“The… Em… press,” Josh read.
He stared at the flower, looked at the glass crown and then at the young woman’s face. Looked closely and carefully as fever seemed to surge through his head and body like the opening of volcanic floodgates.
Have to tell Sister, he thought. Have to tell Sister… that the glass ring in her bag… is a crown. Have to show her this card… because Swan and the Empress… have the same face…
And then the fever seared all thoughts from his mind, and he lay motionless, with the tarot card clenched in his hand.
Eighty-one
Bitter ashes
On the fourth night, fire burned in the sky.
Robin saw it as he filled buckets and barrels full of water to be loaded onto wagons and carried out to the wall. Every possible container, from plastic pails to washtubs, was being utilized, and the workers around the spring had no sooner filled one wagon or truck than another pulled up to accept a load.
Robin knew that the light glowing off the bellies of low clouds to the north was coming from the torches and bonfires of the army’s camp, maybe fifteen miles away. They would reach Mary’s Rest the next day, and the glaze of ice that now covered the completed seven-foot-high wall had to be thickened in these last hours with an all-out effort. His shoulders ached, and every pail, bucket and pot that he dipped in the spring felt as if it weighed fifty pounds, but he thought of Swan and he kept working. She’d caught up with him that day and walked at his side, and she helped him with the dirt just like any ordinary person. Their hands had been cut and callused just the same, and as they’d worked Robin had told her all about himself, about the orphanage and his years with the highwaymen. Swan had listened to him without judgment, and when he was finished with his story she’d told him her own.
He didn’t mind the pain in his body, had pushed aside the weariness like an old blanket. All he had to do was think of Swan’s face, and he was recharged with new strength. She had to be protected, like a beautiful flower, and he knew he would die for her, if that was how it had to be.
He saw the same strength in the other faces, too, and realized that everyone was pushing far beyond their limits. Because they all knew, as he did, that tomorrow was the hinge of the future.
Glory stood on her porch, staring toward the north, and put her hand on Aaron’s shoulder.
“I’m gonna give ’em a knock!” Aaron vowed, swinging Crybaby like a bludgeon.
“You’re gonna stay in the house tomorrow,” she told him. “Do you understand me?”
“I wanna be a soldier!” he protested.
She gripped his shoulder hard and spun him around. “No!” she said, her amber eyes furious. “You want to learn how to kill, and take what belongs to other folks? You want to make your heart like a stone, so you can stomp people down and think it’s right? Boy, if I thought you were gonna grow up that way, I’d bust your head open right this minute! So don’t you ever, ever say you want to be a soldier! You hear me?”
Aaron’s lower lip trembled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But… if there ain’t any good soldiers, how do you keep the bad soldiers from winnin’?”
She couldn’t answer him. His eyes searched hers. Was it always going to be true, she wondered, that soldiers marched the land under different flags and leaders? Was there never really any end to war, no matter who won? And there her own son stood before her, asking the question.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, and that was the best she could do.
She looked out along the road to where the church had been. It was gone now, the wood used to fortify the wall. All the guns, axes, shovels, picks, hoes, knives—anything and everything that could be used as weapons—had been counted and distributed. There wasn’t much ammunition to go around. The Junkman had even offered to make “supersonic slingshots” if enough rubber bands could be found.
Paul Thorson and the boys had not returned, and Glory doubted they ever would.
She went inside, back to the room where Josh lay on the bed in a feverish coma. She looked down at the gnarled Job’s Mask and knew that beneath it was Josh’s true face.
In his hand was a tarot card. His fingers gripped The Empress so tightly that none of them, not even Anna, had been able to pry his hand open. She sat down beside him and waited.
At the northern rim of the wall, one of the lookouts who perched atop a jerry-built ladder suddenly shouted, “Somebody’s comin’!”
Sister and Swan, working together to pour water over their section of the wall, heard the cry. They hurried over to the lookout’s station.
