In the Shadow of a Valiant Moon

by Stu Jones

  The going is slow, the deep drifts impeding my advance, sucking at the boots as if to hold me back. The rumble in this borrowed stomach is more urgent than any of the wounds suffered so far. The bodies of the fallen have all been buried. Sustenance in their flesh is not an option. Yet, not more than fifty meters ahead, the frozen corpse of the bear pokes from the snow. Its innards have been devoured. Liver, heart and lungs gone—the most nutritious organs taken by the flame-colored fiend. But, it had left behind the meat. And meat I can use.

  A swift slice with my laser scythe and a hairy chunk of flesh is removed from the bear’s hind quarter. I drop beside the carcass and throw away the extinguished cane in favor of the meaty morsel.

  Are you at least going to cook it?

  No need.

  Holding the frozen meal by the fur, I bite into the frigid flesh. Crystals of iron-flavored ice melt in the mouth. The meat is tough and cold, but satisfying. My stolen body convulses in disgust, the tongue recoiling, but I force the nourishing mouthful down anyway. It plops into the void of an empty stomach.

  Disgusting.

  Life, little puppet. Life.

  Immediately feeling satiated and stronger, I slice off a few more chunks of flesh and stuff them into the pockets of my cloak. Then I continue to hobble along, the cane supporting the full weight of this muscular frame.

  In the distance, the last standing lillipad protrudes into the sky from within the walls of Vel. A metallic flag signaling my journey’s end. Once I’m there, Merodach will come with a ship and collect both me and my prize, enabling my plan to accelerate—

  Why?

  Why what, pathetic creature?

  Why do this at all? For four years, Vedmak, you’ve been plotting and scheming to build your army and take Etyom for your own. Maybe to take back Mother Russia, if it even exists beyond the ruins of the old world. But for what? Why does it matter to you?

  “So many questions. Such a child. Always whining. Slapping your lips together like an old woman,” I say, trudging on.

  Insulting me can’t hurt me, Vedmak. You don’t have Anastasia to torture. We’re alone. It’s just you and me.”

  Another gust of wind nearly topples me over, but with the scythe dug into the snow, I’m able to keep balance. “A simpleton like you would never understand.”

  I understand well enough, Vedmak. Or do you prefer Genrikh?

  “That name should never pass your heathen lips.”

  I don’t have lips now, you do. I only exist in your head. Just as you did in mine, Genrikh. That is your name, isn’t it?

  “It holds no meaning for me anymore.”

  The wind stabs through the soiled cloak. Another step forward, and another. This babbling fool will not slow my progress.

  I disagree. I think it holds much meaning for you. Living in your consciousness has given me insight I’m sure you never anticipated. Before, I tried to block you out. Hide from you. But now, after four long years, I know who you are, Genrikh Yagoda. Commisar of Internal Affairs—the Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del. Tasked with Stalin’s Great Purge. Who knew I was playing host to a war criminal of such notoriety?

  The frigid air seems to clamp around the limbs, halting my advance. The muscles fail to respond to my desires as if he were taking back the body for himself. “You think you’re clever? So, you read a history book. Books don’t make a man. Life does. Sacrifice does.”

  And you would know sacrifice, wouldn’t you? Serving Stalin and the Bolsheviks. Building his canals. Murdering all the innocent souls who did not follow your philosophies. A fool, blinded by loyalty. Until in the end, like so many Soviet officers who conducted political repression, you became a victim of the purge.

  “Shut up.”

  Demoted from the directorship of the NKVD and arrested.

  “I said, shut up.” These teeth grind together.

  Charged with murderous crimes and tried at the Trial of the Twenty-One.

  “I’m warning you, kozel.”

  Found guilty and shot.

  “Enough!” This Gracile’s scream is sharp but fades fast in the whipping wind.

  It’s not enough, though is it? Because I know what happened. Things perhaps even you don’t know.

  Forcing the legs to move, I slog forward again, holding the cloak close to shield from the numbing cold.

  The others were pardoned. You knew that, didn’t you? The other twenty from your trial? Posthumously, of course, but pardoned all the same. You weren’t. Deemed too much of a monster, even by your own people.

