by J. Thorn
Something cracked to her left and she swung the bow up, the arrow pointed at the subtle sound. Her eyes darted and she sniffed at the air.
“You are not afraid of the wolves returning?”
Seren dropped her bow as Gaston stepped from the darkness. His long coat fluttered like a silent raven.
“Why are you following me?” she asked.
Gaston smiled and Seren thought for a moment that the wolves had returned, and one was now standing in front of her.
“I was here. Maybe you are following me?”
“You’re playing games. And I have no interest in them.” Seren turned to walk away from Gaston when he grabbed her arm. She stopped, his grip cold and firm.
“What did you see?”
She looked into his face, her mouth closed.
“At The Mall. What did you see during the wolf attack? I know you were up top.”
“I saw wolves attacking,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Gaston chuckled and let go of her arm. He scratched his chin and looked back toward the road. “You want them all dead, don’t you?”
She bristled at the question, and Gaston immediately waved his hand in the air and spoke again. “Not true. Sorry. I mean you want to be left alone. You’re an individualist.” He spoke the last word with emphasis.
“I’m not a child,” she said.
“But you’re not an adult. So where does that leave you?”
“I’m securing the perimeter, listening for the pack.”
“Maybe,” Gaston said. “But this is also where you wish to be. Removed from the clan and by yourself. Is it not?”
Seren did not answer.
“I’m going back to the road to warm myself by the fire. The nights get cold in the mountains.”
“Safe travels,” Seren said. “You should be careful. The woods are not always as peaceful as they seem. Sometimes, they can be deadly.”
“Yes,” Gaston said. “The Walk is a dangerous thing.”
* * *
Seren knew he would not return and yet she felt violated. He had followed her, and his questions made her feel vulnerable, as if he thought she knew something she didn’t. Her fears went to Roke. He was older, and male, and yet she felt as though he might be used against her. There was something about Gaston that made her shiver, a dangerous riptide in an otherwise calm sea. Seren put her head down on her rucksack and decided that tomorrow she would speak to Jonah about Gaston.
Chapter 39
Seren watched him approach the next night, as she stood in the darkness at the edge of the encampment. Why the man was taking such interest in her, she didn’t know. He had been speaking to a lot of people in the clan as they travelled. She had seen it each day, and she wondered if Jonah saw it too. The man would walk at a new place in the line and start up a conversation with whoever happened to be walking near him.
Except she thought it wasn’t by accident.
She’d watched the conversations as they unfolded, wondering each time what it was that he was saying but not wanting to be so obvious by being close by. The expressions on those he spoke to said it all. Cold at first, frowns, and no smiles, but as the hours ticked by she would see them smiling, laughing, warming to him.
That was when he would bid them goodbye and move to another spot, always using something such as an offer of help to carry something, or help to pull a cart as a reason to move on to someone else.
And Jonah did see, didn’t he, but he did nothing. That was how the conversation had gone when she approached him.
“I worry what he is up to,” she said. “Talking to people. Different people each time. And on the night of the wolf attack he was...”
She had paused, hadn’t she? She had not just come out with it, suddenly stuck with the guilt of what she may be about to accuse him of. The laws on accusation in the clan were very strict. The accuser must prove. The accused must prove against. And the Chief would decide who was to be trusted and cast a verdict.
What if she were unconvincing in accusing him of somehow not helping on the night of the attack. He had been near the tents, and the wolves had stopped dead where he had previously been, allowing her to target and fire at them. She doubted that she would have been able to hit them while they were moving. She was good with a bow, especially for someone of only fifteen summers; exceptional, even. That was well recognized among the clan, but to hit fast moving wolves at forty paces in the dark. No.
“What, Seren? What during the attack?” Jonah asked.
And she struggled to find the words. She wasn’t even convinced herself of what he had done. “I... didn’t see him helping during the fight.”
“I did,” Jonah said, “but not at the gate. I passed him at one point, after the attack at the front, and he was shoring up one of the gaps. Securing it against entrance from elsewhere.”
And that had been it. She could go no farther.
But how Jonah could not see what was going on was impossible. Gaston was charming the clan. It was as simple as that.
But what had he been doing at the tents? Tying them shut? The wolves had stopped and she had killed them.
And so here she was again, in the same place, and so was Gaston. She stood hidden and sensed him moving closer.
“If the Clan were to travel to White Citadel,” he said. No start to the conversation. No greeting. he just went right to his point. “They would never have to leave, never move on. They would be safe there. And you could go wherever you wished without worrying about them.”
“We only have your word on that,” she said. “And the words of your book.”
“Against the words of your own book,” he said. “And think of it, Seren. How many of your kin die each year on The Walk? One? Two? Five?”
“I have asked,” Gaston continued. “Twenty died in one year. That was the worst, but even most times it is a few. In a clan of over two hundred, you lose as many as are born each year. The clan never grows, never prospers. It just survives.”
