by Kevin Brooks
I had to open myself up.
I dont know how I do it, I told Gun Sur. But I can silence dogs if I want to.
You can stop them barking?
Yes.
He frowned at me. You must know how you do it.
I shook my head, remembering the first time it happened.
It was an unusually humid day, just over a year ago – the air thick and heavy, the skies bruised with thunderclouds – and I was heading down to the beach to see Starry about something. A group of 4 or 5 towndogs had been following me since I left my house, and as usual Ide been ignoring them. They often followed me – just as they often followed the other dogchilds – and Ide become so used to it that I barely even noticed it most of the time. They usually kept their distance, never coming close enough to physically threaten me, and all they really did was make their presence known – constantly growling and snarling, and often keeping up an incessant chorus of yapping and barking. I knew it for what it was – a mixture of fear, curiosity, and anxious aggression – and I knew it was nothing to worry about. It happened all the time, and Ide lived with it so long now that it was nothing more than background noise, like the sighing of the wind or the distant clucking of birds.
But that day, for some reason, I was in a really bad mood, and as the towndogs began getting a bit too close – closer than usual – and their barking and yapping began getting on my nerves, something inside me just snapped. But instead of turning round and snarling back at them – as Ide done a couple of times before when theyd come too close – I just kind of did something---
I didnt know what it was.
I didnt know then, and I still dont know now.
Its hard to explain, I told Gun Sur. I just kind of---I dont know. I just do something, and something comes out of me---some kind of force or energy, like a wave of something. I dont tell the dogs to be quiet. Its as if I somehow become part of them, and they become part of me---and we just feel this sense, this feeling that we want to be quiet---
I paused, shaking my head, trying to find the right words. But it was impossible. There arent any words to describe this thing I can do. Its beyond words.
I can somehow just do it, I said. I can make the dogs quiet.
Can you make them do anything else?
They dont follow me if I dont want them to.
Is that it?
I dont know. Ive never tried anything else.
Why not?
Ive not had any reason to.
Can you do the same thing with people?
No.
Gun Sur looked thoughtfully at me for a few moments, then glanced across at Pilgrim. I didnt hear Pilgrim say anything to him – he hadnt made a sound from the moment Ide entered the room – and because he was sitting behind me, I couldnt see if he nodded at Gun Sur or gave him some kind of signal either, but when Gun Sur turned back to me, he looked as if hede made up his mind about something, so I guessed something had just passed between them.
Come with me, Gun Sur said, taking a pair of binoculars from the table drawer and getting to his feet. I want to show you something.
As part of our Fighter training we spend at least 2 or 3 hours every week in the turret of one of the watchtowers – familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings, studying the layout of the Dau encampment, learning the basics of watchtower duty – so when I followed Gun Sur out of his office, and we left the Quarterhouse and crossed over to the wall, then entered the West Tower and climbed up into the turret, it was by no means the first time Ide been up there. Ive been in all the turrets, many times over. Ive spent hours and hours watching and waiting in watchtower turrets---
I know every inch of them.
Theyre all partially divided into 2 sections. The upper section – the lookout area – is protected on all sides by 5-foot-high battlements, with 4-foot-wide ledges spanning the base of each wall to form a perimeter walkway around the turret. The enemy can be engaged from the upper section if necessary, but the main combat area is the lower part of the turret. Each of the 4 walls in the lower section has a gunport – a narrow slit in the stonework thats wide enough for Fighters to shoot through, but not wide enough for them to be shot at – and because there are no other openings, and its not open to the elements like the upper section, the combat area is virtually impregnable to enemy fire.
The 2 sections are connected by a narrow flight of stone steps, and as I followed Gun Sur up the steps into the upper section – where Gun Sur relieved the guard – and we looked out over the battlements, the view was just as familiar to me as the layout of the turret. The vast wilderness of the distant Deathlands – the barren blur of the deserts and plains hazing into the wide blue skies – and directly below us, shimmering in the heat, the black emptiness of Nomansland stretching across to the Dau encampment half a mile to the north---Ide seen it all countless times before, both with and without the aid of a spyglass.
But when Gun Sur passed me his binoculars, and I put them to my eyes and focused on the distant compound, it was as if I was seeing it all for the very first time. The clarity was astonishing. I could see things as they actually were – the buildings, the pathways, the watchtowers, the people. The blurred figures I was used to seeing through the training spyglasses were now recognizable as individual people. I could see them perfectly clearly – Dau Fighters, Dau women and children, Dau Youngers – and now that I was seeing them properly for the first time, it was quite obvious how much fitter and stronger most of them looked in comparison to us. They didnt look hungry. They didnt look tired. They didnt look half dead.
Put the glasses down a moment, Gun Sur told me.
I did as he said.
He pointed out over the battlements. Do you see that wooden building with the red roof near the western edge of the compound?
I gazed in the direction he was pointing.
The one with the armed guard at the door? I said.
Thats it. Take a look at it through the glasses.
I raised the binoculars and focused on the building.
Have you got it? Gun Sur said.
