Robinson Crusoe 2245: (Book 2) (2 page)

Footsteps padded forward slowly, with no more concern for stealth. It was hard to see where the wounded lay, but the smell of blood led a path to it. Two shadows gathered over the prey, their forms faint and growing fainter with each passing moment. One of the forms knelt down, drew out a knife, and pushed the branches of a bush out of the way.

The arrow shaft shook undulated before finally going still. The squatter pushed the flesh back to reveal the arrow had hit the body center mass but had missed the heart, its intended target. It was clear why. A scratch on the ironwood handle of the axe had deflected the arrow’s blow. It had come a fraction of a second too late.

The tall mute stood and looked at his sister, sullen and bemused. And then both of their eyes turned toward Robinson as he reached down and pulled his axe from the boar’s chest, speaking only one word:

“First.”

Pastor sat on the edge of the wagon and picked meat from his teeth with a twig, while Robinson watched motes of kindling rise from the fire before sizzling on the rain-soaked tarp and vanishing into ether.

“You eat like a horse,” Pastor said.

“Thank you,” Robinson replied. “I love it when you nag.”

Pastor howled, his booming laughter causing the mute brother and sister to look up from their plates by the fire.

“Every time you bellow like that they get nervous,” Robinson said.

“So? They’re good when they’re nervous,” Pastor said as he poured more wine from a jug.

“They’re good when they’re
rested
. They won’t sleep if they think you’ve drawn every brigand, wild animal, and Render from here to the Atlantica.”

“Bah,” Pastor said, nodding to the rain. “Nothing’s venturing out in this soup but us. More vino?”

“Two is plenty, thanks.”

“What? Come on. Don’t make an old man grovel. The only thing worse than drinking this swill is drinking it alone.”

Robinson rolled his eyes but let Pastor fill his cup.

It had been five months since Robinson had returned to the forbidden continent, and in that time, the search for Friday had yielded little. He’d tracked the Bone Flayers from Washington D.C. to the coast, but lost them when they entered the northern tip of the Great Missup.

For the first several months, he worked his way through a web of tributaries. When he happened upon some modest village, he would draw the Bone Flayers’ sigil in the sand, and the wary inhabitants would point downriver before fleeing. At other times, all he found of settlements was smoke and ash.

Equally elusive were the Aserra. The only sign of their existence was the occasional mountain symbol cut into a tree. Other markings usually accompanied it, but Robinson could never decipher them. Each time he saw one, however, the scar on his arm burned in memory of her.

Run-ins with Renders grew sporadic outside the cities. Many had died in the weeks that followed the releasing of FENIX spores, but many still remained. It seemed the primary damage affected the creatures’ ability to reproduce. Robinson hadn’t seen a single offspring since.

It had been five weeks since he happened upon the mutes. He was working his way through a valley when he heard a garble of shouts and the hiss of arrows being loosed around a bend. Through tall weeds, Robinson discovered a band of marauders encircling a wagon guarded by two youths about his own age. A tall boy stood atop the driver’s platform, firing arrows with nimbleness and grace. Even from afar, Robinson could see there was something different about him. His skin and hair were the color of bone, and he had pink eyes that never blinked, even when confronted by no less than nine armed men.

The girl behind the wagon also wielded a bow, but nerves affected her precision. She, too, had white skin and hair, and with each shot, she opened her mouth as if to yell, but only a hollow wheeze escaped.

After realizing their targets weren’t easy prey, the marauders spread out their attack. The gambit might have paid off, but out of nowhere, a third figure broke from the covered wagon, shouting. A blinding flash of light erupted, along with a booming that shook the trees as the odor of sulfur suffused the air. The marauders froze as this dark-skinned man with nappy, gray hair howled as if reciting a spell. The illusion succeeded in running off five of the attackers, but the others only redoubled their efforts.

Robinson watched the battle until one of the marauders slipped behind the girl without drawing her attention. He was about to bludgeon her skull when Robinson stepped out of the foliage and threw his axe. It sank into the marauder’s chest, driving his companions away.

The male mute quickly nocked an arrow for Robinson, but his dark-skinned companion held his hand up.

Robinson saw a scar bisecting one side of the man’s face, the right eye milky with blindness. His first words were surprising.

“Are you hungry?” the man asked.

Five weeks later, Robinson still traveled with the trio. And although the mute brother and sister never exactly warmed to him, they were utterly devoted to the man he had come to know as Pastor.

“Tell me again why they stay with you,” Robinson said of the mutes. “You’re moody, cantankerous, and you rarely wash.”

“All true,” he said before belching. “But I’m a hell of a cook. And I have nice teeth. Never underestimate the aesthetics of traveling with those of good dental hygiene.”

“They think you’re a magician.”

“Do they?” Pastor asked. “Ha! Marvelous!”

“And, of course, you do nothing to dissuade them of this notion.”

“Should I? The world has regressed into fear and mysticism. What if I throw up some light to keep the horrors at bay? I can do more with smoke and mirrors than you can with your axe. And I reveal truth.”

“An axe reveals truth just as easily.”

“Yes, but it’s an ugly truth. And it has a distasteful finality to it.”

Robinson felt a chill and pulled his coat around him. He stared into the dark forest as the rain continued to fall.

