by T. J. Klune
And Lucas smiled. It looked foreign on his face because it wasn’t that of the shark. There was something else buried in it. A tinge of sadness. Of longing.
And so many bees.
They were both covered in them.
Bad Dog barked worriedly. They’re coming! They’re coming!
Cavalo turned.
Out past the southern road, through the fields of snow that led to the tree line, there was movement. Cavalo’s eyes were not what they once were. He knew that. He was older. His body wasn’t as strong as it’d been when he first started out on that horse so long ago. Age and a grenade exploding in his son’s hands had seen to that. The edges were duller than they’d been before, but he could still see.
They moved out from the trees. Men and women. They wore black fur and spikes. Their heads were shaved into strange designs. Tattoos curled up around their necks and scalps. Black armbands wrapped around biceps. Some were sick, the effects of radiation shown in tumors and distorted skin. But even those obviously ill did not stutter in their steps. They walked with purpose, and the line of people that stepped from the trees seemed to stretch on farther than Cavalo cared to look.
They stopped halfway across the field, close enough now that Cavalo could hear them shuffling through the snow. Lucas tensed at his side, and Cavalo reached down to grip his hand. Lucas’s fingers entwined with his own. He felt the strength there, in the long, thin fingers. The skin and bones that held him tight.
“Bad Dog,” he said quietly. “Down with BigHank. Now.”
But—
“Now.”
Bad Dog licked his hand once, then went to the edge of the platform. “I got you,” he heard Hank say as Bad Dog grumbled.
Patrick separated himself from the rest of the Dead Rabbits. He walked in front of them. Gone was the showman’s smile. Now it was just the bees. “Last chance,” he called out. “Think about what you’re doing, Cavalo. Those people trust you. Think about what you’re making them do.”
“You talk too much,” Cavalo said, his voice carrying across the field. “I’m done with you.”
The feral smile returned.
Cavalo had a bad feeling about this.
“Everyone inside?” he said quietly.
“Yes,” Hank said from below.
“Go. Now.”
Cavalo could hear Hank hurry away.
“I look forward to seeing what you’re made of,” Patrick said. “All spread out in the snow. Kuegler! Blower! Show these people how we say hello.”
Two men rushed to him, stopping on either side. They dropped to their knees. It was only then that Cavalo saw the RPGs brought up to their shoulders.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
There was the blast of the weapons discharging, but Cavalo didn’t see the rockets fire toward them. Lucas had already pulled him away from the outer wall. Time slowed down around them, and through the storm of bees that roared in his head, Cavalo could hear the sharp whistling sound of objects slicing quickly through the air. He had time to think that he should have expected this given the black, scorched hole at Grangeville. He had time to wonder if he’d made a mistake, if he should have let them all run.
He had time to notice it’d started snowing again.
But then time ran out as Lucas pulled him off the edge of the platform. They jumped, and right before the wall exploded behind them, Lucas twisted in the air, pulling Cavalo to him, covering his body as if to shield him. Before Cavalo could even begin to process what he was doing, a wave of hot air slammed into their backs, knocking them apart. Cavalo landed on his side in the snow, curling up into a ball as burning wood rained down around him. Something heavy bounced off his legs, and he grunted. His ears felt cotton-stuffed. The snow had lessened the impact, but his arm was sore. Nothing felt broken. At least not physically.
He pushed himself up, and the world shook around him, and he had lost something, Charlie, had lost something deep inside the snow globe. He looked back along the outer wall and saw the gaping hole where the platform had been.
But then hands were on him, pulling him up. He tried to tell the hands that he was fine, that he was okay, just let him take his time. They didn’t listen. They pulled until he was on his feet. His ears popped then, and everything roared around him, assaulting him. He flinched and shook his head.
“Lucas,” he said, unsure.
The hands belonged to Lucas. Those dark eyes glared back at him, the mask creasing as they traveled up and down Cavalo. Are you hurt? he demanded.
“No,” he said gruffly. “Get inside. Hurry.” Because he could hear them now. The Dead Rabbits. They were coming.
