Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  I sink my boot into her stomach, knocking all the wind out of her. She doubles over, gasping for breath on the inhale and unleashing a stream of vomit on the exhale.

  “Stop,” one of the men shouts. “Stop, OK?”

  Brighid stands over him. “Which one?”

  The other men whisper harsh threats at him, some in tongues I don’t understand, but he keeps his eyes on Brighid.

  “There’s a rec center four blocks north of here. Kids used to play indoor football there.”

  One man shouts at him to shut up. A soldier hits him with the butt of his rifle.

  “That’s been condemned for years. There’s nothing in the space.”

  “It’s not what’s in the space,” he says, and as he tries to continue the thought, an insurgent brings himself onto his feet to launch himself at the man, trying to silence him. He nearly has the man until a rifle shot crackles the air and the insurgent’s body slumps against the ground.

  The blonde woman cowers and the men lower their heads, but the Brigu woman – now splattered with the insurgent’s blood – remains resolute, though I can see the corners of her lips trembling. She is definitely from here.

  “It’s not what’s in the space, it’s what’s under the space,” she says, taking over for the man, who has lost the nerve to speak. “The building is the center point of the tunnel system.”

  Brighid cocks her head. “Why would a football pitch be the center of the tunnels?”

  “It used to be a facilities maintenance plant. There were chutes that went down into the sewer system. When the people seized the plant from the resource companies, they dug tunnels off the sewer lines to evade the fighting and shuttle food to the areas that needed it. Then after the Tathadann shut down the plant, one of the residents – he built the two factories that made the autodriving cars – remade it as a football pitch.” The woman shrugs. “His kids loved playing and he didn’t want them to get shot during the fighting.”

  Seeing the right things, I think to myself. It’s good I didn’t say anything to Brighid because it would’ve been about the high-rises, not the rec center. And I would have a bullet in my head right now.

  Brighid examines the woman for a long minute, then motions to the soldiers. “Get them up and take them to the high-rises.” She points at the woman. “See that she gets something to eat and clean clothes.”

  The soldiers haul them into the trailing truck and head back toward the city center, while the other two start fixing the flat tires on our truck.

  Brighid stands in the middle of the street, bottom lip pinched between her thumb and index finger, staring off into the distance. I come up next to her, nod toward the indoor pitch.

  “That’s some story,” I say.

  She says, Mmmhh, and continues to knead her bottom lip.

  “Henraek always used to talk about those. He said he sent a bunch of rebels looking for them during the Struggle but no one could ever find them.” I look at her from the corner of my eye, trying to get a read on her train of thought. “Want to go check it out? They could be useful to have.”

  Her hand drops like an anchor, her expression with it.

  “There are no tunnels.”

  “But we found them. Beneath the butcher’s shop.”

  “Those were dug during the Struggle. That’s why there were so few of them.”

  “No,” I say. “Henraek heard about them. And we found part of them.”

  “They don’t exist,” she says, an edge to her voice. “It’s a rumor, disinformation, something to keep the people looking for the thing that would save them but never let them find it.”

  “What? Why? How do you know that?”

  She looks at me and for a flash I see something like sadness in her eyes.

  “Because Daghda told me. He’s the one who started it.”

  I come back into the house after the long-ass day and go straight to the kitchen area, scouring the cabinets for food or booze. Between the bar and Henraek and his bourbon, I’m used to relaxing with a drink. Now, cut off from most other people and unable to go walk around town, I’d murder someone for a tumbler of liquor.

  I settle for a few sips of mostly clear water and head up to my room. Since Brighid now wants me by her side at all times, I was told I’d soon have better accommodations – specifically ones that don’t require a lock and key – but they’ll take a day or so to get in order. I’ve gotten used to this tiny room, so another night won’t kill me.

  I push open my door, ready to collapse on my bed and stare at the ceiling until I pass out.

  But when I flick on the light, I stop in my tracks. My pillow is covered in blood, with something black sitting in the middle of it. My eyes scan the room. Nothing disturbed, nothing taken, no blood anywhere else. I step back outside, scanning up and down the hallway, but find nothing suspicious, so I come back in my room and make my way to the bed.

  The black lump, I see when I get close, is a pigeon, lying on its back with its wings extended as if it died in mid-flight. But its eyes have been carved out, tiny black holes in its tiny grey head. Sticking out of its chest is a curved, white ceramic piece with a sharp point at one end. When I pull it out, I know immediately what it is.

  It’s a coffee cup handle. The same one I broke this morning.

  This is from the brown-haired woman. The one whose plan I ruined.

  This is her warning me not to get any closer. But who the hell is she?

  17.

  HENRAEK

  We take Dyvik’s car east, heading up the road into the ridges and tracing the jagged edge. He handles the vehicle well, but every time we come upon a tight turn I hold the back door handle and take a deep breath, reconciling myself with dying. Dyvik’s right hand, Magnus, the barman whose name is as awe-inspiring as his barrel chest and arms, glances back at me from the front passenger seat, amused by my anxiety.

