by Bobby Adair
“One person can push,” said Jingo, “and one can act like the horse that pulls.” He laughed as he yanked on the rope harness they’d fashioned for whoever would take a turn pulling. “We’ve got enough rope for three more harnesses. We’ll do it together.”
“And if the trail gets too rough?” asked Beck.
Jingo stood up and said, “Don’t turn into a pessimist. You know the journey to Brighton will be hard. Are you voicing some hidden fears? Are you afraid that even with these weapons, your insurgency will fail?”
Beck sighed and admitted, “Perhaps.”
“We’ll each be carrying a rifle,” said Jingo. “We all have pistols, and we’ll each be carrying enough loaded magazines to kill a whole squadron of Blackthorn’s cavalry, if they weren’t already dead. We’ve been practicing loading and shooting all morning. None of us is an expert with these weapons, but we’ve killed every demon that’s come within sight of our tower.”
“So far,” said Beck.
“Yes,” said Kirby, coming silently down the stairs. “So far.”
Jingo looked up, startled, as he hadn’t heard Kirby coming. “How are they doing?”
Melora, Ivory, and Oliver were all up on the second floor, practicing with their rifles. The noise of each shot drew in demons, which they took care of when they got close.
“Prodigies, all,” said Kirby.
“Truthfully?” requested Jingo.
“You two are the worst shots,” she admitted with a shrug, gesturing at Jingo and Beck. “But Melora and Ivory shoot like they were born to it. Oliver does fine, but the rifle wasn’t made for a boy his size. And he has a difficult time with a pistol. It’s too heavy for him.”
“Perhaps he shouldn’t carry one,” said Beck.
“He’ll get used to it,” said Kirby. “Besides, he won’t be target shooting. He’ll only use the pistol if the mutants are close. At that range, he won’t miss, and it might save his life.”
“He should carry one, then,” said Jingo.
Gunfire started to pop off rapidly from up on the second floor of the tower.
“More demons outside?” Beck deduced.
“More practice. They need to get used to shooting at the live ones, if all of this ammunition is going to do you any good,” said Kirby.
“Have you reconsidered your choice to come with us?” asked Jingo.
Kirby shook her head. “You have everything you need from me. We’ve been shooting all morning, and that means this place isn’t safe anymore. The mutants in the forest will come again. Soon we’ll be overrun, and your chance to leave will disappear.”
“We’re leaving when you do,” Jingo told her.
“I’m going to gather my things and go now,” said Kirby. “I’ve said my goodbyes upstairs. I’ll say the same thing to you that I said to Oliver, Ivory, and Melora. Here is some last advice: when you’re out there in the forest, you can get away with a few shots now and again. The mutated men will think it’s thunder, and they probably won’t come. But if you fire too many times, something primal in their twisted minds remembers the sound of guns, and they’ll come with a vengeance. You won’t be able to kill them all. Think before you use your guns.”
Looking at Jingo, Beck asked, “Are there truly that many in the forest?”
“In some places,” answered Jingo.
“If the clouds don’t obscure the moon tonight, I recommend that you don’t stop until morning,” Kirby told them. “Get as far from here as you can. We’ve already made enough noise. Rest for a short while at sunrise, and then push on through the day. I’ll do the same. Wherever you are tomorrow night, you’ll sleep safer.”
“Where will you be?” asked Jingo.
“I haven’t chosen a direction yet,” answered Kirby. “Good luck to all of you. Perhaps we’ll meet again one day.”
Chapter 40: William
Violent cries jolted William awake. A pair of legs stamped the grass as someone ran by and kept going. William wiped his bleary eyes and forced himself upright, certain that the demons had come and that he was about to die. All around him, people ran and staggered, vomited, and clutched their stomachs as if they’d been impaled. Horses whinnied and shifted nervously as they stamped the grass on the valley. Men tried unsuccessfully to calm them. Others fled down the hill and out of sight, disappearing into the glare of the emerging sunlight.
William got to his feet. Jasmine was already awake, on her feet and watching the chaos.
“What’s happening?” William cried. “Are the demons here?”
Jasmine shouted, “No. People are getting sick!”
“It’s the plague,” said one of the priests, who had sat up near William and was looking around frantically.
A man nearby got up, barely making it past William before emptying his stomach. William wrinkled his nose and skirted away. The odor of demons filled the air, but this time it wasn’t from any of them attacking.
“It’s not the plague!” William yelled over the noise. “It’s the demon meat!”
The priest looked at him with a furrowed brow. Jasmine instinctively clutched her stomach. William recalled what he’d eaten—nothing more than berries from Jasmine, and some dried squirrel that another of the priestesses had been nice enough to share with him.
“I don’t feel so good,” Jasmine confessed, her face turning pale.
Despite her admission, she managed to avoid vomiting. Groups of people that weren’t ill sat up and looked around, worried and checking on the others. The people who had gotten sick remained on their knees as they recovered from their illness. A few wiped their faces as they came back up the hill, returning to their blankets.
