At night, Robinson read aloud to her, enunciating words and ideas while his body soaked in secret salves. He explained the basics of English and math. Whenever some subject frustrated her, she scolded him for not explaining it better. When the light lit her eyes with some new wisdom, he felt his heart beam with pride.
She had an appetite for learning that rivaled any he had ever known.
If the nights were full of words, the days were full of pain. Not a turn went by when Robinson wasn’t bleeding from some cut, scrape, or gouge. His hands were nicked, fingers and toes twisted. Every muscle in his body was bruised and swollen. Every patch of skin was scabbed over or worn raw. When they fought hand to hand, she held nothing back. His reward that first month? He touched her once.
When February arrived, they concentrated on efficiency and awareness and how everything that surrounded them could be a tool to hinder or aid. Robinson learned about the power of first strikes and the necessity to always do the maximum damage possible.
She pushed his body beyond endurance. He dove into freezing waters. He walked over coals of fire as her people did as a rite of passage. He bloodied his hands against trees and built up scar tissue on his shinbones. He learned the greatest hurdle in life was pain, and that by mastering it, anything was possible.
Her philosophy extended to her own lessons and she worked diligently to learn as much from this boy as she could. But whereas her physical skills were without rival, her ability to process the more conventional aspects of language and math eluded her. Still, before long, they had developed a kind of pidgin tongue using both their languages. They discussed the ancients, their ways, their politics, and religions. The only subjects that were off limits were their pasts and loved ones.
In March, as the snow melted, they moved on to weapons. Robinson trained with countless types that they had scrounged from the city. Swords, axes, staves, and bows, the latter of which Friday had made herself. He used daggers, hammers, pikes, and clubs. The goal wasn’t to be proficient with all of them, but to determine what weapons best suited his body and style. In the end, Friday chose two for him.
The first was a pair of tomahawks that they had found in a war museum. The handles were made from something called ironwood that was, as its name suggested, very hard, but also weather resistant. The blades were alloy steel and impossibly sharp.
Despite his effectiveness with the hammers and the damage they could do, Robinson’s favorite weapon was the sling. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, he could hurl a rock fifty meters and hit the target almost every time. More often than not, his shots were dead on.
He trained with these weapons at every session. Friday grew more intense but also closer. His determination impressed her, but she had not expected him to display such skill.
One afternoon, she pulled him aside.
“Cru-soe. Come. See for me.”
She walked him to a nearby clothing store and pointed to an old mirror.
The transformation was astounding. He didn’t even recognize himself. He’d grown six inches in the last ten months. But more impressive was his body, which had developed thick, lean muscles that stretched like leather cords and rippled with each movement. His hair fell to his shoulders and he had some scruff on his face, but his skin was a rich tan that glowed. His jawline stood out prominently, featuring high cheekbones he’d never known he had. They were his father’s cheekbones.
“You are man,” she said.
He looked at her and for the first time, the disdain was gone from her face. And that’s when he realized how truly beautiful she was.
“And you are a woman.”
He reached for her hand. To his surprise, she let him take it.
That night, they lay entwined as all lovers do, but they were still strangers in many ways. His heart ached to know her, to learn of her past and ease her pains. At the same time, he was happy. If he had his wish, he would have stayed there by her side forever.
“Cru-soe,” she spoke softly. Her English had gotten better, but she still sprinkled it with words of her own from time to time. “Spring comes. The rivers thaw. Soon the renders will wake and black sails will fill skies again.”
“Surely they won’t still be looking for you?”
“The Bone Flayers, as we name them, believe they eat soul of enemies when they die. And none is greater than Aserra. My … um … tao?”
“Escape,” he said.
“My e-scape will bring much shame to Chieftain. He will not sleep until he finds me.”
“So you want to go?”
She nodded. “And you want me to come with you?”
She nodded again, but this time there was reluctance there.
“But there’s some other business, isn’t there?” She didn’t know that word. “Something in the way?” He searched her eyes. “Ah. Not something. Someone.”
She turned to face him. “I am promised to Cimoshi.”
“Who’s that?”
“Not ‘who.’ ‘What.’ Among the Aserra, the Cimoshi is our greatest warrior. It means, he who fights from summit.”
“And will he fight for you?”
“After tonight?” She shrugged. “But he fight for honor. Honor is everything to the Aserra.”
“How far away are they?”
“The Aserra does not stay long in one place. They will be hard to find. Weeks, months, years. But find them I will. They are my tun and lua. My sun and moon.”
“Then we better pack well.”
This time her smile betrayed her youth. When she pulled him close and kissed him, he felt the kind of reckless abandon he had never felt with Tessa.
“How long will it take to get ready?” Friday asked.
“One day, two. We’ll need … how do you say, provisions? And proper clothes. Travelling south won’t be easy.”
And suddenly the night was rocked by a blast that boomed over the city. Resi leaped to his feet and barked. Friday was reaching for her axe when something bright and loud whooshed by overhead.
