by Ted Dekker
The tremble in the old man’s voice put her on edge.
“He means to become one of them,” Jeremiah said. “He means to enter their camp.”
Rachelle could not dare believe what she had just heard.
And then she knew it was true. It was exactly what Thomas would do if he knew, if he absolutely knew, that both realities were real.
Rachelle sprinted for the stables.
Dear Elyon, give me strength.
They were nine of his best, including William and Mikil. With himself, ten.
The three extra canteens of water they each carried weighed them down more than Thomas would have liked. It was a dangerous game that he was playing, and he couldn’t risk being caught without the cleansing water.
They had ridden hard all day and now entered the same canyon their black powder had blasted thirty-six hours earlier. The stench rose from thousands of dead buried beneath the rubble and strewn on the desert floor.
They rode the Forest Guard’s palest horses. Thomas’s steed snorted and pawed at the sand. He urged the horse on and it moved forward reluctantly.
“Hard to believe that we did all this,” William said.
“Don’t think it’s the end of them,” Mikil said. “There’s no end to them.”
Thomas pulled a scarf over his nose and led the warriors into the rocks. The horses carried them through the canyon, past the burlap-cloaked bodies of their fallen enemy. He’d seen his share of dead, but the magnitude of this slaughter made him nauseated.
It was said that the Horde cared less for the lives of their men than the lives of their horses. Any Scab who defied his leader was summarily punished without trial. They favored the breaking of bones to flogging or other forms of punishment. It wasn’t unusual to find a Scab soldier with numerous bones broken left to die on the hot desert sand without having shed a drop of blood. Public executions involved drowning the offender in pools of gray water, a prospect that instilled more fear in the Scabs than any other threat of death.
The Horde’s terror of water had to be motivated by more than the pain that accompanied cleansing in the lakes, Thomas thought, though he wasn’t sure what.
He waited until they had passed the front lines of the dead before stopping by a group of several prone bodies. He dismounted, stripped the hooded robe off a Scab buzzing with flies, and shook it in the air. He coughed and threw the cloak over the rump of his horse.
“Let’s go, all of you,” he said. “Dress.”
William grunted and dismounted. “I never would have guessed I’d ever stoop so low as to dress in a whore’s clothes.” He dutifully began to strip one of the bodies. The rest found cloaks and donned them, muttering curses, not of objection, but of offense. The stench couldn’t be washed from the burlap.
Thomas retrieved a warrior’s sword and knife. Studded boots. Shin guards. These were new additions, he noted. The hardened, cured leather was uncharacteristic of the Desert Dwellers. The painful condition of their skin tempered their use of armor, but these shin guards had been layered with a soft cloth to minimize the friction.
“They’re learning,” he said. “Their technology isn’t that far behind our own.”
“They don’t have black powder,” Mikil said. “Ask me and I’ll say they’re finished. Give me three months and I’ll have new defenses built around every forest. They don’t stand a chance.”
Thomas pulled the robe he’d liberated over his head and strapped on the foreign dagger.
“Until they do have black powder,” he said, stuffing his own gear behind a boulder. “Have you considered what they could do to the forest if they had explosives? Besides, I’m not sure we have three months. They’re growing brave and they’re fighting with more intelligence. We’re running out of warriors.”
“Then what would you suggest?” Mikil asked. “Treason?”
She was speaking of the incident in the Southern Forest. A runner had arrived just before their departure and reported on the Southern Forest’s victory over the Horde.
Only it wasn’t Jamous who’d driven the Scabs away. He’d lost over half of his men in a hopeless battle in which he was outflanked and surrounded— a rare and deadly position to be caught in.
No, it was Justin, the runner said with a glint in his eye. He’d single-handedly struck terror into the Horde without one swipe of his blade. He’d negotiated a withdrawal with none other than the great general, Martyn himself.
The entire Southern Forest had sung Justin’s praises in the Elyon Valley for three hours. Justin had spoken to them of a new way, and they had listened as if he were a prophet, the runner said. Then Justin had disappeared into the forest with his small band.
“Have I once suggested yielding to the Horde in any way?” Thomas asked. “I’ll die waiting for the prophecy’s fulfillment if I have to. Don’t question my loyalty. One stray warrior is the least of our concerns at the moment. We’ll have time enough for that at the Gathering.”
He’d told her about the challenge and the Council’s request that he defend it, should it come down to a fight.
“You’re right,” she said. “I meant no disrespect.”
Thomas mounted and brought his horse around. “We ride in silence. Pull your hoods over your heads.”
They headed out of the canyon, dressed as a band of Desert Dwellers, following the Horde’s deep tracks.
The sun set slowly behind the cliffs, leaving the group in deep shadows. They soon emerged from the rock formations and headed due west toward a dimming horizon.
Thomas’s explanation of the mission had been simple. He’d learned the Horde had a terrible weakness: They rode into battle with the superstitious belief that their religious relics would give them victory. If a small band of Forest Guard could penetrate the Horde camp and steal the relics, they might deal a terrible blow. He had also learned that at this very moment, Qurong, who’d certainly commanded the army they’d just defeated, carried those relics with him. The relics were the Books of Histories. Who would go with him to deal such a blow to the Horde?
