This Broken Land

by H M Sealey

  “Alaia.” He whispers, and now I realise it’s his sister’s body. “I was meant to protect her always. I promised. I promised!”

  I kneel too, and touch his shoulder. I’m not certain anything I can say would be helpful right now.

  ~

  Josh

  “Is that everybody?” Diana Lamont calls. I crouch in the shadows with Missy, watching events unfold. I’m still trembling and I can still feel the vibration from the gunshot in my arm. I killed a man, I took his life with no trial and no mercy, is there any way back from that? Will I ever forget the smell of blood and the touch of brain and gristle on my skin?

  I gaze over the sea of faces with sickened eyes, some I know, others I don’t and some are hidden behind scarves and masks. That’s when I spot her.

  For a moment it doesn’t really register, my brain feels full of my worst fears and a thousand disjointed images right now and so it takes me some moments to realise that I’m looking into the face of my mother.

  She’s exactly as I remember her, young, red-headed and freckle-faced with a neat nose that’s almost a snub but not quite and a rounded jaw.

  I shake my head to clear my senses. My mother died years ago, and even if she was still alive now, she’d be middle-aged, she couldn’t possibly look just as she does in my memories, I must be dreaming, or delusional.

  “There’s Elsie!” Missy whispers in my ear. “The boy with her is Asim. And that’s Dai over there, oh God, don’t let him be dead, the stupid idiot!” Missy is concerned for her brother who still lies motionless in front of the house. Even from here I can see there’s blood on his face.

  “El.” I whisper the name to myself, Rachael’s nickname, it was easier to spell. That’s why she looks so much like my mother. It’s my baby sister. The little girl who followed me like a puppy-dog around the house, determined to do everything I did, who clung to me when I came home from school and believed me when I said there were goblins in the woods. That beautiful woman over there is my sister. Inside my body my tired, aching heart begins to beat again. I have to survive this. I have to.

  “I can’t believe the BSI wanted to reintegrate.” River is pale with shock, paler than I’ve ever seen her. “I can’t believe you’ve done so much to stop it happening!”

  Diana looks at her daughter. “Oh sweetheart, you never did understand politics did you? As long as there are threats, people want a strong government.”

  “There are more than enough threats coming from the ESI.”

  Diana shakes her head. “Not that sort of threat darling. We don’t have an army any more.”

  “Because you and idiots like you said we shouldn’t need one because all people were good really and just needed the hand of friendship. Well the ESI don’t want to be friends and they’d happily cut your hand of friendship off before they’d shake it.”

  “But without our army we’re no threat to them, so they leave us be. Our young men will never be called up to leave their homes and families.”

  “Good for you.”

  “No, the threat my government defends our people against is the threat of bigotry and intolerance. The threat of toxic masculinity. The threat of homophobia and peadophobia. Those are safer threats over which we can go to war because I know I can win. Don’t you think?”

  “And in the meantime the ESI destroys Europe.”

  “The worlds better off without the colonialism of white Europeans darling. Karma.”

  “The ESI will cross the channel eventually Diana. You must know that?”

  Diana looks away from River and back towards the house at the sound of a new voice calling across the chaos. There’s a man there, a dark man naked from the waist up and bandaged around his chest. It’s Baraq.

  Diana seems surprised. No, Diana seems horrified.

  “Baraq.” She says the name softly, but not without compassion.

  “Hello Diana.”

  “You….why, why are you here?”

  “You gave me a Border Pass remember?”

  “So….so you could visit me!”

  Baraq takes a few uncertain steps forward. He’s injured, I can see the blood seeping through his bandages.

  “I don’t want to visit you any more Diana.”

  Diana looks as if she’s ready to cry.

  “Everything you just heard…..it’s….it’s not what you think…..”

  “No? Were you lying then? Again.”

  “Not lying…..just…...trying to do what’s best for people.”

  “By scuppering any talk of reconciliation?”

