“I…”
“They’re in the mountains,” a woman’s voice said. It was Kim. She came up behind Torben, her head low, her hands clasped before her as if Torben was some high pontiff.
“How do you know?” Torben asked.
“He mentioned it earlier. I thought he was lying. But the scuffs on his shoes and the paleness of the girl’s skin speak of a settlement away from the desert.”
Torben pushed at Brendan. “Is this true? Are you and your ‘school’ hiding in the mountains?”
Kim signaled Brendan with an exaggerated nod. Brendan nodded reluctantly.
“How interesting. I would have thought everyone there had starved after all this time. But to find you and your half-sister tells me there are parts of this land unconquered. You will show me on the map.”
Torben led them into what had been the city library. Much of the upper floor had collapsed downward, but the front lobby was intact. Stacks of books were placed on desks that had once been computer stations for internet use. The useless monitors and CPUs were shoved underneath tables. The checkout counter had a pile of road maps, atlases, and children’s picture books on it. Torben pulled a spiral-bound map guidebook from the top of a pile of old glossy magazines. He turned it in Brendan’s direction.
“Show me.”
The map guide was ten years old. It was mostly of surface streets, but it covered much of the southern section of California that was east of L.A. Inside the torn front cover he saw the larger map, with each section gridded off and enlarged on a corresponding page. He looked for places that weren’t along the hyperloop, areas that might be unknown to Torben. Kim moved to get closer, but Torben raised a warning hand and she backed off.
Brendan put his finger on the map. “Here.” It was Lake Isabella in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada. He hoped it was not too far for them to have walked, and not too close that Torben could go and catch Brendan in his lie.
“How many in this school?” Torben asked.
“A hundred children. As many adults.”
“How many men?”
“Forty.”
“Do these forty have weapons? Can they fight?”
“They’ve no weapons to speak of. We’ve avoided everyone and have hid for all this time. Lucille and I are some of the first to venture out.”
Torben made a disappointed face. “A pity. There are so few challenges left. If they are all like you, it will be an unsatisfying journey.”
Brendan could only stare at the map and the fiction he had created. Was it enough?
“What…tribute might we pay for you to leave us alone?”
Torben’s face darkened. He took Brendan by the back of his shirt and hauled him outside. They went around the corner of the building, where a row of six telephone poles had been erected. From each one hung a corpse, the limbs twisted and broken. The bodies were attached to the dark wooden poles with wire and rope. The skulls were bleached and cleaned of all flesh. Only tatters of wispy hair remained.
Torben threw Brendan down at the base of the first pole and pointed up. “Look up there. Look! My own wall of pain. This is what happens to any who don’t give their all to me. I am a warlord, not a weak politician to be bargained with. I am not a merchant. If your tribe holds anything or anyone back from me, I will do this to everyone I find. What is your response?”
Brendan bowed his head low. “We’ll yield to you.”
Torben looked down at Brendan and waited. Brendan wondered what else he could do. He tried to remain very still and focused on the warlord’s feet.
“There’s no fight in you, is there?” Torben asked. “Weak. But know this: if you are lying, if I don’t find this school where you say, I will bring another pole to this site. Your death will be measured in days.”
Brendan remained frozen in his subservient position. Torben turned and walked away. Brendan got up, his legs feeling weak. Kim was waiting at the building’s corner.
“He and the other self-described warlords showed up following the disaster,” Kim said. “No one knows where they came from. They have incredible strength and resilience. Those that fight against them are killed.”
“Is that why there’s so few men?”
“All dead, either from when Torben first came or over the months and years. Any slight, and Torben would murder a man. But women he collects like trophies. Your half-sister? He’ll take her. You shouldn’t have come. You need to leave as quickly as possible. If he catches you escaping, he’ll murder you.”
“Will you help?”
