Battle for the Valley

by C. R. Pugh

  “Camellia stays with me,” Ravyn insisted. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

  “Fine,” I said with a nod. “I’ll send Tallon and Brock with you too.”

  Ravyn took a deep breath to shake off her fears. “I still don’t like it.”

  I stepped closer to Ravyn and placed my hands on her shoulders. “I know.”

  “If we do this … if we split up, how are we going to find each other again? We can’t possibly coordinate an attack without coming up with a strategy together.”

  “Do you think you could find your way back here to this place?”

  Ravyn glanced over at the water bubbling by. “This stream runs into Blackrock River. If we marked it somehow where the two channels intersected, we could follow it south again.”

  I nodded. “It should only take me and my Warriors three days or so to reach Ahern from here.”

  “It shouldn’t take me that long to find Kieron.”

  “Let’s meet back here in ten days, two weeks at most. That should be plenty of time.”

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  Table of Contents

  11

  Audrick

  Sweat dripped from my temples and down my neck as I sat in my rolling chair, staring at the monitors. Grandfather was coming. I could hear him stomping down the corridor toward the control room. My heart was pounding. It had been two days since I’d gotten the power back on in the compound and the Yellow-eyed Sabers had been called back to their dens. The truth was I’d pushed the button to halt the Saber attack. I had no knowledge of where the Sabers had been or if they had caught up to Ravyn and her comrades. Grandfather had not sent them on a tracking mission. He had turned them loose to seek and destroy. My conscience could not allow it to happen. He had caused enough damage.

  The story I had prepared to tell my grandfather was fool-proof. There would be no way for him to prove that I was lying unless he’d become a computer expert.

  The door burst open, slamming against the wall. It should not have startled me but I jumped anyway, sending me rolling backward almost two feet.

  “What happened?” he snapped.

  I swiveled in my chair to face him, my white knuckles gripping the armrests. The vein in Grandfather’s forehead looked ready to pop and his cheeks were flushed red in his rage. He scowled down at me, his eyebrow twitching, holding back his fury.

  “What are you talking about? The power is back online.” I was impressed that my voice did not tremble.

  He took two slow, menacing steps forward. I swallowed and stared hard into his gray eyes. If I so much as flinched, he might catch on to my lies.

  “The Sabers,” he spat. “I sent them to track her down. Why are they back inside their dens?”

  I cleared my throat and turned back to the monitors. “When the power came back, the surge must have triggered the device in their ears. I can look further into it if you’d like.”

  I held my breath. If he asked me to investigate what happened, it would be more difficult to hide what I had done. I felt his eyes boring into me. Inwardly, I cringed, wondering if he could sense my duplicity.

  Swallowing again, I pointed to the screen. “You can see everything here on the monitors.”

  Grandfather shifted to study the computer screens. The largest screen showed a map of the compound and surrounding areas. A large blob of red inside the compound indicated all the soldiers and other members of our community. Every living soul inside this building had been chipped.

  Tapping a few keys on the keyboard, I brought up an image on a smaller monitor to the right. It showed video footage of the inside of the Saber dens. The Sabers were resting. Four of them had returned, a couple were injured, and a few were licking the blood from their paws.

  My stomach churned. Was that Ravyn’s blood? Had they killed her?

  “Three red dots,” he said, pointing to areas outside our compound. “Those are the microchips?”

  I nodded. For once I didn’t have to lie.

  “Two are south of here, the other is moving north,” he drawled. Grandfather glared at me out of the corner of his eye. “Can you explain that?”

  “It seems they have split up.”

  “You don’t say?” he said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Can’t you tell which chip is which on here?” He planted his fists on his hips and leaned closer to the screen, as if the answer to his question was written in fine print.

  “Each chip has its own code. I would need to search the computer mainframe and find the detailed lines of code that each chip contains. Those lines of code would need to be back-traced individually. That would tell us with some certainty.”

