When Samantha finished, the company lifted Tin and carried him back to the wains in silence. A pitiful funeral march. His final resting place was under an old cedar rising high above the pines that surrounded it. No one spoke as we tore into the ground, our spades and the distant sound of the carrion birds the only noises. We took turns digging the grave, making sure it was deep enough so Tin’s body wouldn’t be found by the coyotes or a herd of shamblers. The cedar’s roots slowed our shoveling, and we had to use saws and axes to break through the thicker roots that blocked our downward progress.
Once we laid him to rest, we discussed the marker. We considered a cross, but I felt there was something perverted about having your grave marked by the instrument of your death. So we opted for a simple wooden plank, with “Ivari Tin, Roader” carved into its face.
As Samantha led the final prayer, I stewed, focusing my rage into something sharp and hot. Prayer finished, I moved back to the gearwain and began gathering weapons. Fresh shells for my pistol, two knives, one for my boot and another for a leather bandolier that I draped around my chest.
“Wal, what are you doing?” Samantha asked, her voice laced with concern.
“I’m hunting,” I said. My voice cold.
“About damn time,” said Hannah, holding her rifle in the crook of her arm, checking it was both loaded and ready.
“I’m coming,” said Wensem.
“Wal,” said Samantha. “Don’t—not yet. Let’s think about this logically. Let’s be smart.”
I looked at her and saw the fear in her eyes. She was remembering Lovat. I didn’t respond. Instead I put her at my back and marched through the Forest of the Dead, toward the cluster of buildings at its center.
Strands of long gray smoke still drifted up into the sky above the enclosed buildings. Someone had to be in there. Someone had to have seen us arrive and find the body of our roader. Maybe this was the lair of Hannah’s gargoyles? Visions of panicked hooded figures struggling for escape fueled me onward. I wanted to kill whoever had killed Tin, empty my gun in their chest and end this. I drew the Judge, raised it high into the air and emptied the chamber at the sky.
BLAM! BLAM!
Pause.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
“You there! You inside! We’re coming in! Do you hear me, we’re coming in!” I screamed. I reloaded as I did so, then repeated my challenge, emptying the gun at the sky and marching angrily towards Methow.
By the third reload, we stood before the gate. No faces appeared over the wall, no one returned fire. No one shouted pleas for mercy.
But there was something. Something beneath the buzz of bugs and the caws of the birds. A muffled sound. Crying? A sniffle? The shuffle of feet on gravel?
Something.
A crude hand-painted sign hung on the solid gate that broke the outer wall. Thick red letters spelled out a warning in a raw, shaky hand.
HELL HAS COME TO METHOW
DO NOT ENTER
TURN AWAY
To hell with that.
FIFTEEN
I LOOKED FOR A WAY INSIDE. Two cinderblock towers roughly fifteen feet high flanked a gate made of corrugated metal screwed into plywood. Other objects were hammered into the wavy facade to keep visitors from getting too close. Spikes. Barbed wire. Sharp jagged scraps from all manner of found and reclaimed material. The barricades on either side weren’t solid, more a pile of objects. Glass spikes lined the top and more barbed wire looped through the defenses.
Whoever was inside wanted to keep everyone out.
It’d be easy enough to climb, though I’d probably end up cutting myself and contracting something from the rusted material.
There was also the matter of not knowing what was on the other side. It could be anything, the hooded gargoyles, a tribe of murderous, blood-thirsty cannibals, a cult similar to Black’s Children, a mess of bandits, or worse—something like that creature I had seen in the Humes tunnel, something far more fearsome. I wasn’t about to go poking my head over the edge.
“You going to let us in?” I shouted at the wall.
I considered firing again, but I wasn’t carrying an unlimited supply of ammunition. Wasting them for dramatic purposes began to feel foolish.
“ARE YOU?” I screamed. My breath heaved in and out of my chest, and my fingers twitched at my sides. Remembering Tin’s body only enraged me further.
No answer.
More sounds seemed to come from behind the gate. A shuffle. A sniffle. A cry? It was hard to tell.
