“I’m watching you.”
Again, David wanted to protest, but one look at Cyrus’s face told him this was not the time.
Every chance he got in the coming days, David positioned himself beside Valen and talked to him about life in Amat while they worked. He described the village and the Rotten Woods. He told him about how scared he’d been of Sorrel’s grandmother when he was little.
“I’ll let you into a secret, Valen. Even when I grew taller than her, I was still a little bit scared of the woman. Her death was a big loss to Amat. I didn’t see it at the time, but now I think about it, Sorrel is like her in a lot of ways. She has her grandmother’s strength and conviction.”
David’s words faltered, as they so often did when he talked about Sorrel. He fell silent, concentrating his mind on honing his blade until his eyes cleared and his voice steadied.
Shambolic though the settlement looked, the days leading up to the raid on the Sawneys were organised and focused. The Zeros trained with Mason, learning the most efficient ways to handle their weapons and practising their moves on each other. Though they earned a few cuts and bruises along the way, Mason proved to be a formidable teacher and David wondered where he had learned his battle skills.
His curiosity was piqued even further when Mason introduced them to the concept of the firebomb – a simple device consisting of a bottle filled with oil which then had a rag stuffed into its neck. Mason lit the rag, which acted as a wick, and threw the firebomb which exploded on impact. The Zeros cheered and whooped at the resulting ball of flame.
Mason grinned at the reaction. “Those Sawneys won’t know what’s hit ‘em.”
Though the firebombs were simple in concept, the oil and glass bottles for making them came from the Garden Centre and were a limited resource, so the Zeros lobbed rocks when practicing for the attack. Mason used another device from the Garden Centre to light the bomb. David had seen them used in Dinawl – called matches, they produced a flame simply by striking them.
David took to wondering about Mason out loud, but his questions fell on deaf ears until Lance finally took him aside.
“I hear you been asking questions about Mason.”
“Didn’t mean anything by it,” David replied. “Just curious how he came to know the things he knows.”
Lance stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “Didn’t Cyrus tell you? We don’t ask those kind of questions around here. Some might offer their story up, and fair dos if so. But most Zeros ended up Zeros for no good reasons.”
“Cyrus told me, but I forgot.”
“Better for your health if you don’t go poking around folk’s pasts. Best you remember that next time curiosity comes creeping up on you.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” David said.
“Not a problem,” Lance replied. “Not at all.”
David took Lance’s advice and asked no more questions about where anyone had come from or how they had ended up a Zero in the Wastelands, but it didn’t stop him wondering.
He was eating his mid-day broth on the fourth day when the shout came from the look-out on top of the Garden Centre.
“INCOMING.”
A gust of tension whipped through the camp as everyone stopped what they were doing and stared up at the look-out, a small wiry man named Duncan. They waited in silence as Duncan peered through a set of binoculars, a useful Before device found in the Garden Centre. After a few moments, he lowered the glasses and called down to the waiting Zeros.
“Stand down, stand down. It’s Kala.”
A buzz of conversation arose.
“Who’s Kala?” David asked the nearest person, a woman he hadn’t talked to before.
“One of us, more or less. Kala likes to do her own thing. She’s been known to disappear into the Wastelands for an entire cycle of the moon.”
“What does she do out there?”
The woman shrugged. “Who knows. We always wonder if she’ll come back, and – so far – she always has.”
“Fresh meat!” Duncan shouted down to the assembled Zeros.
A small cheer went up.
The woman grinned. “Kala’s been hunting in the mountains.”
Kala was a female mutant, short and sturdy with a flat, wide face, large pale eyes the colour of catkins and a nub nose. She carried a bow across her shoulder and a quiver of arrows hung from her belt. Her tiny mouth stretched into a wide smile as Cyrus strode out of the camp to meet her. She let go of the load she’d been dragging behind her and ran to meet him with open arms.
Cyrus swept her up and twirled her around, the pair of them roaring with laughter.
