Robinson Crusoe 2245: (Book 2) (29 page)

He heard the whittling man before he saw him. Still working away at the stick in his hand.

“Club?” Robinson croaked.

The whittling man shook his head.

“A toy for the children,” he said.

Robinson lifted his head and nausea rolled over him. It was just the two of them.

“Chimosh?” he asked.

“He lives,” the man said.

“I meant … he took pity on me.”

“That is not the word I would use.”

“What will they do with me?”

“That is what they are deciding now.”

“Take me outside,” Robinson said as he turned over onto his knees.

“Would you listen if I told you it was a mistake?”

Outside, the Aserra were gathered around a fire. Chimosh was drawing a map in the dirt with a long stick. He’d washed the blood off his face and chest, but there were still signs of his wounds elsewhere. He didn’t appear to be seriously hurt, though.

The clan looked up as the whittling man helped Robinson from the tent. He had a stick under one arm as he limped toward the fire. He was as beat up as you could get and still be alive.

“Chimosh,” Robinson said, “I need to talk with you.”

Chimosh shook his head.

“The fight is over,” Chimosh said.

“No, it’s not. Not for me, nor the woman I love, nor any of you.”

He reached the edge of the crowd and stopped. His eyes scanned their faces, and what he saw there was fatigue.

“How long have the Aserra lived this way?” Robinson asked. “With no home of their own? How long has it been since your people walked in the shadow of the mountain?”

The clan remained silent. All eyes were on Robinson. His life had been spared, and yet here he was risking it again for something he believed. He hoped some of them might believe it too.

“The Aserra were the first people I heard of when I came to this country. Those who spoke its name did so with reverence and fear. They told of unyielding warriors, sharp as blades and just as hard. And now that I’m here before you, I see those words are true. I believe the tales of your deeds. But I also see many weary faces. I see a people tired of running. And I’m betting my life the other tribes feel the same.

How many of you are left? Two hundred? Three? And yet you continue to wander this country, attacking your enemy when you can. I’m sure you win every skirmish. I’m sure the totals are always in your favor. But every time you retreat to the hills, they go home. While you lick your wounds and find new places to hide, they take in more slaves for their army. They don’t need to hunt for food. They don’t have to keep one eye open at night or go without sleep. They recover quicker. They replenish faster. They are growing while you are not. I don’t see many children among you. Where are they?”

“Where they are safest,” a warrior said.

“Some remote place? High in the mountains, maybe? Where food and training are harder to come by? And how many warriors are left behind to protect them?”

None of the Aserra spoke, but he felt his words sinking in.

“Man to man, the Aserra are stronger. They survive because they honor the old ways and always will. But the Bone Flayers have no allegiance to the past. All they care about is the future. To win, they are willing to go and do what you will not. Like I said before, even now, they’re setting out to recover weapons that will make them impossible to defeat. If they succeed, you won’t have to run anymore because there won’t be any place to run to.”

“He knows nothing of our people!” someone spat out. “He’s weak.”

“I saw no weakness,” another warrior said.

“He lost the fight. He deserves to die!”

“No,” Chimosh said, surprising everyone. “He speaks the words we have all hidden away. We cannot run forever.”

“The old ways have allowed us to survive!”

“Yes,” Chimosh went on. “But there must be more than survival. Once, we lived. Once, we thrived. What we do now is … is not working.”

The forest filled with silence again.

“Maybe I can help with that,” Robinson said.

Later that evening after a light supper, Robinson laid the documents Friday recovered out on the floor of the great tent and revealed his plan to Chimosh, the whittling man, and a few others.

“These papers belonged to the ancients. They were sought by a man of my people. A man who lives among the Flayers now. His heart is like theirs—black—but his intentions are worse. I don’t fully understand his goal yet, but he has promised Baras’Oot a cache of ancient weapons in return for whatever he seeks. Those weapons are located here. In what was once called Georgia.”

“We know this area,” Chimosh said. “These are mountains, but not impassable ones. How did you come by this map?”

Robinson grinned and nodded toward the whittling man.

“His daughter stole it.”

The tent lightened with soft laughter.

“Nimble fingers were her first gift,” the whittling man said.

“During our escape, she told me she had seen several crates of these weapons being unloaded. They were in dry boxes. Well preserved. Wherever they’ve been stored, they’ve been kept safe.”

“And how do you know this location is where the weapons can be found?” a warrior asked.

Robinson shrugged. “Because these words say, ‘weapons here.’”

Even Chimosh grinned.

“The problem,” Robinson continued, “is we don’t have the gunpowder or training to operate them.”

“So they’re useless,” the whittling man said.

“No,” Chimosh said. “If the Flayers want them, they are dangerous.”

Robinson nodded. “If we can get here first, we could lay a trap they’ll never see coming.”

“It is a good plan,” Chimosh said. “With one problem. We cannot unite the tribes in time to beat them there. Even if they set out four days ago and dallied longer at their first task, they will still arrive before us.”

Only then did Robinson smile.

“Leave that to me.”

“You know the task!” Arga’Zul shouted from atop the hood of an old carriage surrounded by his army of a thousand strong. “We move as quickly as we can. One group, five units. Two forward, two behind, with one at the center to guard our guests.”

The Flayers laughed in contempt at the strangers. They’d brought them to the outskirts of Atlanta to assail a force that greatly outnumbered them. It would be a battle worthy of song if any remained alive to sing it.

