by Laura Taylor
Calmly and slowly, Aidan reached out and pushed her stick down. “Try not to antagonise Whisper,” he told her softly. “You won’t win.”
‘Whisper’, was it? After modern society had collapsed, there had been an odd trend amongst the survivors to rename themselves – odd not because of the custom itself, but because it seemed to have sprung up uniformly across vast regions, even when the groups of people had had no contact with each other. The way Dusk saw it, ‘Sarah Jones’, or its multitude of dull variations, held no meaning in a world where people were judged on their ability to hunt deer or survive a wildfire. ‘Arrow’, on the other hand, spoke of skill with a bow. ‘Pirate’ was a cautionary tale in a single word.
As far as Dusk was concerned, Whisper’s victory was far from the inevitable event that Aidan seemed to think it was. She wasn’t going to give in to the man just because someone told her to. Up close, of course, he was a little more intimidating – at least six-foot tall, with a jagged scar above his left eye, an eagle tattoo on his right bicep, and another climbing up his neck, though she couldn’t quite work out what it was from this angle. But she’d killed strong men before. And if he messed with her, she would have no objection to repeating the feat.
“How about you take a seat,” Whisper suggested, ignoring the threat. He gestured to a nearby boulder. “I’ll see about that cut for you.” Dusk glanced down and saw that the short walk back to the road had made her wound start seeping again. But this man was not to be trusted. Some base instinct warned her against it, something that went deeper than just the fact that she didn’t like his attitude.
“You’re a medic of some sort, are you?”
“I’m as good as it gets out here, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
She expected further mockery, a dry, cutting comment, derision, or maybe even a mild assault, an attempt to grab at some desirable body part or other. But instead, Whisper stood back, looking her over with an unreadable expression. He glanced at Aidan, standing patiently beside her, and an unspoken communication seemed to pass between them. “You’re right,” he said finally. “You have a name. Dusk. Would you allow me to treat your injury?”
It was impossible to tell whether the respect was genuine or a subtle game of mockery. But if she was to live with these men, she was going to have to put in a certain amount of effort to get along with them. “Thank you,” she said, as politely as she could manage, and sat down gingerly on the boulder.
Whisper undid the strip of cloth around her leg and peered at the mess underneath. “Would you prefer to take your pants off, or should I cut them to get to the wound?”
“Cut them.” Destroying clothes was not a preferable option, but there was no way in hell she was taking her pants off with twenty lusty men standing around. She would just have to find a way to sew them up again later.
Whisper pulled out a short knife and sliced the fabric open, just far enough to see what was underneath. He probed the wound gently, while Dusk gritted her teeth and refused to make a sound. “Stick, hand the med-kit over, would you?” he called over his shoulder.
The young man who’d helped mount the heads on pikes ran to fetch something from beside the road. Dusk got the impression of a Labrador puppy when she looked at him – gangly legs, feet too big for his body, and an over-eager enthusiasm for the most mundane of tasks. But his name fitted his body – he was as thin as a rake, and given the evidence of good nutrition from the rest of the men, she assumed his frame was due to genetics, rather than hunger.
But when he handed over the med-kit, Dusk was horrified to see the brown bag, lumpy and worn, with a tear in the side. She cringed at the thought of what sort of medical supplies would be inside. If the goods were as old as the bag, they’d be more likely to cause an infection than prevent one.
But Whisper opened the bag and pulled out a bright red pouch with a green cross on the front – a St John’s Ambulance First Aid Kit – and it was immediately apparent why they kept the thing in that grungy bag. It would have stood out like a sore thumb in the dull green scrub; not a good plan when they’d been trying to stay hidden before the ambush.
“It’s deep, but not too long,” he told her. “When was the last time you got a tetanus shot?”
“About two years before the collapse.”
“You should be good. If it’s bled a bit, it should be relatively clean. In an ideal world I’d put a couple of stitches in there, but I think a bandage will do for now. Can you walk on it?”