“How many?” Sister asked. They weren’t ready yet! It was too soon!
“Two. No. Wait. Three, I think.” The lookout cocked his rifle, trying to see through the dark. “Two on foot. I think one of them’s carrying the third. It’s a man and two kids!”
“Oh, God!” Sister’s heart leapt. “Bring a ladder!” she called to the next lookout along the wall. “Hurry!”
The second ladder was lowered over the other side. First up was Bucky, his face streaked with dried blood. Sister helped him down, and he put his arms around her neck and clung tightly.
Paul Thorson came over, a three-inch-long gash in the side of his head, his eyes circled with gray shock. He was carrying over his shoulder one of the boys who’d helped Sister and himself make the trip to Mary’s Rest. The boy’s right arm was covered with dried blood, and bullet holes had marched across his back.
“Get him to the doctor’s house!” Sister told another woman, giving Bucky over to her. The small boy made a soft whimpering sound, nothing more.
Paul set his feet on the ground. His knees gave out, but Sister and Swan caught him before he fell. Mr. Polowsky and Anna were running toward them, followed by several others.
“Take him,” Paul rasped. His beard and hair were full of snow, his face lined and weary. Polowsky and the lookout eased the boy off Paul’s shoulder, and Sister could tell the boy was frozen almost stiff. “He’ll be okay!” Paul said. “I told him I’d get him back!” He touched the cold blue face. “Told you, didn’t I?”
They took him away, and Paul shouted after them, “You be careful with him! Let him sleep if he wants to!”
One of the other men uncapped a flask of hot coffee and gave it to Paul. He started drinking it so frantically that Sister had to restrain him, and he winced with pain as the hot liquid spread warmth through his bones.
“What happened?” Sister asked. “Where’re the others?”
“Dead.” Paul shivered, drank more coffee. “All dead. Oh, Jesus, I’m freezing!”
Someone brought a blanket, and Swan helped wrap him up. They led him to a nearby bonfire, and he stood for a long while getting the blood circulating in his hands again.
Then he told them the story: They’d found the army’s camp on the second day out, about sixty miles north of Mary’s Rest. The boys were born stalkers, he said; they’d been able to creep into camp and take a look around, and while they were there they’d punctured a few of the trucks’ tires. But there were a lot of cars and trucks, Paul said, and most of them were covered with metal plate and had gun turrets. There were soldiers all over the place, carrying machine guns, pistols and rifles. The boys had gotten out all right, and they and Paul had kept in front of the army as it advanced the next day.
But tonight something had gone wrong. There were flares and gunshots, and only Bucky and the other boy had gotten back.
“We were trying to get away in the car,” Paul said, his teeth still chattering. “We’d made it to about seven or eight miles from here. All of a sudden the woods were full of them. Maybe they’d been tracking us all day, I don’t know. A machine gun went off. Bullets hit the engine. I tried to get off the road, but the car was finished. We ran. I don’t know how long they kept after us.” He stared into the fire, his mouth working for a moment but making no sounds. “They kept after us,” he said finally. “I don’t know who they are, but they know their business.” H
e blinked heavily and looked at Sister. “They’ve got a lot of guns. Flares, maybe grenades, too. A lot of guns. You tell ’em to be easy with that kid. He’s tired. I told him I’d get him back.”
“You did get him back,” Sister said gently. “Now I want you to go to Hugh’s house and rest.” She motioned Anna over to help him. “We’re going to need you tomorrow.”
“They didn’t take it,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t let them kill me and get it.”
“Get what?”
He smiled wanly and touched the Magnum lodged in his belt. “My old buddy.”
“Go on, now. Better get some rest, okay?”
He nodded and allowed Anna to help him stagger away.
Sister suddenly lunged up the ladder, and her face filled with blood as she shouted toward the north, “Come on, you fucking killers! Come on! We see what you do to children! Come on, you sonofabitching cowards!” Her voice cracked and gave out, and then she just stood at the top of the ladder with steam bellowing from her mouth and nostrils and her body shaking like a lightning rod in a tempest.