  I continued to stare at the screen and bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. It would not be that difficult for me to figure out who each chip belonged to, but my words made it sound complicated and time-consuming.

  He narrowed his eyes. “How long would that take?”

  “Days.” That was a lie too, but Grandfather wouldn’t know that. “Or … we could send out a search party,” I suggested as an alternative. “Perhaps to this one, since the mark is closest.” I pointed at the screen to the red dot closest to the compound, a few days south of here. I silently wondered if that had been Ravyn’s chip and they had left it behind. One could only hope.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “I will deploy more soldiers. Three groups.”

  Turning his back on me, he strode to the doorway.

  “And Audrick,” Grandfather said, glowering back at me over his shoulder. “I want to find out how Test Subject One escaped. Both times. I will be interrogating everyone.” He glanced back at the screen and narrowed his eyes at the red dots. “And I want to find out why Test Subject Two has not returned to report in.”

  He turned on his heel and walked away, slamming the door behind him as he went.

  I let out a shaky breath and wiped the sweat from my face with my shirtsleeve. Grandfather had become obsessed with Ravyn. He knew that carrying on with his torture would eventually change each of the men and women that had signed up to be one of his super-soldiers, but he didn’t fully grasp what was going on biologically. He didn’t care about neurological pathways being damaged and remade to do his bidding. None of that mattered except the outcome. That was why he continued to fail with Ravyn.

  Reaching for the controls, I punched a few keys and zoomed in on each microchip, viewing each one on a different computer monitor. The red dot that had remained a couple of days south of here had not moved for some time. I had been watching it for hours.

  The other two microchips were bothering me. Rocking back in the chair, I squinted my eyes and observed the red dots on the screen. One of the three chips had to be Ravyn. I hoped that she had been able to remove the bullet from her knee and had left it behind. She would not dare remain in one spot for long, and so close to the compound. Ravyn must be one of the two dots moving north or south.

  That did not explain the other two red dots. Who else in Ravyn’s party had been chipped? A few of the rebels could have unknowingly been given a tracking chip. Laelynn had been a prisoner for several days. That weasel, Renny, could have chipped her while she was unconscious. I doubted Kaelem had been inside the compound long enough for anyone to place a chip under his skin, especially without him knowing. Camellia could have been given a chip if Grandfather had decided to administer one to her while she was a young child in Terran. It was doubtful though. Ravyn would not have separated from her.

  Or would she? It could be a strategy on her part to keep her sister hidden safely away. I was not convinced.

  The only other people that had been chipped were soldiers.

  I leaned forward again and swore.

  The soldiers.

  Test Subject Two.

  If he was one of the three red dots, which one was he? If he was continuing to follow orders, he would be following Ravyn. Unless he was dead. Could the motionless red dot be TS2?

  Kieron, I thought to myself. His rea
l name is Kieron.

  I remembered when Kieron had been brought to the compound. He had been a young boy found wandering near Blackrock River. He had fought the soldiers and demanded to return to his home near Murray. He’d been attempting to find Howler Hollow as some sort of dare and had gotten lost. Any family he had likely believed he was dead long ago. Kieron had been defiant and unreceptive to his new home until Ravyn was brought to us a year later. They had an instant connection.

  I shook myself out of my errant thoughts and stared up at the screen again. One unidentified microchip remained. Either that person didn’t know they were chipped or … it was Kaelem working for the General to betray Ravyn again.

  My fingers pounded the keyboard. I needed to find out who the mystery chip was. But once I found their identities, how would I be able to help Ravyn from here?

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  Table of Contents

  12

  Ravyn

  Thorne and I stood beneath the oak trees at the edge of the stream, both of my hands in his. It was a glorious day. Rays of sunshine burst through the branches of the trees. Red and yellow leaves floated from the trees all around us, covering the ground in a soft orange blanket. The stream sparkled beside us.

