August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand

by Lahey, Tyler

  “How much of our supplies are going to Bennett? At the Church?” Liam demanded suddenly. The apathy in his posture had evaporated. Gripping the table, he stared at the Council members in turn. Duke. Wilder. Troy. Jaxton. Adira.

  “If anything goes to him, it’s too much,” Adira whispered in the smoky haze.

  Duke cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “They get half as much as Henry’s Bluff, which is half the size. They mostly hunt for themselves. I think the Church settlement has a small garden they grow vegetables in…”

  “How many live with Bennett?”

  “Last I heard, a dozen.”

  “Why? Have we not given them enough? Do they not know he is a traitor?”

  Wilder shook his head lightly. “Most of them weren’t there for the winter. They didn’t fight the Lieutenant; they didn’t have to execute the beta-infected. They have no idea what really happened in the snow, and I don’t think most care.”

  Liam dropped his fist to the table, and he roared, startling the others. “Bennett and those brigands shouldn’t get any of our supplies. We should crack down on this. If they don’t fall in line, they pay the price.”

  Troy and Wilder smacked the table in agreement.

  Adira laughed softly, her traditional poise unshaken. “This isn’t a cock comparing contest. Suggesting hyper-violent courses of action doesn’t make you any more of a man, either.” Liam bristled beneath his bushy black eyebrows, and the façade crumbled for a moment.

  “You remind me of a man we used to know, Liam. A man we killed in the snow after he killed our friend, Elvis. The people in the Church aren’t bothering anyone. We can send them some supplies if we have extra. Otherwise, they fend for themselves. Anyone who lives in the valley falls under our protection,” Jaxton said stonily.

  “Doesn’t it bother you, that Bennett is still alive?”

  Jaxton shook his shaggy head of ragged, long brown hair. “Don’t forget who saved us all when the Lieutenant had us in his sights. Bennett chose our side when it mattered, and he’s earned himself some gratitude for that. I won’t let him fight with the factions, but he will not be punished.”

  The others only remained silent out of respect for their leader, though half disagreed with all their hearts. As the Council-members filtered out of the smoke filled room, Adira nudged Liam. “Walk with me.”

  …

  “Do you still think about them?”

  Liam sighed, watching the sun clinging to the western horizon. “Every damn day, Adira.”

  The girl with dark eyes smiled sadly as she sat beside him on the high school’s roof.

  “It’s too bad Elvis never got a chance to see what this place has become,” she said softly, standing on the lip of the roof. She raised her arms and in a sweep encompassed the entire valley. “I remember when it wasn’t safe to even travel outside this old school. Now, the entire valley is ours. How many people are living outside the Citadel?”

  Liam answered without looking at the view, “Two hundred eighty-eight.”

  Adira took a deep breath, oblivious to Liam’s apathy. “And nine? Ten settlements?”

  Liam still didn’t look up. “Well, if you want to count the Church as a settlement that would make eleven. They don’t have any factions on station so technically they aren’t under our protection but…” his droning was cut off sharply as Adira placed her hands on his shoulders, with a broad smile.

  “And how much of this is thanks to your work?” She asked him.

  Liam averted his eyes, in mild discomfort. “Jaxton is our leader, he’s the one-“

  But Adira cut him off again. She tapped his camouflage, right on his Bear patch. “The Bear protects the settlements. Thanks to you we haven’t lost a single person all summer.”

  Liam smiled wistfully, and raised his eyes to witness the sun’s final minutes. “If Elvis was still here, it would all be worth it. He shouldn’t have died that day, in the snow.”

  Adira paused till one of the rooftop guards was out of earshot. “It should have been Bennett, instead of him. But Bennett’s life isn’t ours to take now.”

  Liam stood, and slung an old shotgun across his back. “That is something I think about every single day. And I disagree. If Bennett hadn’t invited Lieutenant Agis into our valley, Harley would have never turned to him, and both her and Elvis would still be alive.”

  Adira set her jaw, and let her own hands trace the Destrier patch on her jacket. As the sweat dripped down her face, she exhaled deeply. “Agis simply revealed the bad in Harley. It would have come out sooner or later. I hate Bennett for how he fought against us too, Liam, you know I do. But I could never kill him, and I know Jaxton could never either. And yet I remember finding myself wanting him dead.”