He moved past her and stood just a few feet away, looking out into the woods.
“If the clan were to stay somewhere permanently, where they could prosper, those few would live, and within twenty years the clan would be double or triple in size. The strongest in all the lands.”
“But without Eliz we would have no contact with the other clans, no joinings.”
“The word would spread, if we chose it to. The word that this clan has found a new place and others are invited to join them. A new beginning.”
The words still went round in her head two hours later, after he had gone back to the camp, leaving her to her solitude away from the camp fire.
Chapter 40
The pack moved through the dark forest swiftly, not stopping for even the signs of smaller wood creatures running for cover. The Brother, their leader newly crowned, led them onward and farther away from the Walking Ones that were so numerous.
And there was turmoil behind him; he could sense it. The pack was angry at losing both its previous leader and the leader’s sons, and was still adjusting to being led by new blood. Everything would change over the next few moons, and if he wanted to remain leader, he had to show strength.
And the pack wanted blood.
They were hungry too, having not brought back anything from the raid that had cost them their three strongest. They had been forced to flee, leaving even the dead Walking One lying in the road. The young needed feeding, and the females were glaring at him impatiently, expecting him to act.
But they didn’t know that he already was acting, already seeking what could solve the problem. He’d sensed them not long before the raid on the large pack of Walking Ones had gone so badly.
A distant group, much smaller.
He sensed them as they approached the black grounds across from where the Walking Ones had made their den.
But this new group were a distance away, many paws across the forest ground, around the place where more Walking
Ones lived inside a wall and down the slope into deeper forest.
And it was this group that they approached from the darkness of the woods. After forcing the pack to keep traveling through the night, for much longer than any of them wished.
But finally they found what he had sought and the unease vanished. They were behind him now, ready and willing. They wanted blood, his kin, but after such a disastrous raid, he knew that what they really wanted was Walking One blood, and they needed it to remove the fear that would come if they simply sneaked away.
If they didn’t kill Walking Ones soon, the pack would learn to fear them, after their leaders had been killed so swiftly. And here, just down the slope, were six Walking Ones in a small den, hidden not far from the black surface.
He watched them, ordering the rest of the pack to be quiet, lest they alert the Walking Ones. These, he sensed, were waiting for prey, much like the pack was. They were hiding, and maybe awaiting the approach of more Walking Ones. The large Walking One pack, maybe. This group were foolish, and that would be their undoing. This pack may be lying in wait, but they will not live to hunt tonight, he thought.
Just as he was about to order the attack, he sensed another smell on the wind, coming from far away. And it was familiar.
The Leader, he thought. He knew the smell very well. The Leader, it seemed, still lived, though he was moving away, heading somewhere where the pack would not go, maybe to find a spot to die in. The Brother could not know.
I wish you well on The Hunt, thought The Brother, and he wished for a moment that The Leader was here with him, but he was not. The Brother glared at the small group of Walking Ones hiding in the ditch next to the road.
And he called for the pack to descend.
Chapter 41
Jonah opened his eyes and rolled over, facing Sasha as she continued to sleep. He felt the dawn creeping up on him, and his thoughts went quickly to their departure. The warriors had not woken him during the night, so the wolves had not returned.
He got up on to his knees and peered through the slit in the tent. The coals from last night’s fire glowed, and Jonah smelled the aroma of roasted rabbit clinging to the morning dew. It made his stomach rumble. He reached into a pocket for a piece of dried meat, ripped a chunk off with his teeth, and put the rest away for a time when he would really be hungry and not just eating out of habit.
Some of the night guards appeared at the foot of his tent, as if they could sense he was awake. Jonah rubbed his face and looked over his shoulder at his sleeping family before crawling out of the tent.
“The summit?” one of the warriors asked.
“Yes,” said Jonah. “Let’s scout it first.”
The two men followed their chief as he walked past them and through the trees clustered on the edge of the road. The sun’s first rays glowed beneath the horizon, casting a soft haze on the mountains. The clouds crawled across the sky from the east, as the autumn breeze pushed the dry leaves over the ground. Jonah walked down the path, the leaves crunching beneath his feet. A dry, raspy cough from the camp broke the morning silence. Jonah emerged from the trees with the two warriors behind him. He stood in the middle of the road, first glancing north and then south, to face the summit. It loomed on the horizon like a sleeping beast.
“Up and back, it’ll take until midday. We’ll meet the clan on the way back, probably half way by then.”
Jonah nodded and considered waking Sasha to let her know. But he didn’t. He was chief, not just her husband. She would have to understand that his responsibilities would sometimes mean she would not always know his movements. The guards knew where he had gone, and they knew to give the order to move out.
“I’ll lead,” he said.
The three men jogged south along the road, the elevation rising with each step. Jonah felt the burn in his thighs and a rumble in his stomach, reminding him of how little was inside it. He licked his lips and tasted the salty remnants of the dried meat. Jonah grabbed the flask from his belt and took a drink of tepid water.
