Skeletons (17 page)

Her eyes filled with tears, and she broke away from me.

When I caught up to her, she was crying. I held her close.

She cried a long time, and finally told me she was bearing my child, and said, "Don't ever say that to me again."

The day after the pilot and Maria left we had a skirmish.

It was over quickly, but it reminded us that the world was not summer green and free from care. I had almost gotten used to the sight of skeletal birds and animals, even the tiny white insects that infested the earth where real ants and beetles had once crawled. But the sight of skeletal men, after weeks in their absence, proved to me that in no way was I used to this new world.

Caspian and
Tibor
were out ahead of the wagon, scouting our trail. Caspian came toward us in a hurry, and Sasha immediately drew the wagon to a halt.

"A band, a half kilometer ahead."

"How many?" Sasha asked.

"Nine, perhaps ten. They don't seem to know their way through the woods."

"That will make it easy. And
Tibor
?"

"Already in place."

"Good. We will follow."

Caspian nodded and slipped back into the foliage. Sasha turned to me. "In the wagon."

I looked at him in surprise. "I'm quite capable—”

“Do as I say.
Reesa
will come with me. If by any chance—"

"I won't do that," I said. "I'm coming with you."

He considered for a moment. "All right. But do exactly what I say." He smiled. "Perhaps you can be 'invisible' for us."

The three of us followed Caspian's trail into the woods.

We heard the band of skeletons before we saw them. They were thrashing loudly through the underbrush, cursing.

Sasha smiled grimly and whispered, "City people."

He pointed up into the trees, making an arch with his arm. I knew what he wanted of me. Through the trees I could barely make out
Tibor
, set back off an open space the band would soon reach. Caspian waved to us from another position on its perimeter.

I scaled the nearest tree soundlessly and made my way out until I was over the clear ground, perched like a bird.

Below, I saw Sasha remove his long knife.
Reesa
, a few meters away, did the same.

I waited for Sasha's signal.

He gave it as the skeletons broke through the trees. I counted nine, all armed with rifles. They were noisy. The one at their head was large. Around his bony frame I could vaguely see the outline of a bearish, bearded man with huge arms and hands.

The bearded one held his arm up, and the band, silenced, stopped.

He seemed to sniff at the air.

Sasha gave his signal.

I swished two leafy branches together. I let those below get a brief look at me, before rolling onto a large branch and hiding myself.

"Get him!" the bearish skeleton shouted.

Three skeletons started for the nearest tree.
Tibor
was closest, and he dispatched two of them before Caspian appeared to help with the third. The six others reacted by raising their rifles at
Tibor
and Caspian.

In the tree I made more noise. Two of the rifles swung up at me. A shot sang by me as I ducked back to the safety of my branch.

Meanwhile, Sasha and
Reesa
had moved on the skeletons from their backs. They caught two immediately, dropping them to dust, and two others as they turned to fight. Caspian and
Tibor
dispatched the remaining two.

Sasha looked up at me and laughed. "You can come down now!"

Caspian and
Tibor
bent to gather the skeletons' weapons.

As I was climbing down the tree I saw faint movement in the foliage behind me. I called out a warning as a shot rang out.

Caspian, just standing, was hit and fell.

Sasha said, "Oh, no."

Tibor
was already rushing past me in chase as I dropped to the ground. I heard a cry, and a few moments later
Tibor
reappeared.

"There was an eleventh," he said angrily. Grimly, he pushed on past me. "There are no more.

Caspian was on his back, moaning.
Reesa
held his head up; Caspian's eyes were closed and he gritted his teeth as Sasha examined a wound on his chest.

"I want all of you to leave," Sasha said.

"Sasha—"
Reesa
began.

His eyes were dark fire. "Now."

We walked to the edge of the woods. I saw Sasha standing over Caspian, his long knife held loosely in one hand, speaking to him in a whisper. Gritting his teeth, Caspian nodded.

Suddenly Caspian's body stiffened, arched back, and was still.

Quickly, Sasha bent over the body. His hand rested for a moment on the young man's head, and then, even as Caspian's body began to fall away, revealing skeleton, Sasha drew his knife deeply through the throat.

Instantly, the body fell to dust.

Sasha stood, muttered something, head down, and came to us.

"Let's walk on," he said, his lips tight.

We put the rifles in the wagon and went on.

Two days later the Ural Mountains rose before us in the distance.

After Caspian's death a pall had dropped upon us. But at this sight, the blue-white, misty rise of peaks, life came back into my companions and me. One word from Sasha put a smile on
Tibor's
lips, brightened
Reesa's
beautiful eyes.

She came to me, put her arm around my waist, pulling me close to her and pointing to a spot ahead and slightly to the north, at the base of a towering peak.

"Home,” Sasha repeated.

Our pace quickened. Though we were still a day away, our little band seemed to want to make that day pass quickly. Sasha sang a song, in a guttural, non-Russian tongue I did not know. At a chorus
Tibor
and
Reesa
joined in.

Reesa
looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "You will love this place."

That night we camped in a meadow surrounded by the scent of blossoming flowers. Sasha and
Tibor
were almost recklessly at ease. For the first time since Caspian's death Sasha drew out one of his dark bottles of wine, and we sat around the fire and talked.

