The Wasteland Soldier, Book 3, Drums Of War (TWS)

by Moore, Laurence

  Stone frowned.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I told you, I told you, it was the deacon. He wants the Shaylighters to take back the land. Brian’s wife went to him, she was having doubts; she didn’t want anyone to get killed so we were sent to punish her and make sure she didn’t start talking to the Churchmen.”

  Stone jerked away the knife, straightened his back.

  “What about the girls?”

  “The girls? What about them? The girls? Is that it? What? You cut me because of them. Sure, we took them. What does that matter? Who cares about some kids?”

  “Who is the Predator?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  Stone jabbed a fist into his face, split his lip wide open.

  “Who?”

  “I never met him. It was Dobbs. Dobbs made all the deals. You shouldn’t have killed him. Why did you kill him? He was my friend.”

  Stone glanced over his shoulder.

  “It would’ve taken too long to make him talk. I knew you’d break quickly.”

  He cupped Farrell’s bloody chin, tilted back his head and raised the knife to his eye.

  “I don’t know. I swear on the cross.”

  “Means nothing to me. Where did you take them?”

  “Winshead.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A hamlet, north of here.”

  Stone nudged the tip closer to his eye.

  “Where in Winshead?”

  “The old farm. We took them there. Dobbs dealt with him.”

  “Did you take Kaya up there?”

  There were footsteps and voices outside. Stone clamped a hand across Farrell’s mouth and waited.

  Farrell tried to cry out but his voice was muffled.

  Then the footsteps moved on and the voices faded. Stone eased his hand away. He whispered in Farrell’s ear.

  “Did you take Kaya up there?”

  “Yes, yes, we took her.”

  “You gave her to the Predator?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  “Who else?”

  “What?”

  “Who else did you give to him?”

  He was sobbing as he spoke. “Kaya, Megan, Lissa, Daisy …”

  “Lissa? Do you mean Clarissa?”

  “Yes, we took her. Tawny, Leanne, all of them.”

  Stone took the knife away. Farrell’s breathing was laboured. His face streamed with blood and tears.

  “One more question.”

  “I don’t know anything more.”

  “Shhh,” said Stone. “What’s so important about Brian lighting the beacon?”

  Farrell coughed, spat. “It’s a signal for the Shaylighters … to tell them the Archbishop is here. Essamon will melt him and burn that fucking building to the ground. He has Ancient tech, a box with a light that kills. I’m sorry … it was Dobbs, it was all Dobbs … I’m so sorry …”

  Stone patted him on the shoulder. Then covered his mouth and plunged the knife into his eye.

  Farrell screamed into Stone’s hand. He thrashed in the chair.

  “I’ll tell the girl’s you’re sorry,” he growled.

  Then he slashed his windpipe.

  There was a frantic knock. Kaya snapped her eyes open.

  “Stone,” said Nuria, getting to her feet. She studied his face in the doorway. She saw the blood on his clothes.

  “We need horses and ammunition,” he said. “The Predator is in a place called Winshead. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  He walked away, without further explanation. She watched him stamp toward the barracks, head bowed.

  A crushing sensation gripped her. It was as if he was walking away for the last time and she would never see him again. Her heart burned. Tears sprang into her eyes. She was shocked at the sudden feeling. She had been around Quinn too long this evening. The drink was swimming through. Her bones were snapping and crumbling to dust. She wanted it over. She wanted it to end. She wanted to stop hating herself. It was time to put an end to it all. The monsters of Tamnica were far away. There were new monsters to kill. Stone wanted her, needed her.

  “Do you love him?”

  “We travel together. We’re not sleeping with each other.”

  “Do you want it to be more? Does he?”

  She stared at the cup in her hand, swirling with unfinished drink. She glanced over her shoulder at Kaya; looking up at her, eyes haunted.

  She wanted an end to it, too.

  “We’re good together. I think that’s enough. For both of us. We’ve been through a lot.”

