Years After Series | Book 1 | Nine Years After

by Clary, LeRoy

  Tess said in a puzzled tone, “That’s what you’re doing?”

  “And using Everett as a choke point to prevent others from traveling north of Seattle, or even those in Seattle itself, from raiding our livestock. We have a natural border here, and enough open land to the north to raise more livestock than there are people to feed.”

  “You’re just going to feed your army,” she said in a false accusatory voice that told me even she didn’t believe that.

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to just feed my army, although I will. I want to provide enough basic food for all. Since we have no means of refrigeration, we need to salt it, smoke some, and even can some in jars. Same with fish. Salmon. And vegetables and fruits. We have the natural resources to feed everyone here—but not everyone living in other places.”

  “So, you kept your plans secret?” Tess asked. “If what you’re telling us is the truth.”

  “Politics,” he responded. “Let me ask you what you think would happen if those living south of us heard we have an abundance of food without the army to protect it?”

  “They would come here and take it.”

  He said, “And then there would be none after they tear up the fields and kill the livestock. Soon, we will have that abundance of food, but then the question becomes, how do we keep it? Already, my spies tell me there are two different city-states to our south preparing to attack us because we’re seen as weak. They are advancing on a nearby town today, a small city tomorrow, and perhaps combining their forces. They are as powerful as my army, so I’m recruiting and training more men. But it’s a losing battle. They will grow faster and march here within six months. And defeat my army. My plans will fail.”

  Tess said, “So, you are going to raise enough food if you remain in power, but it might fail because it is too successful, and others will come to take it.”

  “Eventually. Right now, we are an easy city to capture. Fortunately, there are at least three kingdoms, if I can call them that, between us and the larger ones in Seattle. I believe the best option is to play them against each other while we stay out of the fight and grow stronger.”

  Tess gave it some thought. Sir Wilson waited her out. She said, “What you need is an army and fortress that stretches from here a dozen miles to the mountains, one large enough and well-equipped enough, so none of those who are south of here will choose to fight you.”

  “I’m impressed, Tess. That is the first part of my plan. Can you derive the next step?”

  She rolled her eyes and allowed a slight smile. “You’re going to have an excess of food in two years. At that point, you will offer it to one of those kingdoms so our south if they join you. Then another. They will buffer Everett and provide troops in return for food. You will not need a giant army and ten-mile long fortress.”

  “And if their leaders choose not to be assimilated?” he asked casually, now wearing a grin of his own and winking in Coot’s direction.

  “You already have spies down there, by your admission. You will probably start a rumor-war, telling those starving people that if they overthrow their leaders, you will feed them.”

  He banged his glass down on the arm of his wheelchair so hard part of the contents sloshed out. “And that is just the beginning of it all.”

  Tess said, “So, you will become the new king, the biggest, baddest, of them all.”

  His smile grew even wider.

  For a moment, I had thought she had figured it all out. From his expression, I realized what while her words sounded good to me, she had somehow missed a key point. My poker senses were on key again. He was bluffing.

  Sir Wilson said in an even tone as he lifted his glass and took a minute sip, “That would be nice, I suppose. To be the biggest, baddest of them all. However, I will not be here to appreciate all that glory. Sadly, I have less than two years to live, perhaps only one. My illness, you see.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Coot said to the room at large as eyes drifted his way. “We’ve talked about it and I’m not taking on that job. You have to find an idiot to do it for you.”

  Sir Wilson said to Tess, “What is needed is a leader with principals, a person who cares about others and is willing to fight only when needed, but will do so effectively. One who will take a risk in taking a position as you did here with me, then be willing to change it as circumstances change, as you are doing now. In short, I need a leader just like you while I reduce my involvement before I die.”

  “That’s crazy talk. You don’t even know me!”

  “But I do. My people have been to your farm and talked to your neighbors. You earned their respect, and you speak your mind and you’re willing to take a stand and fight for them. When you feel you’ve been cheated or taken advantage of, you seek to even things out. You are intelligent and will not back down, especially if you believe you are right. Days ago, my brother went to your farm to find what sort of woman you are, and what sort of leader you may become—with a little guidance from me.”

