The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  “I used his name?” Maria asked in surprise. “I’ve been told that I never use names.”

  “Well… Maybe you didn’t use his name,” Veronica admitted. “But you said they were hunting carrion and that they’d leave their nest soon.”

  “What’s carrion?”

  “It’s dead meat. The Vultures are hunting dead meat.”

  “Oh…” her voice trailed off, clearly not wanting to think about it.

  “Maybe you were mistaken,” Veronica said hopefully.

  “Um, yeah. Maybe.”

  *****

  “Shit, I think they’ve found us again,” Joseph whispered.

  Aeric sat up and listened. It did sound like someone was moving in the darkness. They’d been in a constant run and gun since Austin and were almost out of ammo. They were exhausted and still pursued at every step along the way.

  After their initial fight in the city, each of them made their way separately to Vandegrift High School where they’d stashed their bicycles along with the articles from their backpacks that they didn’t need for the attack on the Vulture headquarters. Once there, they compared notes about what had happened.

  Aeric didn’t know why he’d missed the shot on Kendrick until Joseph told him about the man’s laughter. He’d been at a different angle and watching through his scope when it happened, whereas Aeric had fired and then had to readjust his sight picture after the recoil from the rifle took the crosshairs off of his son.

  They’d expected to get rest and then leave the next morning. Unfortunately, they saw men leading dogs up the hillside from the east towards the school almost immediately upon their reunion. It had been impossible to hide from the city’s residents as they fled, so they hadn’t bothered to try. The presence of dogs, tracking them added to the likelihood that they were on a one-way trip.

  The initial firefight at the school was over quickly as they used their longer-range rifles to decimate the Vultures. The school’s location at the top of a hill would have been easy to flank and attack from their blind side, so they fled quickly once a lull in the fight allowed them an opportunity. They’d been harried ever since, often getting only two or three hours of sleep before their tireless pursuers reappeared.

  In an effort to confuse the Vultures, they’d gone north towards the old Buchanan Lake Dam. They’d crossed the slime-crusted Colorado River to the north bank, thinking that would throw off the dogs and camped in the shadow of one of the dam’s arches near the spillway. It was a good spot to hide, accessible only by crossing over the hard rock after wading through the water.

  Aeric cocked his head in the darkness to try and get a better angle for his ear. The scrape of boots against the exposed rock told him all that he needed to know. The Vultures all seemed to wear tough-soled hiking boots—which were great against the reptiles and insects of the wastes, but poor for disguising their movement. Far below, they could hear the dogs snuffling on the far bank where their trail had gone cold into the filth.

  “We gotta go,” he whispered.

  Joseph looked up at the dark clouds above, replying, “I can’t see a damn thing. If the cloud cover would clear, we could try and shoot some of them.”

  Aeric shook his head uselessly in the darkness. “Nah, not worth it. Right now, they don’t know if we went down river and tried to double-back on them or if we kept going straight. If we shoot at them in this darkness, we wouldn’t hit any of them. All we’d do is let them know that we were still here.”

  They picked up their packs and slid their arms through the straps as quietly as they could and then pushed their bikes northward towards the spillway. They reached the top and ran into a concrete barrier that marked the side of the spillway. There wasn’t an easy way to go over it, so they had to go back down the hill until they could skirt around near the bottom and back up the dam’s side.

  It was a painstakingly slow process as they moved across the awkward angle of the concrete spillway, pushing their bikes. Aeric no longer heard the Vultures searching below; he didn’t need to hear them to know that they were still there. Those dogs had pursued them for a long time. They had their quarry’s smell imprinted on their brains and the river trick wouldn’t deter them for long.

  “We need to cross the lake,” he said flatly. “They’re gonna find us soon if we stay on this side of the water.”

  “If we cross the lake, we lose the bikes,” Joseph pointed out.