  “Do you still?”

  Adira looked to the horizon. “I don’t know.”

  ….

  The trio passed a group of children playing tag in the dark parking lot outside the Citadel, their parents nowhere in sight. Such sights were common now.

  “Never thought that would ever be ok,” Annabelle said gratefully. She shot a glance to the roof, where two Bear guards stood watching on the lip with ancient shotguns.

  Joseph admired the doctor’s elegant gait, and wondered how old she really was. Annabelle’s thick brown hair was always tied back in a ponytail, but he could see the streaks of silver. “We have Billy to thank for that. The Wolf defends the ridges and the ravines.”

  Annabelle smiled at a memory unknown to the others. “We have more than just Billy to thank. But it has been weeks since I saw him. Why don’t the Wolf units rotate back to the Citadel?” She turned to Jaxton.

  “Everyone in the Wolf wants to be in the Wolf. They like being away from…” he gestured helplessly to the high school, “this crowded, drama-ridden community. There’s probably more drama here now than there was when I was a student here.”

  Annabelle chuckled, and reveled in the crisp August evening. “That’s saying something.”

  “But they like visitors too. There’s a Destrier supply run going out in two days. It’ll be small, three horses and two carts. But you’ll be on it,” Jaxton pronounced, and kicked little pebbles as they walked around the brick walls of the Citadel.

  “But aren’t I needed here? There could be more patients…the whooping cough-“

  Jaxton interrupted her. “Is all gone. No one is sick, and if they do get sick the nurses can help them. Go see Billy, Annabelle. He has been asking about you.”

  She blushed in the moonlight, despite her age. Then she stopped short.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Annabelle’s limbs were frozen, as she peered into the huge empty expanse of dark parking lot ahead. She raised her arm. “Is there something out there?”

  Jaxton took several steps forward and scanned the dark lot. His heart plummeted as he saw a shadow shuffling towards them a stone’s throw away. He expected the worst, and brought the horn slung around his shoulder to his lips. He blasted a long note, warning the Citadel of the foe.

  Drawing his revolver, Jaxton looked back at Joseph and Annabelle. “Get back,” he commanded, the softness in his voice gone.

  Three men appeared at the roof, bearing torches and shotguns. “Sir!?”

  “Eleven o’clock!” Jaxton pointed towards the darkness, where the guards waited to see what would emerge.

  Jaxton raised his pistol, hand on the trigger. It vibrated slightly in the air. “C’mon,” he whispered.

  Four figures staggered into the torchlight, twenty feet from Jaxton. They were survivors. The two children sprinted to him, tears streaming down their cheeks. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!” he screamed, delirious with sudden fear the rooftop guards would shoot them.

  A middle-aged woman Jaxton recognized from the batch of spring arrivals was leading a man towards him, her face a mask of visible distress. In one hand she clutched a hand-axe. The man stumbled as he walked, clasping a bloody bandage to his face.

  “Is he bitten?!”
Annabelle screamed, drawing the children to her legs.

  “No! No. Doctor, my husband’s been beaten. His nose and jaw are broken. Maybe more, he can barely breath. He was choking up blood,” The woman dragged the weeping man forward and pulled the rag away from his face. He reeled, and revealed a pulpy mass with barely recognizable features. Annabelle took him by the arm immediately. “How did this happen?”

  The woman turned to look back into the darkness. Then she met Jaxton’s eyes directly, and the spittle collected at her mouth. “I don’t remember his name. It’s that kid, the one with glasses. He lives in the Church with another group. My family’s been livin’ in the general store on Main Street, maybe forty minutes walk from here. This kid came in, drunk out of his mind, looking for God knows what in the store. My husband aint the type of man to tolerate disrespect, things got outta hand. He attacked my husband when we told him to leave,” she finished with venom.

  Jaxton spat on the asphalt and felt his face muscles contract. “Leeroy. Annabelle, see to this man. Joseph, get the children and this poor woman anything they need.” He put his fingers to his lips and whistled sharply.