  Diana looks wrong-footed. “Of course not.”

  “Give it up Diana. I’ve never met a woman as deluded as you.”

  “Deluded?” That seems to offend her. “How am I deluded?”

  “Because I think you genuinely believe that you’re more than just a greedy, manipulative, hypocritical, deceptive woman. At least, I want to believe you’re deluded. It’s either that or truly evil and I still have faith enough in humanity to believe that truly evil people are very few and far between.”

  “I have done nothing but try to create an equitable society Baraq.”

  “But you can’t force people to be happy and tolerant at gunpoint Diana. A society where equality of any sort is forced on the population will never be free.”

  “Freedom?” Diana scoffs. “People can’t cope with freedom! They mess it up every time.”

  “And yet people will still fight and die for freedom.”

  “I’m giving them something better than freedom! I’m giving them a country where everybody has every one of their needs met by the state, where nobody is hated, or hurt or hungry.”

  “You’re keeping people like damn pets Diana and punishing them when they don’t like it!”

  Diana and Baraq face each other, her whole bearing has changed, she’s tense and her eyes follow his as if she can’t bear to look away.

  “I….cared about you Baraq.” She seems truly saddened by his words, as if she can’t imagine why everybody doesn’t love her. “I let you see your daughter whenever you wanted.”

  “Until she died. Isn’t that right?”

  Diana nods. “It was a terrible thing, tragic.”

  Baraq’s compassion fades away entirely. “Stop the lies Diana. I know River didn’t die. I know you pretended she did to avoid the BSI’s deportation of all children with at least one Muslim parent. You pretended our daughter was dead. You lied to my face.”

  River, still standing close to Diana, gives him a half smile.

  “You okay Dad?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  Diana seems flustered. “Why are you here now Baraq? What’s any of this to do with you?”

  “Anything that involves my daughter has something to do with me Diana.”

  He takes another step forwards, I notice he holds his side as if in pain, the patch of red on his bandages is spreading. Something loud shatters inside the house and shards of glass rain down. The windows at the top of the building glow red from the fire that’s taking hold inside.

  “So did I hear you right Diana?” Baraq asks in a mild voice. “Are you responsible for the Wolves? The Wolves that everybody believes come from the BSI? The ones that your Prime Minster has frequently promised to put an end to?”

  Diana doesn’t like that, but she doesn’t have an answer.

  “Are you going to lie to me about them again? Are you going to tell me that your government is doing everything in its power to track them down?”

  Again Diana doesn’t answer. “Diana, you have to turn your attention to the ESI. You need an army. You need to protect your country. There are Traditionalists within the BSI pushing to make a full alliance with the ESI and finish what they see as a conquest. If that happens they’ll swallow Old Britain as well as thousands of good Muslims over the Border who never wanted anything more than to live and worship in peace.”

  Diana is shaking slightly.

  “Good.” She says in a s
mall, angry voice.

  “Good?”

  “Let them come.” She holds her head proudly, but there are tears in her eyes. “Why not? Do you think Old Britain can survive much longer? We’re bankrupt Baraq. Everybody hates everyone else. Old Britain is falling apart.”

  “Then do something about it.”

  “I can’t.” She shouts, sounding surprisingly uncontrolled. “Not without admitting I was wrong, and I won’t do that. If Old Britain is conquered, then I’ll go down in history as part of the government who bravely stood against them at the end.”

  “But you’ve never stood against the ESI. Or ISIS before them. You made apologies for them. You were pleased they were persecuting Christians. You said they were protecting their culture. You and the European leaders invited them to come and then seemed surprised when they did.”

  Diana is crying but they’re not tears of shame, or sorrow, but pure rage. “That doesn’t matter. It still won’t be my fault. Nobody will be able to point to the economic failure of this government because it’ll be lost in blood and fire.” Her lip wobbles. “And nobody will ever say Diana Lamont was a bad leader.”