  “I’m not the person you want. I’m no general or politician.” She spat the words as if they were a bad taste in her mouth.

  “I know something else about you,” he said. “Do you remember that soldier you let live at the Three Hills Sanctuary? Of course, you do. What a clever bribe you contrived. He was to lie to me about an army forming to the north and if he failed, you would reveal the location of the twenty bullets you paid him for cooperation. I have to ask. Did you hide those bullets to frame him if you needed?”

  “I did.”

  “Why? Bullets are valuable, especially those from before the war.”

  She glanced at me. “Danner says you have to be prepared to carry a bluff through in a game of poker, or it won’t work.”

  Sir Wilson leaned forward as if imploring her to listen. “We need you.”

  Tess said, “You are out of your mind.”

  “You do not have to decide today, but soon.” Sir Wilson turned to me with a quick spin of his chair. “And you, sir, hold the keys to the kingdom.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I looked at Sir Wilson in awe and wonder, even as I understood little of what he said, especially the part about me holding the keys to the kingdom. He was a sick, little man in a wheeled chair who had less than two years to live and yet held all the answers.

  I’d come to bargain with him, to try and save my people. In a few words, he’d done so much more, and indirectly offered something greater. But I also understood he was placing the burden of convincing those down in Everett Sanctuary to emerge and join with us, along with those of the other sanctuaries. With those weapons, he might pull off his plan.

  “Why’d you kill everyone in the Three Hills Sanctuary?” The question was a delaying tactic, and to see if his story agreed with his brother’s.

  “We didn’t do that, as you well know. We confiscated their weapons, ammo, and food. And everything else. There was no need to kill them all because they were already dead. Slaughtering people isn’t my way.”

  “You’ve killed many people,” I said flatly, challenging him. He seemed to have answers for everything and somehow that made me angry because he was destroying all my preconceived ideas.

  Sir Wilson closed his eyes and said evenly, “Yes I have killed. Have you ever heard the name, Clay Allison?”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “He lived back in the old west. An outlaw. He once said, ‘I never killed a man who didn’t need it.’ I soothe my mind by pretending Clay Allison and I are a lot alike. I’ve killed. Others have killed at my direction. You have also killed. This would be the appropriate time for me to bring up the subject of the slaughter of my men at the Deep Hole Sanctuary and at the Russian River Crossing, and ask you of your opinion of that, but I won’t.”

  “You know all that?” I asked heatedly.

  “Yes. A messenger had been sent to them. He arrived and hid. He watched it all unfold. He was helpless to prevent it, but he was able to follow you and r
eport back to me. You did what you believed was right—and in the end, perhaps it was.”

  I felt confused.

  He said softly, “I could die tomorrow, next week, or a year from now. Certainly, before the two years estimated by doctors. Without the right person to succeed me in place, the next person to hold my self-appointed office might do the precise things you believed I’d do. That would be a shame. Or, he or she might not be in a position to protect Everett from the south.”

  Coot poured another drink, the beverage to the top of the short glass, and carried ceremoniously it to Tess. As he handed it to her, he said, “Four years. You know what that is?”

  “No,” she said as she sipped and made a face.

  “That’s how long we’ve been looking. For you. There have been others, mostly men, but a few women. They were better than most, but not what we need. When tested, all failed in some critical manner, self-importance, cruelty, lack of self-discipline, greed, or whatever. We have searched all that time, to find you.”

  “I don’t want to be the leader,” she said.

  Coot sipped his beverage and said, “That is rule number one. We never wish to have a leader who wants to be one. They are dangerous in a hundred ways.”

  “Not me,” she said, tears filling her eyes.

  “You.” Coot’s word was curt and final.

  Sir Wilson said, “I will remain the head in title for a short time, but you will be publicly appointed as my second-in-charge immediately. As soon as people know and accept you in that role, I will be forced to retire due to my health and will act as your adviser, no more. You will take over.”

  “No.”

  “You will continue the ranching up north, increasing the herds in the common farms, training the army, and defending what we have in this little northwest corner of what used to be America. In exchange for excess food, our new allies to the south will fight to protect us from aggressors further to the south or you will stop the flow of food.”