  North East of the Valley, The Church

  “Why are we using gas again?!” Kylie shouted through the little window in the back of the pickup’s cab.

  Adira was snapped out of her thoughts. The trees crowded the road before them, illuminated by the pickup truck’s dim yellow lights.

  “Because he if runs, we need to catch him!” Adira shouted back. She nodded to her driver, and felt the pickup clank into a lower gear and then gain speed. She looked skyward; there was no moon or stars overhead. The pickup sped thru a haze of thick mist and turned onto Main Street. The men in the back were woefully armed; the Destrier’s mechanics and drivers didn’t normally need weapons. But Jaxton and Adira had agreed they had better not send Troy and the Eagle to capture Leeroy.

  “Left side. There’s the general store. Church is across the street.”

  “What the fuck? We’re too late?”

  The pickup groaned to a metallic stop, and Adira’s crew dismounted.

  “There are faster ways, if you don’t use the roads,” Troy growled. He dismounted the brick steps immediately in front of the white steeple. In the mist, Adira’s crew hesitated. There were eight other men in front of them, all wearing gas masks and clutching assault rifles. Adira could just barely make out the Eagle’s patches on their camouflage. In front of them, Leeroy and Bennett kneeled. Leeroy’s hands were unbound, and his eyes swam in a haze. He had taken a beating, of that Adira had no doubt. That was fine. An eye for an eye. It was what would happen next that worried her.

  “Jaxton charged the Destrier with his capture,” Adira ventured, taking a step forward to steel the hearts of her nervous team.

  Troy nodded calmly, the only trooper without a mask. “We wanted to make sure he didn’t get away.”

  “Why is Bennett here?”

  Troy indicated the church behind him, towering in the darkness. “We found him with Leeroy. I’m obligated to take them both back to the Citadel in chains.”

  Bennett shook his head visibly from his knees. “I haven’t done a thing wrong. It was this idiot,” he bumped Leeroy beside him roughly, who almost sprawled.

  Troy slung his rifle across his back and sauntered to Leeroy’s side. “Guilty by association,” he spat. “I’ve got confidence Jaxton will punish them accordingly, particularly this drunk moron.”

  Leeroy let out a primal roar, the moonshine still running thick in his veins. He rose to his feet and wrapped his hands around Troy’s neck. As hands grabbed him from behind, Leeroy delivered a savage kick to the outside of Troy’s knee. Leeroy was yanked backwards and slammed to the brick, but there was triumph in his drunken eyes.

  “FUCK!” Troy screamed, and fell beside him. He rolled, clutching his broken knee. “Kill that idiot!” Two of his troopers raised their jet-black rifles, when Adira stepped among them.

  “Get Troy in the cab, he needs a doctor! Bind Leeroy and get him in the flatbed! Move!”

  After a lengthy hesitation, the Eagle troopers jumped into action. They would follow another faction leader while their own was screaming in delirious pain.

  One lingered, and ripped off his gas mask. Wilder stared at her, sweaty and exhausted. “What the hell is going on? Adira.”

  She shook her head, feeling moisture collecting in her jet-black hair. “I have no idea. Meet us back at the Citadel. Everyone is awake.”

  Chapter Five

  The Citadel

  Through a tunnel of curious faces, gun barrels urged Bennett and Leeroy forward. Smoke from four flickering torches filled the lobby of the Citadel. The crowd followed the procession even as the factions gently tried to keep them back. Adira sent her Destrier driver and mechanics back to sleep, and the Bear settlement guards finally slinked back to their roof posts.

  The Eagle troopers dragged their commander to the medical bay, to see Annabelle. Their prizes, they shackled to two chairs in the silent library. The crowds of survivors were turned away at the firmly locked door. Jaxton fixed a torch to the wall, and sat across from Leeroy and Bennett, in front of a thousand paper stories.

  “Remove Bennett’s bonds,” Jaxton ordered.

  “What’s this?” Liam demanded.

  “Do it,” Jaxton affirmed.

  The Eagle troopers did as they were ordered, and resumed positions all around the table, stony faced.

