The Divide

by Jeremy Robinson

  “The Prime Law came to an end the moment you decided to cross the Divide!” Micha’s voice booms with righteous indignation, and on this point, he’s not entirely wrong. But he also doesn’t know what we know.

  “And what law governs the land now?” Plistim asks.

  “My law.” Micha raises his sword. “The law of the sword. Of blood. And now, of vengeance.”

  Sensing Micha is about to charge, I blurt out, “I didn’t decide to go across the Divide. I was forced. Knocked unconscious.”

  He studies me. “You were seen with your father just days earlier, after I left for Boston, and yet you beat me there, killing two men on your way.”

  “I went there to kill my son,” I say, “before you could torture him.”

  The truth of this statement resonates. He knows the depth of my loyalty to the law. I might have despised him, and betrayed him, but I would have never willingly joined the Modernists.

  “That might be true,” he says, but then he motions to Salem. “Yet, here he stands.

  “Did you ever find your father, bastard?”

  In response, Salem does the worst thing possible. Despite keeping his mouth shut, he looks right at Shua, who moments ago wrapped his arms around me, whispered in my ears, and calmed me.

  Micha’s laugh bellows out over the Divide. “Three generations of traitors.”

  “You must listen to us,” Plistim says. “There is little time. The Gol—”

  “If the Golyat poses a threat to us, it is only because you have summoned it here, and thanks to the volume of your actions, you have summoned us as well.” Micha motions to the men around him. “It is fitting, don’t you think? The end of humanity begins with the end of a feud.”

  “Give me your sword,” Dyer says to Shua. “I can hold them.”

  “You wouldn’t last more than a few seconds,” Shua says.

  Dyer holds out her blackened arm. I can now see streaks of black at the base of her neck. “I can probably throw a horse with this thing. And I’m feeling hungry.”

  Shua looked ready to argue until those last words. Is the change happening now? Or is she simply trying to convince Shua to let her die now, doing what she can to let us escape. But it won’t be enough, and Shua knows it.

  “Silence!” Micha shouts, but instead of obeying, Shua turns to his father. “Take Salem the rest of the way. Finish what we’ve started!”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Plistim nods, and Shua draws his sword. I draw the machete and toss it to Dyer, who catches it in her human hand. I then draw my knife. I don’t see her move, but Del already has an arrow nocked and aimed at the men on horseback.

  We will kill some of them, but can we slow them down enough for Plistim and Salem to escape? It seems doubtful, but there is nothing left to do but try. Freedom or death. It’s time to put the ancient motto to the test. When I die, will my last thoughts be of regret, or pride that I died doing what was right?

  Micha takes a moment to size us up, his horse agitated, ready to charge. Then he turns back to his men and says something too quiet for us to hear.

  Archers adjust their aim, and fire.

  The first arrow sails past my head, and I think they’re aiming for me, but then I hear a wet thud and a grunt.

  Plistim staggers back, an arrow in his chest and a look of surprise in his eyes. A second arrow strikes his shoulder, and he stumbles back again, just feet from the Divide’s edge.

  “Freedom for you…” Plistim says to Salem. “Freedom for all…is at Mount Fletcher. Go, boy. Go!”

  A third arrow strikes his throat, snapping him into a state of shock and pushing him back even further. Teetering on the edge, Plistim reaches out to his son. Unable to speak, he offers a proud smile, and then falls.

  “What have you done?” I scream.

  “You mourn the man you detested for so long?” Micha is equal parts outraged and surprised.

  “Have you even looked over the edge?”

  The blank stare on his face says that he hasn’t.

  How long will it take for Plistim to reach the bottom?

  How much longer until the Golyats understand where his body came from?

  And what will happen when they do?

  To his credit, Salem runs. Even I don’t think he’ll make it far, but he knows that his mind is not expendable. Without it, we’re lost. It’s not fear that drives him, it’s duty, and even as he flees, I’m more proud of him than ever.

