by J. Thorn
He kept moving and so did they, closing the gap between them. When only a hundred yards separated them, Jonah held his arms up and out and then spun around completely one time.
“Can I pass?”
The Cygoa warriors stood shoulder to shoulder, their faces painted in dark ochre streaks with rings of charcoal around their eyes. Both had a bow in hand and a quiver strapped to their backs.
Jonah waited for a reply that did not come. He turned to look back at the trees, checking that Rav and the others were still out of sight, when a puff of air tousled the hair on the right side of his head. Jonah felt a slight burn on the top of his right ear followed by the warm ooze of blood trickling off his lobe. Another burst of air blew past his left ear as he turned to face the Cygoa warriors. Both had notched another arrow and were drawing the string back again, but Jonah was already retreating to the tree line.
“Won’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Rav as Jonah jumped over the ridge where the rest lay in wait. “But good try.”
Jonah leaned against a nearby rock, trying to catch his breath. “I had to try,” he said. “They may have been open to negotiation. At least we now know that they aren’t, and they still don’t know I wasn’t alone.”
Chapter 6
Seren watched the third patrol of warriors go by just an hour after the second. Even though the window glass was missing, the second floor of the crumbling shop still provided enough debris for her and Sorcha to remain hidden. She was surprised at how intelligent the wolf was, somehow knowing that they had to stay still, stay quiet, and she wondered where that had come from. Maybe most of the wolf’s early years had been spent hiding?
The patrols were always four or five warriors, all armed and watchful, but they didn’t look up to her hiding place when they passed. From behind the old desk, a crumbling thing that had been propped up against the front wall, with part of the ceiling collapsed down upon it, Seren could see clearly in all directions apart from behind her, where a thick wall with no windows or doors loomed upwards to where the remains of the roof clung on by a few warp and cracked joists.
This was as far into the city as she could go, she realized, glancing at Sorcha, who was now lying on the bare tiles at the back of the room underneath a table, grooming herself. They were still two miles from the main center of Wytheville, she thought. Two miles and the patrols were regular enough to make it too risky to go any further. Though, with about an hour in between them, she thought anyone who was watchful could sneak in without a problem.
But most wouldn’t be expecting the patrols in the first place, and that was the problem. No one should be there, apart from maybe a few stragglers that had not travelled all the way to Eliz, like herself. The city should be nearly empty of people, but there were many strangers walking the streets. And if the patrols were there, what lay ahead in the heart of the city?
She stared at the back of the patrol as it slowly progressed down the roadway before turning at the end, where the towering ruin of a higher building loomed over the road, threatening to fall at any moment.
When the Elk and the other clans arrived back from Eliz, they would not be expecting these new people to be there. And if she was guessing correctly, there could be a lot of them. From the window where she hid, she could see across the town for at least another half a mile, and even in that area, not even close to the walled section that the Five Clans had occupied and called home, she could see signs of inhabitants—not the ones that would normally be there. Few people lived in the buildings further from the center for fear of raiders, but these people didn’t seem to fear them at all.
And I can see why, she thought. Not only were there no raiders at this time of year, but the patrols were heavily armed and armored. Bows, spears and other weapons were carried or hung from belts, and the garb they wore was heavier than that normally worn by the forest clans or the folks at Wytheville.
It was as though an entire army of raiders had descended upon the town.
And the Elk didn’t even know. A few weeks from now they will head into here, she thought, and they won’t be expecting these people.
It was also as far as she could follow Gaston and the remainder of the expedition that she had left before the winter had settled. She had followed and watched them being pushed along the road, their hands tied, until the patrols made it too risky for her to go further.
She waited for the patrol to disappear out of sight, around the corner of the building at the far end of the road, then stood, clicked her tongue at Sorcha, and started toward the stairs at the back of the room. Once outside, they didn’t follow the patrol further into the ruins, instead heading back out of the city and toward the woods, avoiding the roads that she had followed the patrols along and sticking to alleyways and through crumbling ruins that had once been houses. Finally, after an hour or so, the edge of the forest, and the main road that she had seen from a distance, loomed before them. A place to hide. They quickly crossed the road and began to follow the woodland trail leading away from ancient civilization and into the wilds.
I’ll follow the road around Wytheville, she thought, until it joins the one that heads east. She thought she would be able to remember the way, having travelled it a number of times with the Elk. But I’ll have to stay off the road, stick to the tree line so we’re not spotted.
“Stop,” shouted a voice, and Seren paused, spun round, and noticed the shadows moving through the trees behind them. Sorcha growled and crouched low.
Three men approached from across the road, peering at her through the bushes as they stepped out onto the blacktop. The man in front was moving faster than the others, and he started to lift his bow and aim it in her direction.
Strangers, dressed the same as the patrols. Raiders or whatever these people were. Seren’s heart felt like it had leapt out of her chest, and she took off at a run, rushing forward and further along the path, away from the men. There was a shout from behind her, but she ignored it. She heard them burst into the trees after her, chasing her. Seren glanced behind as she ran, dodging through the trees at the edge of the path, and saw that Sorcha followed right behind her.
