Lightning Tracks

by A. A. Kinsela

  Artemis started to explain, ‘We were thanking Basilias for our safe journey home and—’

  ‘Our safe return had nothing to do with any gods,’ Roan growled.

  Artemis looked annoyed that her lie hadn’t been believed.

  ‘But since you’re both so keen to be close to the heavens, you can go up again. At a sprint.’

  Cal groaned. It had taken him longer than usual to reach the top the first time. Sprinting the distance would wipe him out for the rest of the morning.

  ‘If you stand there any longer, Cal, you’ll spend the next week on mess hut duty. By yourself.’

  Cal chased Artemis to the summit and back.

  ‘Again,’ Roan said, indicating their third run.

  By the time they stopped in front of Roan, they were dripping sweat and shaking.

  ‘Get a drink, then go to the cave,’ Roan said.

  The cave. Cal almost collapsed with relief. The cave meant shade, cool rocks to sit on, and an easy task such as weapons maintenance. Sometimes all they did was listen to Roan lecture on anything from astronomy to locksmithing to bush survival to horse training.

  Artemis took a long drink from a leather waterskin. After she was finished, Cal gulped several mouthfuls and poured even more over his head till his hair and singlet were soaked. Then they trudged to the cave that yawned into the mountainside above the camp. A gallery of faded ochre hand prints, fish, and wallabies splattered the highest rock faces, evidence of the first warriors who had inhabited this land many generations ago. The recruits lounged in the dips and crevasses with their boots off and sewing kits out. Cal found a comfortable rock and started stitching the tears in his uniform.

  The air was heavy with a deliberate, concentrated silence. Cal wanted someone to say something – anything – about the solstice mission, but with Roan sitting at the mouth of the cave, no one dared. Cal saw the aftereffects of the mission in the faces of everyone around him except the captain, who seemed unchanged by it.

  Cal respected Roan’s rules and judgement. No matter how hard the captain pushed his recruits, he was never cruel, not like Alexander. Even so, Cal wondered if Roan really would agree with Artemis, that the general’s order to execute the rebels should never have been given.

  As if reading Cal’s thoughts, Roan turned to his recruits and said, ‘Things will get better.’

  It sounded like a promise. Cal sliced the end off his thread and hoped that Roan was right.

  THE DAYS CRAWLED INTO a week, then two weeks, then three. Cal heard no rumours of a Bandála retaliation. Then again, not much news at all reached their isolated training camp. The tension Cal sensed among the recruits, the unspoken questions and silent fears, seemed to ease and be forgotten.

  But Cal couldn’t forget, not when the rebel boy visited him so often in his nightmares. His constant state of exhaustion turned simple chores into challenges. When he was rostered onto dinner duty, he sometimes missed ingredients in the dishes, and had to endure endless complaints from the other recruits.

  One evening, he dragged a cast iron pot from its shelf, plonked it on the table, and stared at its pitted base for a full minute before turning to Artemis and asking, ‘Do you still think about the solstice mission?’

  She scooped a few cups of flour into a bowl before replying, ‘It wasn’t a mission. It was a massacre.’

  Her words drifted into the rafters like a curse.

  Cal packed the hearth with tinder then struck the flint and steel. It took him a few tries to get it to ignite, and when it did, the cool, earthy air of the mess hut became stifling. He threw open the shutters to let in the night air.

  ‘You know I’m right, Cal,’ Artemis said, adding water and salt to the flour. ‘It was a massacre. That’s all it was ever going to be.’

  ‘Stop saying that. You’re not helping.’

  She mixed the dough with her fingers, making loud squelching noises. Cal filled the cast iron pot with cold water then whipped the cover off a bucket of yabbies, tipped them into the pot, and slammed down the lid. The yabbies’ claws clicked against the metal as they tried to escape. Artemis emptied the bread dough onto the table and rammed it with her fists.

  A shadow passed the window, and Cal caught a glimpse of short brown hair and a strong jaw set in a stern expression. It was General Alexander. Without pausing to glance into the mess hut, he strode up the slope towards Roan’s quarters. Cal released an unsteady breath.

  ‘I’ll see if any of the others know why the general’s here,’ Artemis said, and ducked outside.

