The Glass Mountains: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 2

by J. V. Roberts

  “This was our escape,” Nishi said.

  “We had just gotten married.” Amar smiled at Nishi. “Leaving was a tough decision. Our home had been in my family for generations. My folks, and their folks before them were all buried in a plot just a few steps from the backdoor. But when we started seeing the bomb blasts from the front porch, we knew it was time to go.”

  “But that was back when we were planning for a family. Children force you to look at the world with a fresh set of glasses. But, as it turns out, little ones just weren’t in the cards for us.” The drop in her voice, the way she turned her head away, told Lerah that it was still a fresh wound.

  “Children or no children, we’ve had a good life. Everything is as it was meant to be.” Amar reached over and took his wife by the hand, pulling her to Lerah’s bedside. “Is there anyone waiting for you back in Genesis?”

  Lerah opened her mouth to answer but stopped just short. “How do you—”

  “Relax, dear. You might have developed the look of a Wastelander, but the Union graces still roll off your tongue,” Nishi said.

  Amar rested a comforting hand on her ankle; she didn’t pull away this time. “Besides, ain’t no other way to explain why Silas did what he did to you. They just shoot their traitors and dump ‘em. Union, they take their time with.” He could tell his words resurrected painful memories for Lerah and immediately sought to correct his verbal clumsiness. “No need to think on all that, you’re safe with us.”

  “Forgive my husband. His lips have always been a little loose. Tell us about your home. I’ve never seen the Tower’s with my own eyes and unless someone carries me there, I doubt I ever will.”

  Lerah shook her head. “I’m afraid that even those memories bring me darkness. If Silas speaks the truth, the Tower’s will soon fall.”

  Amar and Nishi looked at each other, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “Ah, yes. So that’s where they were going. I saw the march from a distance, but I didn’t know they were…” he paused and cleared his throat, “I’m truly sorry.” Amar shrugged at Nishi, at a loss for meaningful words.

  “My dear, you can stay with us as long as you like. I know it doesn’t look like much, but we can shift some things around, set you up with a cot across the room. It’ll be a little cramped, but we’d be glad for the company.”

  It’d be more than a little cramped—the place was the size of her old closet. But it was warm and inviting. There were crusted utensils and seasoned pans hanging above a small two-person table in one corner. Trinkets from the old world in another corner: sign posts, faded wall art, two shovels, and a duster hanging from a copper hook. There was an empty wash basin at the end of the bed. It was frightfully small, but Amar and Nishi were not big people. She could see herself growing comfortable there, soothed by the affection of the elderly duo, but for how long? Their years would soon catch up with them and she’d once more be on her own. She couldn’t survive the Glass Mountains alone. She was a soldier. A Shadeux. She was no dirt farmer. Dominic had been right. She’d been raised in the lap of the Union and fed through a straw. The Union had never seen fit to equip its people with the skills necessary to survive beyond the walls of Genesis for extended periods of time. They’d never questioned the future of their society. As far as the Union was concerned, Genesis was and always would be. Their destiny was settled. Because of that, she knew nothing of scraping and chewing. She knew nothing of survival. Would the shortsightedness of her people be her undoing?

  “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I don’t want to put either of you in any danger.”

  “Stop it with that. I won’t hear it. Silas darkens this door at his own peril. These old bones are sturdier than they look.” Amar took up a fighting stance near the end of the bed.

  Nishi sighed and waved him off, unimpressed by his tough-guy act. “You got no need to worry. We’re out of the way. Silas has no quarrel with us. No Rebel has come knocking in decades. You’re safe here.”

  Lerah could feel it in her belly again, that little bit of hope that refused to die. “Well, I’m not about to say no to a warm bed.”

  28

  Dan had lost a good deal of blood by the time the medical supplies and water were finally delivered. They landed with a thunk near the mouth of the battle-scarred stairwell. He wasn’t about to risk getting shot in order to retrieve the much-needed supplies. So, using a spare pair of reins and a mouth bit from the stables, Dan reeled in the sack of necessities, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He envisioned the sharpshooter upstairs, watching his ingenuity with disdain, his trigger finger sagging with disappointment.

