The Last Survivors (Book 4): The Last Command

by Bobby Adair

  Winthrop strode up to the devil's guardians.

  A stern man planted himself in Winthrop's path and put his mouth to work on a language that Winthrop didn't care to know anymore. It was the talk of mortal simpletons.

  Winthrop put a soothing hand on the man's shoulder and eased the man's soul with god-speak as he stepped around.

  Another guard moved to bring Winthrop to a halt, but god-speak and will kept that man at bay as Winthrop let himself into the devil's tent.

  Chapter 78: Franklin

  "Franklin?"

  A rap on the door made Franklin pause and set his pen down. He stared at the door. It sounded like Fitzgerald, but he wondered why she would knock.

  "I'm here, Fitz. What do you need?"

  "Scholar Evan is here. He wants to speak with us."

  Us? he almost replied. Franklin was used to Fitz's company, but he was aware that most people would prefer to dismiss her, at least when discussing matters of importance.

  He watched the door swing open, revealing the ashen face of Scholar Evan and the confused face of Fitzgerald. Evan looked in all directions before entering. He greeted Franklin with a nervous nod. "We need to talk," Evan said, as if that weren't already apparent.

  "Sure. Come on in."

  "I'm sorry to disturb you in your quarters," Scholar Evan started.

  "It's no matter," Franklin said, exchanging a glance with Fitz.

  "I pride myself on being perceptive when it comes to matters around me, although it might not always seem like it. As such, I knew that the subject of this meeting would be of importance to both you and Fitzgerald." Evan glanced from Franklin to Fitz. His gaze showed that he'd guessed the details of their relationship.

  Franklin didn't bother to ask how.

  "I appreciate your speaking to both of us, if that is the case," Franklin said, neither confirming nor denying anything.

  "Are you sure we can talk safely in here?"

  Franklin glanced at the thick wooden door on his quarters. "It should be safe. Just keep your voice low, all the same."

  "What I have to tell you might be a surprise, or it might not," Evan said, pulling in a nervous breath. "My hope is that I've chosen the right people to whom to give this information. If not, my body might be burning on the pyre before the day is out."

  Franklin swallowed at the gravity of Evan's tone. "We're both newly-appointed Elders. We've always been friends. I promise it won't leave this room, unless you want it to," he said.

  Fitz bit her lip. "I won't say a word, either."

  "My hope is that we can work together on some pressing matters."

  Franklin and Fitz remained silent as they waited for whatever Evan had to say.

  Evan's voice was low and nervous as he began his story. He recounted a string of logic and numbers that had led to the conclusion that Blackthorn had inadvertently caused a famine. Before he could go any further, Franklin interrupted.

  "I've heard these calculations," Franklin said. "I was in a meeting with Blackthorn and Winthrop when Minister Beck presented your findings. But I wasn't sure whether to believe them."

  "Oh, they're accurate," Evan said with a nod. "But that is not the entirety of it. As a result of these calculations, Beck and I were tasked to give a hypothetical number of people that needed to be eliminated so the rest could be sustained during the suspected oncoming famine. This number—nineteen thousand—was delivered to General Blackthorn directly. That number exactly matches the number that Blackthorn took on his expedition."

  Franklin's eyes widened as he pieced together what Evan was saying. "Wait a minute. So Blackthorn called up the army not to fight the demons, but to die so a famine could be avoided?"

  Evan nodded gravely. "That is what Minister Beck and I suspect. It is as shocking to you as it was to us," Evan said. "What's more shocking is that it didn't seem Blackthorn wanted any of the other Elders to return."

  "So the nineteen thousand are being brought to their death? Including Father Winthrop and Minister Beck?"

  "Yes. That's the gravity of it. These are the ethics of our leadership in Brighton."

  "My God," gasped Fitz.

  "That information led us to a solution of our own. It is a solution that one might view as drastic, but one we felt was necessary. Brighton needs new leadership, people who can lead the townships with intellect instead of brutality."

  Evan's voice wavered as he broached the next topic. For a few moments, Franklin wondered if the nervous Scholar might walk outside and put himself on the pyre.

