I run up to Hawkins, and when I try to stop, I slip on the soggy path and careen into him, bouncing off his great belly. We struggle to stay upright as he grabs at my shoulders for balance—this massive man who is as round as he is tall, using a skinny, fourteen-year-old girl for support—and somehow, we regain our footing.
“All this commotion, Caroline. What in the name of—” he says.
I interrupt him, my words coming out unsteady, but certain. “Drums. I heard the war rhythm.”
“No. Where?”
“They’ve crossed the ridge.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod, but there’s enough hesitation in my reaction that he asks me again, more forcefully this time, repeating the words hard, punctuating each one by shaking my shoulders.
“Are. You. Sure?”
My confidence begins to waver. I didn’t see anything with my own eyes, but I’m scared to admit that fact. “Maybe. They’re close.”
“How many?”
“I—I don’t know.”
Anger flashes across his face. “You didn’t look?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I—no—I ran. I came back so I could warn everyone.”
“You’re a scout, Mathers. That’s your job. Foolish girl!”
“I’m—”
“Go back. Take Brandon with you.”
“But—”
“Do your job like you’re supposed to. Find Brandon, and you go! You find out how many there are, and do not report back until you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need to know how many. If it’s just a few of them, a small group, maybe we can hold out. But if it’s bigger, if they’re sending a whole regiment, then we have to retreat. It won’t matter how well we can fight. Do you understand?”
“How will I know the difference?”
“You’ll know. Go.”
I don’t wait for any more orders. I don’t give him a chance to scold me again. I turn and sidestep between two hovels that were built too close together by the Smiths and the Lowells, families that have been fighting over the same plot of land for a decade. The twelve-inch-wide strip that divides their property has been the source of so many bloody noses and split lips that the other villagers no longer pay attention.
Elder Lowell is in front of his shack, covering his windows, and Elder Smith is across from him doing the same, both men trading verbal jabs about who should be doing what and to mind his own business. They pay no attention to me as I scamper between them.
I run back toward The Center and see the men of the encampment doing what they can to protect what little they own. They nail extra scraps of metal against the sides of their homes, barring rear entrances with rusted heaps that Grandfather calls refrigerators. Back when people used electricity—I’ve only heard forbidden stories—they kept your food cold, and I can only imagine what that luxury must have been like.
The fearful shouting has stopped, and it’s been replaced with pleas of necessity, some begging for help, some asking for an extra sheet of metal if anyone has it. Some are faster than others, and they’re kind enough to help where it’s needed.
I’ve asked Grandfather why we don’t just leave the protection in place, so we wouldn’t have to go through this maddening rush to safety whenever danger is near. Being prepared for it makes complete sense to me. He says I’m probably right, but it’s because of Hawkins, who thinks that constantly having that extra layer of defense keeps everyone on edge, keeps them fearful and unproductive. I understand the logic, but I would rather have the peace of mind. If I were the General Chief, I would make everyone learn to work just as hard with one eye looking over their shoulder.
I find Brandon helping his father. He’s holding a rubber tire at his side, and I can’t begin to guess how they plan to use it. I shout his name and grab his arm, spinning him around. Anxious and agitated, he raises a clenched fist until he recognizes me.
“Caroline,” he says.
“You have to come with me.”
“Why?”
“We need to count how many are coming.”
“Not right now. Can’t you get someone else? I’m helping—”
“Hawkins said so.” I point with my chin toward the upper valley. “Back up there. General Chief’s order.”
His father, Marlon, steps away from their wall, readjusting his grip on a hammer. Once a tool, now a weapon. “I need him here,” he says. Angry. Demanding.
“Hawkins said—”
“I don’t give a damn what—”
Brandon interrupts him. “Dad, I have to.”
“You have to help protect your family.”
Brandon shoves the old tire into his father’s arms. “Here. We’re almost done. You’ll be fine without me.” To me he adds, “Let me get my pack.”
“You don’t need it. Let’s go.”
He pauses, studies my face, and then we’re sprinting past homes that may not be there much longer.
Once we reach the outer edges of the encampment, Brandon asks, “You’re positive you heard the war rhythm?” His legs and lungs are fresher than mine, and he has to ease back on his pace so that I can keep up.
Between panting breaths, I manage to say, “Yeah. Loud, like there were lots of them. Hawkins wants to know how many.”
“How many drums?”
“No,” I say, huffing, trying to push my words out through constricted lungs. “Blackcoats.”
“Does he think the whole DAV army is coming?”
“Yes,” I answer.
Our encampment is on the northern edge of the PRV. We’re the forward party. The first line of defense. The border between our nations stretches hundreds of miles to the east and west, but where we’re stationed is the easiest path down to the capital, Warrenville. Grandfather says it used to be called Roanoke back in the Olden Days.
If the DAV really wants to ruin us, if they want to invade and claim our lands, then all they have to do is trudge right over the small pockets of resistance from here on south. We’ve been foolish enough to think that a few defense stations will hinder their progress, but they’ll be little more than gnats against a charging bull. And then that bull will march through the streets of the largest city we have remaining. Everyone has known this for as long as Grandfather can remember, and the only thing that has stopped the DAV is the Peace Pact the presidents signed after the last Great Invasion.
