Ghosts & Ashes

by F. T. Lukens

  7

  bundled in layers and carrying their packs, they left the farmhouse as the sun rose. Ren had reconstructed Asher’s pulse gun, though that was more difficult than making it fall apart. It had taken a few minutes, but in the end, Ren was fairly certain it would work. Asher had it tucked near his hip, hidden beneath his bulky coat.

  Ren covered up; only the barest sliver of skin was exposed to the cold and the frost. They trudged through the snow: Jakob leading, Asher a step behind, and Ren bringing up the rear. The snowstorm had died down during the night, and the sky was clear. The sun was bright and beating down on the rolling fields covered in powdery white.

  Ren looked over his shoulder at the house as it diminished in the distance. He was glad to be out of there; the place had left him unsettled.

  “I’m still mad at you for scaring us, by the way,” Ren said, as they walked.

  Asher laughed. “Well, I’m still mad at you for sneaking away from the group.”

  Ren hummed. “Fair, I guess. Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you get from the front door to the back door so fast last night?”

  Asher stopped. He frowned. “I wasn’t at the front door.”

  Ren’s stomach dropped. “What?”

  “I approached the house from the back when I spotted the fire through the windows. I was freezing and went for the direct route.” Ren swallowed. Fear must have shown in his eyes because Asher moved close. His voice was full of concern. “Was there someone at the front door last night?”

  “It must have been my imagination.” The wind had been brutal. He had already been thinking of ghosts and of being watched. And only a few days ago, he’d been slowly driven insane by a spaceship.

  “Are you sure?”

  Ren picked up his pace and brushed past Asher. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  By the afternoon, Ren sweated beneath his layers from exertion and the warmth of the day. He didn’t remove his scarf or coat, however, knowing that his sweat would chill and leave him colder than before.

  When his stomach growled, they all stopped to eat the dried meat Penelope had packed and to drink from the canteens. The cold water chilled Ren’s throat and chest, and he coughed into his fist. Before they moved on, Asher packed fresh snow into the empty canteen, then looped it over his shoulder.

  The path they took wound through the countryside. They started in farm fields, but as they neared the entrance to the Laurels, they encountered a small wood. They stuck close to the edges, taking refuge under the canopy of evergreen branches. Ren didn’t experience the feeling of being followed or watched again, but he occasionally prodded the area with his power to make sure. He didn’t experience any feedback from tech, which put his mind somewhat at ease.

  As they traveled, Ren couldn’t help but remember the time he and Asher had spent days wandering the countryside on their way to a spaceport: how they had slept in a hollowed-out log, how they had bathed in a stream, how they had spent most of their days in a dazed sleepless state, how they’d kept moving out of fear and desperation. Ren had spent days watching Asher’s back as he’d pushed them onward. The circumstances weren’t quite the same, but the span of Asher’s shoulders was no different and neither was the determined length of his strides.

  Their relationship was different, though. The closeness they had found in the dungeon and in their escape had evaporated. Maybe that’s all their relationship had been—born of mutual desperation. When the fighting was over, the flimsy premise had disappeared, and whatever they had been crumbled.

  Ren frowned and pushed the thoughts away. It wasn’t the time to dwell on the past and the things Ren couldn’t change. He would always be a duster technopath, and Asher would always belong to the stars.

  “We’re getting close to the entrance to the Laurels,” Jakob said, in the late afternoon. “We should start looking for a place to take shelter.”

  “I think I saw a thicket a few yards back that would be good,” Ren said, pointing over his shoulder.

  “We should keep going,” Asher said. “And find actual shelter. I don’t want to be out here in another snowstorm.” Asher waited for Ren to join him. “Not that I don’t think we could tough it out, but there may be better shelter ahead. I’d hate to go backward.”

  Ren shrugged. “Whatever you say—”

  A sharp crack of a twig cut Ren off.

  Asher grabbed Ren’s coat and yanked him back while stepping between Ren and the place where the sound originated. A shrub rustled nearby. Footsteps approached.

