by Jim Heskett
Nothing ever stood in his way for long.
That they were on the mansion grounds this late without permission would be enough to sink her. To send them both to the cages, or maybe even up against the wall.
They jogged along the path. Two lovers with a big secret. Had they sneaked into the lord's car garage for a late-night quickie somewhere dangerous? Or, were they doing something even more sinister?
Diego snickered. Their intent didn’t matter in the slightest. Diego now had leverage. And, whatever their goal, these two had no idea of the hammer about to fall on them.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Yorick and Rosia headed for the dorms after sneaking back onto the battlegrounds to close the open warehouse door, they first had to cross the area with the outdoor auditorium. No play tonight. There were lanes of guards on either side, so it made the most sense to walk straight across it.
Near the back row, Yorick knelt, and Rosia sidled up beside him. He squinted, making sure they wouldn’t be caught out in the open if they crossed directly through the seating area. That was a couple hundred meters of exposure with no place to hide. So far, crossing from the mansion to the battlefield and back toward home, they’d been lucky to have been seen by no one.
No one, as far as they knew.
“What do you think?” she said.
“Let’s go straight through. Worst case, they see us, and we say we were out for a walk.”
“That’s assuming they don’t know about our visit to the warehouses just now.”
He chewed on his lip. “I think if they’d seen that, they wouldn’t have let us walk home. They would have snatched us up immediately.”
“Yeah. I think so too.”
He kissed her neck, which set alight the tiny hairs lining her flesh. “You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
And they sprinted. Feet hustling along the dry grass between the rows of seats. They ran in an arc around the stage, which was empty this evening. Sometimes, you would see the performers rehearsing on the nights they had no shows. But tonight, the stage sat silent. Brooding and dark.
Past the theater area, they skidded to a halt by the dorms. They found Tenney and a thin girl sitting on the bench in front, next to the fountain. Eyes up, nodding at Yorick. As if they’d been waiting for him.
Yorick lifted a hand in a wave, his heart pounding. Tenney flicked his chin at the bench opposite theirs. The young woman sitting with him didn’t look up to acknowledge them.
“No,” Rosia said. “We need to get inside. This is dangerous.”
“The guards won’t bother us tonight,” Tenney said. “They’re drunk and playing Fours. They’ve taken over the gymnasium and are not concerned with us at all. You didn’t notice how no one harassed you while you were out running around the plantación?”
Yorick circled around and sat on the bench. If they were playing the card game Fours, they would be busy for quite a while.
Even though Rosia frowned, she joined him a moment later. When they sat, a silence bloomed in the night air.
“How do you know what we’ve been doing?” Yorick asked.
Tenney shrugged. “I just assumed, since you two rushed in here like a rabbit trying to make off with a carrot.”
Yorick, his heart rate returning to normal, said nothing. Rosia was trying to catch his eye, but he didn’t want to look at her. They’d been careless. If not for the guards all deciding to party tonight, they would have been caught, for sure. They were too cavalier, and this behavior would catch up with them.
“I’m Malina,” the thin girl said. She wore a locket on a chain around her neck, and her fingers fiddled with it. Judging by how close she sat to Tenney, Yorick assumed they were together.
She had light hair, light skin, and light eyes, a rarity on the plantación. Like Hamon. She kept her eyes low and her frame hunched as if trying to hide inside Tenney’s bulky shadow. Malina had an angular face with a long chin, and her ears stuck out a little, slightly pointed at the top. She had an unusual look.
“Okay, so, you found us,” Yorick said. “What can we do for you?”
“Your battle group leader, Hamon?”
Yorick nodded. “Yes?”
“He was a good guy,” Tenney said. “I didn’t know him, but he seemed like a good guy.”
“He is,” Rosia said.
“What they did to him—taking him inside the mansion—it’s not right.”
“We know that,” Yorick said.
“Then you should also know he’s never coming out of there. That ending up in last place in some silly game to entertain Lord Wybert is the reason your friend is now dead.”
Yorick gritted his teeth. He knew all this, of course. Hearing it from the lips of a farm serf somehow made him angrier. “Get to the point, Tenney.”
The large serf glanced left and right, then dug an item from his pocket. He tossed it across the divide between them, and Yorick scooped it up and concealed it in his hand before he could get a good look at it. He creaked open his palm and glanced down. A cylinder, only a little larger than the tiny flashlights he and Rosia had carried down into the tunnels below the mansion.
“What’s this?” Yorick said.
“Near the mansion,” Tenney said, keeping his voice low, “there is a garage. Full of the lord's cars and maintenance equipment to keep them running.”
Yorick and Rosia shared a look. No reason to think Tenney knew exactly what they’d been doing tonight. But this was an eerie coincidence.
“Go on,” Rosia said.
Tenney cleared his throat. “Underneath this garage is a set of tunnels. That device can help unlock doors in these tunnels. You’re going to need it.”
“Two questions,” Yorick said as he held up a finger. “First: how do you know this?”
Malina leaned forward, her hair spilling over her shoulders. When she opened her mouth to speak, her lips quivered. “I’ve been friendly with a guard.”