  We’re headed to a nearby town, just under an hour away, to get a better look at a labor farm. Rën would probably be the worst place to be seen poking around a farm with two known members of Nyväg. This one is also one of the newer ones, which Dyvik tells me is important. As we drive, I try to memorize as many details as possible in order to give Ødven enough information to remain credible while still keeping Dyvik and his people safe. It’s farther than I’d like to go when the boys aren’t with me – Lyxzä is watching them and Magnus’s boys, Axel and Edvin, though I get the feeling his boys can fend for themselves and it’s more a show of solidarity – but the next closest one is at least three hours.

  Eventually, the trees begin to thin, likely unable to weather the harsh winds that must whip through here during the winter. We top a crest, where a small outcropping of houses sits off to the right of the valley. A river slips through the center of the area. The beauty of it all, combined with the reason for our visit, is nearly overwhelming.

  Dyvik pulls the car into a small copse of trees, half a mile outside of the village.

  “Why are we stopping here?” I say to him.

  “Don’t want them to know we’re coming.” He says it like it should be obvious.

  “I thought Nyväg was here.”

  Dyvik climbs out of the car, leaving Magnus and me.

  “There are Nyväg wherever there are labor farms,” Magnus explains. “But not all Nyväg is same Nyväg.”

  It takes a minute, but I get what he’s saying. “These people are amadans.”

  He arches an eyebrow.

  “Idiots. Morons. Can’t tell an arse from an elbow.”

  “Yes, like that.” He climbs out, motions for me to follow. We hurry to catch up to Dyvik, who points to the right of the village.

  “That’s it.”

  I squint, but can only see the central dome and several small ones. “It looks the same to me.”

  Then he hands me the binoculars.

  I pause a second to look. I now see that the fencing that surrounds the domes isn’t just to keep people out, as two dozen wispy figures
dodder around the enclosure I realise it’s to keep the ändes in.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper. “They just leave them out there to freeze?”

  “They’re not really alive to be able to freeze.”

  “But they can feel the cold?”

  Magnus nods. “In their own way.”

  I lower the binoculars, let them hang around my neck.

  “What are you thinking?” Dyvik says.

  “How many Ragjarøn troops are in the village?”

  Magnus says, “The small villages are not heavily guarded. One or two, if any.”

  “Then let’s blow it up,” I say. It occurs to me that seems to be my answer for everything.

  Magnus grins, but Dyvik shakes his head. “Too risky. It takes preparation to do that, and as soon as we do one farm, security on all farms will be raised.”

  Shit. “Well, we can’t leave them there. That just… doesn’t seem right.”

  Magnus purses his lips and says something in their tongue.

  “Is that a good idea?” Dyvik says.

  “What did he say?”

  Magnus clears his throat. “At times, water gets inside the locks on the fences. The water, it freezes and bursts the lock.”

  I finish his thought. “And the gate swings open.”

  “These ändes, they never know to leave because they are not told,” he says. “But we could move them along.”

  “Can they rejoin their… um…” I stammer, not sure what the right term is and not wanting to insult them by saying host as though they’re a parasite.

  “Their host?” Magnus says. Figures. “Not physically. But being close is good many times. Like Lyxzä and hers.”

  I whisper, “Then once they’re loose, their hosts can find them. And Ragjarøn can’t.”

  I’m moving down the countryside before anyone else can speak. They hurry down the hill to catch up.

  We creep along the fence at the labor farm, checking constantly to make sure there’s no one around, but the village remains quiet. When we get to the gate, I pause. If we pick the lock, it won’t look like it busted. Hitting it with a rock would look like… it was hit by a rock.

  “How are we–”

  Magnus steps forward as if he could read my mind. He pulls on the lock to test it, taps his fingers against the face.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  He shoves his fingers between the top and bottom parts of the lock and yanks hard. The whole thing splits. He shakes his hand, wipes his finger across his pants.

  “Now we are good,” he says to me, then turns to the ändes and shouts something in their language, Låt oss gå. Then I recognize a word. Tillräckligt. It’s the same thing the Nyväg man yelled before he was sacrificed. None of the ändes stop their listless doddering, but they change direction and come toward us. They amble through the gate, some headed toward the village and some into the valley.

  “What happens when Ragjarøn finds out about this?” I say. “Will they kill them?”

  “They are eternal and cannot die,” Magnus says.

  “What about their hosts? Will Ragjarøn threaten them?”

  “Shouldn’t you have asked that before you ran down the hill to free them?” I can’t quite read his tone but it does make me feel like a dick. “But no, they probably won’t, because they’ll assume it was Nyväg.”

  “And Ragjarøn will have to catch them all before putting them back to work,” Magnus says.

  A few alarmed voices call out as the first ändes enter the village.

  “Come,” Magnus says. “We must go.”

  Back at his house, Dyvik unrolls a map and spreads it over the kitchen table. We gather around it. Donael and Cobb make a racket in the next room with Axel and Edvin, but I can feel Donael gravitating toward us, casting looks in our direction, waiting to be invited in. I hate to break it to him, but it’s not going to happen.