My companions flanked me. Wensem’s face was drawn and his feet were planted wide apart, but his shotgun was resting at ease on his shoulder. He was here for security. He wasn’t up for a rampage, not yet at least. I had seen him snap only three times before, twice on the trail and once deep beneath the city of Lovat. Wensem was a slow burn—a dormant volcano—and Firsts help you when he went off.
Hannah’s mood mirrored my own. She rolled her shoulders and shifted her rifle between her hands. Her green eyes flicked about, scanning the top of the wall and the roofs of the small collection of buildings visible on the other side. Scouting.
It was hard to tell how many structures were still erect behind the barricade. Gambrel and flat-roofed buildings rose from behind the defenses like tired old veterans. Old. Worn. Missing shingles patched with strips of bark or clumps of sod.
Garrets stained from centuries of grime stared down at us in judgement from the roofs like clouded eyes.
Samantha joined us, standing behind me and to my left. If I turned my head I could see her just over my shoulder. She reminded me of one of those cartoon angels in those kid serials that played on the monochrome. Agents of goodness whispering in the ears of the protagonist. Offering sensible advice to oppose the devil on the opposite shoulder.
I wasn’t in the mood to listen to advice.
“Maybe no one is home,” said Wensem in a soft drawl.
“Bullshit. I heard someone,” I turned and shouted at the gate. “You hear me? Carter’s cross! Do you hear me? I hear you! I know you’re in there!”
I slammed the butt of the Judge against the corrugated metal. My harsh bangs echoed inside and disturbed a line of crows perched atop one of the buildings.
“Wal…” said Samantha. She made a noise like she was clearing her voice, but I could hear the concern in her words. “…maybe you should ease off a bit.”
Ease off?
They killed one of my crew—a member of my company—and hung him on a stake like some animal. Who knows what they were doing to Shaler! The Forest was the work of madness, pure evil. Whoever was behind this gate was responsible and they would pay. I decided that the moment I laid my eyes on this whole bloody spectacle.
My breath came out in ragged sharp bursts. I ground my teeth together until my jaw hurt.
“Wensem.”
“Yeah, Wal?”
“Get the dynamite.”
“Wal!” Samantha shouted.
We kept a small cache of dynamite in the gearwain to clear rock and mudslides in the passes. It was handy for trail work. It’d be handy for invasion work as well. A stick or two would make short work of this door.
“Wal… I don’t know if…” Wensem began.
Samantha was more forceful. She appeared before me and gripped my shoulders leaning into me. Her eyes blinked rapidly as she stared into my own. “Wal! No. You can’t do this. We don’t know what’s going on. It’s horrible, yes. It’s the worst thing any of us have seen, but you can’t just start blowing things up! There could be people in there, Wal. There could be innocent people.”
Innocent? The idea struck me as bizarre. Innocent? Had Samantha not seen the death surrounding this town? Did Samantha miss the fact that hundreds of corpses hung from torture devices a scant few feet from where she stood? Was the smell not enough? The graying color of rotting flesh? What innocent person could live in the center of all of this?
“Sam’s right, Wal. We don’t know what’s going on here. There’s
a lot of questions and no answers,” Wensem said.
I said nothing. I turned and pulled back. Samantha, who was leaning into me, stumbled and fell to her knees in the mud. I needed to get inside. Even if the place was dead, I needed to see. Right now it was the curtain and I had to pull it back, reveal the horror on the other side. Innocent or not. I was ready for blood.
“Fine,” I spat, flashing Wensem a sour look. “If you won’t help me, I’ll get it myself.”
I returned with a few half-sticks of dynamite and the fuses needed to set them off. I worked in silence. My eyes focused on the work at hand. I cut fuses. Stuck them into blasting caps. Checked my lighter. All while trying to ignore the glares from Samantha and Wensem and the scene of death surrounding me.
“This isn’t necessary,” Samantha pleaded. “If there are people inside all this will do is potentially kill a lot of them.”
