by M C Rooney
Then a strange look came over his opponent’s face and Edward was surprised as the young man now took a deep calming breath.
“What’s he doing?” he said quietly to himself, and then realised what he was doing when the rage on his face had completely gone.
“You must have had a good teacher,” Edward mused.
“My aunt,” the young man replied.
“I will be sure to send my condolences to her after you death,” he smirked.
The young man said nothing and raised his sword above his head.
“What is your name?” Edward asked.
“Dayton,” he replied.
“A famous name,” Edward acknowledged jealously.
His opponent shrugged his massive shoulders, as if to say, ‘I don’t care what you think’, and attacked him with lightning speed. Edward Abercrombie’s eyes then widened in alarm.
“Molly, oh, my poor Molly,” the professor cried as he took the sword out of her shoulder.
“I’m all right, Professor,” Molly said and proved the lie by screaming in pain as she moved her shoulder.
“Stay still,” the professor said as he reached into his travelling bag. “I have some special cream still.”
The dream medicine?, the voice asked.
“Yes, Plagira,” the professor whispered back.
And as Molly removed her torn and useless suit, he placed some thick brown ointment into the hole in her shoulder. Molly grimaced with pain.
“Don’t you worry, Molly,” the professor said. “This medical cream is old, but it’s powerful enough to last a century.”
Which it almost has, the voice said.
The professor did a quick calculation.
“Fifty years,” he snapped.
Half right, the voice replied.
“Where is Tom?” Molly asked now hearing the noise of clashing swords coming from nearby.
“In a battle for his life and ours, I think,” the professor replied.
“Take me to him,” she said.
“You love him, Molly. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I do,” she replied.
Edward tried to kill his large opponent, but nothing could get through his defences. Dayton, this boy was a Dayton and most likely was related to the Daytons of Hobart which all of his soldiers were talking about.
He looks so bloody calm and fluid with his movements now. And I made him that way, Edward thought in a panic.
He tried taunting him again, but nothing was working, and slowly, his opponent was pushing him backwards, and he was feeling the strain of the young man’s powerful blows.
Edward Abercrombie’s ego was in trouble.
“I am going to kill you,” Edward said through gritted teeth.
“I don’t think so,” Tom replied.
“It’s only a matter of time.” Edward said trying desperately to maintain his balance from his foes constant attacks.
“If you say so,” Tom replied.
“You are nothing!” Edward now screamed.
“Wrong,” Tom replied as he kept him on his back foot with heavy sword strokes again and again. “I am a ranger.”
“What the...fuck is a ranger?” Edward panted as he felt his hands began to lose their strength.
“Someone who stands up to people like you,” he replied in a steady voice as he attacked again.
Edward was now exhausted, and he realised he had never fought anybody for over a minute in years. His ego was now faced with the possibility that he might die in this fight.
“It’s time to end this,” Edward said stepping away from his opponent whilst taking in huge gulps of air.
“I agree,” Tom replied calmly as he followed him and then winced and went to move one hand to his injured side before taking it back.
I have him, Edward thought and went on the attack. He was the greatest swordsman alive; surely, he would win.
But somehow, the boy had anticipated his aggressive move and, deflecting his swing, ran his own sword down the back of his thigh. Edward dropped his sword and fell to his knees in agony.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” Tom said now stalking slowly around the defeated Easterner.
“You fucking cunt!” he screeched whilst clutching at his bleeding wound.
“You hurt the woman I love,” Tom said, and he knew his words were true. Some people may say that falling in love so fast was a bad thing, but for Tom, it felt nothing but right.
“She’s a slut!”
“You said you were going to rape her.”
“Yes, and then I would have cut her fucking throat,” Edward spat.
“You’re really making this easier for me,” Tom said calmly as he moved behind him.
“Fuck you, Dayton,” he shouted. “Fuck you and your whole fucking family.”
With one large swing Tom took his head, and Ned, Edward and his ego fell down dead.
“Molly, he loves you,” the professor said with a gentle smile on his wrinkled old face.
“I know,” she replied with tears in her eyes, and then ran towards him.
The professor watched as Molly and Tom embraced and shared their first kiss.
One of many, I think, the voice said.
“I believe you may be right,” the professor agreed as he again took out his medical ointment.
“Excuse me, young lovers,” the professor said as he walked up to them, “but that cut will fester if I don’t see to it.”
Tom sighed and took off his jacket and shirt. “Thank you, Professor,” he said, “but we do need to be quick. We don’t know how the battle went.”
“Won’t be a jiffy,” he replied, and as he placed the ointment on the boy’s ribs, he noticed his katana sword at his side.
“Wonderful sword,” he said.
“Yes,” Tom replied. “It was a gift from my great-grandfather to my grandfather.”
“How unusual,” the professor replied and stood still in shock as he saw the letters MC engraved on the hilt.
“What were their names?” he asked quietly.
“Jon Dayton and Ray Beasley.”
Dear old Ray Beasley, the voice cried.
