Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  Psalms 125: 3

  The Holy Bible, saved from before the Cleansing

  I trudge back to my empty tent, the damp, still-unfinished wash dragging in my hands. Sniffing the air, I realize with relief that Mama Rose might have a little breakfast left.

  I stuff the clothes through the door flap and hurry the dozen or so yards that separate me from the woman who did her best to raise me when I stumbled into her life ten years ago.

  “You look like you haven’t slept at all since leaving on that mission. Two months of your life, gone to the desert sun. What’s wrong with you, boy?”

  “Hey, Mama Rose.” I gratefully accept the enormous bowl of eggs and potato hash she shoves at me. She looks away, but not fast enough to hide the corner of a grin.

  “You been with that girl again.”

  It’s not a question, so I don’t answer it, too busy eating.

  “Three more kill marks.”

  Again, not a question.

  “Sorry, Mama Rose. But they weren’t good people. Slave traders.”

  She snorts. “Not up to you to decide good and bad. You’re not Justice.” She pushes a strand of white hair back into its place in her bun.

  “They would have killed me if I hadn’t gotten them first.” It’s a tired argument, but one we seem to have each time I return from a mission.

  “So you’re a dumb animal now? Kill or be killed? Bird shit.”

  I sigh and continue eating. Her food alone is worth putting up with her mouth, but she’s also one of the few people who knows my full history and loves me anyways.

  “I saw where that girl got one too. Not natural, that. And you always staying out nights with her. Hhmpf.”

  “I’m going to ask her to marry me, Mama Rose.” I’ve never told her that before. Never told anyone.

  Not really sure why I just did.

  She only cuts her eyes sideways at me and packs that reeking tobacco into her pipe. “Not while Abraham is alive, you won’t. Gonna kill him too?”

  “Somebody needs to,” I mutter.

  She glares at me but ignores the comment. “I need some more meat.”

  “I’ll hunt for you this afternoon. I’m supposed to brief Abraham and Caine on the mission this morning.” I hand her the empty bowl and she shrugs a bony shoulder. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “Take a bath first!” Mama Rose yells after me as I exit. I chuckle at her expected gruffness. There aren’t many soft people here in the Tribe, and I’m lucky to have her on my side.

  But I take her advice and scrub any remaining grime from my fingernails and hair and find clean clothes in a different pack before heading to find my Tribal Leader and his preferred henchman.

  Caine is nowhere to be seen, but Abraham is sitting in the sun outside the longhouse - the one truly permanent building we have in this valley. Everything else is as portable as we are; stay in one place too long, and the Destroyer is bound to find you.

  Abraham holds up a finger as I approach, so I just get to wait while he reads a full two more pages of some leather-bound journal.

  I try not to fidget too much, but I’m not a standing-still sort of person.

  Finally, he looks up from his book and shades his eyes against the sun. “Report.”

  “I stayed south of Tartarus’s territory, and east of the other Tribes. I met a few traveling parties on the trail, but saw one or two single hunters from a distance. Kedesh, I believe. The real news is that the slave traders have already adapted their routes to our changed patterns again. I can’t say how they are finding us so quickly.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” He actually looks at me now, his brown eyes a harder, older version of Zarea’s, but just as expressive. He knows what I want to say, and he’s daring me to say it.

  I try my standard open-ended sort of accusation. “Someone could be giving them information.”

  Abraham slams the book on the table before him, but his movements are slow and controlled as he stands. He pushes the bench backward with his massive legs. He has a good hand’s breadth on me, and I’m not a short man.

  “None of my people are traitors.”

  “Until they are,” I grumble under my breath. I glance at my wrist, still a little puffy from Thadd’s work.

  “Three more hashes. Tell me.”

  “Like I said, more slavers. I tried to question them, but it was…ineffective. There was also a young slave girl with them. She didn’t make it. Mostly dead anyways, when I found her.” I rush these last words out, trying not to imagine the girl’s small, battered body and empty eyes.

