Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series

by Peter J Dudley

  “Nearly so, yes.”

  “What… how long… did I miss everything?” I sit up, ignoring the stiffness and pain that anchor me to the bed.

  She smiles at me with a warmth even more nourishing than the broth. “Don’t worry. You didn’t miss any killing.” She turns away to face a small, iron kettle hanging over an open fire on the floor and spoons more broth into my bowl. She mumbles something that sounds like, “But hasn’t there been enough of that anyway.”

  “Why am I here?” I feel suddenly awake. I’m wearing nothing but a thin shirt and some undershorts, but thick blankets keep me warm. I toss them to the side, and the cold night air bites at me.

  “Now, Lupay,” Susannah chides, “surely your mama raised you better’n that. That ain’t no way to speak to your hostess. I may be just a hill girl and never had no schooling, but I know enough.” She glides back to me with the bowl in her hands, its steam glowing in her face.

  Is she joking? I really can’t tell. “Susannah, I’m sorry, but…” I look around the room for my things. I don’t see my clothes, or my boots, or—

  “Susannah, where’s my whip? Where’s my knife?”

  “Hush. You need to eat and rest up. Don’t worry, Lupay. They won’t go to no killing without you. They need their Forsada.”

  “You don’t have to sound so… accusing,” I say. “It’s not like I wanted any of this.”

  “No, I guess not,” she says as she reaches out and pushes me down again. She presses until I lie back on the bed and let her straighten the blankets. “But now it’s happened, I wonder if maybe… well, if maybe you’re getting to like it.”

  “What do you mean?” This time the broth is plumped with little chunks of chicken.

  “All the killing.”

  “I don’t like killing, Susannah.”

  “I know you don’t. It’s just… Oh, never mind.”

  “No, I won’t nevermind,” I say. I raise myself onto one elbow to look her in the face. “I don’t like killing.”

  Do I?

  “Of course you don’t. It was a silly thing. It’s late. I don’t know what I’m on about. Just forget it.”

  “No. You can’t unsay something like that. I don’t like killing, Susannah. I wish there could be no more killing. I wish there never was any killing.” I wish Shack were here. I wish Shack and Garrett and I could go look at the fresh ice forming on the river, go hunting squirrels at the edge of the first high snows. I wish so many things. No, I don’t like killing. But it’s the only way to finish this.

  Susannah stays quiet. I don’t know if she can hear my thoughts. The killing… It’s just survival. What am I supposed to do?

  We stay quiet for several seconds. She sniffs. I don’t want her to feel sad.

  She’s been through so much in her short life. Such struggle with a horrid husband, and bearing three daughters when she’s not much more than a girl herself. She’s never shown sadness or self-pity. She’s been nothing but strong. It’s just survival, Lupay. What is she supposed to do?

  I try to change the subject. “Is that bread on the hearth?”

  She smiles for real, and she pretends to scratch her nose as she wipes at her eyes. “Why, yes. How stupid of me. I’d have burned it!” She bustles herself across the room and juggles the hot rolls to the bed, dropping them onto the blankets on my stomach.

  We both laugh. Her laugh is so much more beautiful than her sniffles.

  I pick up a roll and bite into it. It singes my tongue, but I don’t care. It’s delicious and gritty and thick. I sigh so she can hear my contentment. I dip the roll into the broth before popping the rest into mouth. “I swear, Susannah, this might be the best midnight dinner I’ve ever eaten.” The bread, like the room, tastes of rosemary and lavender.

  “Oh, that ain’t true,” she says. But I can see her happy indestructibility returning.

  “But,” I say after another bite, “why am I here? And where are the others?”

  Susannah’s shack is buried a mile back in the woods, two or three miles below Patrick’s camp. It’s a long way to bring me. Did they need to hide me? Is everything all right? My guts start to tighten as worries prowl the edges of my mind.

  “Well,” Susannah starts with hesitation. “You’re Forsada. They figured Forsada don’t get sick. Patrick and Garrett, they agreed right away. They need you looking strong. Being strong.”

