by J. Thorn
Chapter 19
Seren sat and wished for silence as the dying man’s groans punctured the air. She saw Roke and Gaston’s forms in her mind’s eye, walking away from her and into the ruins. She wiped a tear from one eye and pulled her old coat tight around her neck. A layer of sweat covered the man lying on the ground before her, despite the cold air blowing through the recess. Seren bent down to place her hand on the man’s forehead. When he turned, the stench of his open sore hit her. She bit her lip and spun her head away.
He opened his mouth to speak. “Get away.”
At first, Seren would not argue. She was already closer to that sore than she wanted to be, and after defending the man’s right to die with dignity, Seren would not allow him to talk to her with such a disrespectful tone.
Before she could decide what to do, he spoke again. “The thousand-year rot lay upon this ground.”
She covered her nose with one hand and picked up a bottle sitting on the slab of concrete the man called a bed. Seren lifted it and tipped the top of the bottle to his mouth. The man licked at the precious drops but the water did not seem to quench his thirst. He tried to reach up and grab the bottle but he missed, and his hand slapped down on the concrete.
“You know you are going to die.” The man blinked but did not respond. Seren continued. “I will not let you pass alone. That goes against the ways of the Elk, what we believe.”
She didn’t recognize him and wondered if he was in fact an Elk, one of the original clansmen who left with her on The Walk, or if he had joined from another clan. Every time she tried looking him in the face, her eyes were drawn to the sore on his neck.
“It feeds on flesh. Animal, too. The gods devour the living to feed the eternal,” he said.
Seren tipped the bottle again, grateful that the man could not talk while drinking. He gave her a weak smile, and she could have sworn the same green rot in the sore on his neck flickered in his eyes.
“Don’t leave me,” he said.
Seren set the bottle down next to the man and stood. She turned and stomped from the room and through the concrete ruins, heading in the same direction as Gaston and Roke. She turned one corner and then another, coming face to face with a campfire. Gaston sat on one side and Roke on the other. They both looked at her. Gaston waved to an open seat between them.
“Let’s talk,” he said to Seren.
“No,” said Seren. “I want to talk to my brother.”
Gaston grinned and held up both palms to her. “Fine.”
Seren waited as Gaston stood and walked in the opposite direction of the dying man and deeper into the crumbling labyrinth of the factory ruins.
“What is wrong with you, Seren? What’s up your ass?”
She sighed and glared at her brother.
“You saw that thing on his neck,” Roke said. “He’s gonna die soon, and we probably shouldn’t be around him.”
“This isn’t about that man.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“You know,” Seren said. “White Citadel.”
Roke shrugged and Seren wrinkled her face.
“Don’t blow me off like that.”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Roke shook his head and tossed another piece of yellowed, faded cardboard on to the fire. The flames grabbed it and the light flared across Seren’s face before it died back down. The layered paper curled back on itself in golden orange lines.
“This place is cursed. Diseased. And I think he’s leading us deeper into the heart of it. That dying man will be first of many.”
“People always die on The Walk, Seren.”
“Not like this. It almost seems like…Blight.”
“Shut up,” Roke said. “Don’t you ever say that again. This is not Blight. White Citadel is clean and will be our new home.”
“You don’t know that. All you can do is trust his word.”
“That is all anyone can do, sister. We trusted Jonah’s word, and now we trust Gaston’s. What else is there?”
“Thinking for ourselves. That’s what. We don’t need Gaston, and we don’t need Jonah. Come with me. Tonight.”
“And live like animals, alone in the woods? No, thank you. I’d rather take my chances with Gaston. I know what’s at Eliz, and it ain’t nothing compared to what’s at the Citadel.”
Seren leaned back until she felt the icy grip of the concrete wall behind her. She let the chill penetrate her skin. “He’s a liar. And, worse than that, he’s going to get us all killed. I guess if you want to rot away, like that man in the other room, you should stick with him.”
Roke stood, and his sudden movement paralyzed Seren. She lifted her head and saw the light from the fire turning his face bright red.
“Then go. Get the fuck out of our camp.”
“Roke,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’re my brother.”
“Go. You don’t belong with us. You don’t belong with anyone. Go and run with the wolves. You get along better with animals than humans anyway. Goodbye, Seren.”
He turned and left in the same direction Gaston had, without saying another word to her. Seren sat there, the fire burning the tears on her face while the night’s chill clung to the concrete at her back.
She stood and retraced her steps to the dying man. He was as she left him, his mouth open and a line of drool running from his bottom lip.
“I will stay with you.”
He opened his eyes and looked at Seren, and for a moment she believed he saw through the haze of disease because he smiled. A sudden cough erased it from his face, and she turned away from the phlegm and stench he spat on the floor.
“The clan is leaving tomorrow. You cannot travel. You will die. But I’m not going with them, and so I will stay with you.”
He coughed again and followed it with a low jumble of words she could not decipher. Seren could still see the sweaty, oily sore on his neck, even in the dark, and she could have sworn it had grown while she was speaking to Roke.
