Red (13 page)

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning your boy's not dreaming.”

“How's that possible? Does that happen?”

“Not very often. Not this long. He's sleeping, no doubt. Plenty of brain activity. But whatever's going on in that head of his isn't characterized by anything I've seen. Judging by the monitors, I'd say he's awake.”

“I thought you said he was sleeping.”

“He is. Ergo, the problem.”

“I'll be over. Keep him dreaming.”

The man hung up before Bancroft could correct him.

Thomas Hunter wasn't dreaming.

9

RACHELLE HEARD the ululating cries on the edge of her consciousness, beyond the sounds of Samuel's singing and Marie's hopeless efforts to correct his tone deafness. But her subconscious had been trained to hear this distant cry, day or night.

She gasped and jumped to her feet, straining for the sound. “Samuel, hush!”

“What is it?” Marie asked. Then she heard the warbling cries too. “Father!”

“Father, father!” Samuel cried.

They lived in a wooden hut, large and circular with two floors, both of which had doors leading to the outside. The doors were one of Thomas's pride and joys. Nearly ten thousand houses circled the lake now, most of them among the trees set back from the wide swath cleared around the waters, but none had a door quite like Thomas's. It was the first and best hinged double door in all the land, as far as Thomas was concerned, because it could swing both ways for fast entry or exit.

The top floor where they slept had a normal locking door that opened onto a walkway, which was part of a labyrinth of suspended walkways linking many homes. The bottom floor, where Rachelle was ladling hot stew into tin bowls, boasted the hinged double door. The hinges were made of leather, which also acted as a kind of spring to keep the doors closed.

Marie, being the oldest and fastest at fourteen, reached the door first and slammed through it.

Samuel was right behind. Too far behind. Too close behind. He met the doors as they released Marie. They smacked him in the forehead and dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

“Samuel!” Rachelle dropped to her knees. “Those cursed doors! Are you okay, my child?”

Samuel struggled to a sitting position, then shook his head to clear it.

“Come on!” Marie cried. “Hurry!”

“Get back here and help your brother,” Rachelle yelled. “You've knocked him silly with the doors!”

By the time Marie returned, Samuel was on his feet and running through the doors. This time the doors struck Rachelle on the right arm, nearly knocking her down. She grunted and ran down the stone path after the children.

The doors had hurt her arm, she saw. They had opened a very small cut that could hardly concern her now. She ignored the thin trail of blood and ran on.

Streams of women and children ran the paths that led toward the gate where the high-pitched cries continued with growing intensity. They were definitely home. The only question was how many.

On every side grew winding puroon vines with lavender flowers similar to what Thomas described as bougainvillea and large tawii bushes with white silken petals, each spreading their sweet scent through the air. Like gardenia, Thomas said. Every home was draped in similar flowering vines according to a grand master plan that rendered the entire village a garden of beauty. It was the Forest People's best imitation of the colored forest.

Rachelle ran with a knot in her throat. Thomas may be the best fighter among them, but he was also their leader and the first to rush into the worst battles. Too many times he'd returned carrying the body of the soldier who'd fallen beside him. His good fortune couldn't last forever.

And William's order to prepare for evacuation had set the entire village on edge.

They converged on a seventy-foot-wide stone road that cut a straight line from the main gate to the lake. Night was falling, and the people were ready for celebration in anticipation of the Forest Guard's return. They mobbed the front gate, bouncing and dancing. Torches and branches were raised up high. The army was mounted, but with children on their mother's shoulders, the view was blocked.

A loud voice screamed above the din. This was the assistant to Ciphus—Rachelle could pick out his voice from a hundred yards. He was trying to move the people to the side as was customary.

The crowd suddenly settled and parted like a sea. Rachelle pulled up with Marie on one side and Samuel on the other. Then she saw Thomas where she always saw him, seated on his black stallion, leading his men, who stretched behind him into the forest. A bucket of relief washed over her.

“Father!”

“Wait, Samuel! First we honor the fallen.”

The people parted farther, leaving a wide path for the warriors. The
clip-clop
of the horses' hoofs was now clearly audible.

Ciphus approached the front line and Thomas stopped his horse. They talked quietly for a moment. To Rachelle's right, thousands continued to line the road that led to the distant lake, now shimmering in rising moonlight. About thirty thousand lived here, and in the days to follow, their number would swell to a hundred thousand as the rest arrived for the annual Gathering.

Ciphus seemed to be taking longer than usual. Something was wrong. William had been emphatic about the seriousness of the situation when he'd ridden in yesterday to demand they prepare to evacuate, but they had won, hadn't they? Surely they hadn't come to announce that the Horde was only a day's march behind.

Ciphus turned slowly to face the throng. He waited a long time, and for every second he stood, the silence deepened until Rachelle thought that she could hear his breathing. He lifted both hands, tilted his face to the sky, and began to moan. This was the traditional mourning.

Yes, yes, Ciphus, but how many? Tell us how many!

Soft wails joined him. Then in a loud voice he cried, “They have taken three thousand of our sons and daughters!”

Three thousand! So many! They had never even lost a thousand.

The wails rose to fever-pitch cries of agony that reached out to the surrounding desert. First Thomas and then the rest of his men dismounted and sank to their knees, lowered their heads to the ground, and wept. Rachelle fell to her knees with the rest, until the whole village knelt on the side of the road, weeping for the wives and mothers and fathers and daughters and sons who'd suffered such a terrible loss to the Horde. Only Ciphus stood, and he stood with arms raised in a cry to Elyon.