  “So I can lead the killing,” I finish.

  “Something like that.”

  Why me? A heavy slowness settles over me again, and all I want is to disappear into sleep. There will be killing. Lots of killing. And I’ll lead it. But not right now. Right now I just want to feel the heavy weight of these thick blankets, let the warmth of her broth and bread fill me. “Thank you, Susannah.”

  This surprises her. “Thank me? What for?”

  “For being so kind. What else?”

  I slide back down under the covers, letting my body sink into the rough bedding. I might sleep, or I might not. I turn on my side, relishing the aches that spread and fade across my body. I close my eyes and whisper, “Good night,” as Susannah douses the candle and the room falls into a musty blackness.

  CHAPTER 23

  “It hasn’t gone well, Loop,” Garrett says as he wraps me in a big hug. “I hope you got some rest.”

  “A little,” I reply.

  Somehow Patrick and Garrett managed to get their two armies to make it all the way to the burned-out meadow along the river without fighting each other. It’s late in the afternoon, and the two enormous groups have encamped at opposite ends of the blackened clearing. Garrett and I stand on the ridge overlooking the valley, in the same spot we stood with Shack that morning he died.

  Nearly a thousand people fill this smallish valley, in two very separate clumps. Three hundred Southshawan invaders hunker at the eastern side, downriver. Their tan tents form tidy rings around freshly dug fire pits.

  At the other end, upriver to the west, six hundred Tawtrukkers sprawl across the ashen dirt like they fell from the sky and just stuck where they landed. Colors splash here and there—red, orange, yellow, sky blue—in blankets and cloth laid out on the ground or draped over poles. It’s like a jumble of jewels scattered across the black field. It’s unexpectedly pretty, and the colors make me smile.

  Between the two camps is an expanse of two hundred yards, empty except at the very center where a single, large tent has been raised. I nudge Garrett with my elbow and point at it.

  “Freda’s idea,” he says. “You have no idea how hard it’s been to keep them from ripping each other apart. Half the Uppers want to kill the Southshawans, and the rest just want them to get the hell out of Tawtrukk. Shem’s got the Upper leaders keeping them all on their side. For now.”

  “And the big tent?”

  “That’s where you and Freda sleep tonight.”

  “Huh.” I can’t think of much else to say. Seems a little extreme to put the two of us there. “Freda’s idea?” I guess that makes sense. She probably doesn’t feel safe on either side. But it’s hardly courageous to cut yourself off like that.

  I don’t like it. “I want to be with my people, not apart,” I tell Garrett.

  “I know, Loop.”

  Then he doesn’t agree with the idea either. Good. I won’t have to—

  “But you have to.”

  “What?” Why would Garrett side with Freda? “No. I’m going to be with my people.”

  “That’s the thing, Loop. They’re all your people now. And they’re all Freda’s people. And then again, they’re not.”

  I know exactly what he means, but I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to go along with it. “That sounds like something Dane would say.”

  “You have to do this, Loop.” Garrett turns to me and puts his hands on my shoulders.

  For an instant he looks just like Shack, and I suddenly want to grab him and hold him tight. But he frowns, and the moment passes, and he’s Garrett again. It leaves
an empty ache where my heart should be. I turn away, looking down at the valley again so he can’t see my eyes getting moist.

  “It’s bigger than you or me now, Loop. Bigger than Tawtrukk.” His hands slide off my shoulders. “Remember who the bad guy is, okay?”

  We stare down in silence at the tent where Freda and I will sleep. A small group of men stand around a woman—Freda, I think—in a half circle. The woman looks like she’s giving orders.

  So Garrett put her in charge, then. The rat. He sent me away to “rest,” and now he’s turning everything over to Freda? What has she done? All along he’s been taking her side. He wanted me to wait with him at the cave, but I went and killed Travis, allied with Patrick. I was the one who went to the refugee camp. I’m Forsada. Not her.

  I watch him from the corner of my eye as he gazes down at Freda and the men standing around her. He seems lost in thought. He’s staring awfully intently at her.

