Eden's Exodus (Plague Wars Series Book 3)

by David VanDyke

  Chapter 19

  Dust shook down upon frightened faces. Booming thuds like thunder seemed to make the very air vibrate. Mortar fire had started the previous day and remained constant during daylight hours. The only relief they experienced was at night, probably because the besieging troops wanted to sleep as well.

  “We’re safe here in the caves,” Misgana told his daughter Jemmia. “They can’t get to us down here.”

  “They’re trying to kill us now aren’t they?”

  Misgana nodded.

  “But why?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I think maybe we scare them.”

  “We’re not scary,” Jemmia responded.

  “We’re different,” Misgana said. “That frightens people.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” Misgana tilted his head to listen. “I think they may have stopped.”

  “Must be nightfall,” said someone nearby.

  Misgana stood to begin running up toward the cave exits. Other men followed along behind him. They emerged to dusk with only the barest hints of light remaining.

  “Quick, deploy,” Misgana ordered. So far the enemy hadn’t tried to attack after the barrage, but he didn’t want them all buttoned up in the caves if they decided to try.

  He watched with approval as his people quickly moved into their defensive positions, ready for any attack. “Check the booby traps,” Misgana ordered as he walked the lines. “They may have been destroyed by the mortars.”

  Beelsha’s sandbagged shack loomed ahead in the growing dark. Misgana ducked his head inside and saw the small man at his computer.

  “You need to move out of this shack,” said Misgana. “It’s only a matter of time before the mortars gets a lucky hit.”

  “They can’t shoot for shit anyway,” said Beelsha, not looking up. “Safest place around here is where they are aiming.”

  “Regardless, if you get hit, we’re really going to miss the computer.”

  Beelsha chuckled as he was typing, but then stopped and smiled. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?” asked Misgana.

  The small man turned the laptop so he could see the screen. There were perhaps twelve pictures laid out side by side. Misgana struggled to make sense of them but couldn’t. Still something in his mind thought he knew what he was looking at.

  “What is it?” asked Misgana.

  Beelsha clicked on one of the images and it took up the whole screen. There were swirls of black and gray on red and orange with slight patches of green. He put his finger on a spot. Do you know what that is?

  Misgana shook his head and then froze. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes. That is my shack. Where we are now. This is satellite surveillance Husnia’s FC friends have sent us. Only hours old. It shows all the enemy positions around us.”

  Misgana bent down and clicked through the images examining each one closely. “Can you print this?”

  “Yes,” said Beelsha. “Can’t do too much or the printer jams. It’s better in the cool of the night, when the ink doesn’t run and clog.”

  “I just need one sheet,” said Misgana tapping on one of the images. “That one right there.”

  Beelsha typed a few keystrokes, and then an uneven jerking sound came from battered printer on the floor. The man reached down and handed a piece of paper to Misgana. It was in black and white, but you could still see the contours and terrain features.

  Misgana took the sheet and ran back to the caves with a look of excitement on his face.

  * * *

  His men crept down the hillside after Misgana. They used the distant camp lights as their guide. The imagery provided by the FC showed a massive hole in the perimeter along a washed-out gully. Maybe the army had thought it served as a secure barrier, or perhaps they had simply been sloppy.

  Either way, it was an opportunity of which Misgana planned to take advantage.

  He called his leaders around him. “The gully is right ahead. I want half the men to go with Runja to destroy the ammunition and supply depot and the rest follow me to take out those mortars. Remember, speed and stealth are key. We must be like the lion on the hunt at night. Strike fast and hard, and then get out.”

  Misgana had asked for volunteers only, men who insisted they could do some violence despite the virtue effect.

  “Remember what Husnia said,” Runja muttered.

  “Yes,” said Misgana. “Husnia says if you get the chance to bite someone and give them the plague instead of killing them then do it. I would recommend not getting that close, but each man will have to make his own choice.”

  Misgana tried to see their faces, but it was so dark he only sensed their presence. “You blow the depot first. That will be our signal to take out the mortars. Try not to get into a fight with the soldiers. They have more soldiers than we do and are better armed. If you get wounded, try to get back here where you can heal. Does anyone have any questions?”

  “Captain, how are we going to blow anything up?” asked a voice in the darkness. “We have no explosives.”

  “You’re going to have to figure something out,” said Misgana. “Look for mortar rounds. Worse case, just dump gasoline on everything and set it on fire. If you can bring any supplies back, do it, but don’t spend too much time. Speed is key, remember.”

  He felt them nodding toward him.

  “Okay, Runja,” said Misgana, “you go. We’ll be right behind you.”

  About two dozen men with rifles filed past them and climbed down the hill into the gully and across the enemy lines into the camp. Misgana watched carefully, not breathing until they were out of sight.

  When the last man was out of the open and into the cover of the darkness, he let out his pent-up breath. “We need to go down to the gully and then turn left. We must make our way in the streambed for a couple of hundred meters until we come to an outcropping. At the top of the outcropping are the mortars. That is our target. Again, stay quiet. We will have to walk under the enemy lines on the far side of the gully during part of the trip. Everyone ready?”

