MoonFall

by A. G. Wyatt

  Grabbing up the bow and arrow, Noah aimed at the Dionite alpha and fired.

  It turned out he couldn’t shoot a bow worth a shit. The arrow missed by at least three feet and bounced off a nearby house, snapping as it hit the street.

  It still got the alpha’s attention. The expression he turned on Noah was the ugliest grin he’d ever seen in his life – not just angry but leering, stretching across a face that would have looked better on a bulldog. Raising a club above his head, the alpha charged towards Noah.

  Noah grabbed Deadweight, swung the blade up to block the alpha’s first attack. He blocked another blow, and another, then lunged, the alpha dodging with a couple of stumbling steps.

  He’d come close to hitting him that time. And those blocks – was he getting better with his sword already?

  The alpha’s club missed Noah by an inch as he lurched sideways away from the blow. The alpha turned to follow up on the attack, but he wasn’t as quick as the others Noah had fought.

  Noah almost burst out laughing. He hadn’t got better with a sword – this guy was just as incompetent as him. Of course there were some attackers who weren’t expert with axes or clubs or whatever they’d picked up. There were ones like Lily, archers out of arrows and forced to fight up close. And there were people better at leading than at fighting.

  There were Dionites as unready for this fight as Noah was.

  The realization gave him a new confidence. Instead of rushing to attack he waited for the alpha, and as he dodged the blow he turned the movement into an attack, swinging at the guy’s head. Like any sane human being, especially one who wasn’t much good at defending himself, the alpha ducked, just as Noah had expected. He brought Deadweight sideways and down, not quite getting the angle right but striking the alpha’s head with the flat of the blade.

  Reeling from the jolt, the alpha seemed to come to the same conclusion Noah had. He flung his club at Noah, forcing him to dodge, and only as he felt the alpha’s shoulder slam into his gut did Noah realize that his own trick had been turned on him. The wind was knocked out of him and he was driven backwards, colliding with a wall, his head smacking against the brickwork.

  Spots danced across his vision and Deadweight clanged to the ground. The alpha had a fistful of Noah’s shirt in one hand and was pummeling him with the other, punching him in the stomach, the chest, the face, wherever Noah’s defensive flailing wasn’t.

  He tried to knee the alpha in the balls, but what this guy lacked in club work skills he made up for in street brawling. He blocked Noah’s leg with his own and use the movement to sweep Noah’s feet out from underneath him, smashing him into the ground.

  Once again, Noah found himself trapped beneath a Dionite, blows raining down upon him with growing speed and ferocity. Noah flung one arm across his face, trying to protect himself for the worst of it. With the other he tried punching the alpha, and when that made little difference, scrabbled around on the ground beside him, feeling for anything that might help him. A brick, a rock, anything more effective to hit this guy with.

  His fingers closed around a slender rod with a splintered end.

  Between his blurring vision and his defensive arm he could see almost nothing of what was going on. He swung blindly, putting all his strength into the attack.

  The broken arrow shaft pierced the alpha’s neck with a wet thunk. Blood spurted, hot and wet, down Noah’s arm and all across him. It ran into his nose and mouth, making him cough and sputter and choke as he tried to get rid of the terrible taste of someone else’s injury.

  The alpha’s growl turned into a groan and then silence as he flopped limply onto Noah.

  Noah wiped the blood from his eyes. He rolled the body off of him and staggered dizzily to his feet, spitting blood and trying not to fall straight back over.

  “Got him,” he said, dragging the alpha’s body up off the ground.

  “Got him,” he yelled. Though short, the alpha had been heavy with muscle and it was a struggle to lift the body and drag him up onto a cart for all to see, but Noah managed.

  “Got him!” he bellowed as loud as he could.

  He looked around. It had worked, or something had. All up and down the street Dionites were turning tail and running. Panic spread through the mob like ripples through water, each tiny movement adding to a greater whole that became not just one man turning or another woman running, but the whole mass rushing through the gap in the wall if they were close enough. Those that weren’t were scattering into the surrounding streets, being cut down by Apollonians as they fled.

