The Ruins Book 3

by T. W. Piperbrook

  One of the guards spat at Cullen's feet.

  Cullen backed away, making it clear he wanted no part in any game.

  Bored with Cullen, Ollie approached Bray, getting within inches of his face. He held up a meaty fist. He smiled as he raised it higher, waiting for Bray to prevent a blow. Bray blinked his swollen eye. He kept his hands at his sides, staring past Ollie, refusing to meet his glare.

  Bray would take more punches, if he needed to, but he wouldn't fight.

  To the guards, it might be submission.

  Kirby knew it was bravery.

  Ollie waited for a retort, or a remark, but Bray kept his attention elsewhere. Seeing no fight was coming, more boredom crossed Ollie's face.

  "Get in line," Ollie said to all of them.

  A few slaves in the distant line hung their heads as they realized the confrontation was over. Kirby knew the mentality of some of them. They lived a bored, frustrated life of containment.

  Some wanted bloodshed.

  Kirby passed the leering Head Guards, crossing the gap of a few hundred feet to the line and sliding between two dirty, scrawny men who moved aside for her, averting their eyes. Bray and Cullen followed her lead, walking toward the same part of the line.

  "No!" Ollie yelled, stopping them. "One in the back, and one in the front."

  Bray limped to the back of the line. Cullen moved to the front. The slaves waited for another instruction from the guards. Kirby felt the scrutinizing gaze of the guards as they passed, glaring. Ignoring the jabbing pain in her shin from Ollie's fresh kick, and the old wounds that bled again, she stared straight ahead as Ollie took a strolling pass down the line, taking a count.

  He stopped when he reached her, the same, greasy smile flashing over his face. "Your work today will determine whether you get a meal. If you try anything, you're feed for The Plagued Ones." Cranking a thumb at the slave next to her, a scrawny man with long, thin hair, he said, "Jack will show you how to harvest."

  The scrawny man nodded.

  "He'll also tell you what we do to people who step out of line, or start trouble." Ollie's sour breath filled the space between them as he leaned close. "Don't think anyone cares if you die. The Semposi will bring us more of you."

  Kirby felt seething hatred as he continued down the line, rattling off numbers. Ollie paired Bray off with one man, and Cullen with another, and then they moved. Kirby barely felt her legs as she walked. Too many hours of laying, crouching, or standing in a cramped cell had taken its toll.

  "What's your name?" the scrawny man asked quietly.

  "Kirby."

  She glanced at the man's vacant, ringed eyes, and his disturbingly skinny body. If she hadn't seen him forming the line with the others, she might've thought he'd come from another cell. The line moved. She fell in step with the other slaves, staring straight ahead with most of them, except a few who snuck glances over their shoulders. It looked as if they weren't convinced something out of routine might not occur. Kirby looked over at the long building from which she'd come, noticing a few more closed doors, but she saw no sign of the captured slave they'd seen that first day.

  For all she knew, he was dead.

  Locating Cullen at the head of the line, Kirby watched him glancing nervously around. His lips moved soundlessly, as if he was speaking to someone. It seemed as though his solitary time in the cell had broken what was left of his mind. A few times, she had tried speaking with him through the cell walls, but her attempts had been fruitless. A pit in her stomach grew worse. He might not last longer than a day, if he couldn't keep his mind on his work. Any anger she'd had toward him had diminished over the course of days. He was partially responsible for their enslavement, she knew, but looking at him, she couldn't hold him accountable.

  He had lost his good sense.

  He didn't deserve death.

  She would help him when she could, but right now, they were each on their own.

  She watched as every third person grabbed one of the wood-handled pushcarts close to the gate, where guards waited. Next to her, Jack grabbed a wagon. Two Head Guards opened the gate, revealing Rudyard.

  A smile lingered on his face as he occupied the threshold in front of the fields.

  More mutants than Kirby remembered lurked behind him, between the crops and further back on the dirt path, near the green, glimmering corn stalks. Rudyard made a few motions to the demons, who scattered without a verbal command. She saw rigidity in a few people's postures as they saw Rudyard, as if a single step out of bounds might lead them into a mutant's filthy claws. And it might. She doubted the guards—or Rudyard—would stop an unwarranted attack.

