A few others join in. Some of the men up front—their eyes light with hope and eagerness. I stare at each in turn, silently willing them to join the growing chant. I’m not Forsada, but I don’t need to be. I only need them to believe.
That one word now threatens to become a chant, picking up in pockets around us in the dark. I coil the whip and punch it into the air. Come on, people. Join in.
“Stop!” bellows Shem in front of me, and the chant dies away.
He still holds the broken spear, peering up at me. Intensity is in his stare, but it’s not the crazed rage of the caves or the drunken daze of the square. He holds my gaze for just a moment, then turns his back to me to address the dark crowd.
“This,” he shouts, holding up the broken spear, “ain’t what she wants you to believe!” He flips the splintered stick into the fire, and it catches and becomes part of the blaze.
“She ain’t Forsada,” he says. “Forsada ain’t real. All y’all know that. Ain’t no spirit gonna come out’n the woods and make everything right.” His voice echoes back to us off the nearby hills.
This can’t be happening. Why is he so cruel? It wasn’t enough he got his own son killed? It wasn’t enough to bury the rest of us alive? I can’t take this—I won’t let him do this.
“Don’t listen to him!” I screech, and my bruised voice breaks and cracks. I knew I couldn’t do this. I knew this would fail. This stupid paint, this stupid horse. The stupid, broken spear. Damn Shem.
“See?” Shem cackles into the crowd. “See? That ain’t Forsada. Forsada wouldn’t be crying now, would she? That’s cause Forsada ain’t real. She never was real.”
Please stop, Shem. Please.
I have nothing left. All my fight is gone. I dive into the horse’s neck and bury my face in her mane so no one will see my tears. But I can’t stop the sobbing.
“But Lupay is real!” His voice gets louder, roaring out the word real. “And she’s here! She’s here to fight them devils. The ones what stole our homes, burned our towns.”
I can’t bring myself to pull my face from the rough, warm mane of the horse. It doesn’t matter what he says anymore. It’s all over. Garrett, I need you. Won’t you come and take me away from here?
“And… while we were all pissing away the summer, pretending that army wasn’t nothin to worry about, Lupay fought back. My sons were fighting back. They rescued folks from all over the hills. You all jest sat and did shit-all.”
A man interrupts. “Now, wait a minute, Shem—”
“Let him talk,” says another.
“Talk?” replies Shem. “You heard Lupay. Time for talk is over. Time for you all—us all—to do what we shoulda done when those devils first came to Tawtrukk.”
“Fight back!” barks one of the men up front.
“With what? How?” It’s the first one, the interrupter.
I feel a hand on my thigh. “Lupay,” Shem says softly.
I open my eyes. Tears continue to flow down my cheeks. When I lift my face to look at him, the horse’s close, earthy smell is overpowered by Shem’s vinegar breath.
“Sit up, Lupay. Sit up straight.”
Why bother?
I sit up on the horse, feeling like a fool. A young girl, slathered in paint, playing at dolls. If all these grown men can’t find the answers, how did I ever think I could?
Shem keeps his hand on my thigh. He says softly, “What would William want you to do right now?”
Shack would want me to punch someone in the face. To tell them how worthless their talk is, how useless they are. To make them see themselves for the cowards they are. Not one of them fought for Lower or battled Darius’ patrols. Not one of them went to the meadow to rescue the prisoners. We did. Shack did. I can’t give up now. Shack didn’t give up, even when it was Shem who needed him.
I breathe deep and ignore the tears still dripping from my chin. I sit up tall on the horse. As I rise, I see the eagerness in many faces around us.
They’re not cowards. It’s not courage they’re missing. It’s a leader. It’s Forsada.
I fill my lungs with the chill air and hot smoke. I look down at the interrupting one, the non-leader. I repeat his own questions back to him. “With what? How? With whatever you have. With all your heart. With the memories of the ones who’ve already died.”
He sneers at me. “Memories? You want us to fight with memories? Soon we’ll be memories, too. All of us, dead!”