  "And so Minister Beck and I, knowing our lives were at stake, along with many others, planned a revolt. I was given a task of recruiting a band of deserters from Blackthorn's army, people who would be sympathetic to the cause. Among those were Tommy and Timmy Dunlow. You're familiar with the family?"

  "Of course. The conflict between the Dunlow family and Blackthorn is a rumor in town," Franklin said. "Though it is never discussed in the open."

  "I can assure you, it is true."

  "What were the details of the plan?"

  "We were to wait until the army was far enough away that they couldn't make it back quickly. Then, we were to determine when Tenbrook would run his next practice drills. We would strike his personal army unexpectedly. We would convince the remaining soldiers of our intent, and hopefully persuade them to join us."

  "I can't believe this," Franklin said, furrowing his brow. "And what of the Clergy?"

  "Our intent was never to harm the Clergy," Evan said. "I need you to believe that, Franklin."

  "I don't know what to say." Franklin shook his head. He was stunned. He'd known Evan for years. He never would've expected him to be entangled in such a plot. "Why wasn't the clergy approached?"

  "We needed fighting men to do battle, not men of The Word." Evan looked down.

  "No one in the Clergy knows? Not even Winthrop?"

  "Winthrop is as much to blame for this situation as Blackthorn. His blatant abuse of The Word has contributed to our plight."

  Franklin nodded, chewing his lip as he processed what Evan was telling him. "I remember how he dismissed the numbers you gave him about the famine."

  Evan nodded grimly. "I can see that you are apprehensive about my loyalties. If you need further proof of my intentions to spare the Clergy, I can offer you something else. Someone you are close with was involved in this plot."

  Franklin furrowed his brow as he tried to make a guess. "I thought you said no one in the Clergy knew about this."

  "No one you'd suspect."

  "Who, then?"

  "Novice Oliver."

  Fitzgerald gasped. "Oliver? Why would he be involved in this?" Fitz jumped from her chair. "What have you done?"

  "I recruited him into it." Evan hung his head as he explained how he'd befriended Oliver and used him to deliver messages.

  "You borrowed him to go to the market that time," Franklin put together. "That was when these meetings started."

  "Again, please be assured that I never intended any harm to come to him."

  "He's just a child!" Fitz's face twisted in anger as she waved a finger at him. "How could you involve him in this?"

  "I admit I was upset to learn he'd gone out with the army," Evan said solemnly. "That wasn't my intention."

  "He probably did that to escape the danger you put him in! He probably fled Brighton so he wouldn't be burned!" Fitzgerald steamed.

  Evan didn't disagree. It looked like he had more explaining to do. "If you'll listen, I'll explain the rest. I thought he fled, at first. But now I'm thinking that he left for other reasons. Reasons for which I might also be responsible." Evan bit his lip. "A few days ago, Tenbrook called me to his house for a meeting. According to Tenbrook, a confidential source revealed that a plot had been hatched to overthrow the government. He asked me to find out what was going on. In hindsight, I think Tenbrook already knew. I think Oliver told him before he left with the army."

  Franklin felt a surge of panic and anger. F
itz opened her mouth, but couldn't formulate any words.

  "You think Oliver gave you up?" Franklin shook his head in disbelief. But that might explain why Oliver had been so insistent on going out with the army.

  "It's possible." Evan explained how he'd visited the Dunlows, and how the Dunlows had disappeared. He described how one of the deserters had been tortured and dropped in front of the house without his tongue. He went on to explain how he'd been injured, and how he'd escaped.

  "In essence, I believe Tenbrook has uncovered our plan." His face beaded with sweat as he said, "Tenbrook is a violent, vicious man. Maybe even more cruel than Blackthorn. A revolt is more necessary than we knew. That is why I've come to you for help. As two of the three Elders, we need to work together and strike at Tenbrook before he comes at us."

  The room fell silent for a moment.

  "You mean comes at you?" Fitz spat. "That's the only reason you're here. To save your life!"