“Only if you take me too. I don’t know where you came from, but I can see by how well fed you are that your people know how to survive. You have no idea what it’s been like living under Torben and his kind. So many of the other women here, the ones who made it past the first weeks, took their own lives when it became apparent that Torben couldn’t be easily harmed. A few tried to murder him in his sleep. They all failed. And Torben, it was as if he enjoyed the game. I tried to stab him once with a piece of obsidian I had found. I drew blood, but the cut wasn’t deep.”
“What happened?”
“He broke all of my fingers one by one. He listened to me cry for the entire night before letting the nurse help me.”
Brendan was shaking his head as he listened. The line of trees was close. He could be fast if he wanted, even though the very air here felt heavy.
“Others will stop you from escaping,” she said as if reading his thoughts. “Failing to do so would put them in jeopardy.”
“How long before he discovers that there is no school at this lake?”
“It all depends on when he feels like going and if he calls another warlord. They can travel fast. We need to keep close to him to find out what he’s doing. When we see our chance, we’ll need to take it. Your sister—will she keep up?”
“If she’s not motivated to get out of here already, I’ll just bring her here to see this.”
Kim nodded. “We should get back.”
They turned to go back to the village. The crooked man was watching them, leaning on his bat. Brendan hadn’t seen him approach. He fell in behind them as they passed.
15. Meat
Torben wasn’t going anywhere. He settled in at the front of his hut. The heat of the day weighed heavy, and most of the other villagers had returned and were in a similar state of languor. Lucille and Brendan sat on the sand in front of Kim’s hut. Brendan tried to keep an eye on the warlord while not looking directly at him. The man was nodding off. Kim had brought Torben water and a platter of fruits and goat meat.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lucille whispered.
“Don’t be crazy.” Brendan nodded towards some of the other villagers. “If they see us go, they’ll sound an alarm. Torben has them terrorized. He tortures and murders anyone who doesn’t obey him.”
“We can’t just sit here.”
“For now we can. We’ll only get one chance. It has to be the right one. Even the older villagers are stronger than us.”
Lucille looked at the platter of food by the warlord. “Maybe they’re going to starve us to death.”
As if in answer, two of the village women brought Lucille a small bowl of cut-up pieces of squash, green pepper, and green beans. There was no utensil, and Lucille started eating with her hands. When Brendan reached for the bowl, one of the women snapped, “It’s not for you.”
They sat attentively as Lucille ate. She picked up each piece of vegetable as if admiring it before popping it in her mouth.
Brendan caught her attention. “Did you…?” he began.
“Did I what?” she asked.
“Do something to them?” he hissed.
Lucille waved him off.
He shook his head in disgust. He tried to ignore his own stomach’s grumblings. One of the women brought Lucille water in a stemmed wine glass. The other left and returned with a garland of tiny white flowers that she draped around Lucille’s neck. She smoothed out Lucille’s hair
and finger-combed it. It was unkempt from her swim and the day’s exertion.
“I don’t suppose you have any conditioner?” Lucille asked.
A third woman brought a large bowl with a cloth. The bowl held water with some kind of sweet herbs floating in it. The woman dipped the cloth in the bowl and proceeded to wash Lucille’s hands and feet along with an angry welt on one of the girl’s knees. Lucille allowed them to tend to her, a smile on her face. She was enjoying it.
Brendan couldn’t take his eyes off the blue tattoos the village women wore.
“Grapes?” Lucille asked.
One of the women fetched a small bowl of the green fruit. The others finished up their ministrations and set down a clean blanket for Lucille to sit on.
“Now if they only had air conditioning,” she said. One of her hands absently played with the garland.
Torben stirred. He gave some curt orders to one of the men. The sun was now low in the sky, the weight of the afternoon heat waning ever so slightly. Kim brought Brendan some water and a pomegranate.
“What’s going on?” Brendan asked.
“He’s not heading out today,” Kim said. “That’s the good news. But he’s going to have an ownership ceremony. Both of you are to be marked as his.”
“Marked? As in tattooed?” Brendan asked a little too loudly.