  Better luck next time, sucker!

  He was actually surprised when he peeled open the sack and found what he’d asked for. Hause had taken him at his word.

  Dan pulled himself back over to the bar and sat down, feeling weak and dizzy. Thirsty, too. Christ, he was thirsty. Before he started patching his leg, he tore into a bottle of water. He gulped it down halfway and poured the rest over the top of his head; the crusty layer of dirt and blood that encased him began to soften and fall away. After that, he started the process of wrapping his wounded leg. Before he got too far into the procedure, he saw movement out of the corner of his right eye. Not the sudden dash of an incoming attacker. It was slow and jittery and accompanied by sputters and groans. It was one of the Shadeux that’d ambushed him, the one he’d stitched across the top of the chest, the only one that hadn’t taken a bullet to the head. He reminded Dan of a generator running on fumes: coughing, pulling from down deep to keep the lights behind his eyes burning.

  “Wat…er.” Red mist accompanied his plea; it dotted his pale lips and settled on the cold stone beneath his chin. He was dragging himself along by his elbows, sliding across the floor like a snail, leaving a thick red jelly in his wake.

  Dan reached into the bag and came back with a fresh bottle of water, cracking the top and placing the opening to the Shadeux’s mouth. The dying Shadeux searched for the cool liquid, puckering his lips and lapping at the air like a blind dog; eyes open, but empty. Offering a drink to the enemy was something he’d never contemplated during the war. He’d stepped over countless twitching corpses without a second thought.

  But none of that mattered anymore.

  Enemy.

  Friend.

  The words were meaningless when you were sitting side-by-side on death’s doorstep.

  A waste of water, Dan thought as he poured the precious liquid over the Shadeux’s wagging tongue.

  “Muh…more,” the Shadeux sputtered, sending most of the water dribbling down his chin.

  “Easy now, soldier. Pace yourself.”

  Minutes passed as the Shadeux eased over into the arms of death. He died, eyes open. His last breath was a pregnant pause that never came to term. Dan took a pull from the water bottle, shut the young Shadeux’s eyes, and returned to mending his leg.

  29

  Dominic was deep inside the Glass Mountains, surrounded on all sides by its warped, shiny, black spikes. He was trotting along at a steady pace, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder, when his horse snapped its leg and threw him from the saddle. The injured beast collapsed to its side, grunting and writhing.

  “Shit!” Dominic sat up, rubbing the back of his head where he’d smacked it against an outcropping of jagged rock. He didn’t feel anything wet, but he was seeing a few stars. When his vision finally cleared, he saw his horse a few feet away, fruitlessly attempting to find its footing. The obstacle that had done the old gal in was an opening in the ground about a foot wide and two feet deep; he could have easily busted his own damned ankle if he’d been walking. He stood, sighed, and brushed his pants off. “Damn it, girl. I’m sorry.” He knew what had to be done. He’d put down a few wounded animals in his time, of the two and four-legged variety. As he stood over the horse with his pistol extended towards its head, an image of Merrick, begging for his life, flashed in
front of him. He swallowed hard and steadied the weapon. “Thanks for getting me this far and I’m sorry you got a rotten deal. Travel well, old girl.” The gunshot bounced across the crooked, black valley, fading gradually over a matter of seconds. The journey to the other side of the mountains had just become a much more daunting prospect. He saw stiff legs and an aching back in his immediate future. At least the temperatures were cooler; the heat had gone from being a thick quilt to a thin sheet. Dominic holstered the pistol and began gathering up his weapons and supplies. The LMG and the rifle were already tied to the saddle bags, so there wasn’t much to do other than distributing the weight of the bags evenly across his shoulder, using one hand to keep the load steady. He thought about dumping some of the weapons and ammo, but then remembered that he didn’t know how many men were waiting for him on the beach; could be a platoon, could be an army. Better to have too much ammo and not enough targets. With his mobility limited by the weight he was now carrying, he kept his free hand close to his pistol.