  Micha opens his mouth to order the charge, but I shout, “Del!” before he can. The quick girl launches two shots before anyone can react. Two archers at the back fall from their horses.

  Just as she’s about to fire another arrow, a blur descends from the trees above Micha and his men. It drops down onto the back of Micha’s horse, which startles and rears up.

  “Atta—” Micha’s command is cut short when an arm wraps around his throat as he holds on, keeping himself and his attacker atop the horse.

  When the steed drops back down, I have no trouble recognizing Bake, even though she’s pulled a black hood and mask over her head, concealing every bit of face save for her blue eyes. She places her blade against the skin next to Micha’s eye.

  “Order your men to dismount and you have my word they, and you, will not be harmed,” Bake says.

  “We going to honor that promise?” Dyer whispers.

  I won’t like it if we do, nor will Shua, but I will not betray the honor of our friend from beyond the Divide, certainly not after she has saved us all.

  “Who are you?” Micha growls.

  Rather than declare herself as she did with us, Bake says, “The woman who will impale your face if you do not obey her.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Micha asks.

  “Are you a descendent of Sig?”

  Micha’s face screws up. “Who?”

  The blade cuts into the skin beside his eye, drawing blood. “Ten seconds.”

  After three, Micha relents. “Dismount!” he shouts, fuming as his men climb from their horses.

  When they’re all down, Bake says, “And now your weapons! On the ground.”

  The men obey her faster than they would if it were Micha giving the command.

  “Back away!” Bake says, and when they do, she motions for us to approach. “Come!”

  The horses look even bigger up close.

  “How the hell do we do this?” Dyer asks, but then she intuits the situation and yanks herself into the seat that’s buckled to the horse’s back. I follow her lead and pull myself up.

  It’s then that the Golyats react to Plistim’s body. I don’t know if he just landed, or if they’ve had time to put thought into his sudden arrival. But a great wailing chatter booms out of the Divide, spooking the horses. With a communal whine, the horses without riders bolt, which is for the best. Those with riders buck and twist about, panicked, but well trained.

  Bake tosses Micha to the side and slips into his seat. She takes up the straps resting on the horse’s back, gives them a snap, and taps her heels into its sides, saying, “Heyah!”

  She’s done this before, I think, when the horse starts forward at a good pace. I do the same with my horse, only gentler, and the steed starts moving, following the direction in which I tug the straps, which I now see are attached to a device in its mouth.

  I guide my horse toward the Divide.

  “Vee!” Shua shouts, fighting to control his horse. “Let’s go!”

  The ground shakes from an impact deep within the Divide. Are the Golyats fighting over Plistim’s body?

  Up ahead, I see Dyer ride up behind my still-fleeing son. She reaches down with her black arm, yanks him up, and deposits him on the horse behind her, keeping pace with Bake. Del, on a horse of her own, looks uncomfortable on the creature’s back, but is holding on and keeping pace.

  “I need to see!” I shout back, inching the horse closer to the edge.

  When the dizzying drop is revealed, the horse complains, but doesn’t run. If
anything, it calms down. I lean out and look down, just as the earth shakes again. I’m glad the horse is looking the other way when I see what’s below. If it could see what I do now, it would no doubt fling me from its back and run until reaching the sea.

  “Heyah!” I shout, thumping my heels into the horse’s sides. It whinnies and takes off running in the opposite direction from Micha and his men, who will no doubt regroup and pursue.

  When I catch up to Shua, he shouts, “What did you see?”

  Both of us appear to be naturals on horseback, and at any other time, I’d enjoy the experience. Right now, I barely notice it. “The Golyats,” I tell him, the ground shaking from another impact. “They’re climbing.”

  47

  Traveling on foot seems quaint after an hour on horseback. I’m a little sore between the legs—less so after removing the climbing harness—but the ground we’ve covered more than makes up for it. A day’s journey can be completed in an hour. A week’s in a day. With Shua in the lead, navigating woods he seems to know well, we make rapid progress. The beasts even make short work of the rivers we cross, swimming while still mounted.