“Yes, indeed,” the professor replied, and the memories that he had denied for so long came flooding back once more. This time, he would keep them.
“But stay with me,” he murmured to the voice.
Always.
“Professor, are you okay?” Molly asked, concerned. “You’re crying.”
“Oh, it is just the ointment getting in my eyes,” he said as he looked up at the great-grandson of a good friend of his.
The cut on Tom’s side was healing fast, as was the hole in Molly’s shoulder. Old medicine was good medicine, even though such medicine was never made available to the general public.
“Are you sure?” Molly asked, clinging to Tom as if she never intended to let him go.
“No, that’s a lie—no more lying,” he said honestly. “I knew Ray Beasley very well, and I sold him that sword.”
Tom was absolutely stunned that this man in the middle of nowhere had known his ancestor.
“I have lots to tell you, boy,” the professor continued. “I have lots to confess, good and bad, about what I did in the past.”
“But not now,” said Molly. “We have to leave.”
“Yes, Hobart it is, then,” the professor said. “I haven’t been there in decades.”
Slowbart, the voice said and giggled.
“You know I never liked that saying,” the professor replied as Tom went to his horse whilst putting his shirt and jacket on and signaled for Jeremy. “Or the two-headed jokes.”
Big cities always pour scorn on the smaller ones.
“Bullies,” the professor replied.
Soon, all four of them were riding quickly away from the tower. The professor was explaining the mechanics of the tower to a very excited Jeremy, and Molly had her arms around Tom and her body pressed against his back. They all enjoyed the journey
.
Todd Abercrombie looked at the carnage they had created through his spyglass. He looked and saw his dead uncle lying in the mud. The Eastern Diggers had lost one hundred men, and the Westerners, who were down to less than a dozen, were now hobbling away to the north.
“They all fought,” Doyle said in amazement as he also looked at all the dead bodies. “Even the ones in the tent got up and fought.”
“And died,” Todd said quietly, “and for what?”
“We have the tower now,” Doyle said.
“Yes, I guess we do,” replied Todd, who now signaled his men to move forward. “But three hundred of our small population just died.”
“Secure the tower, and search for anything that looks valuable,” Doyle called out to his troop leaders, as they rode by.
“Will the men forgive me?” Todd asked as he watched his nineteen hundred men fan out over the tower lands.
“For not sending them into a disease-ridden, filthy camp with people who prepared a trap and fought like wild dogs?” Doyle replied. “Yes, I think they will.”
“Are you certain?” he replied.
“As certain as I could be. Your uncle and cousin were the ones who decided to ride straight ahead, not you; you protected them,” replied Doyle. “Besides, with no disrespect meant, your uncle and cousin were not that well liked.”
Especially by you, Todd thought. But he did hear many other rumours of discontent with his family’s rule of the east.
“I could have sent in more men to help,” Todd said.
“Yes, you could have, but that fight was over in less than five minutes,” Doyle replied.
It was. Todd went from watching his uncle lead one hundred horses to a bloodbath within the blink of an eye.
“Thank you … Captain.” Todd sighed.
“You’re welcome, Governor,” Doyle said, smiling back at him.
“No. My first ruling is to not be called that,” Todd said.
“Then what shall you be called?”
“Mayor,” Todd replied, after his hero from Hobart. “And from now on, we shall have a permanent council for people along the East Coast, and we will discuss the perils of the Governor-General from the mainland,” he said. “Finally, our army shall now be known as the Eastern Rangers.”
“A good choice,” Doyle replied.
“Yes, a good choice.” He watched through his spyglass as two horses and four riders headed southwards.
“And maybe we will wear green jackets,” he murmured.
And soon, a soldier came forward with news of his cousin’s headless body, a ripped and useless silver suit, and a parcel of valuable objects found in the tower with the letters MC written on the outside.
“Well, it’s never a dull moment with you, is it?” Carter asked as he dragged his old friend northward.
“Wasn’t my fault.” Hockey grunted and coughed up another glob of phlegm.
“The women fought well,” Carter said as he looked at four surviving women carrying swords.
“Yes,” Hockey replied. “Another thing I was so wrong about.”
“Can we head west now?” Ian asked. “I don’t like heading away from home.”
“Just a bit farther, Ian,” Sam, who was devastated at the loss of his friend Chris, said sadly.
“Once we are out of sight, Ian, then we can change direction,” Alex said quietly.
“And then what?” asked Ian.
They all looked at Hockey. A chief no longer, he was still their leader.
“Just keep walking,” he grumbled.
Epilogue - Hobart, Mayor’s Office
Lily sat in her office and looked across the table at her brother and his wife, Rachael. As soon as Daltrey had given the news of Tom’s disappearance, his mother had come racing down from Grovetown and had been here ever since. If not for the fact of Locke’s death and her pregnancy, she thought her sister-in-law would have attacked her by now.
“When will we hear something?” her brother said mildly.
He was a good man, her brother, and no doubt was trying to calm his wife down and smooth relations between the two of them. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the old saying went.
