The barmaid clapped her hands together with delight and laughed.
“Oh, this is amazing!” she cried. “He's alive after all! I can't believe it. Kids you say?” Sarah nodded. “Wow. Who'd have thought it?”
The barmaid sat down opposite her and demanded she tell her all that she knew about her long-lost brother and his family. Sarah tried to explain as much as she could between mouthfuls of hot bacon and perfectly fried eggs. Alfie Biggs was a character known to most people in Pine Lodge so it wasn't difficult to come up with a story or two about his life and the impact he often had on the settlement.
“And how far is it away from here you say?” Sarah told her. “It wouldn't be too much of a struggle I suppose. I could afford to hire a cart. Take a few of us over there in the summer. Drop in on him unannounced. Oh my, I'm so excited!”
“Well I'm sure he'd love that,” she replied. “I'm afraid I must be going.” Sarah got up to leave, the meal finished and the vodka bottle half-empty. “Thanks again.”
“Don't thank me,” said the barmaid. “It's me who should be thanking you. I thought my Alfie was dead and you've brought him back to life.”
“Not quite,” she protested. “But I'm glad I've been able to bring you a little peace.”
“It's more than that,” she said. “It's like a light in the dark. I thought I'd never get through all this but now I know I can. Once the Slavers have been dealt with I'm going over there to meet him.”
“I know he'd be so pleased to meet his sister again.”
The barmaid got up and returned to work, finally serving the three or four people all waiting to place their orders that’d been shooting daggers at Sarah since the conversation started. With a smile creasing her face, she made her way out of the pub and back into the cool morning air feeling a little more alive than when she'd entered.
“There's a joy to this that you never told me about, you old bear,” she said to herself. “I can see why you could never give it up.”
At midday she was waiting at the gates with Ziggy saddled and ready to go. She felt nervous as she stood there with the rest of Tarrick's team who were all on foot, armed with rifles and extra ammunition and a possibles bag. The team was made up entirely of men, from the youngest at around seventeen years to the eldest at fifty. They all took turns in whispering about her, spreading the word that she'd be going with them. She busied herself adjusting the buckles of her tack but deep down she could feel the resentment like the heat from the sun.
“Perhaps you should stay behind,” said one of the older men to her. “It'll be safer that way.”
“For who?” she asked. “You or me? Last time I looked Annie was in charge of the water purifier.”
“We didn’t put her there,” he snarled. The others nodded in agreement as the man fell silent and turned back to his friends. Sarah began to realise what Ellen had said to her was true. She hadn't experienced that kind of treatment before, not at Pine Lodge and not on any of the routes she took to deliver the mail. She reasoned that delivering letters was considered a girly-enough job, but fighting the enemy was for the real men now. She wondered if Annie felt the same resentment too.
The anger subsided as Tarrick appeared, giving his orders to a man at the front of the group well beyond her hearing. They exchanged words and then a more subdued team leader turned around and gave the command to ready-up. Rifles were cocked and a murmur of morale-boosting sentiment rippled through their ranks, never quite arriving at the back where Sarah was standing.
As they filed through the gates, she stepped onto the box and mounted Ziggy, urging him into a trot behind the men. Some of them watched her out of the corner of their eyes whilst others laughed, no doubt thinking her weak for needing the horse. The truth was that she knew the value of outriders and sending a team on foot without one was risky at best. She'd seen the groups they'd sent after raiders back at Pine Lodge and they never went anywhere without a fast pair of eyes mounted on the back of one of her Papa's horses.
She began to feel nervous when she realised that the team leader - a weary, tired looking man, was taking them back the same way that the young man had brought she and Alan along the day before. She knew then that the route must have been a familiar one, commonly used and it opened up the chance for any number of ambushes that she herself wasn't prepared to walk into.