All nine had immediately agreed.
At this very moment, he was lying in a hotel room not ten blocks from the capitol building in Washington, D.C., sleeping. A hundred government agencies were burning the midnight oil, trying to make sense of the threat that had stood the world on its end. Sleep was undoubtedly the furthest thing from their minds. They were busy trying to decide who should know and who should not, which family members they could warn without leaking the word that might send a panic through the nation. They were thinking of ways to isolate and quarantine and survive.
But not Thomas Hunter. He understood one thing very few others could. If there was a solution to Svensson’s threat, it might very well lie in his sleep.
In his dreams.
They first saw the sea of fires four hours later, pinpricks of smoking light from oil torches several miles beyond the dune they had crested. Wood was scarce, but the black liquid that seeped from the sand in distant reserves met their needs as well or better than wood. Thomas had never seen the oil reserves, but the Forest Guard frequently confiscated barrels of the stuff from fallen armies and hauled it off as spoil.
They drew up side by side, ten wide, looking west. For several seconds they sat atop the dune in total silence. Even what was left of the army was daunting.
“You are certain about this, Thomas?” William said.
“No. But I am certain that our options are growing thin.” He sounded far more confident than he felt.
“I should come with you,” Mikil said.
“We stick to the plan,” he said. “William and I go alone.”
They knew the reasons. First there was the matter of their skin. All but Thomas and William had bathed in the lake before leaving. Then there was Mikil: Horde women didn’t normally travel with the armies. Even if her skin turned, entering could be dangerous for her, despite her claim that she could look as much a man in burlap as any of them.
“How is your skin, William?”
His lieutenant pulled up his sleeve. “Itching.”
Thomas dismounted, pulled out a bag of ash, and tossed it to him. “Face, arms, and legs. Don’t be stingy.”
“You’re sure this will fool them?” Mikil asked.
“I mixed the ash with some of the sulfur we used for the black powder. It’s the scent as much as the—”
“Ugh! This is horrid!” William gasped, nose turned from the bag. He coughed. “They’ll smell us coming a mile away!”
“Not if we smell like them. It’s their dogs that worry me the most. And our eyes.”
Mikil stared into his eyes. “They’re paling already. In this light you should be fine. And honestly, in this light with enough of that rotten ash on my skin, I could pass as easily as you.”
Thomas ignored her persistence.
Ten minutes later he and William had powdered their skin gray, checked their gear to be sure none of it would be associated with the Guard, and remounted. The others remained on foot.
“Okay.” Thomas took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Here we go. Look for the fire, Mikil, just as we planned. If you see one of their tents suddenly go up in flames, send the rest in for us on horse, fast and low. Bring our horses. Whatever you do, don’t forget to keep your hoods on. And you might want to throw some ash on your face for good measure.”
“Send the rest? Lead them, you mean.”
“Send them. I need someone to lead the Guard in the event it all goes badly.”
She glared at him and set her jaw. “I think you should reconsider going in.”
“We go with the plan. As always.”
“And as always you refuse any voice of caution. I’m looking at the camp and I’m watching my general about to throw himself into this pack of wolves and I’m starting to wonder why.”
“For the same reason we’ve had all day,” he said. “Jamous nearly lost his life yesterday, and we the day before. The Horde is gaining strength, and unless we do something to cripple them, not only Jamous, but all of us along with our children, will die.”
Mikil crossed her arms and squatted.
“Let’s go,” William said. “I want to get out of there before daylight.”
“The people need you,” Thomas told Mikil softly.
“No, the people need you, Thomas.”
She frowned. It was hopeless.
“Elyon’s strength,” Thomas said.
“Elyon’s strength,” the others muttered. Mikil said nothing. She would snap out of her brooding mood soon enough, but at the moment he let her make her statement.
Thomas clucked his tongue and eased his horse down the slope.
“Perhaps we should stop here for the night,” Suzan said, staring out at the black desert.
“How can we? I didn’t come all this way to wait for him. I could have waited for him at the village.”
Rachelle kicked her horse into a trot. They’d ridden hard most of the day and picked their way through the body-strewn canyon in the last hour. She’d seen her share of battlefields, but this one had been terrifying.
Suzan drew abreast. “We can’t be sure they even went out—there are too many tracks for me to know.”
“I know my husband; he went out. If he left the village without so much as a whisper to me, trust me, he’s on a mission. He won’t stop for darkness. And you’re the best tracker in the Guard, aren’t you? Then track.”
“Even if we do catch them, what advantage is tonight over tomorrow?”
“I told you, I have information that may save his life. He’s going for the Books of Histories because of his dreams, Suzan. He may say it’s to give the Guard an advantage, and I’m not saying it wouldn’t, but there’s more to the story. I have to reach him before he dreams so that he can find me.”
“Find you?”
She shouldn’t have said so much.
“Before he dreams.”
“We’re risking our necks over another dream?”