  Baraq continues to stride across the ground towards her, unafraid of the Wolves all around. Baraq has an aura of such peace I almost feel he could send the Wolves packing with a single word.

  Almost.

  “Order these men to leave Diana.” Her says. “Disband these armies of yours.”

  “You shouldn’t be here Baraq.” She pauses. “I loved you.”

  “You loved me so much you lied and lied.”

  “You never loved me at all! Don’t think I don’t know you never got over her, your first wife.”

  “I never asked you to love me.”

  “I hid you! You were running from the BSI for being an apostate and I hid you! I risked my life for you. You were my brave renegade rebel, running from evil. You could have stayed with me in the Border. We would have been happy!”

  Diana turns away from him, still crying. She looks to the Wolf Captain.

  “Burn it to ashes!” She orders. “And kill them all.”

  ~

  Elsie

  I’m hauled away from Asim and Alaia by my hair. The Wolf stares down at my brand with disinterest.

  “Branded.” He tells one of the others. “She can come in the truck.”

  “Get off!” I cry as I’m dragged towards the biggest of the vehicles, I dig my heels into the gravel but I barely slow him down. Behind me the wolves whoop as they watch the flames grow. “I can’t be a slave again. I can’t!”

  “I’ll take her.” Another Wolf steps into our path, eyes bright behind his mask. “You go and get the other one, over there, see? The girl with a shaved head.”

  The Wolf turns and spots the girl. With a rough nod he thrusts me into new arms and sets off across the grounds. The Wolf takes me by my upper arm and pulls me away, towards the trees.

  “Get off me!” I yell again.

  “Shhh.” A voice hisses out of the balaclava. “Keep your voice down or they’ll notice.”

  “Notice?”

  “Elsie?” A second voice joins us, a whispered voice, trying hard to catch my attention the way it used to in class, when she didn’t want the teacher to hear. I stop still, the trees cast deep shadows over this part of the garden. “Elsie, are you okay?”

  “Missy!” There she is, hiding in the trees, her long black dress shrouding her from sight, only the pale oval of her face visible, floating like a balloon.

  I fall into her arms. Right now it doesn’t matter who she is or what she’s done. She could be orchestrating an army of devil cats for all I care. She’s all I have left, I can’t lose her.

  The Wolf pulls off his balaclava and gazes with a grim expression back towards the house.

  “You girls stay here.” He orders. “Missy, please, look after her.”

  He wipes his brow, pulls the balaclava back over his head, picks up a big, solid looking gun from the floor and slings it over his shoulder. Then he runs off, disappearing back into the chaos.

  “Is he on our side?” I ask Missy when we finally release each other. She’s crying as she nods.

  “Elsie.” She says softly. “That’s your brother, Josh.”

  ~

  River

  “No!” River struggled with the Wolf who grabbed her. “Stop it!”

  “Let her go!” Diana’s order was sharp. The Wolf complied although not willingly nor at once. He slid his hands around River’s face and twisted her head to reveal the markings on her neck.

  “You said any of them with the brand.”

  “Not her.”

  The Wolf, annoyed, stepped aside seeking another victim and leaving River facing her mother.

  “You’re really going to kill everyone here?”

  “Except the slaves who can be re-sold. Someone here is working for Family Matters. I can put an end to an illegal people-trafficking organisation.”

  “What about me?”

  Diana stepped forward and took River’s hands. “I love you so much. River, I lied to the authorities about you, I lied to your father just to keep us together. You were the only really good thing in my life. I don’t understand why we had to be enemies.”

  “Because I met my father. I met him and I realised the damage you were causing. Especially to families.”

  “Society is our family.”

  “And your society is a nest of mean-spirited creatures who signal their virtue to each-other while letting real families, real love crumble in a mess of self-obsession. I don’t want your society for family.”

  Diana held her hands more tightly, sensing that once she released her, she would never touch her daughter again.