  "I won't lie that my life is at stake. But that isn't the primary reason. If Tenbrook is allowed to rule, I think Brighton will see the darkest age it has ever seen. Quite frankly, I'm not sure anyone will survive."

  Having finished his story, Evan sat with his hands folded. It looked as if he'd expended the last of his energy in telling his tale, and was waiting for a final pronouncement of life or death.

  "I don't know what to say." Franklin shook his head. "These things you've told me are horrific. But how do we know what's true and what isn't? How do we know this isn't part of some scheme to overthrow the Clergy?"

  "My assurances are all I can give. That, and my guarantee that if you decide not to help me, I will never repeat this information."

  "What about Oliver? How will you make right what you've done?" Fitzgerald's face still burned with anger. "What if Tenbrook killed him?"

  "My guess is that he's safe."

  "How do you know that?" Fitz demanded.

  "I saw him leave with the army," Franklin said. "I'm pretty sure he's gone."

  "That doesn't mean he's safe," Fitz countered. "Not in the wild. Even if Tenbrook didn't take him."

  They fell into an uneasy silence. Evan's story was a demon in the room, snarling and swiping, preparing to pull them down and feast on their innards.

  A knock sounded on the door. Franklin, Fitzgerald, and Evan jumped.

  "Who is it?" Franklin asked, unable to hide the fright in his voice.

  "It's Novice Joseph, Father."

  "Come in."

  Joseph peered through the door. "Tenbrook has called a meeting."

  "With the Elders?"

  "No, a meeting in the square."

  "What's it about?"

  "I don't know. He only said that the entire town should be there, and that it should happen right away. That's the only explanation I got. Soldiers are outside to escort all of us."

  Franklin stared at Joseph, as if the boy might produce some more answers, but there were no more answers left to give. Franklin dismissed him, watching the novice hurry down the hall, disappearing around a corner and knocking on the next batch of doors.

  Franklin, Fitzgerald, and Evan stared at each other, panic burning in their eyes. No one had to speak to know what this might mean.

  "We need to get out of here," Franklin said desperately.

  Evan looked like he might wet his frock. "We'll never make it. They're waiting for us. We have no choice but to go."

  Franklin swallowed, knowing Evan was right.

  Chapter 79: Winthrop

  Winthrop stood over General Blackthorn's bed, listening to Blackthorn breathe. Blackthorn didn't look like a piece of iron in the form of a man. He was on his back with his mouth open, his face slack. His fierce eyes were wrinkled shut in dark sockets. His breath rattled through his rickety chest. His big hands were bony, with bulbous knuckles that looked like they might shatter as soon as bend.

  Blackthorn was just an old man with discolored skin and brittle gray hair.

  He'd made a life of looking handsome, with a straight back and wiry muscles sitting atop a horse, gazing down on peasants. He had a baritone voice that always seemed to threaten, a chiseled face that was the kind of ugly that women wanted to love.

  He was a weakling pretending divinity, whose mortality had finally come to the surface.

  "What are you doing in my tent?" Blackthorn uttered.

  Winthrop jumped back. The Blackthorn thing was awake.

  "What do you want?" it asked.

  Winthrop slinked forward, his conditioned dread getting the best of him. He blessed Blackthorn's ears with god-speak.

  "Stop jabbering, man," said Blackthorn in a thin voice Winthrop could barely hear. "What news do you have?"

  Winthrop gathered his courage and extended a slow, trembling hand. He laid it on Blackthorn's bony chest.

  "What foolishness is this?" Blackthorn's anger sounded impotent.

  Winthrop mumbled a singsong prayer in the god-tongue. Blackthorn had been a formidable enemy. He deserved a blessing.

  Blackthorn snorted. "You've lost your senses. Get out of here."

  Winthrop disobeyed. He reached over and put his other hand on Blackthorn's forehead, kneeling beside the bed. Winthrop bowed his head and let the words roll into a new tune as he followed the muse of his divinity.

  Blackthorn stopped protesting. "You're praying for me? Don't waste your time. I assure you, I'll live longer than you."

  Winthrop finished his prayer and stood up. He looked down at the weak Blackthorn thing with bewildered eyes. It was time to ascend.