The only question is, why has the DAV decided to break it now?
3
I ask Brandon what he thinks, if he’s heard any rumors, as we reach the edge of the lake. The drums have stopped, and it worries me. Without their massive, booming rhythm to pinpoint their location, there’s no way to tell where the army might be.
Brandon is still fresh, breathing smoothly, bounding along like a white-tailed deer, but he’s taking shorter strides because he knows I’m winded and having trouble matching his pace. He says, “I don’t know, but if they’re coming, they have a reason. Hawkins told me one time that the Peace Pact was never really there to prevent a war in the first place.”
“It wasn’t?” I stop, bend over at the waist, and try to suck in deeper breaths of the cool, moist air. Rain splatters against my back, my neck.
“Stand up. Put your hands behind your head. It’ll open up your lungs better.”
I do what he says, and he’s right, but now it feels like my lungs are only partially filled with riverbed silt. “Can we walk for a second?”
Brandon nods. “Sure.”
“So the Pact? It wasn’t—” I pause, sucking wind. “It wasn’t supposed to prevent a war?”
“Hawkins said it was something like a mutual agreement, you know? That we, both sides I mean, were only supposed to invade if we had a good reason for it.”
“Who decides what’s a good reason and what isn’t? Who would agree to that nonsense?”
“Desperate people, I guess. Didn’t your grandfather tell you what happened?”
>
“He said both sides lost so many people that nobody really won.”
“And that’s true, but…”
“But what?”
“They have a new president now, and he may see things differently.”
“How’d you learn that?”
“Your buddy Finn told me.”
I stop in the middle of the path. Disbelieving, feeling like I’ve been caught. “You know about him?”
“You’re not the only one guarding the woods, Caroline.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing important. Although now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
It’s good that he feels the same. It takes some of the guilt away. But I’m curious about their relationship, and for a moment, the threat of war is replaced by a stronger need to know. I feel like someone sneaked into our shack and touched all our things while Grandfather and I weren’t there. “When did you meet him?”
“Maybe a week or so after you. This whole time, I always thought he wasn’t that smart and the only reason he’s alive is because we both let him live so he could give us information.”
“Did he tell you anything?”
“Same stuff he told you, probably. Pennsylvania and New York joined up. Some bridges washed out. Simple things that don’t affect us all the way down here.”
I’m wounded. My secrets weren’t my own after all. I feel like I have nothing. “Yeah, that’s what he told me, too.”
“I can’t believe I trusted him. I bet he let us catch him on purpose so he could run around here as free as he wanted.”
“That’s not dumb at all,” I admit. Then I shake my head, disappointed in myself for not spotting the truth. I should’ve seen it. “I’m such an idiot,” I say.
“C’mon now, you weren’t the only one,” Brandon adds. “We both let him sneak around for a year. There’s no telling what kind of information he was able to give them.”
I pick up an apple-sized rock from the forest floor and sling it into the lake, growling between clenched teeth. “So stupid.”
Brandon grins. “Like that helped. Anyway, I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine, okay? Let’s finish the recon job and get back. If the blackcoats are marching with a full army, then once we’re at camp, seems like our best option is to start packing.”
I agree, and now that we’ve walked a bit, I can run again, but we’re going slower now, more cautious, because we can’t be sure how far the DAV army made it. Or if Finn is hiding somewhere, watching, waiting to snipe us. In all the times I’ve seen him, he’s never carried a weapon, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t take us out with a well-aimed rock or a makeshift snare.
Once we’ve gone another quarter mile or so, Brandon suggests we move off the lake trail because we’re too visible, too easily spotted by scouts or forward parties that might be moving forward to survey the area, same as us. It occurs to me that there’s no need for Finn now—since the DAV army is on its way, he’s done his job. He’s probably back home, wherever that is, resting, enjoying his rewards. I figure we’ll never see him again, and we’ll both miss our chance to beat him senseless for betraying us.
A hundred yards deeper into the woods, ducking under low-hanging limbs that are soaked to their core and covered in moss, I learn that I’m wrong about Finn.
Brandon and I flick our heads in the same direction when we hear a sharply whispered, “Caroline. Brandon.”
Up the hillside, we spot a hollow log, and sticking out of the end is Finn’s dirty, muddy head. His blond hair is plastered down onto his scalp, and he looks miserable. Serves him right, if you ask me.
We don’t say anything. We move toward him, scrambling up the slick embankment, and I assume that Brandon is thinking the same thing I am: get Finn before he can get away. I don’t know about my companion, but I have damage on my mind.
Finn sees that we’re angry and moving with purpose. He pulls his hands out of the log, showing us his palms, and says, “Wait, wait.”
Brandon gets there first. He reaches inside and grabs Finn under the arms and drags him out, then throws him down on the ground. Finn rolls and holds his arms out, pleading. “Wait. I didn’t know,” he says. “I swear I didn’t.”