This caught Lucille’s attention. “No one is tattooing me.”
“You don’t have much of a choice,” Kim said softly. “Once you’re his, he will do with you as he pleases. When the ceremony is finished he will treat you like one of his brides. You can run or fight, but Torben will kill you or worse.”
“You have to help us.”
“There’s little to be done. He’s too powerful.” Kim stood up, her eyes lowered. “I’m sorry.” She hurried off.
“Brendan, what kind of a world is this?”
“I saw the bodies, Lucille. This guy is no joke. He’s murdered just about everyone who’s pissed him off. We have to do what he says, and not even say anything that will make him mad.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not about to get married to Conan the Barbarian. I can’t do this. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“I know, but we have to wait for the right time. We can’t do anything while the sun is up.”
The men built up the fire, first with peeled sections of palm bark and then with larger pieces of wood. A woman brought along a goat on a short tether. The creature bleated in desperation as if it knew its fate. Two women held it while another slit its throat, pouring the blood out into a bowl as the animal twitched its final spasm. Through it all, Torben reclined on some large pillows that had been brought out and stared at Lucille.
The goat was skinned, spitted, and placed over the fire. The smell of roasting meat soon filled the air.
“He’s just staring at me,” Lucille said.
“I know. Try not to make eye contact.”
Torben rose. In a few strides he crossed the center of the village. He grabbed Lucille by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. Lucille screamed and tried to pull away from him. Brendan stood up, but Torben gave him the slightest push and sent him to the ground. He dragged Lucille over to the pillows and sat down with her under an arm, laughing as she tried to pry herself away.
The villagers deliberately kept their eyes off the warlord while coming and going with dishes of food that they placed at his feet. One of the men tended to the goat, turning it and basting it with some sort of briny wash. Torben seemed content with Lucille sitting beside him, and he gestured for Kim to bring him a pitcher and a cup. He filled the cup and offered it to Lucille. She took a whiff and recoiled. This only made Torben laugh more. He took a swallow. Lucille set her jaw and pulled the cup towards her and drank. She gasped and coughed, then took a second sip and nodded.
“Now that is a woman!” Torben shouted.
The sun was a deep orange as it set behind the trees. Torben refilled the cup, offered it to Lucille first, then chugged the rest. A new pitcher was brought to them. Lucille was laughing now too. Torben kept whispering in her ear. They both looked at Brendan and exploded in laughter. Brendan felt himself flush. It was surreal being in this totally different place, yet somehow again finding himself on the bottom rung of the social ladder. But if Lucille was getting hammered, he was going to have a hard time getting them both out. He weighed his options as the other villagers came and reclined around the fire. Torben became quite relaxed, a lazy hand around Lucille’s waist as he slumped on the pillows and stared transfixed into the fire.
“Lucille!” came the hard stage whisper from the shadows between the tents. It was hardly subtle, and faces turned in that direction. Lucille squinted as Paul and Tyler walked out of the growing gloom and into the center of the village. Paul went straight up to Lucille and took her by the hand.
“What?” Torben said as Lucille was pulled away from him.
Brendan began to rise. Kim was behind him and she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Wait,” she whispered.
Tyler was looking around the camp as if the surroundings confused him. Then he made eye contact with Brendan. A scowl crossed his face. He approached.
“You guys need to get out of here,” Brendan said.
“Your game is done,” Tyler said. “We found you.”
“You don’t understand. That guy over there will kill you if you don’t run. Tyler, this isn’t a joke. You need to leave.”
Paul had to support Lucille as she staggered along. Torben muttered something incoherent. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Paul and Lucille heading towards the edges of the firelight. The other villagers just watched. Maybe this is our chance. Perhaps Torben had drunk himself sloppy. Brendan looked back at Kim and had opened his mouth to say as much when Torben roared.
“A challenge!”
The large man steadied himself on his knees before rising to his full height. Paul stopped to look back. Brendan recognized the expression on the boy’s face. He wanted to fight. The Paul double from Not-Earth was just as unlikely to back down as the original had been, and stronger. But was he strong enough?