  What’s not great about horses, and the reason for their banishment under the law, is that they leave an easy to follow trail. I don’t know how far Micha had traveled from his camp, but if the lookout summoned help so quickly it couldn’t be too far. And I have no doubt there will be more horses and men. Micha doesn’t travel toward danger without a veritable army at his side. My dislike for the man wavers for a moment when I realize that in the face of danger from the Divide, he rode toward peril, rather than away from it.

  But bravery does not supersede brutality, murder, subjugation, and abuse, or the fact that if he catches us, our deaths will be long, painful, and pointless.

  Thinking about what Micha will do to us reminds me of my father’s demise. Of Grace’s. Never were there two more loving, sweet, and wise people. When images of their deaths are fabricated by my imagination, I control the narrative, seeing Micha putting his sword through their chests, or taking off their heads. Quick deaths.

  I know the truth is far worse, but for me, it’s unimaginable. The images conjured by my mind, though fictitious, would undo me. The tears running steadily over my cheeks would be joined by sobs, making us even easier to spot. And my sorrow is shared. Shua for his father, whose death may have very well ignited the very threat he sought to defeat permanently. Salem for both his grandfathers. Dyer for her husband. Del for the family who accepted her and attempted to take her to a new and better world. The only one among us whose countenance is unaffected by recent events is Bake. Living alone in the wild, among the Golyats, with her people scattered or dead, she has been hardened and sharpened to the point that I doubt anything could shake her resolve.

  I’m pulled from my thoughts by my horse’s whinny. Instinct fuels my search for danger, and I find it right away.

  The rumble. Despite the distance traveled, the Golyats’ rise can be felt in the air itself. They’re coming, I think, picturing them scaling the Divide’s walls far to the north and south.

  Of course, the rumble could have another source. Horse hooves. And a lot of them. While we move in single file, navigating toward a destination only Shua knows, Micha and his men can follow our trail as fast as their horses can run.

  Feeling doom creep up my back, I ask for the first time, “Are we nearly there?”

  Shua slows his horse to a stop, body rigid. He raises his hands slowly. “We’re already here.”

  “Identify yourself,” a man’s voice says. I look for the speaker, but see no one.

  Shua, who had wrapped his head and face to keep out insects, slowly unravels the fabric. “You know who I am.”

  When his face is revealed, a slender man, no more than ten feet away from Shua steps away from a tree trunk. His clothing is camouflaged in a way that let him blend into the tree, undetectable even up close. “When the air turned strange this morning, I suspected we would have visitors. I did not expect you. Have you not yet departed?”

  “We have returned.”

  When the stunned man ingests the news, an impressed Bake asks, “How did you—”

  “Hide?” the man asks, recovering from Shua’s revelation. “It’s what we do.”

  “We?” Dyer asks.

  In answer to her question, twenty more men, women, and children emerge from the trees around us.

  “You’re the Keepers,” Salem says with a sense of awe.

  “Salem, grandson of Plistim, I am Berube, keeper of secrets. It is an honor to meet you.” Berube turns to Shua. “And where is your father?”

  “Dead,” Shua says, dismounting. “Slain by the men who are now pursuing us. When we have what we came for, you need to flee this place for a time. And leave no trace.”

  “We are not incapable of defending ourselves,” Berube says. “We’ve been set upon many—”

  “The man coming is my husband,” I say. “And his army.”

  Berube levels his gaze at me, looking over my face. “And you are…”

  “Eight,” I say.

  He doesn’t flinch at the news, but he knows the name, understanding that I am the daughter of Jesse and wife of Micha.

  “Why…is she with you?” Berube asks.

  “She is Salem’s mother,” Shua says, and this time Berube looks surprised.

  “You…the elder’s wife? Your son is…” He shakes his head but moves on to another pressing question. He points to Bake. “And who is this strange creature?”

  “Further explanations will have to wait for another time,” Shua says. “We need access to the library.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “A map,” Shua says.