The freezing wind blew into her face, and she thought she smelled bitter ashes.
There was no use standing up here and raving like a… like a New York City bag lady, she told herself. No; there was still a lot of work to be done, because the soldiers were going to be there very soon.
She descended the ladder, and Swan touched her arm. “I’m all right,” Sister said hoarsely, and both of them knew Death was on its way, grinning like a skull and slashing down everything in its path.
They returned to their places in the wall and went back to work.
Eighty-two
The tide of death and destruction
The day came.
Somber light revealed the finished wall, glazed with three inches of ice and studded here and there with sharp wooden stakes, that encircled Mary’s Rest and the crop field. Except for the occasional howling of dogs, the town was silent, and there was no movement on the stump-stubbled land that lay between the wall and the forest’s edge forty yards away.
About two hours after dawn, a single shot rang out, and a sentry on the eastern section of the wall toppled off his ladder, a bullet hole in his forehead.
The defenders of Mary’s Rest waited for the first attack—but it did not come.
A lookout at the western section of the wall reported seeing movement in the woods, but she couldn’t tell how many soldiers there were. The soldiers slipped back into the forest, and there was no gunfire.
An hour after that, another lookout on the eastern side passed the word that he heard what sounded like heavy machines in the distance, moving through the forest and getting closer.
“Truck’s coming!” one of the sentries on the northern section cried out.
Paul Thorson climbed up a ladder and looked for himself. He heard the scratchy, weirdly merry sound of recorded calliope music. What appeared to be an armored Good Humor truck with two loudspeakers mounted on its cab, an armored windshield and a sheet metal gun turret rumbled slowly along the road from the north.
The music stopped, and as the truck continued to move forward a man’s voice boomed from the two speakers: “People of Mary’s Rest! Listen to the law of the Army of Excellence!” The voice echoed over the town, over the field where the corn was growing and the new apple trees were taking root, over the foundations where the church had stood, over the bonfires and over the shack where Josh lay sleeping. “We don’t want to kill you! Every one of you who wants to join us is welcome! Just come over that wall and join the Army of Excellence! Bring your families, your guns and your food! We don’t want to kill any of you!”
“Riiiight,” Paul muttered under his breath. He had his Magnum cocked and ready.
“We want your crops,” the voice commanded from the speakers as the Good Humor truck rumbled nearer to the north wall. “We want your food and a supply of water. And we want the girl. Bring us the girl called Swan, and we’ll leave the rest of you in peace. Just bring her to us, and we’ll welcome you with loving, open—oh, shit!”
And at that instant the vehicle’s front tires plunged into one of the hidden trenches, and as the rear tires spun in empty air the truck turned on its side and crashed into the ditch.
There was a shout of victory from the other sentries. A minute later, two men scrambled up from the trench and began running in the direction from which they’d come. One of them was limping, unable to keep up, and Paul aimed the Magnum at the center of his spine.
He wanted to pull the trigger. Knew he should kill the bastard while he had the chance. But he didn’t, and he watched as both of the soldiers disappeared into the woods.
A machine gun chattered off to the right. Bullets zigzagged across the wall, cracking through the ice and thunking into the logs and dirt. Paul ducked his head, heard shouting from the eastern section, then the noise of more gunfire, and he knew the first attack had begun. He dared to lift his head, saw about forty more soldiers taking cover at the edge of the woods. They opened fire, but their bullets couldn’t penetrate the wall. Paul kept his head down and held his fire, waiting for a chance to tag one of them when they started across the open ground.
On the eastern side of Mary’s Rest, the sentries saw a wave of perhaps two hundred soldiers coming out of the forest. The AOE infantry shouted and surged forward—and then they began tumbling into the network of hidden trenches, many of them breaking their ankles and legs as they hit bottom. The sentries, all armed with rifles, picked off their targets at random. Two of the sentries were shot and fell, but as soon as they hit the ground others were climbing up the ladders to take their places.
