Junkland (The Hoarding Book 1)

by Patrick Johns

“She’s a little girl who just saw her entire family die from these men from the mountain,” Devan argued. “You know how imaginative children are. She was probably in shock.”

  “Vanished or not, her family was attacked and murdered. We have no knowledge about the weapons they were using, or where they came from and why they are here!” Leoné explained. There was frantic scratching on the paper as Zatum’s quill zipped across the page.

  “We’re in danger,” continued Leoné. “We need extra protection along the walls. No one goes in or out of this castle until we figure out how to defeat these invaders.”

  Leoné turned to Benjamin. “Benjamin. I would like you to keep an extra eye on my daughter. I do not want to find her outside of the Castle Keep by herself ever again. If I do, Zalus help you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. I won’t let anything happen to her,” Benjamin answered.

  “Good, good. Krist and Martellus, I want you two to control the walls. You will replace Riago and Landerin, and arrange the men as you see fit. I want you to report any suspicious activity you find inside or outside the walls. And by Zalus, keep those gates shut.” He stressed the last word.

  “Your wish is my command, Your Grace.” Martellus gave an awkward salute to Leoné.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Krist responded.

  “Hollow and Arnold, this must be a difficult time for the both of you, being new to the Poolesguard. I want Piller to take both of you under his company. You will do as he commands. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes…yes, Your Grace,” they both stuttered.

  Finally, he turned to Devan. “Devan, you will stay by my side guarding myself and Nadia day and night.” He broke his gaze with Devan and looked around the room at all the knights around the table. “Is that clear?”

  They all nodded in agreement, except for Piller.

  “But what about the survivors?” he asked, looking down at the old wooden table.

  “Gala has been doing all she can for them,” Leoné said.

  “No. I mean the survivors in the Four Cities. The survivors we abandoned outside the wall. They are your people, too, Your Grace. They are a part of Astenpoole as much as we are.” Piller took his eyes from the table and stared back at his king.

  “Those folk responsible for killing Asha? Those Carriers?” Leoné spat, waving a hand in disgust.

  “You have no proof that they caused The Sickness. For all you know, it could have started from within the castle walls.” Piller could feel his heart pounding. I need to convince him to help them. This isn’t right. “I know your frustration. My mother also died from—”

  Leoné slammed both his hands onto the table, causing a loud bang. Everyone at the table jumped. “This isn’t about your damn mother! You may be Captain of the Poolesguard, Sir Piller Lorne, but let me remind you who is the king.”

  “Put the past behind you, Your Grace. We all miss Asha. We all miss the ones we have lost in The Sickness. But we need to decide the fate of the kingdom. We need to save the people that we abandoned on the other side of that wall.” He felt the words flow out of his mouth, having no control over his speech.

  “What do you propose then?” The king glared at him.

  Piller didn’t have an answer prepared. He didn’t expect himself to be in this situation. All eyes were on him. He needed to decide now, to figure out a plan. Sweat trickled down his forehead, barely missing his eye. He rubbed the scar on his face. His eyes roamed around the room, hoping for an answer. Zatum waited anxiously for Piller to begin talking, to say something, to write down his brilliant idea—but nothing came to him. The quill hung in the air, mocking him. Piller thought about the little girl he had failed to save. He thought about his dead father and his dead mother. He couldn’t let them down. But what could he do?

  “Piller? What do you propose we do?” The king repeated. “If you have no plan—”

  “We need help.” Krist’s voice broke the silence across the table. Piller raised his head to look at Krist, who gave him a reassuring smile.

  “Help?” Leoné acted as if he had never heard the word before.

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Krist stood up and continued, “If you refuse to open the gate, we can only survive for a year, maybe two, if we’re lucky. We don’t have enough food to live here forever. We need to feed an entire castle. We need help from the people outside of these walls.”

  “Yes.” Martellus stood up next to Krist. “We need help from the outside, Your Grace. They can get us the resources we need to survive.”