  “Leave the horses,” Berube says, and then to Shua. “You trust them with this secret?”

  “More than anyone else,” Shua says, and he waves for us to join him.

  Berube leads us through a path only he can see. I see no signs of previous passage, and we’re careful to leave none behind us. After a few minutes hike, we stop by an oblong mound upon which nothing grows.

  “If any one of you reveals the location, I will have no choice but to hunt and slay each and every one of you.”

  Dyer snickers, but her smile fades when Shua says, “He’s not joking.” Then to Berube. “They understand, and will die before revealing our secrets.”

  Our secrets. Berube is a Modernist, perhaps even a key figure.

  Berube’s skeptical eyes focus on me.

  “I’m one of you now,” I say, and I’m a bit thrown by the earnest admission. “My husband will torture and kill me whether I tell him what I know, or not. He will learn nothing from me, and if I get the chance, I will avenge Plistim and my father.”

  “Your father?” Berube sounds nervous. “What of Jesse?”

  “Slain,” I say, “by the man no doubt closing in on us.”

  “A father slain by a husband,” Berube says. “You now understand the sacrifice all Modernists make.” He reaches beneath a very normal layer of leaf litter, grasps hold of something hidden, and pulls. A hatch opens upward, perfectly concealed. “Inside. Everyone.”

  The small room on the far side is dark and cramped. We’re plunged into darkness when the hatch closes. There is a scaping sound, and then a light shining down from above. I look up at the clear rectangle through which I can see blue sky and trees. “Is that glass?”

  “We saved more than books,” Berube says.

  “Books?” Salem asks, some of his burden lifted.

  Berube smiles and opens a second door. Light streams down from rectangles in the ceiling, revealing thousands of books contained in glass cases. “Welcome to the library. Well, not the Library. One of many. But…” He waves his hand like he smells something foul. “…you understand.”

  When Shua sees us fanning out to admire the collection of books, documents, and images protected by the rows of glass, he snaps his fingers. “We are here for a reason, and time is sho
rt.”

  “What are you looking for?” Berube asks, “or rather, where are you trying to go?”

  “Mount Fletcher,” Salem says. “That was the Old World name for it. It won’t be too far north from here.”

  “Mountains,” Berube says, crouching by what appears to be a very wide and deep metal drawer. “Mountains… New Hampshire… Here.” He pulls open a drawer, flips through a collection of maps coated in something clear and shiny, and pulls one out. He holds it up, inspecting a large drawing of mountains from above, all of them labeled. “Rattlesnake…Stinson…Fletcher. Found it!”

  He lays the map on a clear table and points to the mountain. “Right there.”

  “Where are we?” Salem asks.

  Berube traces his finger south, then taps the map. “Here. Perhaps an hour’s journey on horseback, accounting for corrections you’ll have to make on the way.” He winds his finger back and forth, following a winding path to our destination.

  “Why can’t we just go straight?” Dyer asks.

  “My dear,” he says, oblivious to her blackened arm, which she’s covered. Even her hand is wrapped. He points to the areas he’d wound his finger around. “These are mountains. Thousands of feet tall. It will be far faster, and easier on your horses if you go around, rather than over.”

  Shua retraces the route with his own finger and then looks to Salem. “Do you have it?”

  Salem nods.

  “We’ll need this.” Shua rolls up the map.

  Berube is mortified. “But—”

  “The mountain might provide the freedom we’ve sought,” Shua says.

  “Your father has sought to undo the Golyat for decades,” Berube says. “What has changed that he gave his life, and you’ve come to me? What did you find over there?”

  “The Golyat is not an individual,” Shua says. “There are thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Perhaps more across the world.”

  “And…” Berube says.

  “They’re coming,” I tell him, in no mood to mince words. “That is what you felt this morning. Not my husband and his deadly masses, but a horde of giants scaling the Divide’s wall. If we do not stop them now, there will be no future for mankind and no place for you to hide.”