  Adira took her seat, and stared directly at Bennett, willing him to look away. He did not.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Jaxton demanded, exasperated.

  Leeroy opened his swollen mouth and looked at the table, “That man hit me, he-“

  But Jaxton didn’t let him get far. “He’s a father of two with his wife there. And they were in pajamas. I don’t know many fathers who would instigate a brawl with someone in front of their kids, let alone in the middle of the night.”

  Leeroy opened and closed his mouth. The peach fuzz on his upper lip was caked with blood. He refused to meet Jaxton’s gaze. “I might have started it,” he slurred.

  “That’s what I thought. You’re going to be exiled, Leeroy. We don’t tolerate this kind of thing in the valley. The Eagle troopers are going to take you to the western ridge. You will walk over it. If you are seen here again we will kill you on sight.”

  Leeroy broke out into tears as the Eagle troopers savagely jerked him from his seat.

  “Wilder, take four of the Eagle at first light. The rest of you, stay in the Citadel until ordered otherwise. Troy’s leg is broken. You’ll need a new commander,” Jaxton ordered. The Eagle troopers left, dragging a flailing man, now damned.

  “What about him? He’s responsible for this,” Liam goaded. He stood, leaned on the table and stared directly into Bennett’s eyes.

  “I don’t think he has anything to do with this,” Jaxton said quietly.

  “Looks like there’s a reason Jax is in charge,” Bennett breathed.

  Liam slammed the table and grabbed Bennett by the cuff, lifting the weight of his body with a single, quivering arm. Liam spat in his prisoner’s face, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, in all this time. I will never forgive you for what happened to our friends.”

  Bennett’s face softened immediately, and he broke the gaze. “If you still don’t know how sorry I am by now, you never will.”

  Liam tossed him back into the chair and strode out of the room.

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the air between the three old friends. Staring at Bennett, Adira took Jaxton’s hand in her own.

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble. If you would let me, I’ll go back to the Church.”

  Adira leaned forward. “Found religion, have you?”

  “I’m willing to try anything at this point.”

  She glowered. “You’ll never be welcome here again.”

  “I know.”

  “But we’re not like Lieutenant Agis. You can liv
e in peace if you choose to.”

  Under the torchlight, Bennett and Jaxton stared at each other.

  “I wish things could have turned out differently,” Jaxton said flatly, a slight shimmer in his eyes.

  “There was a time we were in it together till the end.”

  Jaxton stood. “That time is gone.” He stalked to the door, and stared at the lone torch casting dancing shadows on the stacks of books. “Spend the night. You can leave tomorrow.”

  Bennett sat alone for a long time.

  Chapter Six

  The Western Ravine

  Billy groaned loudly as he offloaded his pack. He had been rotating between the ravines for days, double checking their defenses. The sunlight caught particles of dust as they floated casually through the afternoon air. He wiped his forehead with a soiled bandana, pleased to be free of the forty-pound burden. The three others in his unit staked out their tents in the tiny forest glade as the summer day came to a gloriously nostalgic end.

  “Viera, don’t get too comfy now. You and Malcolm are manning the ravine for the second shift.”

  A portly girl with a muddy face groaned as her pack hit the floor, its cooking gear spilling out onto the dirt. “Bill we spent two nights in the western spire last week. Cut us some slack.”

  Malcolm dropped his pack, but kept hold of a black compound-hunting bow with a foam quiver holder that held four arrows. “Hardest workers get the best rewards, am I right Bill?”

  Billy grinned as he carefully set about cleaning his sniper rifle. “Somethin’ like that Malcolm.”

  Viera groaned, her fat face contorting. “A week of rest in the Citadel then.”

  Billy guffawed, slapping his thighs noisily with his hands and hooting. “Malcolm, how many teams have I got out here?”

  Malcolm pretended to think hard. He shrugged, “thirty?”

  Billy grunted, scratching his bushy black beard. “Thirty my ass. Five, Malcolm. One at each ravine. Five fine folk per team. This is the Wolf. We man the ravines and hold the woods. We don’t sleep in cots like those Bear boys, you know what you signed up for.”