Dreams of the Chosen

by Cawell, Brian

  A squad is despatched to retrieve the bodies of their comrades from the surface and secure the trapdoor, and the remaining troops carry the bodies of the dead and the injured back down the long passage to the main Archive, leaving the bodies of the Ferals where they tumbled.

  And in the years that follow, the remnants of the once mighty Thorn Clan, squatting around the fires in their rubble camps and testing the air for ghosts, will tell the legend of the night when the mightiest of their warriors went out to fight an invisible enemy – and died.

  Or simply disappeared.

  ‘No-go Zone’

  Old Bourne

  December 31, 3383ad

  LEANA

  The rain has begun in earnest, blowing in curtains across the tumbled wasteland of the ruins. Towards the coast, thunder rolls endlessly and brief sharp forks of silver light arc from the clouds to the earth.

  And yet for one surreal moment the moon has appeared, shining serenely at the eye of the chaos, amid all the boiling madness of the clouds. It lends a ghostly luminescence to the sheets of drifting rain and lights Leana’s way to safety.

  She stumbles, pitches forward and strikes her elbow painfully on a protruding rock.

  ‘Pay attention!’ She whispers the words angrily to herself, listening for movement and scanning to sense whether the sentry has heard.

  What passes for thought in his savage brain remains unchanged. No spike of attention. No subtle change in heart rate. No surge of nervous energy to suggest that he is aware of her presence – even at a level below the conscious.

  Though the camp is small, with only a few Fe’ls and their sleeping children, she should still have given it a wider berth, but her journey has been too slow and she still has far to travel before morning, if she is to make the safety of the Wood before the sunrise exposes her.

  To circle east would lead her towards the impassable scree of two fallen scrapers, whose death falls have formed an impenetrable ridge a hundred spans high.

  To circle further west would add an unaffordable time to the journey and drain more vital energy from her protesting legs.

  She breathes in deeply and moves on, monitoring the mind-tone of the sentry, as she passes within a rock’s-throw of his position. He is sheltering behind a large slab of Plascrete, out of the wind, which cuts through her clothing like icy blades.

  A sudden movement. A rat the size of a small dog insinuates itself from a gap in a nearby pile, stands on its haunches and shrieks a challenge. Desperately she reaches down and picks up a sharp rock. Taking aim, she hurls it at the animal, striking a painful blow on the shoulder and feeling its rodent courage shatter like glass. The creature turns and disappears back into the rubble pile, but the disturbance has drawn the sentry’s attention.

  Slipping into his thoughts, she looks out through his eyes, as he scans the rubble for movement, and though she looks desperately for cover, his sweep has caught her in the open. She feels the change in his body chemistry, as her presence registers.

  And as she begins to run, she feels his muscles tense. He calls a warning and leaps after her across the rubble-strewn landscape.

  Her start is not sufficient, and she knows it.

  He is bred for the ruins. His step is sure, where hers is tentative. And he is strong.

  Like a dog on the hunt, he bays his exhilaration to the moon, as he closes the gap between them with every stride.

  If she had been able to focus and spread her senses more widely, she would have felt the others respond. Springing to wakefulness in the camp and rushing to gather their weapons.

  The sentry is almost upon her. Her weary legs feel numb under her and her breath rasps in her throat like fire. It is then that she reads his intention and, for just a moment, her courage fails. Then a calm descends like a blanket and she knows what she must do.

  She stops running and, as she struggles to control her erratic breathing, she looks back at the man’s face.

  The Fe’l stops in his tracks, confused by the unexpected behaviour, then he begins walking slowly towards her. His eyes wander over her possessively and she shudders at the savagery she reads behind them.

  There will be only one slim chance.

  When he is barely a stride away, she bows her head and sinks to a submissive crouch, with her forehead almost touching the ground and the back of her neck exposed to him. He stops again and this time she feels the thrill of possession flowing through him, as he looks down at her. Her hand closes around a heavy rock, but she does not move. In the distance, she can hear the other Fe’ls gathering around the central fire. In moments, they will be upon her and all hope will be lost, but she cannot think of that now. Now, she must focus.

  She holds the submissive pose a moment longer, then shifts her gaze upwards, until she is staring into those savage eyes.

  He reaches out, as she knew he would, and pushes her roughly onto her back. The sharp stones stab into her, but she remains focused.

  He stands astride her body and, as he kneels to tear the dress from her shoulder, she senses the moment of exposure – when one hand reaches down for balance and his attention is on his conquest.

  Summoning her energy, she tears the rock from the soil, and drives it hard up into the Fe’l’s exposed nose, shattering the bone, and shoves his falling body sideways with the last of her strength, as the brief, exquisite pain erupts through his brain, and his consciousness blinks out.

  She rolls away, gasping with relief and with the horror of what has been forced upon her.

  Then the sounds of the others filter through the dark and ignite the adrenalin already coursing through her.

  They have not caught sight of her yet and she scrambles and stumbles to put as much distance between herself and the unconscious Fe’l as she can manage. The shouts and shrieks of her pursuers shred her courage, but she drives on, barely aware of the burning in her lungs or the screaming agony of her cramping muscles.

