A Fractured World: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure (Gallen Book 1) (9 page)

“Then we should evacuate,” he said, quietly. “Send the word that we’re heading for the craters. It’s a maze; they’ll never find us in there.”

“Why don’t you head off to the craters?” said Derek, winking at Sadie. “I’m sure you’ll be happy down there. You can make …”

“Will you shut that trap up, boy?” snapped Marge. “That trash think we’re pretty dumb so don’t make them right.”

She took one last look across the broken land to where the Blood Sun tribe were now camped; vehicles, tents, fires, wrestling, weapons, drink, laughter.

“This is what we’re gonna do,” said Marge.

The cremation of Chancellor Jorann was held that night in Progress Square, after all shifts had finished.

A mood of dejection had seeped into the city for days with the production output at the factories and plants reaching its lowest in years. Trade had rapidly dwindled in the markets. The ever loyal and dedicated Red Guard had shown signs of dismay that no one in power, ministerial or military, had been aware of the network of underground tunnels beneath Quinto. Subsequently, these had been blocked. Gozan had anticipated this period of mourning and reflection and even rumblings of discontent. For years there had been calm under Jorann, with any hatred directed at the SOT. Now, the violence of the wastelands had breeched Chett’s high walls. It was to be expected. Time would mend fears. A new chancellor would bring new focus sharply into view.

Thousands of men, women and children took to the city streets. Black flags hung on every corner, a respectful tribute organised by Second Minister, Mason, who had since been promoted to First Minister, due to Gozan’s succession to Chancellor. Gozan had also relinquished his title of General of the Red Guard, promoting Major Nuria into the position, and had taken an older title, Lord of Chett, one Jorann had never wanted. Nuria had also been awarded a Wreath of Bravery for saving Jorann from the first assassination attempt in Progress Square. Gozan had hoped it would elevate her to the status of public hero and diminish the power of any impending investigation into missing soldiers. Not that any of that really mattered now. The law would soon be changing.

Amusingly, the hunt for Jorann’s murderers was ongoing and Gozan had promised merciless retribution once the culprits were apprehended. He had given a powerful speech, a rousing oration, damning greed and corruption, but only hundreds had drifted into Progress Square and the response from those had been decidedly muted. He knew the brutality of the murders at Quinto had shocked his citizens but he was furious at the insipid reception. He had penned all of Jorann’s speeches, from his first to his last, and the peasants had lapped up those ones

“Timing is the key, Gozan,” Nuria had advised him.

“I’m sure you’re correct. Chett spins in cycles. I have seen it all before.”

Life had been shaken but soon the dust would settle and the sun would rise and fall and work would continue and mutterings fade away.

He ordered that great fires should be lit and in the night sky the first and only city must have seemed ablaze to the wastelands of Gallen. He had already drafted his new laws and motions but had followed Nuria’s advice in waiting a few more days before unveiling them. Earlier, hours before the ceremony, where he would be expected to speak again, he had instructed his Sixth Minister, Isaac, to provide him with a report of the slowest operators from the Worker Zone. Finally, with the list, and before leaving for Progress Square, he passed it to General Nuria.

“Arrest these tonight,” he ordered her. “Their output is poor so they will not be missed. Tomorrow, hang them as members of SOT, traitors of Chett and Chancellor Jorann’s killers.”

“Understood,” said Nuria.

“And ensure the weapons are found with them. And SOT literature.”

She studied the list once he had left. Six men and two women. She rode to the barracks, based in the Red Guard compound on the west side of the city. Once there, she issued the orders to her men and appointed a Captain Andozini to lead the multiple raids. With the barracks empty, she found a bunk to rest on and stared at the ceiling above. She closed her eyes, for a moment only, and then opened them as the wind tossed a thousand years of dirt and grit against the barred windows. She sat up, the light from the fires on the city walls reflecting brightly in her eyes. Drawing her coat, she checked her pistol and went out into the streets. She chose to walk, not cycle. She threaded through the tearful crowds, head bowed, long blonde hair curled around her neck and hanging down over her chest. Hundreds of citizens brushed past her. Many stood outside humble apartment buildings where they scraped out an existence for a meagre Citizen Parcel.