Onward, deeper into the forest, she ran, but the Cygoa hunters followed her relentlessly, and as the hours stretched on into night, she kept moving. A few times she slowed, thinking that maybe they had stopped trailing her, but a noise further back in the woods would alert her to their constant presence, or Sorcha would offer a low growl of warning and pull at her clothing with her teeth.
They had followed her for miles into the woods now, much further than she had expected them to, and as she crept along a ridge of rock, between the tall slopes of the mountains on either side, she realized that she was very far from the road. How long had she been moving? Ten hours? Twenty? Surely, they must turn back?
Finally, when the light of the new day crept up to the horizon, the noises in the forest behind her seemed to cease. She found a place to hide away, inside the hollow of a massive oak trunk, and slumped to the floor. Her body was weary beyond anything she had felt before, and within seconds she had leaned against the inside of the trunk and fallen asleep.
A sharp pain woke her, and the chase of the night before took barely a second to spring back into her mind, but the picture was only partial. Her brain struggled against the cloud of sleep and tried to catch up, to put all the pieces of the previous day back together, but not quickly enough. The pain returned, this time accompanied by a low growl. She glanced down at her leg and found Sorcha trying to pull her away from where she lay. The bottom of her leggings and the rough material of the hand-sewn deerskin chaffs that she wore were torn, as though Sorcha had tried pulling on them first.
A noise from outside brought her fully awake, and she grabbed her bow from where it lay on the ground nearby—dropped there the night before—and scrambled up into a crouch. Noises came from around her, some to the west—yes, two of them were there, maybe fifty feet through the trees—but another was north and muc
h closer, closing in.
They had caught up with her while she slept.
Seren crouched low and readied herself to spring out of her hiding place. There was no way she could hope to stay there; it was too open and not a good place to hide. It had seemed better in the darkness the night before. It had been more concealed, but now the sunlight shone through the trees straight down into the hollow of the tree.
They would find her within seconds.
She sprang forward, her bearings pointing her south, away from both threats. She kept low but moved fast, treading the ground lightly as she ran, dodging bushes and broken branches that may cause a noise and attract attention.
And for a second day she ran on into the forest, pursued by those that she had no doubt meant her no good.
Chapter 7
They’re eating dead human flesh.
Gerth let the thought roll around in his head, never once pausing to remember his lieutenant’s service. It didn’t matter now. He was far too removed from the territory he knew. He moved his feet across cracked, foreign pavement, wishing he could be in front of a crackling fire in the safety of his camp. It was time to take what he had come for and abandon this god-forsaken place once and for all. Leave the clans and the flesh-eaters to their fates. He would take the woman and flee back into the wilderness.
He slid behind a massive boulder and took a quick inventory as the refugees walked past, westbound away from Eliz, darting between the continuing shakes of an angry earth. An axe, a knife and his fists. That would be all he would need.
Gerth looked across the highway at the smoke spiraling into the evening sky. The Elk women had begun preparing the late meal. He would need to get close, find a way inside the camp, and yet remain invisible until night fell. The men would know where all the women would be, first to fill their bellies and then to satisfy their carnal urges. Gerth would wait, and he would be rewarded for his patience.
A family of refugees passed and a fragile boy looked up at Gerth, who had kept his head beneath a hood. The boy blinked tears from his bloodshot eyes and turned back to the pavement, no longer curious about the mysterious man at the side of the road. Gerth didn’t want to waste energy killing if it didn’t serve his objective. He had to conserve his energy and keep his mind sharp if he were to steal her. Sasha, the wife of Jonah the Elk chief, would not come easily.
He darted between straggling refugees and climbed over the rusted guardrail, sliding down the embankment toward the perimeter of the Elk camp. Gerth watched as women and teenage boys moved the carts back toward the center of camp to prepare them for departure. They tossed canvas tarps over the carts and tied them down to the sides, keeping the carts side by side to preserve a wall at the edge of the camp.
It will not keep me out, he thought.
Gerth listened to several men in the camp shouting orders. He sat still behind a tree, watching but not seeing the Elk chief. Gerth smiled and leaned his head back against the tree trunk, deciding a few hours of sleep would prepare him for the abduction—and the depravity that would follow.
***
The shouting came from the distance but it was enough to startle Gerth from a deep sleep. He awoke with cotton mouth, an erection and a vague memory of creatures crawling from the forest to feast on the corpse of his lieutenant.
“Fuck.”
He attributed the hard on to Sasha and promised himself he’d release that pressure soon enough. Gerth looked around and let his eyes adjust. Several trees stood between him and the cart wall, which had been left unattended by the Elk guards. He had slept for hours and inadvertently tricked them into thinking this part of the forest was uninhabited. Gerth reached down and grabbed a flask, tossing it back to let the fire water wake him up and moisten his mouth at the same time. He choked down a cough, fearful of drawing undue attention to his most fortunate location.
