by Nick Cole
The sleek females darted in toward him, dashing through the dust, every golden muscle rippling, jaws clenched tight in determination.
This is bad.
The fear crept into the Boy as it always did before combat.
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, Boy. Ain’t nothin’ but a thang. Mind over matter; you don’t mind, it don’t matter.
The closest cat charged forward, its fangs out, and in that instant the Boy knew it would leap. Its desire to leap and clutch at Horse’s flanks telegraphed in the cat’s wicked burst of speed.
The Boy lowered the crossbow onto the flat of his good arm holding the tomahawk, aimed on the fly, and sent a bolt into the flurry of dust and claws from which the terrible fanged mouth and triangular head watched him through cold eyes.
He heard a sharp, ripping yowl and kicked Horse to climb the small ridge at the edge of the bowl. On the other side he could see frames of half-built buildings below on the plain before the city.
Half-built buildings.
Construction site.
Maybe houses being built on the last day of the old world. Houses that would never be finished.
If I can stay ahead of them for just a moment . . .
Horse screamed and the Boy felt the weight of something angry tearing at Horse’s left flank.
One of the female lions had gone wide and raced for the lip of the ridgeline. Once on top, it had thrown everything into a leap that brought it right down onto Horse’s flank.
The Boy cursed as he swiped at the fierce cat with his tomahawk. But the lioness had landed on Horse’s left side and his axe was in his right hand. The Boy batted at the lioness with the crossbow. Its mouth was open, its fangs ready to sink into Horse’s spine, the Boy shoved the crossbow into the cat’s open jaws. Gagging and choking, the lioness released Horse’s torn flesh as its paws attempted to remove the crossbow. It fell away into the dust and Horse continued forward. Already the Boy could feel Horse slowing. His own feet, bent back onto Horse’s flanks, were dripping with warm blood.
“Don’t slow down,” he pleaded into Horse’s pinned ears, doubting whether he was heard at all. “Just make it into those ruins.”
When Horse didn’t respond with his usual snort, the Boy knew the wound was bad.
8
THE BOY DROVE Horse hard through the drifting sand of the old ruins. Rotting frames of sun-bleached gray and bone-white wood, warped by forty years of savage heat and cruel ice seemed to offer little protection from the roaring lions now trotting downslope in a bouncing, almost expectant, gait.
They wove deeper into the dry fingers of wood erupting from the sand of Construction Site. The Boy heard the crack of ragged wooden snaps beneath Horse’s hooves. He hoped they might find a hole or even a completed building to hide in. But there was nothing. Behind them he could hear the cats beginning to growl, unsure how to proceed through the rotting forest of ancient lumber. The Big Lion gave a roar and the Boy knew they would be coming into the maze after them.
Near the far edge of the spreading ruins, the Boy found a half-constructed bell tower ringed with ancient scaffolding over a narrow opening. It was their only hope. He steered Horse in under the rickety scaffolding still clinging to its long unfinished exterior. In the shadowy dark he dismounted Horse and raced back outside. He swung his tomahawk at the ancient scaffolding, cutting through a rusty bar with one stroke. He stepped back inside once he’d smashed the other support bar. The scaffolding began to collapse across the entrance as he saw the Big Lion come crashing through the warped and bent forest of dry wood, charging directly at him.
The scaffolding slanted down across the entrance as shafts of fading daylight shot through the dust.
The Big Lion crossed the ground between them in bounds.
Focus, Boy.
The Boy reached up and crushed another support with his tomahawk and more abandoned building material came crashing down across the entrance. Dust and sand swallowed the world and the Boy closed his eyes and didn’t breathe. Horse screeched in fear as the Boy hoped the collapsed scaffolding would be enough to block the entrance.
When he opened his eyes he could see soft light filtering through the debris-cluttered opening.
He put his good hand on Horse, conveying calm where the Boy felt none, willing the terror-stricken animal to understand that they were safe for now.
Then he looked at the wound.
Claw marks straight down the side. The whole flank all the way to the hock was shaking. He took some of his water and washed the wound. Horse trembled, and the Boy placed his face near Horse’s neck, whispering.
It will be okay.
I will take care of you
The wound is still bleeding, so I’ll have to make a bandage.
He poured some water into the sand and made mud. He didn’t have much water, but it was vital to get the bleeding stopped.
He can’t bleed forever, Boy.
When the mixture was ready he packed it into the wound, steadying Horse as he went, murmuring above the lion’s roar as he applied the wet mud.
SHE PACED BACK and forth outside the never-to-be-finished bell tower.
The Horse was definitely inside. She could smell it. She could smell its fear.
At the top of the bell tower, fifteen feet high, she could see narrow arches. If she could leap from another structure she might get in there and make the kill.
The Male rose up on his hind legs and began to bat away at the collapsed opening. Wood splintered and cracked as he put all of his four hundred pounds onto the pile of debris. As usual he tired quickly and went to lie down, content to merely wait and watch the entrance. The sisters came up to him one by one, trying to reassure him that all would be well, but he seemed embarrassed—or frustrated. Normally expressive, his great face remained immobile, which the young usually took for thinking. But she knew he was merely tired and mostly out of ideas and generally unconcerned at how things might turn out.
