The Last Survivors (Book 6): The Last Conquest

by Bobby Adair

  "Maybe the demons will kill Winthrop and his army," Ginger suggested.

  "I don't think we can count on that. We need to keep doing what we're doing. If demons are coming, we'll need our weapons, Winthrop or not," Fitz said.

  "Maybe we can use the news to our advantage," Ginger said. "We all know the fear demons inspire in people. That might spur people to work harder."

  "You're probably right," Fitz said. "I can extend the working hours. But all the weapons and people we have aren't likely to ward off an army of demons."

  "What else can we do?" Ashley asked, holding up her hands in desperation. "We're already gathering and preparing whatever we can. Without more resources, or the knowledge of the tradesmen, we won't be able to do much more."

  "If we have to fight both the demons and Winthrop's men, we'll need to figure something out," Ginger said, trying to think of a solution.

  Edith, one of the Strong Women who had been listening quietly, or maybe seething, turned an angry eye on Ginger. "It's easy for you to talk about fighting Winthrop's men, Ginger. You don't have a husband that might be out there. Your days have been spent at The House of Barren Women, on your back."

  Ginger turned toward Edith, surprised. Her eyes blazed with anger as she processed the insult. "And you think that was a choice I made?"

  Edith shot back, "You won't have to face your husband with a sword in your hand, if you ever see him again."

  "At least you had a husband!" Ginger shook her head. "I never had one! You think lying on my back was better than having a family, like you got to do?"

  "I've watched too many people die in Brighton. And now I might have to add my husband to that list, if he died in the wild." Angry tears spilled from Edith's eyes. "You'll never know what that feels like."

  "You think I don't know grief? I watched my sister trampled by one of Tenbrook's horses, you salty bitch!" Ginger took a step toward Edith, her hand flying to the hilt of her sword.

  "Ladies!" Fitz shouted in a commanding voice, stepping between them and putting a hand on each of their shoulders. "That's enough!"

  Ginger and Edith stepped away from each other, maintaining angry stares. Fitz drilled them each with a look that said she wouldn't accept any more trouble. Grudgingly, Edith and Ginger looked at the ground.

  "No one is saying this has been easy on any of us, or that we haven't suffered enough. But if we don't find a way to protect ourselves, we'll lose even more people. And we're certainly not going to fight each other!"

  Ginger and Edith remained silent, still exchanging the occasional angry glare.

  "Does anyone else have any ideas?" Ashley asked.

  "There has to be something else we can do," Fitz said. She looked around the courtyard, as if she might find some answers. "In the years I've lived, I've never seen an attack on Brighton. If demons are coming, we'll need to know the wall is strong. We're told that the wall has stood strong for hundreds of years. We're told it has never been breached. Can that be true? Or is that another lie told to us by the Elders?"

  The women looked at each other, but no one had an answer.

  "Surely someone has lived through an attack on Brighton. Surely someone must have seen something that would be helpful."

  "How about Hilda?" Ashley suggested. "She's probably lived through enough battles to last a few of our lifetimes. In fact, she was probably here when the wall was built."

  A few women chuckled through the fear and nervousness on their faces. The comment even seemed to break some of the tension between Ginger and Edith.

  "Hilda," Fitz repeated as she recalled the weathered, old woman who was the object of young children's stories, including a few of Fitz's own. "You know, that might not be a bad idea. She's lived longer than most in the town. If anyone knows about demon attacks, it'd be her. Maybe I'll speak with her and see what she knows."

  "What about the Academy?" Ashley asked, offering another suggestion. "Are they still cowering in their building?"

  "I haven't had time to visit them in a while. I was hoping they'd come out of hiding and speak with me after the meeting at the square," Fitz admitted. "But no one has seen them. It's like they don't want any part of what we're doing."

  "I'm not sure how they can deny what's happening," Ginger said. "Once Winthrop comes back, they'll have to pay attention."

  "With the demons coming, the threat is much larger than a burning from Winthrop," Ashley suggested. "Maybe that news will change things."

  "We're going to need whatever help we can get," Ginger said.

  "Maybe you're right," Fitz agreed. "I'll go speak with Hilda. Then I'll try to get the Academy to open their doors one more time."