Tenney grimaced at the mention, but Yorick tried to pretend he hadn’t seen it. Tenney wasn’t happy about whatever “friendly” meant. Yorick could guess.
“Okay,” Yorick said, holding up a second finger, “why are you telling us this?”
“Our rebellion will happen in three days,” Tenney said. “We figured you would want to be ready to take advantage of the chaos and get inside the mansion. Three days.”
“Yes,” Rosia said.
“Whoa,” Yorick said, holding out his hands like he was trying to keep two serfs from attacking each other. “Hold on a second. Three days? That’s not enough time.”
“We’ll help you,” Rosia said. “We’ll be ready. When you’re ready to go, we will be too.”
Yorick put a hand on her shoulder. “This is loco. A couple days from now? I suppose you’ve solved the problem of how to take on fifty guards with assault rifles and real bullets?”
“We have weapons,” Tenney said. “Ones we’ve made. They’re buried in the field. When it’s time, we’ll dig them out and begin the assault. And we have a plan to take more once it starts.”
Yorick was so flustered, he didn’t know what to say. The idea that a few dozen—or even a hundred—picks and axes would be enough to take on all the guards. Pure insanity.
“Please,” Yorick said, “think about this. We need more time. We’re working on our own thing, but three days isn’t long enough for us to make any difference. All of us are going to die if you do this now.”
Tenney’s eyes grew wistful as he stared up at the stars above them. “The other morning, when they came and took several of our farm serf brothers and sisters? Did you see that?”
A chill hit Yorick. The serfs put up against the wall to eat bullets early in the morning, just before the battle. He nodded. “You know we did. We were outside when it happened.”
“They did nothing,” Tenney said. “The condemned ones. Broke none of Wybert’s rules. Hurt no one else. All of them were good workers. But Wybert believes from time, i
t’s important to sacrifice a few farm workers to ensure the rest of us know he’s in charge. He believes that sometimes you have to wipe gunk from the bottom of your boot to keep the tread running properly. Can you believe he said that to us once?” He lifted a hand, pointing a finger past Yorick. “We were all over there last year, in the splinter-infested seats in that theater. He told us all this while he bounced around on stage, smiling down at us. He acted like he was educating us. Doing us a favor. And, because of that, he has three more days to live. Three more days until we string him up and give every serf a turn to cut his flesh until he has no more blood to spill. For the dead ones we do this.”
Rosia leaned forward and dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye.
“And the other day is not the first time he’s killed some of us for fun,” Tenney said, “or sport, or to set an example. Did you know this, too?”
Yorick shook his head. He knew of Wybert’s cruelty, but not like this.
“Of course you didn’t know,” Tenney said. “You’re guerreros. You eat good meals and sleep in good beds and are allowed time to relax and train and even have days off from your activities.”
“That’s not our fault,” Yorick said.
Tenney nodded, a grim smile on his face. “I know. I know well whose fault it is.”
For a moment, they all sat in silence. Then, the spotlight from on top of the wall swept by, highlighting their area. A warning alarm gave a single chirp.
Tenney stood, taking Malina by the hand. But, before they could leave, a guard emerged from the front door of the dorms, his rifle bouncing around on the sling over his shoulder. Yorick could see right away the bleariness in his eyes. He was drunk, as Tenney had said.
“You there,” the guard said. He lowered his rifle, pointed it at them.
Yorick and Rosia raised their hands. The guard stumbled across the courtyard, barely able to keep upright. His head jiggled around on his neck.
“You little idiotas out here causing trouble? Making schemes?”
Tenney set his girthy jaw, and Yorick tried to shake his head at him. One wrong move and they’d be thrown into the prison cages by the mansion, or worse.
“No trouble,” Yorick said. “We were just going inside. No trouble at all.”
The guard apparently didn’t like the look on Tenney’s face, because he approached the farm serf, scowling. “Is that right, field boy? Time for bed, is it?”
Tenney stood for a moment, biting his lip, then, after a few seconds, he relaxed his shoulders. He pushed out a breath. “That’s right.”
The guard flinched, hoisting the rifle at Tenney. Tenney gave no reaction at all. The guard chuckled, pleased with himself. “Good, then. Field workers and guerreros have no business talking to each other at all. I mean, what is there to talk about, don’t you agree?”
“I agree,” Tenney said through gritted teeth.
The guard laughed again, swaying on his feet. “Don’t let me catch the four of you together even one more time. It’ll be up against the wall for all of you, hear me? I don’t care if you’re the lord's precious guerreros, or the top-producing field serfs, or what. You’ll all go up against the wall. All I have to do is tell someone, and I can make that happen.”
The power-hungry guard stumbled away, back inside the building. He smacked his shoulder into the door on the way in, cackling to himself.
“Three days,” Tenney said once they were alone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the morning, Yorick waited for Rosia at the front of the dorms while others streamed out of the building. Blues and Reds, some dressed in battle suits, some in regular clothes, holding their suits like pet animals as they shuffled along.
Something in the world didn’t feel right. Levels of conversations were low. Worried looks crowded faces. Often, before battle, you’d hear boasts about future victories or playful taunts from each team. This morning, there was none of that.
