by R. Malak
Togran for all weakness in using human weaponry would have never allowed the clans to fracture this much within so short a time. Talk circulated around camp constantly of the WarChief’s fury over Kozan’s decrees, a few of them even going so far as to create hidden alliances. But for now, none would challenge him openly yet, not while there was a human settlement to be conquered. But after the settlement falls, what then? What future would there be for a fractured and divided WarHorde.
He had no doubt many of the clans would take their warriors and leave to join another WarHorde, which meant, as the WarHorde’s shaman, he would be an outcast. For none of the other WarHordes would accept a shaman who failed to keep the clans united and at peace. Berzook snarled angrily at the thought of being an outcast. He could not allow that to happen. He would need to put his plan in motion and have Kozan WarLord of the Orc Clans removed permanently.
~ * ~
Talmen spent the next two weeks training with his new squad.
“My new squad.”
It still felt strange to even think about and even weirder to say aloud, but it also felt incredibly invigorating, knowing that he had a team of reliable friends at his back. Even if Greg constantly complained about him being too inexperienced to lead the squad.
He had finally begun his new training, learning new ways to fire his weapon and how to hit a moving target. He’d even begun training in hand to hand combat, which was much harder than it first appeared. Hell, even Katie was walloping him in hand to hand combat now, and she wasn’t even trying most times. He was also learning how to use a machete and was taking classes to learn more about the creatures that had taken over his world. The training was often savage and merciless, but Talmen had grown to like his new routine. The only thing missing from his life was his family and the siblings that had found a way into his heart. Every now and again, after completing his training, he would pass by Greta’s tent in the hopes of seeing them. However, most times the tent would be empty and other times, when he did see them he would panic and leave before they saw him.
Having just listened to another lecture on weapon maintenance and survival skills in the woods, Talmen headed out of the tower followed closely by Katie, who always seemed to be at his elbow, acting as his unofficial second in command. He thought he’d use his free time to go down to the marketplace to check out the weapons they had on sale, when she tugged his arm.
“Hey Tal, you think we could stop by the Alom’s stall? I heard from a few friends that he is selling honey apples today,” she asked sweetly.
Tal gave her a wry smile and nodded his head. “Sure thing, you got anything to trade for it?”
Katie giggled, her grey eyes lighting up. “Yep, got some ration cards.”
Talmen rolled his eyes in annoyance, the whole squad got only seven ration cards for each week to buy food and drink, but Katie had just about used up all of hers on useless junk bartered from scavengers who passed through the settlement. This often meant that he would be sharing his food rations with her for the next few days. Sighing he nodded his head again.
The marketplace at the center of settlement was bustling with life, and the heavy buzz of conversation as people haggled with each other for items. Humans of all shapes and all walks of life had stalls formed up in rows all around the marketplace, using colorful banners designed and painted by hand.
Katie as soon she laid eyes upon the marketplace grabbed him by the arm and began dragging him through the crowds of people. With Talmen bumping into more than a few people who shot him death stares. Apologizing repeatedly, he plowed right through them.
With Katie’s slim figure weaving her way easily through the crowd. She brought him over to a stall run by a short, round man with a fading hairline and a double chin wearing a dirty white apron. In front of him on a table covered by a red tablecloth were three trays full of apples, dipped in golden glazed honey. Katie a wide smile on her lips stared at the apples hungrily.
The shopkeeper seeing their interest inquired in a friendly voice, “Hello my friends, how many apples would you like to buy?”
Katie dipped her hand into her military fatigues and pulled out a single ration card. “How many can I get for one ration card?”
Alom rubbed his double chin thoughtfully and replied, “I will give you two apples.”
“Are you kidding me? A ration card is worth at least ten.”
The stall owner held his hands up with a greedy smile. “Easy there, girl, I will make you a deal how about four apples?”
Katie shook her head and repeated, “Ten.”
Seeing as the bartering was going take a while, Talmen turned away to glance around at other stalls nearby and felt his heart skip a beat.
Sitting on one of tables in front of a thin man with a long ponytail was his stolen backup sitting amongst some other tattered bags. Almost tripping over himself in his haste to get to the stall, he grabbed hold of a passing cadet’s arm to steady himself and immediately regretted it.
“Well, if it isn’t the little worm,” said a familiar voice. Turk shook off his arm and thrust him back, almost causing him to trip over again. “Where are your friends now worm?” Spat the bulging mass of muscle.
Talmen in no mood to waste time on the big, ugly oaf bent down quickly and brandished the bowie knife he always kept concealed in his boot.
He stabbed the knife towards Turk’s face forcing him back. “Fuck off Turk! And leave me alone! Or next time I will cut open that big fat throat of yours!”
Turk’s blanched in fear his mouth gaping open in dismay and backed away. He then turned tail and fled.
Taking a breath to calm himself, he returned the knife to his boot and continued towards the stall.
The man with the ponytail seeing a new potential customer approaching offered him a wild toothy grin and said, “Need a bag for the road, my brother? My bags are practically brand new and are guaranteed to last you years.”
Talmen doubted that very much, most of the bags up for barter were extremely old and worn out including his own, which appeared to be empty of all his possessions. Pointing his finger at his backpack he asked, “Where’d you get the backpack?”