  Chapter 48: Bray

  Bray turned and looked over his shoulder, giving the strange woman a glance. She'd insisted on riding on the last of the three horses, putting a horse between them and ensuring his back was turned to her.

  "What's your name?" he asked her.

  "Kirby."

  "I'm Bray. I was convinced you were one of the Ancients," Bray called over his shoulder. "I've never seen clothing like yours. Or heard your accent." Pausing, Bray asked, "Are you one of the Ancients?"

  Kirby took a moment to answer as she studied him. "No, but I know of the Ancients of whom you speak."

  "If you're not one of the Ancients, where did you get that gun?"

  "My people made it."

  "Do your people have more guns?" Bray asked, trying to hide the excitement in his voice.

  "My people are dead," Kirby said with sadness. "They were killed by what you call the demons, and we call the mutants."

  "Mutants." Bray rolled the word over on his tongue. "Whatever you call them, they're no less vile."

  "That's the truth," Kirby agreed. "My people have been fighting demons for as long as I can remember."

  Bray looked over his shoulder, filled with questions. "How were your people killed?"

  "The mutants overran our settlement. They breached the wooden walls that we built to protect ourselves."

  "The wall around Brighton is made of stone," Bray said, as if he'd built it himself. "I don't trust it fully, but we haven't had any breaches in my lifetime."

  "Even a wall of stone can be knocked down," Kirby warned, with an authority that almost made him reconsider his statement.

  Bray eyed the weapon in her hand. "Your people had guns. Wouldn't that have stopped any demons?"

  "One would've thought." Interrupting his next question before he could ask it, Kirby asked, "How far away did you say those men are with your son?"

  "They shouldn't be too far ahead. I think our best chance is to cut them off on the other side of the canyon, just before we reach Brighton. I would've followed them into the canyon, but I was afraid they'd see me." Bray figured he might need to work his sympathy angle a little harder. "I'm worried about William. I don't know what those men will do to him."

  "How long is this canyon?" Kirby asked.

  "Only a few miles," Bray lied. "We should be out the other side soon."

  Kirby looked hesitant, as if she was reconsidering her promise.

  "Don't worry. We'll be there before you can say 'mutant.'"

  Chapter 49: Fitz

  Everybody knew who she was, but few people talked to her. The kids in town said if you looked into her eyes, you'd lose your soul and you'd sprout warts on your face before the sun rose the next morning. Others said her skin was so leathery that when mosquitoes tried to suck her blood, their stingers got stuck, and she'd pluck them out, squeeze them between her cracked lips, and suck on them like candy. The worst rumor was that when she was a young mother, maybe a hundred and fifty years ago, the starvation was so bad that one winter, she roasted her kids on the fire to feed herself and then made soup with their bones to give to the neighbors she didn't like.

  And she cackled like a witch, whatever that was.

  Fitz had been hearing tales about Old Lady Hilda since she was old enough to go outside and play with the neighbor gir
ls on her street. They frightened one another with the stories. Old Lady Hilda only came out when the clouds were so thick and gray they hid the sun. She was such a withered hag that when she farted, dust came out, and her shit was so dry, she'd burn it to cook her dinner.

  When Fitz saw her once back in those days, in the market on a drizzly, warm day in late spring, when everything stank of sweat and mildew, her friend dared her to touch Hilda's skirt and promised to reward Fitz with an apple if she succeeded.

  Fitz hadn't seen an apple since before the first snows had fallen the year before, and the thought of that sweet, crisp crunch was tempting enough to make her risk Hilda's wrath. Fitz stalked Hilda through the market that morning, getting drenched in the drizzle and caking her feet with mud. It was when Hilda was haggling with a gruff birder over the price of a chicken that Fitz snuck in and laid a hand on the coarse, damp fabric of Hilda's skirt.

  Hilda seemed to know instantly that Fitz's hand had come into contact with the cloth, because her head snapped around and Hilda's eyes met Fitz's. The two stood frozen there in the market, Fitz paralyzed with fright, and Hilda, preparing to eat her soul.

  Fitz might never have moved again, except that Hilda looked her up and down. Instead of anger, sadness stretched across Hilda's wrinkly face. In a raspy, deep voice, she said, "You're the skinniest thing I've seen in a blue moon. What do you want from me?"