  Rudyard looked at each of the slaves as if they were nothing more than the hard crust on a burnt piece of bread, or a piece of dung stuck to his boot. Nearly every one of them turned their heads in the opposite direction as they passed.

  Following the rickety wheels of Jack's wagon, Kirby didn't pause as she crossed the threshold, not even to meet Rudyard's triumphant gaze.

  **

  "This is how we do it," Jack said, bending an ear of corn hanging almost perpendicular to a tall, green stalk. "Usually the corn at the top of the stalk is ready first."

  Kirby nodded, even though she'd picked plenty of corn before. She knew the toil of a laborer. She'd seen men and women used in all sorts of ways, worked until their fingers bled, until they could barely bend over to take off their boots at night, or stand up in the morning without raging pains in their backs or arms. Some of her owners had been more lenient than the others. But none were nice, and most were cruel.

  She had a guess what kind of owners The Gifted were.

  "Check the silks and make sure they are brown and dry before picking the corn." Jack spoke in a soft, low voice as one of the Head Guards walked slowly down the dirt path, checking on them. The guard stopped, making no attempt to hide his stare. Jack continued. "The silks should peel back easily if the corn is ready. We will pick it in the morning, before lunch. While we eat, some other Field Hands will bring the corn to the storehouse in back, where we will shuck it and separate it in bins in the afternoon. We feed the husks to the animals. The rest is dried, stored, canned, or put in wagons for The Plagued Ones. The corn serves many uses here."

  Jack picked a few ears with relative ease, bending and twisting until they came off in his hand, throwing them in the wagon. The watching guard sauntered off down the pathway. Down the end of the row, a few hungry mutants wandered between the stalks.

  Noticing Kirby's attention to them, Jack said, "Watch out for dung on your boots. You don't want to drag it away and into the city. It will make whatever house you end up in stink worse than it already does."

  Kirby took note of a few piles near her.

  "A crew will pick up their waste after we are done, so we can use it."

  "What do they use it for?" Kirby asked, even though she had a vague memory of what The Gifted had said.

  "They burn the dung in the shops in the eastern part of the settlement, along with the dung from the Feeding Pen," Jack explained. "The Gifted have devices called machines. That's how our people make clothing, parts for the windmills, or glass. Some of the slaves work with wood or metal. The dried, infected dung serves the same purpose as a stick of wood, or a log, for the machines that need it. It burns and makes the machines run." Jack shrugged. "I don't know how, exactly, but it works. They use corn to make some kind of oil for the machines, which mostly run on steam."

  At the mention of The Gifted, Kirby looked in the direction of the magnificent building. She glanced up and down the smooth, glimmering windows, thinking that she would see some sign of William, but she saw nothing. It was as if the magnificent tower had chewed his bones and swallowed him. Her hope was that he had found a way to abide by whatever perverse rules kept him alive, at least until she could figure something out.

  She hadn't seen Drew, either, although she hadn't been able to see everyone in line. Too much looking would surely earn her a beating
.

  "If you prove yourself, you might end up in one of the shops. But it will take a while. And I'm not sure it's any better than working out here." A pained expression took over Jack's face, already sweating from the morning sun. "I guess it depends on who you ask. Some say the shops are hotter than working outside."

  "How many people work in the shops?"

  "There are nine hundred of us slaves in New City, and a hundred or so Head Guards. Four hundred of us are Field Hands. We are considered the lowest class. The rest work in the shops. The only people excused from work are the women who are charged with tending babies." Moving away from the topic before Kirby could ask more questions, Jack bent an ear from its stalk and tossed it in the wagon. "If you aren't sure if the corn is ready, you can peel back a bit of the husk and stick a fingernail in one of the kernels to make sure liquid comes out. But don't peel back any and leave them to be ruined. Scavengers will get to them."