Cyrus – with a mutant? David’s mind boggled.
“You’ll be catching switch flies if you don’t close your mouth,” the woman beside him said.
When Cyrus introduced him to Kala, David knew he was being tested. Normally, if there was such a thing as normal anymore, he would have resented the fact, but something about Cyrus made David want to impress him and so he threw his arms around Kala and hugged her tight.
“Whoah, steady on there.”
Kala bristled in his embrace and pushed him away with a force that caught him by surprise. He stumbled back, ending up on his backside looking up at Kala and Cyrus who were both guffawing at his predicament. Beyond them, the Zeros who witnessed the incident nudged each other and grinned.
David flushed deeply.
“Hey, no offence, Cuddles. It’s just that I’m not a hugging kind of girl.” Kala caught him glancing at Cyrus and added, “Except for him. He’s special.”
“Did you hear that, David?” Cyrus laughed. “I’m special.”
Kala put her hand out. David barely hesitated before taking it. She pulled him to his feet. “No hard feelings, eh Cuddles?”
“David, my name’s David.”
“He suits Cuddles better, don’t you think Cyrus?”
“Don’t worry, David. You can straighten your face – Kala’s only winding you up.”
“Course I am, David.” Kala slapped him on the back.
David smiled despite himself. When he’d recovered enough of himself to speak, he pointed to the dead animals in the load Kala had been dragging.
There were three carcases. A brace of sizeable brown-furred animals with long ears and legs and short white tails, and an even larger animal, grey haired with thin legs and fearsome curved horns growing out of its head.
“Those are hares,” Kala said, “and that’s a goat.”
“We’ll eat well tonight,” Cyrus said, “and for once, we’ll put nothing by for pemmican.”
“What’s the occasion?” Kala asked.
“Tomorrow, we go to war on the Sawneys.”
Kala’s tiny mouth tightened up so much it almost disappeared. “Bring it on.”
The hare was fine, but David doubted he’d ever tasted anything as flavoursome as goat meat. He picked a bone out of his bowl, and though it had already been chewed clean, he sucked on it again, just to make sure he’d extracted every last lick of flavour.
“So, how do you like goat?” Kala plonked herself beside him.
“Good, really good. Best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“That was the right answer.” Kala grinned, but it faded quickly. “Cyrus tells me you almost ended up as dinner yourself.”
David put his bowl aside. “The Sawneys got me – if it wasn’t for the Zeros…” he shook his head.
“They’re the scourge of the earth. Took my friend, Bale.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s the Sawneys who’ll be sorry tomorrow.”
Her words were calm, but Kala’s pale eyes were filled with rage.
“I’m glad we’re on the same side.” David was surprised to find that he meant what he said. For at least a moment, he had entirely forgotten that Kala was a mutant.
“Me too, David.” Kala nudged him. “Enough already. We’ll deal with those ghouls tomorrow, let’s talk of other matters.”
“Okay,” David said, “let’s do that.”
He turned his head to smile at Kala, catching Cyrus’s gaze as he did so. This time, his eyes were not narrowed.
Kala accepted a plum from a bowl that was being passed around then passed it on to David. She took a bite of the fruit.
“Tastes all the sweeter after the Wastelands.”
“What do you do out there?” David asked.
Kala shrugged. “This and that. Thinking mostly. I like being around the Zeros and all, but sometimes I’ve just got to have some space. You ever feel like that?”
David chewed on a piece of plum while he thought about the times he’d been alone. “No. I like being around other people.”
“A social animal, huh?”
“I guess so.”
She stopped him as he was about to throw his plum stone on the fire. “We keep them – to grow more.”
“Of course.”
Kala set hers down and David put his beside it.
“Funny to think a tree will grow from something so small,” he said.
“True. And I’ll tell you another funny thing – I went all the way into the Wastelands to be by myself and ended up in company.”
Though he didn’t know why, the hairs on the back of David’s neck stood up. “How so?”