“Coward,” I hiss. It feels good. “Skunk. You stink.”
Time to give up the stupid play-acting.
“People of Tawtrukk,” I yell, and even though my dry voice cracks in the smoke, it feels good. “Arise! I leave now. I’m going to fight. I’m going to fight them until I win or die. Come with me!”
I flick the whip at the feet of the coward, letting its tip slice the bottom of his trousers, and I turn the horse toward the ruins of Upper. I don’t gallop away. Instead, I urge her slowly out of the central fire ring into the dark camp.
Behind me, a low chant begins. It’s too low for me to hear at first, and it started in the back, in the dark.
As I go, people pick up whatever they have. Some take tree-cutting axes, some have shovels or just pocket knives or even just sharpened sticks. Some pick up rocks. The ones nearest me look up as I pass, or touch my leg or the horse’s side. As we make our way to the outer edge of the camp, the chant overtakes us. Shem, who has caught up and is now walking by my side, joins in.
“Lupay!”
They are shouting my name, over and over.
CHAPTER 22
I stand on the hillside next to Garrett, watching the gray sky grow blue, thinking about last night’s battle.
“What a different sunrise today,” I say.
“I don’t know,” says Garrett, standing beside me. “Looks a lot like yesterday if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you, hermano. Besides, how would you know? You were in a cave. I saw it from right here.”
“Have you seen Patrick yet?” Garrett asks, raising his hand to shield his eyes and squinting down at the remains of last night’s battle. We all agreed to meet here at dawn.
“Not yet.”
“Hmm.”
“He’s valuable to us, Garrett,” I tell him.
“Hmm.”
He’s staring down the hill, breathing steady and slow, his expression completely emotionless.
“There.” He points toward the remains of the town. Only a little smoke-haze remains, but the air is still heavy with the smell of ash.
Most of the people have moved off from this part of town. They’ve gone to see their own homes, to find their dogs or horses, to discover if anything is left of their lives before Travis. Many went back to the refugee camp to gather what they’d left there last night. That was Shem’s idea, and it was a good one. They’re not ready, yet, to meet Patrick.
Up the hill Patrick comes now, with a half dozen other Southshawans behind him. They push up the hill straight for us, over the rocks and wildflowers and ignoring the path that winds around the side in a more shallow rise. Halfway up, he smiles and raises his hand in a wave. I start to wave back, but instead I keep my hand at my side when I sense Garrett stiffen. Since it’s clear I stopped myself, I try to hide the hitch by sniffling and wiping at my nose.
Their breath steams in the dawn’s thin chill. In a minute they’re close enough for me to hear them breathing hard after their rush up the hill. A second later, Patrick calls out. “Good morning.”
Garret doesn’t move or respond in any way.
Please be kind, Garrett.
I call back, “Yes, it’s a good morning.”
Patrick grins a big smile at me, but it falters when his eyes flick to Garrett. He slows as he nears us.
“This is where you took care of Travis and Clem?”
I point behind me to my right. Twenty yards away lie the two bodies. When I first saw them again this morning, I felt a little guilt. Not because I killed them. I
felt guilty for wishing that coyotes had picked apart their corpses in the night.
Patrick nods. “Forsada,” he says with a tight smile. His crisp, blue eyes laugh, but there’s something serious behind them, too. He doesn’t look at Garrett this time.
“Lupay,” says Garrett, without even a hint of humor.
Patrick looks straight at him now, Garrett’s height and the slope of the hill forcing him to tilt his head up and squint into the blue-gray sky. “Lupay,” he agrees with a nod.
Garrett, you can be such a pain, I think. But I’ll pretend I don’t notice. He’s entitled to hate this man. And so am I. But I don’t.
“The fight went well,” Patrick says. “I saw much of it from the woods. We were ready to help, but it never seemed necessary.”
“But,” Garrett says, “there are only seven of you.”
“The rest are mustered just down the hill. I thought that would be best. We could stop anyone who tried to get a message to Darius, and we’d also intercept anyone Darius might send up the hill. He does that sometimes. He doesn’t trust his own people.”
