A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1

by Justin Woolley

The barrage continued for what felt like a long time, though all the while the horde was drawing closer. The fire-bombs exploded among them, wiping out hundreds at a time, only to have the holes fill up with more of the shuddering monsters. Eventually the artillery guns fell silent and the crews began to call out.

  “Empty.”

  “Empty.”

  “Empty.”

  The general, who had sat steely quiet in his saddle during the whole barrage, turned to face the Diggers.

  “Some men say that the ghoul is our greater. They say in whispers that we cling to a patch of red dirt against an inevitable fall at their teeth. It is true they do not eat, they do not sleep, they do not feel pain, and today their number is far greater than ours.”

  Squid, where he sat atop Cadbury, was some way down the line, but the general’s voice was loud, louder and more powerful than any voice Squid had heard before. It was a voice that had been designed to inspire. General Connor began to walk his horse down the line, slowly at first, but he had increased to a trot by the time he reached Squid.

  “But I say this to you, we are still here! We have been here for hundreds of years and today is not the day we give in! Today there is no retreat! Today we do what our Administrator has asked of us, and we crush the ghouls!”

  The general urged his horse on, faster now, verging on a gallop. From the long scabbard that hung at his saddle he drew his sword.

  “The ghouls are greater than us at only one thing.”

  He raised his longsword high in the air. The blade caught the sun and reflected a brutal white glare.

  “They are greater at dying!”

  A cheer rose from the Diggers in the line. They lifted their swords and cried out. Squid couldn’t tell what they were yelling, but then, he didn’t think it mattered. The guttural roar of the soldiers lifted something inside him, some ancient bloodlust that made even him want to tear the head of a ghoul from its shoulders. He looked around. Some of the Apprentices had joined in the cry. The general’s horse came galloping back along the line. When he passed Squid the roar from around him intensified until he felt it in his body, as if the cheer had grown into a physical entity that was pounding on his chest.

  When the general reached the center of the line he turned, wheeling his horse toward the enemy, kicking his heels into its ribs and urging it into a hard gallop. Behind him the line of Diggers sent their horses forward, joining their leader in a rush of thundering hooves toward the ghouls. As the line rode toward the enemy, the center, behind the general, broke forward while the flanks slowed and squeezed in closer together so that, Squid imagined, from above they would look like a giant arrowhead flying toward the enemy.

  The arrowhead, General Wentworth Connor at its point, plowed into the wall of ghouls and drove inward, splitting the horde open like an axe into wood. The moment of impact was all thundering hooves, inhuman snarls and the dry slushing sound that blades made as they hacked into ghoul flesh. The charging Diggers on horseback struck the ghouls with such wild fury that it seemed they would plunge into line after line of the creatures and never stop, but eventually they slowed. As they did so the Diggers leaned from their mounts, almost out of their saddles, swinging carefully aimed strokes to decapitate the ghouls around them.

  The Diggers early in the charge were the first to slow almost to a stop. They could still be seen above the throng of groans and reaching arms, hacking downward with their weapons. The sides of the arrow formation were still slamming against the enemy, doing their job to push outward, trying, Squid knew, to keep the ghouls from folding back around them, trying to keep the army from being engulfed too easily.

  *

  Lieutenant Walter was on the right flank of the arrowhead, somewhere near the center. Lynn kept her eyes on him, watching him rise in his stirrups as the hooves of his horse, Peanut, drummed against the red sand, slipping in the softness. The Diggers were holding their formation well, riding unflinchingly toward the ghouls as the moment of impact approached.

  They were seconds away now. Lynn could now see the ghouls in every decayed, tattered detail, their hollow eyes staring out from skull faces, their gray flesh rotten, but there was no blood, no moisture at all, just dry flesh that fell away as dust.