“I say company – what I mean is I was following them, just for the fun of it to start with, but it’s just as well I did, I mean they had nothing – no food, no water – and all the springs they went to had long since dried up, so when –”
David tried to keep calm, but couldn’t contain himself. “Following who?”
Kala shrugged. “I don’t know, just a pair of drifters. A girl and a big mutant.”
David grabbed her by the arm. “The girl, long hair the colour of cobnuts? And the mutant, heavy brow, big sticky-out jaw, jaggy cheekbones, yes?”
Kala’s eyes, large to begin with, widened so much they were in danger of falling out of her head.
“What’s going on?” Cyrus was suddenly looming over them.
David ignored him. “Kala?”
She nodded.
David gasped. “Tell me, are they okay?”
“Let go of my arm first.”
David’s knuckles were white, his grip fierce. He let go. “I’m sorry – please – tell me – are they alright?”
“Thanks to me, yes.”
“Why – what did you do?”
“I gave them water and pemmican.”
“You talked to them?”
“No, I just left it for them.”
“How do you know they got it?”
“I told you – I was watching them.”
David closed his eyes for a moment. They were alive. Sorrel and Einstein were alive. They were on their way to find Eli, and it was all thanks to Kala.
“David – who are they?”
He opened his eyes to find Kala staring at him, her eyes full of concern.
“Sorrel – my girl – and Einstein – my friend.”
Even though it would probably earn him another bruise, he threw his arms around Kala and hugged her. This time she hugged him back.
“Thank you, Kala – thank you for helping them.”
“Any time.”
When he let go of her and looked up, Cyrus was nodding.
5.
Battle of the New Moon
David thought he’d be able to handle it, but being so close to the pit where the Sawneys had held him captive sent the jitters running through him. The jitters did not come alone – images of sharpened teeth and bulging eyes crowded his vision. They were so vivid he tried to wipe them away with his hand.
“You okay?” Cyrus whispered.
“I’ll be fine when we get started.”
“Not long now.”
David shifted his leg as cramp threatened. It didn’t help his jitters any that Valen was with them. Having only just found Sorrel’s father alive, David didn’t want to risk losing him at the hands of the Sawneys. He’d tried to argue the case for leaving him behind, but Cyrus was having none of it. One and all, they were in it together and they would need every Zero to overcome the Sawneys. Besides which, he argued, whatever was going on in Valen’s head, he’d survived until now and had as good a chance as any of them against the Sawneys.
Cloaked in the dark of the new moon, they were lying low in the rocky scrubland beyond the pit with one half of the Zeros. The rest were positioned at the other side of the Sawney’s camp, where the track led in from the Wild Woods.
The Sawneys had taken to their caves for the night, leaving two watchers on guard, their positions marked by the dull glow of murky lamplight.
David took a few deep breaths, sucking the air deep inside to calm himself.
“Soon,” Cyrus whispered.
In the silence that followed this solitary word, David picked out the small sounds emitted by the Zeros lying beside him. The scrape of a body against stony ground as someone repositioned, the breathing of another, the nervous tapping of a finger. The thought of each of them as keyed up as he was, as eager to get underway, reassured him. Kala was right – he was a social animal.
“Cyrus? Are you there?”
From behind them, Kala’s voice shot into the dark night, splintering the silence. The murky lights moved towards each other.
“Here we go,” Cyrus murmured.
Kala’s voice rang out again. “Cyrus, where are you?”
The lights disappeared as the watchers went into the caves to rouse the slumbering Sawneys. They reappeared a few moments later, only now they had multiplied.
Kala called again for Cyrus, the plaintive wail of her voice a beacon in the dark for the Sawneys. The lights swarmed towards her and the Zeros lying on the ground before her.
“Wait,” Cyrus warned. “Not yet.”