“How far?”
“It’s an hour’s hike back to the village,” Aidan told her. “The road’s rough, but level.”
Dusk nodded. “I’ll make it.” Whisper looked up at her with a doubtful expression. “Don’t underestimate me,” she snapped before he could say a word. “I’ve killed fifteen men since the world ended. I’ve walked hundreds of kilometres, I’ve sewn up my own wounds without a local anaesthetic and I spent two weeks surviving on a diet of dandelions and earthworms. So don’t patronise me when I say I can walk for an hour with a minor leg wound.”
Again, that unreadable expression. “Point taken,” Whisper said as he began cleaning and dressing the wound. “So how did you end up as a prisoner to this vermin?” He nodded sideways at the headless body lying on the road a few metres from them.
“There weren’t enough of us to keep a lookout twenty-four-seven. They took advantage of the gaps.” A raised eyebrow asked the next obvious question. “Everyone else is dead,” she said flatly. A cold pit opened up inside her as she remembered Kathy’s quirky, lopsided smile, and the way Rob had always managed to catch a wild rabbit for them, even when there was no other food around, and… She pushed the grief away. There was no time for it now.
“I’m sorry,” Aidan said, and he sounded sincere about it. “Where was home before you got hit?”
“We had a small farm near Mallacoota. Before that we were further west, near Orbost. Raiders burned that place to the ground two years ago. I’m from Melbourne originally.” A small, lonely part of her still thought of it as home, though she knew she’d never go back there.
“I’m from Sydney,” Aidan told her. “Most of us are, actually. Whisper came from Wollongong. A few are from Melbourne.”
“I’m from Bega,” Stick piped up, listening in on the conversation. “Came here on foot. After they killed my parents.” It must have been a tough blow for the kid. He would have been only thirteen or fourteen when the riots started. Far too young to be dealing with the sort of shit that was being thrown around these days.
“You’re north of the old Victorian border now,” Whisper informed her, as he wrapped a bandage around her leg. “Eden’s the next town up the coast. Not much of a paradise anymore. There’s a nest of slavers between here and there, and another tribe who’ve laid claim to the town itself.” He tied off the end of the bandage and stood up. “You’re good to go.”
“Let’s get moving,” Aidan said. “It’s going to be midday before we get back and this heat’s getting deadly. Take it slow, boys. I don’t want anyone passing out from heat stroke.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Trudging along beside Aidan, Dusk chewed on the misshapen lump of food he’d given her. It was a standard sort of travel ration, a mixture of chopped nuts and dried fruit held together with honey and mutton fat, and she was deeply grateful, both for the end to the gnawing sensation in her stomach and the burst of energy from the sugar it contained. After days of marching and too many sleepless nights, she was completely exhausted. The men had also shared their water with her, and aside from a small amount of jostling to see who got the privilege of walking beside her, there had been no other hint of harassment or of anyone overstepping their bounds.
The path they walked was both narrower and rougher than the road she’d been travelling, but despite that, this walk was far more pleasant, numerous trees providing consistent shade that brought the heat down to a bearable level.
The rhythmic crunch
of footsteps, along with the odd sensation of being safe – albeit that her true living conditions had yet to be determined – lulled Dusk into a numb stupor. Her feet mechanically put themselves in front of each other, the baking air flowing smoothly in and out of her lungs, in and out, in and out. Her exhaustion was such that she didn’t even notice the low cabins rising out of the ground until they were right on top of them.
Dusk stopped in her tracks, startled by the sudden appearance of the village. The cabins were well disguised, vines creeping up the sides, grass growing in clumps on the roofs, and the rooms themselves were set halfway into the ground. With the summer’s extreme temperatures, it was a wise move, the earth acting as natural insulation to keep the buildings cooler. But for all their rustic appearance, they were solid and well designed, with thick, hardwood logs that would last for years.