  Nuria hurled the cup away. It was time to kill the monsters.

  All of them.

  Boyd led Stone through a torch lit courtyard. The ground underfoot was straw and mud. A handful of Churchmen patrolled the walls. One of the men swept the black landscape with a telescope. The merchant pushed through a door into a dormitory. There were neat bunks and wooden lockers and flickering candles. He could see through an open doorway into an armoury. The weapon racks were half-empty.

  Stone spoke. Boyd listened.

  “The Archbishop?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t think the attack on Great Onglee was part of their plan but when Quinn went into Mosscar the Shaylighters had to respond.”

  “So you had nothing to do with stirring them up?”

  Stone shrugged. “I might have pissed them off.”

  The portly man ran a hand through his shock of grey hair. “Brian lights the beacon and that’s the signal for them to attack here.”

  “You don’t have enough men,” said Stone. “Even when Duggan returns with the rest of the garrison.”

  Boyd held his cross. “And they plan to strike on the first day of the Summer Blessings? We need to pray hard, Stone.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll send a rider to intercept the convoy. Duggan can arrest Brian.”

  “Make sure your men tear down that beacon.”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it for a minute.”

  Stone thought. He had nothing.

  “I’m certain the Shaylighters are not aware of the exact timing of the Summer Blessings. Why would they be? That’s why Brian constructed the beacon in the first place so he could signal them.”

  “What are you scheming?”

  “What if we light the beacon but only when we’re ready for them? Draw them in and with the will of the Lord take them down.”

  “That’s a dangerous game. And I just told you - you don’t have enough men.”

  “We would have with the Marshal Regiments.” He saw Stone frown. “The Marshal Regiments are stationed along the Place of Bridges. They are veteran units of men who fought in the war, there to protect us from any intrusions by the Kiven. There are easily six to seven hundred men watching a border where nothing has happened for ten years. If the Albury’s sanction the release of half of the men we could ambush the Shaylighters here and wipe them out.”

  “The Shaylighters have three or four times that number.”

  “You’ve never seen the Marshal’s fight. Three hundred men would be enough.”

  He saw the unease in Stone.

  “We’ll have to deal with them eventually. Why not now? We can use their own plan against them."

  Stone shrugged. “I thought you were worried about the Kiven?”

  “I’m worried about the Engineer. But he’s only one man and now I have his identity I can approach the Kiven Alliance and disclose to them the truth that Omar is smuggling old weapons into Ennpithia. I will persuade them to have him arrested or the trade agreement will be finished and, believe me, they need that agreement. They need the food. The Black Region is a wasteland.”

  “What if this Engineer has been using the Shaylighters so you’d weaken your border with them?”

  Boyd thought for a long time. “What choice have they left us? We don’t have enough men. You said it yo
urself. And the Shaylighters will eventually attack. Whether the beacon is lit or not.”

  “Untying one hand to tie the other is a shit idea.” Stone rested on his revolver. “I’m leaving for Winshead.”

  “What? You’re meant to be taking me to Touron at dawn.”

  “I’ll be back before then.”

  Boyd raised an eyebrow. “With hundreds of Shaylighters behind you?”

  Stone said nothing.

  “Thank you, Stone, for this information. And thank you for saving Quinn. She means a lot. She’s like a daughter to me.”

  “You have a daughter.”

  Boyd shook his head. “I don’t even have a wife, Stone. My family are employed by the Albury’s to perpetuate my cover.”

  He glanced around the barracks. “Though I’ve had to reveal myself to take control of this situation. I think my spying days might be over. You should go; I’ll take men to arrest Deacon Rush.”

  He paused. “What did you do with Dobbs and Farrell?”

  “Forget about them.”

  Rush stood beside the beacon, buffeted by strong winds. It was a marvellous structure; branches of different lengths, shades and thickness, woven and knotted and bound without rope or string. He was impressed how it did not simply spring apart or tumble down into a heap. It reached high into the dark sky, as tall as four men. Brian had laboured on it for months, filling it with foliage, anything combustible. The people of the village had casually observed his work, now and then bringing him a plate of food and a jug of beer, free of charge.