“Comfort your children, Maker of men! Take your daughters into your bosom and wipe away their tears. Deliver your sons from the evil that ravages what is sacred. Come and save us, O Elyon. Come and save us, lover of our souls!”

The custom of immediately marrying the widows to eligible men would be stretched very thin. There weren't enough men to go around. They were all dying. Rachelle's heart ached for those who would soon learn that their husbands were among the three thousand.

The mourning continued for about fifteen minutes, until Ciphus finished his long prayer. Then he lowered his arms and a hush fell over the crowd now standing.

“Our loss is great. But their loss is greater. Fifty thousand of the Horde have been sent to an appropriate fate on this day!”

A roar erupted down the line. The ground trembled with their throaty yells, motivated as much by the fresh horror of their own loss and their hatred of the Horde as by their thirst for victory.

Thomas swung back into his saddle and walked his horse up the road. At times like this he would sometimes acknowledge the crowd with nods and an uplifted hand, but tonight he rode with sobriety.

His eyes found Rachelle. She ran to him with Samuel and Marie. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

“You are my sunshine,” he said.

“And you are my rainbow,” she replied, tempted to haul him off the horse right now. He felt her teasing tug and grinned. Their sappy exchange was refreshing because it was so genuine. She loved him for it.

“Walk with me.”

He kissed Marie and smiled. “As beautiful as your mother.” He ruffled Samuel's hair.

They walked down the cheering line like that, Thomas in the saddle, Rachelle, Samuel, and Marie walking proudly on his right side. But there was a tension in Thomas's face. It wasn't only the price they had paid in battle that occupied his mind.

The moment they reached the wide sandy shores to the lake, Thomas dismounted, handed the horse off to his stable boy, and turned to his lieutenants.

“Mikil, William, we meet as soon as we've bathed. Suzan, bring Ciphus and whatever members of the Council you can find. Quickly.” He kissed Rachelle on her forehead. “We need your wisdom, my love. Join us.”

He hugged Samuel and Marie, whispered something in their ears. They ran off, undoubtedly up to some mischief.

Thomas took Rachelle's hand and led her to one of the twenty gazebos that overlooked a large amphitheater cut from the forest floor. The lake lay two hundred yards distant, just past a swath of clean white sand. They'd cleared the forest over the years, and as the village grew, they expanded the beach by relocating houses that had once been near the lake, such as their own. In their place they planted thick, rich grass and more than two thousand flowering trees, carefully positioned in concentric arcs leading to the sand. Hundreds of rosebushes and honeysuckles spotted the grass in tidy enclaves with benches for sitting. This end of the lake had been landscaped as a garden park fit for a king.

The lake's waters were not for drinking or washing—such water came from the springs—but only for bathing and only then without soap. The lake's shores were reserved for the nightly celebrations, which were getting underway around a large firepit.

Thomas and Rachelle would normally be among the first at the celebration, dancing and singing and retelling stories of Elyon's love that would stretch into the night. It had always been the highlight of their day. But at the moment Thomas's mind was a hundred miles away.

“Thomas. What is it?”

“It's the Southern Forest,” he said. “We may lose the Southern Forest.”

THOMAS PACED along the gazebo's half-wall deep in thought. Torches blazed from each post. Down the shore, delighted laughter rose from the celebration. A long line of dancers, dressed in fabrics made from dark green leaves and white flowers, had linked arms and were moving in graceful circles around the bonfire. They were undoubtedly light with wine and stuffed with meat. Out on the lake, moonlight shone in a long white shaft.

For so long Thomas's people had waited for Elyon's deliverance. They'd spun a thousand stories about the way he might ultimately deliver them from the Horde. Would he rise from the lake and flood the desert with water to drown them? Or would he ride in on a mighty white horse and lead them in one final battle that rid the earth of the scourge once and for all?

Thomas turned to the gathered elders and lieutenants. “If there are two armies, there may be three. Otherwise, yes, Ciphus, I wouldn't hesitate to lead five thousand men to Jamous's aid tonight. But it's a full day's journey—nearly three days there and back. The Horde has never attacked us on two fronts until now. If our Guard vacate this forest while so many are coming for the annual Gathering—”

“Well, we won't change the Gathering. I promise you that.”

“Half of our forces are out escorting the tribes. We're already stretched way too thin. To send more men to the Southern Forest puts us at great risk.”

Mikil stood. “Then let me go with just a few of the Forest Guard. Jamous is still fighting, Thomas. You heard the runner!”

The runner had met them at the gates with fresh word from the south. Jamous was holding strong against the Horde. His first retreat had been a strategy to draw the Horde near the forest where his archers had the distinct advantage of cover. They had been fighting for three days now.

“How many men?”

“Give me five hundred,” Mikil said.

“That would leave us weak here,” William objected. “Here where the whole world will be gathered in less than a week. What if the Horde is weakening us for an assault on the forest, here, next week, when they can take us all in one blow?”

“He's right, Mikil,” Thomas said. “I can't let you take five hundred.”

“You're forgetting the bombs,” Mikil said.

The news of their stunning victory was spreading like fire. He looked at Rachelle. They hadn't been alone yet, when he knew he'd get her true reaction to the fact that he'd started dreaming again. Still, with such a victory, what could she say?

What none of them knew was that he'd dreamed not once, but twice, the second time when they'd stopped for sleep returning from the battle. He'd dreamed that he'd gone before a special meeting called by the president of the United States and then been put to sleep by a psychologist. In his dream world, he was at this very moment lying in a chair in Dr. Bancroft's laboratory.