  “Maybe we could steal a boat big enough for the bikes, too.” Finding a usable boat was unlikely. The few that they’d seen since they arrived at the lake were nothing but washed-up wreckage. The larger bodies of water like Old Fisher Lake at San Angelo had fared better than the streams and ponds, so if the water was drinkable there were probably people living around the lake, which meant the potential for usable boats. However, anyone they ran into wouldn’t give up their boat easily and they’d likely have another fight on their hands.

  The baying of the hounds behind them tore through the night as they rediscovered the trail on the near side of the river. They had to make a decision quickly. Once they made it off the spillway, they either had to keep riding around the edge of the lake until they found a boat or they could swim for it. More than twenty men pursued them, so staying for a fight wasn’t an option and the idea of swimming across the lake in the darkness wasn’t appealing either. If they didn’t drown or get attacked by some type of mutated animal in the water, they’d probably lose their weapons and backpacks. In reality, they only had the one choice. They had to continue around the lake until they found a usable boat.

  At the bottom of the spillway, an old weed-choked gravel path led northeast along the edge of the lake. The path made for faster riding as they pedaled as hard as they could to put some distance between them and the Vultures, but they had to swerve to avoid the creeping grasses and cacti that could easily puncture their tires, which slowed them down significantly.

  Chunks of gravel began to fly up all around them and then reports from the gunfire reached their ears. The long stretch of relatively open trail provided excellent fields of fire for their pursuers. Aeric whipped his bike back and forth erratically, trying to avoid the whizzing bullets and the thorns.

  Seconds after the firing began, Joseph cried out in pain and jerked his handlebars too hard, causing the front tire to turn completely sideways. His momentum carried the back half of the bike up and over the front and the Shooter went flying through the air. Joseph landed hard and Aeric hit his bike, unable to avoid the wreckage. He crashed sideways, skidding several feet across the gravel.

  The stars above him were fuzzy and his head throbbed. Aeric wondered where he was and then the sound of the Vultures shooting at him reminded him quickly. “Joseph! We gotta go,” he screamed as he scrambled on hands and knees toward the safety of the bushes along the path. The M-4, hanging loosely from its strap across his shoulder slammed repeatedly into him, alternating between his knee and elbow as it swung.

  Aeric wasn’t watching where he placed his hands as he crawled and the spike from a cactus impaled him. He grunted in pain and fell to his side. In the darkness, he could barely make out the dark gray tip of a thorn protruding from the back side of his hand. The base of the thorn rested against his palm, it had gone completely through his hand. The wound in his palm wasn’t bleeding like the back side yet, so he left it in place and pushed himself up, running at a crouch towards the concealment of the bushes. He reached them a half-second before Joseph did.

  “The lake is this way,” Aeric shouted as he pushed his way through the spine-covered vines and razor-sharp grass. He winced as a hundred small cuts and pricks opened his skin, causing blood to flow freely and mingle with the massive wound in his hand.

  The weeds gave way and his feet plunged into the muddy water at the edge of the lake. Joseph emerged behind him, favoring his left leg. “This way,” Aeric called over his shoulder as he splashed in the open water towards the north.

  They’d gone only twenty fee
t before providence smiled on them and Aeric’s shins banged into the rough metal of an old upside down flat-bottomed fishing boat. “Ugh,” he grunted as the boat caused him to stop.

  “Flip it over!” Joseph said as he pulled his carbine off his shoulder. Aeric bent to the task while the Shooter covered him, prepared to deal with whatever had taken up residence underneath the boat’s hull.

  He pulled hard on the small boat, flipping it up on its side and the night’s darkness gave way to brilliant light and sound as Joseph fired his M-4 into something underneath. He allowed the boat to fall over onto its bottom and fumbled for his own rifle.

  “Don’t bother. I got it,” Joseph winced as he stepped around a dark form on the ground and gripped the side of the boat. Aeric stared at the hairy mass of teeth and claws for a moment before rushing into the water beside his companion. He held the boat steady, while Joseph clamored awkwardly over the side and then pulled himself up while the other man leaned against the opposite gunwale.

