Battle Cry

by Lara Lee Hunter

  “Once I had my revenge on them I headed for the woods. It was how I became an Outlaw. Your father knew all that; I’m surprised he never told you.”

  “My father did share with me the story of people’s lives before they came to the woods,” Reena said as she picked at a small healing scab on her right arm. “He always said people’s lives began the minute they put a foot in the forest and not before. Or at least that was the way we had to look at it. He always said if we judged people by what they had done before they came to the woods then we would never know who they would be afterwards.”

  “Your father was always very intelligent that way.” Lucas reached out his hand and took hers, squeezing it hard. “My child was a girl, Reena, and she was a beautiful little thing. My only hope now is that if she had been able to grow up, she would’ve grown up to be like you. I know you don’t think you’re doing anything to help, but you don’t realize what an impact you’re having. The truth is you are changing things. You matter in this world and in the scheme of things.”

  More tears slid down her pale cheeks. “I’m a murderer, you don’t see that Lucas? All I’ve done is cause death and destruction and I don’t see how that’s ever going to change.”

  “War against the tyrant is not war against an innocent, Reena. Sometimes innocents do suffer in that battle and that’s a shame and sorrow, but that is the way things sometimes must be. Do not berate yourself or blame yourself.”

  His words brought little comfort. “I do not want anyone who is innocent to be hurt, that is the problem. The city is full of innocents and you know it Lucas.”

  “It is also full of those who are not. The ones who are will take up arms against the evil or they will hide in attempt to stay out of the way. That is the way it always happens in war and this is war Reena, do not doubt it. And do not blame yourself for the war that is coming, because it has been coming for a long time and whether you had showed up or not it still would’ve happened.”

  Before she knew that the words were going to come from her mouth, Reena found herself telling Lucas all of it. She told him about River and the poison in her food, about Kale and his refusal to fight her. She told him about being dressed in the bride costume and being sent out on the road by herself to go to the outpost by the mouth of the desert and the man that she had found there. She told him about the secret meetings with Praxis and she even told him about the strange longing that she always had for Praxis to kiss her every time she was around him.

  When she was done talking she took a long breath and said, “I’m sorry, I have no idea why I just burdened you with all of that. There’s nothing that can be done about any of it now.”

  “You told me because your father isn’t here and that’s who you normally talk to. Life is hard out here in the woods for our children. In some ways I’m glad my own child never had to roam them. I know that sounds harsh, but look at the way that you lived as a child, look at the way they still live. Think of Heidi’s children, and the other children here in the tribe. They don’t play as other children do: their games are not really games; they are preparation for situations which are actually going to happen one day during their lifetime.

  “They play “hide from soldiers” and they make up ways to escape. They are born with a death sentence hanging over their head merely because of who their parents are, and never have a chance to learn the trade or to be educated or to see the city for themselves, at least not up close. And if it is ever something they see then they see it from the back of the death cart on their way to either the Arena or Pit.”

  Reena said, “I would never have wanted to grow up any other way.”

  “You are never given the choice.”

  “Are you saying my father was wrong?” Her anger was showing and she knew it and she didn’t care either. Was Lucas actually saying that her father had had no right to bring her into the world?

  “I’m saying that it isn’t fair to the children who are born out here. It hinders them, it keeps them from learning and growing and being anything other than an Outlaw.”

  “Not all children who are born out here stay out here.”

  Both Lucas and Reena turned their heads to see Lauren, the woman who had taken Heidi’s children in standing behind them. Her light brown leather pants still bore some bloodstains from the day of the battle. She should have scraped and cleaned those hides as much as possible, but the blood simply remained. She came closer and sat down on the ground, running a hand through her wavy reddish hair as she did so.

  Reena noticed how Lucas stared so hard at Lauren, and she wondered if Lauren ever noticed how hard he stared at her. It was the same way that she stared at Praxis. Could Lucas want to kiss Lauren?

  Lauren said, “I have heard of and even seen women who would give birth and then say the baby died. It is not an uncommon thing out here and nobody questions a mother’s right to bury her child in her own way. There are some women whose children do not die, but rather are given away.

  “Although many on the small farms run a risk of starvation they always need children. They need them because without the children to help grow the farm’s crops and tend to the animals there would not be enough hands to keep the farm growing and going. Children eat less than other adults so they are more valuable. Farmers do not care where a child comes from and most men with a wife who has produced enough rarely notices if another babe enters the household unexpectedly or if they do, they pretend not to.”

  Lucas asked, “What do you think is preferable to raising children out here?”

  “I think anything is preferable to raising them out here. Here their death is assured and their innocence ignored. Most children of Outlaws are sentenced to the same death penalty as their parents if they are caught, but what crime do the children commit? What crime did you commit Reena to be put into the Arena?”