  Devan was next to stand. “And the survivors outside the wall need our help, too,” Devan grunted. “They won’t be able to survive long out there with those…those things. We need to provide them with weapons and any kind of supplies they need.”

  “And how do you expect to help them?” Leoné asked.

  “We need to set up some kind of communication between them and the castle.” Piller broke in.

  “Stations.” It sounded like a little squeak from the corner of the room.

  “What was that Hollow?” Leoné turned his glance to the young knight.

  “We can build stations along the wall. To…to help,” he stuttered nervously.

  Zatum’s right hand was flying across his paper. Piller had never seen someone write that fast before.

  “Yes!” Arnold stood up now. “Let’s build some sort of retrieval station along the wall that the survivors can reach from the outside. We can assign our people to work in the stations. They’ll be in charge of communicating inside and outside the wall and be in charge of the jobs assigned to the survivors.”

  Benjamin was contemplating out loud. “Every time the survivors retrieve something we need inside the wall, we can give them something in return. Something they can use…”

  “We can give them swords and shields,” Piller said. “Any kind of weapon in exchange for resources. It’s our only way of survival, Your Grace. We need resources if we’re to stay here indefinitely.”

  Leoné thought this over for a long time. Silence hung in the air as he stared blankly towards the painting of the Western Mountains hanging on the back wall.

  “Retrieval Stations you say?” He twirled his finger in his beard again. After a minute of thinking, he slammed his hands back down onto the table. “Yes! I like it. Piller, since this is your idea…you, Hollow, and Arnold will be in charge of setting up these stations.”

  Piller smiled. “Yes, Your Grace. I—” he glanced at the two young knights, “we will be honored.”

  Devan unsheathed his sword and pointed it to the center of the table. “To the Retrieval Stations! The last hope for Astenpoole!”

  The other brothers unsheathed their swords and held them up high to the center of the room.

  They all yelled together. “To the Retrieval Stations! The last hope for Astenpoole!”

  Part Two

  The Junkland

  Year 916 A.Z.

  Chapter 14

  Jahrys

  JAHRYS WATCHED THE teams stumble through the small door of The Arcalane. He was sitting on a stool with his back against the bar, sipping a warm ale. A light rain fell outside. It was getting dark. At least darker than it normally was during the daytime these days. As the years went by, it was getting harder and harder to tell the difference between night and day.

  His other hand was fumbling around with the necklace he always kept in his pocket. His thumb traced the smooth outline of the gem.

  The rain began to pick up outside, pounding against the sides of the inn.

  Jahrys took another sip from his mug, listening to the rain outside while lost in his own thoughts. A day didn’t go by where Jahrys didn’t think of Lily. He wondered if he’d ever see her again—her blue eyes, the slight dimples on her cheeks, her beautiful smile…

  Jahrys didn’t get much sleep these days, not after the Hoarding. His exhausted body would always be overcome by the memory of Lily’s soft hand slipping away from his three years ago, the
screams of his dying parents, and the way Frayel’s insides spilled onto the road.

  A pain shot through Jahrys’s foot, taking him out of his thoughts. He looked down to find Miller pecking his leather boots—each peck made a jingling sound.

  “Don’t you have something better to do?” Jahrys yelled down at the chicken.

  Miller cocked a large, round eye up at him. A ring of keys were hanging from his beak.

  “You know Willem isn’t going to be happy when he can’t find his keys.” Jahrys pointed a scolding finger at the chicken. “Do you want him to have an excuse to feed you to the Retrievers?”

  Miller cocked his head to the side, making no effort to drop the keys.

  Jahrys shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Miller continued his pecking.

  “Get out of here!” Jahrys yelled, kicking Miller lightly.

  Miller scurried away and ran around the room, the keys jingling with every step.

  Jahrys was still astounded that Miller was alive. Miller had miraculously appeared at The Arcalane a year after the Hoarding, pecking at the front door. Willem had opened it to find Miller standing there, as if the Hoarding had never even happened.

