by M C Rooney
Tom had grown to be a very proficient swordsman over the last three years; in fact, it was said he was the second best swordsman of all the rangers. The very best was his aunt.
When she had told him three years ago that she would train him as a ranger herself, he’d had no idea it would include self-defence. The day after his father had left him to his aunt’s care, Mayor Dayton had told him to be in the sports hall across the road from the library at seven the following morning for sword training. The usual trainer was Mr Brennemo, who was a veteran of the battle of Hobart, but Tom was surprised when he entered the hall and the only person there was his aunt.
She did not appear in one of her normal dresses, which were the fashion for women in Hobart—mainly because they had all those abandoned shops to choose clothes from—but had on what was apparently called a tracksuit and T-shirt. Tom had spent all his life wearing animal furs, so people wearing these colourful clothes was quite a shock to him.
He asked where the trainer was, but his aunt said nothing, just threw him a wooden curved sword, which she said was made of red oak and called a katana. He was at first worried that he would hurt her due to his size and her being so slight in stature, but she then blew all his concerns away and proceeded to batter him around the hall for an hour with her wooden longsword.
The first day, he received about a dozen bruises and could barely walk on one leg, and Tom had known that she had held back on her powerful killing strokes. It took about six months for him to match his aunt in her swordsmanship, and then she went and changed styles. Who was to know that the use of the sword had so many different styles?
But even though there were many styles of swordsmanship that he learned to become proficient at, she insisted that he learn how to master the katana sword. He at first complained, because he wanted to use a longsword like all of the other trainees, but his aunt had insisted in her usual dominant way, and Tom gave in as usual and learned the curved sword.
During this time, his aunt had given him a strict training regime which consisted of long runs carrying heavy equipment in his backpack and lifting weights, which were sitting idle in the upper floors of the sports hall, or gymnasium as was written on some of the walls. This was on top of the training that was already given to the trainees. The result was that Tom had gone up three jacket sizes and had to ask his mother for a new pair of fur trousers as his legs had turned into tree trunks, as his father pointed out.
The extra training wasn’t too bad, Tom thought, but he did tend to sleep much more than the other trainees out of pure exhaustion.
But not all of his training was in the martial arts. His aunt also insisted that he read as much as possible. Science he found quite hard, but the studying of human history was fascinating to him. History had provided some brilliant people, but the amount of wars was mind-boggling. It appeared that all the people ever did was fight with each other. But it didn’t seem to be that all the people in each country were violent. From what he could tell, there was a strong minority who committed all of the atrocities, and the peaceful majority had just gone along with it. What bizarre behavior!
Tom couldn’t believe how big the planet was, either. He laughed when he remembered thinking the journey from home to Hobart was long. He wondered whether the people in the other countries were suffering the way his home island was. He struggled to comprehend that the world was billions of years old and that modern humans had been around for maybe two hundred thousand years, but written words only dated back as much as five or six thousand years. He pondered how many civilisations had come and gone just like his grandfather’s had.
All thoughts of history and ancient civilisations were forgotten as he walked into the hall and saw his aunt waiting for him. She had a determined look on her face.
“You’re late,” she said as she prowled in front of him with her sword in attack position.
Oh, shit, he thought as he quickly ran for his practice sword, which was kept in a rack at the side of the hall. He barely managed to draw the sword before he heard his aunt running behind him; he looked hastily over his shoulder as he jumped three steps to the back of the hall and parried three strokes from his aunt’s longsword.
Hmm, well, there is an advantage in being tall. Large steps, he thought with relief.
His aunt didn’t give him any more time to think as she attacked him relentlessly. Whilst Tom was stronger than her, his aunt was quicker, much quicker. Still, with his large steps, he was able to keep a safe distance away from her. Perhaps today was the day he would show her the trick he had learned whilst practicing on his own?
Suddenly, she stopped and gave him a sly smile. Over the last three years, he had gotten to know that sort of smile, and it usually meant a lesson was about to be given. Not a lesson in swordsmanship, but a lesson in confidence. Numerous lessons were dispensed by his sponsor over the years. The first one was when she had overheard his singing and complimented him on his voice. This compliment was followed by an order two weeks later to sing a song to five of her fellow councillors, then two weeks later to twenty of the rangers, and finally, an order was given for him to sing out loud in front of over a hundred rangers and trainees at the morning breakfast, which they all shared. His feelings had gone from petrified to being mortified. However, after the last song had been sung in front of everybody, he felt as though he could survive anything. And he was quietly pleased that he received a loud ovation afterward. He wondered what lesson was about to be given when she ordered him to take his grey jacket and his shirt off.
“I’m sorry, what, Mayor?” he replied.
He silently hoped that she may give him a green jacket, but why ask for his shirt to be removed?
“Your top clothes off, Trainee Dayton,” she said in a firm voice.
Tom was befuddled as to where this was headed, but did as he was told.
As soon as he stood there with just his fur trousers and boots on, his aunt gave a shrill whistle, and his best friend, Renee Dawson, entered the hall. She was a girl of middle height of his age with straight brown hair, brown eyes, and a wicked grin that went from ear to ear. She had that grin on now.