  In the final moment of the charge Peanut jumped. Lieutenant Walter leaned forward, his sword held high, and Peanut landed in the sea of ghouls, crushing some beneath his hooves. Lieutenant Walter began chopping downward. Lynn could make out that his first blow landed in the forehead of a ghoul so disfigured she didn’t know whether it was a man or a woman. The creature’s skull was so dry and weak that it split open like a boiled egg tapped with a spoon. An old woman was lurching toward him, running her half-decomposed hands down his shining leg greaves. Another, a shorter ghoul on the other side, turned back and began biting, trying to gnaw right through the metal. Lynn felt grimly pleased that she and Squid had been so careful securing the lieutenant’s armor as he slashed down with his sword, removing the old woman’s head and then prying the other off his leg with a thrust into the eye socket.

  *

  From where he watched, Squid could see some Diggers begin to fall. Either the ghouls overwhelmed their horses, climbing over each other to grab their legs and pull them from the saddle, or they began attacking the horses directly, biting and scratching at them until they reared up and threw their rider, or slipped in the sand. Once a Digger had fallen from horseback they were lost from sight and Squid couldn’t tell whether they continued to fight on the ground or if they were completely smothered.

  Looking down the line Squid saw Apprentices kick their horses into action and ride toward the fray. Duty, thought Squid, it was their duty as First Apprentice to find the body of the Digger they served and prevent them from rising again as one of the enemy.

  Somewhere in the confusion of battle Squid’s eye found Major Tungsten. He was a big man and easily spotted among the fight. He was using an axe, some great double-bladed thing that had such weight that it didn’t seem so much to cut the heads off ghouls as carry them with it as if it had its own gravity. Major Tungsten was slashing downward, taking out five or six ghouls at a time, but almost throwing his horse off balance with each swing. His long neatly waxed moustache billowed outward with each roar. Then, as Squid watched, a group of ghouls, maybe three or four, grabbed onto his horse’s tail. The horse kicked back angrily, knocking all but one loose. The last held on even as he flapped around like a flag on a windy day. As if the spectacle had drawn their attention, more ghouls started moving toward Major Tungsten. They used the ghoul on the tail as a ladder, climbing over him until there were six, seven, eight or more clambering onto the back of Major Tungsten’s horse. He spun in his saddle, swinging his axe and knocking most of them away, but still they came. They began to weigh the horse down, its hindquarters folding beneath it, and then horse and rider dropped into the sea of ghouls. The ghouls climbed over the major, grabbing at his neck and face, while he twisted and punched. Soon he had disappeared in the mess of battle, but he was still fighting, as evidenced by the ghouls that would suddenly lift up into the air, carried along by an axe head.

  Down the line Squid saw Darius. He had begun to inch his horse forward as Major Tungsten became overwhelmed. Squid caught his eye. Darius looked at him for a long while and in that moment he did not seem like the person Squid disliked most in the world. They were, after all, on the same side of this. Squid thought he should yell something, tell him something, but he couldn’t think what. Then Darius Canum smiled sadly, kicked his horse and charged toward the horde.

  “Darius is going in,” Squid said.

  Max nodded. “I see him.”

  “He’s going to get himself killed.”

  Max didn’t say anything, but Squid heard him let out a long, sad sigh.

  *

  After seeing Darius ride into battle, Lynn followed Lieutenant Walter’s movements with more urgency, her heart racing. He must now have been boiling hot beneath his chain-mail
shirt, but if he was he didn’t show it. Lightning fast, he thrust his sword through the throat of one ghoul after another. It didn’t look difficult to take a ghoul’s head clean from its shoulders, Lynn thought; the graying skin that stretched over their skeletons was dry and tight. A strike at the neck would cut the skin and pop it open into a gaping split, like cutting the surface of a drum. The ghouls’ spines looked like rotten wood, snapping easily. A swift blow and the head would come free with just a spray of dust and an ooze of a dark congealed sludge that, Lynn presumed, had once been blood.

  Nonetheless, for every ghoul Lieutenant Walter felled, there seemed to be a hundred more behind it. They were slow now, dried-out husks that lumbered along with jagged steps, but Lynn knew that when they fed, when they drew the moisture out of a human, they grew fast and strong and were infinitely more threatening.

  Lieutenant Walter continued to cut at the sea of enemies. Bodies were piling up around him now, so many that Peanut was beginning to be boxed in. All around the Digger ghouls moved in their strobe-like motion toward him, their mouths open in twisted screams that sounded like the wind whistling through a slightly open window, clouds of dust escaping their dry throats.

