The Victor's Heritage (The Jonah Trilogy Book 2)

by Anthony Caplan

  "We're going to do this, Candia."

  "Good. I'm in."

  "It's not done yet."

  "No. I want to meet somebody. Have a baby like you. When is it due?"

  "I don't know. Summer sometime."

  "I'll be there for that."

  "I hope so."

  "There's lots of women around to help with it, Corrag. Maybe Juarez-Knoblock will let us have a christening party."

  "I don't think so. Anyway, we're not going back. But keep talking."

  "A party. What a concept."

  Candia babbled on for an indeterminate time. It took much longer to get the two last links cut. Corrag had lost track of the time. The sound of the chainsaws had stopped. Candia stood and kicked her legs around, getting the blood flowing, while Corrag remained on the ground, wondering what came next. The wind blew swirls of snow that registered in the dark only by hitting them in the face.

  "Which way, Corrag? Are you okay?"

  Slowly Corrag stood, coming back from a dream, and put the file in her pocket. She removed her gloves for a brief instant and massaged her fingers and put them inside her pants between her legs to get the feeling back in them. The shooting pain in them was almost unbearable. She rolled the provisions back in the extra blanket after Candia switched it for the spare coat and tucked in the ends to keep it secure and slung it like a pack over her back again. The cutting yard lights were off. They needed to move quickly. Then the alarm sounded, letting all the camps know that Corrag was missing. She had heard of escape attempts, none successful, and none in the depths of the winter. But here they were, half frozen and about 500 miles to trek to get to the nearest civilization if they got lucky. What would they eat? She had no idea. How long would it take? There was only silence. Corrag consoled herself with the familiar thought that every impossible journey began the same way, with a footstep into the unknown. The task was made more difficult for Candia by the chains hanging from her wrists and ankles. She wrapped them around her arms and Corrag tucked them in on each other like a slipknot. It made it possible, but difficult. But there was nothing except the snow in their face to hold them back. For both of them this was a charge of courage, a wisp of hope that pushed them towards either freedom or death. Either choice was better than the slavery of prisoner life.

  "It's better this way," said Candia.

  "Yes. It is," agreed Corrag.

  The two women slipped down the Bunkhouse and away from the camp. When they reached the edge of the sea ice where the wind whipped overhead and out into the infinite emptiness they veered towards the south and the suggestion of light. After a few hundred yards the frozen ice reared up in blocks surrounded by the chop of waves. They cut along the shore, avoiding the sea ice. By now it was light and they were headed west, by Corrag's estimation. But there was no way. They seemed to be going in circles. It was impossible following the convoluted, boulder-strewn, frozen shore. They would have to move inland. Then they came to the fence that marked the boundary of the Nenkaja.

  "Wait," said Corrag. "There's something I need to do. Wait here for me."

  Candia did as Corrag instructed. She waited. Corrag disappeared over a slight incline. In the distance she thought she saw a structure. Something -- an instinct, a hope, told her the men's prison house lay in that direction. As she approached, she could see her hunch had been right. There was a building, and the shapes of men huddling under the eaves, readying to go out, maybe a hunting party to look for her and Candia. Corrag decided to come closer and see them. Making a zigzag pattern, varying the speed of her approach like a wild animal, Corrag approached the men until, lying on her belly, she could make out the faces underneath the hoods of their Nenkaja coats. One of them spotted her, and a group of three walked over to where she lay. Corrag stood, preparing to fight, grasping her knife inside the coat.

  "Woman, are you okay?" asked one of the men. They were all prisoners, like her.

  "Yes. Do you know Beithune?"

  "Beithune. He's with us. Inside there. Asleep." The man spoke for all of them. The rest were saving their breath, staring at her incredulously.

  "Tell him I'm okay. I'm leaving. I tried to see him. Tell him to be strong."

  "We’ll do that. Get out of here. They'll be sending out guards looking for you."

  "Good." Corrag turned and went off in the direction she'd come. The dawn's light reflected a swirling grey light that soon covered up her tracks in the wind.