  “It matters not. None of it does.”

  And Ida? Did she matter?

  “Sard off, you insignificant insect. You know nothing of her.”

  I know she was shot. Right after you. Executed for your selfishness—your mistakes.

  I’ve stopped again, anger like a wave of old ugliness rising to the surface. Toxic raging heat bubbling up. “You don’t know that.”

  Why do you think you keep seeing her that way in your hallucinations? I see her too. And you see her like that because I know what happened to her. Your consciousness feeds off my knowledge. She was unceremoniously shot in the head, Genrikh. Your wife was murdered because of your misplaced loyalty.

  Dropping into the snow, I force a strained roar into the morning air. It seems to go on forever, these Gracile lungs heaving out steaming air until I can scream no more.

  Quiet once again fills the barren landscape.

  Is this why, Genrikh? You wish to kill and maim and destroy because of your guilt? Because you couldn’t protect her? Or is this your revenge on the world for being betrayed by those you trusted? It doesn’t have to be like this.

  A break in the clouds allows a shard of sunlight to slice across this pilfered face. Its warmth contrasted by the frozen zephyr. I soak in the sensations, the duality of it. Then, a chuckle rolls from deep inside, working its way into the throat until a full raucous belly laugh empties into the air.

  “Guilt? Revenge? Such a petulant child you are, Demitri Stasevich. Not worthy of the Russian name with which you were bestowed.” I climb back up, my purpose swelling again. “Do you still not see? I had everything taken from me, including my life, so I may see my destiny clearly. To purge this world of every damn man, woman, and child and replace them with the worthy. I was not an instrument of the purge. I am the purge—this planet’s answer to the disease that is humanity. I am Death, and Hell follows with me.”

  But Ida ...

  “Ida knew what it meant to be a Bolshevik. To have a purpose greater than herself. I do not mourn her. She would not disdain my actions. You are simply not fit to speak her name.”

  My Gracile host cries no further, and so, I continue onward in beautiful silence.

  ***

  It’s taken nearly the whole day to arrive at Vel. The last standing lillipad is silhouetted against the cloud-obscured, blood-red sunset. The walls of this enclave are not like the others. Here, the high ramparts are metal. Barbed wire adorns their top, which occasionally crackles with an electrical charge. The Velians wanted to keep even other Robusts out. Of course, now it is clear why—a nuclear stockpile.

  Yet, even from the outside, something feels dead. As if cutting themselves off from the world resulted in their slowly rotting away until only the shell remained—inside the putrid vestiges of Robusts lining the streets. Are the Velians dead? Should it be so easy to enter and take what I desire? Another scan of the fortress-like enclave suggests otherwise.

  How to enter? There is no main gate like the other enclaves. They would not have built such a bastion without some way in and out. At least an escape route would be needed. The monstrous alien barrier seems to have no end, and no door of any kind. I rap on the metal. Only a dull thunk sounds back. It’s anything but thin, or hollow. There’s no telling how dense this great barricade is. Once again, the heat of fury boils within. Thrashing out, I beat on the wall in frustration with the only hand I have left. It serves no purpose. Even with this Grac
ile engine, not even a dent is made.

  It’s no use, Vedmak. You’re never getting in. Forget the stockpile. Forget it all.

  Never, wretched weakling. That has always been your folly. Defeated before you begin.

  The sky darkens with heavy clouds. The wind howls, the tempest growing as the snow begins to swirl. Another blizzard will soon be upon me.

  There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Just let us freeze out here and it will finally be over.

  I think not, boy.

  Through the ever-heavier snowfall, the outline of a bunker appears, some two kilometers from the wall’s edge. No larger than an old dacha, it can’t hold much of importance―except, maybe ...

  I quicken my pace, hobbling toward the shelter.

  While small, it appears to be made of the same thick metal as the enclave wall. Even the tiny porthole, just large enough for an average Robust, is heavy and apparently impenetrable. Even more reason to know the true contents of this metal box. There is an empty thunk, lost to the powerful storm now blustering around me, as I rap on the door with my scythe. Nothing. I tap again, harder this time. There’s a clunk from the inside. Scuffling. Then, through an old speaker in the wall, a tinny voice speaks.

