Half a dozen children were sitting together on the cobbled stage. They stood as the canoe approached and ran with them along the old woodstone docks. Ellen noticed that there were no other boats there at the moment.
“The one good thing about hell is,” Rick said as he tied them up to a wooden pole on one of the small docks, “there aren’t any barnacles.”
He stood slowly, rocking the boat, and sat on the dock before pulling Massan up beside him. Together, they helped Molly and Alice off.
Ellen’s toe stubs were hurting abominably. Rick and Massan’s hands grabbed her under her arms, helping to lift her up onto the dock. Massan reached back in and picked up her paddle-turned-crutch out of the canoe. Ellen searched for exits to the chamber, finding two staircases which led up and out of the amphitheatre shaped village.
The children had stopped at the end of the dock. They were dressed similarly to the adults. Their shoes appeared to be the same black boots, only they had more of the white sewn seams in them. Their dress was ragged. A few of their shirts were made from dyitzu hide, but mostly they wore pieces of tattered old world clothing. Ellen was glad to see that their expressions were not bleak or empty. Hell hadn’t broken them.
Behind the children, Sarge, his friend, and a third man that was taller than the other two by nearly half a foot, approached.
“Rick! How the hell are ya?” the tall man shouted.
Rick beamed. “They ain’t got me yet, Jim.”
Jim gave out a belly laugh.
“Out of the way, kids,” Sarge said, dispersing the pack of them.
The rest of Macon’s Bend was staring at them as well, but, as if dismissed with the children, went back to their own business.
“Can I help you walk?” the high pitched man asked Ellen.
“Please,” she said.
He took her arm over his shoulder in much the same way that Alice had in their flight through the cypress forest. The dock swayed as they walked off of it. She was happy with how well her ankle appeared to be supporting her weight.
Jim was talking. “How are things back at that village of yours, what was it, Guitarville? Pianotown? Ukuleleport?”
Ellen laughed aloud.
Massan looked somewhat offended. “Harpsborough,” he corrected.
“Same thing,” Jim answered him with a wink. “You guys headed further downstream?”
“Probably not,” Rick said. “We’re planning to spend the night and then head out to Tucumcari. Put out word that we’re looking to make contact with an Infidel Friend.”
Ellen felt the man who supported her jerk at the mention of an infidel.
Sarge looked around as if to see if anyone other than his two companions had overheard them. “Best not to say that to too many people around here, friend. They don’t exactly have a shining reputation.”
“Nor do they at Harpsborough,” Rick said softly.
“Well you’re right,” Jim said. “Heading downriver wouldn’t do you any good. I don’t think there are any Infidel Friend down there. They hate them even more than we do. The King of Kingsport has outstanding orders that they be shot on sight.”
“Brave,” Massan said, “but foolish.”
“Follow me,” Jim said. “I’ll get you an empty house for the night.”
“Thank you.” Rick’s voice was sincere. “You need anything for barter?”
“Wouldn’t hear of it. Didn’t expect to see you, even though I see Galen once a year or so. How’s he doing?”
“He’s dead.” Rick’s voice was flat.
Ellen stared at Rick.
How could he say that? They could be alive!
But maybe it was best they started thinking realistically. Maybe it was best that she gave up hope.
“And your boy?” Jim asked.
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
Rick nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Ellen felt her legs go weak. The man she was leaning on grunted from her added weight. She managed to regain her faculties before they both toppled over.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jim’s voice sounded distant for some reason.
The people in front of her were walking up the stairs now. Ellen’s bad ankle throbbed as she lifted it to the first step. She and the man who supported her pushed up together. The voices of Rick and Jim were getting more distant.
“What about Kim?” Rick was asking.
“Lost her two years ago.”
“Sorry. We probably shouldn’t be asking these kinds of questions.”
“No shit,” Jim said. “I hate this place. Sometimes I can’t wait to die.”
Each step seemed to hurt more than the last.
“Are you okay?” The high pitched voice invaded her thoughts.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“I do have some news for you,” Jim was saying.
“What’s that?” Rick’s voice seemed strained.
“Had some longleaf traders in from Tucumcari. Said there was an entire crew of Infidel Friend there.”
“That’s lucky.”
“Maybe,” Jim went on. “It’s El Cid’s group, Rick.”
Ellen kept moving up the stairs. She tried to continue, but after a moment her helper stopped. She looked up from the stairs to see what was stopping them. It was Rick. The man wasn’t moving.
“You can still go downstream,” Jim said. “Or you could pass Tucumcari by. You don’t have to deal with her.”
Rick’s face became the stone block that Galen’s had been. “Doesn’t matter. One’s the same as another. We’ll head to Tucumcari in the morning.”
They moved along a row stucco houses until they came to an empty one. The interior was comfortably dim and seemed somewhat cooler than the rest of Macon’s Bend. Rick said a few more things to Jim and Sarge, but Ellen wasn’t paying attention. Massan had her pack, and handed it to her as she sat down. She was careful to keep her hurt leg extended.