Garrett says, “And Freda?”
Patrick seems to go a little rigid at this. “The First Wife,” he says slowly, “has helped more than I could have hoped. The men I knew loyal to me came right away. But there were others that needed convincing. Seeing her, and hearing how Darius murdered Linkan and faked that attack… I can’t believe we were all deceived so thoroughly. But seeing the First Wife’s return from exile…” His voice fades into his thoughts.
I wait a moment for him to finish, but he doesn’t.
“So how many, then?” Garrett’s voice is tight and short.
“About three hundred.”
I do some quick math. If three hundred joined Patrick, then there would be another two hundred to account for. It’s hard to believe that the Tawtrukk people, with their clubs and sticks and rocks, could possibly have overcome that many Southshawans. But they did.
“A lot of the others,” Patrick says in answer to my silent questions, “tried to escape to Lower. Not many got past us.”
“Did any?” If even one makes it to Darius, he’ll know we’re coming.
“A few.” This comes from one of the men standing behind Patrick. He looks tired, and there’s a fresh cut on his forearm that looks like it only just stopped bleeding. It will take a while to heal. “But not many.”
Garrett asks, “How many is not many?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. One is the same as a hundred.”
Patrick nods. “In some ways, yes. He’ll know I’ve turned on him. He’ll know the people of Upper aren’t as soft as he’d thought. And he’ll know about Forsada.”
“Lupay,” Garrett says, but the edge in his voice now seems less like irritation and more like… pride?
“But in some ways, it won’t help him at all,” Patrick continues. “He won’t know about Freda, and he won’t expect Sam to come at him from behind.”
“Sam?” We’d planned some of what would happen next, but this is new.
“I sent him off with five others just after you left yesterday. It was his idea. They’ll go around and come up from behind, and when we attack from the river, they’ll go in and release the workers from the camp.”
“You mean the prisoner slaves,” Garrett says, his voice cold again.
“If you like.”
“I don’t like.”
“Fair enough. Whatever you want to call them, Sam will release them. And arm them.”
A tense silence falls over them both. I don’t want to think what might happen between them after this is all over.
“I think it’s a good plan,” I say, and I step between them and turn to Garrett. “It’s what we should have done a long time ago.”
He doesn’t move, but some of the color fades from his cheeks. He’s been thinking it, too. Probably for months. Just like I have. And now it’s time to make that right.
Patrick says softly, “We all should have done things different long ago.” His hand touches my shoulder and pushes me gently aside so he can look at Garrett. “At first, I believed in Darius. All the things he said seemed true. Until we got here. Until I saw that Tawtrukkers were—”
“Not mutants,” I say. I’ve heard this story before, only different.
He glances at me and nods slowly. “Not mutants. When I understood that, I knew Darius was wrong but I couldn’t see what was right.”
“You were afraid,” Garrett says, without sympathy.
“I was a coward,” Patrick agrees.
“No,” I say. I don’t know why I’m defending his actions. Or his inaction. “You were lied to.”
“It wasn’t until I saw you, Lupay, on the field that day. All three of you. Then, when Dane rode out on that horse, it was all so clear. Darius wasn’t just wrong. He’d lied. He wasn’t righteous. Even then, when I knew it without any doubt… even then I took too long to do what was right.”
We stand together in silence, the tension melted into sadness and regret. Guilt.
“So,” Garrett says finally, his voice strained but not angry anymore, “shall we go?”
Without any more words, we descend to the ash piles that used to be the houses and workshops and chicken coops of Upper. We pass people returning from the refuge camp carrying undersized bundles or pulling half empty wagons. Some still wear the exultation of revenge, hot from the battle overnight. Others stoop under the weariness of loss, disoriented in their own village. I know how they all feel.
We pass body after body. We tell Patrick how the fight went, how none of the Southshawans surrendered. Not that we gave them that option. Volunteers cart the dead to a spot north of the city, downhill, where they can be burned or buried later.