  It was not a question Reena had ever been asked before. The answer was obvious—she was an Outlaw. She was an Outlaw by birth and by action. She said so and Lauren gave her a long steady look before saying, “Do you think that fair? When you are baby in your mother’s arms, a mere infant, could you turn your back on your own parents and walk yourself into the city and declare yourself a citizen? By city laws that would’ve been what you had to do.

  “Do you know that by city laws a child of an outlaw may not be surrendered by the parents, it must surrender itself and it must do so before it is three days old. How can a three-day-old infant surrender itself to the city’s rule? How can a three-day-old child speak its own oath of loyalty to the city? It’s an archaic rule, it’s a law that was put in place to guarantee that no child of any Outlaw would ever find sympathy within the city.”

  “I had never heard of that.” Reena picked up a small rock near her foot and turned it over and over in her hands. Tiny glints of pyrite showed in the thin sliver of moonlight that was coming from the ebony sky. A small wind blew through the trees, rattling the leaves and creating a small and mournful tune.

  This was the place that she knew, this was home. The entire time she spent in the city she had longed to be back here. Now that she was here she was being forced to go back to the city and she didn’t want to go. Noonehad never asked her if she felt like she was being robbed of her rights when she was a child or whether she wanted to be the daughter of an Outlaw or if she wanted to be a child of the city.

  What would she have done if someone had asked her that question? What would she have chosen?

  The long sharp whistle brought them all to their feet. Lucas tilted his head to one side, listening intently and Lauren moved closer to a tree, putting her hand out to its trunk to feel if there were any vibrations running through it from the ground below. It was a way to tell if there was a large herd of animals racing towards them. In the woods the most common herd of animals racing towards someone was horses, generally horses that were mounted by soldiers.

  The whistle from the century, and the expressions on the faces of both Lauren and Lucas told R
eena everything she needed to know. Soldiers were coming and they were probably not very far off.

  The soldiers were closer than they could have imagined, so close that they were on top of them before they really had time to get to the small spaces they had constructed to hide within. That had been Dax’s idea; he had suggested making small crypt-like places in the ground, burying them with tree branches and leaves so that to the passerby, they would appear as just another part of the forest floor.

  Reena had had no idea until she was inside the thing with the horses thundering past, how terrifying it would be inside of them. It was small, constrictive and incredibly dark. There were other bodies jammed in with hers and she could smell sweat and fear. To make matters even worse she knew that the soldiers could barely see the road, what if they swerved off of it? Would the lid-like surfaces they had constructed to place over the top of the little hiding holes be able to withstand the weight of the horses and the soldiers that they carried?

  Small streams of moonlight did occasionally filter through and the occasional drift of leaves or dirt fell through the cracks in the lids. It seemed to last an eternity. By the time the soldiers passed, Reena was a limp and shaking mess and she was not the only one.

  They began to cry out slowly, one by one all of them helping out those who were still within, while still keeping an eye open for the soldiers to return.

  “That worked like a charm.” Lucas seemed to be impressed by it, but Reena was less than impressed; she was still fairly terrified.

  “I wouldn’t want to be in one for longer than a few minutes at a time,” Lucas said. “And then we should move, and move fast. Regarding us having to move as a group, we have to move silently and fast.”

  All of them had escaped often from the soldiers’ notice. No one of them needed to be told to cling to to the shadows, to watch the road carefully for any signs of the soldiers and to stay concealed as much as possible. Sometimes the soldiers were wily, getting off their horses and creeping up on foot, but tonight they did not seem to be interested in doing that at all. The sound of the horses’ hooves beating against the roads could be heard for miles.

  “They have never been out this late at night before,” Deal said in an almost silent whisper.

  He was entirely correct about that. Usually when the soldiers were out at night it was in the earliest part of the evening, but the midnight hour had passed and they were still on the road, still searching. Nobody needed to point out that outlaws typically did manage to outmaneuver soldiers by employing a very simple and incredibly useful trick: they quite often traveled at night and hid during the day, while the soldiers were out and about in the forest.

  This was something soldiers had never caught on to; how had they known this time?

  During the night they would find themselves asking themselves that same question over and over again: how had they known? They made it back to their secondary camp, a quiet little place where they could all hide out. It was a place quite often used by the Outlaws and a sort of informal gathering place for all of the tribes. It was in flames.

  They all stood there looking at it, uncertain and frightened. They had seen the flames from a distance but they had not been willing to believe that that was their camp, that the soldiers had been able to find it and to pinpoint exactly where it was, but they had.

  “Someone has betrayed us,” Reena said, the words that she knew everybody was thinking. “The question now is just who?”

  “It could be anybody, they have many Outlaws in custody,” Lauren said, who was holding Heidi’s two children close to her in a protective manner.

  Dax said, “Don’t be a fool. We all know who’d be willing to betray us right now, and who would have a reason to hate us more than anybody else.”

  All eyes went to the two children that Lauren was holding close. Reena asked, “Why would she do it?”