“Where’s Winthrop?” William asked, noticing the empty spot across the camp where he’d lain the night before.
“He left this morning for a ceremony,” Jasmine explained.
As if on cue, Winthrop crested the hill, his robes billowing behind him as he led two shirtless women with fresh bloodstains on their chests. Phillip and a few other priests trailed behind him, holding their stomachs, their faces pale.
“Winthrop doesn’t look sick,” William said, furrowing his brow.
“I don’t think Winthrop had as much demon meat as the others,” Jasmine said. “He’s mostly been eating the rations we brought from Brighton.”
William frowned as he watched Winthrop raising his hands in the air, proclaiming his chants as Phillip and the other priests vomited all around him.
Chapter 41: Demon
The demon wove through the horde. All around, his brothers trampled the grass, cocking their heads, and scoured the canyon for food.
The demon and its brothers had been following the army for days, keeping out of sight, scavenging for food as their numbers grew. Ever since they’d been chased from their home amidst the crumbling towers of the Ancient City, they’d been coming together, gathering to take their revenge.
When they did, the demon would have plenty to eat. It wouldn’t have to scavenge for carcasses or small animals in the ruins. It would have plenty of people to pull into the fields and do with what it wanted, once its hunger was sated. The demon felt a surge of something that could be happiness as it pictured the things it could do to the soft creatures that were so hard to keep alive.
The demon scanned the trampled, bent grass for food, searching for something to quell the pain in its stomach. It was almost always hungry. Finding food was one of the only things it thought about, other than staying close to the group and following the others.
A few other demons screeched nearby. They’d discovered the half-eaten carcass of a squirrel. The demon watched as they knocked into each other, fighting over the sparse remains. It stepped toward them, but the other beasts gnashed their teeth in a territorial warning. With an irritated hiss, the demon contin
ued through the army’s abandoned campsite, wanting nothing more than to end its hunger.
The demon saw something.
It twisted its bulbous head upward.
Perched on a precipice, high over the valley and out of reach, two women on horseback surveyed the hungry horde. The demon took several steps forward, judging the best way to get to them. The cliff was steep and jagged, but an incline ran up the side of the mountain. The demon started toward the women. It increased its speed as several others spotted the same meal, snarling and screeching, running toward the side of the cliff. The weight of several bulbous growths on the demon’s skull sagged its head, but it ignored the pain.
All it cared about was food.
The demon envisioned tearing the women down from their perch, spilling their insides, and pulling them into some crevice where it could consume them away from the others. If it could get to them first, it would have a full stomach. Maybe it would even leave one of them alive for its own lascivious purposes.
That last thought made the demon run faster.
The demon pushed one of its brethren out of the way, knocking it down the hill, causing it to snap a leg. The demon barely noticed. It was focused on the women. The demon was partway up the hill when the riders turned their horses away and started moving. The demon cried out. Several of its brothers yowled in frustration. It kept running, even as the riders disappeared into a crag and rode out of sight.
Chapter 42: Bray
Bray rode through the forest on his horse, leading his team of two others single file, taking care to hold on to the rope that he’d attached to each of their bridles. They traveled through game trails, or thin paths made by metal scavengers or settlers. Sometimes they passed through clearings with tall grass. Every so often, he had to slow down to guide them over downed trees, or choose paths that weren’t cluttered with bramble. The droning chants of the army had long since faded, segueing into the chirps of birds and the occasional crash of underbrush as small animals scurried away from him and his horses.
Bray was glad for the reprieve from the army’s repetitive song, but he was worried about William. The horde of demons was like a looming nightmare that wouldn’t fade. Bray hadn’t feared the wild since he was a boy, leaving the circle wall for the first handful of times. He lived each day knowing he might die, or that a crippling injury might force him back to the nearest township. But this group of demons was large enough to inspire fear in the most hardened men.
God, there were so many.
Winthrop’s army would be swarmed before they knew what happened. Their spears and their songs and their bravado wouldn’t be enough to save their flesh from the maws of that many demons, or that many pairs of tearing, vicious hands.
That would’ve sat fine with him, if William weren’t riding among them.
Bray spurred his horse, pushing it and the others faster, envisioning the distance to the other end of the canyon. It would take the army a full day and a little more to get through the canyon, the most direct route from Brighton to the Ancient City. Taking the long way over the mountains, Bray would need to push his newfound horses to get him there when Winthrop’s mob of miscreants arrived.
If they arrived.
Bray was so caught up in his worry that he almost didn’t notice a disturbance in the clearing ahead. At the last moment, Bray halted at the edge of the forest, quieted his horses, and drew his sword. He peered through a last, thick cluster of pine trees and saw a woman running.