  The black robed man smiled, somewhat ruefully. Brian had created an impressive masterpiece; it was a shame it had to burn. Not that it would. There would be no signal. He knew it was over. Essamon would never see the flames. He could light it now - but what would be the point? The Archbishop was still on the road from Touron.

  He let out a sigh and glanced down at the hand made gifts on the ground, carefully placed by the children. He had led them from the village school to inspect the finished beacon and their eyes had sparkled brightly and their heads had tilted back at the monument erected in honour of the Archbishop and the Summer Blessings. There were innocent chalk drawings and bead bracelets and smiling knitted dolls stuffed with wool and dried flower arrangements and crosses carved from bone and more drawings and brightly painted pots and wooden balls and wooden skittles and wooden swords.

  The Archbishop would inspect the offerings and praise the children and then the items would be gathered into a chest and taken to Touron to be distributed in the orphanage.

  Rush faced the dark sky.

  “Where are you?” he said, softly. “Are you not going to punish me for my many sins? Why don’t you show yourself to me? Just this once. Reveal yourself to me as you revealed yourself to the Patriarch.”

  The Patriarch; every man, woman and child in Ennpithia knew the tale of the wandering Churchman, the first soldier, the Holy Marshal of the Cross. Touron claimed status as the capital town, where laws were made, where the Archbishop and the Albury’s resided, but it was at Brix, in the most hostile of landscapes, where the legend had been born, upon this very hill, upon this very spot, overlooking the Holy House, its sand blasted stone walls having resisted the terrible fury of the Metal Spears.

  He had stumbled upon the building, hungry, thirsty, wounded, riddled with sickness, a rifle strapped to his back, a pistol in his hands. He had sought sanctuary, intrigued how the cross around his neck matched the cross on the roof, but as his shaking and blistered hand reached for the door a voice called to him and he followed the voice and climbed the hill of rock and ash and bent his knees. He looked to the Above and begged for mercy and forgiveness. And the clouds parted and he heard the Word of the Lord. The Lord ordered him to throw down his weapons of sin and that they would be forbidden.

  The Patriarch, fearful of punishment for the wicked deeds he had committed to survive, cast aside his rifle and pistol and the Lord showed grace and mercy and He reshaped the world before the Patriarch’s eye; His mighty strength, His immeasurable wisdom; He summoned forth the trees and the grass and they thrust through the soil blackened by Man. Where there were quarries the Lord made lakes. Where there were ravines the Lord made rivers. Then His mighty hand hovered above the last city, a city of steel and concrete, a city of Man, and He rued the greed and the folly of Man and he half-buried the city and told the Patriarch it would serve as a message to those who chose the path of the Before.

  Rush lifted the cross from around his neck and pushed it into the beacon. The wind swerved around him, carrying voices from below.

  They were coming. It would soon end.

  “But you can’t show yourself, can you?” he whispered. “You can’t because you’re not there. Maybe you were, once, maybe you did restore this land. Or maybe it was never broken to begin with. But you abandoned us. That much is certain. You allowed the Ennpithians to drive us from our homes. We will always hate you for that.”

  Rush saw the tall bearded man they called Stone. He observed him leaving the barracks, striding with chilling menace. Boyd and a clutch of soldiers followed. Dobbs and Farrell were both dead and Stone would have made them talk. He wondered how the stranger had made the connection between his hired men and himself but he supposed it didn’t really matter. He had no idea it had been chance alone. He wondered if Jeremy had slipped past the lookouts and escaped. He had hidden the boy for a few hours when he found him tapping on his back door and listened with a creased brow at how Essamon had unleashed his warriors against Great Onglee. That was not the plan. The Engineer had been precise in the order of things. The Engineer had wanted the Archbishop eliminated first, to strike at the very heart of the Holy House, to devastate them, to force decisive action.