  Cal pushed the bread dough into a couple of baking tins, slid them and the pot of yabbies onto the hearth, and nestled several root vegetables among the hot embers. He placed a handful of small earthenware jars on the battered bloodwood table, opening each of the lids and inhaling the scent of the herbs.

  One by one, the Arai recruits filed into the mess hut. Artemis didn’t return until Cal was setting the bread and pot of yabbies on the table. She sat down, mumbled a prayer of thanks, and cracked open a yabbie shell like she was killing it all over again. Cal tried to catch her eye, but she refused to look up from her dinner.

  Alexander stepped out of Roan’s hut, and Artemis stared unblinking as he walked towards his tethered horse and waiting bodyguards. She gulped a mouthful of water, slammed her cup down. Shoved her chair back. Strode out of the mess hut. Stunned silence choked the room. Then plates clattered onto the floor as the recruits scrambled to the window.

  ‘What was the point of it?’ Artemis yelled.

  Alexander stopped. Turned. Levelled his hazel stare at her.

  ‘Get back to the mess hut, Artemis!’ Roan ordered, his eyes wide with alarm.

  She ignored him. ‘We didn’t have to kill those Bandála. It was a massacre. It was wrong. Why did you give the order?’

  Cal thought he saw a flash of trepidation in Alexander’s gaze. The general looked at the mess where the recruits stood watching, and his hesitation vanished.

  Grabbing a fistful of Artemis’s hair, Alexander said, ‘Roan, bring me a whip.’

  Before he had time to think through the consequences, Cal found himself standing in front of the general, breathless with panic. ‘Sir, please don’t.’

  Alexander knocked him aside with a backhand. ‘Has this entire training camp lost its integrity?’

  With an immense effort of will, Cal straightened and bowed his head in submission.

  ‘Twenty lashes for insubordination, girl,’ Alexander said. ‘And the rest of you will learn not to question the king’s authority.’

  Artemis struggled as Alexander’s bodyguards strapped her to a wooden bench. Alexander snatched the whip Roan offered, shook out the leather thong, and coiled his fingers around the stock. The two bodyguards clutched their sword hilts, ready to stop anyone who dared to challenge the general. Roan was paler than Cal had ever seen him, but he could do nothing. None of them could.

  Cal jolted as the whip cracked across Artemis’s shoulders. She screamed. She screamed with the next lash as well. And the one after that. Cal flinched with each stroke. At the fourteenth, Artemis fell silent. At the seventeenth, she was unconscious. By the time Alexander was finished, Cal was fighting back tears.

  The general stepped towards the line of recruits, breathing heavily and eyes gleaming with disgust. Flecks of blood dotted his cheek. ‘If anyone else from this mileskúlos camp speaks against the king, you will all be punished.’

  He tossed the whip at Roan’s feet then swung onto his horse and rode down the mountain trail with his men following close behind.

  Cal rushed to free Artemis’s wrists, catching her as she slid off the bench. Blood drenched the tattered remains of her shirt, and beneath the broken skin on her back Cal saw shredded sinew.

  ‘Artemis?’ Cal said, wiping his eyes dry. ‘Artemis, wake up.’

  Roan scooped her out of Cal’s arms and carried her into his hut, calling over his shoulder for boiling water and bandages.

  In th
at moment, as he sat in the dust with Artemis’s blood on his hands, something in Cal’s mind clicked. At the first opportunity, he would run, and he’d take Artemis with him.

  Chapter 7: Escape plan

  When Nick woke up, he was hurting. It hurt to open his eyes. It hurt to raise his hand to scratch his nose. It hurt most of all to roll onto his side and curl into a ball.

  ‘You’re awake, gumbrain. About time.’

  He groaned. He’d need at least ten minutes to regain full use of his limbs. Another ten on top of that for his vocal chords to kick in.

  ‘You want some breakfast?’

  He bent one elbow, then the other, and pushed himself upright.

  ‘It can’t be that bad, you big baby.’

  With a scowl, he scanned the mud hut and spotted Jinx sitting cross-legged on a reed mat, chewing something dark and meaty. Her hair was all spirals, coils and springs, as if a clock had exploded out the back of her head. Nick’s hair did the same thing. Mía used to spend hours combing the knots out but she gave up in later years when he became too strong to be made to sit still. When he said he wanted dreadlocks, she knotted his hair up so completely that neither of them ever had to brush it again.

