by Chris Bostic
“You sleeping again?” Joe asked.
“Just resting my eyes.” Pete gestured toward Connie. “He’s been out the whole time.”
“I suppose getting shot will do that to a guy.” Leisa went to go check on the sergeant. Joe stood close to Pete, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
While Leisa tried to rouse Connie, Pete pressed Joe with questions about the officers shooting their men to reestablish order. Then Joe had to repeat the story once Connie finally blinked his eyes open and became aware enough to realize what all he had missed.
“I guess that confirms what I’ve heard,” Connie said. His voice seemed far more tired than authoritative. “They’ll stop at no ends to motivate their troops. And you guys thought I was tough.”
Connie shot an amused look between Leisa and Joe before asking someone to help him to his feet. That unusual request gave Joe serious misgivings about the hike ahead of them.
“We can rest longer,” he offered. “I mean, if you’re not ready to go.”
Connie panted from the struggle to stand. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Begrudgingly, Joe agreed to lead the group again, and made a point of going slower than normal as they crossed the mound. He figured the open ground might not be too difficult, but the challenge would be going fast enough to avoid detection—if anyone was still around. Then they’d have to climb the hill.
Connie seemed to have grown a little stronger by the time they made it to the edge of the mound, though he cursed under his breath multiple times getting there.
As they stood behind the last row of shelter, Connie took a giant breath. He blew it out and said, “Let’s double time it. No wasting time getting across.”
“Yes, sir,” Joe replied, though the last word caught in his throat. He threw his hands out to the sides. “Get down.”
Three heads turned and all immediately saw what Joe had noticed. They hunkered down in the bushes at the edge of the mound and watched with wide eyes as a pair of white-robed figures stepped out of the brush along the distant hillside.
Joe blinked the sweat away from his eyes as the late morning sun beat down into the valley. His vision cleared, allowing him to watch the two figures approach the closest body, which had been left out in the open to broil.
Upon reaching the downed soldier, the second man moved off to the side to the next closest victim. The first man dropped to his knees and proceeded to examine the body the way Joe had seen the similarly-clothed healer work on Connie.
“If that thing gets up, I’m getting outta here,” Pete muttered. “No way they bring the dead to life. No way.”
“You could say I’m living proof,” Connie whispered back, though Joe wasn’t certain that the sergeant had been technically dead. But he’d definitely been as close as a man could get.
Joe sat there watching in wonderment, expecting the victim to rise. The only one who moved was the shaman.
He’s no witch doctor after all, Joe thought as the white robes swished and moved off to examine another body.
They can’t really bring the dead back to life, Joe reasoned. The unidentified man next to Connie on the table had never risen up to run off with them.
“Maybe they can only heal,” Joe said aloud.
“Could be,” Leisa agreed. “That other guy with Sarge-”
“I don’t know what they can do,” Pete interrupted. “But I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
As if on cue, one of the fallen soldiers rolled to his side under the touch of the second man. Robes rippled as the healer gestured for his companion to come over. The group watched in amazement as the injured soldier eventually rose to his feet in front of them.
“Unholy alliance,” Pete muttered. “This is insane.”
“I don’t know what they’ve got, but I need some of that,” Connie quipped. “I could use a little more of that painkiller.”
“No way,” Pete said. “That’s freaking magic.” He continued rambling to himself as the healers moved from one body to another. When they brought a second soldier back to his feet, Pete cursed again. “This is unnatural.”
Neither Joe nor the others would argue that point. It was almost inconceivable that a backwards country of seemingly illiterate soldiers with hundred year old weapons had achieved something medically that the Republic had been unable to match over their forty year history.
Joe thought of his ailing mother, and how he’d love to know the secret or magic—or whatever it was. Though he couldn’t be sure that Connie hadn’t been in some way damaged, the blood and guts part of his physical wounds had been healed. Other than lingering exhaustion and a revisiting of the pain, probably from the fall, Joe felt certain his grizzly sergeant was a long way from death’s door.
The two reanimated soldiers milled around in the open field as if they were mindless robots. The white robes continued to swish amongst the dead, and finally left the last of the victims where they laid.
“Guess two were only wounded,” Joe said.
Without a hand gesture or sound Joe could hear, the soldiers seemed to obey some kind of unspoken command. They quit their aimless pacing, fell into line in front of the healers, and followed one of the well-worn paths toward the hillock.
Joe tensed. He realized the squad was in a less concealed position than where he had hidden with Leisa. He looked to Connie, wondering if they should try to slink back up the mound.
“You want to get back a little?”
“Nah, I think I’d like to see these guys up close,” Connie replied.
Pete muttered under his breath something undoubtedly impolite, but he held his ground.
“I don’t see any weapons,” Leisa noted.
“That’s true.” Connie grimaced as he settled lower behind a thick bush. “We’ll be fine, but be ready.”
The four figures grew ever larger in Joe’s field of view. He kept his head down, and noticed the two enemy soldiers did the same. The healers also didn’t look much to either side, perhaps because they had no one else to coordinate with.
