plans for the next day.

  William sat with Jasmine and Phillip.

  "I'm tired, but I can't imagine how you must feel," Phillip said to Jasmine, who had kicked off her boots and was rubbing the blisters on her feet.

  Jasmine smiled. "I'll survive. Though a rest will be nice."

  William nodded. He felt bad that he was on a horse, while the priestesses and so many others were forced to march. "Winthrop insisted only one man ride each horse," he said, feeling the need to explain.

  "I understand. They'll grow less tired that way," Jasmine said. "Besides, the horses are reserved for the men. Either way, we'll get back to our families soon."

  Turning from Jasmine to Phillip, William said, "Do you have a family waiting for you at home?"

  Phillip shook his head. "My wife and son perished in the last round of illness."

  "The Cleansing, you mean?"

  "No. They died of fever. The last winter was harsh."

  "I remember," said William.

  And he did. Too many people had died during the coldest months. It had taken a while to bury them, between the frozen ground and the woodworkers struggling to keep up with caskets.

  "Your family is dead?" Phillip asked, lowering his voice and his gaze.

  "Yes," William said without elaborating.

  Everyone knew about Davenport. He didn't need to explain. He watched Jasmine and Phillip in the flickering light of the fire.

  He didn't feel like he was lying. For the most part, William's family might as well be dead. His mother and his father were gone. He doubted he'd ever see Melora, Ivory, or Jingo again. And Bray might as well be some ghost, carrying around the secret of why he'd slain Ella.

  William thought more about that.

  Bray had done something terrible. But as the days passed, William found himself having glimpses of memory from that dreadful afternoon. In the preceding days, William had been unable to focus on anything but Ella, but now he recalled seeing something else, as if it were some part of the dream he'd been missing.

  The look in the Warden's eyes after it happened came back to him.

  Bray had been just as shocked as William, Ivory, or Melora.

  Maybe it had been a terrible accident, after all.

  Maybe he hadn't coerced Ella into anything.

  Looking back at Jasmine and Phillip, William was surprised to see Phillip giving Jasmine the same look that Bray had given his mother all those days ago, on the steps in front of the ancient building. William had interrupted them, confused, angry. He didn't feel that way now.

  He watched Jasmine and Phillip for a moment, deciding he didn't mind.

  Chapter 37: Jingo

  Jingo sat in a chair, watching the embers glow in the fireplace. It made him think of Beck, up in the tower, freezing in the dark, taking his turn at the watch. All the others were asleep, bundled against the cold, except Kirby. She rolled and rearranged herself countless times, sighing and staring at the dark ceiling.

  "If you can't sleep," Jingo told her softly, "why don't you come sit with me and we'll talk until our minds are too tired to hold the thoughts that bother us?"

  Kirby sat up at she looked over at Jingo. "It's these damn lumps down my spine. I used to sleep on my back. Now I can't."

  "You've had them for a long time," said Jingo. "Seventeen years now?"

  "Yes, that's when they started," Kirby conceded as she pulled off her blanket and stood up. "But it's only been five or six years since they've grown large enough to make it painful to lie on my back."

  Jingo patted the seat beside him, urging her to join him.

  Ki
rby looked around the room at the dark shadows beyond the fire, as if the invitation needed more thought than it deserved. She stretched, leaned over, and groaned like an old woman.

  Jingo didn't comment. He didn't want to tell her that the pain and stiffness would only get worse. Over time, the spore sank its roots into the joints and made movement painful. He longed for the ancient days when aspirins and anti-inflammatory drugs were available in nearly every store.

  Kirby finally surrendered to her insomnia, climbed out from under her blanket, and came to sit beside Jingo.

  She stared at the embers as Jingo asked, "Have you decided what you'll do?"

  "About?"

  "Going to Brighton."

  Kirby gave Jingo a cross stare. "I've never led anyone to believe the matter was under consideration. I'm not going there."

  "Beck seems to think you are."

  "He nags me constantly about it," said Kirby. "But I have no desire to fight in another unending war."

  "Is that what you think it will be?" Jingo asked.

  Kirby's expression turned to disappointment. "In three centuries of life, have you seen anything other than death, people butchering people? I've been on this earth for thirty-five years, and it's all I've seen."

  "If I told you conflict has always been a part of human history, would that make you more or less likely to go to Brighton?"

  Kirby chuckled as she frowned. "I don't know much about ancient times, but I've been told things by people who read ancient histories. Unfortunately, my parents weren't educated, so I wasn't."

  "Yours is a common story in human history," Jingo told her.

  Kirby continued, as though Jingo had said nothing at all. "If you're telling me that men and women have killed throughout history, going back however many thousands of years, then I say to you, maybe it's better if we all die. Maybe when our kind is gone, the suffering will disappear."

  "All creatures suffer," said Jingo. "Men and women are just like the rest. The only difference is that we are intelligent enough to believe that we shouldn't."

  "Maybe you have a darker view of humanity than I do," Kirby guessed as she took a deeper look into Jingo's eyes.

  "There was a time when I did," said Jingo. "Through the years, though, I've come to believe that a truth has always been in front of me. It is a truth that gives me hope when I lose faith in our species."

  "What is that?"

  "It will be longwinded to explain."

  "Perhaps it will put me to sleep." Kirby smiled. It was the first real smile Jingo had seen on her face.

  Jingo took a moment to find his starting place, and then said, "People have warred with one another since the first human figured out how to pick up a rock and use it as a weapon. From that day, through nearly all the days since, humans found better and better ways to kill one another. In what everyone here calls the ancient times, in the days in which I grew up, we'd build tools and machines to kill on an unimaginable scale. People died by the million in our wars."

