The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One
Page 3
“Yes. Thank you,” she said, her voice remarkably calm. Perhaps it was all the blood that had rushed to her head. “Could you get me down?”
Wordlessly, the man looked to the boughs above and followed the rope down to where it was staked in the ground. “I’m going to cut you down and then try to catch you, okay?”
“Wait...try?” He cut the rope before Brook could tell him otherwise, dashing back to where she was falling with his arms outstretched. He awkwardly caught her, her weight throwing him off balance and sending the two of them tumbling to the ground. Leo bounded up and immediately began to cover her in slobbery kisses.
“Leo, Leo, stop…” Brook said through laughter. The man started to laugh too, which sounded to Brook like a wheel whose axle was in dire need of grease. She unwrapped herself from the man and stood up, brushing the leaves off her dress before retrieving her bow, quiver and small pack from the ground. “Are you going to bring me back to the camp?”
“Camp?” The man asked, standing up. “You mean the slaver camp?”
“You’re not one of them?”
“No.” The man sheathed his sword, its weathered leather scabbard strapped to his back. He extended his hand forward. “My name is Mercer. Mercer Crane.”
“I’m Brook,” she said, taking it. “And this is Leo. Thank you for helping us.”
Mercer scratched the pit bull behind the ears, a movement which seemed both alien and familiar to him, as though he had done it in a past life, before his self-imposed exile in the wilderness. “He’s a fierce little guy, isn’t he?”
“Oh yeah, and a constant thorn in my side, too.” Brook looked around at the piles of corpses, suddenly feeling a little sick. “You two work well together.”
“Thanks_” Mercer was cut off by the sound of gunfire coming from over the hill. Brook’s eyes went wide.
“Oh no. Crow!” She dashed up the hillside, looking for a vantage point into the slaver camp where she could still remain hidden. Mercer ran up quick behind her and pulled her behind a bum yum tree.
“Careful. We don’t want them to see us. Especially since they have guns.” They went up the rest of the hillside quietly, until they reached the apex and could see into the ruins surrounding the Bridge of Haynes. All the slavers who had been taking refuge in the burned out buildings now stood on the Mountain Road, facing south towards the Borderlands. Some had guns in their hands, others swords, knives or bats. They were looking into the woods that surrounded the road.
One of the men stood closer to the trees, smoke from his semi-automatic rifle snaking up into the sky. He was as wide as a tree with skin as dark as mud, one long strip of hair slick like an eel pasted flat to his head, a mustache draped around his lips. He had a large bastard sword strapped to his back. This man was the bastard from whom the slavers got their infamous name, their leader. His small black eyes were searching the trees through the gun smoke.
“He’s not looking for you,” Mercer whispered to Brook. “His man must have told him that there were killim in the trees and that you were caught in one of the traps. You’re as good as dead to them.”
Brook felt relieved, but the feeling evaporated as quick as a puddle in the Karyatim Salt Flats as her eyes moved through the three or four dozen men making up the band of slavers. One amongst their group stood out: he wore a heavy black cloak, his skin the same olive-tone as hers, and he was struggling against the two slavers whose hands were wrapped tightly around his arms. “Crow…” she whispered. It was her brother. He had been caught.
The southward wind picked up again, bringing with it the sounds of the camp. “Should have never set up camp in the Borderlands,” a man was saying.
“Make sure to put the tarp over the cart. I can taste rain on the wind.”
“We’ll get to the fork in the Mountain Road in a few hours if we march quick.”
“Going along the Kill Fish will set us back days, if not a full week. I’d rather pay a beachy man to ferry us across the Hud and march through the marshes.”
“Matchless say ez too many undead down en dese parts. No wan’ da risk.”
“This Black Wing boy will net us a nice cash-load from Dusty Yen.”
All the voices floated up to her and Brook hated them all. That Black Wing boy they spoke of was her brother, the heir to the Black Wing leadership. She wanted to go down there and put her knife through every last one of them. She’d give them a cash-load they could take to their graves.
“There’s no way you’re going down there,” Mercer whispered to her. “We’re outmanned and outgunned. They’ll put us in chains the same as your brother if they don’t kill us first.”
“Then what do you propose? Just letting him get sold into slavery? Let him become a swabby on one of the Boat People’s trade barges, or a cage fighter in the pits at Kingston? Is that a joke?”
“We need to get them when they’re most vulnerable. If we had more men to back us up and maybe some guns, we could get him out. We might even be able to buy him back, if we had enough silver. As we are now, there’s no hope.” Brook knew Mercer was speaking the truth, though every part of her being was rebelling against letting them get away with Crow. Still, she knew her brother would understand. He would be the first to say it was better to live to fight another day than to die needlessly.
“Are there people you know who could help you get him back?”
“Yes. They’re to the north, a quarter day’s march. My people, the Black Wings.”
“You’re a Black Wing?” Mercer seemed impressed. “I should have guessed by your black cloak. Your people fought alongside my father in the War for the Green Lands. If not for them, General Godwin would be ruling from the Fort of Kingston now and dead men would roam free in the Green Lands.”