David’s heart thudded as the Sawney’s approached, his body keyed up, ready to go. The murky lights grew closer and closer. He could hear the excited beat of their feet and the low guttural sounds of their voices.
“Now!”
Cyrus roared the command and the Zeros scrambled into action. Tiny flames burst into life as matches were struck. Rag wicks were quickly lit and firebombs lobbed at the advancing Sawneys. There were screams as the bombs exploded in raging fireballs. The Sawneys fell back, arms raised to protect their pale, hollow-cheeked faces. Their dropped lanterns set the dry scrub ablaze.
While they were still reeling from the first assault, Mason led the firebomb attack from behind. Caught in the middle of the firestorm, the Sawneys shrieked and howled in pain and fury as they fought their way through the flames.
Knives drawn, axes swinging, the Zeros advanced. The first of the Sawneys, seared by the fire and in shock, went down easily, but though they looked as though their eyes could be knocked from their heads with one good slap and their bony bodies snapped in two as easily as a dried twig, the Zeros soon discovered just how vicious and hardy the Sawneys were.
Those not knocked out in the first round of combat were quick to retaliate, but the Zeros pushed forward. The first two Sawneys David came up against had been burned by the firebombs. He slashed his blade through their charred skin and they went down, never to come up. The third wasn’t so easy. She came at David in a howling rage of slashing teeth, clawing nails and sinewy strength, her skin as rough and tough as leathered hide.
He managed to knock the spear from her hand but she lunged at him undeterred, her snapping jaws aiming to take a chunk out of his face. He jerked his head to the side, avoiding her pointed teeth, though her lips skimmed his cheek. His gorge rose as the smell of her breath hit his nostrils, so thick and heavy he could taste it. It smelt of festering wounds and meat on the turn.
Repulsed, he drove his knife up under the Sawney woman’s ribcage and into her heart. She gasped and made one last, desperate lunge for his face. David pulled his knife free and pushed her away just as another Sawney attacked.
Lit by the burning
scrub, they battled through the night, Zeros versus Sawneys, the fight increasingly desperate as limbs ached and muscles wearied. There was no time to think, only to react and keep on reacting. Again, and again, the Sawneys came at the Zeros, fighting with brutal intensity. But the Zeros, disgusted by the cannibals and determined to win, fought on fiercely and bravely until finally, there were no more Sawneys to fight.
The first cold rays of the new day revealed the carnage of the night. Dead Sawneys lay charred and scattered in a field of ash. A few injured Zeros sat among them nursing wounds.
David picked his way through the battlefield, a knot of dread in his stomach as he looked for Valen. As he roamed among the fallen, he saw that it was not only Sawneys who had died that night. Among the Zeros lost, he saw Gilligan, the bearded pemmican maker, with Lucas kneeling by his side. When Lucas closed his friend’s eyes, David looked away, the scene a painful reminder of Hemp’s death.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Cyrus coming up behind him until he patted David on the shoulder.
Cyrus looked down at Gilligan. “We’ve lost friends for sure but they didn’t die in vain. We won, David. The Sawneys are no more.”
David was relieved to see Valen by Cyrus’s side, though with his vacant eyes staring out from a blood-splattered face he was no pretty sight.
Mason walked through the blood and ash towards them. His broad shoulders drooped, making him look as weary as David felt, but he mustered a grin when he drew close to them.
“We did it.”
“That we did,” this from Kala, who joined them from the opposite direction.
“What now?” David asked.
“Clear up time,” Cyrus said. “We’re going to wipe away every last trace of the Sawneys.”
Tired and hungry though the Zeros were, as the sun rose they set to work dragging the Sawneys’ bodies to the pit where David had been held captive. The corpses were dropped into it and left to rot beneath a thin covering of stones and gritty soil.
The ground was too hard for digging graves and so it was decided that the fallen Zeros would be wrapped as best they could be and laid to rest deep inside one of the caves.
When that was done, Cyrus saw David staring at the pyramid of skulls.
The New Day Page 5