“My rangers have caught rumours of a battle in the Midlands,” Lily replied as she watched Rachael squirm in her chair. “They say that a new army from the east now occupies the tower.”
“An army.” Jesse sighed. “How can an army be in Tasmania?”
“Renee told me that when they were closing in on the tower”—Lily almost sobbed when she thought of Locke—“that … that the lightbulb Tom was carrying began to work.”
“That’s incredible,” Jesse replied, and even Rachael stopped frowning for a moment.
“I think the people on the east,” Lily continued, “always had electricity. That’s why there are so many of them.”
Jesse looked at his wife. “It was worth the gamble, don’t you think, Rachael?” he said hopefully.
Rachael grumbled something in reply, then went back to glaring at Lily.
Jesse sighed. What was he going to do with these two?
But he understood his wife’s worry. He was worried sick about Tom as well, and he knew Lily also was, no matter how hard she tried to maintain her calm.
Lily looked towards the door as she heard running footsteps.
Renee opened the door and had a big grin on her face.
“He’s here!” she said excitedly. “And he has some friends with him.”
Lily then saw a mass of blonde hair fly out the door as Rachael went running for her son. She almost bowled Renee over on the way out.
Jesse looked at Lily and smiled. The relief on their faces was palpable. “He has friends,” Jesse said, and Lily felt a strong swell of hope build in her heart.
They walked out together to see Tom.
Two horses rode slowly into town down the main road, which was once called Harrington Street. Tom felt an overwhelming sense of joy at returning home, which was balanced by a sense of loss over Locke.
‘I left him behind,’ he had said to his friend Bong in grief.
‘No, you didn’t, mate,’ Bong had replied. ‘There was nothing you could do. Internal injuries it was.’
It wasn’t his fault, he knew, and Locke would have died with or without him, but he felt sick at not being there for him when he died.
Fate, Bong had called it when he learned about the professor’s family connection and what could be achieved in the future.
Fate, Frizel had said when she saw the way Tom and Molly looked at each other.
Maybe it was fate for Locke to die. But Tom didn’t like that idea at all. It seemed too callous.
“You’re thinking about him again,” Molly said from behind him as she held him tighter. She had quickly become very good at judging his moods.
“I’m okay, Molly,” he said as he held her hand that was against his stomach.
“You don’t sound it,” Molly replied.
“How are your wounds?” he asked as a way of changing the subject.
“Amazingly good,” Molly replied.
A miracle it was, Tom thought. The way that their wounds had healed in such a short amount of time was truly wondrous.
“I just wish we could have given Sam and Alex some of the Professor’s medicine,” Tom said as he wondered how his new friends were.
“And what about Roland and Michelle, heading north?” she asked. “Roland was so keen to see the south for so many years.”
“I think he intends to show his new wife to his family,” replied Tom, “and of course, the new baby to come.”
“But the way he was worried about getting back into the north,” Molly said. “It sounds like there is a fortress—”
She stopped as she saw a tall middle-aged lady with blonde hair running towards them. Her eyes were focused directly on Tom.
“Mum!” Tom cried out, and after helping Molly dismount, which was difficult as she was still wearing the tight dress Edward
had given her, Tom ran forward and embraced his mother.
“Oh, my boy,” she said tearfully as she ran her hands over his face and hair. “I was so worried.”
“Oh, Mum,” Tom replied.
“But you could have been killed.”
“I’m okay, Mum. I had to do my duty.”
His mother then gave him a curious look. Molly thought she may have just realised that he was a man grown, not a little boy anymore, but she still didn’t look like she would be letting him go anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Soon, though, she turned to Molly, and her eyes became sharp. “And who is this?” she said in a flat voice.
Tom went completely red in the face. “Um, Mum, this is Molly. Molly, this is my mother, Rachael Dayton.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Molly replied, as she adjusted her dress, which was definitely not recommended for riding a horse.
“And these two,” said Tom, who was trying to stop his mother from staring critically at Molly, “are the Professor and his apprentice, Jeremy.”
Jeremy looked quite pleased at being referred to as the professor’s apprentice.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said with a smile.
“And you,” Tom’s mother replied with a much more pleasant face than she had shown Molly.
“Are you related to Ray Beasley, young lady?” the professor called out from behind Jeremy.
“Yes, I am,” Rachael said in surprise as she watched the two men dismount. “I am his granddaughter.”
“I was a friend of his from the old days,” the professor said as he walked up to her. “He was quite a character. You have his look, I think.”
“Thank you,” Rachael replied, and as always, the mere mention of her grandfather brought tears to her eyes.
Tom looked around and saw that his father and aunt had arrived.
“Dad,” Tom said as he embraced his father.
“Glad you’re back, Son,” Jesse said. “I think you have quite a story to tell.” Then his eyes went straight to Molly as well.
After introducing Molly to his father, who looked a lot happier to meet her than his mother was, Tom walked over to his aunt and felt tears swell in his eyes.