Lucas pulled him quickly toward the hastily constructed inner wall twenty yards into Cottonwood. Even before they’d moved a few feet, Lucas stopped, scanning the ground in front of him. Cavalo looked over his shoulder and saw debris from the wall littering the ground in front of them. He knew what Lucas was looking for. It was the only safe way through the town. Cavalo was disoriented, and it took him a moment to find it.
“There,” he said, pointing to their left.
Lucas hadn’t yet let go of his hand and didn’t now. He led Cavalo between two houses where wooden planks lay atop the snow in a thin path toward the inner wall. The windows of the houses on either side of him were boarded shut. Dozens of rusted nails were pounded through the wood. They stuck out at odd angles.
Cavalo pulled his hand away from Lucas and bent to pick up each plank as they passed over them, tossing them along the edges of the empty houses. Lucas watched over him each time he stopped, glaring at the way they’d come to make sure the Dead Rabbits hadn’t yet breached the wall. They passed through the alley between the houses and were back out in the open on the street. The back windows on the stretch of houses behind them had all been busted out. The sharp smell of oil and gas poured from the windows, but the wind carried it quickly away.
The wooden pathway ahead curved up and over a mound of snow and ended at a slat of wood that could be shifted on the inner wall. He turned to start throwing the remaining planks out of the way so the Dead Rabbits couldn’t see the path. Lucas grabbed him then, pulling him roughly back up and shaking his head.
But the movement was too fast, and they lost their balance. Lucas’s eyes widened as he struggled to hold himself upright. Cavalo reached for him as he fell toward the snow. Cavalo gritted his teeth as his feet slid along the cold wood, struggling to keep them from falling to certain death. His feet hit the edge of the plank, and he curled his toes, grunting as the muscles in his arms strained. It was close. Another few inches. Lucas was almost horizontal to the ground, his nose scraping against the surface of the snow. Cavalo breathed heavily through his nose as he looked down.
He could see the faint outline of the land mine in the snow directly below Lucas. And the one next to it. And the one next to that. And the one next to that. He couldn’t see every one of them, but he knew they stretched around the inner wall. All partially hidden in snow. A line of defense thanks to SIRS and his magical box he’d pulled down the mountain. A box filled with mines and other tools of destruction that Cavalo didn’t know he’d had. He wondered if he’d ever be able to ask the robot where and why he’d kept them hidden all this time.
Lucas had almost fallen on one. It would have been the end then. For both of them.
“Holy shit,” Cavalo gasped, pulling him back up. He felt Lucas shudder once as he stood upright. The grin Lucas tossed back at him was too shaky to be normal, or as normal as a smile from the Dead Rabbit could be. His eyes were too wide. His brow lined with sweat. His hands shook.
Too close.
“They’re coming!” Hank shouted down at them from the inner wall. “Move your asses!”
Both Cavalo and Lucas snapped their attention toward him. He was waving frantically at them. Members of the Patrol stood, armed with ancient machine guns and high-powered rifles. Aubrey and Deke had their bows drawn, waiting for the tips of the arrows to be lit to
ignite their first line of defense.
They were running out of time. They only had once chance to get this right, and they’d fire even if Cavalo and Lucas weren’t out of the way.
“Go!” Cavalo roared, pushing Lucas farther down the planks. The snow fell heavier now, flakes melting against Cavalo’s heated face. He thought he could hear every single noise around him and didn’t allow himself to look back because the Dead Rabbits would be right there—
They crested the snowbank. A trench stretched out before them, six feet across and five feet deep. A heavy board acted as a bridge from one side to the other. Lucas went first, taking only three steps to cross. Cavalo followed quickly, glancing down as he did so. The trench was filled with thin posts embedded into the frozen ground, their ends shaved into sharp points that rose toward the gray sky. He leapt the last couple of feet and Lucas kicked the board away, knocking it into the trench. It fell between the wooden pikes below.