Ziggy was keen to stretch his legs and he felt restless beneath her. She kicked her heels and spurred him into a gallop across a wide stretch of open field. It felt good to be moving, to be speeding through the cold air again. She took a turn near some woodland as fast as she could, the hooves of the animal kicking up clods of dirt as he skidded into the bend. Then they were round and her grip on the reins loosened a little before she looked about her. Somewhere to her right she knew that the troops of men were tramping along. In front of her the road would intersect with the line she was taking through the high grass but it was here that she saw something moving and she drew the horse to a halt.
There, up ahead perhaps a quarter-mile away, were a knot of bodies moving slowly through the brush. She could just make out the shapes from where she was and their red jackets could be seen between the swaying branches of the taller bushes. She hadn't been spotted but that could change if any of them decided to turn around.
Taking the rifle from its case she doubled the reins around her arm and settled into a firing position from her higher vantage point on the back of the animal. Then, settling the sights on the centre of the shuffling group, she took the pressure of the trigger and let out a long, deep breath before completing the action. The report tore through the silence and startled Ziggy, causing him to rear up. Sarah was ready for it and as she held on she leaned forward, still watching the Slavers as they scattered amongst the foliage leaving one of their number moaning in agony on the cold dirt.
The horse settled and she spurred him west at a gallop, eager to get away from her first firing position and off to a better one. She turned a little south and leapt over a fence, heading around in a wide arc to come at them from the top of a gentle rise. Before she crested it, she peered from the saddle and saw them regrouping in the bushes, looking everywhere for her.
She fired again and this time Ziggy managed to stay where he was but the shot went wide. It gave her the chance to fire a third time though and she leveled the rifle on a man behind a rock, staring at the spot where she'd been before. He went down with a gaping hole in his back that splattered the stone in gore. Heads snapped round and looked up the hill towards her. The cries went up and they began charging, shouting as loud as they could to spook her.
She fired again and another fell but by that point she knew she was pushing her luck. She pulled hard on the reins and turned Ziggy back down the hill at full gallop, slipping the rifle back into its case to free up her hands. Then she rode him west as fast as she could, leaping over a small stream and turning south to come back around again. By the time she was behind Tarrick's men, they'd broken away to engage the red jackets that were fleeing from the bushes in full retreat. They were quickly cut down and there was a lot of shouting and whooping as the men fired for effect into the high grasses at targets that weren't even there anymore.
As she came alongside the team leader, he looked up at her and smiled.
“I guess we can thank you for that,” he said. “They had the drop on us from those bushes. We wouldn't have stood a chance.”
“You're walking the same road each time. It's predictable. You're making it too easy for them to ambush you.”
“I'm just following orders. The Captain said to-”
“There's a path just off to the left about a half-mile away. Maybe we should take that one instead?”
He looked a little pained but common sense must have won him over because he gave Ziggy a pat on the neck and nodded his agreement. She turned the horse and led the way.
They arrived at the water purifier without any more incidents. Annie, the woman in the coveralls and the bas
eball cap, was stood on the roof with a pair of binoculars and she came down when she saw them to meet them outside. The people there looked exhausted and nervous but when they saw the men they brightened up and began chatting to them, exchanging whatever they had for food or liquor.
“I'm glad to see you,” she said as Sarah jumped down from Ziggy. “We were worried that you'd forgotten us.”
“How could we forget you, Annie,” said the team leader. “I've got eight able bodies here to replace the dead. How are you holding up?”
“We've taken a beating but we're hanging on in there. What's Tarrick got to say for himself?”
“The usual. Thanks. Keep fighting.”
“Wow, I feel so much better.” She turned and smiled at Sarah. “You again. Where's your giant friend?”
“He's locating some equipment for you, something to deal with the Slavers once and for all,” she said. “Hopefully you'll be able to relax once this is all over.”
“Relax?” she cried. “That'd be amazing. Please forgive me if I struggle to believe you. It feels like we've been fighting for years now and it makes me forget what peace was like.” She looked around before signaling to one of her people to open the main door into the purifier. “Come, have a drink with me before you return to Hope. You can take some papers back with you for Tarrick.”