  He turned to me again. “For this to all work out, you must speak to those in the Everett Sanctuary and convince them to emerge and be part of us. We need those weapons and people. You will also return to Deep Hole and although they will object, you will attempt to convince them they must come out—or they will die when the next uprising takes place.”

  Me?” Rey asked.

  Sir Wilson gave him a friendly smile. “You? I believe that you decided days ago to return to Monroe and convince your people to join us. They are more than ready.”

  “You seem to know a lot about us and how we live,” I said.

  “All but the locations,” he said. “For instance, are you aware that to preserve the supplies and stretch them to the maximum, birth control was introduced into the water supplies of all sanctuaries after five years?”

  “I didn’t know about the five years, or that it was done to all of them, but the rest we’ve just figured out. Everett Sanctuary knows about it now. For a few days. Deep Hole does not. I don’t know about others, but if we can spread the word, that may be the tipping point,” I said.

  “How so?”

  I looked directly at the shriveled little man. “Math. More die each year than are born. In a single generation . . .”

  “I see. You can maximize that and leverage it to go get them out. I may have a suggestion that may help. They will distrust you. Suppose you offer to take a small number of them, say three from each sanctuary, and sort of show them around up here and have those three people report back as to what they find?”

  I liked the idea immediately.

  Tess was crying softly as she accepted that if she walked away, thousands would die. She had no choice. Neither did I.

  Coot said to me, “Are you sure you won’t have that drink now?”

  “Why?”

  He openly laughed and said, “Because of what is coming next.” He handed me a glass with all the flourish he’d used on Tess’s. He wore a damned evil smile and his eyes shifted back to Tess. He knew what was coming. I didn’t.

  She turned to me, lifted her glass high and said to me, “I accept on one condition. You will be my second in command.”

  “Now just a fractured second, Tess! You can’t do that to me. I’m too young and don’t know half of what I need.”

  Sir Wilson laughed so hard the soldier that pushed his chair rushed forward with a glass of water and a pill.

  Sir Wilson eventually said, “This might work better than expected.”

  “We’re betting a lot of lives on it,” Tess said, her eyes locked on mine.

  I understood a good part of that statement was directed at me, if not all. I believed I could convince those living below Everett to join us. They had already started a revolution down there. They had been willing to fight to climb to the surface, and now they wouldn’t have to. Maybe one or two could return to Deep Hole with me and convince them. That left seventeen more sanctuaries to locate and free. Sixteen, I corrected myself as I glanced at Rey and met his smile.

  Yes, ‘free’ was the word I mentally chose, or it chose me. We could come together and help a lot of people. We were not in a position to save the world, but in our little corner, we could make a difference.

  When I turned to add my voice to convincing Tess to take the responsibility of the job, she was looking at me and nodding her head. We had ourselves a new leader. We’d phase out the nasty, evil, Sir Wilson—with his help, and introduce the benevolent Tess who would protect the people and feed them while they got back on their feet.

  I would be her second in command.

  It might take years to accomplish all we wanted. Perhaps the rest of our lives. Was it a worthy goal? Absolutely.

  The end

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LeRoy Clary

  LeRoy currently lives in Washington State with his wife, youngest son, and a dog named Molly. He spends his time doing what he loves the most: writing about an action-packed fantasy world of dragons, and magic, and science fiction. LeRoy spends his leisure time traveling and exploring the beautiful countryside in the Pacific Northwest from high desert to forests to coastal terrain.

  Writing has always been one of LeRoy’s favorite past times and passions. He’s been a member of several author critique groups both in Texas and in Washington State. He collaborated on a project in Texas that produced the book Quills and Crossroads which includes three of his short stories.

  In recent years, LeRoy has published over thirty fantasy books including a book called DRAGON! Stealing the Egg which began the idea of how to live and survive in a world where dragons are part of the landscape. The Dragon Clan Series is unique in that it introduces a new main character in each of the seven books of the series. The book entitled Blade of Lies: Mica Silverthorne Story was a finalist in an Amazon national novel writer’s contest in 2013.

  Learn more about LeRoy

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  Email: Leroy.clary@gmail.com