  What she has read in the savage mind of her attacker, the stifling fog of his primal emotions, sickens her – and drives her on. There are things far worse than pain. And not all deaths are equal.

  But the Fe’ls are blind to her thoughts, and she can feel them slipping further and further behind, until all sounds of pursuit die away and the contact dissipates like voices on the wind.

  Until all that remains is the soaking rain, washing over her skin, like gentle, cleansing fingers. In the distance, lightning flashes cold fire across the boiling sky and the thunder rolls.

  She is safe. For now. But still, she doesn’t stop. The Wood is out there far beyond the ruins and the moon in its pocket of grey clouds is lighting the way. One step, and then another. One breath, then one more.

  A cloud drifts across the moon and she stumbles on in the darkness.

  The Forest of D’nong

  Eastern Perimeter

  Bourne Region

  January 1, 3384ad

  LEANA

  She enters the forest, walking slowly past the first line of trees, aware of nothing but the welcoming silence. Then she stops. With her hand on the rough bark of one of the ancient trees, she turns and looks back.

  The first rays of morning are breaking the horizon, staining the last wisps of cloud with pinks and reds.

  As her breathing slows, she can taste the aromas of the forest, which the rain has released. And from somewhere deep in her memory, they recall a feeling of home.

  She moves on a few paces, until she is absorbed by the thick green, then she sinks to her knees in the sodden leaf-litter, breathing in the once familiar sweet-sour smell.

  The leaves are warm and soft and as she drifts slowly down into sleep, her last thought is a memory.

  Her mother, face dappled by the sunlight through the leaves, rubbing gentle hands across her hair and singing.

  A lullaby that drifts along with
her into the soothing dark.

  29

  The Morning After

  ‘Fortress de Vries’

  Old Bourne

  January 1, 3384ad

  JORDAN’S STORY

  Eliita stumbled and fell to her knees, as the soldiers drove us into the hastily constructed holding pen at the base of the Fortress wall.

  She held inside the cry of pain that struggled to make its way out, but I could feel it, even through the barrier of the Shield. I helped her to her feet and supported her, as she limped towards the solid stone of the wall. She slid down into a sitting position, holding the injured leg out straight.

  From then, the hours dragged endlessly on.

  The Sect members stood in desolate groups with heads bowed, barely talking. The shock and loss had begun to sink in, robbing them of all will. They stood, watching the townspeople, who stood watching them from a nervous distance, through the makeshift fence of the stockade.

  Then the soldiers established a perimeter around the enclosure that kept the townspeople away. The stockade wasn’t designed to keep us in. It was little more than posts driven into the ground, with rails lashed to them. Even a child could have climbed out. Rather, it was a physical line in the sand.

  We were in little doubt about the consequences of crossing it.

  We had left behind in the Archives the bodies of six or eight of the Secters – mostly young and hot-headed – who had resisted the invasion of their home the evening before. A few more who had attempted to escape during the long night’s journey through the thunder and rain, back to the Fortress, lay unburied in the mud where they had been caught and executed.

  One or two had made it to freedom in the woods and the fields, their tracks and their scents washed away by the storm, but it was more by luck and courage – and natural speed – than through careful planning. And planning wouldn’t help us escape, now.

  The Guard had positioned armed soldiers all around the three sides of the enclosure. The only time the gate was opened was to bring in food and to remove the waste buckets, which they made the Council members carry to the midden, in a gully some distance from the Fortress walls.

  Mykal and I walked the perimeter of the enclosure, looking for weaknesses in the cordon, but the area was too easy to guard.

  The open space between the fence and the distant woods made it impossible to run for it. We would be hunted down by the dogs and the horses before we made it a quarter of the way. And the Fortress wall behind us was sheer and imposing. No way through there.

  At one stage, Sharonne’s father, Anton de Vries, came to inspect the arrangements. Mykal pointed him out to me, but I’d already marked him as someone of substance, by the way everyone changed their behaviour as he approached.

  He stood for a while, talking with the leader of the soldiers, a merciless monster called Lessandro Dey.

  Dey, I couldn’t read. He was Black Guard and Mykal had warned me of their advantage. De Vries, however, de Vries was transparent.

  It was no wonder that, following the example of her brother, Sharonne had left as soon as her mother died. He was a man with no empathy, incapable of anything resembling affection. An arrogant, self-absorbed ego, he expected and received nothing less than complete obedience, which made it even more surprising to hear him address Dey by his first name.

  ‘Lessandro,’ he said. ‘You have done very well. Bainbridge will be pleased.’

  – Bainbridge? I tossed the question to Mykal, who was standing near Eliita, watching her sleep. He was concerned about the ankle and had asked one of the soldiers if he could have a bandage to strap it up, but the man had laughed in his face and told him to step back from the fence.

  I knew that Mykal was listening in on the conversation. We were too far away to hear the words spoken, but both men were within Sensing-range, so we caught both sides, filtered through Anton de Vries’s thought-stream.