  Miller was all he had left of his former life. That, and the dreadful screams and pleadings of his parents that were forever engraved in his mind. Jahrys could still picture his parents’ faces before they died. How scared they had looked. He remembered his father pleading to the Hoarder with black stripes to leave his mother alone, to hurt him instead. Jahrys still remembered the blood that poured out of his mother’s head as the Hoarder had crushed her with his Captor.

  The Hoarding had taken so many lives: his parents, Frayel, and countless others from the Four Cities. Worst of all, the destruction continued as the years crept forward. The first year after the Hoarding, everything disappeared—doors, wagons, tables, cabinets, windows, boats, dead animals, and all the dead people. During the second year, everything reappeared in what the Retrievers have been calling, junk blocks. After the Hoarders were done doing whatever they were doing, they would empty their Captor Packs by shooting out junk blocks from their Captors. The junk blocks spread rapidly throughout the Four Cities, stacking up on top of one another, creating junk walls. By the third year, the junk walls became so high that they blocked the view of the Western Mountains.

  Now his parents, Frayel, and all the others whose lives were taken during the Hoarding were part of the Junkland.

  Jahrys glanced around The Arcalane. It was already busy and it kept filling up. A group of Retrievers were sitting at one of the booths by the corner in an intense game of Pooles and Palms. Other Retrievers were caught up in conversations scattered around the bar. Innkeeper Willem was busy serving drinks and maintaining the steady flow of Retriever teams that entered The Arcalane.

  After The Arcalane was destroyed during the Hoarding, Willem didn’t waste a second in rebuilding it. Instead of rebuilding it back to an inn, he built a massive shelter for protection against the Hoarders. He had added numerous bedrooms for survivors to live in. He barred down the windows and added metal siding along the perimeter. As the years went on and the storms got worse, he added a marble roof to absorb the rain, at least to the parts of the building that weren’t already covered by junk walls. The inn quickly turned into the main headquarters for all the people in the Four Cities who had survived the Hoarding.

  Word about The Arcalane spread quickly, and people traveled from Kaluk, Danor, and Sible to find shelter within. In exchange for a room, Willem only asked that people take up roles as Retrievers to provide for the inn or to help maintain it.

  Jahrys heard the door slam open—a team had just arrived. Old Lan and his team rushed in, their suits dripping water onto the already dirty floor.

  “Follow the procedure. Make your way to the showers in the back. Quickly now.” Willem motioned, indicating for Old Lan’s team to follow him.

  Willem quickly directed them to the showers in the back where they would be stripped and thoroughly washed down. Their suits would be sterilized and stored for later use, until the storm passed.

  This was standard procedure these days, as the Junkland was getting worse, and everything had to be kept clean.

  “It seems these storms are getting worse and worse don’t you think, O’Jahrys?” Willem asked after finishing with Old Lan’s team and returning behind the bar. The rush of people was beginning to settle down. “It’s like the stormy season all over again.”

  Jahrys took another sip from his mug. He turned to face the large innkeeper. “Do you think we’ll ever see another long summer?”

  Willem traced his mustache with his thumb and index finger. “Not if these Hoarders keep destroying our land. The junk walls are becoming so high, they are starting to block out any bit of sunlight that’s able to push through those standstill clouds. Soon, we’ll be trapped in an endless night without fresh food and water. The food and water we’ve collected over the years has already begun to go scarce. I fear at this rate we’ll all be dead at the end of next year.”

  A shiver crept down Jahrys’s spine at the thought. He took a heavy sip from his mug.

  Willem continued, “If only that damn king would open the gate, we might have a chance of defeating these Hoarders.”

  “Why hasn’t he?” Jahrys asked.

  “Because he’s a coward. He’s a coward and afraid of anything happening to his precious daughter. Leoné is not like his father, Aygor the Strong. He wouldn’t have abandoned us like this. No,”—Willem shook his head—“he would have fought for his people!”

  “At least he’s trying to help us with the Retrieval Stations,” Jahrys pointed out. “Without the stations, we wouldn’t have had any communication with the castle, and we wouldn’t have collected all the weapons we used to kill the Hoarders.”