  “What was that thing? I couldn’t see clearly after the flash from your rifle.”

  “Either a demonbroc or a dog,” Joseph replied calmly. He looked around at the boat and asked, “How do we make this thing go?”

  “I uh…” Aeric trailed off. There weren’t any oars and even if there were a motor, it probably would have been useless along with every other mechanical engine that used spark plugs for ignition. They could use long poles to push themselves off for a few feet, but wouldn’t be able to touch as they got farther out into the lake. They’d be sitting ducks for the Vultures to pick off.

  “The rifles! We can use the stocks on the rifles as paddles,” Aeric whispered excitedly.

  Joseph had never been in a boat before and Aeric hadn’t been in one since he was a teenager, so it took a few tries, wasting time that they didn’t have, to make their longer, full-stocked sniper rifles work as paddles. The M-4s had a narrow stock without the larger surface area the two rifles had and were useless for the task.

  They’d gone a couple hundred feet when the water around them began to plink. The Vultures had found where they went into the lake. They both paddled for everything they were worth, learning quickly to work in unison instead of fighting against each other. The boat slid across the surface of the water and the shore disappeared into the darkness behind them.

  *****

  “What do you mean they got away?” Kendrick hissed into the Humvee’s radio.

  “I mean, they got away and we can’t find them, sir,” the imbecile on the other radio answered. “We tracked them all the way to a giant lake and they got away in a boat. We shot one of them before they got in the boat, though. There was a lot of blood on the ground.”

  Kendrick wanted to throw the handset into the wastes. Doing so would be pointless, though. The damn thing was connected by a cord running from the receiver to the radio. He wondered for the hundredth time who’d taken a shot at him. It had to be the San Angelians. First they showed up in Eden after a decade of abandonment and then, just days later, the old man stopped answering the radio.

  Of course, that could have been because the battery died, he reminded himself. His father had seized a large stockpile of them from Camp Mabry, the old National Guard base in Austin. The batteries weren’t designed to hold their charge for years, so the Vulture engineers had jury-rigged a solar panel to act as a power supply for the battery charging case that had kept their military radios working, even if it was basically on life support. The battery that he’d given the watcher had been new in the factory packaging, so it probably hadn’t held much juice.

  The most damning evidence that it was the San Angelians, in Kendrick’s mind, was that the assassins fled towards the northwest. They’d made a beeline towards the setting sun until they were forced to go north to avoid a small force that he’d sent on horseback to sweep around in front of them. Somehow Aeric and his idealistic rejects had gotten word that he was coming to destroy their city and they’d attempted a preemptive strike.

  While he hated the man for what he’d done to Justin Rustwood, Kendrick had to respect Aeric’s move. Traxx didn’t know about the explosives that he’d set in the walls or about his surprise in the sewers, but he knew that Kendrick would eventually be able to find a way in, so he tried to end it before it began. Aeric probably thought that if he assassinated the Vulture’s leader, they’d once again fall into the power struggle that had decimated the Vultures during the twenty years that Greg Sanders had been in control.

  He pulled the receiver back towards his face and pressed the button on the side. “Okay, if you can’t swim or take a boat across, go to the far side. The dogs will pick up their scent.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kendrick thought about it for a moment and continued, “I want them caught before they get back to San Angelo. If they escape, I will give you to Starr.”

  “We’ll get them, sir. They lost their bicycles and at least one of them has a bullet hole or two in—”

  Kendrick didn’t bother to listen to the rest of his lackey’s excuse. He dropped the receiver into the front seat of the Humvee and walked over to the large tent that made up his command post. He admired his Vultures’ quick work; the tent had been a pile of fabric when he started the radio conversation with Hobbes, now it was already up and they were carrying bedding inside.