Tomorrow at sunrise these people will all join us, with Patrick’s rebels, and walk the fifteen miles to Lower.
A half mile below the town around Hooper’s Corner, the camp of three hundred men comes into view. It holds itself in, tight and tidy, the small tents in neat rows across Hooper’s Meadow. As we approach, the eerie quiet makes me shiver. Men huddle silent and slow around small campfires. Horses graze on the far side of the meadow. No one seems to notice or care about our approach.
I start to feel sick. These men may have had a change of heart, but they still burned Sikwaa. They enslaved my family. They swept through Lower and killed friends of mine. And I’ve killed friends of theirs.
The stench of the camp rises and makes me dizzy. Three hundred men, stinking of sweat and worn-out leather and wet grass. My stomach spins and bubbles as memories overcome me, memories of that first night when I climbed the tree and saw Darius’ army. All these men were there that night. As were the men walking beside me now.
I stagger a little farther before I can’t keep it in anymore. I jolt to a stop and turn left, bending over and retching into the grass. I gag and cough and spit over and over. I can’t stop. My chest heaves as I puke again and again until nothing comes out but yellow spit. My ribs and stomach and spine ache with every spasm. At some point Garrett grabs me and says something, but so what.
When the retching subsides a little, I stumble a few steps away and kneel. I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. It only makes the whole world spin in black and orange torture. Someone grabs me again as I fall over onto my side. As the sharp stink of my own vomit mixes with the foul stench of the camp, I feel the blackness filling my thoughts and feel grateful that I’m going unconscious. Or maybe dying. Either way. It’s okay.
“Ready for something to eat?”
It’s dark, and the air is light with a clean smell of pine smoke and fresh bread, with a hint of mint. Susannah sits nearby, her face illuminated by a candle on a stump between us. She holds a steaming bowl in both hands. A soft pillow cradles my head. I must be lying on a bed. In a tent? No, in a building.
I try to sit up, but she presses me back to the bed with a gentle hand on my chest. “Shhh. It’s nearly midnight. Don’t get up.�
�
I eye the bowl in her lap and try to swallow. My mouth is as dry as a vulture’s feather, and just blinking makes my whole head hurt.
“Here,” Susannah says as she raises the bowl and leans in close. She lifts a wooden spoon and places it to my lips. “Chicken broth, with some herbs for strength. And to settle your stomach.” The broth steams, and its gentle warmth spreads through my whole body as I swallow.
I sip a dozen times before my tongue is moistened enough to rasp out a breathy thank you.
I let her baby me for a few minutes more, cherishing her benevolent smile. The dizziness and sickness are gone, and my body needs to move and stretch. I breathe deep, relishing the minted night air and the feeling of fullness. My strength is already returning, and I discover smells beneath the mint. Onions. Rosemary and lavender. The homely dustiness of an old shack.
“Well, you certainly put that down quick, didn’t you?” Susannah speaks softly with happiness flavoring each word. She sets the bowl aside and looks around the dim room. I can’t see much but the dark lines of a boarded ceiling framed by a pale flutter of cobwebs.
“Welcome to my home,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s proud or apologetic. Maybe a little of both. “You’d recognize it from the outside. This is where we first met. I’m sure you remember.” She looks at me sideways, pretending to have her attention somewhere else but studying me.
“I remember,” I say. And I do. Her terrible husband, refusing to come to Sikwaa. The Southshaw patrol dragging the little girls through the dirt. Susannah’s warm hand in mine as we walked away. “I remember.”
She stops looking elsewhere and studies me with happiness on her lips but concern behind her eyes. “Do you? Remember?” Skepticism tinges her words. “Really?”
“Of course.”
She wipes her hands on her apron and stands, taking the bowl and spoon. “You gave us quite a scare, you know.” She glides across the room, her long dress swirling dust from the floor into the candlelight. “Collapsing like that. Good thing Garrett was there to catch you and Tom was watching. Tom fetched me right away.”
“That was…” I think back. Not long after sunrise. “Wait. Did you say it’s midnight?”
Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series Page 24