by Valerie Puri
His arms were more muscular than she remembered, and the cut of his torso left her longing for him. All of him. The long years apart made him more attractive than ever.
“I should have left the Commune the day I gave you Ethan. We could have been happy out here together.” She clenched her fist. “Why didn’t I just leave it all behind?”
“I still remember the last time we met when you placed Ethan in my arms. It was in our clearing in the forest, the one with the wild strawberries,” Brenden said. “Do you remember what you said to me?”
Marlene nodded. “I said, ‘You need to safeguard our son, things are getting too dangerous in the Commune. I need to protect my people, and I can’t do that until I root out every malicious person in the Order. Only then can I rejoin you.’”
She slumped her shoulders. “I lost sight of everything. I spent so much time working in the shadows, thinking I just needed more time. Before I knew it, too many years passed, and I failed to make progress.” Her lower lip trembled. “I gave up.”
Brenden squeezed her hand. “Every month, I went back to the clearing and waited for you, but you never showed. I thought you would return to me, but maybe you just needed a little more time.” He lowered his head. “I’m ashamed to admit, I gave up, too. I stopped going to the clearing to wait. I couldn’t spend my days sitting around for someone who would never show. I had Ethan to look after. He needed to be my priority.”
Marlene’s heart shattered in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’ve let down the most important people to me.”
“Ethan’s right, you know. I should have told him the truth.” Brenden bowed his head. “The lie was easier to live with. It would’ve been too hard to tell him about you. It hurt less to pretend I didn’t know who you were.”
Marlene frowned. “Why?”
“Because I missed you too much. Each morning, I woke up another day older and emptier inside. It was easier for me if Ethan didn’t ask about you. If he knew that you and I were his parents, he would have asked me endless questions about who his mother was. How could I tell him about you when it killed me to think of the life we never had together? It was selfish of me. He had a right to know.”
Her husband’s words tugged at her heart. She suffered in her own way for all these years; she failed to consider how much their separation would hurt both Brenden and Ethan.
“What’s done is done,” she said. “We both did what we thought was best. Were we wrong? Maybe. But all we can do now is try to make it better.”
“Do you think Ethan will ever forgive us?” Brenden asked.
Marlene stared into the orange flames. She wished she could say yes, but honestly, she didn’t know. Ethan was proving to be very stubborn, just like her. That was definitely not something in their favor.
A horn blared outside, echoed by another horn. And another.
Marlene sat forward in her chair. “What’s going on?”
Brenden leapt up. He retrieved two bows and two quivers full of arrows, then rushed to the door.
“Brenden, answer me. What’s happening?”
He paused with his hand on the handle. He gave her a longing look with those deep brown eyes.
“Lemerons. Stay here, where it’s safe.”
Marlene’s face darkened. She had lost love once before at the hands of the lemerons. It wouldn’t happen again.
“Like hell,” she snatched her curved sickle blade, following Brenden out the door.
Twenty-Six
Jennie
Jennie was sitting outside Tulsi’s house, letting her feet dangle over the deck. It was considerate of Tulsi to give her some space to think. She got the feeling Ethan’s best friend wasn’t too fond of her. She probably just needed time to get to know Jennie better.
She was wondering where Ethan went to cool off when she heard the horn blast from a few trees away. Another sounded a little further off. Soon, a chorus of horns was blaring from all around. It was an ominous siren call in the middle of the woods.
Tulsi flung her door open. “We need to move. Now.”
The urgency in her voice pulled Jennie to her feet. Her chest tightened when she saw the bow strung over Tulsi’s back.
“What’s happening? Why are they blowing the horns?”
“Lemerons,” Tulsi said, leading her over a bridge.
Jennie swallowed hard. Maybe it was a false alarm. But the churning in her gut and the intensity in the air told her otherwise.
The lemerons ruled this world with mindless bloodlust. At the rate they were gathering at the wall, there was sure to be more than just a handful in Arborville.
“Where are we going?” Jennie asked, stumbling across a wobbly bridge.
“I’m taking you to Ethan’s house.”
“What’s wrong with your home?”
“It’s too close to the settlement’s edge. You’ll be safer back at Ethan’s house. It’s more central and better protected.” Tulsi darted up to a scouting platform.
“Chaz, where’s Ethan?”
He was busy taking buckets of arrows out of a large chest in the middle of the platform. Placing them around the perimeter, he looked up.
“Haven’t seen him,” the sentry eyed Jennie with concern. “I remember you. Ethan brought you back. You shouldn’t be out here right now, it’s not safe.” He went back to his work. “Tulsi, get her out of here.”
“Let’s go.”
Jennie trailed unsteadily after her. The bridges bounced as they ran over them. Some were so narrow that when others rushed past them, she had to turn sideways.
The horns blared again.
“We’re running out of time.”
Jennie scanned the forest floor. She couldn’t see any lemerons. Maybe there was only one or two.
“There! I see Ethan.” Tulsi broke into a run.
It was hard to keep up on the unstable wood planks. Her heart raced as she chased after Tulsi. Ethan was two trees over.
Her face flushed. He was still here.