The AOE soldiers, their formation in disarray and men falling everywhere, began to turn back for the cover of the woods and toppled into more ditches and pits. The wounded were crushed under the boots of their companions.
At the same time, more than five hundred soldiers burst from the forest on the western edge of Mary’s Rest, along with dozens of armored cars, trucks and two bulldozers. As they rushed forward in a shouting mass the trenches opened under their feet. One of the bulldozers plunged down and overturned, and an armored car following right behind hit the bulldozer and exploded in a red fireball. Several of the other vehicles were snagged on tree stumps and unable to go either forward or backward. Scores of men tumbled into the ditches, breaking their bones. The lookouts fired as fast as they could select targets, and AOE soldiers fell dead in the snow.
But most of the soldiers and vehicles kept coming, storming the western section of the wall, and behind them was a second wave of another two hundred troops. Machine gun, rifle and pistol fire began to chip at the wall, but still the bullets were turned aside.
“Step up and open fire!” Bud Royce shouted.
And a line of men and women stepped up on the two-foot-high bank of dirt that had been built along the wall’s base, aimed their guns and started shooting.
Anna McClay ran along the wall, shouting, “Step up and give ’em hell!”
A blaze of gunfire erupted along the western wall, and the first wave of AOE soldiers faltered. The second wave crashed into them, and then the vehicles were running men down as they scattered. Officers in armored cars and Jeeps shouted commands, but the troops were panicked. They fled toward the forest, and as Captain Carr stood up in his Jeep to order them back, a bullet pierced his throat and slammed him to the ground.
The attack was over in another few minutes as the soldiers drew back deeper in the woods. Around the walls, the wounded crawled on the ground and the dead lay where they’d fallen. A victorious shout rang up from the defenders along the western wall, but a figure on horseback called out, “No! Stop it! Stop it!”
Tears were streaming down Swan’s cheeks, and the gunfire still echoed in her head. “Stop it!” she shouted as Mule reared with her and pawed the air. She wheeled the horse toward Sister, who stood nearby with her sawed-off shotgun. “Make them stop!” Swan said. “They just killed other pe
ople! They shouldn’t be glad about that!”
“They’re not glad about killing other people,” Sister told her. “They’re just glad they weren’t killed.” She motioned toward a man’s corpse that lay ten feet away, shot through the face. Someone else was already taking the dead man’s pistol and bullets. “There’re going to be more of those. If you can’t take what you see, you’d better get inside.”
Swan looked around. A woman was sprawled on the ground, moaning as another woman and man bound up her bullet-shattered wrist with strips torn from a shirt. A few feet away, a dark-haired man lay contorted and dying, coughing up blood as other people tried to comfort him. Swan flinched with horror, her eyes returning to Sister.
Sister was calmly reloading her shotgun. “You’d better go,” she suggested.
Swan was torn; she knew she should be out there with the people who were fighting to protect her, but she couldn’t stand watching the death. The noise of gunfire was a thousand times worse than all the hurting sounds she’d ever experienced.
But before she could decide to go or stay, there was the throaty growl of an engine beyond the wall. Someone shouted, “Jesus Christ! Look at that!”
Sister hurried to the wall, and stepped up on the mound of dirt.
Just emerging from the forest, about twenty yards to Sister’s left, was a tank. Its wide treads crunched over the wounded and dead alike. The snout of its gun was aimed directly at the wall. And dangling all over the tank, like grotesque hood ornaments, were human bones tied to wires—legs, arms, rib cages, hip bones, vertebrae and skulls, some still bearing scalps. The tank stopped right at the edge of the woods, its engine idling like a beast’s snarl.
The tank’s hatch popped open. A hand emerged waving a white handkerchief.
“Hold your fire!” Sister told the others. “Let’s see what they want first!”
1987 - Swan Song v4 Page 80