  Thorne squeezed my hand. I couldn’t help but stare up at him. His silvery blue eyes twinkled in the sunlight and he was wearing that cocky, lopsided grin of his. I was smiling so much my cheeks began to ache.

  Thorne had donned black from head to toe. His clothes resembled his fighting attire, but these were made of finer material – something an Elder might wear. His shirt was sleeveless, showing off his tattoos, and a sash of red hung from his shoulder and across his chest.

  When I glanced down, I realized I was clothed in a white, flowing dress. The neckline was off the shoulder, revealing flawless skin, and my black hair hung loose in waves down my back.

  Thorne’s hands slid up my arms, then he grazed his fingers across my bare shoulders. My cheeks heated at the intimate touch. He cupped my cheeks with his hands and drew me closer. I closed my eyes and his lips brushed over mine in a tender kiss.

  Thorne’s hand was tangled up in my hair while the other was wrapped around my waist, holding my body against his. My own fingers dug into his muscled back. The earthy scent of him overwhelmed me. I never wanted to let go of this warrior.

  A moment later, he was easing out of my embrace. I kept my eyes pinched shut, savoring the taste and scent of him while it lasted. This was the happiest day of my life. Thorne and I had completed the Binding Words. I was his and he was mine. Forever.

  Grinning like a giddy school-girl, I lifted my eyelids to gaze up at my husband.

  There was no one there. My hands were empty. The smile on my face melted away into confusion. Thorne was gone and I was alone. My white dress had faded into my gray and black torn up clothes that I’d stitched back together too many times to count.

  As I glanced around the clearing, my knees nearly buckled and my stomach churned. Thorne was dead at my feet with his belly slashed open. I blinked a couple of times, certain that this wasn’t right. We were not in the meadow. This couldn’t be happening all over again.

  Out of the corner of my eye, a red substance oozed across the ground toward my booted feet. I followed the creeping river of red up an incline with my eyes and when I saw the source, I stumbled backward. Laelynn was lying dead at the top of a hill, covered in blood.

  “No!” I cried out. This couldn’t be real.

  I turned my back on the sickening sight to find the rest of my friends in the same horrifying condition. My parents, Camellia, Pierce, Kieron, Tallon … all of them. Dead. The once-clear stream now ran red with their blood.

  A menacing laugh filled the silence. I whirled around, knowing, at once, who belonged to that sinister voice. General Wolfe stared at me with his cruel gray eyes.

  Shaking in fear, I backpedaled away from him. He laughed as I fell backward over Thorne’s body and tumbled to the ground. I scrambled to my feet, Thorne’s blood smeared across my clothes and hands.

  “Did you think you could get away this time, Test Subject One?” Wolfe sneered.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. My arms and body began to feel heavy, as if Thorne’s blood was weighing them down.

  My friends had been slaughtered by General Wolfe and his Sabers, and I was next. I tried to reach for my weapons but I couldn’t lift my arms.

  “You can never escape me,” Wolfe sneered, shaking his head.

  A sob hitched in my throat as my eyes wandered back down to Thorne’s lifeless corpse. His ice-blue eyes stared blankly at the morning sky.

  “You should have stayed away from him, my dear.”

  My face crumpled. Deep down, I knew he was right.

  “I had another hidden weapon up my sleeve, you see. He has served me well in my cause.”

  What was he talking about? What hidden weapon?

  “I never put all my faith in one person,” he stated in that arrogant tone I always hated. “Where one fails, another will be there to take his place and finish the job.”

  Muscled arms wrapped around me from behind, trapping my own arms to my sides. I struggled to move, to do anything to shake him off me, but my body was paralyzed, weighted down by the blood. The man snickered in my ear.

  “You sure did make this easy for me,” he mumbled into my ear.

  My heart plummeted. I recognized his voice.

  “Bring her along,” Wolfe ordered. “She belongs to me.”

  ***

  I woke with a terrified gasp and jolted upright. My hands fumbled around at my waist and thighs, searching for my weapons in the dark. Both of my pistols were holstered at my waist and the blades I had hidden in my boots were accounted for.