What is going on? he wondered, and his thoughts became muck as Renee was followed by another girl, then another, then another, until he realised that all of the female trainees and rangers had now entered the hall, and he was standing there with half his clothes missing. Don’t go red, don’t go red, he thought over and over as his face went red. She knew; his aunt knew!
Whilst he had gained confidence in his ability to think and fight … and sing, he thought ruefully, he was an absolute bumbling mess when it came to girls.
Is this the final test? he wondered as he watched all the women take a seat to the side of the hall, all smiling at him like the Cheshire Cat that he had read about.
Focus, Tom thought, as he closed his eyes and took a calming breath. I am the master of my thoughts; they do not master me, was the mantra he repeated over and over in his mind for many a month, and no more so than right at this very moment.
Perhaps today was the day he would show her his new trick.
Raising his sword over his head in an attack position, he did something he had never done to his aunt before. He opened his eyes, focused on her, and gave her a sly smile.
Lily had thought long and hard about whether to test her nephew like this. He must master his thoughts; it was a lesson everybody needed to learn. But sometimes she worried that she was pushing him too hard. He had grown so much in the three years she had him in her care, not just in his physique but in his mind, and she thought he just might grow up to be as good a man as his father and as her father was said to be.
The idea had come to her when she had watched him attempt to talk to one of the pretty trainees. Whilst he laughed and joked with his friend Renee, it all changed when he was confronted with a girl he may have liked to become his first proper girlfriend, and his confidence went in complete reverse. He didn’t realise what a handsome b
oy he was, and standing here shirtless at well over six feet tall and of solid muscle, she could tell that a few of the young girls were no longer smiling, but were now just plain checking him out.
She watched his face go a deep shade of red and had a moment of panic that she had gone too far, when he suddenly closed his eyes, and she saw him take a deep breath.
What was he doing? she wondered.
She then got her first shock as he lifted his sword above his head to attack.
The second shock was when he opened his eyes and focused on her with a calm determination. His face was no longer flushed with embarrassment, but was full of composure.
The third shock was when he gave her a cheeky smile.
This is going to be fun, Lily thought, trying to suppress a big grin.
And then he came at her with lightning speed that he had never shown before.
Renee Dawson was a slink, her parents were slinks and stinks, and her grandparents were just stinks. Renee’s family were once called scavengers, as they had lived in Hobart before the Collapse and barely survived afterward. Somehow, her grandparents had learned that zombies could be avoided if you placed their innards all over your body. Her grandparents would search for food even though they were surrounded by the red and pale zombies who had gone into one of their comas.
Her grandparents were called stinkers.
Renee’s parents, on the other hand, spent most of their lives as stinkers, but twenty-seven years earlier, a wonderful man by the name of Jon Dayton led all of the red zombies out of Hobart and destroyed them. Renee’s parents became slinks, as all they had to do from that day forward was avoid the painfully slow pale zombies that were left in Hobart. Renee herself had enjoyed a relatively peaceful childhood with her brothers and had become a slinker herself.
Three years ago, she watched as the daughter of Jon Dayton came to Hobart with one hundred rangers dressed in smart green jackets and began methodically killing all the pale zombies. The pale ones still numbered in their tens of thousands, but in a two-month campaign, they were meticulously wiped out. From that day on, Renee had desperately wanted to become a ranger and had asked her parents, who, upon approaching Lily Dayton and finding out what the rangers were all about, were quite pleased that she had decided on an honourable career.
In the time of training to become a ranger, she had met a third Dayton, a nephew of the mayor and the grandson of the legendary Jon Dayton. However, this Dayton had no confidence whatsoever; in fact, he suffered badly from low self-esteem. But Renee soon got to know him, and underneath that lack of confidence, she found that he was a genuinely nice boy, and over the years, she found that she enjoyed his company more than the female trainees and was surprised to find that her best friend at the Rangers’ Hall was indeed a bloke. She learned that Tom was left here in the care of his aunt in the hope of building his confidence as much as anything else. Tom was worried that the other trainees would be jealous of him because he received extra training from the mayor; however, most trainees felt sorry for him as she could be very hard on him. The singing she made him perform was very cringe worthy—even though he had a very nice voice—but he managed to soldier his way through it bravely.
Today, the mayor had asked Renee and the other female trainees to attend the training she had planned for Tom. Renee didn’t know what she had in store for him, but when she entered the hall and saw him shirtless with a look of a stunned mullet on his face, she couldn’t help but grin. Upon sitting down to watch the sword display, Renee noticed that a lot of the girls and women were looking very intently at Tom, and she laughed out loud when she realised they were perving on him. He did have a good body she must admit, but Tom was such a nong in her mind.