“And when you pass, I will go out on my own.”
Seren sat on the cold floor, within his line of sight but far enough away that she would not have to taste his rot. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Seren thought of the wolf and the way it took down the deer. Her brother suggested she run with them. If this land was, in fact, cursed, it wouldn’t matter. Seren would run with the wolves or be devoured by them, and either would be a better fate than trusting Gaston.
She began to cry silent tears. For the man, for her brother, for this dying world.
Chapter 20
“This way.”
Shykar followed Gerth through the trees. The moon glowed overhead, reflecting a silver hue over the leaves. Gerth stopped and held up his hand.
“I smell their fires,” Gerth said.
He felt the sweat rolling down the inside of his mask. The chill in the air made it feel like ice.
Shykar had convinced him to stay hidden and wait to see what the clans did. “We shouldn’t get closer. They might have sentries.”
“They will,” said Gerth. “I’m not worried about that. I want to know what the hell this crazy fucker is up to. He attacked Cygoa. Cygoa.”
Both men were silent, and Gerth wondered if Shykar was thinking of the same things he was. The Cygoa camp, stripped bare of everything worth taking, the bodies strewn across the ground with no thought to honoring the dead. It had been deliberate, he knew. Jonah had killed them, down to the last man, and left them to lie in the dirt for the creatures of the forest to devour.
Gerth and his men had not stayed long, checking briefly for anything left behind before jogging quickly from the scene. The two packs of wolves he had counted moving in these woods would smell the remains soon, and they would descend. He did not wish to be there when that happened.
Shykar did not answer. Instead, Gerth’s lieutenant frowned and stared toward the encampment they knew was not far ahe
ad. They had not seen them yet, but the trail led this way, a twenty-foot-wide swath crushing the forest as though two hundred feet had run through it; the signs of a large warband that had not cared if it left its mark.
Gerth took three steps to his right. He approached the edge of the forest, which slid into a clearing. Now, no trees blocked his line of sight and he winced, his eyes open wide. “Fuck.”
“What?” Shykar asked, coming up behind Gerth and still unable to see the formation.
“Look at that shit.”
Gerth pointed to the center of the clearing. Several fires burned in the middle, and the smoke curled into the moonlight like liquid chrome. People moved around the pits, casting long shadows outward on to the carts.
The carts. What the hell are they doing with the carts?
“They’ve circled up. So what?” Shykar asked.
“They’re on the defensive now. That’s what. They’re expecting an ambush, and they’ve put their carts side-by-side around the camp.”
“We could break through,” said Shykar.
“Of course we could,” Gerth said. “That’s not the point.”
Shykar waited for an explanation but Gerth did not deliver one. Instead, he moved closer to the outer edge of the wall formed by the carts.
“I want to see if they’re tied together. Follow me.”
Shykar stepped behind Gerth as they approached in a low crouch. Gerth smelled fresh tobacco and apples beneath the smoke of the campfires. He stopped behind a cart and peered beneath. A sack swung slowly from where it was tied to the rear tire, luring Gerth with the promise of food. He shook his head and looked at the cart to his left. He saw the long handle of a shovel but the head of it was on the other side of the cart wall.
“They’ve turned them inward. Gonna be hard to snatch anything.”
Gerth grumbled at Shykar. “You think I can’t see that? I don’t want their spoiled shit, anyway.”
“Then why are we here, my lord?”
Gerth pointed at the fire where one figure stood, the orange glow bathing her face in soft tones. Sasha’s dark hair caressed her cheeks and her brown eyes reflected the flames.
“We take her tonight,” Gerth said.
“We can’t.”
Gerth spun and grabbed Shykar by the neck. He dug his nails into the man’s flesh until he felt the first tickle of warm blood. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
“Who’s there?”
The question came from the other side of the carts, and whoever spoke it was not more than ten feet from Gerth and Shykar. Gerth released Shykar’s neck and froze. Shykar saw the message in Gerth’s eyes and he froze as well.
The voice came closer. “Who’s there?”
Gerth slid to his right, which allowed Shykar to creep up next to him. They remained crouched and hidden behind the front tire of the cart.
Silence.
Shykar opened his mouth to inhale when Gerth covered it with his hand. Gerth smelled the body odor of the guard who was now almost on top of them. He listened to the man expel a long sigh of smoke, which floated above their heads. The glint of a blade caught the moonlight and Gerth could see the tip of it, mere inches from his head.
“C’mon. They’re passing around another flask.” This second voice came from deep within the encampment.
Gerth waited.
“I thought I heard something.”
“Jonah ain’t left nobody after the raid. We’re good. Let’s drink.”
Gerth watched the man’s blade disappear and he heard the footsteps moving away from their hiding spot.
“Yeah, man. You owe me one.”
Shykar pulled Gerth’s hand from his mouth and the two men sat in the dirt, leaning their heads back against the cart’s tire.
“You’ll have her. And I hope you’ll share her with me. But now is not the time to steal the chief’s wife.”
Gerth grimaced and waved his hand in the air, as if to dismiss the truth. “You’re right,” he said. “But I will have her, along with the head of her husband.”