He scanned past the trees to where a fire burned low. Gerth turned up to the sky and, based on the position of the moon, he guessed the night to be approximately half over. There would be several more hours of darkness, but he would only need a few minutes.
There was movement in the woods behind him, and he recognized the face of one of his men in the shadows. Other shadows moved behind him, and Gerth counted four in total. They followed me, he thought. Spotted me and followed me. Good. Well at least if we all go in I will not be the focus of the raid.
“Split up,” he said. “We go in from different ways. Take whatever you want.” The nearest man nodded and moved away into the darkness, leaving Gerth to ponder his own plan.
Jonah’s tent sat several yards from the fire where a few bodies curled around the coals, wrapped in bed rolls and the waning heat of the flame. Gerth could not tell who they were, but he doubted Sasha was amongst them. The chief’s wife would be naked in the tent between the finest, most delicate furs the clan had skinned. Or so Gerth believed. He felt his erection return.
Something moved in the brush to his right and Gerth froze. He held his mouth open in a round O and did not inhale. Judging on the volume created by the thrashing of dead leaves, Gerth thought it had to be a large squirrel or a small groundhog—neither of which interested him tonight.
He crept through the trees with one hand on his crotch and the other on his axe. The branches reached for his clothing, and he pushed the bony fingers away. Soft snores came from the people by the fire. He looked left and right; seeing no sign of anyone standing guard along the makeshift cart wall, he turned toward the tent. If Jonah was inside, Gerth would kill him first.
Bash his fucking head right in.
If only Sasha was in the tent, Gerth would gag her and drag her out. If he had to kill the people around the fire, so be it.
He pushed the flap of the tent aside. One person lay sleeping on the ground in a bed roll.
One. Sasha.
Gerth pushed his hood back. He saw the white skin of her bare foot extending beyond the roll. He stared at her long, delicate toes.
I will cut them off slowly, he thought. One at a time.
She moaned from within the bed roll, and Gerth felt his erection pressing hard against his belt. He leaned closer, and he could smell the rich, sweet scent of woman. A smile creased his face as he extended both arms to pull the bed roll back.
The blade came up and across his abdomen so fast that at first Gerth thought he had ejaculated. The warm, wet blood oozed into his crotch from where he had been slashed. The woman scurried to the back of the tent with the knife held up and her mouth closed, her eyes on fire.
Gerth fell to his knees and put both hands to his gut in the hopes he could keep his intestines from flopping into the filthy dirt floor of Jonah’s tent.
Chapter 8
Gutted like a pig, she thought.
Sasha watched as the man’s blood oozed into the dirt, the smell of copper masking his body odor. They would not be able to sleep on this spot now that he had soiled it, but Sasha doubted she would spend another night at this place. There was too much chaos, too much instability, and she would not risk her family for it while the clan packed its possessions.
“Is he dead?”
The question knocked Sasha into the side of the tent. She brought the knife up to her face and scanned the darkness. She saw a girl huddled behind the flap. The top half of her body was inside but the bottom half was not. Sasha guessed her to be about ten years old, with a shaggy head of brown hair common to the Elk clan of the north.
“Yes,” Sasha said.
The girl remained on the threshold of the tent, unable or unwilling to step fully into the aftermath of the murder.
“He was going to hurt me, and I defended myself. You understand, right?”
The girl nodded her head in agreement.
“Are you Elk?”
“No.”
Sasha lowered the knife. She turned her head sideways and raised her eyebrows. “Then what clan are you?” she asked.
The girl began to cry, and Sasha remembered Keana telli
ng her something about a clan fleeing Eliz, one that was full of children and yet without men. “You’re one of Nieve’s children?”
“Yes,” the girl said between tight sobs.
Sasha heard shouts coming from the camp. She stepped over Gerth’s corpse and pushed the flap of the tent aside to see a handful of people gathering at the fire pit. Gideon and Keana looked up at their mother while Solomon stood waving his arms—his battle axe in one hand. Leta and Nieve stood off to the side as more children came from the darkness and into the emerging light of the morning.
“What is going on, Sasha?” Solomon’s booming voice shook the delicate dawn and roused those who had managed to remain asleep through the trouble. “Nieve’s children came to us. They said they felt stalkers in the camp.”
“One of the feral men. The rogues from the south. He got into my tent.”
Solomon stepped toward her and shook his head. He kept a tight grip on his axe while using his other hand to stroke his long beard.
“Impossible. We secured the perimeter, kept guard on—”
Sasha thrust the blade of her knife into the air a mere inch from Solomon’s face. She could smell her attacker’s blood, and she knew Solomon could as well.
“Possible. His body is in my tent.”
“The children spotted the rest,” said Nieve, keeping her distance from Solomon and Sasha. “Four more were following the one who attacked Sasha. They’re still near the camp.”
“Get them,” Solomon said.
A dozen warriors ran through the camp, past the fire and into the woods where the children led them toward the rest of Gerth’s men, who had remained hidden near the cart wall.