She suddenly noticed that Tom had gone very red in the face. Oh, dear Aunt Lily, I think you may have gone too far this time, she thought, but her worries were interrupted when Tom suddenly closed his eyes. His breathing seemed to have settled as well as he raised his sword above his head. And when he did open his eyes, he had a calmness about him that she had never seen before. Then, to Renee’s shock, he gave his aunt a cheeky grin and moved in to attack her with a swiftness that she never knew he had. For the first time ever, Renee was seeing the Mayor of Hobart, who was an exceptional swordswoman, completely on the back foot.
However, she did notice that the mayor was looking like she was quite enjoying the challenge. These Daytons were a complex family, Renee thought in puzzlement.
Lily couldn’t believe how quickly her nephew was moving. Where had this come from? For the first time in years, she was being pushed very hard in her defences. She didn’t know whether to be proud or worried. Every stroke he made was smooth, and the power behind it jarred Lily’s hands. She had to move back, as she knew standing toe-to-toe with him in a display of strength would see her lose quite quickly. Speed had always been her advantage, but today, even though he was nearly reaching two hundred centimetres in height, he was moving just as fast as she was. He didn’t seem to be angry with her; his strokes were not wild and wayward, and his smile conveyed that he was in control of his emotions. Nor did he have the look of concentration he usually had, as if he was overthinking every move he had to make. Lily thought Tom may have reached the stage where the sword and his body had become one.
She was wondering how she was going to defeat him when he stopped and walked over to the sword rack and removed another sword, except this sword was much shorter and straighter than his katana.
He was going to use two swords against her.
Locke Stoker loved horses. In fact, he loved horses so much and was so skilled with them that he had earned the nickname The Breaker. He hadn’t been sure about the nickname until he read in the library that there had once been a very famous Australian who shared that nickname, so now he was quite pleased to be called such.
Locke was thirty-six years of age, medium height and build, had short brown hair, and was youthful looking for his age. He had been a ranger for over eighteen years and was originally from the Channel area, which was south of Hobart. Locke was also an orphan; a gang led by a man called Mason had murdered his parents when he was just six years old. From the age of six to eighteen, Locke had spent his time scavenging for food and seeking shelter wherever he could in that desolate area, all the while dreaming of gaining revenge on that black-bearded bastard Joe Mason.
In his journey through the south, he finally came to the Kingston Community, where he learned that the Mason gang had all been killed by the rangers from this area and farther south in Grovetown. He found that one man in particular had killed the new leader and remaining members of the Mason gang, and his name was Billy Beasley. Intent on paying his debt to that man, Locke had sworn to become a ranger. Billy Beasley was a kindred spirit to Locke, as he had lost his brother and father to Mason’s gang. But whilst Locke was intent on bringing to justice any bandit who occasionally showed up in their area, Billy had insisted that Locke learn to read and write and study whatever he could from the rare books that were to be found. Locke soon became an avid reader, but the physical books that were found in empty houses tended to be what was called fantasy novels, fiction or science fiction, and famous people’s biographies. The other books, which were nearly all of them, Billy had told him, were stored on people’s computers. So to Locke’s frustration, they were locked away forever, never to be seen.
Still, he kept on reading whatever he could find, and they were all enjoyable books, except for the celebrity biographies—why people read about them was beyond Locke—but Billy and his father-in-law, the Mayor Nash, really wanted to find books about science and history. They wanted their people to be educated about their past and the way the world worked.
Then, five years earlier, a young lady by the name of Lily Dayton, who had come to visit her sister, started talking about reclaiming their home city of Hobart. Her father had led an ill-fated expedition to Hobart some twenty-two years before, but even though he had successfully rid Hobart of the
red zombies, he had paid the price with his life at the betrayal of a man who had secretly been part of the Mason gang. Locke felt another kinship building with Lily Dayton at the loss of family to Joe Mason, and over the next few years, they began to share a bed. Their relationship was not of the regular kind, as both of them were loners and liked to keep their relationship somewhat distant. But deep down, he knew he loved her, and somewhere in that cold exterior, he knew she loved him too.
So three years ago, he had been a leading member of the campaign to retake Hobart. And over a two-month period, street battles took place, and the whole of Hobart and the outlying areas were cleansed of the pale devils. They really weren’t much to fight. Potato Heads was what some of the rangers called them, but the large numbers meant it was a painstakingly slow undertaking to get rid of them. Then, a few days after reclaiming Hobart, Lily became a foster carer to her nephew, and slowly, day by day, Locke saw a change in her. A change he thought was for the better.
Lily, who had no intentions of becoming a mother, even despite Locke’s secret hopes of being a father, and had never become pregnant in the last five years, was starting to show maternal feelings towards her nephew. Oh, she might deny it to Locke, but he knew that she worried about him and showed moments of pride when he made some achievement, both physically and mentally. And when Tom’s mother came to visit, Lily and Rachael Dayton would look at each other like two cats trapped in the same room.
Tom had been a good thing for Lily, he thought with a smile as he rode his horse up to the mayor’s residence.
“Breaker,” one of the guards by the name of Cavarretta called out, “do you know what’s going on in there?” He pointed across at the gymnasium.
“How could I know that, dopey?” he called back. “I only just returned myself.”
“Well … you know … the mayor is in the sports hall.”