She knew him—and loved him.
She paced away from the tower and then turned, gave two energetic bounds, and leaped. She almost made the top. Her claws extended, ripping into the dry stucco of the bell tower, revealing ancient dry wood beneath. She began to climb toward the opening, and a moment later a sheet of stucco ripped away and she fell backward.
There is wood like a tree underneath. Once this skin is off, she thought, I’ll be able to climb in.
She began to stand on her hind legs and rake her claws down the side of the tower as chalky stucco, dry and brittle, disintegrated.
As if not to be outdone by her sister, another of the females began to dig at the base of the tower like she might for the making of a den. Now it would be a race. Who would get to the horse first? The Male would like that. He would reward whoever got in first. It was his way.
The sun was going down. It would be a long night.
9
HORSE HAD STOPPED trembling. He seemed resigned now to the tight space and had stopped threatening to fight present conditions. The Boy climbed atop Horse and reached for the high arched openings just below the roof. Leveraging himself upward, he was able to climb into them.
Below, the lions were instantly aware of him. Multiple pairs of glowing dark eyes watched him. By the barest of moonlight he could see them lying about while the one who had been digging at the base of the tower stopped.
If I had my crossbow I could pick her off.
Never mind what you don’t have, Boy. You better start thinking about a jailbreak, otherwise. . .
The Big Lion roared loudly, opening its mouth and showing its fangs as it turned its head, throwing the roar off into the hills. When the lion finished it stared straight at the Boy.
The Boy listened to the echo of the roar bounce off the far hills, its statement reminding him of the vastness of the high desert and how alone he was within it.
So that’s how it is, thought the Boy. All right then, no surrender.
One of the females suddenly ran forward, leapt, and almos
t caught the edge of the arched opening. The whole bell tower shook and Horse cried out in fear. The lion slid down as her claws raked the stucco off, revealing the dry wooden slats beneath.
This thing was not well constructed in the Before, and these hard years since haven’t improved it. You would tell me to stop and think, Sergeant.
He removed his tomahawk from his belt.
The feline turned and charged the tower again. The Boy waited and as it made its leap he slammed the tomahawk down into one paw. The beast screeched and threw itself away from the wall.
That should give me some time.
The Lioness watched the Boy for a moment, the contempt naked in its cool eyes, then lay down apart from the others, and began to lick the wound. The Boy could not tell how badly he might have hurt it.
He lowered himself down into the dark, finding Horse with his dangling feet. Then he gently let himself down onto Horse’s back. He sat there, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.
I’ve got to do something about the digger next. If I can do something about her, maybe they’ll get the point that I’m not coming out. Maybe then they’ll go away.
You sure about that, Boy?
The only thing else I can think of is to strike at them as they come through the sand under the wall.
It seemed a thin plan, but looking at the four walls and Horse, what else could he do?
For the rest of the night he listened to the digger. Occasionally the lions would growl and he thought it best not to go up into the high arched openings.
If I remain invisible to them, then maybe “out of sight, out of mind” as you used to say, Sergeant?
Or . . .
If they can’t mind me, then I won’t matter to them.
And it was there in the dark that the Boy realized Sergeant Presley had been full of knowledge. Full of words and wisdom. Those things were a comfort to him in the times he and Sergeant Presley had been in danger.
I’m young. I haven’t had all the years it takes to acquire wisdom. Now death is closer than it has ever been.
Everyone dies, Boy, even me. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.
SOFT, PALE LIGHT shone the through arched windows above. The night had passed and though he had not slept much, the Boy felt as though he’d slept too much. As if some plan of action should have occurred to him in the hours of darkness. But none had and he cursed himself, not knowing what the coming day might bring.
He heard a roar, far off, then another one and another, almost on the heels of the echo of the first.
More lions?
Trouble always looks for company, Boy. Always.
Then I’ll be ready. Whatever it is, the best I can do is to be ready.
He climbed to the top of the bell tower and looked out from the arches. The Big Lion, the male, was on his feet and staring into the darkened west. A thin strip of red dawn cut the eastern desert in half like a hot knife. The Boy followed the Big Lion’s gaze into the dark, and saw three male lions, smaller—not by much, manes almost as big—pacing back and forth in the dark.
The females were drawing the cubs back from the Big Lion.
If there is going to be a fight, the newcomers might not know I’m here. If they win, then this could be good for me.
SHE LIMPED TOWARD her mate.
Had she ever been special to him?
She liked to think so. She liked to think there was something special between her and him that her sisters had never known. Would never know.
She’d seen him fight other males before. The desert was full of their kind. The mule deer and wild animals had been abundant in all the years she had known and the prides had grown large. And now, from some unknown pride much like her own, the young lions had come to find mates for themselves amongst her pride. Just as he had once found her.