Brenden saw Ethan, too, and rushed up behind him. Jennie and Tulsi reached him at the same time as his father.
“Tulsi, Jennie, I need to get by,” Ethan said. “I need my weapon.”
“Here, son.” Brenden unshouldered a bow and extended it to him.
Ethan stared at the offered weapon with narrowed eyes. He looked from the bow to his father, back to the bow. The muscles in Ethan’s stubbled jaw rippled. He was grinding his teeth. The horns blared again.
Ethan snatched the bow from his father’s hands and slung it over his shoulder. He took a quiver of arrows without a word to Brenden.
“I’ll take it from here, Tulsi,” Ethan said. “Thanks for helping Jennie.”
He pushed past his father, pulling Jennie behind him by the hand. His hand was warm and comforting in hers.
They came to a familiar treehouse that Jennie recognized as Ethan’s home. He pushed open the door and escorted her inside.
He dropped the bow and quiver on a nearby chair. Turning back around, he rushed up to Jennie, cupping her face in his hands. She gasped as he pulled her to him and kissed her.
His stubble scratched her face, but his lips were soft and inviting. She relaxed into him.
One of his hands moved behind her head, his fingers interlacing through her auburn hair. His other hand slid down her body until it stopped at the small of her back. Ethan pulled her closer, his muscular arms flexing.
Jennie wrapped her arms around his neck. She closed her eyes, enjoying the moment.
The horns sounded outside.
Ethan broke off the kiss and rested his forehead against hers.
“You’re everything to me,” he whispered.
Butterflies swarmed in Jennie’s stomach, and her body tingled all over.
“I’m sorry for the way I reacted this morning,” he said. “I was wrong to take my frustrations out on you and Tulsi. I overreacted. Please forgive me.”
Jennie shook her head, their forehe
ads still touching. “There’s nothing to forgive. You were right to be upset. I’m sorry for everything that’s happened since we got here.” Jennie released her hold on Ethan and looked him in the eye.
The chorus of horns played their warning song, yet again. “I need to get out there to help,” Ethan picked up his bow and quiver. “Stay here, and stay safe.”
Twenty-Seven
Ethan
Ethan jogged to the nearest sentry post, the bridges trembling beneath his feet. Seeing Chester up ahead, he quickened his pace.
Chester brought the signal horn to his lips, blowing the alarm once more.
“Did you spot it?” Ethan asked after Chester lowered the horn.
“No. Not yet. The first signal came from the north,” He leaned over the deck railing, scanning the ground below. “But I reckon it’ll be coming this way soon.”
Ethan glanced around. Usually, the trees would be swarming with hunters and scouts after a signal blast. Only a few others were taking their positions nearby.
“There’s too few of us here. Where’s everyone else?” Ethan asked.
“Dunno, but something doesn’t feel right in the air. It’s too still.”
Ethan sniffed. “And too rancid. They’re coming.”
Chester’s eyes went wide. “You mean there’s more than one?”
Ethan nodded. “And I know where they’re going.”
Arborville wouldn’t be their destination. It would be the Commune. Maybe if they could destroy these lemerons, it would help ease the burden on Jennie’s people.
He readied his bow with an arrow. The ground was still. Not even a breeze rustled the leaves blanketing the forest floor.
And then he heard it. Lemerons growled just beyond his sightline. The trees provided his people protection, but they also obstructed his view. A bowstring snapped and a lemeron roared.
Men and women shouted commands at each other, tension breaking through their voices.
Chester ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “How many are there?”
“It doesn’t matter, even one is too many.”
Ethan saw movement below. He steadied his aim and loosed an arrow sending it through the trees to find its mark. The creature let out a gargled cry before collapsing motionless to the ground.
“One less to worry about.” Ethan readied another arrow.
Chester hooked the horn on his belt and picked up a crossbow. He fit it with a bolt and cranked the arming mechanism.
“Save your shots until they get closer,” Ethan warned.
Crossbows were deadly, but not as accurate at a distance. He preferred a bow and arrow over a crossbow any day.
Another lemeron stepped into view. This time, his arrow caught its shoulder. It staggered back, roared, then rushed forward in a frenzy. Its head bobbed wildly as it clawed at anything in its path.
Ethan loosed another arrow. It zipped right past the lemeron’s head, missing.
“Damn it!”
Chester stepped beside him, taking aim with the crossbow. The lemeron was nearly beneath them. He squeezed the trigger.
The bolt bit into the lemerons chest, right where the heart would be. It staggered back, then advanced a few more steps before collapsing. It was dead.
Ethan clapped him on the back.
“Nice shot.”
His smile fell when he saw his father running into view a few trees away. Their eyes met.
“Ethan,” he shouted. “We need you over here. There’s too many of them.”
He drew in a sharp breath. Shouldering his bow, he ran.
Ethan sprinted over the bridges and up the steps to the upper level of treehouses. His father gripped his shoulder.
“We need your help. We’re being overrun,”
“How?” Ethan asked.
His father’s hand tightened on his shoulder, his voice strained as he spoke. “They’re starting to climb.”
Ethan’s stomach clenched. “What? That’s impossible. They can’t, they don’t know how.”