  He smiled at Starr as she came skipping through the camp towards him. Three men dragged a screaming captive several yards behind her. “Hiya, Kendrick!” she gushed as she kissed him quickly on the cheek. “It’s been two days. You said on the second night that I’d get to have one.”

  “You’re right. I was on the radio with Hobbes, is the cage set up yet?”

  “Almost, or at least it will be by the time we get over there,” she replied. Starr rubbed at the bandage on her hand where she’d cut herself jumping from the horse. “Did they kill them yet?”

  “No, the idiots let them escape across a lake…in a boat. How the hell did they find a boat that wasn’t rotted through or in someone’s possession?”

  She stared blankly at him and he said, “It means a boat that nobody owned.”

  “Oh, maybe that’s how they got there in the first place and were running to where they’d left the boat.”

  Kendrick hadn’t thought of that possibility. If that were true, then maybe the shooters hadn’t been from San Angelo. If they came by boat, they could have been from anywhere on the Colorado River that wasn’t cut off by a dam. “Hmm… Maybe.”

  He decided to change the subject and asked, “What are you planning for tonight’s entertainment?”

  She grinned mischievously at him. “I want to cut off his eyelids so he suffers the entire dusty trip. And I’ll pull out his fingernails slowly with some needle-nosed pliers. You know the men enjoy getting an entire, intact nail as a reward. I’ve even heard that they trade them as currency!”

  Kendrick nodded his head, he’d heard that too. “Seems a little mild for you, my dear.”

  “I want him to last,” she deadpanned. “Maybe I’ll take a few other body parts that will hurt like hell, but won’t kill him.”

  Kendrick thought for a moment before answering, “Nipples?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ears?”

  “Maybe one.”

  “Testicles?”

  “Dammit, Kendrick! I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, but you’re too good,” she answered, practically bouncing in anticipation. “I’m gonna nail his nut sack to a piece of long wood that’ll rest across his thighs. I glued sandpaper to the back side, so as he walks the wood will pull against his balls while it rubs away the skin on his legs. Everything will be made even worse by the dust and salt in his sweat. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

  He pulled his enthusiastic little torturer into an embrace. “Yes, sweetie. The men will love it.”

  “Oh, maybe I’ll put a hot poker up his ass too. That’s always a crowd pleaser.”

  *****

  The bo
at finally ran aground on the far shore of the lake and the men stepped wearily from it as the sun peeked over the eastern horizon. Aeric’s arms, back and shoulders ached from the effort of rowing the boat across the lake using only the stocks on their rifles as oars and his hand throbbed uncontrollably where the thorn was still embedded.

  He was better off than Joseph, though. The Shooter was leaking blood from his thigh and every time he’d shifted on the fishing boat’s seat, it tore away any scab that had tried to form. It was still dark out and difficult to see, but the man looked much paler in the moonlight than he had before they bedded down for the evening at the dam.

  “How you holding up, buddy?” he asked in concern.

  “We need some time to get a good pressure bandage applied to both the entry and exit wound,” he muttered. “And I need food. So hungry.”

  They’d cut miles and miles of shoreline off of their route by rowing straight across the lake. He wanted to take advantage of their lead and couldn’t. There was simply no way that Joseph would be able to make a run for it with his leg bleeding the way it was. Aeric glanced around the area where they’d landed. It looked like as good a place as any to try and make camp. There was a small square shape not too far inland that looked like it might have been a house of some kind.

  “Alright, let’s see about that house over there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and nobody will be living there.”

  He helped Joseph hobble along, which was harder than he thought it would be with both of them wearing backpacks and carrying two rifles. They’d walked fifty feet before he spoke again, “I changed my mind. Maybe we’ll get lucky and somebody will be living there. We need supplies that we don’t have.”

  As they neared the squat, one story building, he realized that it had been a store of some kind. Fifties-style gas pumps, considered old before the end of the world, rusted in the parking lot along with various pieces of trash and abandoned material. Everything seemed intact except for the front door, which had a large hole bashed through the glass.