They followed her into the dark interior of the building where oil lamps burned on table tops scattered up and down the hallways and in the narrow rooms that appeared on either side. It was cold within and wherever bunks had been setup there were stacks of coarse blankets and extra clothing for those who slept between shifts. The air was stuffy and stale and the smell of sweating bodies was overpowering.
Annie had her office at the far end of a longer, wider hallway that led to the machine room. Here the throbbing of the motors and the grinding of gears was the loudest and Sarah wondered how she coped with the noise. The interior was sparsely decorated. It must have once been a service room because Annie's table was a metal workbench which still had a machinist’s vice bolted down to one corner. There was a folding cot against one wall with a military-issue sleeping bag ruffled on top and a folded coat for a pillow. Boots, odds and ends and even a few empty bottles of homebrew were scattered all around along with the faint odour of oil and hot metal.
“Have a seat,” she said, indicating her chair at the workbench and a stool near the door. Sarah sat on the stool while Annie sat on the cot and poured out three glasses of a clear liquid. She took one, sniffed it and drank it. It wasn't quite as fiery as The Hearth but it had a thick, syrupy texture to it that warmed her insides.
“Cheers,” said Annie. The team leader sipped at his and shuddered as it went down, amusing Annie's face into a twisted kind of grin. “Puts hairs on your chest.”
“I'm sure it's more likely to take them off,” he laughed.
Annie poured out another round and settled back against the wall as the motors thrummed into a higher pitch, rattling the loose doors on the cabinets and setting Sarah's teeth on edge. It sounded like a mechanical beast was in a cage in the next room, angry and desperate to gnaw its way out through dozens of steel bars.
“I heard firing earlier,” said Annie and she found it hard to believe the woman could hear anything anymore.
“That's right,” shouted the team leader. “Another ambush.”
“How far from here?”
“A few miles. They might have been on their way here, we couldn't be sure. Sarah spotted them and spooked them in our direction. We killed all but a few who managed to escape.”
“That might give us some relief,” said Annie. “At least until nightfall.”
“Are the attacks quite regular then?” asked Sarah.
“They weren't until recently. Perhaps we'd have a few a week. Twice on weekends. Then it became steadily regular. In the early morning, especially if the weather was cloudy or there was a mist coming off the river. Then they'd try again, taking casualties, then retreating all the way back to where ever they're coming from. Now we get night attacks as well as day ones.”
“Where are they operating from?” asked the team leader.
“We think it's one of the settlements to the southeast, maybe even Bennett’s old site on the beach, the one we gave up when we fell back to Hope. I thought they'd have burned that one to the ground but maybe they've taken it over instead and are using it to strike from. Who knows?”
“Has no one looked?”
“Looked?” She snapped out a laugh. “We can't spare the people, not when we're already weak enough. If we lose the purifier then Hope will be boiling water from the river which won't last very long. There just isn't enough wood nearby to fuel so many fires and Tarrick won't risk sending out people into the forests for more. The Slavers will just wait it out, lay siege to the place and wait for us to surrender. Then we’ll be theirs, put to who-knows what kind of evil work.”
“There's a lot of pressure on your friend to come back,” he said to Sarah. “It might just be our last hope.”
“He'll be back,” she said. “You can trust him.”
“He seemed a strange character,” said Annie. “How do you know him?”
“We met at Pine Lodge where I'm from. He's had dealings with these Slavers before. I trust him; I know he can help put an end to them.”
“If he doesn't then you can say goodbye to Pine Lodge, where ever that is,” she said. “They'll come for you next.”
“I know,” she replied. “And we have no fortifications, no real weapons.”
“Your friend is all you've got,” said the team leader. “All any of us have.”
They drank a little more before gathering up the dead who were now bundled into neatly wrapped packages using their sleeping bags and rolls of blue plastic sheeting. The replacement men said their goodbyes to their teammates and the others took up their burdens to begin the slow walk back.