“Welcome home,” Aidan said, stopping beside her, while the rest of the men filed down the path ahead of them.
Dusk simply stood and stared. For all that these men were clearly well provisioned, she’d still expected their ‘village’ to consist of as many tents as buildings, maybe an old barn acting as a main house, or for the land to be cluttered with dilapidated shells of old cars or other broken machinery. Instead, this place was beautiful. Low shrubs grew in neat gardens, and she’d learned enough about botany to recognise that most of them were medicinal plants. Tools were hung neatly in open sheds, firewood was stacked in tidy rows, the paths were clear and well maintained. Home it was, and Dusk felt an odd sensation as the world seemed to tilt around her. After having lost so much, was it possible that she might actually be able to build a life here?
She headed down the gentle slope into the village proper, Aidan letting her take her time. A trio of chickens crossed their path, stopping at a pile of leaf litter to scratch for grubs. Chickens were a vital part of a village these days, turning worms and beetles into a far more palatable form of protein and giving the soil a healthy dose of fertiliser at the same time.
But as they moved further into the village, she quickly realised that their accomplishments went well beyond chickens. Two men were arguing over a ram, standing placidly with a collar around its neck. Another man was leading a jersey cow with a well-grown udder along a path. She watched as another man pulled a small cart piled high with vegetables – tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, squash. An abundance of food, evidence of secure grazing lands and a sizable vegetable garden beyond what she could immediately see. The unintentional display of wealth was also hard evidence of this tribe’s planning and ingenuity; to grow the food, they must have secured access to a continuous supply of water even with the drought raging on.
But Dusk also quickly realised the village was as fascinated by her as she was by it. Several of the men in the immediate area had looked up when the warriors arrived, no doubt eager for news of the battle. But then they’d spotted her, and mild curiosity had turned into open gawking. But it was the looks on their faces that really got her attention. Men in slave camps and raiding bands uniformly leered at women, seeing only a supply of fresh meat to slake their lust upon. These men, on the other hand, were grinning at her like children on Christmas morning, genuine delight taking the place of lusty triumph. Impatient to get back to her paddock of fresh grass, the cow nudged the man in the back. He started walking again, neck craned back to stare at Dusk until he was forced to watch where he was going or risk falling over.
“How long have you been here?” Dusk asked Aidan. It must have taken years to set all this up!
“Five years, give or take,” he told her, gesturing for her to turn left as they came to a fork in the path. “Torrent owned the land. He’s the guy with the cow,” he added. “The main cabin was here from the start, where Torrent used to live. It was mostly just a weekend getaway, but it was land and it was well off the beaten track. The rest of us trickled in over the next few months.
“When the riots started, no one thought it was the beginning of the end. You must have seen that yourself; people wondering whether they should stay or go. Hell, we were those people for a while. The government kept promising it would all be fixed in a couple of weeks, the media was playing devil’s advocate, the people who left were called alarmists and the people who stayed were called blind and naïve. Torrent didn’t go out of his way to advertise this place, but he knew a couple of guys he thought would be handy on the land. Whisper was one of them. Most of us owe him our lives,” he said seriously. “Without him, I honestly don’t think we’d have made it.” It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Her first impression of Whisper hadn’t been an endearing one, and it didn’t encourage her to know that she was going to have a hard time getting along with the one man most of the village idolised.
“So anyway, five or six of them got together,” Aidan went on, “and as the riots kept happening, a couple of the guys called in a few of their friends, who knew a couple more guys. That’s how I came here. Most of us were within six degrees of separation of each other, one way or another.
“Then, of course, at some point, we all realised it wasn’t going to stop; this was the end. Inflation was starting to hit, food was getting hard to find. The government was talking about bringing in rationing, but not actually doing anything about it. Christ, I never realised how much politicians could just sit around on their asses and talk when the world was burning around them! And that was when we really had to make a decision. We pooled our money and bought a shit-load of whatever it was that we thought was going to mean survival in the long term. We got fifty fruit trees, every different herb we could get our hands on, every how-to book on the market, medical supplies, garden tools, wire, chickens, ducks.” Aidan stopped suddenly, his voice tight, and Dusk tactfully gave him a moment to pull himself together. It had been a daunting prospect, staring down the barrel of the end of the world, and she didn’t know a single person who had made it through gracefully.