The hillside is steep. I clamber up to them, scrambling on all fours, and once I reach Finn, I put my knee across his neck while Brandon holds him down. I slip my knife from its sheath and rest the sharp point against the throbbing vein in Finn’s neck. “Liar,” I say.
“No, honest to God, I didn’t know. They don’t tell me anything.”
“Liar,” I repeat, and push a little harder on the knife. A trickle of blood leaks out from Finn’s punctured skin. I pull back, not wanting to kill him just yet. The dark red continues to seep down his neck, but it’s diluted by the waterfall of rain cascading down around us.
“Caroline, listen. I ran away. I’m a deserter, and if they find me, I’m dead.”
“What did you tell them?” Brandon says. His jaw is clenched, and spittle flies with his words.
“The same as always. That your camp was the only thing guarding the way.”
“And you didn’t think that was enough?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why’d they come?” I ask. “Why’re you breaking the Peace Pact?”
“I don’t—I have no clue. I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. Can’t. I swear.” Finn shudders and tries to twist his neck farther away from my knife. “Get that thing off me, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Brandon squeezes Finn’s arms harder and shakes him. “She heard drums. Is it the whole army? Is it?”
Finn’s looks up at us, eyes wide with fear as he nods.
“How many?”
“Ten thousand, and that’s just the front lines. More may come if they need it.”
I sit back, shocked, finally believing that what Ellery said is true.
War.
Brandon does the same, and when he lets go, Finn scoots away and puts his back up against a pine tree. He feels his neck, wipes away the blood. “I’m sorry,” is all he says.
I look at Brandon. His mouth is open and he’s shaking. I’m sure he understands what it means, too. We, the encampment, are in massive trouble. Retreating, running, getting away as fast as we can, scurrying through the mountains for hundreds of miles, back to the supposed safety of Warrenville is the only option.
Not for the two of us, though. Our job will be to tell every encampment along the way. It’ll be our job to deliver the warnings, to save as many lives as we can.
From this moment forward Brandon and I are no longer scouts.
We are messengers of doom and destruction.
The wind kicks up and brings with it the foul odor of moss and sodden, dead leaves. It used to be a smell I enjoyed. It was refreshing and reminded me of when I was younger, before the rains came, back when we had only infrequent thunderstorms during the summers, and I would play outside after they had moved on, slopping together mud pies and inhaling the scent that the storms left behind.
But now, that scent is simply another reminder that we are drenched and miserable. Like the rains, there’s no stopping what’s coming.
Brandon lifts his eyes to the canopy, searching for answers from above.
I ask him, “What should we do?”
He opens his eyes and wipes his face with a soaked sleeve. “We’ll go take a look and then head back to warn the others.”
“I mean about him,” I say, nodding toward Finn.
“Kill him,” Brandon replies, getting to his feet. He wipes his hands on his pants; it’s an indifferent gesture that seems to accompany an indifferent common response.
“What?” I can’t say that I’m surprised, but the finality of it catches me off guard.
“Don’t,” Finn begs. “Let me come with you. I can help.”
Brandon chuckles quietly and kneels in front of Finn. “You come
back to our camp, all they’ll see is DAV and they’ll kill you. Try to go back to yours as a deserter, your people will hang you for treason. Point is, you’re dead either way, so we might as well save someone else the trouble.”
“I’ll tell your Elders everything I know.”
“You said you didn’t know anything.”
“I… I lied.”
Brandon looks at me. “See?”
I shrug. I can’t think of anything to say.
“Or,” Brandon says, leaning in close to Finn, “maybe you don’t know anything, and you’re just trying to stay alive a little while longer.”
“I promise—I know things. Your Elders need to hear it.”
“And what makes you think they’d believe you?”
“Because I know what’s coming.”
“You think we’re going to trust you now?”
I sense something in Finn. I can’t explain the sensation—it’s a tingling throughout my body—but I feel his truth. “I do,” I say. “I believe him. But I don’t know why.” Maybe it’s the look on Finn’s face. Maybe it’s something inside me that desperately wants to believe that he wasn’t using us. Until I found out that Brandon knew about him, too, he was mine and mine alone, and I’m having a hard time letting that go. It’s childish, and I understand that, but when you live for so long without having something of your own, all you want to do is wrap your fingers around it so that it doesn’t get away.
“No, you don’t,” Brandon insists.
“What if he’s telling the truth?”
“I am. I promise,” Finn says.
“If he’s telling the truth, then he should come with us,” I say. “At least for now. He’ll talk, then we’ll let Hawkins decide what to do with him.”
“He’s lying, Caroline. He’ll say whatever we want to hear, and there’s no way I’m going back to Hawkins and giving him a report on something I haven’t seen with my own eyes. No way.”
“Then we’ll go look. We’ll tie Finn up, see for ourselves, then come back for him.”
“That still won’t save him from Hawkins and—”
The Last Legend Page 2