Yes.
Tell me what you see.
Its a mediumsized log building with a painted metal roof. Metal shutters on the windows, a heavy wooden door with a bolt on it---
I adjusted the focus, concentrating hard on the bolt.
I think there might be a lock on it.
Anything else?
I carried on scanning the building and the guard through the powerful binoculars.
The guards armed with a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun, I said. I cant make out what kind of pistol it is, but I think the rifles an Armalite. The building looks fairly solid. Well-built, thick walls —
Do you think you could get into it?
I lowered the glasses and looked questioningly at Gun Sur.
Theres something we need in there, he explained. Ile tell you what it is later on. All you need to know at the moment is that if we dont get hold of it, our chances of winning the final battle will be severely jeopardized. So its absolutely vital that we get someone into that building to get what we need and safely bring it back to us.
Do you mean me? I said.
Youre one of a number of options Ime considering. Whether I choose you or not depends partly on you. If you think youre capable of doing it, and if you can think of a plausible way of doing it, I might decide youre the right option.
What are your other options?
Thats none of your concern, he said coldly. Your only concern at the moment, your only duty, is to stay up here and keep studying that building until youve worked out how youre going to get into it and get what we need. Once youve done that, come back to my office and wele talk some more. Is that understood?
What about Chola Se?
Did you hear what I just said?
Yes, but —
No more, Jeet. You have your orders. Do you understand them? Yes or no?
Yes.
He gave me a long hard look, re
minding me of his authority, and then – without another word – he turned away and headed off down the tower.
It didnt take long to work out how to get into the red-roofed building to get whatever it was that was in there. The difficult part was trying to figure out how to get to the Dau encampment without being seen. Crossing Nomansland was out of the question. The Dau have sentries posted all around their perimeter, both on the ground and in their watchtowers, and as well as having spyglasses and binoculars like our guards, they also have at least one nightvision scope. But even without it, theres so little cover in Nomansland that trying to cross it, even in the dead of a moonless night, would be fatal.
So, as far as I could tell, the only possible option was to take a much wider, encircling route – avoiding the flat and open glassrock terrain of Nomansland altogether – and approach the camp from its northwest flank, where the landscape around the compound provides at least some cover. Its still mostly desert, but its not quite as desolate and featureless as Nomansland. There are low ridges here and there, patches of shrubland and stunted trees, even a few dried-up river beds, and in some areas this relatively rugged terrain comes quite close to the camp perimeter, in places no more than a few hundred feet away. Ide still have to cross the wide-open stretch of ground immediately outside the perimeter – which the Dau keep meticulously clear of vegetation all the way round – but if I could get to within a few hundred feet of the camp without being seen, at least that would give me a chance.
The problem was how to reach the northwest flank of the camp in the first place. The Dau Fighters on lookout duty wouldnt just be keeping their eyes on Nomansland, theyd be watching out in all directions, scouring every inch of their surroundings for any signs of attack. Thered be dozens of them, positioned all around the camp – some on the ground, guarding the perimeter, others high up in their watchtowers – and between them all theyd be covering everywhere – the town, the Deathlands, the deserts, the mountains---
I gazed out to the west, imagining myself crossing the glassrock plains and heading up into the heart of the Deathlands---
It was a journey Ide made once before, a long long time ago – running back through the night with the pack, our jaws and my hands weighed down with plunder---
For a moment or 2 then, as I stood there in the watchtower looking out over the Deathland plains, it all came flooding back to me. That first exhilarating raid, the fear and the thrill of it all – crawling through the tunnel---rampaging through the town---running back through the night with the pack---then finally stopping to feast on our haul of plundered meat---gorging ourselves until we couldnt eat anymore, then lying down, our bellies bursting, to sleep without hunger for the first time in months. And then the horror of the second raid, the one we should never have made, the one my mother warned us against. I remembered the heavy crash of the metal grid as it dropped down and blocked our exit from the tunnel---the flaming torches in the darkness---the armed humans surrounding the cage---our futile efforts to attack them, flinging ourselves at the wire fences---the deafening barrage of gunfire, the yelps of pain, the sound of bodies thudding to the ground---and then nothing but a terrible silence filled with the smell of gunpowder and death---
I thought of my mother then, my dogmother, and I wondered – as Ive wondered many times before – if she was still alive. She was probably around 6 years old when I last saw her, which meant shede have to be at least 12 years old now, and I simply dont know if thats possible or not. I dont know how long Deathland dogs can live for. I dont recall seeing many – if any – old dogs when I was living with them, but that doesnt necessarily mean they cant have long lives. It just means that most of them – if not all of them – dont die of old age. They die of hunger, or thirst, or disease, or violence. So although its highly unlikely that my mother is still alive, it isnt impossible---
It was at that point, just as I was thinking about my mother, that an idea suddenly came to me.