  Winthrop deliberately turned around.

  Blackthorn moved on the bed behind Winthrop, probably trying to get up.

  Winthrop looked around the dim tent for what he required.

  "When you leave," said Blackthorn, "tell the guard to send my cleaning girl in." Blackthorn coughed up a gob of phlegm. He kept coughing.

  Winthrop walked to Blackthorn's scabbard where it hung on a tent pole. He laid his hand on the sword's Spartan hilt, feeling the leather wrapped steel in his grip. He slid the sword out.

  Behind him, Blackthorn was still coughing his way through a fit that had a way to go.

  Winthrop turned around. He raised the long curved sabre.

  Blackthorn was sitting on the edge of his bed, bent over and coughing into his hands.

  Ascend to heaven on the corpses of the dead.

  I am a war god.

  Winthrop hacked through the back of Blackthorn's skull and the coughing stopped. Blackthorn fell face first onto the ground, blood pumping out of a gaping wound. Winthrop held the dripping sabre in his hands.

  He sang on without changing his rhythm, without changing his words.

  The devil was dead. Just as it had to be. The devil had died the moment that Winthrop found the courage to kill him. It was no surprise. There was no resistance. How could there have been?

  Winthrop was a god.

  Chapter 80: Oliver

  Oliver looked north where the cliffs fell away to the river, gazing upon miles of grasslands and forest; no man from the militia tainted his view. Except for the incessant, sad song in which every man in the army seemed to have joined, Oliver was able to imagine himself far from the carnage. Free. Happy.

  It was late, and Oliver was just realizing that he'd slept through most of the day, though he'd awoken before Minister Beck. Oliver turned back as he thought about whether to go to the tent and wait for the tray to mysteriously show up laden with bread and meat or to eat something from the limited supply in his bag.

  He stretched his arm out and swung it around to loosen his shoulder. He was still sore from the demon bite the night before. The previous night's battle seemed to have made its way from between the defensive rings downhill all the way up to the formation of blue shirts that had been arrayed around the peak. Many of the blue shirts were on the ground, dead. More were putting their hands in the blood of their comrades and marking one another with bloody prints on their chests and faces. They all sang Win
throp's senseless song, and hundreds of militiamen from downhill, men who'd fought through the night, sang with them.

  Uh, oh.

  Oliver walked past Beck's tent to a point where he was able to see down the front slopes and the prairie beyond. The cavalry formations were riding back toward the defenses. Men all over the hills were watching the cavalry come. Most were close by, watching General Blackthorn's tent, silently waiting. Oliver looked too, feeling as though he'd missed something important, or was about to.

  The flaps on Blackthorn's tent bulged out and then peeled away.

  Father Winthrop, his face shimmering with blood, emerged from the tent with a naked, bloody old man with a split skull in his arms.

  Oliver had seen Winthrop and his disciples move around so many bodies, reveling in their blood, that the body in Winthrop's arms didn't alarm him.

  Winthrop walked toward his singing men, to a place on the top of the hill where he could see the slopes below and the men down there could see him.

  The incoming cavalry passed the first line of the defenses at the bottom of the slope as they trotted into camp.

  "The devil is dead," shouted Father Winthrop in a voice big enough to find the ears of thousands. "The devil is dead."

  Oliver looked at the naked man in Winthrop's arms. It was General Blackthorn.

  "Oh, no!" Oliver turned and ran to Minister Beck's tent.

  Chapter 81: Tenbrook

  Tenbrook sat at a small table in the corner of his new war room, staring at the wall. He'd enjoyed playing around with Evan and the Dunlows over the past few days. But that time had ended. It was time to act.

  He was pretty confident the lower members of the Clergy weren't involved. Neither were the lackeys at the Academy.

  But he'd gotten several reports about Evan conversing with Franklin. In fact, Evan was at the Sanctuary now. He knew Franklin was involved. Tenbrook had to put a stop to things before they got too far.

  Timmy and Tommy had named several of the revolt leaders, men who had coordinated the movement between houses. He'd already had them brought in.