  Lucas answered that with, “Heidi was always vindictive. We should never have taken her in, and once we did take her in and realize how she was, it was too late. She was married to one of our men, one of our best men and with child. While he was alive he managed to keep her in check as much as anyone could, but once he was gone all bets were off. Her hatred has no boundaries at this point and no place that she ever went with us is safe now.

  “Was there any place that she did not know of?” Reena asked.

  Lauren shook her head, “No. She traveled like all of us do. She went everywhere we went. We had no secrets from her. We never had any secrets from ourselves; you know that.”

  Heidi’s little girl looked up at Lauren and asked, “Are we in trouble too?” Everyone gathered around, looking at the ground, ashamed of the thoughts that had been gathering in their minds. Reena had seen the hatred on more than one face and she was grateful to see it dissipating in the face of the little girl’s question.

  Lucas said gruffly, “No. You are not your mother and you are not responsible for her actions.”

  A small wave of relief filled Reena. But it did not last long; there were many things that they would have to deal with and Heidi’s children were but a small part of that.

  Deal said, “We have to find a safe place. There’s no way we can all sleep in those little holes and even if we could, there’s no guarantee that the soldiers would ride right over them and not look within them.”

  He was only stating the truth, the truth that they had all already known and had had brought home to them while they were inside the small cavities waiting for the soldiers to pass them on the road. Nobody seemed to have any ideas though.

  Reena asked, “Is it possible that some of us had hiding places that we did not share with the rest of you?”

  Silence fell. The code of the woods was that nothing was secret and nothing was sacred. What one had, one shared. There were supposed to be no secret caches of food, nothing that one person would keep to themselves no matter their tribe or loner status. The only people who were exempt from knowing these things were the ones who had been Shunned or exiled.

  Finally one of the men from the last camp that they had joined up with stepped forward. “Perhaps. But if there is it was never intentional. I think most of us have some hiding places that we know of, but we don’t always travel together and a lot of us travel alone instead of in groups. As did you and your father, Reena. It is possible, so let’s start with all the places that we all know of together. We need to have a meeting and discuss this not only calmly but quickly because if we do not we will be caught out here with nowhere to go.”

  How had she become the leader? Reena wasn’t sure but it was obvious that she was. The whole thing was so bizarre, but it was her responsibility. She had somehow taken on that responsibility just as surely she had taken that sword that hung in a scabbard on her back, a scabbard that Lucas had carved for her from a long tree limb.

  “My father and I were often alone, and I’m certain that we had places that we went but nobody knew about. They were only good for two people or three at the most and we can talk about them because I suppose we assumed everyone knew of the same places. The woods are only so large, but they can be sheltering. You’re right, let’s all discuss the places that we know of as tribes and then talk about the places that we know as loners. We might be able to find a place large enough to shelter us all that way.”

  Chapter 3

  There were indeed several places that they all traveled to when they were traveling in smaller groups that they did not use when they traveled as a tribe. Some of the places Heidi had never seen; most of them were too small to hide more than a few people so the tribe had never traveled there. At the moment those places were their only option so they headed off towards one of them as the night continued to darken the skies.

  It was a long trek; they had to avoid many of the known landmarks and go by less common ones. Heidi had always been a follower, never a tracker or a seeker, so it would have been possible that she would not have remembered the way or she would not have been able to d
escribe the landmarks around certain camps well enough to give the soldiers details on where they were located. Be that as it may, none of them wanted to take that chance and travel the roads they typically did, so they stuck to crawling on their bellies over hills where the moonlight was the strongest and avoiding the small barely discernible paths in the woods where they would normally walk in order to get to where they were going.

  It was the longest night of Reena’s entire life so far and she wondered if it would ever end, if she would ever be able to sleep. Her entire body ached; she was so exhausted that her eyes were gritty and her tongue was furred over. Her fingers spasmed occasionally and her knees and lower legs had cramps that would not ease up.

  Three of the places they checked were either occupied with soldiers, aflame or filled in with a mound of dirt. Heidi had either heard them or seen them. It was a fact that every Outlaw knew there would come a day when they had to break off from the Tribe in order for the Tribe to survive; smaller groups were faster and easier to hide than large ones.

  Lucas suggested that perhaps Heidi, who had not broken away since the birth of her children, had recalled those places as a young bride. However she had known of them, it did not matter, they were unable to be used and they were rapidly becoming more vulnerable with each passing moment.

  When dawn broke the tribe was at the crest of a small hill. The cave beyond it was not visible; it was a small crack in a rock wall that rose high above the tree line. They all looked at it and then at each other. This was a sacred place, one that they only used when things were at their very worst.

  It would fit the tribe inside its walls but going in there meant risking the wrath of the gods—they had to ask permission and offer some form of sacrifice. None ever dared enter without that.

  The bones inside the cave were old, darkened by years and dust. The words written on the cave wall were in a language none of them spoke or read but the pictures on the wall spoke volumes.