Looking up at her, I frowned, my voice coming out in an exasperated huff. “That’s the idea, Sam.”
With a crack my lighter snapped on and I lit the fuse of the first stick of dynamite. With a loud hiss, the fuse caught and the spark began to slowly eat its way toward the blasting cap.
“I’m going to blow this gate to hell if you don’t open it up!” I shouted. “Do you hear me? I am going to blow your barricades! Then what will you cower behind?”
For a while the only noise I could hear was the caw of the birds and the sizzle of the fuse and the low murmur of Samantha mumbling a prayer. I held the dynamite out in my right hand, let the sparks waterfall over my wrist, felt it singe my skin. The scent of burning hair mixed with the odor of rot and decay.
“Wal, please,” Samantha pleaded, her voice now anguished. “Don’t do this.”
I ignored her. I looked at Wensem for some support. Instead he nodded in agreement with the priestess. Hannah looked similarly displeased.
Always alone, even in a group.
Pulling back, I moved to throw the lit dynamite at the base of the gate.
“Please! Please don’t,” came a wavery voice from the other side.
I halted.
The dynamite sizzled in my hand.
“We’re opening up the gate. Don’t blow it up! Please!”
Taking a deep breath, I paused. Examined the explosive in my hand. Who was behind the gate? Who was I sparing? A beast or Samantha’s supposed innocents? I wasn’t sure.
After a few moments I pulled the lit fuse from the half-stick of dynamite, tossing it to the muddy ground. Stomping the flame out with my boot, I tucked the stick into my belt.
“Damn right you’re going to open it up,” I mumbled.
Samantha stood near Wensem now, tears in her eyes, her brows drawn. Her hands were balled into fists, making the spurs along her knuckles look more like claws.
As we stood there, we could hear noises from behind the gate, the movement of a heavy mechanism and the whine of metal on metal. Eventually the gate swung outward and my party stepped back to make room.
An older man with thin arms, long graying hair and a weak beard that did little to hide an even weaker chin emerged pushing the massive door open. He held a stained rag that I think was meant to be white.
A flag of surrender.
Behind the door more people appeared, gathering in a small huddle in the middle of a square that made up the center of the cluster of buildings. Old people, males and females, a mix of humans, maero, and dimanians. Children ranging from two or three to about fourteen clustered between them. Few in the group were my age. None seemed to be in their twenties.
A forgotten town of the old and the young.
They all had dark graying skin, drawn pale lips, yellow eyes, and dirty hair. Their clothing was tattered, colorless, matted with mud and who knows what else. In withered hands with cracked nails they all clutched tattered off-white cloths.
The scene blew over me all at once like a Syringan dust storm. I was no conquerer. These people were defeated before I arrived. They weren’t strong enough to take care of each other let alone accost one of my roaders.
A wave of pity overwhelmed me and I yanked down the keff covering my face. The rage bled out of me. I wanted to help these people. Take care of them. Feed them. Clothe them. But why were they still here? Why would anyone remain?
Everything felt frozen.
I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had happened. Judging by the state of the place Methow hadn’t operated normally in months. Maybe years. The structures were as dilapidated as the inhabitants.
How long had they been here?
“Please,” came the wavery old voice from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. “Please don’t hurt us. Please.”
At once I realized I still had my Judge extended. They stared at me nervously. My hands shook and it wasn’t easy to lower the gun and slip it back in its holster, out of sight.
Embarrassment rapidly filled the spaces abandoned by my rage. It was no wonder these folks hadn’t rushed to open the gate. They weren’t in any state to defend themselves. They probably thought we were bandits.
“Who is in charge here?” I asked—gently—breathing out the last of my anger as I took in the haggard group.
“I am,” came the same voice as before. A human male with a bent back and a sagging face shuffled from the center of the crowd, a dirty cloth of surrender clutched in his ancient gnarled fingers. Small black eyes stared at me from under long eyebrows below an exposed pate. Unlike the man at the gate, this fellow was clean shaven, the corners of his mouth drooping like the tired limbs of a willow and his cheeks sagged like a bulldog’s.
