by J. Thorn
She thought about the walls of Wytheville, and the huge towers, all bolted together and covered in a skin of old vehicle panels hammered flat. Marley, her husband’s doing. He had given them the know-how to build it.
Her eyes closed and then opened wide as the idea hit her. “Stop what you’re doing you guys,” she said.
Bjorn looked up, frowning. He’d stopped arguing and was busy trying to cover up the junk in the back of his cart. “What now?” he asked.
“All you three come with me,” she said. “I got an idea.”
* * *
The four old ones stood looking at the rusted remains of the truck, three of them frowning. But the fourth, Leta, smiled and began to walk around the dead husk. She nodded as she walked, counting six metal panels that could be pulled and beaten flat.
“Help me get these panels off,” she said.
“Whatever for?” asked Brioc. “They ain’t worth much and they’re too heavy to haul for just a measly trade. I say we—”
“They’re not for trading, you old fool,” Leta snapped, glaring at him. “They’re for making sure that our stuff is safe.”
The three old men frowned at each other, looked at the rusty truck and then frowned some more. But, they knew better than to argue with Leta, and each of them sighed heavily and then stepped forward to help her pull the panels off.
“Just mind you don’t cut yourself,” said Leta. “Don’t want one of you bleeding out, here. There’s wolves out in the woods.”
Chapter 16
Jonah walked over to where Leta was working and frowned. The old woman hadn’t noticed him watching, and she just carried on prying at the metal panel with a pair of heavy clippers and some pliers. He walked around the side and stood looking at what Leta had done when she finally looked up, almost jumping with surprise.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see you coming.”
“No,” Jonah said. “No, it’s okay. What is that?” he asked, grimacing at the metal panel Leta had attached to the side of her cart. It was in two separate pieces, one attached to the cart and the other hanging on bent hooks from holes she'd made.
“Ah, it’s just an old wagon panel,” she said. “My husband helped build the walls around Wytheville, and he put it all together like this, and I got to thinking because I didn’t want my stuff being stolen.”
“You put armor on your wagon,” Jonah said, smiling.
“Um…I guess so,” said Leta. “It seemed the obvious thing to do to protect my stuff. Has to be cut down though, or it’s too bulky. But if you make the top sharp it should deter any would-be thief.”
Jonah nodded. “It’s not something that everyone would find obvious,” he said.
“I guess that’s what comes from being around a tinkerer for most of your life,” said Leta.
Jonah frowned, and Leta sensed his confusion. “My husband,” she said. “He died about ten years ago, taken by Ratter’s Plague, but before that he helped to build most of the walls that protect Wytheville, and their gate, though that seems almost ready to fall apart any day soon.” She turned and gazed out at the distant hills, thoughts drifting back to the past. “He would have fixed that gate if he’d still been alive, and if they hadn’t kicked us out after the work was done.”
“They what?” asked Jonah. “They kicked you out?”
Leta nodded, her expression grim. “Didn’t have a use for us after the work was done,” she said. “I guess they didn’t want the extra mouths to feed.”
Jonah crouched down by the cart, peering at the cutaway joints that Leta made every few inches along the edges of the metal. It was obvious to him that the panels wouldn’t fall apart without force that would make a lot of noise if somebody was trying to get through them. “Think you could make more of these?” Jonah asked. “More of these panels?”
“Yes, of course,” said Leta. “Though my hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.”
“I can get you help,” said Jonah. “And I can send scavengers out to find more metal.”
“That would help,” said Leta
Jonah nodded. “Then let me welcome you to The Elk, Leta,” he said.
Chapter 17
The forest seemed to swallow the ruins with each step Seren took. She waited for the sky to lift the sun just over the edge of the horizon. She knew her prey would be active and that this would be the best time of day to track him. The birds chirped, a weak and diluted sound consumed by the vast emptiness beneath the trees. Gaston gave her strict orders to go alone, for fear of spooking him. She would tread lightly and, when the time was right, bury her arrow deep in his flesh.
Seren inhaled the aroma of burnt pine lingering from the previous night’s fires. She felt for the quiver on her back and gripped the bow in her left hand. A chill shook her and she could not tell if it was the coming of winter or her nerves. Either way, this had to be done. She had to kill him. The safety and survival of the clan depended on it.
She scanned the trees bordering the edges of the factory’s remains. The old growth stood guard while young saplings and vines crawled toward the ruins in an inevitable, slow march. She glanced over her shoulder, to make sure nobody was following her, one last time. Success would belong to only her. Seren bent down and examined the trail. An untrained eye would not have detected the pattern of grass blades bent in the same direction.
He came through here , she thought.
The path wound through a cluster of thorny bushes before veering left between two massive oaks. She listened and the silence made her nauseous.
This forest is dead.
Seren pressed on, jogging the trail and pursuing him. She snapped her head left and right, hoping not to startle whatever might be left hiding in the trees and therefore expose her location to him. She would only have one chance at this. An ambush worked only once.
She ran faster, pushing branches from her face and putting more distance between herself and the people sleeping in the factory’s filth. They didn’t understand how to do what she did, and they didn’t understand why she did it. Gaston had sent her on this mission and she would be successful, as much for him as for herself.