“His dream of black powder saved us all. You were there.”
Any further explanation would be futile. Thomas himself hadn’t been able to satisfy her, neither fifteen years ago nor last night. She pressed her thumb against the forefinger that had been cut in her own dream. There were two worlds, and each affected the other. With each passing mile, her conviction had grown. With each recollection of Thomas’s dreams fifteen years earlier, her understanding had broadened, though she had no clue how it was happening, much less why.
But she could not ignore the pain in her finger.
Forgive me, Thomas. Forgive me, my love.
“It still makes no sense to me,” Suzan said, searching the ground for tracks.
“And it may never make sense to you. But I’m willing to stake my life on it. I don’t want my husband to die, and unless we reach him, he might.”
“Thomas doesn’t die easily.”
“The virus doesn’t care who dies easily.”
They approached the Horde camp from the northeast, over a small rise that fell into a broad flat valley, with a light breeze in their faces.
Thomas lay on his belly next to William and studied the camp. Tens of thousands of torches on stakes lit the desert night with a surreal orange glow. A giant circular blob of lights spread across the sand. Their tents were square, roughly ten by ten, woven from a coarse thread made from the stalks of desert wheat. The stalks were pounded flat and rolled into long strands that the Horde used for everything from their clothing to bindings.
“There!” William pointed to their right. A huge tent rose above the others south of center. “That’s it.”
“And it’s a good half mile past the perimeter,” Thomas said quietly.
They’d left their horses staked behind them where they would be hidden by the dune. The Guard had never attempted to infiltrate a camp before. Thomas was banking on a minimal perimeter guard as a result. He and William would go on foot and hopefully slip in unnoticed.
“That’s a lot of Horde,” William said.
“A whole lot.”
William eased his sword a few inches out of its scabbard. “You ever swung a Scab sword before?”
“Once or twice. The blades aren’t as sharp as ours.”
“The thought of killing a few with their own weapons is appealing.”
“Put it away. The last thing I want is a fight. Tonight we are thieves.”
His lieutenant shoved the sword home.
“Remember, don’t speak unless directly questioned. No eye contact. Keep your hood as far over your face as possible. Walk with pain.”
“I do have pain,” William said. “The cursed disease is killing me already. You said it won’t affect the mind for a while. How long?”
“If we get out before morning, we’ll be fine.”
“We should have brought the water. Their dogs would never know the difference.”
“We don’t know that. And if we are taken, the water would incriminate us. They can smell it, trust me.”
“You have any idea what the Books look like?” William asked.
“Books. Books are books. Maybe scrolls similar to the ones we use, or the flat kind from long ago. If we find them, we’ll know. Ready?”
“Always.”
They stood.
Deep breath.
“Let’s go.”
Thomas and William walked as naturally as they could, careful to use the slightly slower step that the rot forced upon the Desert Dwellers. A ring of torches planted every fifty paces ran the camp’s circumference.
There was no perimeter guard.
“Stay in the shadows until we enter the main path that leads to the center,” Thomas whispered.
“Right up the middle?”
“We’re Scabs. We would walk right up the middle.”
The stench was nearly unbearable, if anything, stronger than the powder they’d applied. No dogs were barking yet. So far, so good.
Thomas wipe
d the sweat from his palms, momentarily touched the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist, and walked past the first torch, through a gap between two tents, and into the main camp.
The retarded pace was nearly unbearable. Everything in Thomas urged him to run. He had twice the speed of any of these diseased thugs, and he could probably race straight up the middle, snatch the Books, and fly to the desert before they knew what had happened.
He squashed the impulse. Slow. Slow, Thomas.
“Torvil, you ungracious piece of meat,” a gruff voice said from the tent to his right. He glanced. A Scab stepped past the flap and glared at him. “Your brother is dying in here and you’re looking for women where there are none?”
For a moment Thomas was frozen by indecision. He’d spoken to Scabs before; he’d even spoken at length to their supreme leader’s daughter, Chelise.
“Answer me!” the Scab snorted.
He decided. He walked straight on and turned only partially so as not to expose his entire face.
“You’re as blind as the bats who cursed you. Am I Torvil? And I would be so lucky to find a woman in this stinking place.”
He turned and moved on. The man cursed and stepped back into the tent.
“Easy,” William whispered. “That was too much.”
“It’s how they would speak.”
The Scabs had retired for the night, but hundreds still loitered. Most of the tents had their flaps tied open, baring all to any prying eye. The camp where he’d met Chelise had been strewn with woven rugs dyed in purple and red hues. Not so here. No children, no women that he could see.
They passed a group of four men seated cross-legged around a small, smoky fire burning in a basin of oil-soaked sand. The flames warmed a tin pot full of the white, pasty starch they called sago. Made from the roots of desert wheat. Thomas had tasted the bland starch once and announced to his men that it was like eating dirt without all the flavor.
All four Scabs had their hoods withdrawn. By the light of fire and moon, these did not look like fearless suicidal warriors sworn to slaughter the women and children of the forests. In fact, they looked very much like his own people.