  He crested a hill of crumbling, black rock and stopped to take a breath. The air tasted toxic. Thin and sour. It came as no surprise. The Glass Mountains were structures built on the shoulders of toxicity. Emblems of the cataclysmic nature of man. The ground before him fell away into a steep, uneven decline, before flattening out into another craggy valley. He’d have to slide down sideways or risk taking a potentially fatal spill. A broken bone, a puncture wound to the wrong part of the body, would be the end of him in a place like this. He stood sideways and placed one foot down, slid a bit, and then brought the other foot down after it. His balance immediately faltered, so he shifted his weight towards his back leg and slapped his hand down, trying to find something solid to hold on to. No luck. He fell to his butt and the pointed terrain tore into his palm. He cursed and instinctively started sucking the wound.

  Damn that clumsy horse!

  Dominic had seen a lot of shit-holes in his time. The Glass Mountains were quickly ascending to the top of the list. Sometimes, the only thing that had pulled him through was a promise he’d made to himself many years ago, during the Battle of the Canyons, I will not die in an uglier place than I was born!

  As he picked himself up, brushing his pants clean, and gathering his weapons and supplies, he muttered, “I will not die in an uglier place than I was born.”

  Just then, a chorus of gunfire reverberated through the mountains.

  30

  Every Rebel knew how to track prey. It was a vital skill for surviving in the Wasteland. Like any other skill in life, some men were better than others. Silas had always been somewhere in the middle. He could follow prints, and he could tell fresh tracks from old ones, but that’s pretty much where his skills came to an end. He knew guys that could sniff a track and tell you who or what it belonged to; his nose had never been that good.

  Luckily, the Union bitch didn’t make it all that hard to follow her trail. From the looks of things, she’d spent most of her journey skittering around and falling down, the disruptions to the path were all quite obvious. The trail was so strong that even the greenest tracker would have been able to stay on top of it. But then, out of nowhere, all signs of her presence ceased.

  “Where did you go, little girl?” He crouched down, picking up a few loose stones and turning them in his hand. He scanned the area, slow, taking in every inch of the rugged valley floor. That’s when he saw it: a narrow path that veered between two, towering walls of rock. Silas had never been down the path. “Interesting.”

  “You think she went that way?”

  “That or she grew wings and started flying. Let’s go.”

  The pathway was narrow, but they had no problem squeezing through. When they came out the other side, Silas saw a small shack on the cliff ahead. He also saw, what looked to be, a man. The man saw him too because he immediately fled.

  “Bitch is up there, no doubt.” Silas removed his pistol and checked the chamber.

  “You sure?” one of his men asked, squinting.

  “Trail died. There’s nowhere else for her to go. She’s got help from whoever it is that lives there,” Silas said.

  “What if they’re armed?”

  “Then we kill them. Hell, we’ll probably kill them anyway. But not the girl, she’s mine, understood?”

  His men sounded off a hushed chorus of, “Yes, sir.”

  “Alright, let’s get it done and get back.”

  ***

  Lerah shot out of a fever dream, startled by Amar bursting through the front door, flapping his arms.

  “They’re here! They’ve found us!”

  “Who?” Lerah asked.

  “Silas! His men! They’re a half mile out and closing in fast!”

  Nishi was at Lerah’s bedside, hands cupped over her mouth in shock. “What do we do?”

  Amar looked at Lerah, eyes wide, running his hands together. “We’ve got to hand her over.”

  “Wait, what?” Lerah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What had happened to the surly old coot with the balled up fists and the fire in his belly?

  “Amar! How could you suggest such a thing?” Nishi protested.

  “Nishi, they will kill us!” He moved towards Lerah as if he meant to seize her.

  She sprang up in bed, dropping her feet to the floor, a surge of adrenaline shocking her body back to life. “Touch me, old man, and I’ll kill you!”

  He gasped and took a step back.