  Winter storms had weakened the boundary fence. Candia and she stood at one side of it. It was possible to cut around the end by climbing down a cliff and back up on the other side. It took the two a couple of hours to complete this traverse climbing with hands and feet. Only when they were back on the other side, following a snowmobile trail through the low woods, did Corrag think that she was leaving everything behind. It was really her alone now with just the thought, the memory of her past, a communication with ghosts. But Candia was good company and strong. And there was the life inside her that was still just a seed creature, metamorphosizing into a human with every second that passed, entirely trusting that there was a purpose to this run. This presumption of the unborn, larger than everything in the world, certainly larger than the Nenkaja, which had receded into insignificance, was already shaping every choice Corrag made, every step she took. There could be no mistakes now. She panicked when she thought they had no idea where they were, just following the trail hoping that it led somewhere where they could find safety.

  Candia did not like the woods. The trail petered out, and often they had to bushwhack through the spruce, the branches whirring back and smacking them in the face. For Candia this meant dropping the chains and dragging them. She was tired, not complaining, wanting the trees to finish, but the expanse of them seemed considerable. The other problem with the trail was the ease it gave trackers in following them, since the marks of their passage in the tree-sheltered snow were so visible. So Corrag was glad when they came out on a treeless, windy expanse as the sun began its descent below the horizon, vanishing in a blur of diffuse yellow light. The way ahead lay across the corrugated fabric of the northland, mountains running vaguely parallel and twisting in the voluptuous folds of the braided rock, reflecting and absorbing the solstice sun in stripes.

  The cloud cover overhead meant there was no need of a panic, despite the freezing wind at their backs. A good fire would keep them warm enough through the night. They stopped before long, and Corrag dropped her pack and began to search in the moonlight for branches. There were bushes in the folds of rock with deposits of broken kindling hidden in their interiors and larger wind-whipped trees hugging the crevasses that had dropped branches in the storms. Corrag amassed several pieces of drooping, brittle wood while Candia dug out a pit in the snow as best she could, kicking and scraping with her boots and chains to get down to the frozen rock. After assembling the wood in the pit, Corrag lit a match to the driest piece of fibrous, rotted pulp she could find. Several matches were wasted, but eventually a piece of wood no biger than a quarter caught flame and she set it next to some other larger pieces, cupping her hands over it and watching the flame flicker, widen and lick, spreading around itself and then rising to get at the larger structure of branches until the whole thing was ablaze and the two of them sat together, backs to the wind, rejoicing in the moment and luxuriating in the warmth that thawed out their faces and massaged the limbs they held over it.

  Corrag reached for the bread in her pack. There were two intact rolls and some crumbled bits. She shared it out evenly between them. That was the last of the easy food. They debated where to go.

  "If we follow the shore, it will be warmer. Up here on the ridges it might drop so low some nights there's no way we can stay alive."

  "Even with a fire?"

  "Well, what if we don't keep the fire going?"

  "We can keep it going. The shore is too crazy. There's the ice and then rocks. It'll take forever to get anywhere."

  "It might be easier to hide
out up here."

  "Let's stick to the ridges. We can see which way we're going," said Candia. She put her head in Corrag's lap. Despite being almost twice her age, Candia was like her child. Corrag felt a sense of responsibility for her. The other advantage of the high country she did not mention to Candia for fear of alarming her was that the greater visibility would be crucial if they wanted to have some warning of pursuers. Better to be prepared to make a stand then to be caught by surprise, she thought.