  She should have been hash number four, but I don’t count that as a life taken, so much as a mercy given. Some wounds can heal, some can’t.

  Abraham evaluates me for a long minute, as though he knows what I’m holding back, but he says nothing more. Instead, he motions for me to follow him inside the stuffy building. It smells sweet and earthy, like the straw bales and mud which make up its thick, warm walls.

  A long side table of rough planks is spread with the most valuable thing our Tribe owns - a painstakingly hand-painted map of the former United States of America. It stretches farther than my arm span in both directions, the animal hides stitched together cleanly.

  We stop before it, and Abraham reaches up to a shallow niche cut into the wall over the table. He palms a carved wooden box, opens it, and hands me four needles which have been blackened in the fire to represent the ashes of death. I take my time and study the trails, hills, valleys, and lakes which cover the painted ground.

  Finding the place where I killed the traders is not easy, but my training has been good. I thread the needles into the dense leather, marking another sighting of Tartarus’s influence.

  And more hash marks of evil on the lines of our dying world.

  I don’t know what the world was like during the Cleansing a hundred years ago, but I can’t believe it’s gotten much better in Tartarus, where the slavers originate. I run my fingertip a last time over the fourth needle, trying to push the girl’s empty eyes into the corner of my memory.

  The door bangs open and Caine strides in - as cocky as if he’s already usurped Abraham’s place. And if Thadd’s suspicions are true, that’s exactly what Caine hopes to do. He could petition to marry Zarea and become the Tribe’s new Leader very soon. Unless I beat him to it.

  But it won’t be easy to get Zarea to marry any of us. Even if I might have the best chance, she values her freedom.

  And even if Abraham is looking for his future replacement, he isn’t exactly ready to retire.

  I notice how Abraham widens his stance and squares his shoulders - taking up even more space than usual. A visual reminder that he is still very much in charge of our Tribe, regardless of the nonverbal pissing contest the three of us are always engaging in.

  “Thadd told me your count. Respectable,” Caine sneers at me as though he means the exact opposite. He leans against the long table, spreading his hands wide along its expanse - displaying his merits to me like I don’t know what he’s capable of. His arms are speckled with so many red hashes they nearly overtake the black mission lines.

  Caine has been at war with the world since he was walking, and he wears his soldier’s marks proudly. As for me, I’d rather not compete over body counts.

  Ignoring him, I glance up at the Tribal calendar spanning the wall - one painted leather square for each year. According to Elysium’s prophecy, there were only supposed to be one hundred before the Starbright maiden came to spread her Justice.

  I count one hundred sixteen squares.

  “Have you seen signs of the prophecy in your wanderings?” Abraham asks, and I startle, realizing uneasily that he’s been watching me intently for several minutes. His fingers tug absently at his long beard.

  “Or signs of Asphodel?” Caine interjects.

  I shrug, resisting the urge to roll my eyes at him. “Nobody knows what the true signs of the prophecy may be. But as for Asphodel, we’ve been everywhere thi
s side of the plains. We need to go east again, toward the Appalachian mountains. The terrain there is pocked full of caves. If Asphodel truly rests underground, you won’t find it around here.”

  A conspiring look passes between them and my stomach twists. They have something planned, and I doubt it will benefit me. I’ve only been back east a few times since settling in Hebron, and I’ve hated it. The huge cities of dead people - the crumbling clothing and desiccated skin that dissolves into a choking powder when you start to search a house.

  The sickening combination of immense bunkers of supplies with nobody left to make use of them.

  At least the land around Tartarus has been burned clean of the evidence of the Cleansing. There are so many kinds of evil at work in this world, but it seems the cruelest trick is that all we can really do is wait for a star to fall.

  Finally, Abraham smiles at me softly. “We have sent a few scouts in that direction while you were gone. I believe your logic is correct. Come back here tomorrow for lunch, and we will discuss our options further.”