  Well, why should I care? Tomorrow we’ll kill Darius, and then he can do whatever he wants.

  He doesn’t look at me as he asks, “You know what tomorrow is, right?”

  The day we kill Darius. But I know that’s not what he means. “Wednesday?”

  He grins a little but looks sad. “It’s our half birthday.”

  “Huh?”

  “Me and Shack. October fourteenth. Our half birthday.”

  “Oh. Right.” It’s mid October already?

  When they were twelve they decided they deserved two birthdays every year instead of one. One on their actual birthday in April, and one half-birthday. It didn’t really matter since their father never gave them any presents anyway, but they always found a way to do something foolish to celebrate.

  He lifts his hand and points to a spot not far from where Freda stands.

  “Right there. That’s where he died, you know.”

  I don’t look. I know who he means. I can’t look at the spot. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to remember it.

  “Come on,” I say, and my voice is colder and crueler than I intend. I hurry along the same path we followed that morning, trying not to think about Shack’s sad eyes and frigid expression. But the memory haunts me. It filled my dreams when I was sick. He knew what was going to happen. I’m sure of it. And in my memory, he looks at peace with it.

  But I’m not.

  Darius must pay.

  After a moment, Garrett follows and catches up. “Loop, I need to tell you—”

  “Let’s just walk, okay?”

  We walk in silence down to the burned-out field and trudge across the empty space together, pointing ourselves directly at Freda. No one seems to notice our approach or care about it until we’re within a knife’s throw from them.

  They speak in hurried, quiet argument. There are six of them, plus Freda: Patrick and two of his guys, and Shem and two of the leaders from Upper.

  “But what if they don’t get through?” This is one of the Tawtrukk leaders, anger prickling in his words.

  “Then,” replies Patrick in a slow, low growl, “we will have to defeat them on our own.”

  Shem says, “We been through all this, over an over an over. Unless you lot want to go back up the hill and wait for them to come get you again, it’s our best chance.”

  Freda catches my eye as we arrive. The intense look of concentration on her face changes to one of stony coldness, and she declares, “It’s our only chance.” She opens her arms to me and says, “Welcome back, Lupay.”

  What the heck? It looks like she expects me to hug her. What for? Like I’m supposed to be happy to see her? Like she’s the new queen or something? I start to sneer when Garrett’s fingers dig into my back and press me forward. The six men turn and look at us for the first time. While their attention is on me, Freda’s expression softens, and she pleads to me with her eyes. Yes, she does expect me to hug her.

  Well, she’s smart, I’ll give her that. I don’t know it’ll do any good, but I go to her and wrap my arms around her. The embrace is wooden and brief.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I didn’t want to be away. I—”

  “We were just discussing your plan for the attack.”

  What is she talking about? “My plan for—”

  “Yes. The plan you told Patrick about before you went to… pray. In the wilderness.”

  Freda’s gone completely nuts. I didn’t talk to Patrick about any plan. And I certainly as hell didn’t go out and pray anywhere, in the wilderness or anywhere else. She’s lost her mind.

  Patrick steps forward, breaking the semicircle. “You remember, Lupay. It was right before you left. You laid it all out. How Steven and Tom will take a small group through the tunnels that Tom knows tonight, and come at Lower from the north. How Sam is already on his way to release the prisoners, arm them, and have them attack Darius from the rear. How you and I will go with Freda in front of this army, and draw Darius out to the narrow section of the canyon where we’ll have a better chance at victory.”

  He smiles at me. “I thought we should try to negotiate with Darius, but you came up with this plan. And it’s better.”

  He’s out of his mind, too. I never came up with that. I was asleep in Susannah’s shack in the woods while they drew this all up.

  But it sounds like a pretty good plan. Better than anything I’d come up with, that’s for sure.

  Garrett asks me, “Did you think of anything better while you were… praying?” Somehow he manages not to laugh or choke when he says that last word.