As they approached the base of the hill, Joe held his breath and tried to stay as still as possible. He heard the sound of footsteps pounding the fertile valley, and watched through his squinted eyes as they turned like the others to skirt the mound. Then came the humming.
Seconds stretched to minutes as they plodded past, quite a bit slower than the previous groups. Joe breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they had slipped by.
“You guys heard that, right?”
“The ommming?” Connie replied.
“Yeah. All the other groups did that too.”
“It’s gotta be like a calming thing, like brainwashing,” Leisa said. “I’ve heard of people who talk to the animals. The humming seems like the way I would imagine that going down.”
“You talk to your chickens that way?” Joe said.
“Say what?” Connie replied, looking from Joe to Leisa.
“I raise chickens back home,” she explained before turning to Joe. “But, no. I don’t make a habit of it.”
“You could though,” he teased. “Maybe to get them to lay more eggs or not run around when they’re headless.”
“They wouldn’t have ears.”
Connie and Pete had sat back and watched the whole exchange, as bewildered as if they were watching dead men come back to life again. Finally, Connie interrupted.
“I’ve seen and heard some goofy stuff today, but that’s about enough.” He looked at them with a deeper warning disguised in a furrowed, bandaged brow. “I think we better knock off the arguing, ladies, and worry about getting back home.”
“Yes, sir,” they both replied sheepishly. Joe stepped away from Leisa, but not without a subtle, hidden pat on her backside.
She hid a smile in a smirk and walked to the other side of Connie. Together, they stared out at the open field.
“Seems like we could start a fire out there or something,” she said. “Send up a big cloud of
smoke. Make a giant ruckus.”
“What for?” Pete asked sharply. “That’s stu-”
She interrupted his newest tirade. “To signal the hovers, genius.”
“As if they’re even flying.”
“At least there’s plenty of room to land,” she shot back.
“Easy.” Connie held his hands out at his sides as if he was prying the antagonists apart. “It’s not a bad idea, but it sounds like several thousand savages just walked through this valley. I’d hate to give them a reason to come back.”
“They could be asleep by now,” Leisa said weakly, trying to make her idea seem more logical.
Joe wanted to agree with her, but he was on Connie’s side that time. So he wisely kept his mouth shut. Pete wasn’t so polite as to keep his disagreement to himself, and Connie had to raise his weakening voice to silence him again.
“We’re moving on, ladies.” He pointed across the valley to the hillside. “I want to be on top of that ridge by dark.”
“Should be easy enough,” Joe said, and quickly pinched his mouth shut. Connie had seemed even more wobbly as he’d refereed Leisa’s argument with Pete, and that wasn’t a good sign. But he figured there was no sense wondering. Getting Connie over to the slope was going to be the only way to tell if the sergeant could climb the hill. If he couldn’t, Joe would figure out a Plan B after they got there.
CHAPTER 28
Crossing the valley didn’t prove to be as difficult as Joe had expected, but the urgency to get across the opening and into the cover of the woods had taxed the sergeant to his limit.
With tongue hanging out of his mouth, Connie panted worse than a hot, tired dog.
“You want a drink?” Joe worked the water tubing free from his helmet and pulled out all the slack until the little plastic line dangled about six inches below the neck of his armor.
“I wouldn’t let him,” Pete said, provoking a sharp look from Leisa. “He might be contagious or something.”
Joe hadn’t really considered that, but he was confused enough that it slowed his response for a second. “Surely not,” he finally said, but made sure to take a big drink off the mouthpiece before offering the tubing again to Connie.
“Thanks,” Connie replied without dignifying Pete with a response.
Joe assumed it looked weird to have a grown man with his head practically resting on his chest as he suckled from the water tube, but he was also past the point of caring. He glowered across at Pete as Connie drank, but kept his thoughts to himself.
When Connie was done, Joe wiped off the tip of the nozzle and let it hang outside his uniform. He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he was honestly a little hesitant about drinking after his sergeant. However, he would if he had to. Better yet, he thought, they should get done with the lounging around and get serious about finding their way back to their lines.
“Ready to go?” Joe asked Connie.
“Ready enough. Let’s climb this thing.”
From up close, the hillside didn’t look as steep as it had from the mound. Joe soon found that it didn’t matter. They’d barely started up the slope before the sergeant was breaking down like a worn out machine.
He offered up a shoulder. Connie accepted, but that only got them another twenty steps. Joe soon felt the burn too. Leisa came over to help on the sergeant’s other side, and they lumbered another couple dozen steps before coming to a halt.
Joe stared up the slope. He couldn’t quite make out the ridge top through the vegetation, but knew they weren’t anywhere close to halfway. Not even a third.
He let Connie slump to the ground to try to give his own aching back and legs a rest. The seconds became several minutes as Joe eventually collapsed to the ground. Leisa also slumped down, but not too close to him.
“This isn’t working,” Connie said, speaking Joe’s mind for him.
“Not really,” Leisa said. “We won’t make the top by nightfall at this rate.”
“So…we need a different plan.” Joe’s eyes flitted around the forest, trying to find a sturdy cane or something he could use to fashion a walker or crutches.
“Just leave me,” Connie said.