  Dropping the body, Noah sat down on the edge of the cart, finally catching his breath. Blood still dripping from him, and the taste in his mouth making him want to puke. The only piece of cloth around him not already soaked was the alpha’s loincloth.

  “Screw it,” he muttered. Anything was better than this.

  Turning away to not see what was beneath, he yanked the loincloth off the body and used it to wipe the blood from his face. It stank like the worst sort of strip club, but it was better than nothing. He flung it away when he was done.

  Vostok walked up, his familiar smile back.

  “Your medal, hero of the day!” the Russian said, handing Noah a canteen, slapping him hard on the shoulder and then moving on.

  Gratefully, Noah took a swig of water, swilled it around and spat it out. Then he took a proper drink, only then realizing how thirsty he’d become. No wonder the world was spinning.

  Burns ran up to him.

  “We did it!” she exclaimed. “We did it!”

  As if in a dream she grabbed Noah, leaned forward and kissed him.

  Then she jerked away.

  “I...” She looked confused, even cross at herself. “I didn’t mean–”

  Noah grabbed her arm, pulled her close and kissed her back.

  “I did,” he said.

  Her expression was unreadable as she stood there, one hand on his shoulder, looking back into his eyes. The chaos around them, the pain and exhaustion, all seemed to fade away.

  Somebody coughed.

  Burns jerked away from Noah, looking to the noise in alarm.

  Vostok was back and he looked serious again.

  “Sergeant, it’s Lily.” He pointed to a nearby doorstep where the young archer sat, bow abandoned beside her, just staring at the road. “Her parents. They died fighting at the gate. I… I’m not good with...”

  “The poor girl,” Burns said, her worries replaced by motherly concern. “Thank you for telling me, Dimitri.”

  She walked over and sat down beside Lily, wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. Lily’s distant calm broke down into the most heartbreaking of sobs.

  “She is a good woman, Molly,” Vostok said, patting Noah’s shoulder. “You break her heart and I break your neck, yes? Now come my friend, you need food and a bed. Deal with the rest later.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AFTER THE DELUGE

  WAKING UP IN a real bed took a little getting used to. After so many nights strapped halfway up a tree, and even a couple on a threadbare mattress with Blood Dog snoring above him, Noah felt a sense of surreality waking up under clean sheets, with a pillow beneath his head and a roof above it. But it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sort of detachment, and he lay there for a while each morning, just enjoying the moment.

  Enjoying the moment was usually followed by the less enjoyable experience of coaxing his body into action. Easing movement into legs that were still stiff and aching four days after the battle. Trying not to lean on his bruises as he sat up. Feeling the twinge of his cracked rib and catching his bandages on each other as he disentangled himself from the sheets.

  It was totally worth it.

  This morning the sunlight warmed his skin as he shrugged off the blankets and rose reluctantly to his feet. The first thing he’d done on moving into the loft was to move the bed over next to the window, with Dimitri Vostok’s help, to give him the best sense of space. He coul
d cope with living indoors, but having a window to look out through as he fell asleep and as he rose in the morning took the experience from something to cope with into something to enjoy.

  He walked over to the closet and pulled out one of his pairs of pants. That was a thing in itself, having a spare pair of pants, never mind having a closet. Of course, it was all just a passing thing, an extra pleasure while he recovered enough to get back on the road, but just because something was fleeting didn’t make it worth relishing.

  Like that kiss with Molly.

  He paused again in front of the sink, looked at himself on the mirror. The beard was neater than he’d worn it in months, maybe years, but it still didn’t fit in so well in Apollo. Was it worth shaving it off? He loved his beard, but he reckoned he’d let it go for a few more kisses like that. But what if the beard was part of his appeal? Did the famous Sergeant Burns – Lieutenant Burns now – like her men a little rough around the edges?