  Kirby said nothing as she bent down the nearest stalk, followed his instructions, and tossed a few ripe ears into the wagon. In rows ahead and behind, she heard the thud of corn dropping into receptacles. She could see a few of the slaves through the crops, but not Bray or Cullen.

  She couldn't get her mind off her strange meeting with Drew. Some part of her still wondered if she was dreaming when she spoke with him. She had heard his voice, but she hadn't seen his face. What if he was some pain-induced hallucination? What if he was a ghost?

  Or what if the spore had finally caught up to her, taking away her sense?

  "When we fill our wagon, we'll wheel it to the path," Jack explained as they kept working. "The guards will make sure we grab an empty one. We'll keep filling them until lunchtime."

  They moved from stalk to stalk, picking those ripe enough to eat, until the wagon was full enough that they could barely move it.

  Finally, when the corn threatened to topple over the sides of the wagon, Jack said, "Let's wheel it out to the path."

  They pulled the cart on stubborn wheels until they reached the end of a row, where several guards watched them trade an empty wagon for their full one. Kirby snuck a glance up and down the path. A few more people filled their wagons in the aisles, or worked on new ones. She saw no sign of her friends.

  Or Drew.

  Maybe he was a ghost.

  Chapter 39: Bray

  Bray picked his corn at an even speed, going neither slower nor faster than the man with whom he was paired, who was named Harold. The few times he saw Kirby or Cullen, always from a distance, he avoided their eyes, fearing retribution. Bray's body hurt from the healing scabs and bruises, and he'd aggravated the arrow wound in his leg by moving too much, but filling the wagon didn't require much effort.

  Yet.

  Bray knew the toll of many days' labor on a body, or even a day. He had seen it on the faces of the farmers back in Brighton, who returned to their houses with hunched backs, stiff fingers, and ringed eyes. He knew the pains that lingered in their bones, long after the harvesting season ended. Even the slower months of winter weren't enough to recuperate before another year of farming started.

  Wheeling a full cart of corn to the path under Harold's direction, he exchanged it for an empty one.

  Farther down, Cullen emerged from a distant row, pulling an equally full cart out to the guards. Next to him, a skinny man with dark hair gave quiet instructions. Bray watched with concern as Cullen's wagon hit a bump in the dirt, and it tilted sideways, dumping a few ears. Wiping the sweat from his face, he bent down to pick up the scattered vegetables, mumbling unintelligibly. Noticing, one of the Head Guards walked over, an angry look on his face as he appraised the spilled crops, and Cullen struggling to fish a piece of corn from beneath the wagon.

  "Stupid forest-dweller!" the guard spat.

  The guard booted Cullen's ankle.

  "Pick it up!"

  Crying out in pain, Cullen found the corn and returned it to its place. He fumbled for the handle of a new wagon, pulling it off the path as the guard followed him angrily. Worry plagued Bray's stomach. If Cullen didn't acclimate, he'd die.

  **

  After a full morning's work, the guards announced an end to the shift. Bray and Harold fell in line behind some others. As they headed for the gate, Bray got a glimpse of Kirby and Cullen far in the distance, at different spots in the line. From somewhere behind him, he heard Rudyard speaking softly to the demons, keeping them from following.

  He thought of Rudyard's filthy smile as they'd crossed the gate in the morning. That smile was wider than anything Bray had seen when Rudyard was upstairs, among the books and gadgets. Several times during the morning, Rudyard had lingered near the guards as they scolded or booted the slower Field Hands, watching with depraved amusement. Occasionally he added a demoralizing word. He reveled in the power, the pain, and his position.

  He loved degrading the humans.

  They kept going until they passed through the gate. On the other side, Harold said, "We'll leave the last wagons here. Some other Field Hands will bring them to the Shucking Rooms. We'll work there in the afternoon." They abandoned the wagon.

  "What now?" Bray asked him.

  "Lunch," Harold said quietly. "I'm not sure where your house will be. You'll have to ask a guard."

  Without another word, Harold strode off among some other people, heading up the nearest path between the small houses. Bray looked around for Kirby and Cullen, thinking he might have a moment to verify they were all right. He only had a breath alone before a Head Guard said, "This way." The guard waved a meaty arm. "It's moving day, forest-dweller."