Alice knelt down beside her with her own pack. “I’m going to put your foot up on this, okay? Rick wants it elevated.”
Ellen nodded. Her foot felt like a useless lead weight. It tingled with pain as she lifted it. The ankle didn’t hurt nearly as badly after she set it down on Alice’s pack.
“You’re a trooper,” Alice said, putting one hand on her shoulder. “I’d be crying like a baby.”
Ellen looked down. Her cotton shirt had been ripped in several places, probably by the branches of the cypress. Her jeans, particularly near her feet, were caked with mud and blood and they had a hole where the corpse had bitten through to her calf. The bandages on her feet were dirty as well. The blood had soaked them through and then dried, changing the cloth to a dark brown color which reminded her of the rust on the iron grate.
Ellen leaned back against the brick interior. She felt sleep taking her, but hung on to consciousness as Rick and Massan started talking.
“Who’s El Cid?” the trader asked.
“Before you were damned, the people who built Harpsborough escaped from the Carrion. There were a lot of them. Nearly a thousand. Galen and I helped them repair the barriers which the ancients had used to separate the Carrion from us. While that was happening, there were some disagreements between the escaped people. They agreed to settle down in different places. Charlie, Harpsborough’s old leader, and Michael Baker went to Harpsborough. Father Klein and maybe seven hundred of the others went to Hellespont. Hellespont had it rougher, and their people, well . . .”
“Go on,” Massan said.
“They managed to capture an Infidel Friend. Their leader hung him in a public square. Then the other Infidel Friend came. They said that the First Citizen of Hellespont had captured their man by betraying his trust. They gave the village three days to bring their leader to justice. When the city did not, a team of five or so Infidel Friend came in and did it for them.”
Molly shifted uncomfortably. “You said the village had seven hundred people.”
“When they left the
Carrion, yeah. They got smaller as time went on. Still, there must have been at least three hundred left when the Infidel Friend came. Father Klein fled Hellespont when the threat was made. He and some hunters returned there. Hellespont’s First Citizen had been hung in the square, right where they’d hung the Infidel Friend. There were maybe fifty or so corpses around the town. The rest we never saw.”
“And El Cid?” Massan’s voice was subdued.
“It was her team that did it.”
Martin’s men fanned out about him and Constance as they entered the Hungerleaf Grove. The hunters did so gracefully, moving to open areas with soft steps. Constance’s men clumped together in a few awkward huddles.
Martin gave out a low whistle. The grove had been picked dry.
“I’ll be damned,” Martin said.
“Ain’t shit here,” Huxley reported over the soft running of the Kingsriver.
“Hux,” Martin told him, “you ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.”
The long spindly, grey scaled branches were almost completely bare. It was like looking at an old world forest in the midst of winter. Martin looked about at the chamber beyond. There wasn’t going to be any help here. What his hunters had opted to give up out of their stipend was going to have to be enough.
Martin turned to the two men, one of his and one of Constance’s, who were carrying the provisions. “Alright everybody, listen up. We’re going to divvy up the food here and break into pairs. I want all your weapons safetied. I don’t want none of that Duncan bullshit pretend safetying either. I mean honest to God, ‘my weapon won’t shoot nobody ‘cause Martin will have my hand if I do,’ kind of safetying. You got my meaning?”
There was a chorus of “yes, sirs.”
I’m starting to like this ‘sir’ bullshit.
“Good, ‘cause we’re about to be crisscrossing all over each other in these halls. I know some of you are going to want to eat some of the shares you got. I understand. We’re all hungry. It’s not like the old days where the Lead Hunter is a Citizen. My starving ass is just like your starving asses, and it shits once every three days the same as yours. But we are well fed enough to be able to move. That means we are better off than the people in the wilds. Now, it ain’t fair that we gotta feed them. After all, we all worked for the food that’s kept us walking. But this ain’t about fair. This is about right. It ain’t right for us to be eating when they’re dyin’. I want us circling the halls around Harpsborough. I want every starving man you find fed and dragged to town. Any questions?”
Huxley raised his hand. “What if somebody’s faking?”
“Faking?” Martin asked.
“Yeah. They all saw us in the village. They know what our plan is. They might go out into the wilds and lay down, knowing we are going to give them food.”
What kind of paranoid bullshit is this man spewing?
“Ain’t nobody faking. You got that? Nobody. If you think they are, you feed ‘em, you drag their ass to town, and you tell me about it later. Anybody else?”
They were silent.
“Good! Then let’s do this shit. Every person we feed is a life we save. Don’t be slacking on this one. You may not get a chance to do something this important again.”
Constance helped divide the supplies. Martin started to wonder how many of these pairs were going to cheat and start eating the food.
I just gotta trust ‘em, is all. Like Klein says, I gotta have faith.
Aaron stood as the footsteps returned.
Johnny Huang sat up from his bunk, hitting his head on the stone ceiling. “Shit.”
“Quiet, Johnny.”
Who will they be taking this time?
The footsteps seemed slower than before. Someone was dragging their feet, perhaps.