  “No,” I reply. What am I going to say? Garrett’s in on this, too, then? The three of them have set this stew to boil, and if I say too much I might spoil it. I know Freda’s smart. And Patrick seems to know what he’s doing. And Garrett… sometimes he makes me mad, but I trust him with my life. If there ever comes a day when I can’t trust him, then that will be the day I don’t want to live anymore. “That’s the best I could think of.”

  The six men are still looking at me, but I see relief soften Freda’s face again momentarily. Then she recovers her grim, stern look. “It’s decided, then,” she says.

  She grasps my wrist and pulls me along behind her to the tent. I stumble to catch up, but the others stay outside.

  We slip between two thick, wool blankets that form the tent door. Inside, blankets are hung to split the space into two little rooms. Each room has one blanket spread on the floor with a single unlit candle. The thin afternoon light filters in through the heavy cloth, and dust swirls in the dimness.

  Enough. We’re alone now. Time for explanations. “Freda—”

  She puts her fingers to my lips to hush me. Who does she think she is?

  Patrick’s voice pierces the blankets around us. “We have our plan, boys. You all know what to do.”

  “I still don’t like it,” says one of the Tawtrukk men.

  “You ain’t gotta like it.” Shem’s voice. “You just gotta do it.”

  Other sounds of boots shuffling in the scorched dirt, and after a few seconds they fade into the distance and we’re surrounded by silence.

  “Now,” Freda says, “first things first. Are you all right?”

  “Am I all right?” My voice trembles with anger as I hold back from shouting. I want to yell. I want to push things over, knock things down. I want to break something. “Am I all right? Yeah, I’m just great. I go away for one day, and when I come back you’ve become queen princess with everyone kissing your feet. What the heck, Freda? Praying? You told them I was praying?”

  Freda stifles a smile. “That was Garrett,” Freda says so softly it’s almost a whisper. She doesn’t move, doesn’t back away or cower as I pace around our tiny, tight space. “Quite inspired, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask you.”

  Garrett’s idea? Really? He told everyone I was praying. Right. Why in hell would he do that?

  “Lupay, you have to understand Southshawans.”

  “Oh, I understand them,” I say. “Violent. Cruel.
St—” I am about to say “stupid” but stop myself. I have a lot of reasons to hate everything about Southshaw. But Freda is from Southshaw. Dane, too. And Patrick. Not stupid. “Misguided,” I finish.

  “You’re right on that,” Freda says. “But we are also a people with a deep reliance on faith.”

  “Faith? In what? Isn’t it Darius’ faith that started this whole war in the first place? Didn’t he manipulate all these people with faith? It’s faith that—”

  She cuts me off by grabbing both my hands, halting my restless pacing. “Please, Lupay. Keep your voice down. We don’t know who might be outside, and… things are delicate.”

  I snort. Delicate. We’re about to have a battle, and a lot of people might die. How is that delicate?

  “What you need to understand about these Southshawans,” she says, her calmness and patience driving me crazy, “is that they are desperate to follow you. They know they’ve been manipulated. They know they’ve hurt people.”

  “Then they should fix it.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Freda says. She releases my hands. For a moment she looks very tired. She’s had a rough time, too. I should give her some slack, I suppose. I don’t know if she loved Dane for real or not, but they’ve gone through enough together that she must feel awful losing him. Maybe even as bad as I feel about losing Shack.

  I take a long, slow, deep breath and try to relax. We can’t do anything for hours, so I should just calm down and listen. Okay, Freda, I’m all ears. Explain to me why I should go along with all these lies. Lies started this war. Doesn’t that mean anything?

  She wanders across the small space and busies her hands with lighting a candle. The light outside is fading, and the candle’s flame brightens things but turns the inside of the tent into a tangle of shadows. I breathe deep again, pushing aside my growing impatience.

  “They are afraid of you,” she says at last.

  “Good. They should be,” I reply. If I could have, I’d probably have killed every one of them.

  No, that’s not really true. What I told Susannah about there being too much killing? How I don’t like killing? That’s what’s really true. It’s what I want to be true.