  “Your husband is a coward,” Lerah spit at Amar’s feet, “but he is correct. Silas and his men will kill you. But I will not allow you to hand me over. I will leave before they arrive.”

  “You can’t, they’ll see you! They’ll be here any minute! I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I have to think about my wife!”

  Nishi was starting to look convinced by her husband’s line of reasoning.

  Lerah stood and pointed her finger at Amar, but before she could berate him any further, there was a gunshot and the front door exploded back on its hinges. Standing in the pale light was Silas and, behind him, a group of armed men, grim smiles of anticipation drawn across their lips.

  “Did I make it in time for supper?”

  Lerah stepped in front of Amar and Nishi, shielding them from Silas and his goons. “You’re here for me. Let’s go. Leave them out of it.” Her words held courage that she in no way felt. Her stomach was sick. The thought of returning to the shores of black glass and neon water made her bones ache. But she was still a soldier. She took an oath to defend the defenseless, including backstabbing, sniveling cowards like Amar.

  “All you’ve got is the skin on your hands and still you stand defiant.” The beads attached to the end of his goatee clicked lightly as he sauntered through the door. His men followed him in, fanning out, guns hanging loosely at their sides. “For all that courage, you sure are a shit survivalist. You need to learn to cover your tracks better, girl.”

  She could see herself in his sunglasses. “I won’t resist. Let’s go.”

  Silas laughed, each wicked note holding a promise of destruction. “The boys and I just got here. We’re tired. Weak. In need of sustenance.” His fingers wrapped around her throat. He was fast. Or maybe she was just slow. She didn’t even register the movement. “Don’t be rude.” He shoved her back, pushing her through Amar and Nishi and onto the bed. “Don’t get up unless I tell you to, bitch!” He turned and wrapped his arms around the old couple, pulling them each into a side-hug. “And who might you fine folks be?” He nuzzled Nishi’s neck, holding her close as she tried to pull away.

  “Please, sir, don’t hurt us,” Amar whimpered.

  “You coward!” Lerah shouted at Amar’s back.

  “One moment, folks.” Silas turned and grabbed Lerah by the hair. She scratched at his arm and kicked, but the effort was fruitless, his grip only tightened. He punched her once in the face. She felt her nose crunch. Felt the blood start to flow. Her eyes filled up with tears. She thought he was done, but he held on and punche
d her three more times. The lights flickered for a moment and she was sure they were about to go out. When he released her, she flopped back on the bed, reeling. “Now, where were we?”

  “Take whatever you want,” Amar continued his pleading, “take the girl, take anything. Just please, do not hurt me or my wife.”

  “You’re a generous man. Hell, you’re downright neighborly.” Silas wiped the sweat off of Amar’s forehead and licked his fingers. “You taste damned delicious, too.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Grow a pair, Amar! You saw what he just did to that poor girl! What he did to me! You really gonna stand there and kiss his ass?” Nishi growled through her tears.

  Amar shook his head, staring at the floor. “Don’t you see? I’m trying to save us.”

  Silas punched Amar in the arm and slapped him on the chest, like a big brother throwing his weight around. “Old lady has you by the short hairs, don’t she? You know, I like my dick sucked as much as the next man, but she’s right. You’re a pussy. Buck up. You know what I’m saying?” He began circling the room, sneering at the décor. “How long y’all been here.”

  Lerah tried to mumble a protest, but she couldn’t make her jaw work.

  Amar stepped forward, hands folded reverently beneath his chin. “Long time, sir. Long time, we, uh—”

  “Where is all this going?” Nishi had dried the last of her tears and now stood with her head held high.

  Silas shrugged. “I’m just a little hurt, that’s all. You and your pussy-ass-fuckin’ husband have been here all this time and not once have you bothered to come and see me. That’s not very neighborly. What do you boys think?”

  “Nope. Not neighborly, at all.”

  “Hurts my feelings.”

  “You see there? You happy? You hurt his feelings.”

  “We, uh, we apologize,” Amar said.