Everyone seemed to smell the impending doom in the air.
Or maybe that was how Yorick saw the world. Two days until the farm serfs would revolt, to take on Wybert’s contingent of guards. Utter lunacy. Wybert would stand them all up against the wall. Or, at least, the ones who survived the initial assault would end up against the wall.
And even if Yorick and the Blues did not join in, their lives would probably be forfeit, as well. With no field workers left to tend to the harvest, what would become of the rest of them? Would Wybert still have time to make silly war games when his livelihood was in jeopardy? No. The lord would lock them inside the plantación and burn it all to the ground.
A finger tapped him on the shoulder and Yorick whirled, fists raised. He found Paulo a meter away, flinching back from Yorick’s reaction.
“Easy, amigo,” Paulo said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“I get it. Everyone is a little edgy right now.”
Yorick nodded. “Thank you for your help yesterday.”
“We did what we could, but it was a lucky break that the guards were all drinking themselves into stupidity inside the gym for most of the evening. I know we didn’t get a chance to talk about it yet. Did you learn anything? Make any progress?”
“Not really,” Yorick said, lifting his palms upward. “We thought we could sneak around under the mansion and… and I’m not sure what we thought would happen. Maybe that we would find Hamon.”
“Hamon is gone,” Paulo said, his expression weary.
“I know. I know he is.”
“We all miss him too. But we have to accept he’s not coming back.” Paulo clapped him on the shoulder. “This is not a good time to be thinking about the ones we left behind.”
“You’re right,” Yorick said. “Got to put my guerrero face on.”
Paulo spread a flat smile and gave Yorick a wink as he strutted off toward the battlefield, hoisting his arms above his head to stretch as he went. With all the other guerreros out of the dorms, Yorick enjoyed a moment of silence. The gentle cawing of birds off in the distance, the light whoosh of a breeze cascading down the plantación walls.
Rosia came out of the building a moment later, her black battle suit clinging to her. Hair tied up in a bun at the back of her head. She narrowed her eyes as she approached him.
“What’s wrong?”
Yorick shrugged. “A lot of things are wrong. I don’t have enough fingers to list them all.”
“I know. It’s all a big soup right now, and we’re going to make it right.” She tilted her head toward the battlegrounds, and Yorick set off after her.
“You can’t still be serious about joining up with them.”
“What should we do instead?” Rosia asked. “Tenney and his farmers are going to strike the match. We can do nothing, or we can help.”
The path toward the battlegrounds took them past a small guard building, and they hushed their conversations until they’d cleared it.
“How are we supposed to help?” Yorick said. “If they light the match, how do we not get burned up? I mean, what use are rubber bullets against real ones?”
“We don’t take them on in the open. We use that lock picking device to sneak into the mansion. Once we’re in there, we open the gates. Then, it won’t matter what the guards do or don’t do. Everyone will join in and fight. Or, if they can’t win the fight, they’ll have somewhere they can escape.”
He had to admit that it was a pretty good plan, but he did see a few things wrong with it. “Meanwhile, the guards will have already killed most of the farm workers.”
For several steps, Rosia stayed silent, her eyes on the path. “I don’t want anyone to die. But Tenney says this is what they’re doing, and if we can’t stop them, this is the best option. If they’re willing to make a sacrifice, we have to take advantage. We honor their sacrifice by gaining freedom for those who survive. We earn freedom for everyone else.”
Yorick shook his head, unconvinced. But, she did have a point. Wasn’t
likely they’d find a way to talk Tenney out of his revolt. They could either sit by and watch them die, or they could provide parallel action. But still, the insanity of this whole idea bothered him.
“Maybe there’s something else we can do,” he said. “Climb the walls and open the gates from one of those guard towers at the corners.”
She offered a sad smile. “Climb the walls? Really? You know that won’t work.”
The walls were sheer, straight, and slick. No hand or footholds. The guards accessed the tops via a single door near the front gate. That door was guarded twenty-four hours a day, and there were multiple cameras pointed at it. A year before, a cafeteria worker serf had tried to scale the walls. The guard had let this teenage girl attempt the climb. They didn’t even bother to shoot her down although they’d watched with their sniper rifles trained on her. Of course, the girl fell a few dozen meters up the wall, breaking her leg. And the girl must have known she couldn’t get away. Maybe she’d wanted to prove to someone else it might be possible. But, if that were the lesson for the rest of them, Yorick hadn’t seen any change because of it.
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
They continued to walk in silence, shuffling through the morning dew on the grass. Within another hundred meters, they came close enough to the battleground that they could see something unusual. Near the warehouses, a ring of cars parked. The cars from the garage plus others Yorick had never seen.
Lord Wybert stood atop one of those cars, with a circle of guards around him, both on the car and on the ground. The Reds and the Blues were gathered, standing, arms crossed. Staring up at their lord.
“What’s this?” Yorick said. Wybert had never come out before a battle with a convoy of vehicles.
Rosia shrugged as the two of them, and the remaining guerreros filtered in and took up spots next to the others. Facing Wybert.