  My eyes darted around the clearing until they landed on Camellia’s small form. She slept on the ground beside me with her pack beneath her head. Her blonde hair was coming undone from her braid, but her face looked peaceful and innocent.

  “It was just a nightmare,” Kaelem said from across the small campfire. He sat against an oak tree with his legs crossed at the ankle, keeping watch. His grief-stricken face glowed orange from the flames. The second I began wondering what time it was, Kaelem was answering me, “Couple of hours after midnight.”

  Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I drew my knees to my chest and buried my face in my arms. I was too exhausted and miserable to scold him for delving into my mind.

  Camellia isn’t dead, I thought, sighing in relief. The same couldn’t be said for Laelynn or Haldar. My chest tightened and tears stung my eyes when I thought of Laelynn’s shredded body.

  It had been two days since we had been ambushed by the Sabers; two days since we had laid Laelynn and Haldar to rest. We’d buried them beneath the oak trees down by the stream, away from the place where they had been killed. It had taken all day to dig the graves without any shovels. The shallow pit was four feet deep, but we piled stones over the graves so that scavengers wouldn’t be tempted to desecrate them.

  What if the same thing happened to Thorne? The thought of Thorne being torn open by Sabers again had my heart twisting inside my chest.

  Stop it! I mentally scolded myself. Thorne is fine.

  At least, I hoped he was. There was no way to know for certain since we had gone our separate ways two days ago. Thorne, Pierce, and Archer had decided to follow Nash and Hagan south, back to the brothers’ home clan of Ahern.

  Raising my head from my knees, I glanced around the small camp we had made beneath the oak trees by Blackrock River. Tallon and Brock slept side by side about ten feet to my right. It was just the five of us: Tallon, Brock, Camellia, Kaelem, and me. Our job was to hunt Kieron down.

  I had agreed with Thorne on that matter. We needed to make sure Kieron didn’t fall back into General Wolfe’s hands, but I hadn’t intended for us to split up. I was still uneasy about the decision.

  After paying our respects to Laelynn and Haldar, I had pulled Tho
rne away from the group and argued against him leaving me.

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” I’d told him in a hushed whisper. We had wandered a good distance away from the group to keep Pierce or Kaelem from eavesdropping, but still I lowered my voice.

  Thorne brushed his hand down the side of my face and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I know you don’t, little warrior, but even Pierce and Archer believe this is a good course for us to take. We will be together again soon.”

  I relented, though not without a few misgivings. Something didn’t feel right about it.

  Hiding my face in the crook of his neck, I whispered, “Thorne, I’m so afraid I won’t see you again if we part this time.”

  Thorne stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. “I swear I will do everything in my power to come back to you.” He had tilted my head back and sealed his promise with a kiss that melted me to my core.

  Two days later, I could still feel the warmth of Thorne’s lips on mine, though he wasn’t there with me.

  I jumped to my feet and began pacing back and forth within our small camp between the trees. The forest had transformed as we travelled north through the Valley and into Crabapple Grove. I’d been here once before, when I’d run from Thorne weeks ago. The sequoias had been left behind in exchange for smaller hardwoods – oaks, dogwoods, and crabapple trees. Other fruit trees grew here and there as well. The time of year for harvesting apples was nearly at an end. Most of them had fallen to the ground and rotted in the grass, or they’d been eaten by birds and other animals. While Camellia and I climbed to collect as many uneaten apples as we could find, Tallon, Brock, and Kaelem hunted for rabbits and other small game with their bows. We ate till our bellies ached and packed the rest for later.

  Kieron’s trail had not been difficult to find. Thorne had pointed out his tracks leading away from where the Sabers had ambushed us. Kieron was headed northeast. It made sense, I supposed. Years ago, Kieron had mentioned being from a place near Murray. The fishing clan was located northeast of the compound at the coast.