Pastor groaned. “You have that look again.”

“What look is that?”

“The one you get when you sit still too often. Like a squirrel is trying to burrow into your larder.”

“It’s been five months,” Robinson managed. “And I’m still no closer to finding her.”

“Five months. In which time you’ve traversed four ancient states and one commonwealth. In our short time together, we’ve run across scores of villagers, nomads, and no shortage of ruffians. All of who have confirmed the Flayers you seek return home via these waterways every winter. I’d call that progress.”

Robinson knew he was right, but the frustration remained all the same. He couldn’t help thinking he would move faster on his own. And yet, Pastor was correct about the comfort of companions.

The fire crackled as the mutes finished clearing plates. Afterward, the brother mute left to scout the woods, scowling at Robinson as he passed.

“He doesn’t like me,” Robinson said once he was gone.

“Why would he?” Pastor asked. “He’s spent a lifetime honing skills that come effortlessly to you.”

Effortlessly
, Robinson mused. His skills were hard won. He had the scars to prove it.

Near the fire, the sister mute unfolded her bedroll and climbed in. It was always the same routine with them. One slept while the other kept watch. Robinson felt a tinge of jealousy every time he saw it, remembering a similar bond.

“I know!” Pastor exclaimed suddenly. “Let’s listen to some music!”

Pastor reached back into the wagon and returned with a strange device. Robinson had asked about it, along with many of his possessions, but never got straight answers.

“What’ll it be tonight?” Pastor asked. “Baroque? Bach’s
Well-Tempered Clavier
would fit this milieu splendidly. Though I know you’re partial to Dixieland jazz.”

“You choose,” Robinson said.

Pastor paused before making his selection. Suddenly, the night air was infused with a graveled voice with minor accompaniment. The language was foreign, but the words conveyed passion and melancholy.

“‘Hymne a L’amor’,” Pastor said. “Never in the annals of man was there a more exacerbating race than the French. But they could speak on the vagaries of love. Shall I tell you about them?”

“No,” Robinson said. “No history tonight, please.”

“A bit of philosophy, then? Or science! I can tell you how man once walked the moon. Or how we came close to colonizing Mars.”

“I’d prefer a story instead.”

“Of course! Allow me to regale you with the mighty tales of Olympus. Or the fall of Atlantis, perhaps? No? The Arabian Nights? The first continent of Ur? Or the City of Glass?”

“What’s that one about?” Robinson asked.

“Imagine a place beyond the reach of roads or men. Where once, long ago, the world chose to send its brightest minds for safekeeping. Now imagine what those people could accomplish as the centuries passed and the outside world crumbled away. The eradication of disease. The end to genetic predispositions for violence and strife. The end to entropy and a new understanding of thermodynamics and the laws of the universe. A world where anything was possible. Would you consider such a place Utopia?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Robinson said as he kicked his feet up and laid his head back. “What else have you got?”

Pastor shook his head. “First, more wine.”

Robinson groaned. “What good is a storyteller if he’s too drunk to tell stories?”

“Sober stories are merely somber ones with an ‘m’ missing!”

Pastor cackled and Robinson snorted. Even the mute sister rolled her eyes.

“In vino veritas!” Pastor toasted. “In wine there is truth!”

“And in you, never the two shall meet.”

They left every morning at sunrise, following the old roads that had started as graveled stone and eventually became dirt and grass.

Pastor had built the carriage himself from the shells of old automobiles. A tarp protected the riders from rain, but it did little to stop the cold from seeping in.

The carriage wheels turned at a slow pace, and the horses nickered. Robinson sat up front with Pastor, one eye searching for danger while the other hunted for food. In this regard they’d been fortunate. There were always white-tailed deer, cottontails, and boars abound. Striped skunks, foxes, and caribou flourished in the mountains while wild turkeys, wood ducks, and grouses peppered the hills and ponds. Red-colored hawks and horned owls dotted the trees, but these were always harder to catch.

At night, the group listened to the crackling fire and the spring peepers, whose calls sounded like bells made of crystal. During the day, warbler songs accompanied the creaking of their wooden wheels.

Pastor spoke continuously of the region’s history, from ancient discoveries to tales of civil battles. Robinson listened without interruption. His education included names of the region’s flora. There were too many trees to remember, but he knew black spruce dominated the higher elevations with balsam and Fraser fir, oak, and hickories filling everything to the south.

A cold front had moved in after the rain stopped, dropping the temperature rapidly until little moved outside but them.

Their progress was slow, but steady. The muddy roads cracked with ice, and every inch of skin beneath torn clothing throbbed like an open wound.

They passed a small lake covered with a layer of ice. Robinson turned when a large acorn fell from a tree and broke upon it. Little else stirred. He looked up to the sky to see that the gray cumulus clouds had disappeared, replaced by ones of uniform white that hung low like a shroud.

Robinson felt bad about the slow pace, and yet he loved the feeling of staying in motion. He rubbed the stubble on his face, still enjoying the sensation as if it were new. He hadn’t looked in a mirror or in a still body of water for some time. He wondered how much he had changed.
Would Friday recognize me?
He felt a familiar lightness in his chest and pushed her from his mind. Some thoughts linger in the subconscious and some fester there. He couldn’t afford this one to take root any more than it had.