Soon, Gozan would repeal the laws banning Pure Ones from the city. The operation was several months old and, although none of the men she had selected to hunt had returned, it was surely only a matter of time now. Yet the price for healing and curing any sickness would be beyond these simple people. The Pure One would not be for them or their kin. She would be taken to Hamble Towers and kept for the powerful and the influential. Citizens could work until their fingers cracked with age and pain and their kin would replace them. The cycle would never break. The wheel would always turn. The city would always spin.

“Chett spins in cycles.”

Nuria found herself on an empty street, black flags fluttering in the wind. She waited outside a boarded up doorway. The building looked abandoned with a broken and rusted fire escape clinging to the aged brickwork and a wire bordered yard filled with rubbish.

Suddenly, the door edged open and she hurriedly slipped inside. The door closed and a lantern was shone in her face.

“It’s good to see you, Nuria,” spoke a voice.

Thirteen

As the sun broke through the clouds, Marge headed for the early morning café and took a breakfast of processed tea, skinny slices of halk and three black eggs.

Unbuttoning her coat and laying her shotgun across the table, she curled her thick fingers around the mug and closed her eyes, enjoying the burning heat seeping through her skin. She lifted a piece of meat, bit into it and chewed it down. Then she cracked one egg and drank it. Her eyes were brimming with frustration and disappointment in herself. She puzzled over the Cleric’s decision not to attack her town. Naturally glad, and relieved, too, but now troubled. It had been a wasted night of double patrols and preparing traps.

The hardest route into Ford was the northeast corner, near Derek’s clothing store, where the roads and pathways on the edge of town fell away into giant craters. There were barricades of rock, wire and debris but these were more to stop people falling in and injuring themselves rather than keeping out a determined menace. Marge knew it would have taken a raiding party of warriors several hours to cross that rugged landscape but, once that hurdle had been eliminated, there were a number of scattered roads, walkways and underpasses to move quickly through and Marge didn’t have enough men and women who could handle weapons and cover every avenue. The crater was a natural defensive barrier and no one had ever attempted to cross it.

“It’s the route he’ll come. Watch that man, that man’s a devious slippery thing. Makes his own way in Gallen, he’ll take the hardest way into us, that makes it the simplest.”

“I’m not sure you’re right, Marge,” said Geoff, shaking his head. “Why choose the hardest direction to attack us?”

She needed to make the northeast corner even more vulnerable and inviting for the Cleric, to be certain he would take this route. The people in the area had been hurriedly evacuated and directed to the warehouse where they would be safe. She had withdrawn her snipers and placed them in the centre of town, on rooftops and at windows. It was also closer to Sadie’s bar, where the Map Maker drank, read and cleaned, his price for a bed with a lumpy mattress, thin sheets and a hot meal once a day. This is where the Cleric would be heading. Allow them across the cratered land, Marge had said. Allow them to run along the roads, walkways and underpasses, yelling and brandishing weapons and funnel them towards the square where a new series of devious booby-traps had been set and rifle fire would cut them to ribbons.

“That man’s got brains. Don’t survive this life long, leading that rabble, with no knockings upstairs. What we do is smarter, because we’re this dumb little town who left the back door wide open.”

“If he takes the bait it,” said Geoff. “I suppose it could work.”

But it hadn’t worked. It hadn’t worked because the Cleric had ignored the bait and ignored the town. Nothing had happened. The town had waited on high alert all night and nothing. Not a single bullet or arrow fired in anger. The tribe had drunk and wrestled, shouted and laughed until the fires were dying embers and heads had grown foggy and bodies weary and they had crawled into tents a few hours before dawn.

Jaded, Marge walked through the centre of town, past Geoff’s workshops and a row of tenement buildings. She nodded to the men and women she passed and they all looked drained. She walked on towards the school and saw Jenny, the town teacher, yawning loudly as she pushed through a low gate into the front yard. She watched her root into her pockets for a bunch of keys and curse as she dropped them on the ground. Marge tried to catch her eye but Jenny ignored her, unlocked the building and ducked inside.

“Not in the mood for you,” said Jenny, seeing Marge trudge away, shotgun slung over her shoulder.