“Advance units will use shield wall tactics. Rear units will attack with spears from above. Archers will provide cover from behind. Should the man next to you get bitten, end his pain quickly and fall back in line.”

Arga’Zul’s eyes narrowed in on Friday. “You and I will man the center party and protect the foreigners.”

Friday nodded curtly. She’d been given a small shield and a cudgel. The second they slipped it into her hands, her impulse was to charge Arga’Zul. No one would have been surprised. But then she would almost certainly be killed. The Flayers did not disobey orders. And she needed to see the battle through, to find out what, if anything, the strangers were after. Only when it was over would she cut down her enemies and escape. For now, she had to keep it together. The fever hadn’t weakened as expected. She was still having trouble keeping food down.

But it was Jaras next to her who shook with fear. His mind continued to deteriorate. The savage chieftain had given orders for the slave girl to fight with him. He didn’t understand why she complied. He felt the hate radiating off her, burning like a furnace. Every time Jaras really looked at her, he grew more confused. Was she his enemy? He understood they had a history, but the details were fuzzy.

Sensing his anxiety, Vardan Saah reached out for his son.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked.

Jaras nodded. “Yes, Father. I can fight.”

“The weapon is only for protection. These others will see to the battle. You are not to place yourself in danger in any way. Do you understand me?”

Jaras thought he heard snickers, but these warriors didn’t speak his language. Did they?

“Jaras,” his father said, “when we reach the biolab, I’ll need your help searching for the virus. Stay with me. Can you do that?”

The pressure in Jaras’s head relaxed a little.

“Of course, Father.”

Vardan smiled and then nodded to Arga’Zul.

“They say this city cannot be taken!” Arga’Zul yelled to his warriors. “I say they have never met us! Fly, my Flayers, fly!”

The Flayer army cheered in unison and charged down the street toward the city of towers. Almost immediately, a chorus of howls returned.

The Renders had awoken.

The battle for Atlanta had begun.

When the virus first began to spread, the city of Atlanta became its unofficial center. The Center for Disease Control flew in and quarantined the initial infected in an effort to study it and prepare a vaccine, but within days it had escaped.

As a result, Atlanta became the first American city to fall. At the recommendation of his council, the President of the United States became the first man in history to order the launch of a nuclear weapon on his own soil, but the bomber carrying it crashed not long after leaving Texas. No one knew the pilot had been infected or that the mutation occurred moments after the plane took flight.

Atlanta quickly became a feasting ground, and the streets ran red with blood. Within a month, ninety-five percent of the population had been killed or infected. Within three months, not a single uninfected person remained alive.

Because Atlanta was the first to fall, it should have also been the first to burn out, but that first wave carried a unique mutation that accelerated their reproductive capabilities. Because of this, the city fell into a cycle of Renders that bred and hunted exclusively on their own.

The spores that had been released by the FENIX had made the Renders sterile. Had another year or two passed, Atlanta might have seen their numbers plummet, and Arga’Zul could have passed through the street unimpeded. As things would play out, their timing couldn’t have been worse.

“Here they come!” Arga’Zul screamed.

The horde was composed of grisly beasts in all shapes and sizes. Some ran on two legs, some on four or more. Appendages sprang out like errant branches. Human features intertwined in mutated viscera. Each looked unique, save for one feature: they all bore mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth.

The Flayers formed their wedge, as ordered. To their credit, no one fled or panicked. When the wall of flesh hit them, the day descended into madness.

Their left flank was immediately broken, but those behind surged over the bodies of the fallen, hacking and cleaving as the demons roared in.

The whistle arrows sounded like wasps as they flew overhead. Jaras watched their flight and thought they might eventually blot out the sky.

But for every Render that fell, five more took its place.

Friday found little reprieve within the center rank. The deluge of monsters hit their lines with only slightly less impact and no less ferocity. Within seconds, she had ditched her shield and picked up a second sword and was hacking at the creatures that threatened to overrun them all.

The battle might have turned against them in those early moments, but Arga’Zul held them together with an iron fist and forceful voice. His sword flew like none Friday had seen before.

With the initial wave absorbed, the flow of attackers slowed. The fight became manageable, but no less dangerous. By the time they were able to regain the ground they had lost, nearly a quarter of their men were dead.

Arga’Zul directed them toward two big towers and ordered them to hold the courtyard between. An allotment of archers was sent into the buildings around them to fire on the Renders from above.

Within an hour, the charge of Renders had slowed enough for the Flayers to fight in rotation.

Just when it looked like they had the situation under control, several scores of Renders broke through the lobby of the building behind them.

Half the Bone Flayers turned to meet them, but the numbers were not in their favor. Only the release of arrows and a defense led by Arga’Zul stymied the attack.

Friday leapt over the bodies of the fallen, hacking and chopping until her hands were numb.

Then, out of the blue, the most massive Render she’d ever seen appeared and rushed for Arga’Zul. Arrows struck its flesh from above, but the creature never stopped as it released a roar from a mouth the size of three human heads. As the Bone Flayers took to hacking its companions, the giant beast hit Arga’Zul and catapulted him onto his back.

Arga’Zul slashed the monster’s belly open, but his sword was batted across the yard. The creature howled once again, its teeth dripping guts and blood. As the maw surged forward, Arga’Zul locked his massive hand around the creature’s throat, but even his uncanny strength could not hold the mouth off.

Arga’Zul turned his head as the creature snapped again and again. Friday watched as his face turned red and his arms began to shake. It would be a fitting end, she thought. But in her heart, she knew if he fell, his army would go with him.