  Misgana didn’t hear any response so he took silence for assent. He crept down the hillside, trying to dart from one small shrub to the next. When he reached the gully, he followed the trail made by those who had just crossed and climbed slowly down to the dry stream bed. He counted the men until all sixteen were with him. Not daring to speak, he tapped the first and motioned for him to follow. That man did the same for the one behind him and so on down the line.

  During his lifetime, Misgana had spent a great deal of time out in the dark. He couldn’t be certain, but it seemed as if his night sight was better than it had been. He wondered, could the Eden virus be responsible for this? Maybe I even had some sort of eye sickness that I was not aware of that has been healed. Why wouldn’t everyone want this?

  Someone coughed. Misgana froze. He tilted his head up and saw a man standing twenty feet above them, looking at the mountain. He lit a cigarette and began to smoke it while gazing casually upward at the amazing expanse of stars in the sky.

  After several minutes, he finished the cigarette and flicked it out into space. The butt sailed down, tumbling erratically and slipped down the back of Misgana’s shirt collar.

  Pain flared in Misgana’s neck, and he arched his back to move away from the ember, but that only resulted in it dropping down the small of his back, where it caught inside his belt.

  He clenched his fists, his eyes on the soldier. Misgana thought he could actually smell his own burning flesh. It wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever endured, but it was certainly the worst he’d withstood without crying out.

  After a few seconds, the soldier finally turned and walked back away from the gully’s edge. Misgana ground the heel of his hand into the butt at the small of his back forcefully and accurately. This caused more pain, but the thing finally expired.

  Taking a deep breath, he put his hand i
n his mouth. With his tongue, he could feel the blistered skin knitting back together.

  What a marvel this blessing is, he thought. Then his stomach rumbled so loudly he thought the soldiers above them might hear. The men around waited expectantly, but no one came, and Misgana started moving again.

  They could see the outcropping ahead by the way it blocked out the stars in the sky. He was just beginning to look for the best way to climb the slope when there came a mighty explosion from the center of the camp. A plume of light lit up the sky and cast shadows into the gully.

  “Go!” said Misgana, rushing forward. He knew they would have only a few minutes of surprise to take out the mortars. He scrambled up the steep rocky slope as another explosion erupted into the sky.

  The men reached the top and Misgana looked over the edge to see five large mortar tubes angled toward the mountain. Piles of sandbags and ammunition crates sat around them. Tents stood off in the distance and men milled around, looking toward their camp and the fire from the explosion, their backs to Misgana and his men.

  Ten ran forward, leaping upon the soldiers and taking them by surprise, hitting them on their heads and shoulders. Some of his men began biting them.

  “Grab the tubes,” said Misgana. “Unlatch them from the base plate. Here, watch me.” He showed those crowded around him how to disengage the long hollow tubes. Once one came loose in his hands, he threw it to the ground. “Then do this,” he said picking up a large rock and bringing it down over and over on the tube’s side until it had a significant dent in it.

  The ones he’d instructed started working on the tubes, and Misgana stole a look toward his men and a couple of soldiers still wrestling on the ground. He barely had time to see another soldier rushing at him in the dark before the man bowled him over.

  The two rolled in the dirt, the soldier gaining a position atop Misgana.

  Seeing a wickedly curved knife in the man’s hand descending toward him, Misgana grasped the knife wielder’s wrist with both of his hands as the tip sank half an inch into his shoulder.

  Misgana roared, bringing his knee up into the man’s groin. The soldier’s grip loosened slightly, allowing Misgana to roll onto his side. He was about to draw the pistol at his belt when a rock the size of a melon smashed into the side of the man’s head.

  Misgana looked up to see one of his men, a wild look on his face.

  “Thanks,” said Misgana. “Guess the rocks work to bend heads as well as tubes.”

  His man turned to vomit on the ground, stricken.

  “Bite him,” Misgana suggested. “You will feel less guilty.”

  Nodding, his fighter moved to comply.

  Climbing to his feet, Misgana saw all the mortar tubes bent to such a degree they could not be reused without serious machine retooling. The ones who had attacked the soldiers were coming back his way, some of them wounded and slow.

  “Should we destroy the mortar rounds?” asked someone.

  “No, let’s take them with us,” said another.

  “Leave them,” ordered Misgana. “Let’s get out of here.” There were murmurs of disagreement, but his men followed him back down into the gully. Shouts and gunfire could be heard from the direction of the camp.

  “Hey,” said a voice from above. “They’re in the gully!”

  “Run!” Misgana yelled, sprinting toward the slope that would lead back to their mountain fortress. Bullets whipped around them in the darkness.

  Misgana finally reached the incline and ran upward until he found a scrubby tree. He looked back and saw his men struggling to get away, some of them limping or being helped by others. Three soldiers stood on the far edge and shot at the fleeing men.

  Misgana unslung his rifle. He sighted on the man in the middle.

  People say Edens can’t kill, he thought. I had better risk it, or they are going to kill us.

  Squeezing the trigger, he saw the man fall. Misgana adjusted his aim and took out the second, and then the third. “Hurry,” he hissed into the darkness, shaking with revulsion. He forced himself to believe he had only wounded the soldiers.