  “Hold the line,” Lynn heard the lieutenant call, “hold the line and keep moving forward!”

  Further down the line in both directions Lynn could see Diggers trying to hack their way through the horde, trying to fight the slow, unstoppable advance. The formation was failing, she could see that now. The numbers of the ghouls were just too great. At the far end of the line the ghouls had overlapped them. They were circling in behind the army and it wouldn’t be long before the entire force would be enveloped, cutting off their chance for a retreat.

  “Sir!”

  Lynn heard the voice through the shouts of the Diggers and the hollow sounds of the ghouls. It was coming from somewhere to Walter’s left. A sergeant was riding toward him, calling out and cutting down the ghouls in his path. They both retreated slightly so as to hear each other, and Lynn could hear them too.

  “Get into formation!” Lieutenant Walter yelled back at him.

  “But sir, word has come down the line, the general has fallen.”

  “What?” Lieutenant Walter said, aghast. Even among the waves of ghouls that still lapped at his feet he had stopped moving. Lynn, too, felt paralyzed. Her father had spoken many times of his old friend. General Wentworth Connor had fought more ghouls than any man alive. If ghouls felt any emotion it would be fear at the sight of the general riding toward them, seemingly indestructible in his green armor.

  “Lieutenant,” the sergeant said, “Major Tungsten has also fallen and we’re cut off from the other flank. We need to retreat. We’re going to be overwhelmed.”

  “No,” Lieutenant Walter said, quietly at first and then, “No! Today there will be no retreat, for the honor of the general we will crush this horde. Pass the order on. We push forward!”

  For a long moment the sergeant looked as though he was about to speak in opposition, but then he turned and rode back down the line, calling out the words “We push forward!” even as the ghouls, like a swarming blanket, wrapped around the Army of the Central Territory.

  CHAPTER 34

  The line of Apprentices was broken. Many had rushed in to fight their way to the Diggers, to protect them from the fate of rising again. Some of them may even have succeeded, but to Squid it looked inevitable that it would make little difference against the relentless advance of the horde.

  “We need to go in,” Max said.

  “Lieutenant Walter is still fighting,” Squid replied.

  Max pointed to the ghouls that moved like molasses to cover the line of Diggers. “They are going to be surrounded any minute. Why aren’t they withdrawing? They should be withdrawing.”

  “I can’t let you go, Max.”

  “We can’t sit here while they all die!” Max said, turning in the saddle to look at him.

  “Lieutenant Walter said I can’t let you go in. He said you aren’t who you say you are.”

  Max looked at him for a long moment. In front of them were the sounds of the battle, the screeches of ghouls and dull thuds of swords striking dried-up flesh.

  “I’m not that person anymore,” Max said. “As far as everyone else is concerned she is dead, and why shouldn’t I go in, same as everyone else?”

  “What do you mean, she?” Squid said, or at least that’s what he tried to say, but Max kicked his heels into Cadbury’s sides and the horse leaped into action as if he’d suddenly been woken. Squid almost fell backward, grabbing onto Max’s sides at the last minute to steady himself. For a moment he just held on as they both sat atop Cadbury and galloped toward the front line of the battle. Ahead of him Squid saw the line of ghouls that had surrounded the Diggers getting ever closer and thought about how sternly Lieutenant Walter had told him not to let Max do this.

  “No,” he said over Max’s shoulder. “You can’t, Max, Lieutenant Walter said not to.”

  Max ignored him, his hands gripped so tightly around the reins that his knuckles had begun to turn white.

  “Max!” Squid called into his ear.

  “Too late!” his friend yelled back.

  Squid knew Max would not stop. He was stubborn, even about riding into probable death. Squid would have to stop him. Putting one hand on Max’s shoulders he reached forward with the other to grab the reins.