  **

  Bray followed the guard through the dirt courtyard. On his right, he saw doused bonfires, around which people presumably gathered. In the front row of houses, he saw people. A man with a round, dirty face stared at him from a house's open doorway, sipping a flask. An old woman gave a long, sympathetic glance. Bray allowed his eyes to linger only momentarily. Behind him, the guards herded more slaves through the gate as they left their wagons.

  In front of Bray, a wide dirt path cut between the middle of the rows of small houses. Aside from that path, there were numerous other, smaller paths between the dwellings. Each of the houses was spaced apart by about fifteen feet, with no doors at the entrances, except for a few, which Bray figured belonged to the Head Guards. Through open doorways, Bray saw more women holding babies to their breasts, or tending young children. The air smelled of unwashed bodies and sweat, mixed with the ever-present stench of demons.

  "You're lucky. They're putting you in the front row," the guard leading him muttered as they crossed the courtyard. "We won't have to go far."

  The guard led Bray to a dumpy, broken building at the edge of the courtyard, with several missing stones in the front wall. Like most of the other buildings, it had no door. Through the threshold, Bray saw a short, stubby man staring at him from a stove hearth, cooking. A few misshapen pots and pans hung on the wall near him. A few tattered bedrolls lay on the ground. The guard introduced them with a grunt.

  "Teddy, meet your new roommate," he said, without bothering to introduce Bray.

  Teddy nodded soundlessly, stirring his pot.

  The guard appraised Bray, waiting for a reaction. When he gave nothing other than a nod, the guard pointed to a bedroll in the corner of the room, on which lay a few articles of clothing. A fresh swell of hate struck Bray as he recognized his loose belongings. The clothes looked as if they'd been dragged through the dirt. A tattered blanket replaced his old one.

  "As long as you keep working, you'll stay here," the guard said. "Mess up, and you're back in the cell. Or maybe we'll make a few of The Plagued Ones happy and throw them a warm meal."

  Bray suppressed his anger and calmly said, "I understand."

  "Once a week, we pass out rations. Make them last; you won't get more. You'll cook your own meals, and you'll be expected to get in the line with the other Field Hands in the morning and after lunch. Failure to do so means punishment."
The guard looked at Teddy, who averted his eyes. "You already know better than to try escaping. If you need another warning, Teddy can tell you what happened to his last roommate."

  Teddy stopped stirring as a painful memory flickered through his face.

  Continuing, the guard said, "Everyone works full days. You earn your keep, and you're protected. That's how we stay alive."

  With a final, firm nod, the guard walked out, leaving Bray with Teddy. Bray watched the guard stride back across the courtyard. Silence filled the air.

  "I didn't catch your name," Teddy said after a moment.

  "Bray."

  Teddy kept stirring. He looked around the room for a moment before saying, "You were here with The Gifted boy."

  Bray nodded.

  "Some thought you were here to trade him," Teddy said.

  "No," Bray said firmly. "He's my friend."

  Guilt swirled in Bray's stomach as he realized he had no idea where William was—at least, not for certain.

  Teddy took the pot from the fire, looking past Bray and out the doorway, as if someone might be eavesdropping. He set the pot down and retrieved two wooden bowls from the room's corner that looked as if they wore the stains of the last fifty meals. He scooped some watery broth into one.

  "They say they haven't found a new Gifted in a hundred and fifty years."

  "I wouldn't know anything about that," Bray said, cautiously.

  "He is the youngest of any of them, by far," Teddy said thoughtfully.

  Bray remained quiet.

  "In any case, he's not here now, but you are," Teddy said, seeming to find his manners. "Do you want some soup?"

  The ache in Bray's stomach seemed to have become a permanent feeling. "Sure, thanks."

  Teddy handed him the bowl. "There are spoons over in the corner."

  Bray looked around the battered hovel, finding a few pieces of grubby silverware on the side of the small hearth. He took one and slurped some of the soup into his mouth. It tasted mostly of water, but he caught the hint of some vegetables.