The man grinned and tapped his long nose “A man never discloses his sources, lest they be stolen from him,” chuckled the man.
Biting his tongue to stop himself from lashing out at the man, he leaned forward and in a voice as cold as ice, “This bag was stolen from me and had possessions of mine worth more than the world to me. So I ask again, where…did…you…get…the…bag?”
The man’s eyes hardened into steel, his friendly demeanor evaporating like mist. “Is that right? Well like all things in this world, that kind of information will cost you boy.”
Talmen stepped back and raised an eyebrow. “How much?”
The man held up three fingers, two of them had missing nails. “Three ration cards and the information is all yours. I’ll even toss in the bag for free.” Shit, that was a lot of ration cards. He wouldn’t be able to eat for the rest of the week, but if he could get his stuff back…
Finally, he nodded his head in agreement. “Tell me.”
The man held a finger up and wiggled it side to side. “Uh, uh, uh, first show me you have the ration cards with you.”
Talmen grunted in annoyance and stuck a hand into his pocket to retrieve his three remaining ration cards.
The man smiled hungrily. “To answer your first question, I got the bag off a group of roamers that traded here some time ago. They gave me the backpack in exchange for some information on where they could a find a local hospital in the area.”
“What’d you tell them.”
“I told them, there aren’t any hospitals in the area. The military blew them up early in the war to prevent the creatures from stealing their supplies. The only place remotely like a hospital for miles around here is the medical facility in Cooperstown.”
Cooperstown that was fairly close by. He asked, “Did they trade any stu
ff from the backpack here?”
The man spat on the ground, and sucked in air through the gap in his tooth, before replying brusquely, “The fuck if I know kid. What is it you’re looking for?”
Talmen frowned in thought, not sure whether to tell the man or not, but didn’t see any reason not you. “There was an X-10 Series Phone in the backpack do you know anyone selling those types of phones?”
The man grinned and spat on the ground again. “Sure I do kid. You should try Bobby’s, he usually up by the entrance, now my ration cards if you please,” he said and held out at bandaged hand.
Talmen reluctantly handed over the ration cards and took the empty backpack.
Guess he’d better go find this Bobby, but first he needed to check on Katie. He looked back towards the stall, where he’d left her and saw her eating one of the honey apples by the stand. He walked back over towards her. “You finished?” he asked.
Katie bobbed her head up and down happily and licked her fingers. “That was delicious, thank you Alom.”
The big man bowed his head and smiled warmly, “You’re most welcome my dear, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.” Talmen grinned at that, Alom must have gotten the better end of the deal then, but Katie seemed happy enough. “Listen I got to speak with another merchant,” he said.
“Want me to come with you?”
Talmen shook his head and replied, “No, I’ll be fine, head back over to the squad and have them ready to resume training exercises.”
Katie’s cheeks dimpled into a deep grin. “Sure thing, squad leader,” she said and pranced away clutching her brown paper bag full of honey apples.
Frowning in thought Talmen headed past the rest of the stalls, and strode towards the settlements entrance, where the defenders were patrolling. A part of him wondered if he’d find Rollo and Lucy on duty here. Grimacing at the stench coming from the ditch outside he saw that Duncan head of security had formed up additional barricades made up of sharpened stakes around the front of settlement. He had also stationed two M1917 Browning machine guns atop a parapet patrolled by soldiers in plain blue clothing beneath body armor and carrying M19 Rifles.
Seeing a lone soldier cleaning his rifle on a tree stump, he walked over to the man. The soldier seeing him approaching looked up at him with gaunt cheeks bare of any flesh, his ropey veins noticeable through his uniform and dead black eyes that had seen too much. The man looked at him up down, gave a derisive snort and went back to cleaning his rifle.
Talmen asked, “I am looking for Bobby, I was told he’d be around here.”
The man didn’t bother to look up replying slowly, “Fuck off toy soldier, I’m busy.”
Talmen stared down at the man refusing to leave. “I need to find him.”
The soldier stood up menacingly and growled, “I said fuck off toy soldier. We have no place for your kind here.” The man’s fingers gripped the hilt of his belt knife.
Talmen’s lips thinned, sick to death of all the assholes in this world and took two steps back. Stubbornly refusing to leave without an answer, he opened his mouth to ask again, when a familiar face appeared out of the corner of his eyes.
Lucy a brown coat with an assault rifle slung across the back of her shoulder gestured for him to come over. Giving the man in front of him a sarcastic smile he said, “Thank you for all your help.”
The man’s eyes glittered dangerously, but before he could respond, Talmen walked away to meet with Lucy up by the gate. As soon as he reached her, she grabbed him roughly by the arm and dragged him over to where a bunch of cars were being repaired.
She then spun him around to face her and Talmen had to swallow a gulp of surprise. She had changed her. Her long brown was no longer a greasy mess and her skin was clear of the dirt and grime from travel. She looked kinda pretty, with her wide violet colored eyes and trim figure.
With an unexpectedly soft voice she asked, “What are you doing down here Talmen?”
Mouth dry he replied, “I, ah, am looking for Boddy, I mean Bobby, I think he has something of mine.”