“And then the petrol bowsers dried up,” she prompted, when Aidan didn’t continue. “And everyone who hadn’t got out of the cities yet suddenly realised it was too late.”
“Exactly,” Aidan agreed. “A few more people arrived after that, on foot mostly. But the roads got harder to travel and looters quickly turned into tribes of raiders, and for a while we just shut ourselves off from the world. No one would find this place if they weren’t already familiar with the area. So we put our heads down and waited to see where the dust settled.”
They’d arrived at a wide clearing in the middle of the village, a large fireplace in the centre and rows of logs arranged around the fire: the village square, for all intents and purposes. Aidan hopped up on a platform at one end of the clearing and faced the crowd – nearly fifty men in total. There was no need to call a meeting, when it seemed the entire village had already heard the news of their newest arrival. Aidan held up his hands, and the rumbling conversations around them died off.
“Gentlemen,” Aidan addressed the crowd. “Our battle today was successful. We killed twelve Gully slavers and suffered no serious injuries during the fight.” A cheer went up, but it lacked real enthusiasm, and Dusk assumed it was because the men were all anticipating further news.
“It’s also my pleasure to announce that their former captive, Dusk of the Two Swords, was safely liberated, and has agreed to join our tribe.”
As predicted, that inspired a real cheer, applause and shrill whistles thrown in as well. Aidan let the noise continue for a few moments, then held up his hands again. “As you would all be aware,” he said, his cheerful tone turning serious, “it’s been a long time since we had any women in the tribe, and so I’m eager to make sure living arrangements for Dusk are both comfortable and safe.” The last word was emphasised sharply. “As such, Dusk has agreed to become my wife. Any man who touches her will be answering to me, and Dusk has already volunteered to geld you for your trespass.” The words were delivered with a cold finality, and the gathered men were silent. On a mere technicality, Aidan’s words were
n’t true – Dusk had offered to geld him, rather than the other men in the tribe. But the point was well made, so she wasn’t going to argue about it.
“Dusk doesn’t look too happy about the arrangement,” a voice spoke up, and Dusk looked around to see an ageing man, grey hairs thinning over his head, his face carrying a weathered sort of wisdom. His accent was broad, and it was a safe bet that he’d been a country bloke before the collapse, rather than one of the city folk. “I’d like to hear that she’s chosen you of her own free will.” The words were addressed to Aidan, though the man was watching her, and they carried an undertone of warning; if she was being forced into this, he was going to have something to say about it.
“What’s your name?” Dusk asked, making a mental note to get to know this man better. Though she had only this first impression to go by, he seemed to be a man who would not only defend her safety, but also stand up for old-world ethics, when forced marriage was clearly not an acceptable arrangement.
“I’m Nicholas,” he introduced himself with a short bow. “Herbalist and priest, though I don’t tend to wear my collar much these days.” A useful ally indeed, on both counts.
Dusk briefly considered her options. She could refuse to be Aidan’s wife... but as he’d pointed out, at best that would likely make her the target of a dozen men brazenly attempting to court her, and a far more likely reality was that it would provoke just as many to take unpleasant liberties with her, regardless of how much one old man protested the treatment. Decision made, she boldly, she stepped up onto the platform beside Aidan. “I have agreed to be Aidan’s wife,” she said, loudly and clearly. “And to live with this tribe, for as long as you prove yourselves to be honourable men,” she added as a brief condition.
Nicholas grinned at her. “Well said. Well then, gentlemen,” he announced, turning to face the tribe. “I believe this calls for a celebration!”