  Another measure of control - he could tell me his plan now, but he’d rather make me wait, drawing out the suspense.

  “And I need to speak with you on another matter,” Caine says to Abraham then, angling his body away from me. Shutting me out of the conversation.

  Which is fine with me, really. Unlike him, I don’t want to marry Zarea so I can become the Tribe’s new Leader. I just want her to be by my side. I’d even be happy running away with her to start a new Tribe, like my own parents tried to do.

  As long as I have her to love, I would be home.

  Abraham nods to Caine and flicks his fingers at me, dismissing me.

  “We will also talk more of your suspicions,” he calls to me as I turn to go. I nod, then hurry back into the fresh air and sunshine, moving quickly to hide my grin - Abraham is also toying with Caine.

  I bang the door just a bit as I step out into the sun. I’m massively happy to be free of the politics of the longhouse. If I hurry, I might even catch Zarea before she begins her afternoon rounds. She often knows something of her father’s plans. And if she doesn’t, I can still steal a kiss. Win either way.

  I follow the path down the slight hill, humming to myself. Even though the civil games of Hebron are tiresome, it’s good to be back.

  Scuffing noises reach my ears then, and I look up to find Thadd striding up the path toward me, a smirk on his face.

  The expression he gets when he knows something good is coming, just for him.

  “What is it?” I ask as he passes me.

  He barely slows his walking, too excited. “Another mission, I hope! I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

  He hasn’t been home long, I know. A month, maybe two. Certainly not long enough to complete his six-month rest period. He must be planning to waive his recovery time again.

  Not something you’d see me doing.

  THREE

  And will not God bring about Justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?

  Luke 18: 7

  The Holy Bible, saved from before the Cleansing

  Zarea isn’t waiting for me by the river, and her small tent next to Abraham’s is empty. I sigh, realizing she has already headed into the forest.

  I circle back to my own tent and grab my bow and a quiver of arrows. I’ll hunt some meat for Mama Rose and maybe even find Zarea’s patrol path.

  I follow the river north until it ends in a small pool at the edge of the forest. The water runs down the mountainsides into the pool, sometimes in wide swathes of white foam, but more often in narrow trickles like today. I stop to drink and fill my water-skin from the pool’s cold depths before entering the woods.

  Soon the canopy has blotted out the late summer sun and I breathe in the sweetness of the early afternoon heat. There are a few trails to follow - marks of various animals. But I’m patient and have nothing better to do, so I climb high in a pine tree and watch the distant flatland until the sun slants lower in the west.

  My reward is a grazing herd of wild cattle following the snake of the next river over. The old men joke about how most of these animals simply died of stupidity - inability to feed and shelter themselves after so many generations of human intervention.

  But adaptation is open to any creature, and these animals have grown rangy and shifty-eyed. They run on spindly legs almost as fast as deer, but they are bigger and easier to find.

  Plus, Mama Rose prefers their meat and its marbling of rich fat. She’ll be happy with me if I bring her beef.

  Tracking the herd’s location once I’m back on the ground is a welcome challenge, an exercise my brain slips into like stretching a muscle back into shape. When I finally choose a smaller cow and fell it with a handful of well-aimed arrows, I realize I’m at the western edge of our summer territory. Less than a mile north is an outcropping of rocks that lend a view like none other.

  I hurry through the bloody work of hanging the animal in a tree to drain, then skinning and quartering the meat. Binding the sections in thick cloth, I hang the bundles back in the tree. Luckily, a cold stream waits nearby, and after I rinse the blood from my hands and arms, I follow the pebbly trail up the hillside until I’m standing on top of the world.

  The cliff that supports me is taller than anything else around, and I feel as though I can see for a hundred miles. Scanning the horizon gives me the peace that comes with safety - nothing can touch me up here.

  Nothing can reach me this high except the fears in my own heart, and for today I am master of those. I smile as I remember my father bringing me here to show me the lands of Hebron.