  Willem waved his hand in disgust. “Those Retrieval Stations are the king’s way of telling us he only cares about himself. He doesn’t care what happens to us out here. All he cares about is getting all the supplies he needs to survive inside that castle of his. Without us, they’d be dead inside those walls. We should be saving all this food for ourselves. Not giving it to those cowering behind the walls. Our teams have been traveling farther out to get resources for the king and for ourselves, risking lives. If we don’t leave soon, we’re going to die in this Junkland. We don’t need more swords and shields. We have weapons that are beyond steel. We need to fight back or by Zalus, get our asses out of here.”

  “But if we leave, everyone inside the castle will die,” Jahrys pointed out. Lily will die. I can’t leave her to rot inside those walls. Jahrys placed his empty mug on the table. “And we barely know what’s out there beyond Astenpoole.”

  Willem threw his hand in disgust. “To hell with them. It’s time we search the great beyond. I—”

  A boom of thunder cut Willem off. The walls of the inn shook violently. Silence fell throughout the inn as everyone looked around with worried faces.

  “It’s all right,” Willem assured everyone in the inn. “Nothing to fear. I built this inn stronger than those castle walls. Nothing will tear it down.”

  The crowd settled down and continued with their drinks, chatter, and games.

  Willem turned back to Jahrys. “I’m getting worried about Havrick. I sent the poor man out there with a team to bring back more Captors and Captor Packs. It’s been over a week now. I need him back here to help me out with The Arcalane.”

  “I’m sure he’s okay,” Jahrys assured him. “If there’s anyone I’d rather be stuck out in the Junkland with, it would be Havrick.”

  That seemed to put Willem at ease. “Thanks, O’Ja—”

  The door slammed open once again. Another team entered. It was Rallick, Stade, and Taygar. Lightning flashed behind them, followed by a loud boom of thunder. It looked like the rain was coming down even harder now.

  “Over here. Quickly now.” Willem walked around the bar; waving a hand so they would follow him.
“Follow the procedure. Any luck today?”

  “We finished one job this morning, but couldn’t finish our second because of this storm,” answered Rallick, waving a hand toward the storm outside. His voice was deep and muffled as he talked with his helmet on. “There were no sign of Hoarders out by Danor. We’re going to continue it tomorrow morning after this storm passes.”

  “Aye, before you set out, you’ll need to help me patch up the marble roof,” Willem said. “I fear one more storm like this will eat its way through the entire building.” They disappeared around the corner into the back room.

  Jahrys reached over the bar and poured himself another drink. He was starting to feel a slight buzz. Yellow rain will fall, he recalled Pastor Allen’s words as he took a sip. Jahrys raised his hand in the air, the mug shaking. “To wherever you are, Pastor Allen. I hope you survived the Hoarding.” Or maybe you are better off dead.

  With that, Jahrys leaned his head back. He let the warm ale slide down his throat. He slammed the mug back onto the table and reached over for another round.

  “Drunk already, Jahrys?” a familiar voice asked behind him.

  Jahrys turned. Kevrin was pulling up a stool next to him, Elyara followed close behind. She wrapped her arms around Kevrin’s neck and nibbled at his ear.

  “Just enjoying myself. That’s all.” Jahrys continued to pour himself another drink.

  “You know, O’Jahrys, we’re never going to be good Retrievers if you’re hungover every morning we go out,” Elyara said in her Kalukian accent.

  Jahrys cringed at the sound of his name. “For the last time Elyara, call me Jahrys.”

  “Just messing with you,” she said, giggling.

  “She’s right, though,” Kevrin said. “Other teams laugh at us. We’ve come out dry with three jobs in the last three months. We’ll soon be out of food and Willem can’t keep sneaking us stuff from the emergency supply.” Kevrin reached over the bar and poured himself and Elyara a drink.

  “Tomorrow’s the day, guys,” Jahrys assured them. “We’re going to be the first ones at the Retrieval Stations and find a job we can complete.” He took another sip from his mug.