I raised the binoculars and looked down to my left, focusing on a narrow strip of woodland that stretches out from the base of the West End Tower and runs along the edge of the westside cliff. Even though its not very big – maybe 100 yards long and 30 wide, narrowing even more towards the far end – Ive never understood why the woodland has been allowed to grow instead of being cut down and cleared away, in the same way that the Dau keep their perimeter free of vegetation. But Ide never had such powerful binoculars before, and now – as I focused the glasses on a patch of trees near the base of the wall – now I knew why the woodland hadnt been cleared. The fallen tree that had hidden the old animal burrow from sight all those years ago was still there, and although I couldnt actually see the entrance to the tunnel, I knew it had to be there. That was the reason the woodland was there – to keep the tunnel hidden from view.
At the same time as that realization sank in, I suddenly realized how it might be possible to get to the northwest flank of the Dau encampment without being seen, and as I began thinking it over, it gradually dawned on me why Gun Sur had chosen me to carry out the raid.
It was gone midday now. The sun was high in the sky, glaring down with a blinding white ferocity, and I was hot and tired and mentally drained. I wasnt looking forward to going back to the Quarterhouse to tell Gun Sur my thoughts – I wasnt even sure I wanted to tell him anything at all – and if it had been up to me I would have stayed up there in the watchtower, scanning the Dau camp for any sign of Chola Se.
Ide been keeping my eyes open for anything that might tell me where she was all the time Ide been up there – anything that could be a prison, buildings with locked doors and barred windows, buildings with guards at the door. The problem was, at least half the buildings I could see were locked and barred or guarded, and Chola Se could be in any one of them. Or she could be in one of the countless buildings I couldnt see – the buildings inside the highwalled fort in the center of the camp, for example – or in an underground cell in one of the many trenches that riddled the camp---
She could be anywhere.
Or nowhere.
She might not be there at all.
But I had to believe that she was.
If she was there, she was alive. If she wasnt---
She had to be.
And all I wanted to do was keep looking for her, but I knew that I couldnt. If Gun Sur was right about the importance of this mysterious object in the red-roofed building – if it really was so crucial to our chances of winning the battle – then I had to forget about Chola Se for the moment and concentrate on following the Marshals orders.
There was no point in finding Chola Se if we were all going to die soon anyway.
Like it or not, I had to leave the watchtower now and go back to the Quarterhouse. I couldnt resist giving the camp a final quick scan through the binoculars though, just in case Ide missed something, but I knew in my heart that I wasnt going to find Chola Se now. Ide already searched everywhere. Ide already seen all there was to see. I knew I hadnt missed anything.
I lowered the binoculars, turned away from the parapet---
And stopped.
Ide seen something.
I thought about it for a moment, replaying the image in my mind, then I turned back to the parapet, raised the binoculars, and focused again on what Ide just seen.
It was a Dau Fighter, a guard. He hadnt just appeared – hede been there the whole time Ide been watching the camp – and he hadnt moved or changed in any way either. He was still in exactly the same position hede been in when Ide first seen him – standing guard at the far end of a large open courtyard in front of the fort. There was nothing different about him at all. The only difference was that Ide finally realized after all this time that he didnt seem to be guarding anything.
The courtyard – a flat expanse of sunbaked dirt – was about 50 yards long and 35 wide, and the Fighter was positioned at the opposite end to the fort, so he couldnt possibly be guarding the fort itself, and the only other building anywhere near him was a di
lapidated wooden shack about 20 yards to his left which had clearly been abandoned a long time ago. Apart from that – and a pile of logs 15 yards to his right – he was surrounded on all sides by open ground.
So what was he doing there?
There was no doubt he was on sentry duty of some kind – standing in the same position for hours on end, a rifle on his shoulder, eyes on the alert---he was definitely guarding something. I scanned the area around him again, looking in more detail at everything, but I couldnt see anything suspicious or out of place. The courtyard was deserted, the wooden shack was definitely empty, the pile of logs was just a pile of logs. I focused the binoculars on the guards face, studying him closely in the hope that Ide see something, anything, that might tell me what he was doing there. And it didnt take long to realize that he seemed anxious about something – his eyes darting around, his face tense, his jaw tight. I kept watching. He licked his lips---once, twice---then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced over his shoulder, frowning to himself---then he began pacing around, muttering under his breath---
There was no doubt he was worried about something.
And then suddenly he froze, staring towards the fort, and it was obvious that he wasnt just anxious now, he was scared.
I followed his gaze to see what he was staring at and saw a fat old woman waddling across the courtyard towards him. She was wearing a grubby red turban, a necklace of bones, and a full-length brown robe that trailed in the dirt as she walked. She had a long spear in one hand, which she was using as a walking stick, and in her other hand she was carrying a wicker basket.
As I swung the binoculars back to the guard, I was just in time to see him turning his back on the woman and thumping the butt of his rifle into the ground. I saw his lips moving, as if he was talking to someone, and I got the impression that he was speaking in a loud and urgent whisper. He hammered the ground again, then stooped over – bending at the waist and lowering his head towards the ground – and spat out some more frantic words, his teeth bared in a mixture of anger and fear. It looked as if he was shouting at the ground---