“Paul, get out of here,” Brendan said. “Lucille, tell him to run.”
“You’ll get yours in due time, Cesar,” Paul said. He stood his ground as Torben approached.
At his full height, Paul only came up to Torben’s shoulder. With surprising speed, Paul drove a fist into the warlord’s stomach. It was a blow that would have taken Brendan out and maybe sent him to the hospital. Torben barely reacted. He responded with a backhand slap that knocked Paul back into the shadows. Lucille stumbled out of Torben’s way as he walked into the gloom and dragged Paul back into the center of camp by his foot. Paul was twisting and trying to free himself. Torben released him and waited. Paul sprang up, laying out a flurry of blows into Torben. Torben spread his arms wide, doing nothing to block the assault.
Tyler watched with growing amazement. “Who is this guy?”
“He’s bad news. We need to get out of here.”
Lucille had collapsed in the sand near the fire. Perhaps this was the only chance they’d have. Brendan pulled away from Kim and tried to yank Lucille up, but she wasn’t helping. Her eyes were glued to the fight.
“Lucille, come on.”
He got her arm over his shoulder and stood, and then suddenly Paul screamed. Torben had one of his arms raised up high above his head. The warlord twisted, sending Paul to his knees. Torben looked around the camp at all the villagers. He then focused on Lucille and Brendan.
“At least he had the will to fight.”
There was a loud pop as Paul’s arm and shoulder broke. Paul kept screaming until he ran out of breath, a wet sputter coming from his lips. Torben looked down at the boy with beaming satisfaction. He then twisted the boy’s head around with a snap. Paul’s body sagged down into a lifeless heap.
Tyler hadn’t moved. His lips quivered, and he was shaking his head as if he didn’t believe what he had just seen.
Torben nudged Paul with his foot. Then he looked at Tyler and smiled. He strode over. Tyler was backing away when Torben grabbed him.
“No, please. Don’t hurt me. I didn’t…you can’t possibly—” He slapped feebly at Torben’s hands. Urine was trickling down his legs. Torben saw it and flung Tyler aside in disgust.
“You’re not a challenger but a child.”
He went to the fire. He picked the spit up from the flames, goat and all. He placed the goat on the ground and pulled the spit from its center. The metal must have been hot, but Torben wasn’t fazed. He touched the tip of the spit and began to walk towards Tyler.
“I’d say that I don’t kill children, but that would be a lie.”
Tyler was backing up, but one of the old men blocked his escape. Torben pulled him up by his shirt. The shirt ripped. The boy was screaming. Torben chuckled as he stepped on Tyler’s foot, preventing him from scurrying away. He lowered the spit to Tyler’s belly.
“Warlord Torben,” Lucille called. She jerked away from Brendan. She regained her posture and smoothed down her skirt. It was clear that it was taking great effort to walk straight as she moved towards Torben. “You had your challenge for the night. Why not save some sport for tomorrow?”
Tyler’s attention was divided between the hot steel almost touching his skin and Lucille.
“Sport indeed. I’ll journey to your school tomorrow. But there will be time for sport.”
He stomped down on Tyler. The boy’s leg snapped, and he began to scream and cry. Torben flung the spit away and returned to the pillows by his tent.
“Carve the meat. I’m hungry.”
A group of the villagers picked up the goat and began to carve it, bringing a plate of steaming meat to Torben before cutting hunks off for themselves.
Brendan took Lucille’s elbow and whispered into her ear. “What did you do?”
“Saved Tyler’s life for a night.”
When Kim tried to tend to Tyler, Torben shouted through a mouthful of meat, “Let him whimper.” She backed away. Torben beckoned for Lucille and she went to him, her hands caressing the skin of his chest. Brendan looked around at the other villagers. They ate their meat and kept their eyes low, as if suffering and death were things they were long accustomed to.
The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series Page 35