“We’re a peaceful people now, but will rise up to fight when injustice and tyranny seizes the land, as was the order of our ancestor, Elon.” Brook thought about her Black Wing clan, about how few of them were actually warriors and had grown soft in the ways of war. “They’ll already be worried that Crow and I haven’t returned, and may send scouts out come nightfall. How are we to cross the Axe Man? The slavers are blocking the bridge.”
“To the west of here is a boat. I was traveling down the Axe Man towards the Hud and stopped on a sandbar a little ways upriver to see if I could forage for some dinner. That’s when I saw you, or rather Leo saw me.”
“That was you he was growling at?”
“I guess he doesn’t like people hiding behind trees and not making themselves known. I didn’t know if you were friend or foe, or even real, to be quite honest with you. I’ve been by myself for some time. That’s why I didn’t reveal myself.”
“That’s understandable.” Brook turned to look at the man standing next to her, the weight of the world carved into his face as though he were a stone statue dedicated to tragedy. “Why are you helping me, Mercer Crane?”
“Why?” Mercer seemed taken aback by the question. “Because, well… you need help, and you seem like a good person. It’s been a long time since I’ve met a good person.” He smiled, but it was forced, the jamming of a peg where it didn’t fit.
“It’s much appreciated,” she said, an uneasy mix of gratitude and suspicion percolating in her gut. Mercer had just shown how capable a swordsman he was, but why had he been traveling alone? What were the troubles that this man carried with him, the source of their weight?
“We can take the boat across the river and into the Green Lands,” Mercer said. “It’s up a ways. What do you say?”
Brook nodded, hoping that her decision to trust this man was the right one. She took one last look at Crow, knowing it may be some time before she saw him again. His face was bruised and blood trickled from his lip, but he gave no sign of pain or submission. He was a Black Wing and would not break. That was how Brook wanted to remember him. “I’ll be back for you, brother. Stay strong.” On quiet feet, Leo and Brook followed after Mercer, towards the boat he had beached somew
here west along the shore of the Axe Man’s River.
Chapter Two
Young Poe’s Keep
IT WAS A SMALL ROWBOAT FROM THE OLD DAYS, rusted and full of holes but still functional. Mercer was guiding it across the river with long, silent oar strokes, the water a noxious green under evening’s darkening sky. They were several eye-spans upriver from the Bridge of Haynes and the camp of the Wandering Bastards, but Brook could still see the light from the slavers’ torches moving north along the Mountain Road. The Bastards weren’t wasting any time, leaving the dangers of the Borderlands behind for the safety of the Green Lands.
Soon they would disappear from view behind the first of the Broke Tooth Hills, severing whatever tether of hope Brook held on to that her brother would be unharmed. She knew it was irrational, but felt that just seeing the light was a way for her to watch over her brother and keep him safe.
Leo put his head in her lap, a sad reassurance in his pale blue eyes. He’ll be okay, Leo seemed to say. He’s the strongest man you know. He won’t break. She scratched him behind the ears, glad for him. The torches were becoming harder to see. As they blinked out, swallowed by the hills, so her doubts grew: What if the slavers proved hard to track? What if they left the Kill Fish Road for another path? What if they sold Crow into slavery before they ever caught up with them?
She voiced her concerns to Mercer but he didn’t seem worried. “I know where they are headed,” he said.
“You do? How?”
“They’re heading to the same place I was.”
Brook tried to piece together the things she’d heard the slavers say when their voices had carried on the wind. “They said they were joining up with a warlord to the east. That’s where you were headed?”
“His name is Dusty Yen, and yes, that’s where I was headed. He’s putting together an army and wants to take the cities to the west. The Fort at Kingston, Lazarus Township, Ithaca.”
Brook scoffed. “He’ll need at least a million men to take Kingston, let alone all the western cities. An army of slavers and sell-swords versus the strongest, most well-armed military since before the Great Dying, not to mention the sprocket knights of Ithaca.”
Mercer chuckled. “Where did you learn so much? I thought most people in the Green Lands thought Ithaca was an imaginary place that nans told little ones about as a sort of fairy tale.”
“I may not be as cultured as you, sir, but I’ve learned much about the world. I can read, you know. I know that Ithaca is the farthest away of the western cities, completely run by ‘lectric, with train carts that move by steam and homes that stay warm without fires burning in their hearths.”
“That’s all true,” Mercer said, his voice wistful. “It’s a very special place. I went to school there for a few years, when I was younger, but then…” He trailed off. Brook wanted him to continue, thirsty for stories of the west, but Mercer stayed quiet. She let her gaze wander back to where the last torch disappeared behind the hills, the implications of what Mercer was saying finally sinking in: war was brewing.
“You were going to join up with this warlord, this Dusty Yen?” She asked. Mercer only looked off into the night and continued to row. “You’re looking to bring war back to the Green Lands?” She was surprised by the edge in her voice.
“Not necessarily. I’m looking to make a name for myself and have a good life, is all. Dusty Yen promises a square eye-span of fertile land to all who fight for him, amongst other desirable things.”
“Oh really? And how do you know that?”