  “All of this valley will belong to you one day, my son,” he had said. This was before his falling-out with Abraham, and before his death. But the view into the past doesn’t bother me today - today I see my future again spread before me in the shapes of trees and rivers and the grazing herd of wild cattle.

  Hope has crept back into my life, and I plan to grip it tightly.

  The sun is maybe an hour from setting, and the sky has gathered all its clouds to the horizon. I take my scope from a shallow zippered pocket on my pants. The scope was hard-won from an abandoned military camp out east; reflecting on its scratched exterior could also bring back memories I’m not in the mood for.

  Instead I focus my thoughts on the dusky horizon. As I twist the scope into focus, my heart beats a little faster. Part of the horizon now seems to be moving. I scan the edge of the shadows, and eventually a small shape separates itself.

  A boxy vehicle, a soft tan which blends with the mottled colors of the dirt and grasses around it. Moving without the help of animals, seeming to glide silently along the plains below me. A shadow follows beneath it, as though it never touches the earth. The vehicle is still too distant for me to make out any identifying feature.

  I don’t know anyone who travels like this.

  I look around carefully to mark its current location and potential paths, watching its hovering sort of progress a few minutes longer. Finally the dying sunlight pushes me to hasten back to my kill in the tree. Using lengths of rope and an unrolled blanket, I fashion a drag sled and harness.

  The weight on my shoulders is much more than aggravating by the time I’ve reached Mama Rose’s tent, but her grin when she realizes what I’ve brought is payment enough.

  “You always know what I’m hankerin’ for,” she cackles as she slices the meat into thick, round steaks and salts them. She hurries to heat her griddle over the fire and soon the sizzle and aroma is almost too much to bear. My stomach grumbles its impatience - I’ve been eating mostly dried jerky for weeks in the field.

  “Guess you haven’t heard about Thadd, seeing as you’ve been gone all day.”

  “What?” I remember his triumphant expression from earlier and suddenly my stomach can wait for food.

  “He’ll be leaving soon. Mission to find Asphodel.”

  “What?”

  Mama Rose glares at m
y repetition, but I can’t help it. That just isn’t the sort of mission Thadd is good at. Abraham is definitely up to something, and now I’m really regretting not making more effort to find Zarea while I was out today.

  Her hand tugging my shoulder down is what makes me realize I’m standing.

  “Sit and fill your belly. Then you can go to the common fire and get your gossip-gut filled up too.”

  I know she’s right - I haven’t eaten more than a handful of jerky all day. Besides, there is gossip of my own to share, and Mama Rose is the only one I can trust with it just yet.

  “Have you ever seen a wagon that travels like this? With no animals?” I ask, fishing a charred stick from the fire’s edge and drawing a rough outline of the vehicle on a scrap of cloth from the unwrapped animal.

  Mama Rose passes me a short knife and a plate heavy with meat. She just watches me and chews her mouthful of fat. Her eyes glint with something I can’t quite read.

  Several minutes pass as I struggle to remain patient. Mama Rose does not react well to prodding.

  “Only seen those once. Twenty year ago.”

  “And never since?”

  “And never since. They were from Elysium. Never figured to see anyone from there again.”

  My mind is swirling with a thousand questions, but the number is what repeats behind my eyes like the pulse of a heartbeat.

  A lot can happen in twenty years. A lot has happened in the last twenty years. Why then? Why now? Why not ever in between?

  “Be still, boy, and I’ll tell you the rest,” Mama Rose huffs. I look down and realize I’ve stood again and am pacing - my feet mirroring the motion of my thoughts. Back and forth, trying to measure the importance of something so insignificant as the width of a tent, or the progress of a silent box across the plains.

  “Twenty years was before your father and mother ever ventured our way. When Abraham was just a pup, like Caine is now. Biting at old Michael’s heels to let him take over, but still hell-bent on chasing his own tail.”

  I can’t help but grin a little at her description of Abraham.