  When all the men had made it out of the gully, he led them back to the caves. He noticed many looked at him oddly with a combination of admiration and fear. They could hear the whooping voices long before they arrived.

  “That’s a good sign,” said Misgana to the man behind him. He came around the rocky outcropping to see hundreds of cheering people gathered near three large cargo trucks that had somehow made it up the steep mountain slope.

  Misgana found Runja. “Did you lose anyone?”

  “Yes,” the man answered. “Henok volunteered to blow the dump. He triggered a land mine himself.”

  Misgana lowered his head. “We will remember him.” Then he raised his eyes to look at the trucks. “Please tell me those are filled with food.”

  “No such luck,” said Runja opening a tailgate. “They must have kept their rations somewhere else, but we don’t have to worry about ammunition from now on.”

  Misgana looked inside the truck and saw it packed full of ammo crates and several boxes of weapons. “Hopefully you didn’t leave them anything to shoot back at us.”

  “We can only pray,” said Runja. “I judge you were successful with the mortars?”

  “Yes. At least now maybe we can get some peace.”

  Husnia materialized out of the darkness and spoke forcefully, as usual. “We will find no peace here. This is a temporary refuge, nothing more.”

  “When will we leave?”

  “Soon,” Husnia answered. “Our friends in the FC have promised help. They will not abandon us here.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Misgana, going to find Jemmia.

  Chapter 20

  Skull had to admit that the vow of silence was more difficult to keep than he would have thought. It wasn’t merely that he couldn’t speak; according to Father Timothy, he wasn’t even allowed to express himself in any way, not even when alone in the battered van.

  This appeared to be killing Zinabu, who did his best to try to communicate with Skull through grunting and deep sighs. Father Timothy glared sternly at his fellow Ethiopian until he subsided. “If you act that way near outsiders, they will know you are not one of us.”

  They drove in silence out of the Danekil Dessert and up into the mighty Ethiopian Plateau.

  Although it was the rainy season, the weather had been hardly noticeable in the desert. Once they began to climb up the massive ridgelines, though, the air became cooler and filled with a fine mist. Within hours, lush green valleys and forested hills surrounded them, a striking contrast to what they had endured the past few weeks. Skull let his eyes drink in the colors, trying to store them up for later.

  Once they reached Addis Ababa, they made their way through the city to the Abreha Monastery on the northern edge of the city. As they drove, Skull looked out at the sprawling metropolis, which he had visited many times before. He was surprised at the number of Muslim head scarves on women, Taqiyah caps on men and facial scars on both genders.

  Father Timothy saw Skull’s look. “The growing influence here of the Caliphate has more to do with fear than any genuine acceptance of Islam. Islam is simply the easiest and most visible way to express disavowal of Edens.”

  Skull nodded, and Timothy frowned at this breach of his vow. Would choking you be a violation? Skull wondered.

  They arrived at Abreha and were led inside another structure carved into solid rock. Timothy had already told them that, like the monastery they had just left, Abreha dated from the fifth century, though it was much larger.

  Timothy led them through dim cool rooms lit by candle or lantern until they stood before another monk. This one was taller, thinner, and older than Timothy.

  “Brothers Alan and Zinabu,” said Timothy. “Let me introduce to you Father Stephen, the head of this monastery. As of this moment, you are released from your vow of silence.”

  “Thank God!” yelled Zinabu. “W
hew! That sucked, I mean like really sucked. I can’t believe you guys do it. And for months on end? Ridiculous. I mean –”

  Skull put a hand on the man’s shoulder to get his attention. “Easy now, or you’ll sprain a vocal cord.” He looked at Stephen. “Thank you for your hospitality. Father Timothy tells us that you may be able to help us.”

  “I may,” said Stephen, “If God wills it. Our order has come to believe that what is commonly called the Eden virus is a blessing from God.”

  “Been meaning to ask you,” blurted Zinabu, “if you all think the Eden Plague is a blessing from God, then why aren’t you all Edens?”

  “Because we have chosen to remain the way God made us,” said Stephen. “If the Lord chooses for us to receive this blessing, then we will receive it. I permit the brothers to pray earnestly for this blessing, but not to take any active steps to infect themselves.”

  “It also keeps us from being targeted by the Ethiopian government,” said Timothy. “Although that in itself is not a reason to refuse God’s blessing. It is simply why He may have chosen not to give it to us as He has so many others.”

  “Convoluted reasoning,” Skull said.

  “It serves us,” Stephen replied. “Reason is also a gift from God. Those who do not use it often miss the blessings God wishes us to have.” He pointed to several stools around a table with a candle on it. “Shall we sit? I believe we have much to discuss.”

  They all sat while a much younger monk brought large stone cups. In the dim light Skull thought it was water, but was surprised to taste delicious beer.

  “This is good,” said Skull.

  “It is leftover Lent beer,” Stephen said. “During Lent we go without food and subsist only on the beer we have prepared.”

  “That seems practical,” said Skull. “If you’re not going to eat, at least you got beer.”

  “It is a recipe that dates back centuries,” explained Stephen. “The beer is blessed by our monks and packed with nutrients. In times of famine, we have lived off the beer for close to a year.”