Leisa shook her head. “We’re not doing that again, Sarge.”
“Send someone back. You guys can make it.”
“Too risky,” Joe said. “But…” He rose to his feet, an idea slowly forming.
“But what?” Leisa asked.
“Find some fallen branches. The bigger the better.” Joe turned to Pete. “Do you have any rope in that backpack of yours?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then rip that blanket into long shreds.”
“Oookay,” Pete said skeptically, but did as he was told.
Joe hurried around the forest, not straying too far so he could keep the group in view at all times. From across the woods, Leisa held up a branch about as thick as his arm.
“How’s this?”
“Perfect,” he said. He showed her that he was carrying an armful of similar branches. “Now just find a bunch more.”
“I’ll try.”
Joe dropped his pile next to Connie and made one more pass around the area. Leisa brought back about as many branches as his second load. He sat on the ground and started arranging them in some kind of logical order.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked.
“We’re gonna make a sled. He’ll be a lot easier to pull up the hill.”
“And slide back down the other side,” she said with a wink.
“Exactly. Not point stopping at the top if this works. So help me lash these together?” He looked up at Pete. “You too?”
“Sure.” Pete settled in next to them with a handful of blanket strips, and went to work tying branches.
“The hard part is making something to grab onto,” Joe said. “The raft part is easy, but we need something sturdy to pull on.”
“How about the longest branches?” Pete asked. “I can tie ‘em real tight to the others.”
Joe considered the idea and gave it his blessing. Between the lashings and the friction of the branches against the ones they were bound to, it sounded like the best bet.
They worked for a long time while Connie rested in the shade. He moaned in his sleep, not unlike what Joe had heard when the sergeant had seemed nearly lifeless on the table.
“We really need to get him to a medic,” Joe said as they finished up the sled.
Leisa agreed. “Whatever they gave him is wearing off.”
“Connie, you awake?” Joe said, and walked over to rouse him.
A pained grunt was the only reply. Joe knelt beside him and listened to his ragged breathing. Connie’s eyes remained closed. Joe shook him on the shoulder gently, and swore he felt heat boiling through the sergeant’s uniform shirt.
“Crap.” Joe pressed a hand to the groggy man’s forehead and whirled around to the others. “He’s burning up.”
“Who isn’t?” Pete replied as he panted in the shade like everyone else.
“Not that. He’s got a fever.”
Leisa hurried over and quickly confirmed it. She turned back to Pete. “Bring that sled over here.”
“Hurry,” Joe added, not bothering to try to hide the concern in his voice.
They worked quickly, all three of them lifting the big man to get him on the stretcher.
“What a load,” Pete said, dropping to a knee.
“You’re telling me.” Leisa sucked in a deep breath and ran to the front to grab one of the long, makeshift handles.
Joe took the other, and threw an order over his shoulder at Pete. “You push from behind.”
“How else would I push?” he replied.
Joe bit back a reply and yanked on the handle. It held, but the sled barely moved. Leisa joined in from the left side, and they pulled as hard as they could. Once Pete got around to pushing, they started to make decent progress.
Fortunately, the hill wasn’t very rocky; however, the sled still bum
ped hard over the uneven ground. Connie moaned, but kept motionless. The three of them sweated through their uniforms until Joe thought puddles would fill his boots. At least he was still sweating, though he knocked hard on the door to dehydration.
With a herculean effort, they closed on the top of the hill. Joe turned around with his back to the top and pulled with both hands. He crow hopped as the sled rose inches at a time. His hands burned worse than his face. His palms blistered from the rough wood of the branch, but he kept on dragging.
The second Joe burst free from the tree cover, he dropped the sled and sat back on the rocks lining the ridge top. Leaving Connie in the shadows with Pete, he rolled to his side and looked to the spine.
They’d beaten nightfall. Beyond the hills, the sun had dropped considerably lower. A breeze swelled the leaves, providing the first relief in hours. He sat there for a moment waiting for Leisa to join him—but mostly because he was too tired to move.
She soon slouched beside him and said, “What’s on the other side?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Wasn’t that nice.” She forced a pained smile and looked at the spine. “Ready?”
“Not yet.” Joe drew in more much needed air and stared at the darkening sky. A moan from Connie kept him from lingering too long. “Now I am.”
They crawled side by side to the top, and peered over as they’d done so many times before. The ridge dipped down but not very far before rising to another peak.
“Great, more hills,” Joe said.
“You expect something else?”
“Of course not, but…” He pointed off slightly to their west. “You know, that looks kinda familiar. Like we saw earlier, with the fighting over by Nochni.”
“Could be. It seems a lot closer now.” She chuckled under her breath. “We could be home by breakfast.”
“We better be, for Connie’s sake.” Joe suddenly perked up and pointed into the sky above the far ridge. A fat gray disk hung in the distance. He pulled off his helmet and shielded his eyes from the sun. “Is that a hover?”
“No way.” Leisa followed his finger with a squint. She should’ve have lowered her visor, but took off her helmet instead. She made a tunnel with her hands, and soon after a broad grin made her look like a child with a new toy. “I think so.”