  "Millions were killed?" Kirby asked. "That can't be true." Then Kirby softened. She must've seen the size of the ancient cities, or heard about them. There were too many great cities spread over the globe, all turning to rubble, for her not to have some kind of knowledge. "Were there really that many people then? Did your wars truly kill millions?"

  "Do you know your numbers?" Jingo asked.

  Kirby nodded with a scowl, offended to be asked the question. "I can't read, but that doesn't make me stupid."

  "My apologies."

  Kirby's face relaxed.

  "More than a million died," Jingo confirmed, getting back on topic. "Tens of millions, in some wars. But we could have killed so many more. We reached a time when our bombs were so terrible that several nations possessed the power to kill every living thing on the planet—children, their parents, their pets, every blade of grass in the yard, every tree that lined their streets. But we never used that power. In a way, as we all came to realize what power we wielded, the worst of the wars grew farther and farther in our past, and when war did come, it killed a smaller proportion of the living people."

  "Through all of these wars, life for most humans got better. Humanity built great cities. Most people lived long lives, and never had to raise a weapon for their country. Many never saw violence or had to fight for their lives. Most didn't starve. Most were educated. People were scientists and artists and explorers." Jingo pointed up. "We sent men to the moon in a rocket. We built a station in space, a colony like a very small moon. People lived and worked there. People seldom got sick. They didn't die needlessly. We had doctors to cure most illnesses. When someone died before they'd aged eighty years, people were surprised."

  Kirby laughed like that was the funniest joke she'd heard in a long time. "That can't be true."

  "It is," Jingo confirmed. "Some people lived to be a hundred. Of course, this was before the spore made the infected people immortal."

  "Before my people came to this land," said Kirby, "the oldest person I'd ever heard of was fifty-seven."

  "I know the strain of spore affects people differently where you came from. But do you see my point about war?"

  Kirby glared at Jingo as if she were being duped.

  "War is an inescapable part of who we are, but it is not all we are. The pursuit of knowledge and the application of that knowledge makes better lives for people. That is the better part of humanity. That is what you can help with, should you go to Brighton with Beck."

  "But you've lived your life alone in your Ancient City," argued Kirby, "avoiding the people in Brighton, even though you could have helped them with your knowledge." She let that hang in the air for a moment before she added, "Yet, you did not."

  "No," Jingo confessed. "Perhaps there was a time or two over the centuries when I might have been welcomed by the people of Brighton, but it was too much of a risk."

  "Why did you not go to them when they first settled?"

  "Times were violent back then," said Jingo. "Had I approached Brighton's founders in those days, I'd have been killed and my body burned. But it would've been impossible to go to them at that time, anyhow."

  "Why?" asked Kirby.

  "I didn't become aware of Brighton until some sixty or seventy years after the fall. By then, I'd taken to thinking that I was the last civilized man on earth. Then, one day, I spied a man, a normal, healthy human in the Ancient City. He came there scavenging for what he could to bring back to Brighton. He was a brave man. He had to be. The city was teeming with twisted men who would have killed him, had they found him."

  "I came to know Ted after I helped him escape a mob of demons that thought they had him trapped. Ted and I became friends, and whenever he came to the Ancient City to scavenge, he would visit with me. He brought me news of Brighton. And like Ted, there were others through the years, always someone. Eventually, I took on students like Ivory. His uncle used to bring him to the Ancient City to meet with me."

  "My hope was that I could influence Brighton from afar, but that didn't work. Brighton was devolving intellectually. The people were so busy surviving, growing crops, hunting for food, building their fortifications, and fighting the twisted men that they had little time for education. Five thousand years of human history and knowledge disappeared in a few generations. People had no time to read. They had no time for mathematics. All modern knowledge was based on those two foundational skills. It all disappeared, and superstition grew. Hatred of anyone with the spore infection festered. Their perversion of a religion justified their choice to burn anyone they suspected of being infected."

  "And you're going back there?" Kirby asked incredulously. The look of disbelief remained on her face until she came to a new realization. "You believe Beck can change Brighton with his guns."

  "Maybe he can," said Jingo. "In all these centuries, this might be Brighton's best chance. The old leadership is dead. With so much of the militia and cavalry gone, Beck, along with his guns, may win the day. He may be
able to put Brighton on the right path. If so, then I should be there to guide them. As you know, my knowledge of the ancient world is vast, but my knowledge of this world is just what I've seen in the Ancient City and what I know of the areas nearby. You know a great deal about life on the other side of the ocean. You can help us."

  "No," said Kirby. "I told Beck no, and I tell you no. I appreciate you asking me, but I won't do it. I can't go to another war. It is as I've said. Maybe with enough time, my optimism will return the way yours has. But you've had three centuries after seeing everyone you love die to get where you are now. My people just died. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of death. I don't have the will for it anymore."

  "Remember where we are, then," said Jingo. "I'll draw you a map. Come to us when you are ready. I'll be in Brighton, trying to bring the light back to the world."

  "All I can give you is my hope that you succeed," said Kirby.

  Chapter 38: Fitz

  Fitz looked out over the vast crowd of people that had gathered in the square. For the first time, she knew, and didn't have to speculate, what it felt like to be one of the Elders. Behind her were three chairs: Blackthorn's, Beck's, and Winthrop's. Two of those leaders were presumed dead, and she'd do whatever she could to prevent the third from walking through the Brighton gates again.

  People filled the square, lingering on the edges, watching from the rooftops, or hanging from windows, vying for the best spots to watch. Where the census-takers had once stood, her Strong Women now lined up in a row. Where the inspectors had made their pronouncements of life and death, the women from The House of Barren Women now waited. She looked out over the thick, tangled crowd of women, children, and the elderly—all those left in Brighton—and then back at her women.