The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  “Well, he’s not here, maybe he’s learned a thing or two since you left fifteen years ago… My lord,” he amended quickly.

  Kendrick, too lost in his own thoughts, didn’t notice Quellan’s insubordinate statement. Instead, he wondered where the bastard could have gone. It wasn’t like he’d be able to escape from the city. Where else could they go?

  “Oh my god,” Kendrick said. “There’s a town, north of here. It’s called…” he trailed off as he attempted to dredge the name from his memory. After a few seconds, he grasped it and pulled it to the surface of his murky thoughts. “Tennyson.”

  “My lord?” Quellan asked.

  “They have a fallback location in Tennyson,” he answered. “It’s an abandoned town fifteen or twenty miles past the Northern Gate. When I left, they were planning to build fortifications there that would allow for someplace secure in the event of a problem in San Angelo.”

  “Should we move against this place?”

  Kendrick banged his open palm against the hood of an old pickup truck that sat near the gate. “We can’t split our forces now. We should have blocked off the Northern Gate before we attacked. I forgot about it.”

  “It’s okay, my lord, we’ll—”

  “Forgot about what?” Starr asked as she walked up to the two men from wherever she’d been in the wastes. She was naked and smiling, covered head to toe in gore; clearly she’d enjoyed whatever she’d been doing.

  “What is all over you? Is that blood?” Kendrick asked.

  Her grin widened maniacally and she responded, “Mmm…hmm. I’ve been bathing in the blood of our enemies. You’re supposed to do it too.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” he questioned.

  “The blood sacrifice will grant us access to their souls. With their souls, we can gain control of their confidence. Then, after I consume a few special parts, you’re assured a victory against the giant!”

  “This again? I told you, I’ll just kill Tyler with my gun or have somebody shoot him. I’m not stupid enough to I’d fight him hand-to-hand.” He thought about what she’d said and then asked, “Wait, did you say consume?”

  Starr ignored him and continued on, “He told me this will work. I just have to eat some of their muscles for strength and a heart or two, for courage. Then—”

  “What?” he choked. “Who told you those things?”

  She clapped her hands and hopped slightly in an annoying gesture that she’d recently adopted. Partially-dried clusters of filth fell from her, landing on the pavement with tiny plops as the blood splattered against her bare feet. “He told me.”

  Kendrick looked towards the area where he’d last seen her fifteen minutes ago. She’d been examining bodies like he’d been doing, except she didn’t know what Traxx looked like. “He, who?”

  “You know...” she tapped her forefinger on the side of her head. “I heard Him. He spoke to me! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Kendrick frowned. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Quellan shift closer from where he’d stood apart at a respectful distance away, edging closer to the two of them. “The Vultures don’t need help from some voice in your head, Starr, and we don’t need to steal the souls of these people. We’ll assure our own victory.”

  She scowled at him, placing her hands on her hips. “I thought you’d like that I took an interest in your war.”

  “An interest?”

  “Yeah, this silly little fight you have going on over the murder of someone that you never even met.”

  He didn’t understand her thought process. One minute she was talking about a voice telling her to wallow around in blood and intestines of their enemies, then the next she was saying she did it to show some type of common interest with him. She’d always been more than a little off in the head and he’d thought that it kept things exciting and interesting with her. But now, he legitimately wasn’t sure of her sanity.

  Starr had always exhibited an overzealous fondness for torture, and she liked being fist-fucked by severed appendages—which was odd until it became an exciting part of their sex life. And, truth be told, Kendrick had heard the voices whispering in his own head, urging him to avenge his father’s death. Oftentimes, those voices threatened to overwhelm him and drive him mad, but he’d been able to keep them in check so far.

  He’d felt that she was slipping for a long time and it caused an internal conflict within him. He enjoyed her company because she was just as crazy as he was. The difference was that he walked a razor’s edge between sanity and madness; it was clear to him that Starr had lost the battle against her inner demons. It was time to let her go.