“Tomorrow?” Shykar asked.
“No,” Gerth said. “They will circle the carts and stand guard every night until they reach Eliz. There are at least four clans in their camp. Maybe more. We can’t get to them at night, and there are too many to attempt an ambush on the road.”
“We’re going to Eliz.”
“That’s right, Shykar. We will follow them all the way there. Once they arrive, I’ll have an opportunity to take what I want. And so will you.”
“Will the others come with us?”
“The others,” Gerth said, rubbing the side of his mask, “will do what I command. Or they will cease to be.”
Shykar grinned and waited for Gerth to turn toward the dark forest. The warriors scampered in a low crouch and disappeared into the woods.
Chapter 21
Seren covered the body of the dead man with stones and bricks that she gathered from the ruined factory, sniffing away tears as she placed each heavy rock onto the pile until there was nothing visible of the man. Burial by fire was the tradition, but she could hardly do that. She had contemplated trying to haul the man outside, but each time she looked at his swollen, blood-caked eyes and his puffed-up face, now covered with purple sores, she shivered.
He had deserved better, but she couldn’t do it without risking catching whatever the man had contracted. She paced the floor for maybe an hour before starting to cover the body, cursing the rest of Gaston’s new clan—cursing herself for being selfish—but then asking out loud why she should risk dying for a man already dead.
The tears that came in short bursts between the curses weren’t for the man. She hadn’t known him. Sure, she felt sad for him—it was unfair that he should die in such a horrific and painful way when he had done nothing to deserve it—but they had left him there at his own choice. She had even offered to try and end it for him, but the man was stubborn and wanted to stay alive for as long as possible. No, the tears had been for herself—and for Roke and the others, whom she had watched walk away.
Roke was gone, along with Gaston and the others. Her brother had left her there and walked into the flat plains and beyond.
She thought back to a few hours ago and wondered if creatures from the tainted forest outside would be coming soon. Even from up on the top floor, where she had finally gone to escape the man’s madness in his last few breaths, she could hear him. Everything across the valley had probably heard him.
“I’m sorry,” she said aloud, but didn’t know what she was sorry for, or who she was apologizing to.
I have to go, she thought. There was still a lot of daylight and she needed to get moving. There were miles and miles to travel to try and catch up with the Elk clan. Where would they be now? Well on their way to Eliz, she thought. But I can move faster on foot—maybe twice as far in a day as they can. I just need to keep away from anyone on the road, keep myself hidden, maybe even walk in the bushes not far from the road.
“I can catch up with them,” she said, turning from the grave. She walked toward the large opening that was the entrance of the old factory, glancing back once toward the grave and at the dim shadows that hung inside the old building. She thought of the labelled bottle that was now in her pack—a strange keepsake, for what? She didn’t know, but had felt compelled to take it—then walked out of the ruins.
She traced her way back to end of the road that they had followed all the way to the factory and to where the land flattened out further south, and also where the road abruptly ended, and then she set off at a slow jog.
If I follow the road it will take me all the way back to Wytheville, she thought. But how far was it? She didn’t know and couldn’t calculate how long it would take her. Just one step at a time, then. Keep going alongside the road, just out of sight until it gets dark. H unt as you travel, cook far from where you will sleep, and find a place to hide away each night before the darkness comes.
I’m going to n
eed furs, she thought. Yes. Definitely going to need furs. A skin from a kill will maybe do, but it will stink. The cold would be coming very soon; she had felt it in the air each day as they had travelled, and now she was turning back into the oncoming winter. As she took up a slow pace alongside the road, skirting near to the bushes and the long grass in case she had to duck into cover, her mind raced as she tried to think of everything at once. If she could get to Wytheville and head east along the road, and pick up the trail of people migrating, she could beat the cold winter that would settle over the valley.
She stopped dead after half a mile, her senses tingling, and took two steps toward the shade of a nearby tree. She stood and watched, her hand gripping the bow and the arrow that she was slowly drawing onto the string, her eyes scouring the land around her, eyeing first the road in both directions, then the bushes and the trees, the long grass.
She couldn’t see anyone. Nothing. She sensed it, though. Someone was following her, maybe even watching her.
Then she caught the movement in the very corner of her vision. It was slow and careful, much like her movements, but it was there. She turned her head slowly, not wanting to alert who or whatever it was by moving too quickly, and her gaze settled far along the road, back where she had come from.
A figure moved through the bushes on the opposite side of the road, keeping cover just as she was, except as she watched and the stranger took shape, she saw that it was not a person at all.
A lithe figure, large and swift, edged its way along the other side of the road, using the same cover tactic that she had been using. It also didn’t want to be seen, but she guessed that it probably spent most of its life behaving that way. Its fur was thick and heavy, but the wet had left it sleek along the sides of its body.
It was a wolf, and it wasn’t just any wolf, either. It was the same one, the same massive wolf she had spotted as they left Wytheville, and the same monstrous creature that had taken down the sickly deer.
And the wolf was following her.