  “I don’t want to see you die River, but I don’t see another solution.”

  “There isn’t one. As long as I live I will never stop trying to expose you for what you are.”

  “It wasn’t my fault the BSI wanted all children of Muslim descent.” Her voice softened. “It really wasn’t.”

  “I know. The BSI saw the deprived crap you teach and wanted to save as many kids as they could. I don’t actually blame them.”

  Diana swallowed. One of the Wolves approached, his gun slung over his shoulder. Diana called to him and he came.

  “They’re so obedient, my Wolves. They’re perfect men, so strong.” She ran her fingers over the Wolf’s chest and then looked up into his eyes.

  “Take my daughter away and do it quickly.” She commanded. “I don’t want her to suffer.”

  River didn’t run. She didn’t even move. She simply screwed up her eyes and turned around. He could shoot her in the back of her head then, right here. If he wanted to take her somewhere and kill her quietly he would have a fight. Somebody, somewhere near the house screamed. River didn’t know who and didn’t know why.

  River waited. It would almost be a relief to die. To be done with it. There was nothing in this broken land worth living for.

  She closed her eyes and waited for the bullet that would end her life. All around her there was mayhem, the house was burning now, the air was heavy with smoke. Fires were difficult to contain, there was so little water to waste quenching it.

  The fire drove out the rest of Zeb’s useless security team like dogs rounding up sheep. They emerged, choking, from the smoke-filled disarray only to meet a hail of gunfire. Not one of them even had time to draw a weapon, far less use it.

  “Well, get on with it.” River sighed.

  “River.”

  She turned at the sound of Josh’s voice to find the Wolf’s gun was trained, not at her head, but at Diana’s.

  “Josh….?” Was that Josh behind that mask?

  Josh gave a rough nod, and wrenched the balaclava from his face and tossed it aside, his other hand gripped the gun, this was no little pistol, it was an automatic rifle and Josh had even less knowledge of how it worked than the small gun. In fact, even clutching it like this terrified him.

&nb
sp; Diana did not move.

  “Call the Wolves off!” Josh commanded.

  “There’s only one of you.” Diana reminded him, although her voice did not sound so confident. “If you shoot me, they’ll kill you all.”

  “They’re going to do that anyway. Stop them and you get to live.”

  “I read your report Skye, you’re no killer.”

  Josh shifted the gun so it was touching her temple. “I’m not called Skye, and I just shot a Wolf through the back of the head. He hadn’t done half was much to deserve it as you have. So don’t you dare tell me I’m no killer because I am!”

  River watched Josh with surprise and admiration and just a little bit of discomfort.

  “So call them off!”

  That was an order and it was going to be obeyed.

  “Stop!” Diana shouted. “Stop!”

  Nobody stopped. River noted the dead bodies of Nicky and Zeb bleeding in the dirt. The rioting continued, the fires made the windows of the house glow like eyes.

  “We have to get their attention!” She shouted above the bedlam. “I’ll do it.”

  Turning towards the nearest truck, River scrambled up into the driver’s seat. This was a very old fashioned truck, archaic even, the sort of truck built when there was still an army in this country, the sort that still used a key. Driving was another skill Gene Balewa had imparted to her growing up. She was glad she had learned.

  River turned the key in the ignition and the truck spluttered into violent life. She spun the wheel and forced the truck into gear. Then she drove it directly at the house, gritting her teeth for the impact.

  The truck smashed into the wall like a battering ram, damaging the old brickwork badly and throwing River forwards in the driver’s seat. The wheels continued to spin until the engine stalled, but by then the Wolves’ attention was on the battered bonnet of one of their most valuable vehicles. Trucks were not easy things to acquire.

  Dazed but recovering quickly, River swung open the door and clambered onto the roof, taking the keys with her. The flames raged through the house, eating into the old woodwork and soft furnishings with vicious hunger. She supposed it wouldn’t take long for a petrol-filled truck to catch fire and explode.