  “Starr, I need you to go back to Austin.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “You are relieved of your duties to me. Go back to Austin and remove your things from the palace.”

  Her face contorted in rage and she lunged at him. A burst of speed from Quellan brought him between the two of them and he clotheslined her, knocking her backwards.

  Starr sat on the ground, staring daggers at them and clutching her throat where Quellan’s arm had impacted. “You. You son of a bitch!” she spat. “I have done everything for you! Murdered, lied, fucked…murdered some more. Everything I’ve ever done has been for you!”

  “Starr, leave now or I will have Quellan shoot you like the pathetic dog that you are.” The captain placed the muzzle of his rifle on the bridge of her nose to emphasize Kendrick’s point.

  “You wouldn’t shoot me. You’re mine,” she hissed.

  “I was never yours, you crazy fucking whore,” he stated. “You were a useful distraction while I prepared for this ‘silly little war’ as you called it.”

  “A distraction? You’re calling me a distraction?”

  Quellan stabbed the rifle forward into her cheek, knocking her head back slightly. She scrambled backwards on her ass out of the way. “You’ll pay for this, you little-dicked asshole. I’ll kill you and eat your testicles!”

  Kendrick shuddered. “I already regret it. I should kill you right now and be rid of you. We’ve shared so much over the years that it wouldn’t feel right, though.” He smiled sadly down at her, “I do care for you, Starr; otherwise, you’d already be dead. Please, leave before I change my mind.”

  He turned and strode deeper into the city of San Angelo towards the sound of gunfire, away from her screeches of promised pain and death. Kendrick put her out of his mind and thought about Traxx. If he wasn’t killed at the breach, he’d surely be leading the defense, giving the residents more time to escape out the Northern Gate. He’d catch him and there would be no mercy given to that one.

  *****

  “Leave me!” Joseph screamed to his squad mate.

  “No way, buddy,” Gloria answered. “I spent too much time patching up that leg. I’m not gonna let you lie down and die now.”

  She didn’t allow him to argue; instead she looped her hand through the back of his equipment suspenders and pulled him towards the second barricade around the Provisions Warehouse. Somehow, the two of them had gotten left behind at the first earthwork when the Shooters repositioned to the other barrier.

  Joseph cursed his fucked up leg. He knew how they’d ‘accidentally’ been left behind. He was a liability. Without the ability to move around, anyone who stayed with him ran the risk of being surrounded and then dispatched at the Vultures’ leisure.

  He ejected the magazine from his M-4 and slapped a new one into place as Gloria drug him on his ass back towards the rest of the defenders. He pulled the charging handle back on the rifle to chamber a round and pushed with his right leg, attempting to help Gloria.

  They were still twenty feet from the second barricade when the Vultures swarmed over the top of the first line of defense. The Shooters behind him began firing and he jerked up his rifle, shooting while still moving in the opposite direction. He saw two of the attackers fall from his aimed fire and he silently thanked Captain Griffith for all the seemingly pointless t
raining that she’d put the Shooters through.

  Far across the dead space between the two earthworks, the sound of a revving engine filled the air. Vultures scattered sideways and then the brick wall exploded. The front deck of one of the Vultures’ tanks burst through the barricade, pausing half-way through the obstacle. Oily black smoke belched from the engine as whatever they’d used for fuel propelled the monstrosity forward. The exhaust combined with the clouds of filth from the burning city to create an effective screening smoke for the Vultures on the ground, who used the cover to advance.

  When they’d rammed the wall, the tank crew had turned the gun around over the back deck to keep it from getting damaged when they demolished the earthworks. The tank pushed the rest of the way through the wall and began to rotate the main gun back towards the front once they’d cleared the debris. Although he’d never seen a tank before today, he’d seen enough to know plenty about their capabilities. If they got the turret around before he and Gloria had made it to the safety of the barricade, there would be nothing left of them.