  Mykal explained.

  – Bainbridge Hartman, head of the Hartman Family. They are centred in the Citadel two to three weeks’ journey to the northeast. The Hartmans are the most powerful of all the Families. The Black Guard are Hartman creations. They have done their bidding longer than anyone can remember. For centuries, probably. It is said that they existed even before the Fall and that their existence is what made the Hartman Clan so strong in the early years. Outside of the Families themselves, they are the most powerful group from Old Bane to the Southern Dead Zone.

  – ‘The power behind the throne.’ I was thinking aloud. Something Hanni had Shared with me once, when I’d been too tired to shut him off.

  – What?

  I should have guessed it would make no sense to Mykal.

  – In ancient times, the monarchs or the emperors were the ones who sat on the throne, but more often than not the men who controlled the armies had the real power. In ancient Rome, the emperors came and went, but the emperor’s personal guard – the Praetorian Guard – they remained. And more than once, they decided the succession, by killing the emperor and replacing him, or by deciding who would follow when he died. It’s sometimes better to be the power behind the throne than the puppet sitting on it. I wish I could read what goes on inside that guy’s mind.

  Mykal looked across at Lessandro Dey.

  – Don’t we all! he replied.

  The sun was high and Dey was sweating in his black uniform. His heavy hood was pulled back, revealing his cold, sharp-featured face, and around his neck I caught the glint of copper.

  That was when Mykal told me about the necklace.

  ERIN’S STORY

  It was late afternoon when they brought Leana in.

  She could barely walk and Bran and Alek were supporting her. They had found her at the southeastern edge of the Wood. She had walked all night to get there, then collapsed just inside the tree-line. She only woke when they roused her twelve hours later.

  I wondered why they hadn’t sent a message ahead to warn us, but when I saw the looks on their faces and felt the depth of the fear that slipped through their Shields, I knew it was too serious for anything but face-to-face communication.

  I studied the drained expression on Leana’s face and felt the depth of her despair – and from that instant I could only fear the worst.

  – There was nothing we could do. By the time the alarm was raised, we had barely ten minutes to prepare. Then they were on us. I was lucky to get out, and Alvy—

  She hesitated, as if what she was about to share was too painful. Instinctively, I prompted her.

  – What about Alvy?

  – He led the Fe’ls away from me. And I didn’t see him again. I don’t know—

  – What? If he made it?

  Another hesitation.

  – Anything. I don’t know anything. When I escaped, the Guard and the soldiers were rounding up everyone in the Archive and Alvy was leading a dozen Fe’ls away from where I was hiding. The last thing I saw was Fe’ls. They were all around the trapdoor we’d escaped from. If they found it and went down into the Archive, anything could have happened. I just – I just don’t know.

  It took a few seconds for the news to sink in past my need for denial.

  Alvy, Eliita – Jordan.

  We had considered many scenarios – all the things that might possibly go wrong – but never that the Archive itself might be compromised.

  It was unthinkable. For nine centuries, it had withstood every challenge and threat to its existence, and now –

  I fancied I could hear Fate laughing at us.

  I turned to Bran.

  – Where would they take them?

  He thought for a moment. I think he was looking for words that might break it to me easily.

  – It depends. A pause. I waited nervously. If they think they’re just members of the Sect, I can’t see them taking them any further than the For
tress. After all, the Archive was found in the de Vries territories, so there’d be no reason to go to all the effort of transporting them all the way to the Citadel. At least, not initially. They’ll imprison them there and interrogate them one by one. Probably take the Archives back there, too – before they decide what to do with them.

  – If the Fe’ls didn’t— Leana starts the thought, but it falters, as if she cannot bear to think it.

  – How many of them were there? Just a guess. I admired Bran’s iron control. Get to the core, ride over the emotions.

  – Forty, I guess. I couldn’t be sure.

  – Well, Bran went on, I’d back a squad of the Fortress garrison under the leadership of the Black Guard over a hundred Ferals. As long as they don’t have to fight in the ruins. I’m sure they’re safe, for now.

  I watched Leana’s face and the tension eased a fraction. But mine didn’t. I’d heard about the Guard and their interrogation techniques.

  – That’s all very well, if they think they’re all Sect members, Bran. But what if they find out they’re Other-Worlders – or that they possess the Gift? What then?

  – Then? Then the game changes. The Guard has jurisdiction over all Espers – and, I’d imagine, all Other-Worlders too. Pray that they can keep it secret, or they’ll take them to the Citadel in chains. And no one who goes there ever comes back. At least—

  I knew he was holding something back and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was. But the situation was too serious for my misgivings. I prompted him.

  – At least?

  – When they’ve finished with them, sometimes, they let them out – to demoralise us, I guess.

  – Demoralise?

  He paused again.

  – By the time the Guard and their torturers have finished with their interrogations and experiments, if they survive, they’re little more than shadows of what they once were. They can no longer use the Gift and they spend their lives in terrible pain, shuffling from one terror to the next. Better to be dead than forced to live in pain and fear like that.

  I stood up and moved to stare out of the window of the hut.