Cavalo reached the inner wall and shoved the slat to the side. He pushed Lucas through the narrow entrance and followed him in, head to the side as his knees scraped against the wall. Lucas turned and yanked him in the rest of way. They grinned maniacally at each other. His mask felt stretched tight across his face. He thought it would crack. Maybe the rest of him would follow.
Bad Dog barked once, a sharp sound of warning.
Cavalo turned and slid a metal bar down over the inside of the opening in the wall. He wrapped a chain around it, securing the wall so it wouldn’t open from the outside. He knew it was almost pointless; grenade launchers always beat chains. He had time to appreciate just how far Patrick was willing to take this. But what struck him the most was how Patrick obviously had faith in Lucas dodging rockets. He wouldn’t have risked firing at him otherwise, not with Lucas’s skin marked as it was.
Lucas was already up the ladder with the Patrol. Cavalo glanced at the buildings behind the wall. He could see people peering cautiously out the windows, their hands wrapped around their weapons. They mostly kept to the first floors, with only a few of the crack shots on the second. They hadn’t wanted to take the chance of too many people getting stuck on a higher floor if the Dead Rabbits overran the town.
If? the bees laughed, sounding breathless. You mean when.
He didn’t have time for his bees.
Patrick was coming.
He pulled himself up the ladder and was handed his bow. Bad Dog stood at his side, tail thumping. Lucas twirled his knife that he’d somehow held on to. Cavalo watched as Hank handed Lucas a bow and quiver too, and an assault rifle. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and nocked an arrow, holding it down at his side. Cavalo looked down the line of the wall. Twenty people stood on either side of him, spread out evenly along the wall and waiting for his signal. Ten more people stood behind them against the back of the walkway, holding burning torches. He could tell they were scared, but they weren’t allowing it to consume them. Cavalo felt a strange burst of fierce pride in his chest as he saw the determined looks on their faces. Deke nodded at him, and Aubrey offered him a tight smile. Frank and his crew had their jaws set, shoulders tense. Hank and Alma stood on either side of Lucas and Cavalo. Bad Dog was in the middle of them all, growling in the back of his throat.
“Light them and hold!” Cavalo growled. “Be prepared to move. Arrows only.” The message was carried down the wall in hushed whispers.
He looked down into the outer edges of Cottonwood. The hole blasted into the outer wall was obscured by a house. He couldn’t see out over the far wall and into the field as this section of Cottonwood was down on a slope. He didn’t have to wait long.
The Dead Rabbits spilled out between the houses, stopping just along the edges. A few more feet and they’d be in the minefield. Cavalo wasn’t sure why they stopped, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
A young man whose name Cavalo did not know lit the tip of his arrow. It caught easily and burned, having been wrapped in an old rag and soaked in heating oil.
“Hold,” he muttered, taking aim. The people of Cottonwood did the same.
More Dead Rabbits came forward. Dozens. A hundred. More. An army against a little town. He didn’t see Patrick, but he knew he had to be mixed in there somewhere. Whatever else he might have been, Cavalo didn’t take Patrick for a coward. People infested with bees hardly ever were.
“Hold.” The bowstring was tense against his arm.
More and more filed in. Too many of them. The alleys between the houses were choked with Dead Rabbits. He could see their guns. Their bombs. Their machetes. He could see them gnashing their teeth. Their painted faces. The dirt on their skin. They were dark against the snow.
“Hold.” A snowflake fell on the burning arrow and hissed quietly.
Three Dead Rabbits stepped forward, rocket launchers on their shoulders.
“Cavalo,” Hank warned, his voice shaking.
“Hold!” Cavalo snapped at him.
And then he saw him. Briefly. Moving in the crowd. It was just a flash. Just a moment. Two Dead Rabbits crossed in front of each other, and there Patrick was, watching Cavalo with that grotesque smile on his face. It was all he needed.
“Now!”
Fourteen arrows flew toward seven houses, each with windows broken out on the top and bottom floors. He had picked these archers because they were the best shots. Aubrey and Deke. Hank and Alma. Frank. Others whose names he could not remember. One was only fourteen but handled a bow like a master. His mother had tried to argue, but Lucas had snarled silently at her, and that was that. His aim had been true. That was all that mattered to Cavalo.