Crossing the space between us I extended my hand in both apology and friendship. I gave an embarrassed smile. I reacted without thinking and ended up the fool. Once again, Samantha was right. I would need to work to show him we weren’t a threat.
The old man recoiled at my gesture and I forced myself to pause. Breathe. He’s scared, I told myself.
“You should not have come,” he said suddenly, staring at my still awkwardly extended hand. Abashed, I lowered it.
“We were traveling along the Broken Road and it brought us here.”
The old man made a noise, and looked at me only for an instant before he gazed over my shoulder, across the Forest of the Dead, to the spot where my wains and the rest of my crew squatted against the tree line.
“You should not have come,” he repeated again.
“We hadn’t planned on coming,” I admitted, running my hands through my hair.
“You bandits?” he asked.
“No, roaders,” I said.
“Haven’t seen your kind in a while.”
“No, I reckon you haven’t.” I looked around at the crowd.
He stared at me, saying nothing. Finally after a few more seconds of awkward silence the old man sighed and then spoke. “Come, come in. Come in,” he beckoned us inside. “Ill wind today. Ill wind brings ill fortune.”
I looked over at Wensem and he gave a slight nod. We were heading in.
“I’ll stay out here,” said Hannah, her eyes glancing about. “Make sure we’re not followed. Make sure no one is coming. Watch the wains,” she nodded back to the rest of the party before adding, “ya know.”
“Be careful,” said Wensem as he, Samantha, and I tentatively moved past the gates and into the small compound. The gate was closed behind us, closing us off from the Forest and my crew beyond.
I was fairly sure if this was a trap, we’d be able to both outfight and outmaneuver these people. Hell, the old man could hardly stand. I couldn’t see any of them overpowering us.
The old man stopped in the center of what I gauged was a town square. Six old buildings of various sizes squatted around the perimeter. Citizens gazed down at us from windows and from doorways. What roads once existed between them were blocked by makeshift barricades constructed out of brick, steel, mortar, wood, and stone.
The largest structure crouched at the north side of town. Its looming three-story presence o
ccupied a single side of the village and looked like the remains of a small school or a hospital. The imposing white walls had faded to a dingy dirty gray and were streaked with mud. A few of the windows were boarded shut. Another bent figure watched the gathering from behind the gloom of the double doors.
Behind the big white building the foothills rose in the distance. Their crowns were dusted with a light snow despite the heat still felt in the valley. The old mining headframe stood vigil.
The crowd of villagers milled about us, studying our clothes, eyeing our weapons, our healthy complexions. Emotions of fear and envy seemed to flicker on all the faces, young and old. I felt like an adventurer meeting a tribe of wild folk.
“How many are there?” I asked Wensem quietly. He’d know the number.
“About a hundred, maybe hundred and twenty,” he responded. He paused, looking around. “Mostly children and old folk.”
The old man finished conferring with his cadre and turned to face us. He straightened as best he could and studied us for a moment before speaking. When he did his voice still carried that far away, foggy tone.
“You should not have come.”
“Yeah, we’re understanding that,” I said. “Look, I’m Waldo Bell of Bell Caravans, this is my partner Wensem dal Ibble—”
“You a maero?” The old man asked Wensem, his already small eyes further narrowing. They flicked from me to Wensem and then to Samantha and then to… I wasn’t actually sure. Somewhere in the sky? He reminded me of the pitch addicts in Lovat. The drug-blasted minds… even when they’re sober it’s hard to get a straight answer out of them.
Wensem didn’t respond, he just gave one curt, respectful nod, and shifted his shotgun onto another shoulder. He was an imposing figure. Especially compared to most of these people.
“—and this,” I continued, “is the Reunified Priestess and Professor, Samantha Dubois of Saint Marks’ in Lovat.”
The old man made what seemed to be a respectful grunting noise and nodded his head, still not making eye contact with any of us. The whole town seemed nervous and distracted. I wondered how much my enraged gunfire scared them. Based on their body language probably a lot.
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