“Look down, they’re learning.”
Ethan swallowed his fear and peered at the battle below.
On the level beneath them, he saw his people attacking. Men and women alike were firing arrows, bolts, and dropping huge stones on the creatures swarming the ground. There must have been at least three dozen lemerons. So, this was where everyone was, over here fighting the vile creatures.
His people were killing them off. As the motionless ones fell, the false life driving them finally extinguished, the others stepped on their corpses. A mound of dead lemerons had formed at the base of a tree. The living ones climbed onto the pile of their dead. The more that died, the higher the rest climbed.
“Impossible,” Ethan whispered.
Tulsi was on the lower level, fighting them off as they ascended. She stood out in her blue shirt, like a bluebird amongst the sparrows. The quiver on her back was empty.
A lemeron climbed so high, it reached across the platform, snatching at her feet. She hurled a heavy stone as big as her head at it. It cracked against the creature’s face. It slid off the platform.
Another lemeron quickly replaced it, snarling and clawing at the wood by her feet. She backed away, her back against the treehouse. Ethan’s body went numb. There was nowhere for her to go. She was sandwiched in by other scouts fighting them off. And even worse, she was out of arrows and rocks.
Ethan’s eyes darted around, searching for the quickest path to her. The lemeron grabbed her ankle and pulled. She fell down with a shriek.
There was no time. He fumbled with an arrow, drew back his bowstring, and released it. He leaned over the railing of his high perch, hoping he didn’t miss. His arrow soared through the air. Time slowed around him as he begged for the tip to hit its mark.
The lemeron pulled her to the edge, closer to the frenzied mass of creatures below. He held his breath. What if he missed? What if he hit her? His arms trembled.
A wet crack split the air as his arrow sunk into its eye socket. The lemeron went limp with the wooden shaft sticking out of its face.
Tulsi scrambled back from the edge as more lemerons began to climb.
“If they get up there, it’s over for us all,” his father shouted.
Ethan thought of Jennie, defenseless in his house, and Tulsi, who was nearly pulled down into the waiting hands of death.
“What’s your plan?” he asked.
His father thrust the hilt of a short sword in his hand. “We go down there and draw them away.”
Ethan stared deep into the eyes of his father. He meant the ground. They might be killed down there, but it would mean the others would have a chance to live. He nodded.
His father returned the gesture, then pulled him into a tight hug. Ethan hugged him back.
“My son,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for the lies. I did it for love of your mother. It was too hard for me to speak about her and it was easier to pretend I didn’t know her. I couldn’t bear talking about your mother knowing I’d probably never see her again. It was selfish of me. I should have told you.”
Brenden pulled away, tears in his eyes. The pain and torment his father had suppressed for Ethan’s entire life was written plainly across his father’s face.
“I forgive you,” Ethan heard himself say. He hadn’t realized he said the words aloud. It felt good to say it, like a heavy weight was lifted off his chest.
A smile broke through the sadness on his father’s face. “Thank you, my son. Now let’s go save Arborville.”
Twenty-Eight
Marlene
Since when could lemerons climb? If they used their dead as stepping stones to reach higher ground, how soon until they learned to climb trees… or the wall?
Marlene witnessed a girl nearly get pulled off the deck by a lemeron. That was too close. She probably picked the worst place to be when the creatures learned how to climb: one of the lowest treehouses to the ground.
A well-timed arrow saved her, but another
lemeron was climbing onto the platform. Its torso was flat on the wooden surface, all it needed to do was get a leg up, and it was over.
The others fighting next to her let her pass by, and she retreated to higher ground. One of them stabbed the lemeron with his blade. They had it under control for now, but more were climbing.
Marlene was making her way to them to help. On her way, she threw small boulders at the stragglers, picking them off one by one. She was nearly there when something moved at the edge of her sight. It was quick and purposeful… very different from a lemeron.
She turned and gasped. Down on the ground, Brenden and Ethan ran past the pile of lemerons.
“No,” she said breathlessly. Her head was buzzing.
Marlene grabbed hold of the railing in front of her, leaning over to get a better look. Her heart hammered in her chest. They were deliberately putting themselves in danger. Why? As one lemeron after another took notice of them, she figured it out. They were luring them away from the pile of dead monsters.
Sniffing out easier prey, the lemerons abandoned their climb and pursued Brenden and Ethan. There was no sense to the direction they ran in. They circled trees, ducked under branches, and, most importantly, confused the creatures.
One of the monsters stopped in its tracks, bobbing its head around, trying to figure out where its prey went. Ethan ran in front of it, pulling its gaze. Brenden rushed at it from behind, plunging a blade through its back.
Brown blood exploded from the wound. It collapsed to the ground, dead.
Without missing a beat, Brenden took off. This time he distracted a lemeron, giving Ethan a chance to cut its head off with his sword. Marlene raised an eyebrow. A blow like that took enormous strength and precision.
She watched in admiration as her husband and son continued to pick off the monsters. The way they moved and attacked was practiced and well thought out. They were in sync with each other. The grey fleshed beasts were no match for the two men.