She thought of Roke and then pushed him from her head, following the path to the east, down a slight embankment. His trail went around a glacial boulder and continued east, dipping into a valley. Seren heard the first whisperings of the creek slicing its way through the valley floor. The sun was a bit higher now, and Seren felt time slipping through her fingers. He would stop soon, and hide, and she would lose the element of surprise.
“I’m coming for you,” she said between breaths, her lungs pumping soiled oxygen through her blood. “I will find you and kill you.”
In the distance, to the west, a tree branch snapped. Seren stopped and spun toward the sound, her eyes scanning the trees for motion.
There.
She saw three leaves suspended in air, slowly spiraling to the ground. He had knocked them loose.
The trail faded and yet she could still see his path. Seren ran faster, leaping over fallen branches and darting around boulders, keeping the creek on her left. The water cut deeper into the valley and the sides of the stream became steep.
She followed, still without visual confirmation of him but watching the leaves blown in his wake. Seren would kill him for her clan, her brother, herself.
The water crashed into rocks embedded in the creek bed, and the sound intensified, drowning out what little life was left in the desolate wilderness.
Seren leapt over a fallen trunk and hid behind a tree. For the first time, she saw him. He had rubbed the fur from his antlers until they gleamed in the morning sun. The buck stood on the trail, his nose buried in some leaves, his black eyes wide and unblinking. She looked around for a fawn or doe but Seren knew this deer would be running alone, this late in the season. The females and juveniles stayed near the buck out of self-preservation, but not here. This land was cursed, regardless of what Gaston said about it.
She breathed through her nose and waited, allowing her eyes to focus and her body to calm. Seren let the adrenaline of the hunt subside, even though she still felt the nagging nerves in her stomach. She waited, watching.
The deer lifted its head and sniffed at the air. Seren held her breath.
He smells me.
She squatted in a slow, steady motion. Seren brought her bow around and lifted it. She pulled the arrow back but then she saw something.
What is that?
The deer had turned away, and in that moment, she saw it. The sore. On the buck’s right side, the one that had been hidden from her, was an open sore the size of a child’s head. Flies and gnats circled it, feasting at the line where the soured flesh ate away at the deer’s fur. The wound itself appeared as a marbled swirl of reds and greens, and she covered her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. She received her first whiff of the deer and Seren could no longer control her primitive reflexes. The odor from the sore made her eyes water and she spat, trying to get the taste of rotten eggs from her mouth. Seren lowered her bow. The people would go hungry. She would not expose them to this rotten creature, this standing death.
The buck lowered its head and fished for more food in the leaves, as if unaware of the hideous wound eating it away from the inside out. The deer’s ears twitched and it lifted its head to face her. Seren picked up her bow. She would kill it. Now she had to spare the creature.
Seren stood and planted her feet. She put the arrowhead on the deer’s neck, hoping her good aim would sever one of the buck’s vital arteries. She breathed through her mouth, to avoid the stench, and she blinked to keep the tears from blurring her vision. The hunt had turned from one of sacred sustenance to universal pity.
“I’m sorry for your suffering,” she murmured.
Seren pulled the arrow back and began her count to three. At two, the silence exploded. The wolf landed on the buck’s back as if it had been dropped from the sky. She saw a flurry of fur and teeth as the wolf tore into the deer’s neck, into the open sore. The buck squealed like a pig at the slaughter and it made Seren shake. The wolf snapped repeatedly at the deer, tearing fur, blood and diseased flesh from it. Within seconds, the wolf stood upon the deer’s back, feasting and howling to the pack undoubtedly hiding in the woods.
The open sore. The silence. The wolves hunt in daylight.
Seren sat down and turned her head to vomit. She coughed up bile and used the back of her hand to wipe her face.
“This place is a disease and we are now inside of it.”
Chapter 18
Seren sat on the bank of the creek and waited for the sun to slide beneath the tree line. She had already spent hours there, turning over the day’s events in her mind. The questions rushed by with the current, drowning her in doubt.
What was on that deer? Where did the wolf come from? Why didn’t I see him coming?
She tossed twigs and rocks into the creek and watched them float away amidst a frothing, bubbling mass of water. Again she was struck by the utter desolation of the forest. Seren had spent many hours alone in the woods, and yet none had ever felt as dead and empty as this one. She stood and brushed the dirt from her pants.
“This is not right,” she said, as if trying to convince herself it was time to confront Gaston. He wanted to go deeper, push on toward White Citadel, and yet Seren had now witnessed her concern on the neck of that buck.
“This is not right,” she said again, more firmly.
Seren turned and ran the way she had come, bouncing over fallen branches and around the glacial boulders, retracing her steps on the trail created by the deer. She didn’t think again of the wolf; she had no fear of him.
He will not harm me , she thought. He will stay away now that his belly is full.
The trees rushed past and Seren saw the top of the ruins as the sun cast long, burning lines of light out in front of her. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath and to watch the dust motes floating in the sea of sunlight.