And they were true now. All of them. When it mattered the most. Cavalo had only reminded them once that they only had one shot at this. Any mistakes and the battle would be over before it had even begun.
There were cries of warning from the Dead Rabbits. Some carried wooden shields and raised them over their heads. Others attempted to scatter, but the crowd was too congested for them to move. A few stragglers toward the backs edged back toward the outer wall.
The arrows went over the Dead Rabbits, trailing wisps of black smoke through the white snow. Their aim was true, as Cavalo had known they would be. They’d practiced enough. And they had no other choice. The arrows went through the broken windows. There were brief flashes of fire in some of the houses as fumes caught, but nothing further.
The Dead Rabbits lowered their arms. They looked around. One started laughing, and it only took a moment for others to join in. “That’s all you got!” one of them shouted.
“No,” Cavalo said, only for the people around him to hear. “That’s not all.”
Maybe they’d overdone it. Maybe they’d put too much. They’d scrounged up all the oil and gas they could. Had soaked the floors in the houses. Stacked land mines, as many as thirty, on each floor of each house. They didn’t have rockets as the Dead Rabbits did, but SIRS had brought them hundreds of mines in his shiny metal box.
“Burn the houses before the mines go off,” SIRS had told him quietly. “There will be fire then.”
The men with the rocket launchers took aim again.
Maybe they’d overdone it, because there was a moment when smoke began to pour out the windows and Cavalo thought too much, too much, no, no, no, but then it was all obliterated, swallowed up as a house in the center seemed to expand on its foundation, the panel siding rippling. But the illusion of expansion was lost when the siding blew out, sharp licks of fire shooting through the flying debris. The force of the explosion on the bottom blew upward through the house. The second floor bowed upward for just a brief, impossible moment before it too ignited. The second blast was much louder than the first as parts of the roof blew off, flipping wildly into the air.
Dead Rabbits were screaming as the ones closest to the house were knocked off their feet. Blood splattered against the snow as the nails hammered into the boarded windows shot out like bullets and slammed into Dead Rabbit skin. Other flesh was blackened and pierced
with shards of wood. Cavalo felt savagely pleased when they started to fall to the ground.
Before the Dead Rabbits could run, a second house went, both floors exploding in concert. And then a third. The next two exploded at the same time. The last two went off in quick succession. The roar echoed across Cottonwood, and waves of heat battered the faces of those lining the wall, weapons drawn. Cavalo could see the shockwaves hitting the falling snow, buffeting it before vaporizing water crystals into nothing.
Fire rose toward the gray sky, the black smoke and orange flames swirling, creating shadows that danced along the Dead Rabbits. Many of them lay sprawled on the ground. Many were screaming. Many were silent. Many were rising out of the snow.
So many rising.
One toward the front took a shuffling step forward. He looked to be no older than Lucas. The left side of his head was soaked with blood. He looked dazed. He shook his head. Took another step. Leaned over, and for a moment, Cavalo thought the Dead Rabbit was going to be sick. Blood dripped off his head to the ground. His hands went down to the snow, dragging, searching. And then he stood, pulling one of the RPGs up and out of the snow. He stood too fast and overshot, the rocket going toward the sky. He took a step back, levelled the rocket launcher, and there wasn’t enough time—
A single shot fired out over the divide. The Dead Rabbit staggered back, blood spraying from his throat. The RPG pointed toward the ground. The Dead Rabbit’s finger must have jerked on the trigger because the rocket fired and exploded almost instantly. The young Dead Rabbit vanished in a spray of gristle and bone.
Lucas smiled as he pulled his rifle back, the barrel smoking as he held it up against his shoulder. Cavalo could see Patrick in that smile. The shark and the showman. Lucas tilted his head toward the Dead Rabbit he’d just killed. Never really liked him, he said. Always trying too hard.
Cavalo couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response.
Lucas grinned now. It was a thing of teeth and bees.
“Cavalo!” Hank snapped.