  The memory of yesterday’s events came crashing down on him. Suspended from school. The rider in black trying to kill him. Mía dead. David sick. The warriors tying Nick to a pole. The box full of weapons.

  His chest constricted with dread, and he shut his eyes.

  ‘You slept heaps,’ Jinx said.

  He opened an eye. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Fifth hour.’

  He frowned as he attempted to work out what that meant. Maybe fifth hour after sunrise? That would make it around eleven o’clock.

  ‘Where’s David?’ he asked.

  ‘Down at the creek with Mum.’

  Nick slapped the dust off his shorts and shirt, pulled on his shoes, and stepped into the blinding daylight.

  ‘You’re not allowed to leave, you know,’ Jinx said, leaning on the mudbrick wall. ‘The warriors will hunt you down like a wounded goanna. Might even eat you if you annoy them enough.’

  Nick glanced about in alarm, but found the camp deserted except for a couple of ancient women sitting around the fire pounding seeds with rocks. They stared at Nick, their toothless mouths open, and he couldn’t work out if they were smiling or attempting to catch flies.

  ‘Nice try, Jinx,’ he said. ‘Where’s the creek?’

  She huffed and pointed. ‘That way.’

  He hurried through the bush in the direction she’d indicated and found Xanthe and David sitting side by side at the water’s edge. Their shoulders touched, and David’s bandaged hand rested on Xanthe’s thigh. Nick froze, the dread he’d felt a moment ago backing up like a blocked pipe.

  ‘Good morning, Nick,’ David said. ‘Feeling better?’

  Nick nodded. The weapons chest and black Arai uniform were Xanthe’s, and she was chatting with David in such a normal manner that Nick began to wonder if his original suspicions were correct – that they were both Arai.

  ‘I’ll give you two a moment alone,’ she said, smiling at David before she left.

  David stretched his legs out. ‘It was a good thing you bumped into Xanthe yesterday. I don’t think I’d be here otherwise.’

  Nick crouched beside him and asked, ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Xanthe? She’s my wife.’

  Nick sat down heavily. ‘Your...wife? But she’s an Arai.’

  David frowned. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea, Nick, but—’

  ‘I saw a box full of weapons in her hut. I saw a uniform and sword exactly like that assassin yesterday who killed...’ Nick swallowed.

  David regarded Nick with a look of resignation. ‘Alright. Yes, she was an Arai once. But she’s not now. She hasn’t been for a very long time.’

  Nick chewed a thumb nail. ‘So...if Xanthe’s your wife, is Jinx your daughter?’

  David nodded.

  ‘How long have you been married?’

  ‘Eighteen years.’

  ‘But that’s...that’s longer than I’ve even been alive!’ Nick’s blood began to simmer and spit as rage took hold. ‘You lived with me till I was eight and you never mentioned this other family. Not once! Did Mía know?’

  ‘Of course she did.’

  ‘Oh. Right. And I suppose you just forgot to tell me, huh?’

  David seemed to consider this before replying, ‘It was easier not to say anything.’

  ‘You arsehole.’

  ‘What did you just call me?’

  ‘Are you deaf now as well as a liar?’ Nick pulled down his collar and stabbed a finger at his tattoo. ‘This is the mark of the Arai, isn’t it?’

  David didn’t answer, and his silence ripped a hole in Nick’s chest.

  ‘Why did you give it to me? Was it because you wanted me to be like you and Xanthe? Is that why Mía hit you? Is that why you left?’

  David still didn’t speak, but his jaw was clenched tight.

  ‘You abandoned me and Mía without any explanation, and all this time you had another family.’

  With an irritated scowl, David said, ‘I didn’t abandon you.’

  ‘It felt like that to me! How did the Arai track Mía and me down? Is it because you sold us out?’

  David surged to his feet. Nick scuttled back.

  ‘I would never betray you to the Arai, Nick. Never. Xanthe and I have spent the last thirteen years protecting you.’

  ‘Protecting me? That’s a joke. You left when I was eight and I never even met Xanthe until yesterday. Mía was the one who stayed. She listened. She understood. She was there for me no matter what. You weren’t. You didn’t even bother to say goodbye.’