  He screamed at her to hurry and risked a glance over his shoulder. Gloria had dragged him to within ten feet of the second set of earthworks. Joseph allowed the hope to blossom in his chest that they’d make it behind the wall.

  And then his hope was shattered.

  The rapid reports of a heavy machine gun hit him moments after Gloria’s blood cascaded down onto his helmet into his eyes. She slumped forward, dead before she hit the ground. Joseph abandoned his attempts to fire his weapon; his little rifle couldn’t do anything against the armor of a tank. He flipped over onto his stomach and pulled himself towards the barricade, fleeing in terror from the beast that had punched ten, fist-sized holes through his friend in two seconds.

  He heard the tank surge forward behind him. The metal treads clanked across what used to be a parking lot thirty years ago. Now it was a killing field. He’d almost made it to the base of the wall when his eardrums shattered and he was thrown against the brick. Debris and pieces of earthwork fell down on him from a large hole in the barricade. They’d fired the main gun from less than a hundred feet away.

  Blood poured in thick streams from his ears and nose. He kept crawling as best as his shattered body would allow through the hole that the tank had created in the wall. He barely made it through when his right let went white-hot. He rolled to the side up over chunks of rock and lay on his back behind the faulty protection of the barricade. Men and women ran towards the north, no longer bothering to defend their supplies or the city against the onslaught of the Vultures.

  Joseph looked down at his ruined body through a haze of blood and sweat. He was seeing double, maybe triple and couldn’t focus. He’d been shot through his uninjured leg. It must have been a small caliber bullet, he thought, detached from his current situation. The round had entered below his calf and exited from his abdomen near his belly button. He was done for.

  Through the ringing in his ears, the clanking of the tank echoed like it was in a tunnel. Joseph knew that he was dying. He could accept death in battle, but not getting crushed by the tank’s treads; where was the dignity in that? He turned back onto his stomach and clawed his way up the dirt of the earthworks to gain elevation, out of the path of the armored vehicle.

  Once again, the barricade exploded inwards when they rammed the second wall. He cried out hoarsely as his body slowly slid down the rampart towards the tank. He tried uselessly to gain a handhold in the dirt, but couldn’t stop his momentum. The slide turned into a full-on fall and he rolled downwards. The fall ended with him thudding roughly on top of the vehicle’s turret.

  He felt the beast surge forward underneath him as the tank crew pushed completely through the second wall. He was dizzy and the edges of his vision started to go black. He fought against the feeling, begging the God of his forefathers for a little more time on Earth.

  He was rolled gently from his back onto his stomach when the tank’s turret turned, bringing the gun back to the front. Close by his head, the sound of metal scraping against metal caused him to turn slightly towards the noise. He stared at a round metal door of some kind and beyond the door, a man had emerged. The man leaned forward to fire the large machine gun mounted in front of the opening towards the fleeing Shooters.

  He giggled slightly to himself and pulled the last two grenades from his suspenders. They’d given him an opportunity to avenge Gloria’s senseless death. The pull-rings fit perfectly into the cuts in the joints of his fingers and he jerked them out.

  With the last of his strength, Joseph pulled himself to the hatch and dropped both grenades inside.

  *****

  “Ah, fuck! I’ve gotta slow down, Traxx.”

  He turned and regarded Tyler. Why should he care what he felt like? He’d made it evident that their friendship was over after this, so what did it matter? He slowed to a walk. It did matter to him. They’d been friends and helped each other out more than he could have ever imagined in ten lifetimes. He hadn’t stopped caring about the big guy, even if Tyler had given up on him.

  “Okay. We can walk a couple of blocks, but no more.”

  Tyler nodded and then started coughing. He bent over double, hacking violently. The pavement turned dark underneath him as fluid expelled from his lungs. It was more than a simple reaction to the acrid smoke that hung low across the city; it was his body failing him.

  Aeric gave him a few moments before asking, “Are you gonna make it?”