Annie saw them off from outside the building and there were tears welling up behind her stern efforts to maintain a cold composure. Sarah, mounting her horse, looked down on her and smiled.
“I'll buy you a drink when this is all over,” she said.
“I'll hold you to that,” replied Annie, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
Turning the horse, she looked to the southeast. It was gloomy that way; sullen rain clouds were gathering and brooding over the land beneath them, threatening to cry down misery on whoever would be there to listen.
“How far?” asked Sarah.
“How far to what?”
“Bennett’s settlement.”
“Don't be foolish,” cried Annie. “They'd do much worse than kill you if they catch you.”
“If they catch me.”
“If I didn't know better I'd say that between those legs of yours there was a pair of brass balls.”
“Are you saying that courage only belongs to men?” Annie smiled.
“I guess not. Follow the path for six miles, then turn left at the crossroads. Another four miles on and you'll see a metal fence that's been torn down. Cross over it and carry on through the ruins to the other side. On a corner there's an old faded brown sign that says - hold on, you can read, can't you?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. It says 'Beach 3/4 miles'. Stay on the road and you'll go down a steep hill. At the bottom are hundreds of white caravans; big rectangular things that were white the last time I saw them. Like little houses. That used to be Bennett’s settlement but chances are it'll be crawling with Slavers now.”
“Thanks.”
“A word of advice - they never travel alone. If you see one, chances are there's dozens of them you haven't seen. Turn and run as fast as you can. I've never seen them with horses but they have a tank so who knows what other surprises they might have in store for you.”
“Thank you, Annie. Once I've checked it out I'll ride back here before going on to Hope.”
“I'd appreciate that. Chances are that Tarrick wouldn'
t tell me the truth for fear of what I might do.”
“You don't trust him?” she asked.
“Trust him?” She was about to laugh but she stopped and shook her head. “Sarah, when this is all over, you should go home. I mean that. Go home. You and your friend.”
“Why?” asked Sarah, startled. “What's wrong?”
“I shouldn't say.”
“I think you should.”
“You shouldn't trust him. Tarrick. Ever.”
“Why?”
“Trust me instead. When you've done what you came here to do, run. Run and don't look back. Now get gone before that storm arrives. It'll be on your heels before you know it and you won't want to be caught out in it.”
With that remark, Annie adjusted her cap and turned, heading back inside. Sarah, unnerved by her warning, tried to push it from her thoughts. She had enough to think about. She'd made up her mind to ride straight into the heart of the Slavers and she was wondering if it wasn't the craziest idea she'd ever had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She rode Ziggy hard, tearing along the open fields wherever a clear line of sight permitted her to do so. She tried not to imagine the Slavers in their red jackets lurking behind every tree and every corner. She tried to focus on covering the miles as quickly as she could, as secretly as she could and, short of riding straight into them, she felt that if she could just see inside that camp she'd be able to report something useful back to Annie or Alan or Tarrick.
Tarrick. What had Annie meant by her warning? Sarah admitted to herself that she didn't like the man. There was much to be admired; he'd made wise decisions about Hope and he seemed like a natural leader but there was something else, something hiding under that charismatic exterior that echoed Annie's sentiment. There was something wrong, something disturbed but she couldn't pin it down, she couldn't seem to get deep enough to see what it was.
She thought of Alan and her heart warmed in spite of the cold wind cutting through her as she sped along. Was he back yet? Had he brought everything they needed? Was he safe? It was difficult for her to separate the man she loved from the Medved, this persona he was projecting everywhere he went whether he liked it or not. She still worried for the man with the broken heart who couldn't die, who couldn't be killed or grow old. It was hard not to be swept up by it. He was a god-man amongst mortals but she could see deeper than the image and she saw the very human, very normal gardener from a lost world. Old, but still so young. If he were to lose that... If he were to become something else... How much harm could he do?
Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3) Page 22