Bray watched the thin woman weave through the field, looking over her shoulder. Her clothes were disheveled. Her long, dark hair swayed over a stuffed bag on her back. He squinted as he tried to get a better look at an object she was clutching, but he was distracted by three demons emerging from a patch of forest beyond the woman, snarling, chasing her.
Fucking hell.
Hadn’t he had enough trouble lately? Bray didn’t have to think hard to remember how the last time he had intervened in something had turned out. He was still trying to sort out the mess with William, and killing Ella was a mistake he’d never forget.
Cursing his decision before he made it, he trotted into the field on his horse and raised his sword. Before he could take action, the woman stopped, spun, and thrust a strange piece of metal in the direction of the demons.
Something flashed from the end of it.
A crack pierced the air.
One of the demons fell, screeching and clutching its stomach, as if it had been struck by an invisible foe. Blood leaked from a wound that shouldn’t have been there.
Bray didn’t understand what he was seeing.
Something was very wrong.
He choked the reins of his horse and trotted it backward.
The woman shifted the object and a spear of yellow fire flashed from the end as another thunder crack sounded.
A second demon fell as its head erupted, spraying a fountain of blood and gore.
More fire. Another bang, and the third demon went down.
All three were on the ground, two dead, the first writhing.
The woman was on her feet before Bray even realized it, crossing through the grass, approaching the wounded demon with her strange metal tool. She stopped, hovered over the demon, and raised the object.
More fire. More god-awful noise.
The demon’s head rolled to the side and it moved no more.
Bray remained in place, in shock.
Tech Magic.
The woman looked over her shoulder, noticing Bray on his horse at the edge of the clearing. She swiveled the metal object in his direction, her eyes roaming from him to the horses, seemingly more interested in the beasts than in him.
“What are you staring at?” she yelled across the field.
Chapter 43: Fitz
Fitz walked through Market Street with Ginger at her side and a circle of Strong Women around her. The women going about their shopping and selling bustled with a new kind of energy. Most of the others in town were collecting weapons, preparing for the oncoming army with the assistance of the women of the New House. Immediately after her speech, Fitz had sent her women to implement the plans upon which they’d decided in her meeting room.
Some part of her couldn’t believe the crowd had listened. She’d felt a power in her speech that she never believed she had. A while ago, her hopes had centered on escaping The House of Barren Women. She never thought she’d be in a position to change Brighton.
And yet here everyone was, working together, ready to defend the township and change their men’s minds. Ready to keep out Winthrop.
Looking around, she found the familiar street corner in the market where Franklin had made his last powerful speech in the rain. Staring at the street, she could almost envision him standing there, spurring her on. She hadn’t been to the market since that day. Some part of her had avoided it, or maybe she hadn’t wanted to face the fact that they had failed. She fought back the tears welling in her eyes.
She recalled standing behind the gathering people, cheering him on. She’d been so proud of him.
But this day was even more proud. Fitz’s and Franklin’s plan had succeeded.
The People were going to make Brighton what it was meant to be.
Every so often, someone would recognize Fitz’s group and wave, or yell Fitz’s name as she walked through the street. She acknowledged them with a half-smile and a nod. She heard Winthrop’s name on more than a few tongues, followed by a curse. Winthrop’s name had become both a foul word and a motivation to keep going. Women rolled pushcarts from buildings and stores, carting weapons and supplies they’d found inside. Their nervousness about what was to come was tempered by keeping busy.
“The collection is coming well?” Fitz asked Ginger.
“We’re gathering some weapons,” Ginger said. “But
not nearly enough.”
“I didn’t expect we’d be able to arm everyone,” Fitz said.
“We’ll do what we can,” Ginger agreed.
They walked past a blacksmith shop. Inside, handfuls of people hovered around the forge; others hammered away on metal. Fitz saw women and older children coordinating and attaching metal to wood as they created spears.
She moved on, noticing a few merchants’ wives whittling away on wood with their knives, fashioning crude weapons. A smile crossed her face as she watched them work.
Chapter 44: Bray
“Let me guess, another one who has never seen a gun,” the woman called with an annoyed smile as she appraised Bray from across the field. “Throw your sword away and get off the beast, or you’ll end up like the demons.”
She waved the weapon in her hand to tell Bray she meant it.
Bray lowered his sword reluctantly. If he hadn’t already seen the power of the strange weapon, he might’ve argued, or tried to fight or run. But who knew how far the weapon might work? He tossed his sword on the ground, looking between the woman and the dead demons.
“Get off the animal!” the woman yelled. “I won’t say it again.”
Bray dismounted, unable to take his eyes off the strange device that was pointed in his direction, connecting the stories he’d heard about the Ancients with the object the woman held in her hand. He’d heard tales about weapons that flashed fire and killed from a distance. Every boy in the townships and villages had. But until he’d seen this one and what it could do, he hadn’t believed them. Was this woman one of the Ancients? She certainly dressed differently than anyone he’d seen. And she had an accent he didn’t recognize.