  “What are you doing?” Max said as Squid’s hand closed around the worn leather of the reins. Max leaned into him, trying to push him back, but Squid held on tight. The awkward wrestle didn’t last long. Max shoved Squid hard, causing him to pull sharply on the reins. Cadbury’s head was turned roughly to the side and, without much option to the contrary, he followed it. He turned in a tight spiral, quickly enough that Squid was thrown from the saddle, the reins torn from his hand. He landed with a heavy jolt in the sand, the air forced roughly from his lungs. He rolled a few times before coming to a stop. Looking up he saw Max steadying Cadbury. Max gazed back at him with a look that Squid couldn’t quite read, and then turned Cadbury toward the ghouls and charged. As Squid pushed himself to his hands and knees other Apprentices, taking their lead from Max’s advance, galloped past him, and he could feel the beat of their horses’ hooves in the sand.

  Squid lifted himself to his feet and looked around. All the Apprentices were on the move now, either already reaching the fight or well on their way. Squid, not knowing what else to do, stood and watched until he was the only one left, the only one not fighting. All he could see in front of him was the swirling storm of battle, the bodies of ghouls and men and horses and rising dust. It reminded him somewhat of the sport they played in Dust, the one where all the players seemed to pile on top of one another, pushing backward and forward looking for the ball that was underneath them. It was just like that but on a huge scale, ghouls moving, clambering over each other, crawling and scratching toward the men who fought them off. Now Max was in there. His only friend in the world was riding into that battle.

  There was little for him to do but take a deep breath against the sharp stabbing pain in his ribs and start moving. He walked away from the horde back toward where the Apprentices had waited. He reached down into the sand and picked up a discarded shortsword, fallen or left behind. He cut at the air experimentally with the sword, avoiding hitting himself. He knew he was still hopeless with a sword. He could never get it to do what he wanted. He tried to breathe slowly. He felt that same freezing fear he felt when he had tried to walk through the gate of Uncle’s farm. But this time Max needed his help.

  Squid felt for the key around his neck, gripped the sword tightly and began walking toward the battle, but not to fight. He went for one thing: to get Max out.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lynn tried with all her might to reach Lieutenant Walter, but there were just too many ghouls and Diggers and horses and bodies in the way. As she paused at the outskirts of the battle, looking for a way through the crush, she s
aw Lieutenant Walter urge Peanut forward, his sword swinging relentlessly. There was a scream from his left, the scream of a man. The sergeant who had brought the news about General Connor was being dragged from his horse. Swordless, arms flailing, he was pulled down by dozens of gray hands. The ghouls were pulling at his uniform, trying to rip off his armor and get at the promise of moisture beneath. Two ghouls, one from either side, sank their dry rotten mouths around his neck, piercing his skin with their half-broken teeth and sucking in the red juice from inside. Others were grabbing at his mouth, pushing their fingers in or clawing at his eyes. He was pulled from sight soon enough, dragged down to ground level, but his leg, stuck in a stirrup, continued to kick for a moment before it fell still.

  Ghouls had swarmed around Lieutenant Walter in greater numbers. Peanut, so sturdy until now, was beginning to waiver. Lynn knew the horse must be tired and that he must have been bitten and clawed by the ghouls. She watched the lieutenant touch him on the neck as he balanced himself, swinging his sword through the skull of a ghoul who was grabbing Peanut’s mane. Lynn willed Peanut to keep going, but an awful feeling of hopelessness was worming its way into her.

  The Diggers had killed so many ghouls, thousands upon thousands, but still they kept coming. Lynn saw Apprentices riding bravely into battle, but they fell quickly, and those ghouls that couldn’t get close enough to the body turned on another Digger or Apprentice who still lived to swing steel. The result was that the ghouls concentrated around those left fighting, each of whom was like an island of moisture and heat among the cold dry desert of ghouls. They were soon all but isolated from each other.

  With a strangled cry, Lynn saw Peanut begin to fall underneath Lieutenant Walter. The great warhorse had nothing left. Through a brief gap in the ghoul onslaught, Lynn saw why: the ghouls had torn a great hole in the horse’s hide. Lieutenant Walter leaned forward and touched his horse on the neck, the strong horse who had kept him above the throng for so long. Lynn saw the Digger whisper gently into his horse’s ear, and then he stood in the saddle and jumped as Peanut fell.