  Jakob joined them and crowded close. Asher had his pulse gun out of his holster. Ren reached with his star, and four pieces of tech pinged back from different directions.

  “Four of them,” Ren whispered. “We’re surrounded.”

  Jakob had a knife in his hand; his gloved fingers were wrapped tight around the hilt.

  “Come out,” Asher called. “We know you’re there.”

  Four figures, dressed like villagers, but wearing body armor and helmets reminiscent of the Baron’s soldiers, melted out of the wood. Three of them had prods, the fourth carried a stunner. Suddenly the thought they were being watched didn’t seem so farfetched after all.

  “Well, this is familiar,” Jakob said, low.

  The four fanned out with weapons trained on their small group.

  “I can take care of this,” Ren said. They had fewer weapons than the Hatfields had, and Ren’s star already crackled through him, lighting up his nerves from his frozen toes to his fingers.

  “No,” Asher replied, voice low. “Don’t reveal yourself. Not yet.”

  “You’re trespassing,” one of the group said. She stepped forward. Her red hair peeked out from beneath her helmet and trailed over her shoulders. She hefted the stunner. “Turn around and go back, and we won’t hurt you.”

  “No weedin’ way,” Jakob shot back. “We’re heading to the Laurels. And you’re not stopping us.”

  “Stars,” Asher said, voice low and irritated. “You want to get us captured?”

  “The Laurels,” the woman said. She looked them up and down, but the helmet covered her expression. “Why?”

  “We’re looking for someone.”

  Their potential captors shifted, adjusting their weapons, firmly pointing them at the group. If they weren’t on edge before, they certainly were now.

  “He didn’t mean that in a threatening way at all,” Ren said. That didn’t help, especially when one of the group moved forward so his prod grazed the outer layer of Ren’s coat. Ren struggled with reining in his desire to lash out, to render the weapons harmless, to protect the three of them. His eyes flashed as he blinked blue for a second. He choked back his power, packed it up, and shoved it down.

  Asher looked to the sky. “Save me from idiot dusters.”

  “We should take them with us,” one of the others said. “Let the leader handle them.”

  “And lead them to our camp? No. What if they are birdmen?”

  “They don’t look like birdmen.”

  “What the hell is a birdman?” Jakob said. He pushed his hood back and pulled the scarf from around his face. “Whatever. I don’t care. I’m looking for my father and my sisters. We’re not here to hurt anyone or steal anything. Okay? Just let us go.”

  The leader tilted her head. “You look familiar.”

  “Well, I am a duster from the village near the lake.”

  They murmured. The leader allowed the muzzle of the stunner to aim at the ground. “Surrender your weapon and come with us.”

  Asher resisted, standing still. He looked to Ren, read the hope apparent in Ren’s expression, then spun the pulse gun in his hand and held it out to the nearest person, grip first.

  The person holstered a prod and took the pulse gun, then tucked it into their belt.

  “Good,” the leader said with a nod. “Follo
w us. We’ll be back to our camp before sundown.”

  The end of a prod pushed into Ren’s back, and he lurched forward; he held his body stiff lest he sizzle with electricity. He followed the woman with the stunner into the trees. She led. Jakob and Asher and Ren walked in the middle of the cluster. The three others surrounded them and herded them.

  “How long have you been tracking us?”

  “A while.”

  “Since Roper’s farm?”

  The woman looked over her shoulder. “No.”

  Asher and Ren exchanged a glance.

  There was someone else out there. Or Ren should start believing in ghosts.

  An hour later, the group stopped. The wood thinned, and the evergreens and the thick bark of leafless oaks gave way to a copse of slender branched trees. Ren stepped forward and ran his hand over the smooth, white bark. The roots forked like legs and dug into the earth in a curve like the arch of a foot. The branches rose toward the sky, like arms raised in supplication to a higher being. Daphne ran, and prayed, and turned into a tree, frozen in beauty for all time.