  That thought kept him grinning as he pulled on the worn jeans and faded t-shirt that were his work clothes. Boots too – a heavy pair with steel toecaps that weren’t wearing in as fast as he would have liked, and chafed despite a thick pair of socks. But like everything else, they were a lot less worn out than what he’d been wearing when he arrived in town, a lot less blood stained, and sturdier for the work ahead of him.

  Washed, dressed and ready to face the world, he headed down the stairs, past other apartments and out the front door of the building. The street was quiet this early, the citizens of Apollo less bound to the routines of the wild than a wanderer like Noah was. The only ones out and about were those with special reasons to rise early. There was a guard patrol walking the streets, still on the lookout for any Dionites who had hidden out around town rather than being chased away or killed. One had killed a shopkeeper two days after the battle, leaving everyone still on edge. Aside from the guards, there were a people heading to shops or other work, and a baker’s boy heading toward the walls with a tray full of bread. Noah walked along behind him, enjoying the mouthwatering smell of the new loaves.

  The boy turned as he heard footsteps behind him, his face turning from fear into confusion and then to admiration as he realized that his traveling companion was not an escaped Dionite but a different sort of stranger.

  “Are you Mr. Brennan?” he asked, eyes wide.

  “Ain’t no-one called me Mr. since before you were born,” Noah replied. The kid was fourteen tops, fresh faced and gangling. “But yeah, that’s me alright.”

  “Is it true that you bit the face off one of the savages?” the kid asked.

  They fell into step together, two strangers heading in the same direction, not having to worry about whether they’d fight over the resources they found at the end. Noah couldn’t quite shake off the vestige of wariness he wore like armor as he walked, but still there was something pleasant about it, about letting his guard slip a little at least.

  “Bit off his whole head,” he said with a grin.

  The kid looked at him with wonder, almost spilled his tray as he tripped over a break in the road.

  “Only kidding,” Noah said. “Don’t reckon no-one ever bit no-one’s face off, not here, nor anywhere.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” the kid said. “They say there are savages out west worse than the ones we’ve got here. Men and women who’ll rip off your arm just to kill you with it. Who’ll roast you over a fire and save your screaming head until last.”

  “You ever tried roasting any critter alive?” Noah asked. ‘“I’ll tell you now, it don’t stay live for long, nor screaming for that matter. If it does, then your fire ain’t hot enough. Though, if you’d even try then you ain’t the sort I’d want to be talking to.”

  “Oh, no sir,” the kid replied. “I’d never do that. I ain’t no savage.”

  Noah looked at the kid, with his crooked glasses, his clean clothes and his skinny arms.

  “I believe you,” he said.

  The only one there when they reached the wall was the foreman, a guy named Miguel, who Noah had already seen turn from easy going amiability to bellicose bellowing on the turn of a moment. Right now, he was in a thoughtful mood, eyeing up the piles of materials and the space still to fill in the gap.

  “Yo, Brennan.” Miguel grinned and tapped an imaginary watch. “What time you call this to turn up for work, huh?”

  “I call it breakfast time,” Noah replied.

  There were already dried fruit and boiled eggs laid out on a trestle table near the work area, and the kid added his loaves to the spread. Noah didn’t know how the people of Apollo distributed food supplies normally, but as long as the rebuilding went on they were distributing it at work sites. Anyone who wasn’t in the hospital got fed when they turned up for the tasks assigned to them, whether that was building like Noah, baking like the kid, or patrolling like Vostok and Burns. The Council, still an abstract, distant organization to Noah, had been very clear on this – until the town was in order and the supplies checked, there would be tight controls.

  He couldn’t say he blamed them. These people had been through hell the past week, a lot of them had lost friends of relatives and even more had seen their homes and workplaces damaged. Any amount of order was a kind of comfort, a barrier against the chaos that had broken through their walls.