  So it seemed an eternity, an expanse without beginning or end that they trekked the interior, following the ridgeline away from the coast. The third day had dawned, she thought. It had been no more than three, but might have been less. Two days and three nights, she was sure. In the distance, to the south, was a landscape that included mountains and icy canyons. The red clouds that lined the sky portended worse weather. In the fire, still burning, were the feet of a bird, some kind of petrel or tern blown off its migratory route in a storm. Corrag had found its frozen body at her feet, hidden half buried in ice, and carried it with her on the traverse the previous day, plucked it, split it and roasted it. The bits of charred flesh had gone a long way to restoring their strength. Candia had complained. It was a disgusting thing, but eating was key to surviving. Still, it was hard to get Candia up. The wind was ruthless, and Candia blamed her for the decision to follow the ridgeline. She complained of the pain in her wrists from carrying the chains, her frozen hands, and the impossibility of regaining strength in her legs. Corrag spent some time with the file trying to cut the clamps of the chains loose, but she wasn't making any progress. The file seemed to have lost its bite. Candia wanted to know where they were going. The truth was Corrag didn't know. She had to make Candia understand that what they were attempting was a miracle. Any place of arrival was a victory. For Corrag, every day of freedom on the run was a day she'd won against the death camp and for the women they'd left behind. Candia just wanted to rest. She wanted to stop, and for her a return to the routine of the camp was preferable to the misery of trying to cheat death on their own. The vastness of the unknown had defeated her. She had forgotten already about her night on the Bunkhouse. Corrag marvelled at her ability to put out of her mind the certain death she had faced. For this reason she promptly discounted Candia's whining.

  "Come on, Candia. We have to keep moving."

  "The wind is so strong, Corrag. It's coming right at us. Can't we just wait a bit for it to die down."

  "It's not going to. It's going to pick up. The south wind means storms coming. Look at the clouds. Let's hike for as long as we can today until we find some shelter before the storms hit."

  Reluctantly, Candia stood and readied herself for the march, wrapping her head and shoulders in the extra blanket and tieing the arm chains one by one around the sleeves of her coat. Corrag packed up the knife and the file and the bird carcass together in the pockets of her coat along with Marina's whale bone carving already stored there for safe keeping. Then she heard it at the same time as Candia. The high-pitched whine of a motor, just the hint in the whistle of the wind. It was sooner than expected. But that was how destiny worked, Corrag knew. When you weren't expecting it, that's when it made its appearance. Before you had time to think.

  "What is that?" asked Candia, whispering soberly.

  "Snowmobile."

  "Who?"

  "Don't know. But they're probably looking for us by now. They've probably spotted us already."

  "How?"

  "I didn't want to tell you but there was a drone yesterday, just before the night. It came up from behind us when we were arguing about who was going to eat the bird and flew over us."

  "Why didn't you say something?"

  "I didn't see it until it was too late. I didn't want to scare you. I just wanted to let you sleep last night. You looked so peaceful and seemed so happy, Candia."

  "Well, I would have liked to know. So what's the plan?"

  "The plan is we fight. We have time. Somebody's giving us a fighting chance; we take it. I'm not going back."

  "Corrag, you are frigging crazy."

  "No I'm not. I'm just calculating. What would you rather do?"

  "Get these chains off me."

  "Exactly. Listen to me, Candia. We can do this."

  Corrag closed her eyes and thought of Ben. Here's what he would do. First climb the rock they'd come along just before nightfall and see who was coming on the snowmobile.

  "Then what?" asked Candia.

  "Then we'll jump them."

  "Where do you come up with this shit?"

  They picked the way up the ice-covered back of the wall along a route that Corrag discovered, feeling for finger holds with her bare hands. The top of the wind-blasted rock revealed the entire Labrador coast, and to the northeast, coming up on the trail they had made, popping above the ridgeline and bucking into the air, were three snowmobiles in a line. The engine noise was louder now, the high-pitch of hydrogen powered engines working at full revolutions per minute.

  "There's three," said Candia.

  "Master of the obvious."

  "So much for your plan."

  "No. We let the first go by and take out the back two."

  "And what happens when the first turns around?"

  "We'll have weapons."

  "I don't know how to shoot."

  "I do. I'll show you sometime when we have a minute. Come on."

  Corrag handed Candia the homemade knife.

  "You know how to use this," she said.

  "I'll try," said Candia gamely.