  I’ve heard stories about Brusandhåv for years, about the frigid cold and the rocky, rugged, unforgiving terrain, but have never seen a map of it. It’s larger than I would have thought. In a car, it would probably take a good twelve hours to cross, if the roads in the mountains aren’t too winding. On the map, the village we visited looks almost next door.

  “We’re right here.” Dyvik points to the westernmost point, a jagged outcropping that juts into the sea, then slides his finger to a point in the south, tucked into a harbor. “Vårgmannskjør is all the way over here. And all of these red lines are transportation tracks.”

  “Why do you rely on trains so heavily? Why not transport vehicles like everyone else?”

  “Those worked fine for today.” He gestures outside. “It’s light most of the time, the weather’s still nice for autumn.”

  I suppress a laugh.

  “But the seasons change quickly here,” he says. “In a few weeks the cold and dark will set in. You won’t be able to see any of the roads. And then there’s the snow and ice and high winds. It’s terrible. So they stick with trains, mostly. You can move more at a time too.”

  I point at a dozen green circles. “These are the other camps?”

  He nods. Though the camps are spread throughout Brusandhåv, half of them are within five kilometers of Vårgmannskjør city limits. The others are dotted incrementally around the periphery of the country. All of them are located a short distance from the rail line – to make it easier to transport the people to the extraction centers, according to Dyvik, and then move the ändes to where they’re needed – but nothing else seems to connect them.

  “If you’re going to strike a blow against Ragjarøn, you need to do more than just let a couple ändes loose. I’d say you’d need to destroy all of the labor farms.”

  “I thought you were staying out of it?” Dyvik says.

  I take a deep breath. “If Ødven falls, Brighid will fall soon after, and Eitan can be free once again.” That familiar electricity thrums through my arms. I realize that I feel more comfortable in my own skin right now than I have in weeks, and part of me wonders if I’m doing this for the liberation of Eitan or because I don’t know who I am if I’m not fighting.

  “So,” I say, “is there a common power source?”

  They both shake their head.

  “What about a central computing system? Something that runs the extraction process?”

  “There is much distance between the centers,” Magnus says. “We don’t have cables that will conduct so far, and wireless transmission can’t penetrate the winters.”

  I run my fingers over the map, as if absorbing something through my skin that will allow me to divine the answer.

  “Is there anything special about the one in Rën? As in, if this one goes, all of them go?”

  “Other than being the first one, no,” Dyvik says.

  “And it’s too close to home to hit.”

  Dyvik stretches his hands over his head. “That depends.” He gestures between himself and Magnus. “We both live here. Our families are here. Our homes are here. We’ll have to leave town immediately after, so if we are going to attack, it must be worth it. We must know we’ll succeed.”

  Lyxzä calls out from the kitchen in their native tongue. Dyvik answers, then looks at me. “She’s asking if we’re moving.”

  I nod. She and Emeríann would get on well. “Where is Nyväg centered?”

  Dyvik smiles, glances at Magnus. “You’re looking at it.”

  “How many members do you have in total?”

  “Thirty or so.”

  “That’s it?” I wasn’t expecting an army but I was hoping for more than this.

  “We had thirty-eight until last month. A house was raided in Vårgmannskjør. And you know what happens then. There used to be more, up to a hundred, until Ødven started hunting us. Six of us are here now, in town, or just outside. The others are spread out, hiding.” He points to two villages outside Vårgmannskjør, a small swathe in the east of the country, then a small dot in the Jötun Mountains. “But we’re gro
wing. Last year we started a youth brigade – the ungdømstrüpper – in Skaö, tucked into the mountains. It’s a nasty place to live, but no one goes out there. The young ones are protected. And after living in Skaö for a few years, being outnumbered eight-to-one in a fight doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Magnus’s sons went through the training.”

  Magnus nods. “They learned much. Came back stronger, smarter, more disciplined.” He smiles a little. “They listen better, to me and their mother.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something,” I say as much to myself as to them.

  I understand where Dyvik and Nyväg’s drive to be free comes from. I dedicated my life to it. Donael’s words echo in my skull, that the Tathadann and Ødven aren’t much different. The worst part of it is knowing that I’ve spent a long time trying to become someone my son would be proud of, maybe even idolize, and the one thing that would make him idolize me most – being an agent of liberation – is the one thing that I swore I’d keep away from.

  Something brushes against my leg. I spin around, startled after being inside my head, and see Donael hovering behind us.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What?” He puts on his innocent tone while holding up a football, like it just happened to roll over to this very spot, but he’s looking right at the youth brigade center in Skaö. I step in front of him, blocking his view, though if he’s anything like me he’s a quick study. The other room has gone mostly quiet, Magnus’s boys saying something in their language, showing Cobb how to break out of a chokehold. Cobb clicks along, pretending that he understands.

  “You guys go outside and play,” I say to Donael. “And I mean football, not murder each other or whatever you’re doing in there.”

  He holds his hands up, saying what are you talking about?

  “You heard me. Look.” I point out a window at two kids in the street, an older girl and younger boy. “Go make some friends.”

  “Make some friends? When have you ever told us to make friends? You always said to stay away from kids unless you knew their parents so we wouldn’t end up held captive by some Tathadann nutcase.”