  ‘I did what I had to do.’

  The words knocked the breath out of Nick. For a moment, all he could do was gasp. Then he was running. Uphill he ran, up and up till his bare feet slapped smooth rocks and the ridge fell away into a wide valley. A hot breeze blasted him, whipping his hair and drying the tears on his cheeks. One thought circled in his mind: David had branded him with the Arai symbol. He’d said it was Nick’s future. No wonder Mía had wanted David out of their lives.

  Nick clenched his teeth and paced the cliff top, trying to control his fury. It bubbled out of him, too strong to fight, so he faced the valley and roared till his breath left him. Then he gulped another lungful of air and bellowed again and again. He ripped off his shirt and scratched at his tattoo till his skin was raw and stinging. The black mark stayed right where it was, like a bullet hole above his heart.

  He slumped onto his knees, held his head in his hands, and sobbed. When his energy was spent, he raised his eyes and took in the view. Things were missing from the landscape. A highway should have cut through the nearest hill. Beyond it, farms were supposed to stretch as far as the horizon. Instead, the bush rose up the escarpments and dipped into the gullies as if the national park covered the entire continent.

  But he recognised the tracks of the trickling creeks and the silhouettes of the basalt boulders rising like fists from the hills. He rubbed his eyes. He wished Mía was here to explain things, to show him the way home. But she was gone. She’d gone so far away Nick couldn’t reach her anymore. All his life, she’d been there for him in a way that David never had. Her smile and quiet strength had held him upright. Her words had encouraged him when he’d most needed to hear them. He could still hear her voice whispering in his imagination.

  Now that Mía was gone, now that Nick had discovered the extent of David’s betrayal, what, Nick asked himself, was he going to do? The question was so huge it engulfed all his other thoughts.

  When Xanthe crouched beside him, he didn’t look at her.

  ‘I brought you some water, Nick. I thought you might like a drink.’

  He snatched the leather pouch and coughed as the first mouthful choked him.

  ‘What is this place?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s called Yánd
emar,’ she replied.

  Yándemar.

  Something prickled in the back of Nick’s memory. It was more a feeling than any firm recollection. Had he heard that word before – Yándemar? He tried to drag the memory to the foreground of his mind, but it dissipated before he could grasp it.

  Nick gazed out across the landscape, his jaw set. This was Australia. Buckadgery Creek was ten kilometres west. Canyon Drive lay south, and Striker’s Run cut through the eastern flank of the national park. There were farms and highways on the outskirts of the national park, and farmers sometimes got into trouble for letting their cattle graze farther than was legal. The long rocky range he was standing on was the Spit. It ran straight through the national park for sixty kilometres, rising from the dirt like an exposed dinosaur skeleton. If he turned to his left, he’d be looking towards Sydney. He’d gone there once on a school camp. The bus trip had taken seven hours.

  This was Nick’s home. This was where he grew up. This was where all his memories lay. He glanced between Xanthe and the view. Had everything he’d ever known vanished?

  ‘What was that loud shimmery thing I saw yesterday between the rocks?’ he asked.

  ‘It was a song gate.’

  ‘How did David open it?’

  ‘He didn’t. It’s always been open.’

  ‘But he used a piece of mirror to close it.’

  She nodded. ‘That disrupted the energy and the gate was destroyed.’

  Nick stared at her, appalled. ‘Destroyed? You mean I can’t ever go home?’

  ‘Home?’ she repeated, looking puzzled. Then her expression softened, almost with pity, and she said, ‘There are other gates.’

  He gazed out across the strange, familiar landscape. ‘Did I go back through time? Is this two hundred years ago or something?’

  ‘No. This is now. Where you grew up is now. It’s all now.’

  He looked at the waning moon. Maybe his home was still there, he thought. He just couldn’t see it. He wondered if Yándemar was a blueprint of Australia. The landforms seemed to be the same, but he couldn’t see any roads, which meant there probably weren’t any cars. These people counted time in hours after sunrise, and measured distance in travel days. He wondered if they’d even heard of electricity. Glancing over the snakeskin hilt of Xanthe’s hunting knife and her hand-stitched clothing, Nick guessed not. In this place, something as basic as a corkscrew might be considered cutting-edge technology.