  “Password?”

  Password? Their primitive games are annoying. “Please,” I say in the feeblest voice I can muster. “Rippers attacked me. I’ve been beaten and maimed. They took my hand. I’ll die out here. You have to help.” I wave my cauterized stump in the air at an imagined camera somewhere overhead.

  “You’re a Gracile?” says the voice over the speaker.

  You’re deplorable, is what you are.

  He can see me. “Yes. Please, I barely escaped with my life. You have to let me in.” I drop my hood so the scars and lacerations can be seen. “I’ll freeze or be eaten alive. I need shelter.”

  Don’t let him. Whoever you are, don’t let him in.

  No use, kozel. He can’t hear you.

  “Are you alone?” the voice says.

  “Yes, I’m alone. But I have things to trade. Please ... I even have stims. Easy, Swole, you name it.”

  That did it. The locks on the inside clunk and the portal cracks open. Before it can be shut again, I push-kick it with all the might left in this engine. The heavy door swings inward, knocking the skinny Robust to the floor. He scrambles for a wheel gun nearby, but I kick it away and stand on his wrist. The runt screams out, the pathetic goat-like cry melding with the storm that has followed me in.

  “No, please don’t kill me,” he whimpers.

  Long, lank hair sticks to the scrawny man’s features. His sunken eyes are full of fear, though his shaking is so violent and arrhythmic it’s probably more due to lack of stims than terror. The temptation of more drugs must have driven his opening of the door.

  I release his arm, close the portal behind with a clang, then turn back. “What are you hiding in here?”

  “H-h-hiding?” he stutters.

  “This place is too heavily fortified to have nothing of worth inside.”

  Scanning the interior, it’s barren save a small table and chair, and an old-fashioned stove with a cooking pot hanging above. It hasn’t been used in an age. Such meager furnishings for such a large space.

  “There is nothing. Really. I’m alone and everyone is gone. I j-just need something to help me sleep.”

  Under the table sits an insect-eaten carpet. A clean perimeter of at least two inches surrounds it. How cliché. I grab the table and flip it away. It smashes into the wall. Then, I use the cane of my scythe to lift the rug and flick it over. As suspected, another metal doorway. One with a keypad embedded into it.

  “Open it,” I command, turning back to my prisoner.

  “I can’t. I mean. I’m not supposed to. But you don’t want to go in there, anyway. There’s no one left in there. No Robusts, anyway. Rippers came. They got in and my people were forced out. They fled for their lives.”

  “Everyone except you.”

  “There was nowhere to go.” The man presses his back up against the metal wall and pulls his knees close to his chest.

  In two hobbled strides, I’m upon him. I drop my scythe and, using his scabby tunic, lift him clean into the air. Pain streaks through this body, spiking into the spine and brain, but I cannot let him know of my weakened state. The clickity-clack of something small falling from his jacket pocket onto the floor breaks the silence. It’s a cobbled together PED.

  I drop him to the deck. He cries out and once again huddles into a ball.

  I grab up the PED and flick it on. There’s a message.

  Oh, sard no. Of all the luck ...

  Luck? A wolf’s legs feed him, boy. And I am a wolf who has walked a thousand miles. “You know this woman?” I hold the PED close to his eyes.

  “M-Mila? Sure, she’s an old handler of mine. I mean, we haven’t talked in a while, but ...”

  Oh, come on, you fool. Be quiet.

  “‘Urgent. Gil, do you have intel on a nuclear stockpile in Vel? Kapka wants it. Contact me ASAP. Mila,’” I read aloud. “I’d say that was pretty recent, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” the Robust named Gil mumbles.

  Can’t let her or that animal Kapka claim my prize. There must be a way to stall until Merodach arrives. “You say there are Rippers inside?”

  Gil nods feverishly. “Yes, lots. If you go in there, they’ll murder you.”

  I drop to my haunches and meet his gaze. “I thank you for your concern. Perhaps we should send our mutual friend Mila a message, warning her too. What do you think?”