  He sat and ate with Miguel, trading stories of their lives before the disaster, or the Fall as the Apollonians called it in their most ominous tones. Miguel had been a stonemason, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Here all immigrants were welcome so long as they were willing to work, doubly so if they had a skill like his. He was the one who had injured his hand leaving the other works on the wall half finished, but Noah refrained from telling him about how that had factored in to his abandoned escape from Apollo – it wouldn’t do Miguel’s pride any good to know people had been coming and going through the hole he’d left.

  By the time they finished the rest of the crew was turning up. They all smiled and waved at Noah, paused to say hi and check on how he was settling in. Discomfort at the attention and the mass of company got him up and working while the others were barely started on their meal, getting up high on the scaffold where he could feel the wind and get as close to alone as the work would allow. It also meant he wasn’t around when an Elder stopped by to lead them in morning prayers, and for that he was grateful. These folks were welcome to believe whatever they wanted – even Miguel joined in with every sign of sincerity – but there was no way in hell Noah was drinking the Kool-Aid.

  Time with people was the price he paid for food and a bed while he recuperated, but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy paying that price.

  “For some wandering warrior you’re pretty good at this,” one of the others said to him later in the morning, as they lined up the blocks and cemented them into place.

  “I was never much of a warrior,” Noah said.

  “So you just saved us all by accident?” the man asked.

  Noah laughed.

  “By accident and others doing the actual saving, yeah.” He spread a trowel full of cement, placed a block on the top and tapped it around until it looked straight.

  “What did you do before that?” the guy asked, passing him the next block.

  “Bit of building, bit engine work, bit of whatever I could before I got myself fired.” Noah smiled with satisfaction as the block slotted straight into place. “It’s been twenty years and one apocalypse since then, but I guess I ain’t entirely forgotten how to fix up a wall.”

  For the second day in a row, Molly Burns’ patrol came past the wall around noon and stopped there to eat lunch. And so for the second day in a row, Noah had company he cared about as he sat in the shade of the wall, wolfing down a bowl of stew and trying to ignore the stares of the rest of the crew.

  “You’d have thought they ain’t never seen a man eat before,” he said.

  “Not one who keeps half of it on his face for later.” She pointed to a clump of po
tato hanging in his beard, where he’d spilled some of it in his rush to fill his belly. “Besides, you’re not just any man. You’re Noah Brennan, the mysterious stranger who turned up in the night, killed the Dionites’ leader and saved us all from being murdered in our beds. At least that’s what people have been telling me.”

  “I heard the town was saved by some gallant sergeant with a mean club swing.” He rubbed at one of his older bruises, the ones she’d given him. She looked away sheepishly so he stopped, not wanting to miss the sparkle in those green eyes. “Heard she got a promotion for it too, and totally underappreciated by her peers.”

  “I don’t know about underappreciated.” She twisted her spoon around between her fingers. “Poulson did as much as me and he didn’t get a promotion. I don’t think he’s pleased about that either.”

  “Screw Poulson. He was already a lieutenant and your guard’s full enough of captains already.” He reached out and rested his hand on hers, not sure how she would react but not wanting to give up the chance. “You earned it. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  She looked at their hands, a little smile on her face, and warmth spread through his chest and out through his body. Then she pulled her hand away and rose to her feet, done with being Molly and back to being the business-like Lieutenant Burns.

  “Alright,” she called out to her patrol. “Break’s over, let’s get going.”

  “See you tomorrow?” Noah asked hopefully.

  She didn’t quite look back, but she turned her head just enough that he could see that small smile again.

  “Maybe,” she said. “If we’re patrolling this way.”

  Once she was gone Miguel ambled over, holding out a cup of water for Noah.

  “Nice going esé,” the foreman said. “Reckon you’ll be staying with us a while longer, huh?”

  “Just until I’m rested up,” Noah said, looking down at his hand. “Just until I’m rested up.”