“It can’t be,” he said as he stumbled out of bed. “Not now. Not after all this time.”
He ran for the ladder to the roof, scaling it in an instant. When he spilled out into the night, he was oblivious to the bitter cold and the scrim of stars that stretched across the sky. He ran to the edge of the building, shocked by the sight before him.
Friday appeared at his side, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes wide and fearful.
“Cru-soe,” she asked. “What is it?”
“My people,” he answered, staring at the flyer as it hovered over the city. “They’ve finally come.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Rousings
The flyer circled twice before it banked hard and set off to the east. Even at night, Robinson could see the contrails lit by the pulsing of the thrusters.
“How do you know this is your people?”
“Because the flyers are ours. Friday, it has to be my father. He’s the only one who would come this far for me. We have to go find him.”
“This moment? But the ice thaws and we have no trail.”
“All the more reason to set out before daybreak. We can cross the bridge upstream and stick to the streets. If you’ve taught me anything, it’s how to move safely and trust my eyes and feet. We can’t afford to wait.”
As if on cue, the first howl cut through the night and echoed over the city. It was high, raw, and full of menace. Others also quickly followed it.
“The sonic blast,” Robinson said. “It must have roused them.”
“The renders are at their most deadly after long winters. They wake starving. Even the sun will not turn them away.”
“Then I’ll leave in the morning.”
She heard the resolution in his voice, so she said, “I will accompany you.”
Neither slept that night. But once dawn arrived, they dressed quickly and grabbed their weapons before heading out into the street. The sky held a smattering of clouds infused w
ith pink and violet colors that would soon blend to gold.
Robinson withdrew a map he’d scavenged from the library.
“Last time we saw the flyer, it was headed southeast—in this general direction. But since the river is impassable all along here, we’ll need to head north and cross this bridge here.”
“Once we pass, everything is open. We will be … what is word for exposto?”
“Exposed. I know, but if we keep moving, we should be all right. Resi! You ready, boy?” Robinson called.
Resi barked, but his ears were up. He could smell the hazards in the air.
“Good. You’re our eyes and ears today. Don’t let us down.”
They had hoped to make the bridge within a turn, but after a few blocks, they knew that would be impossible. Render tracks were everywhere. Not only in the streets, where streaks of grime and decay led from every doorway and hovel, but to the yards and fields where animals had been dragged from their warrens or torn from nests in trees. Even worse, many renders had turned on their own kind. In several places, they saw lumps of clothing soiled with black blood, with the streaks leading into nearby buildings.
Friday had also been right about the renders braving the daylight turns. Twice they were beset upon by packs. The first was turned back when Friday let loose two arrows, striking the leader and killing him in an instant. The remaining monsters dragged his body away, some already feasting on his flesh.
The second pack was larger, but after a few short blocks, Robinson and Friday outran them.
They had conditioned Resi not to bark in the city, but his low growls, raised hackles, and flared ears were always a sign that danger was near.
They moved north on Virginia and up 24th Street, but as they passed some kind of university there, Resi stopped.
“Come on, Resi. Keep up.”
He didn’t move.
“What is it, boy?” Robinson asked. “Do you see something?”
He barked twice and kept looking back at the university.
“He knows this place,” she said.
“Well, we don’t have the time to stop. Maybe when we come back this way, we’ll let him give us a tour. Right now, we need to keep moving.”
Robinson patted his leg, but to his surprise, Resi suddenly dotted across the campus and disappeared. He called after him but he never came back.
“We stay or go?” Friday asked.
Robinson was torn, but he shook his head. “We don’t have the time to go chasing after him now. Plus he knows how to get back to the memorial. He’ll be fine.”
“We will miss his nose.”
“Thankfully, we still have yours.”
Friday punched Robinson and he laughed.
They jogged along an old freeway and made their way to the Key Bridge. The years had worn it down. In places, they had to help each other over sections that had eroded and fallen away, but they soon made it to the other side and continued south along the water.
While they walked, Friday opened up about the Aserra, whom she said translated to People of the Mountain. They had lived in the harsh highlands to the north, back even before the days of the Great Rendering. When the plague first struck, people fled the city in droves, many hoping to find refuge in those hills. But they came too fast and too many and the mountain dwellers were forced to turn them away. Many lives were lost, but the People of the Mountain persevered.
For the next hundred years, they safeguarded their borders and lived off the land, swearing off the technology that they believed nearly fostered the end of man. But mountain life was not easy. Other clans of survivors wanted what they had. So they became a warrior state, like the Spartans. Robinson had read about them in the library of congress; they trained their children in the arts of combat from the day they were born. Their ability to defeat any foe—no matter how vastly outnumbered—helped cement their reputation and instill fear in all their enemies.