  Fitz's mouth moved, but her voice was paralyzed into silence.

  "Are you hungry, girl?" Hilda asked.

  Fitz could only move her silent mouth and wish her muddy feet would carry her away.

  Hilda took the chicken she'd just purchased and shoved it into Fitz's hands. "Is this what you need? Take it."

  Fitz was confused.

  "Take it to your mother and tell her to cook you a real meal," Hilda told her. "Put some meat on those skinny bones. Go."

  Fitz stepped back.

  "Go."

  Because Fitz received the chicken as a witch gift, her friend refused to give her the apple she'd promised, and Fitz learned something about people that day that stuck with her through her life: rumors are lies with a different name. Also, you should be careful whom you trust.

  Through the years, Fitz learned that Hilda was a hermit, as much as one could be a hermit in the confines of the circle wall. She lived in a hovel nestled between the trunks of three ancient oaks, well away from the town center, out past the fields, near one of the smaller gates in the wall. She was a healer, and people said she wandered the forest outside the wall alone, never afraid of demons, always searching for special herbs and plants that she mixed into remedies for the sick.

  It seemed like everybody knew somebody that Hilda had healed.

  Still, they were afraid of her.

  When Fitz finally crossed the last of the empty field toward Hilda's house, Ginger refused to go up to the door, and instead stayed thirty or forty paces back, leaving Fitz to knock on the door alone.

  "Come," a raspy old voice answered.

  Fitz turned the knob and pushed on the weathered wood, letting out a humid rush of warm air that smelled of a hundred strange things, many of them repulsive.

  "Inside," Hilda told her. "Don't let in the cold."

  Fitz stepped quickly through, giving Ginger a glance and getting a full dose of Ginger's worry before closing the door behind her.

  Hilda was standing beside a table in the dim light, grinding something in a bowl with a blunt tool that looked like it was made of stone. A small pot simmered on the hearth and steam flowed into the air, mixing with the musty smell of Hilda's house.

  "Fitzgerald," said Hilda. "The skinny child with the chicken."

  "How do you remember that?" Fitz was surprised.

  "Pretty little things like you stick in people's memories," said Hilda, "though it made me sad to see you grow up."

  "Why?" Fitz asked, trying not to take offense.

  "Don't take me wrong, I couldn't be happier with how you turned out." Hilda put some effort into grinding the powdery mixture in her bowl. "You were a special thing. At least it looked that way to me. I thought they'd marry you off to some cavalry stud, and put you to work calving a dozen pups for him, unless your body broke down and died." Hilda looked Fitz up and down and grinned for a flash, showing the few yellow teeth she had left. "Birthing is hard on a woman. You're lucky you're barren."

  Fitz didn't completely agree about the barren part, but she'd come to see Hilda for other reasons than to contradict her.

  "What's on your mind?" Hilda asked. "You don't look sick."

  "I never thanked you for the chicken," said Fitz.

  Hilda cackled as she sat her bowl and tool on the table. "Thank me? How old are you now, girl? How long has it been, twenty years?"

  Fitz looked away, feeling ashamed for never getting up the nerve to trek across the fields when she was younger to give Hilda a proper thank you.

  "No need to be embarrassed, girl. I didn't give you the chicken for your gratitude. You needed the food. I didn't." Hilda patted her round belly through the coarse cloth of her dress, which if Fitz was to guess, was the same dress Hilda had worn that day in the market all those years ago.

  "I apologize for taking twenty years to come here."

  "But you're not here for that." Hilda nodded to a few chairs over near the fire. "Sit down." Hilda came around the table and headed toward the chairs. "Tell me what you want."

  Chapter 50: Fitz

  Looking across at Hilda, sitting in the opposite chair, Fitz said, "They say you're the oldest person in Brighton."

  "I'm curious now," said Hilda. "Are you coming to me for the wisdom that you think all my years have earned?"

  "No," answered Fitz, though she assumed Hilda probably held a trove of knowledge in her old memories. "Later, perhaps. For now, I have more pressing questions. You know all that is going on?"

  Hilda cackled. "It's been years since I last crossed the potato fields to go into town."