The door opened and light poured in from the hallway. Two of Calimay’s darkly dressed guards stood, Avery suspended between the pair of them. Avery’s pants were stained through with blood, starting from the crotch, and running down the inside of both legs.
They tossed him to the floor.
Avery groaned in pain but did not move. The door closed.
Johnny hopped down from his bunk, hand on his forehead.
Aaron knelt beside Avery. He felt for the lock of Alice’s hair at his belt. It was gone.
How long has it been missing? Where did I lose it?
He and Johnny turned Avery over. The man groaned. Aaron felt horribly lost. Of all the hunters he’d brought to the Carrion, these two were the last ones left. Of all the promises he made to the people of Harpsborough about their safety, he’d broken all but two.
“What happened?” Aaron asked.
“That bitch, the priestess,” Avery answered. “I’m going to kill her.”
“What did she do?”
Avery grabbed Aaron by the collar of his shirt. “I’m telling you. Don’t leave me alone with that bitch. I’ll kill her. You understand me?”
Aaron nodded. “Hell heals all wounds, Avery.”
Avery’s nostrils flared. He nodded solemnly. “Hell heals all wounds. All wounds.”
Aaron and Johnny helped move the man to the bed below Johnny’s. Avery curled up, his eyes wide open.
Aaron returned to his bunk and lay down. He did his best to sleep, but his mind was a swirling mess of worries.
Alice has probably found someone else by now. Someone who loves her and keeps her fed.
In that way, it was probably fitting that he’d lost her hair. She’d given it to him so he could think of her on his journey. Only this had turned out to be a one way journey. Galen kept saying that they were going to get back home, but Aaron knew better. The wilds of the Carrion were a different beast than those around Harpsborough.
But if I’m going to die, Alice, I want it to be while I’m trying to make it home to you.
He could only hope that she was still alone, then. How would it feel if he were to return to find her with another man? Aaron couldn’t even figure out what to hope for. He couldn’t stand the idea of her being alone, pining for him, never to return. But he couldn’t bear the thought of making it home to her only to find out that she’d found someone else either.
Someone was whispering something. For a moment, he thought it was coming through the walls, but it wasn’t. It was coming from Avery’s bunk.
“All wounds. Hell heals all wounds. All of them. All the wounds. Hell heals them all. It’s going to get better. All of them.”
Calimay rolled over. This bed was the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in. There was another bed in an Embassy Suites hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, room 416, which she counted as being second best. She’d lost her virginity in that one, long ago in another world, before Maab had taught her what men really were. Before she’d known that Yahweh had tricked her. In those days when she thought innocence and purity were things worth a damn.
Sleeping with Galen reminded her of those simpler days. She reached out and touched him. His eyes opened. A few of the candles were still lit, and in that light she could see that he wasn’t groggy at all. She could have sworn he was sleeping, but perhaps not.
He had the chest, shoulders, and arms of a body builder. She pulled down the sheet so she could see his magnificently muscled abdomen. He was like one of those Greek statues. It had been so long since she’d been able to have him. So long since she’d been able to live out her darkest fantasies.
She spent so much of her time being in complete control. There wasn’t a moment while she led her people, now starving, separated from Maab and under the most intense pressure the Carrion had ever been able to give them, where she could show any vulnerabilities. With her mates, even her favorite and most guarded ones, she couldn’t give in to her desires because they might speak to others about her weakness. Only with Galen was she free to allow her own domination.
Oh, sure. It was only pretend. She could break him on a whim, after all. But the feeling was so liberating that . . .
I think I want more. Can he give
it?
It was such an odd thing to worry about. In any other situation she could demand more, and if the fellow failed to provide it, she’d just send for another. But catering to this man’s dominance meant that she had to be careful about how she asked.
In the end, Maab is right. The male ego is why humans can’t survive Hell.
She shoved the thought from her mind. Next to him she felt safe. Protected. As if nothing in the world, nothing in Hell, nothing in the whole universe, could hurt her. She tugged at his arm and curled up into his armpit. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply and felt the security that only this man’s steely body could provide.
It was a sin, she knew, to feel this submission. In the old world, humankind had long prospered under matriarchy before Ahriman had come. She was not ignorant of how Ahriman had tricked women into submitting to men. How he had helped write the Bible to keep women enslaved. How in hunter gatherer cultures men accounted for almost none of the calorie production for their people. How men were too emotionally weak to rule without causing atrocities like war and genocide.
Nevertheless, she basked in the feeling. It was the same feeling she’d had all those years ago when her high school varsity first string running back had taken her virginity; and as it was also a feeling that she knew she was not likely to feel again, ever, she was not willing to let it go.
She snuggled closer to him, moving her face only inches away from his and looking into his eyes. His oh-so-intelligent eyes.
There were things a girl said in situations like this. She tried to remember what she had talked about with the boy who’d lain with her in the old world bed.
Ah, I remember.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked Galen.
Galen smiled. “The safety of my son, milady.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” she whispered.
Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2) Page 22