  Confusion and fear knit the man’s brow into a crease.

  Vedmak, no. I know what you’re doing.

  “Of course you do, little Demitri,” I say aloud, confusing the Robust even more. “But she doesn’t.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  MILA

  There’s no music drifting on the wind today. No children running this way and that, or jovial laughter from those perusing the narrow vendor’s alleys. Since the lillipads fell, the Fiorian market is but a shadow of its former self. Faded tattered banners hang, drifting in the light breeze above rows of handmade wooden tables—some with awnings to shield vendors from the nearly constant falling snow. Only a handful of merchants peddle their goods here anymore and even fewer are still out at this hour. Most have already packed their wares in preparation for the long, cold night.

  The old man behind one of the wooden tables seems restless, his worried gaze flicking to the other vendors. He’s cold and hungry too. I point to two midget potatoes as well as a packet of herbs and spices. “Dui patate è un paese d'arbe.”

  “Sì, Madame.” He gathers the items and pushes them forward.

  “And the carrots,” Husniya says from over my shoulder.

  The little hunched man looks from Husniya back to me.

  “Okay.” I sigh. “Tutti dui carroti.”

  He bobs his head, snaggled teeth hanging precariously in swollen pink gums. “Bona fame. Ancu qualcosa?”

  I know he doesn’t have any meat left, but I’ll ask anyway. “Chiori?” My famished stare roves across his meager selection of items.

  The little man shakes his head and holds out his hand. I deposit a dollar and wait as he fishes two crudely stamped copper coins from his pocket.

  “Ringraziu,” I say with a wave, handing the items to Husniya to shove in her bag.

  The vendor mumbles a reply, shuffling back and forth, raking his remaining foodstuffs into a plain burlap sack. He pulls his fur hat down around his head, then hurries away to find someplace warmer.

  As Husniya and I head for the alley that will lead us back to base, a squad of the Fiorian guard march in the opposite direction. Their colorful blouses swish with their arms and legs. “Unu, duie, trè, quattru,” the squad leader calls in cadence with the rhythm of the march. He bows his floppy hat as they pass.

  I return the gesture. These men still hold to their duty, however ineffectual. It’s good fo
r the Fiorian people—for all of us. The appearance of safety is something at least.

  We trudge along, the toes of our boots gouging muddy brown furrows in the pristine powder. To our left, the remnants of a fallen lillipad jut from the snow. Beneath the massive structure lies the decimated northwest sector of Fiori, including the destroyed enclave wall. There’s no telling how many died when the elite’s towers came crashing down without warning.

  The years beneath the cloud line have taken their toll and the Gracile structure looks like everything else in Etyom. Seeing the thing, something so perfect in its design lying there so broken, always reminds me of Demitri.

  What happened to you, friend? What madness are you caught up in? I know you’re out there.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Husniya says.

  “Hmm?”

  “The plan. How are we going to go about helping Faruq?”

  “Oh.” I tuck my chin into my collar. “I’m working on that. We’ve got a lot to brief Bilgi on and then we have to prep gear. Then there’s always the issue of volunteers. A lot of people don’t think we should use our resources to search for one man. Just let me handle it.”

  “If you say so,” Husniya mumbles.

  I swallow back my irritation. “Hey.” I give the girl a nudge and point to the snow-covered ruins of the Forgotten Jewel. “The first time your brother and I came here together to meet the resistance, back before the Creed dropped in here and laid it flat, we met Mos for the first time, got sacks thrown over our heads and—”

  “Were taken down in the mine where you thought they killed Faruq at which point you beat up a bunch of their guys. Yeah I know. You told me that story a thousand times,” Husniya says, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay, smarty pants. But because you’ve never known different, you don’t understand what a big deal it was back then for me to be traveling with a Musul.”

  Husniya shrugs. “Yeah? Isn’t Mos Musul?”

  “Yeah. I guess he is, but he’s from Kahanga. The Kahangans kinda kept their war to themselves. But you and Faruq? Well, you were from Baqir. Kapka’s enclave. And Kapka’s Musuls, well, violent Musuls brought the war outside of Baqir.”