  Would the Archbishop even come here now? Rush nodded to himself. Yes, he was stubborn enough to do so.

  He had told Jeremy to run but the boy had refused. He had foolishly murdered two Churchmen and exposed himself to Quinn. He should have let the woman stumble into Mosscar and suffer at the hands of his people. Now the boy was condemned to hang.

  Jeremy had said, “I can find a way out.”

  And then he had left.

  Rush saw the Churchmen approach his house.

  His people …

  He was a seed. His blood was Shaylighter. It coursed through his veins and pumped around his organs giving him the strength to maintain this persona. For centuries his people had selected newborns to be abandoned in the villages and settlements across the land, planting a future to come, if not for this generation then the next or the one after. A hooded woman had approached him in childhood, during a period of time known as Aibiocht for Shaylighter children. Her face was painted with the inverted cross, black from her forehead to her chin, black across her mouth and cheeks. She was youthful and beautiful and flawless and moved lithely and freely. She had declared her name Lannast and that she was a Cailleach. Her tongue was fluent Ennpithian and Shaylighter.

  She told him of the children who feared the visiting Cailleach and how they would run and hide with their adoptive parents or feign interest and understanding only to plot and betray them to the Churchmen, though the Cailleach were never snared. Yet they were the lost children, the few sacrificed for the others who heard the raw tongue of Shaylighter and grew to tear Ennpithia from within.

  Rush closed his eyes, fondly remembering Aibiocht, his time of growth and maturity and his meeting with the Cailleach. All through childhood he had known he belonged somewhere else and rejoiced at the moment when Lannast approached him. By then he had already infiltrated the Holy House, a boy who would become Deacon, a Deacon who would become Priest, though his faith in the cross and the man on the cross was already conflicted, even at such a tender age. He knew he was swimming in a sea of deception and Lannast had saved him from drowning.

  He sucked in cold air, looked at the pistol in his hand.

  Boyd and the Churchmen had searched his home but there was nothing to find. He kept no
possessions. Unlike Father Devon. He smiled. Father Devon, the old fool, with his books concealed within the basement. His chest burned for his true home of Mosscar. Could he make it?

  No.

  He placed the barrel beneath his chin; the steel was cold. He eased his finger toward the trigger and his stomach wrenched. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Stone and Nuria ride from the village, heading north. He looked up at the clouds, surging overhead, hiding the stars, obscuring the moon. A few spots of rain touched his face. He liked the rain. The sun burned his skin, turned it red, and made him itch and peel. He hated the warm months; icy temperatures and fields blanketed in snow brought joy to his heart and relief to his pale skin. He would never see the snow again, he realised.

  “Ni bheidh a fhios agat,” he said. “Ni bheidh ort a thuiscint.”

  You will never know. You will never understand.

  He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth …

  North, they were riding north. Winshead was north. They know of the healer, he reasoned.

  Rush snapped open his eyes. Stone and Nuria had disappeared into blackness. He lowered the pistol.

  He had to escape.

  “Take cover,” shouted Boyd, and the Churchmen dived into the undergrowth as a volley of bullets raked the hillside.

  “I can see him,” shouted one of the soldiers, unleashing an arrow. He moved, crouching, whipped another from his quiver.

  Then a bullet clanged against his helmet and tossed him onto the ground.

  “Stay down. Just put arrows up there. Keep him pinned.”

  He signalled for several men to begin to flank the hill.

  Lurking in foliage, breathing heavily, Jeremy listened to the ragged bursts of gunfire.

  It was all beginning to unravel. Essamon should have held off from attacking Great Onglee. The plan was spinning out of control. The beacon would not be lit. The Archbishop would live. The Holy House would exert its influence over Ennpithians forever. He was angry. His eyes were tight, his lips drawn over his teeth. Reverence Morning would continue. His father would kneel and pray and sing and no one would know of his sins.