The school lobby was cold and a draught rustled her collar. She took off her coat and hung it on a bright red hook. There was a long row of colourful hooks, each with a child’s name scribbled beneath it and a drawing. Jenny saw muddy prints across the floor and on the wooden benches that lined the walls. She made a mental note to ask Dorran to make this his first job of the morning. She hadn’t realised the children had tracked mud back in yesterday. She went into the washroom and filled the sink with water from a plastic bucket in the corner. She took off her glasses, cupped her hands into the water and splashed it over her face. She pictured Marge heading to the front of the town and felt a pang of guilt for ignoring her. Simple fact, the older woman had done a lot for the people of Ford and was always at the front when trouble turned up. She found the tribe an odd collection. The vehicles had looked fearsome and the men and women inside them equally as dangerous but they hadn’t actually done
anything
and already looked to be on their way.

Pushing back strands of damp hair from her forehead she suddenly heard a noise and titled her head.

“Is that you Dorran?”

Living across from the school, in a one bedroom apartment, Dorran would often turn up once he saw her arrive. She slipped her glasses back on, tossed and fiddled with her tangled hair. The second noise startled her and she felt a flutter in her chest. Her pulse began to race a little faster. She reached for the handle of the washroom door and gingerly opened it.

“Dorran?” she called.

The lobby was empty. She tried the front door and found it locked. Nothing to worry about. Only tiredness from being awake since this time yesterday. Across the street, Henderson, the town barber, was taking the shutters off his salon windows as his wife swept out front. They were chatting back and forth. Her husband, Mike, flashed into her thoughts. He had died in a bandit raid three years earlier. She shook her head. It would be another hour before the children arrived and she wondered whether to grab a nap. A draught tickled the hairs on her neck once again and this time she realised one of the windows was unlocked and had been left ajar. It must have been the noise she had heard from the washroom.

It was then she glanced down at the muddy footprints for a second time and her eyes came into focus as she realised they were adult sized.

A gloved hand thrust from behind and clamped her mouth. She tried to scream but there was no sound. The muzzle of a gun wedged into the hollow of her throat and she went rigid. Rough hands dragged her off her feet and she was bundled into the nearest room. Naked terror filled her eyes as she faced a dozen painted warriors in baggy trousers and long shirts, fur and hide, carrying bows and guns. She saw the Cleric, talking with a black haired woman holding a crossbow. An ugly, heavily scarred man with a narrow moustache came into view, his hand still across her mouth, his other hand holding a pistol. She recognised him as one of the men who had accompanied the Cleric into town yesterday.

“How long until the little ones arrive?” asked Ramon. “Tell me how long. Do not scream, teacher.”

He slowly lifted his hand away from Jenny’s mouth but her jaw wouldn’t move and she had no saliva. He spoke again, but the words were just noise in her head. He pushed the gun hard into her throat, bruising the skin.

“I ask you one last time,” said Ramon. “How long? How long before the little ones come here?”

Panting, gasping furiously for air, she managed to croak, “One … one hour … an hour.”

Smiling, Ramon turned to Bann and the Cleric. “The children will be here in one hour.”

He stepped away from her but before Jenny could scream or even move a crossbow bolt thumped into her head and her body sagged to the floor.

Bann yanked the bolt from her head and wiped off the blood with Jenny’s hair.

“Now we wait again,” said the Cleric, standing at a desk where a cluster of explosives lay before him.

Tomas opened his eyes and blinked at Emil, her body pressed against his, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing, her left eye closed. Warm breath tickled his chest, hair brushed his rough chin. His arms were entwined with her and he left them there for a moment, savouring every second as morning light filtered into the van. He suddenly realised the sun was already climbing in the sky; he had slept longer than ever before. He smiled as she continued to sleep. He wasn’t sure if he should wake her. He wondered what he would say to her when she woke or what she would say to him or should he say nothing at all. He had trussed her up like a wild halk and threatened to use her as bait.

Maybe it would be best …

“Morning,” said Emil, yawning. She placed her hand against his chest. “How are you?”

“Bruised,” he said, thinking back to the rough treatment Lucas had handed out.

“I can help you,” she said.