  Fitz figured that was true. In fact, she hadn't even seen Hilda at a Cleansing, ever.

  "When you save the lives of enough powerful men's children, you can live above the rules, if you like," said Hilda, apparently reading Fitz's thoughts. "When I was a young woman living here in this house, my grandmother's, General Blackthorn's father sent for me. The General Blackthorn you know, the tyrant, was a sickly boy then, as skinny as you were that day in the market, and sick with a fever that took so many children that winter. I hadn't learned all that my grandmother had to teach before she died, but I'd learned enough. I treated the Blackthorn boy for his fever and sat with him for three days, kept him watered, and got him soup when he'd take it. To everyone's eventual regret, he lived, and his father, the noble General Blackthorn, showed his gratitude by exempting me from the Cleansing and seeing to it that I never went hungry."

  "Perhaps saving the tyrant Blackthorn wasn't the mistake you seem to think it was," said Fitz. "There are worse men."

  "Were worse men," Hilda corrected.

  "What do you mean?" asked Fitz.

  "You're talking about Tenbrook, aren't you? He's no longer with us. You know that better than anyone."

  Fitz nodded, though she was sure there were other men like Tenbrook in the world. She'd met some of them back at the House of Barren Women, though she had to admit to herself that Tenbrook was a special kind of evil.

  "I'm yammering like an old woman," said Hilda. "Yes, I know all that's going on. I hear all the news, rumors, and gossip. Tyrant Blackthorn is dead in the wilderness. Pervert Winthrop has gone completely mad and is returning with the remainder of the army, apparently all as mad as he is. And a horde of demons is coming to kill us all."

  "Nothing is secret in Brighton," said Fitz absently.

  "Not for long," Hilda agreed. "Now, why are you here?"

  "Has the circle wall ever been breached?" asked Fitz. "Have the demon hordes ever attacked and made it over the wall?"

  Hilda drew in a deep breath and leaned back in her
chair as she scrutinized Fitz.

  Fitz was confused by the lack of an answer, but then realized why. "You aren't sure how I'll react to what you have to tell me."

  Hilda grinned and showed her few teeth again. "My intuition about you was right from the beginning."

  "You're choosing whether to tell me about an attack when the demons broke through the wall," said Fitz, "because you're deciding whether it's best for the people here to believe that the wall is impregnable, or whether they need to know what might happen again."

  "Perhaps I should leave that to you to decide," said Hilda. "As old as I am, I've never been good at guessing how people will react, especially when they're afraid."

  "Does that mean you won't be here when it happens?" asked Fitz. "Are you thinking of leaving Brighton and taking a chance on your own when the demon horde comes?"

  Hilda cackled again. "I understand now why you outwitted Tenbrook. You find it easy to see the blackness in people's hearts."

  "I'm right?" Fitz was aghast.

  "No." Hilda shook her head, a little disappointed. "After I go out to collect plants in the forest, I have to rest for three days before I can walk again. If the twisted men come over the wall, I won't be able to outrun them. I can barely walk most days on my old joints. I would never survive in the wild."

  Fitz understood where Hilda was going with her line of reasoning. "You think if the people believe they have no chance to defend Brighton, they'll flee. And if they flee, we'll be weakened further and less able to defend ourselves should the demons come."

  Hilda nodded silently for a moment before saying, "I'll tell you what I know, and you'll have to decide what lies you want to tell all the doe-eyed women who look to you to save them. Or, you'll have to tell them the horrid truth: that many of them will die."

  "Is that what happened last time?" Fitz asked, "Did a lot of people die?"

  "They did." Hilda punctuated her answered with a grimace and a slow nod. "The horde that came that year split into two groups. They never did that before. Sure, small bands of them splintered off in the past. Sometimes the demons came across the mountains in mobs of a few hundred strong, a whole train of them through the spring and summer. But that wasn't the worst of it. Back in those days, every couple of years, a horde of them would come over the mountains, three, four, or five thousand strong. General Blackthorn—the father of the one you know—would ride out with his cavalry, a troop of gallant and handsome-looking young men, with straight backs and brave faces, galloping off to save us all." Hilda stared into the fire as her thoughts drifted back to those days.