  Tyler straightened out and gave him a bloody grin. The dark red fluid ran from his nose, over his lips and dripped from his chin to land on his barrel chest. “Won’t be long now. This has taken too much out of me.”

  “The cancer?”

  “Yeah. I ain’t got long before I’m done.” He took several deep breaths and smeared the bloody mucus across his face with the back of his hands. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  They started walking towards the north again, darting between shadows and hiding in patches of low-hanging smoke when they could. Aeric had decided to skip the Provisions Warehouse and head directly for the Northern Gate. Veronica would have gathered the family and gone there after Aiden passed his message that the city had fallen. Maybe she’d already taken it upon herself to lead them to Tennyson.

  The old Air Force base passed by on their right and Aeric wondered about Lorelei and Joseph, the Shooter whom he’d grown fond of after their mission to Austin. Far to the western side of the city, probably near the Provisions Warehouse, a massive firefight still raged. They could hear the tanks firing and he hoped the Shooters would heed protocol. Their primary duty was to ensure the safety of the residents, not the supplies.

  Several loud explosions reverberated from the west. It sounded like buildings crashed to the ground. The defenses around the Provisions Warehouse had surely fallen and the Vultures were destroying everything in their path. His city was gone.

  “Aeric!” Tyler hissed. “We need to hide.”

  “Huh?”

  Tyler jerked him sideways into an alley and put his finger to his lips. Aeric nodded in understanding. Several people walked by in the street. He couldn’t make out who they were through the haze and ash. They all seemed to be armed, walking haphazardly without checking their surroundings; definitely not Shooters. It could have been residents of San Angelo who were going to the rally point or they could be Vultures, confident that they were in charge of the city.

  A strangled noise came from Tyler and Aeric whipped his head around to see what was happening. The big man had his hand pressed against his mouth and covering his nose. He was trying to hold back another cough. If he let it out, whoever it was that had passed by would surely hear him and come down the alley to investigate. Aeric willed his friend to stop and keep it inside.

  The group disappeared and Tyler allowed himself to cough. More blood flew outward between his fingers and ran down his arm. They waited for the inevitable return, weapons pointed at the head of the alley.

  No o
ne else appeared through the smoke, so they cautiously emerged from the alley onto the sidewalk. Tyler looked both ways. “I can’t see anyone else,” he said.

  “Alright, let’s go.”

  They passed several bodies, twisted grotesquely in death. Most of them had been shot in the back, gunned down as they fled. “The Vultures are heading towards the Northern Gate,” Aeric surmised.

  “Are we too late?”

  “I don’t know. The only thing we can do is keep going.”

  A small shadow appeared in the darkness and a whispered voice drifted towards them, “Grandad? Grandad, are you here?”

  “Aiden? Aiden? Is that you?”

  “Grandad!” The little boy materialized through the smoke and ran up to Aeric, who knelt down and hugged him.

  He finally broke away from the embrace and held Aiden at arms’ length. “What are you doing here, boy?”

  “I came back to find you.”

  Aeric’s lipped thinned as he pressed them together. “Did you get the message to your father and grandmother to evacuate the city?”

  He nodded, “I told Grandma. She had all the grandkids with her. Dad and Mom were with Uncle John fighting against the Vultures.”

  It made sense. Every healthy person who wasn’t charged with watching children was supposed to defend the city. “Did she listen? Did they get out of San Angelo?”

  “Yes, sir. They left through the Northern Gate towards the town they’re supposed to go to.”

  “Tennyson?”

  “Yeah, that one. I ran back when they were leaving through the gate. I had to find you and Dad.”

  Aeric hugged him again. “It’s not safe in the city, Aiden. You should have left with them.”

  “Well, we can leave together now,” the boy reasoned. “Have you seen Dad?”

  “No, I haven’t, sorry. Let’s keep moving. Maybe we’ll find him on the way to the gate.”