"I used to play in this meadow when I was a young girl,"
Reesa
said, smiling.

"We all did," Sasha said. His face showed contentment. 'This was the most beautiful place in the world. We called it the Valley of Blossoms. When all of the flowers bloomed within fifty kilometers of here, the scent all drifted into this place. Look around you. There are no flowers here, but their odor is all around."

"It was a magical place,"
Tibor
said.

"It still is!" Sasha replied.

"Perhaps."
Tibor
sighed. "But it is not the same.”

“Nothing is the same," Sasha said gently, and passed the wine to
Tibor
, who drank it down.

Later, while the others slept,
Reesa
lay in my arms and we looked at the sky. The stars were obscured in a lightly perfumed cloud. I felt as if I were drifting in a child's dream.

"This was the place where
Tibor
married his bride,"
Reesa
said. "Her name was Krista." Her voice was dreamy and sad. "She is dead. This is the place where many of my people married."

I turned her face to look into my eyes. "And you?”

“I waited for you," she said, smiling, and kissed me.

"There were no others? None of your own people?”

“No."

"Why?"

She closed her eyes and lay back against my arm. For a moment I thought she was asleep. A dreaming smile blanketed her lips.

"Because I knew you were coming," she said.

"Would you marry me here?"

"For tonight we will be married."

She looked so sad and happy that I kissed her, and lay my palm on her pregnant belly.

"Tell me what you know,
Reesa
," I said.

"Soon," she said, "Sasha will tell you everything.”

“
Reesa
, someone must keep watch."

"No ..."

She would tell me no more, but curled into my arm and slept.

That night I felt movement in the woods surrounding us, but for the first time since I began my journey with these people, I felt no fear. And once again I dreamed the strange dream of the girl with dark skin in the field of petals, opening her mouth and saying to me a single word I could not hear.

We reached Sasha's village as night fell the next day.

There were lights, but no people greeted us. At the outskirts was a burial ground on a hill, which we skirted. My companions would not look at it. But as we passed I studied it in the lowering sun. I noticed that all the graves that had been opened had been filled in again, fresh mounds of dirt topping each.

We entered an empty village. But by the time we had reached its square, it was empty no longer. From out of the surrounding hills, down from the slope of the looming mountain to the east, villagers swarmed in.

Though it seemed like a crowd to me, I counted only twenty heads, half of them children.

The sight of children running and laughing filled me with a happiness I had thought was gone.

"You look content," Sasha said.

I laughed. "I think I could stay here forever." He nodded his head. "If only you could."

An old man in peasant dress approached us, smoking a pipe. Sasha immediately showed him deference. "Master Yuri," Sasha said, bowing.

The old man waved his pipe. "There's no need for that anymore," he said.

The old man turned his attention to me. Suddenly to my surprise, he bowed.

"It is I who should bow," I said.

"Nonsense," he said. Then to Sasha: "We will talk later."

"We are safe for tonight?" Sasha asked.

"For tonight," the old man answered. "Our scouts give us three days." He bowed to me again and left us.

"What did he mean by that?" I asked Sasha.

"Within a week," Sasha said, sweeping his arm around to include both children and village, "all of this will be gone."

I wanted to ask more, but he silenced me by putting his hand on my arm.

"Please," he said, "for my people's sake at least, enjoy tonight."

"All right," I said, feeling my questions, as always with Sasha, silenced. "All right."

There was a feast that started at sundown. First, around a fire in the center of the square, the children danced. There were many gaps in their circle, but they managed not only to be happy but to make onlookers think those gaps were filled with scores of young dancers.

I was accorded a seat of honor, with
Reesa
beside me. Remarkably, there was a veritable feast of food, with smoked meats and much wine. The festivities, which had a surreal air of finality about them, went on most of the night. There was singing, in the unknown tongue I had heard Sasha use days before.

I found myself becoming increasingly uneasy with the desperate happiness around me, and finally had to excuse myself.
Reesa
followed me halfway up a nearby hill, where we sat. The night had become cloudy, affording us no stars. I watched the dying, smoky fire below us, listened to the sad, unknown songs.

"Something terrible is going to happen, isn't it?" I said.

"There is an army of skeletons very close. These people survived the first days, Peter,"
Reesa
said. `There used to be almost a thousand of us in this village. There are other villages along the base of the Urals. They are all destroyed."

She listened for a moment to the sad singing that drifted up to us. "They know they will die," she said. "They refuse to become like the skeletons. So tomorrow, after we leave, they will kill themselves, twice. The dust will then be buried, to rest forever."

I looked at her, saw the tears tracking her cheeks in the dim, distant firelight.

"I will kill myself with them, Peter. So will
Tibor
. Only Sasha will continue with you, after he has twice slain and buried the last of us."

Sasha's voice came close by. "And I will pledge you, Peter Sun, to kill me again, when I am slain at the end of our journey."

I looked from Sasha to
Reesa
, into their hard, knowing eyes. "You cannot know—"

"These things all will happen, Peter Sun," Sasha said to me. "Or, as you are known to us,
Kral
Kishkin
. We've known they would happen for hundreds of years. Come with me."

Sasha walked past us, farther up the hill.