  They climbed out on the ledge and positioned themselves ten feet above the trail they'd made along the mountainside. The trail climbed at a steep angle above the valley that stretched eastwards towards a series of headlands that jutted into the ocean, lit in blue by the sun. Corrag marvelled at how beautiful it all was. She felt breathless, gripping the file in her hand. She wondered whether she was dreaming. She turned and looked at Candia.

  "I can't do this," said Candia.

  "You have to. Just smile all the while," said Corrag, grimacing.

  "Do you think it'll work?"

  "I believe it will. "

  The snowmobiles appeared on the trail. The first one was green and carried a heavyset man wearing a fur hat. The two following had on helmets and were slowing as the first snowmobile slowed, closing the gap between the three of them. Corrag tensed.

  "For freedom," she said, before straightening and hurling herself out into space. She sensed Candia falling behind her. Her feet and legs took most of the shock on the front of the machine. The rest of her collapsed with full force against the front of the driver. The file tore through flesh and bone somewhere in his chest. He went off the machine. She rolled off before it went over the cliff. Then she crawled back and found the man in the snow clutching at his chest, doubled over on his knees. She put her hands together and hit him on the back of the neck. He stayed down. Then she rolled him over and found his gun strapped against his hip in a holster. She pulled it out and looked up to see the first snowmobile bearing down on her, coming back on the freshly laid trail. Aiming and firing at once, Corrag made one shot on her knee. She was about fifty feet away when the explosion rocked the ridge country.

  The last snowmobile had come to a stop against the canyon wall, riding up an ice protrusion and twisting sideways. It looked like it had been glued into place. Candia and the driver had rolled themselves into a ball a little further back. Corrag approached the two with gun drawn. Candia had wrapped herself around the man's body, gore all over both of them. She could hear her crying. Corrag picked up a leg chain dragging in the snow.

  "You're a mess," she said. She sat in the snow next to the amalgam of the dead body of the snowmobile man and the live Candia and waited for Candia to compose herself. The snowmobile's engine was still running. Eventually Candia stopped crying, unsticking herself from the bloody corpse, and Corrag gingerly reversed the snowmobile away from the canyon wall. The gears worked the sam
e as a zipbike. Then Candia climbed on behind her and gathered up her chains.

  The snowmobile continued down the trail with two new riders as it got dark. The headlights went on. They plunged down the mountainside into the valley. The snow was swirling thickly around them, and the visibility was non-existent. The blizzard dropped about twelve inches of snow in less than an hour and then petered into a fine mist of ice for the rest of the night. The temperature remained constant at just above minus twenty degrees Celsius. The snowmobile had a dashboard of gauges. They were headed south by southeast. Corrag's gloved hands on the bars had no feeling in them. Neither did her face. She had just enough strength to focus on the beam of light ahead and steer. She dared not accelerate for fear of throwing them both off. They seemed to be riding along a road of sorts; there was a sign. Highway 510, it said. They were on a twelve-foot wide clearing that ran along a river and then crossed a suspension bridge. There were lights ahead, dwellings, the outskirts of a town, according to the global positioning gauge that had just recently come on. Corrag stopped on the far side of the bridge. They could hear water rushing under the ice. Everything else was frozen solid, even, it seemed, the twin beams of light up ahead. They both stood unsteadily beside the bridge. Corrag felt herself losing consciousness and leaned against the stone column until the blood returned to its normal course and she could see again. Then she pointed the snowmobile at the river in first gear, walking beside it, and gunned it, releasing her grip on the handle bar. It sauntered over the lip of flood mark ice and disappeared into silence. It was like Cortes burning his boats, Corrag thought, remembering that story. It had ended badly for Montezuma, but she couldn't remember how it ended for Cortes. Presumably it had ended well, although the idea of burning your boats had never sat well with her. In this case it was a necessary precaution against detection by agents of the Repho who were surely everywhere and far less accommodating than the Aztecs. Candia walked alongside her, clutching at her chains like a bad disease.