He pushed himself onto his feet, leaving her covered with blankets.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I wouldn’t want you to do something you’d regret.”

She looked at him and he looked at her. She had heard the softness in his tone, his words layered with guilt.

“I didn’t mean what I said. I’m glad I saved you.”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry, what we had planned for you. What we still have planned for you. Getting us in.”

He felt the van rock gently as he moved. He wiped the grit from his bleary eyes with the heel of his palm. Stone was already scouting the way ahead but Tomas was surprised he had not woken him He was hungry but they only had a handful of food bars remaining, chemically infused snacks pumped with everything your body required, apparently, though nothing could beat a slice of halk cooking over an open fire, which is what Tomas craved, or even gleff, not that they had seen one of those in over a year, or even black ollish eggs. He hadn’t tasted black eggs in years. He climbed from the van, stretched, and rubbed the base of his spine. He felt battered. He looked back at Emil, smiling.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She came and stood with him, unkempt ginger hair framing her pale face.

“I’ve only ever shared a blanket with my sister,” she said.

“I’ve only ever shared one with Stone.”

She laughed and it threw him off balance. Her laughter carried across the silent morning.

Tomas suddenly became agitated.

“Stone?”

He grabbed his crossbow.

“Stone?”

Louder this time, his concern palpable.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I can’t see him and I can’t hear him. I can’t hear anything.”

He ran onto the road, looking left and right, seeing nothing and no one. His eyes scrutinised the land, coursing over every patch of scrub and tree. Stone was nowhere. Had he been taken in the night? His pack and rifle were missing, too, but that made no sense, reasoned Tomas, because he and Emil were unharmed and Stone wouldn’t have gone without a fight. Lucas flashed into his thoughts. What if he hadn’t been a lone rider? What if he was part of a larger bike gang and they had ambushed Stone? But, again, that didn’t make any sense because they would have taken all three of them. What if they had snatched Stone at dawn, as he scouted ahead or hunted for food?

Tomas ran up the bank, calling frantically, looking in every direction, trying to spot signs of trouble, hoping for anything.

He sprinted back to the van.

“Where is he?” said Emil.

“I don’t know. I thought he might have gone ahead but he would have heard me by now.”

“What about Lucas?” she said. The biker’s pale and bloodied face loomed into her thoughts and she shivered. “What if he wasn’t on his own?”

Tomas poured out his reasoning over Lucas and that no one had taken Stone in the night.

“You mean he left?” she said.

“He wouldn’t leave us. He’s around here.”

“You just said he would have heard you by now.”

“I know,” said Tomas. “But Stone wouldn’t just leave us here, not on our own. Maybe he had an accident and is waiting for us to help him.”

She looked at him.

“We planned this together, Emil. To go to Chett and avenge his family. To kill Gozan.”

“He didn’t want to use me,” she said, suddenly, but Tomas shook his head and paced away from her, angrily swinging his crossbow. “Tomas, he’s gone to Chett alone. He’s going to use the map to get in.”

Tomas was barely absorbing a word. “I don’t understand where he could have gone.”

“You know where he’s gone.”

“The plan was simple,” said Tomas. “Through the gates with you and into the House of Leadership. Offer you as a trade then kill Gozan instead and anyone else inside. Then escape through the old tunnels built beneath the city.”

“He wants to do this on his own.”

“I mean, maybe if he clears the whole building he can get back into the tunnels before they track him.”

He suddenly kicked the van.

“Why would he leave me?”

One by one, a lone parent emerged onto the street. There were no cars or bicycles in Ford. Mum or Dad walked, one hand swinging the hand of their son or daughter, one hand gesturing as they gossiped to another parent about last night’s false alarm. Some had even been on sniper duty; some had toiled on the booby traps and wire barricades; some had been at home, watching over a sleeping child, cleaning dishes, trying to remain calm, waiting for the attack to come, hoping that a loved one would return home safe and the bed would not become cold on one side. Now, as the school came into view, beneath grey clouds and a leaden sky ripped with crimson streaks, complaints began to taper off as the children grew more excited and tiny hands wriggled free of larger ones and they ran through the gate, into the school yard, singing songs, clapping, chasing.