“Seren.”
The sound of her name shook her, and Seren looked up to see a dark form move across the trail.
“Over here,” she said to Gaston.
The man stepped out from behind a tree and stood on the trail where the wall of the old factory tumbled into the encroaching weeds of the forest.
“You have something?” he asked.
Seren stopped in front of him, sweat beading on her forehead despite the cool chill of the autumn evening. “No.”
He looked at her. Gaston turned his head sideways and grinned.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“It would be easier to talk on a full stomach, Seren.”
“Your stomach is as empty as this forest. Have you not felt it?”
“The ruins always bring a sense of desolation. I remember when—”
“No,” she said, interrupting Gaston. “It is more than that.”
“What?” he asked.
Seren sighed and bit her bottom lip. She looked over her shoulder at the trail heading into the forest and then turned back to Gaston. “Nothing. It is nothing.”
Gaston shrugged.
“I will gather some root to boil for the evening meal.”
“Yes,” he said. “That is much preferable to roasted venison or rabbit stew.”
Seren ignored the sting of his sarcasm. “There was no game to be had today. The only one I found was diseased.”
The rhythmic gnashing of dry leaves broke their conversation. Seren saw Roke approach and she felt the worry emanating from him. “Gaston. I’ve been looking for you.”
Roke nodded at Seren.
“And now you’ve found me. Perhaps you should walk the trails tomorrow with a bow.”
“A man. He is sick.”
Seren remained silent, waiting for Gaston to respond.
“That happens quite often on the road, young Roke. Have the women boil him some tea.”
“No,” said Roke. “It is more than that. Something else.”
The image of the marbled, greasy sore on the buck returned to Seren. She shivered.
“Take me to him,” Gaston said.
Roke turned and walked back toward the ruins with Gaston and Seren following him. They stepped over hunks of concrete around steel rebar protruding from it like frozen tentacles. Several women huddled in a corner around a pair of legs sitting on the floor. Roke pointed. Seren stopped.
“What is wrong?” Gaston asked the group.
The women turned and shook their heads. They stepped aside and let Gaston approach the man on the floor. Seren looked down but could not remember seeing the man during their travels. He was at least fifty but she had no way of telling exactly how old he might be. Past a certain age, they all appeared the same to her. But it wasn’t his age that she cared about. It wasn’t the man’s cold eyes, or the wheezing cough, that she noticed. It was the open sore on the man’s neck. The greenish, red, marbled wound staring back at her like a diseased eye.
“How are you?” Gaston bent down as he asked the question. His eyes scanned the man, stopping on the sore.
“I’m cold,” the man said.
Seren looked at Roke and shook her head. He rolled his eyes at her.
“How did you hurt your neck?” Gaston asked the man.
“I’m itchy. And cold.”
Gaston stood and turned to face Seren and Roke. Seren’s nose wrinkled at the smell coming off the old man. She detected the usual scents of feces and urine, common with the old folks, but wafting over that and coming in waves was the same rotten stench she had smelled in the forest. Seren knew it was the sore, and she quelled the dry-heave in her throat.
“We pack out at sunrise. He will not be able to travel.”
Roke looked at Gaston and nodded in agreement.
“No. Clearly he cannot travel,” Seren said.
Gaston sighed and looked around. The old women who had tended to the man now huddled near the rusted remains of what was once a steam engin
e.
“So we stay here another day,” Seren said. She silenced an internal scream, not wanting to remain in this cursed forest for a moment longer than she had to but realizing the man on the floor needed to heal. He would most likely die. Seren had never seen a sore like it, and she doubted it would clear up on its own. However, she would not leave one of them to die alone in the ruins like a filthy rat.
“Winter’s icy fingers are tightening at our throat. We need to keep moving. We need to get to White Citadel.”
“We will,” Seren said. “We’ll be back on the road in a few days.” She doubted the man would be healed or dead in a matter of days but she would deal with Gaston again at sunrise. The day shortened, and Seren wanted nothing more than to close her eyes by the fire.
“No. We pack out in the morning.”
Seren stomped her foot and put her hands on her hips. “We cannot leave him.”
“We can, and we will,” Gaston said, dropping his voice beneath the man’s racking coughs.
“That is not the way of the clan.”
“It is my way, and I lead this clan,” said Gaston.
“Says the man banished by a clan.”
Roke stepped between Gaston and Seren. “Stop, Seren.”
She looked at her brother, doing her best to shove the hurt deep down.
“We follow Gaston. He is our leader. If he says we leave tomorrow, we leave tomorrow.”
“We don’t leave our own to die alone in the ruins,” she said, staring at her brother but hurling the words at Gaston. “He is one of ours.”
“You can see it. You can smell it. We cannot save him,” said Gaston.
“I’m not saying we can. I’m saying he deserves to die with dignity.”
The tears came to Seren and she cursed them.
Boys don’t cry , she thought. And I’m tougher than them.
“He will die regardless,” Gaston said.
Roke shook his head at Seren and followed Gaston through the ruins and into the encroaching darkness, leaving Seren alone with the dying man and his festering sore.