They trailed along the road for two hours before one of the warriors called out.
“Look,” the man said. “Carts.”
Jonah never broke stride and did not face the man. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on the road. As the morning sky slowly illuminated, more of the road revealed itself. The remains of hundreds, possibly thousands of carts, littered each side of the road. As the men walked down the middle, the rusted, metal corpses sat in heaps. Some of the carts had thick ropes of ivy weaving in and out of the steel while others sat blackened and as empty as they had been on the day they burned.
“What do you think happened?”
“Fire,” Jonah said. “The Event created destruction for many years on.”
As they walked the carts piled higher, and now the men picked their way through the metal graveyard as if weaving through the pass of a narrow canyon. The air fell still and noises came from the remains. Jonah heard pings and clicks and his head turned back and forth as they walked.
“I don’t remember this many on the road. We’ve come through here before with plenty of space to get our own carts through. Looks like it might be tight now. Not sure we’ll fit all the carts through here.”
“We’ll fit if we have to,” Jonah said, although not with enough conviction to believe it.
The farther they walked, the more apparent it became that these carts had been moved. Those at the bottom of the pile remained in the earth’s grip, covered in ivy and twisting trees. But the carts on the top of the pile were black and free of vegetation, as if they had been cleared and repositioned.
Why? How?
Jonah felt the questions burning in his head and the answers came faster than he had anticipated.
“A clan is trying to block the road at the summit. This smells of an ambush. They must have used many men and dozens of hours to stack the carts this way.”
Jonah’s stomach fluttered and this time it had nothing to do with hunger.
“What do we do, Chief?”
Jonah shook his head and kept walking. He glanced down and calculated the width of the opening. They would still be able to pull their carts through, all the way to the summit, but in single file. Stopping the front of the caravan would halt it completely, leaving them vulnerable.
He stood about two hundred yards from where the ground appeared to end at the horizon. The blackened, stacked carts bordered the road making the summit appear as a glowing door. Jonah turned around and looked back toward the camp and at their path through the carts. The two warriors stood on each side of their chief, their eyes scanning the side of the road.
“It is time we—”
The sound of scraping metal interrupted Jonah’s sentence. The warriors dropped into a battle stance and he faced the direction the sound came from. One hundred yards behind them, the remains of three carts slid across the road, blocking their retreat. More scraping sounds came from the summit as carts slid across the road, effectively closing the doorway.
The men waited, their eyes scanning the ruins but not seeing movement. The sun climbed higher and the golden rays began to burn the dew off of the metal wrecks.
“Show yourself.”
The warriors waited for a response to Jonah’s command, but they saw nothing. Heard nothing.
“I’m the chief and I simply want my clan to pass on the way to Eliz. We have nothing of value and intend no harm.”
“You’re the son of Judas.”
The voice emerged from the carts on Jonah’s left. The warriors spun, their weapons held high and their eyes tight.
“How is the old bastard?”
“Judas is dead,” Jonah said.
He saw the man’s teeth first. They glowed within a dirty face framed by black, sooty metal. As he emerged from deep within the carts, Jonah looked at the man. He stood over six feet tall, long dark hair and beard surrounding a grimy face. The man’s wet blue eyes stared at Jonah. He wore several coats, although none were in
one piece. The garments hung on him like strands of Spanish moss, and at first Jonah thought one of the trees had come alive.
“The clans are moving. Many of them. You can’t blame me for being careful. I didn’t recognize you at first, son.”
The man held out a filthy hand to Jonah. The warriors lowered their blades but stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with their leader.
“I’m Rav. Been in charge of the pass for a long time.”
“I’ve never seen you before,” said Jonah.
“Of course you haven’t. Your father and I had an agreement. I had no reason to stop your clan.” He glanced at the cars stacked along both sides of the road. “This is all new,” he said. “Decided it was time to extend the fort and secure the road a little better.”
Jonah looked at the warrior on his left, down at the blade in his hand.
“You know better. Don’t be an asshole. I didn’t move the gates on my own, now did I?”
Jonah grimaced but did not answer.
“Judas was a dick. You’re not a dick, are you? I’d hate to make a bargain with another dick. What is your name?”
“Jonah.”
“Have a drink with me, Jonah?”
The man removed a flask from beneath his dirty rags and threw it up to his lips. He moaned and gurgled, a dark, syrupy liquid dripping from his beard. He tipped the flask at Jonah.
“No,”
“Yes,” Rav said. “I can’t possibly let you over the summit if we don’t have a deal. And how can we have a deal if you won’t drink with me?”
Rav continued to hold the flask out, pushing the top of it toward Jonah.
“What do you want from us? We’re heading to Eliz. We have nothing of value.”
Rav let loose a wet, choking laugh, spitting the dark liquid into the air. It coated his previously brilliant white teeth. He shook his head.