  Asher placed his own hand next to Ren’s. “They’re beautiful. What are they?”

  “The Laurels,” Ren said.

  “Why are they so different from the other trees?”

  The question had their captors whipping their heads around to stare at Asher. At least, that is what Ren thought they were doing. It was hard to tell through the shields of their helmets.

  “There’s a story,” Ren said. “I’ll tell you another time.”

  Asher realized his question had marked him as an outsider, either because he didn’t know the lore or because he had limited experience with trees, which was clearly a drifter trait. Ren was afraid he’d do something rash, but instead, Asher shrank back near Ren with his shoulders hunched and his head down.

  “Who did you say you were again?” the woman asked.

  “We didn’t,” Jakob shot back.

  She crossed her arms. The stunner was strapped to her back but within easy reach. The electric charge of the prods pricked the star in Ren’s middle, and he sparked in response. It was only a flicker, but again, Ren blinked blue.

  Asher grabbed his hand.

  “I think maybe you should. Or we might decide to leave you out here to the elements.”

  Jakob lifted his chin. His cheeks were pink from exertion. His eyes shone a cold blue. His breath hung in clouds. “I think maybe you should fetch someone in charge if you can’t decide whether to bring us to the camp or not.”

  Ren sighed. Asher rubbed a hand over his face. So much for keeping Jakob from being reckless.

  The statement certainly struck a nerve. The leader moved forward and pushed hard on Jakob’s shoulder. He took a step back to keep his balance; snow and twigs crunched under his heel.

  “I am in charge.”

  “Prove it. Take us in.”

  She shoved a finger in his face. “You don’t give me orders.”

  “Obviously someone does.”

  She bristled. “Fine, we’ll go.” She held up her gloved hand to silence the chatter from her men. “But if you try anything, we’ll kill that one first.”

  She pointed to Ren.

  “Fine,” Jakob said.

  Ren balked. “Wait, what?”

  She cocked her hip, and Ren imagined her mouth in a self-satisfied smirk.

  He started to protest, but was shoved in the back again, and this time Asher grabbed his arm to keep him from falling. He shot a glare to the owner of the prod before the group started moving, but received no reaction, not that he could tell. He loathed the face shields.

  They continued on, following the woman along the boundary of the tree line that separated the small forest from the Laurels. The white trees on the right of their path grew thicker, until the branches intertwined, and even bare from the season, the brush was so thick it was difficult to see through. Ren didn’t know how they would be able to traverse the Laurels. To complicate matters further, the snow and the white wood of the laurel trees blended, and, even squinting, Ren found it difficult to discern any passage. Other vegetation ran wild in the small spaces left—ferns and vines and briar patches. Though dormant because of the cold and the snow, they still made the area impassable. Everything was a blur of white with occasional patches of brown. If they had entered on their own, they would have been lost within minutes and would never have found their way out.

  Ren’s questions about the entrance were answered when they stopped in front of a thick group of trees. At their feet, almost hidden by the clinging snow, was a protection stone. Carved into the rock was the familiar lettering of the language of his ancestors. And beneath those was an X. On the note the X didn’t mean to cross the Laurels. It marked the entrance.

  Ren nudged Jakob and jerked his head toward the symbol.

  Jakob’s eyebrows shot up, and he smiled, quick and bright, then smothered it when a guard looked his way.

  Their leader glanced around, and then swept back a curtain of vines to reveal a small alcove. She ushered them through, kept watch until the entire group was inside, then allowed the vines to fall back, which obscured the view and the light. Ren found himself beneath a natural arch made from two trees that had sprouted near each other and grown until their branches had become entangled. Ren couldn’t tell where one tree ended and the other began.

  Asher’s eyes were wide, and he pushed his hood back. “This is amazing.”

  “Quiet, now,” the woman said harshly. “Come on.”

  She beckoned them onward. They ducked, bodies hunched, as they walked several feet through a tunnel that was longer than Ren had thought. About the time Ren developed a crick in his neck, the tunnel opened up and revealed the head of a twisting path.