Lucy with a look of disappointment, pointed towards a rundown old shack behind him past the parked Humvees inside of the camp.
Nodding his head in thanks, he was about to turn and walk away, but couldn’t move his feet.
“Well, what are you waiting for? You got what you came here for. Go,” she said harshly.
Talmen scratched his head and licked his dry lips feeling both nervous and anxious. “How’s Rollo?”
Lucy raised one eyebrow and folded her arms beneath her chest. “Why do you want to know?”
Talmen gazed up into her eyes and replied steadily, “Because he’s my friend.”
She leaned in closer to him, her eyes burning hotly and asked angrily, “Would a friend ignore you for weeks on end and never visit?”
Talmen’s jaw dropped open in shock, blurting out, “I thought that’s what you wanted? Me out of both of your lives.”
Lucy pursed her lips and looked away from him and huffed, “That’s still no excuse to treat a friend like that.”
Talmen opened and closed his mouth like a fish gasping for breath. Was she serious! She was the reason he’d avoided them for so long, and now she was blaming him. Dear heavens above, he would never understand women.
His face flushed red, he opened his mouth to argue, when the earsplitting sound of the blaring siren resounded throughout the camp, deafening the air. Soldiers atop the parapet began to scramble in all directions to get into their defensive positions.
“We have contact! Six miles out!”
Talmen quickly spun on his feet to stare out of the gates. Bouncing and shaking from side to side as it raced down the valley towards them, was a green military transport vehicle. Mouth gaping, he wondered, who it was?
The boney man sitting on the stump leapt to his feet in an instant, shouting orders, “All defenders to your posts! And prepare to fire! Boris you lazy fuck! Get that browning loaded and ready!”
Talmen trying to see the person in the driver’s seat noticed a white piece of cloth attached to one of the side mirrors. Recognizing the international symbol for peace, Talmen called out to the man in charge, “Sir, their flying a flag of truce!”
The man glowered at him, but turned to look where he was pointing and sure enough there it was a flimsy attempt at a white flag. The boney man unclipped a microphone hanging from the fence and climbed up onto the parapet. “This is The Spire! Halt! Or we will open fire!”
Talmen watched as the truck slowed to a crawl and stopped, a few meters short of the caltrops and mine field. The door to the truck swung open and a woman in a brown cloak with long silver hair popped out of the truck.
Lucy, who had also been staring intensely, muttered under her breath, “She’s a ranger, at least I think she is.”
“Ranger? What is she doing out here?”
Lucy shook her head, her eyes not leaving the lone ranger making her way slowly towards the settlement with her arms raised high above her head.
The man in charge must have been wondering the same thing. “Be alert men, this could be a trap.” The soldiers on the parapet stiffened to attention, gripping their weapons tighter and kept their aim focused on the single ranger easily making her way through the minefield that had taken hours for him, Lucy and Rollo to cross.
The silver-haired woman stopped in front of the gates and called up, “I am Cora from Defending Patrol Unit Lighting Squad! I have wounded rangers from Outpost Epsilon in the back of the truck! We need assistance!”
~ * ~
Cora, with dark smudges under her eye sockets from hours of sleeplessness, observed with a dull numbness in her heart as the gates slowly began grating open. The echoes of her sister screaming still ringing loudly inside her mind; compounded by the noise of the siren, which continued to blare like a lost sheep at the top of its lungs. Soldiers in blue uniforms swept past her rushing towards the truck filled with wounded rangers in the back. Her brain told he
r that she should be helping them, but her body felt wooden and useless.
Galeth the man in charge of the gate approached her. “Cora is that you? Well fuck me dead. We had reports you and your whole squad were wiped out.”
Cora unable to muster the strength to waste time on meaningless words simply stated, “A WarHorde is heading this way, it won’t be long, before it gets here.”
Galeth’s eyes hardened into stones, waving a soldier over to him, he whispered into the man’s ear and sent him running towards the tower. He then took her by the shoulder. “Come with me you look just about ready to collapse.”
Cheeks dry from all the tears she had spilled on the long silent drive here, Cora felt like an empty husk devoid of all life. Then she remembered that she still had to tell her younger sister the sad news and felt the dark pit inside of her stomach sink lower to create a deep ache that would not leave her.
~ * ~
Talmen overhearing the ranger’s words felt panic rising inside his chest and a pounding sound inside his ears. The WarHorde was coming, and there was nowhere else to run, the nearest outpost was miles away. And even if he wanted to run, he couldn’t abandon his squad and he couldn’t abandon Lucy and Rollo. He’d gotten close to all of them. Donahue, who loved to play pranks and crack jokes. Katie, a kind-hearted girl that enjoyed bossing people around. Sarcastic Sarah, who preferred to read and learn. And brutally honest Greg who delighted in testing his leadership abilities at every step. He couldn’t leave any of them behind and he doubted any of them would abandon their home.
As if reading his mind, Lucy slipped a hand into his and gripped it tightly. She looked up at him with fearful eyes. “Don’t worry Tal, we’ll make it through this, we just have to stick together and watch each other’s backs,” she said and squeezed his hand.