“I just… I just know. I heard it somewhere.” Mercer didn’t want to tell her where. A quarter-moon ago, on the eve of his nineteenth birthday, the moon had leered down at him with the face of a maniac and told him all that Dusty Yen promised. Riches, land, redemption. It was all his in exchange for his fealty, for his sworn sword. In the days that followed, Mercer had analyzed over and over what the moon had told him, and though he couldn’t help but think he had finally cracked, he nevertheless knew it all to be true.
“Oh, you heard it somewhere? How nice. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, you’re willing to upset the peace of the Green Lands just so you can have an eye-span of land? Think of all the people who will die, all the families and clans who will be torn apart. Are you really that selfish?”
Mercer stayed quiet for a few moments. “Call it what you wish. It is the nature of life to tear things apart and then rebuild from the wreckage. Droves of men are dying of hunger and ignorance every day. Are the cities to the west not fallible for this? Is the structure of power as it is now so perfect that I cannot question it? If it is, then I’ll hold my tongue, but I know otherwise. I’m a good man, Brook, and I’ve seen my fair share of wrongs in this world. Though I seek power and am capable of violence, I intend to keep good in the world once I have the ability and position to do so. Besides,” Mercer pulled the oars in; they were almost to the north shore. “No one has to die. No one has to fight back. They can let us take charge peacefully. Blood does not have to be spilled.”
The boat slowed as it came to the muddy shallows on the other side of the river. Mercer stepped out and heaved the boat onto shore. Leo jumped out and immediately began to roll around in the grass. Mercer helped Brook from the boat, but could see she only took his hand because she didn’t have sea-legs and was afraid to trip off the boat. Her eyes shone beneath her furrowed brow like two black suns, and he was sure it was because of what he had said. She marched up the grass without stopping to wait for Mercer or even for Leo, who watched her go with a quizzical cock of his head.
“Where are you going?” Mercer asked.
“You’re no better than the slavers! You might as well have joined up with them! Thank you, Mercer Crane, but I’ll be going on by myself from here on out.”
“Wait!” He ran up beside her, but she had the wide eyes and bristled back of a caged badger.
“Get away from me! Who do you think you are? You think you can just take from those weaker than you? What then? What happens when you’re fat and old and those who are young and strong come and take all that you have?”
“I’ll accept it as how things are. That’s how the world_”
“Plague on your way the world is! I don’t care! That’s not how my world is. People don’t just take and take and take. Here I am, listening to you, leaving my brother behind, a good man, and you’re just a soldier for hire, a sword without a conscience.”
“You don’t know anything about me, about what I lost,” Mercer said quietly. It stopped Brook cold. There was a flash in her mind, a vision. She saw the lone cabin at the bottom of the valley, a swarm of summer gnats hovering over its sparkling pond. She saw the slaughtered undead in the kitchen, their rotten innards in an illegible scrawl across the tiles. She saw the piles of stones under which two innocent women were laid to rest for all of eternity. She saw a younger Mercer, just north of childhood, with the same sword in his hand. He was on his knees, crying in front of the stones, his face flush with an unquenchable torment, his sobs as heavy as the stones he had laid atop the loved ones he couldn’t protect, couldn’t save. She saw him make up a small pack and leave the valley, not to return for three long years. Just as quickly, the vision was gone.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I… You’re right. I don’t know what you lost. It was wrong of me to judge you so quickly. I’m just a little confused and hurt right now from all that has just happened.” Her voice, already quiet, faltered.
She had only ever had a waking vision once before in her life, when she was very young, right after her mother was taken away by slavers. She had seen what the slavers did to her, how they threw her spent body into the Axe Man as if she were nothing but a pile of fish chum, laughing drunkenly as she drowned on the poison water; that vision of the future had been as emotionally draining as this one was of the past. She could feel the tears welling up and her cheeks growing flush.
What had just happened there? Mercer wondered. He had seen her eyes go wide, had seen her enter into a trance. It only lasted for a few seconds, but he knew the signs: his younger sister did the same thing years ago, when she was still alive. Nina had visions, Nan would tell him. That was why she sometimes had fits, why she would tremble uncontrollably on the floor and once almost bit off her tongue. She had been able to see the past and future, of what was and what could be. Was Brook capable of doing the same?
Mercer caught up with Brook and the two walked in silence. Leo was tired from the day’s events and was panting loudly. Now that they were in the Green Lands, they could hear the call of loons and hoot of the night’s earliest rising owls. With no dead men to prey upon them, wildlife thrived. Over the western horizon was a line of pink and purple, the only colors in the otherwise starry night sky. Just as these colors disappeared with the last of the day, Brook and Mercer found the dirt road.
The road was called 23, though none who travelled it knew why. It was a name left over from the old days, when roads paved in black stone connected every township, every tribe. It snaked westwards through the Green Lands, past the roaring waters of Stag’s Leap, all the way to the Fort at Kingston. If Brook and Mercer followed it back east, they would see it was but one of three prongs that forked from the Mountain Road: Kill Fish Road ran next to the Hud all the way to the Rip in the northeast, while the Mountain Road ran straight north to the Aderon Mountains.
“Before we get to the Black Wing camp, we have to pass through Young Poe’s Keep. We should be coming upon it soon,” Brook said. “Just past these next few hills.”