But reputations were not always a good thing. A few decades before Friday was born, one of the Aserra betrayed his people by smuggling ancient weapons onto their land. These explosives helped lead an attack by the Bone Flayers, the same savages that hunted them today. Only one in ten survived, but those that did made a pact to strike out on their own and reseed the people where they could. When the time was right, it was foretold one among them would reunite the clans and help them rise again.
“I told you the man who first saved me was Aserra.” She nodded that she remembered. “He’d been a captive too. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had cut off his own hand to escape. The strength it must have taken to do that—”
“This not strength! The Aserra never flee! He should have welcomed death proudly by killing as many enemies as he could before he fell. The Goddess of the Mountain will never open her halls to such man. It’s no surprise he lives in shadow and shame.”
“But, Friday,” Robinson said carefully. “You escaped too.”
“Not to run and hide. I will return to my people, tell them what I saw here, and soon we will return and wipe all sign of the Bone Flayers from the earth so the only black that fills skies again is smoke from their ships burning across water. Then and only then will I seek Goddess to atone for my sins. This I swear on the blood of the Aserra.”
“Well, let’s hope that day doesn’t come any time soon.”
He thought she might smile, until a string of loud cracks reverberated over the basin.
“What is that?” Robinson asked.
“Weapons of ancients. Not many remain, but from time to time, we run across them.”
“They came from the same direction as the flyer flew. Come on.”
As they continued down the road, they passed a faded sign on the ground that read: PENTAGON - 2 MILES.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Buried Secrets
True to its name, the pentagon had five sides of equal dimensions. It was a squat, gray building of four or five stories with small windows and heavy fortifications. Friday looked at Robinson and saw they were thinking the same thing: it’ll be very dark inside.
There was no sign of the flyer as they drew near. They decided to circle the building to check the other entrances, but the building was secure. They weren’t even sure if this was where the cracks had come from or where the flyer had gone, but something told Robinson it was an important piece of the puzzle.
After three quarters of a turn, they returned to the front of the structure where two large doors of glass stood atop a portico. The sun probed only a few meters within.
Friday said, “I am not wanting to go inside, Crusoe. I have—how do you say?”
“A bad feeling.”
“Or two.”
“Lucky for you, I have these.” He pulled out his tomahawks and grinned.
She rolled her eyes and set her bow and quiver of arrows behind a tree. She then twirled her staff and signaled for him to go ahead.
“Ladies first.”
She cracked him across the leg.
“I no lady.”
“After last night, we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
She cracked him again and he busted out laughing.
“Okay, okay,” he said and opened the door. “As her Highness commands.”
The stench that first hit them confirmed their worst fears. Renders were here.
The initial corridor was decently lit and many faded photos hung on the walls. In one, Robinson saw an aerial photo of the Pentagon itself and it revealed that the interior of the building was once a courtyard. He pointed it out to Friday.
A slew of ancient equipment sat toppled over in the lobby, gathering dust. On the floor were the blackened remnants of this continent’s flag, its once red, white, and blue colors faded and eaten by moths.
Thankfully, the corridor was wide, but the farther they strode from the doors, the more the darkness consumed. Scant light poured in through the windows in the offices on both sides, but there were more than enough shadows to keep their senses tingling.
They moved cautiously and silently. They had become an efficient team, well versed in communicating by the subtlest of movements. Many of the offices they looked in had been ransacked. Desks were overturned, books torn apart. Here and there they saw claw marks but more often, the rifling looked organized.
In an interior office, Robinson looked out the window into the central courtyard. The park-like grounds that once existed were now overrun with plant life. Ivy covered most of the walls and trees. High grass obscured the rest of the view. Only one narrow angle afforded him a glimpse of what he’d been searching for.
The flyer was there.
Robinson nodded to Friday and they continued down the hall. He was looking for an entrance to the courtyard when another series of cracks rang out. Both Friday and he hit the ground.
“Does that sound close?”
“I cannot tell.”
They waited until they were sure they were in no immediate danger before they got up and continued down the hall. Eventually, they reached an intersection where a doorway led to the courtyard. Unfortunately, a structural collapse blocked the way. They continued down the next hallway where the stench of renders grew more pungent. Friday touched her nose and Robinson nodded. They moved even slower.
Somewhere inside they heard a shout and then laughter. Part of Robinson wanted to rush forward, yelling for his father, but he knew it would be foolhardy. If such an act didn’t draw an attack from renders, it would surely draw one from Friday, who always chose caution first. Still, Robinson believed in his heart that his people were here looking for him and were most likely going room-by-room searching for evidence of his survival.
At the end of the hall appeared a set of steel doors with the words “TOP SECRET CLEARANCE ONLY” written across them. One door was slightly ajar, so they peeled it back and peered inside. The smell hit Robinson like a punch. Friday motioned for him to pull back, but they both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Robinson’s palms were moist and sweat ran down the middle of his back, soaking his shirt. As he opened the doors, a loud creak echoed down the hall. Friday’s focus reminded him to measure his breathing and take slow steps on the balls of his feet while always maintaining a good center of balance.
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