Limping forward to stand behind him, she could at least do that for the love of her existence. She could at least do that. But when he turned, she saw the flash of anger in his eyes, warning her to get back, and maybe something she had never seen before. Fear.
He roared again. It was his way and his answer to the challengers. His roaring anger at the horse within the bell tower had most likely summoned these challengers out of the dark. She knew his roar, beautiful and safe to her, had cost them all.
She lay down in front of her sisters, between them and her mate—their mate—and watched.
When the battle started in earnest, it transformed from a storm to a whirlwind in the space of a moment. The newcomers, baiting the big male halfheartedly, as though they might leave at any moment, suddenly came at him at once, silent, focused, hopeful.
His great claws pinned the first and he sank his jaws into the back of his challenger’s neck. She heard the crunch of bones and knew that one was finished, though it continued to flail wildly, its claws drawing blood across her mate’s belly.
Another challenger circled wide and landed on her mate’s back after a great pounce. The challenger was unsure what to do next. The third came in hard at his flank and began to tear away great strips of fur and skin with claws that looked long and sharp.
Here was their leader, she thought. He had been smart enough to wait.
The Male shook the one in its mouth as he tried to draw his victim upward.
She cried out for him to be done with that one and to handle the other two, but her cries were drowned out by his as he roared and whirled on the leader. He batted at the flanker, who tumbled away and then turned the momentum into something to fling itself right back at the Male.
The challenger on his back held on for dear life and she could sense the fear in that one. That one didn’t have it in him to sink his fangs into her mate. He was the runt. He would never have a pride of his own.
The Male pinned the lion he’d cast off; it was his technique, she knew, to use his size to subdue and strangle his enemies. Enraged, he crushed the leader beneath him and tore out his throat.
Her paws, kneading the soft sand of the desert, relaxed. She knew he had won. He would be wounded, badly if the blood streaming down his belly was any indicator, but he had at least beaten these challengers. She was proud of both him for his strength and herself for her faith and love.
Thunder broke across the darkness like dry wood split sharply.
Thunder was what she’d thought the sound was, and for a moment she’d expected lightning. But the sudden white light that would illuminate the land never came. Instead she watched him roll off his foes in a great spray of blood.
The Back Biter rolled away, confused. For a moment the runt raised a paw as if he might step this way or that, flee or attack. Then another bolt of thunder erupted, and a fraction later the Back Biter’s head exploded.
In the wind she found a new horse and acrid smoke; a mule also.
Her sisters were fleeing into the night.
The young whimpered.
She turned back to him and crossed the short space to his body. Her eyes were on his mane and the face that had once expressed so many thoughts to her. So many thoughts that she knew she had never known him completely.
He was still.
Asleep.
Beautiful.
Noble.
Even when she heard the thunder erupt again, near and yet as if part of a dream she was only waking from, she watched his face.
The bullet struck her in the spine.
And she watched him.
She watched him.
She watched him.
10
“ALL MY SKINS is ruin’t!”
Early light had turned the night’s carnage golden. The Boy listened to the man below.
“This one, that one over there! Hell, Danitra, all of ’em.” Then, “Maybe ’cept this one.”
The Boy listened from the shadows of the bell tower.
You be careful now, Boy! There’s little good left in this world.
“Might as well come out!” thundered the voice. “Seein’ as how I saved ya and all such.”
He knows I’m here. And he has a gun. Not like the rusty “AK Forty-sevens” and broken “Nine mils” we would find sometimes. His gun is different, like a polished piece of thick wood. As though it were different and from some place long ago.
For all that Sergeant Presley had tried to explain about guns to the Boy, he’d never guessed one would’ve made such a sound, like the crack of distant thunder heard from under a blanket.
He patted Horse and climbed up into the high arched openings once more.
“There ya’re!” roared the man.
He was barrel-chested and squat. He wore dusty black leather and a beaten hat, hair dark and turning to gray. He stopped his cutting work to look up from one of the lions, holding a large knife in his bloody hand.
“These are mine,” he said and turned back to his business with the hide. “Any more in there besides you?”
The Boy said nothing.
“That means nope,” said the stranger.
“My horse.”
“Well you better get down and get him out of there.”
The Boy continued to watch the man as he skinned the lion, swearing and sweating while he made long, sawing cuts, then stood, wiped his knife and pulled back a great streak of hide.
“C’mon boy. I got work to do. No one else here but me and my horse and Danitra. She’s my mule.”
He set to work on the next lion.
“This one’s even worse than the last! That was a mess. Coulda done that better myself. What tribe you with, boy?”
The Boy said nothing and continued to watch.
“You with them tribes out in the desert?”
The Boy remained silent.
“Well pay it no mind. I’ve got to get these hides off and cut some meat. So if you don’t want to be a part of that then I’ll ask you to get your horse out of there and move along.” The man stood staring at the Boy, his bloody knife hanging halfway between forgotten and ready.
“My horse is injured.”
The man wiped the knife once again on the leather of his pants and spit.
“Well, get him out of there and let’s take a look. I know a thing or two about horses.”