  Two more guards stood waiting, weapons in their hands, helmets on. “What do you have?”

  “Stragglers,” she answered. “Found them wandering in the forest. They claim they’re from the village by the lake.”

  “Really?”

  One of the guards pulled off her helmet. She was impossibly young to be wielding any kind of weapon, and her wide smile when she saw Jakob made that more evident. With her wild dark hair and bright blue eyes, the resemblance was striking.

  “Jakob!” she cried. She dropped her prod and her helmet in the dirty snow and leapt at her brother.

  He caught her in a hug. “Ezzy!” He squeezed her tight so her feet left the ground, and they held on for a long, intense moment. When Jakob finally set her down, he didn’t let her go, but kept one arm around her shoulders.

  “Ezzy, you remember Ren? Right?”

  She blushed and shyly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, of course. Liam’s older brother.”

  “Is he here?” Ren asked. His pulse fluttered. Hope was present and dangerous, until she looked at the ground and shook her head.

  “No, I’m sorry. But your mother and father are here.”

  Ren’s knees went weak. His vision and hearing fuzzed out; the only sound was his heart thundering, while black dots danced across his eyes. He staggered back, dizzy, and clumsy. Asher caught him and held him up before he fell to the ground. His legs trembled and he had a stray thought about how Liam would’ve made fun of him for swooning. He chuckled and rubbed at his eyes and leaned on Asher’s embrace until he regained his bearings.

  “They are?” His voice was a shiver. “Where?”

  “In the camp,” Ezzy gestured over her shoulder. “Follow the path.”

  “Wait,” the leader of the group that had found them said. She took off her helmet; her red hair stood on end. “How do you know these two?”

  Ezzy squished into Jakob’s side. “This is my older brother Jakob. Jakob, this is the leader of our guard, Beatrice.”

  “You’re Levitt’s son?”

  Jakob no
dded.

  “Well, why in the hell didn’t you say so when we met?”

  “Because I didn’t know who the hell you were.”

  “You should’ve said!”

  “You’re dressed like one of Vos’s guards and you’re carrying a stunner.”

  She made a scathing retort. They bickered, and Ren barely paid attention to the conversation. His thoughts centered on talking to his mother, on what he might say, what he might do—but his focus snapped back when he heard mention of the stronghold.

  “Salvaged, from the citadel,” Beatrice said, both pride and a challenge in her words.

  “You go to the citadel?” Ren straightened, though he was unsteady on his feet. Asher’s hand stayed on his arm.

  “When we need supplies.”

  “So it’s empty, then?”

  Beatrice shrugged. “Sometimes there are birdmen hanging about, but we avoid them easily enough.”

  “What are birdmen? You keep mentioning them, but it’s a term I’m not familiar with.”

  Beatrice smiled; her freckled cheeks were like apples. “It’s a term we used in my village. It means the Phoenix Corps.”

  “There are Phoenix Corps? Here?” Asher asked.

  “Unfortunately. The limited intel we gathered is that they’re looking for someone or maybe a few people. We’re not really sure. But they’re here and they are a bunch of weeds, let me tell you.”

  “I need more information.” Asher pointed a finger at the group.

  “And who are you?” Beatrice crossed her arms and eyed Asher critically.

  “He’s a friend,” Ren said, twining his fingers with Asher’s, ignoring the way Asher startled and stared at their hands. “And we can find out more in a while, but my parents…” Ren trailed off. A lump formed in his throat. “My parents are here,” he said, quiet, awed.

  “Right.” Asher backed down. “You should see them.”

  Ezzy clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet. “I can take you to the camp.” She looped her arm through Jakob’s. “Come on. Daddy is going to fall over when he sees you.”

  A mixture of excitement and dread swirled in Ren’s stomach as he walked down the path to the village. He was about to see his parents, about to talk to his mom. He didn’t know what to say, what to reveal, if anything at all.