Spanners - The Fountain of Youth (18 page)

They’re as big as Brogg and more agile,
thought Mayfly.
And there’s four of them at least.
Mayfly also noticed that though the berserkers seemed to lack language skills, they fought in a coordinated way. The two that had stopped the RV from behind had now come up to join the fight and immediately surrounded Brogg in a circle.

One of them took a swipe at Brogg and he dodged it, and then another took a clumsy swing and Brogg ducked beneath it. Brogg grabbed a berserker and shoved him into the other three, but the group retained its structure and still hovered around Brogg.

“We need to do something,” said Trey. “Maybe one of us can act as a distraction.”

“No,” said Adam. “Whoever does will be dead within moments; they’re too fast.”

“Make a fire,” said Mayfly. “Fight them with that.”

“That might work,” said Adam. “They’re animals, and animals hate fire.”

/***/

Mayfly took one of the fuel canisters and snuck towards the felled tree. The berserkers were focused on Brogg and didn’t notice when Mayfly crawled on the log and poured gasoline on it. After he had doused the wood with fuel, Mayfly looked to the left and saw that Brogg was losing his fight. The caveman had bruises on his face and his left eye
was almost completely swollen shut. One of the berserkers apparently had sharp nails too; Brogg had a huge gash across his stomach.

“Brogg!” yelled Mayfly. “Heads up!”

Mayfly dropped a match onto the log and it lit up. The berserkers jumped back, and Brogg used the time to create some space between himself and them. Brogg threw a berserker towards the fire and the creature fell on the flames, yelling a low-pitched cry of agony. The other berserkers continued to beat Brogg, indifferent to the fact that the tree was on fire and their friend was now burning with it.

They continued their assault
, but Brogg could handle three berserkers a lot better than four, and he started to land his heavy punches. Mayfly took a flaming piece of wood and smashed it over one of their backs, but the creature barely noticed and continued to focus on defending himself against Brogg. Mayfly backed up and felt heat coming from behind him and turned around to duck just before a smoldering fist went over his head. He rolled towards the flaming logs and turned around to see that the berserker that had been thrown into the fire was attacking them, still partially aflame.

The other berserkers got out of the way and the smoldering creature assaulted Brogg quicker than before, catching the caveman off guard. The flaming berserker’s punches would miss Brogg, but some embers would fall into the big man’s hair and burn him. Sometimes Brogg would block a punch completely, but the blocked punch would still burn his arms.

This flaming berserker’s going to tear Brogg in half,
thought Mayfly.
I’ve got to distract them somehow. I can’t fight them, and I can’t outrun them. If only I could—

Mayfly heard one of the other berserkers emit a loud, low-pitched growl, and the flaming one stopped fighting Brogg and turned to look to the left of the road. The enflamed berserker put his fists in the snow to cool them off and they shot off steam into the night air.

Mayfly turned and saw four other berserkers running up the hill towards the road, only they looked a bit healthier and a bit cleaner, as if they were tamed. The four berserkers also had ropes attached to holsters on their upper bodies, and they were all hauling a regular man on a sled behind them. The man was in his mid-fifties and was wearing a sleeveless vest, a leather cowboy hat, jeans and little else.
He’s either immune to the cold,
thought Mayfly,
or he doesn’t plan on staying here very long
.

“
Mwwwrooo-kai!”
said the man in a low voice.

His berserkers came to a halt and there was a standoff between his troop and the wild ones around Mayfly and Brogg. Mayfly nodded at Brogg and they both ducked out of the way towards the RV; none of the berserkers in the standoff even noticed.

“Mwro-kai-
lo
!”
said the man, and he detached the line around his berserkers.

The tame berserkers rushed towards the wild ones and started to fight. Though the feral berserkers showed no fear, they were no match for their counterparts. The man’s tame berserkers were disciplined, healthier and just fought better than the wild berserkers. Two of the tame berserkers would attack one wild one in a flurry, subdue him and then move on to the next one.

Within moments the tame berserkers had won and were tying up the wild berserkers and putting them in large rope sacks. The old man lit a cigarette and inspected his bounty, and by now, Adam, Cattaga and a Trey had come out to meet him.

“The name’s Rajter,” said the man in a slow, shaky voice with little eye contact. “Freeman Rajter. I’m a human, nothing more; my house is down yonder
three hundred meters or so; you can roll your vehicle there. You can trust me … and if you don’t, that’s fine. But if you do, you’re welcome to spend the night, and I can promise you a fire, safety and whatever else you need.”

Freeman Rajter attached leather straps to his berserkers and they each picked up one of the wild creatures in nets, got in formation and then faced down the hill.

“Mwro-kai-mai!”
yelled the man.

His berserkers went down the hill and dragged his sled along with them, but this time they trudged down slowly.

Within a few moments they were gone, and Mayfly looked through the forest and saw lights in the distance from what appeared to be the man’s homestead. Mayfly turned around and saw Adam shaking his head in disbelief.

“I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime,” said Adam. “But I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Brogg was tending to a burn wound on his upper left shoulder where the berserker had hit him.

“Next time Mayfly not use fire,” said Brogg. “Mayfly not good with fire.”
             

/***/

Brogg pushed the RV into Rajter’s homestead, with the Fountain safely hidden in the back of the vehicle under her pile of blankets. She had been frightened by the fight with the berserkers, and Adam decided it was best to let her hide.

Inside Freeman Rajter’s compound, Cattaga coughed up an aloe-like substance and rubbed it on Brogg’s burns. Brogg sighed in
relief as it covered his arm, and then nodded at her to put the substance on his other injuries.

“I secrete an antiseptic, so it’s sterile,” said Cattaga to Brogg. “Even if it wasn’t we could still put it on you
, because our diseases don’t hurt you anymore. You’ve evolved into a different species entirely, as different from us as those berserkers.”

Brogg put his head down and looked like he was about to cry. Cattaga realized she had hurt his feelings and went to console him.

“I’m sorry, Brogg,” said Cattaga. “What I meant to say is that … is that—”

“What she meant to say is that we’re all different now,” said Mayfly. “Each and every one of us is different, and all we have is each other.”

Brogg nodded in understanding, and Mayfly patted him on the back before smiling at Cattaga.

“She might not have my way with words, Brogg,” said Mayfly
, “but if you ever get burned again, she’s the one that’s gonna cough up the aloe.”

And if it wasn’t for you
, Brogg,
thought Mayfly,
the berserkers would have gotten to us before Rajter did, and we’d all be stashed in a tree somewhere
.

Mayfly looked around at Rajter’s homestead, which was primarily made of thick, uprooted logs from the forest implanted in the ground to form a surrounding barrier against the elements. Inside the barrier
were prefabricated structures: houses and storage units made with plastic bought from an ordinary hardware store. One unit clearly served as a cookhouse; the smell of burnt meat was wafting towards them, and it smelled good.

“Hungry,” said Brogg.

“Yeah,” said Mayfly. “Hungry.”

/***/

“You’re lucky the
wild ones
only broke your fuel line,” said Freeman Rajter, serving the group food. “You’re even luckier they didn’t kill you, or worse. I’ve not seen anyone survive an encounter with four wild ones, let alone escape with only a broken van. In any case, I’ve fixed your RV and you can go now, or in the morning if you prefer.”

They ate stew indoors
, and the source of the meat was visible through the window of their shed, strung out and frozen on wooden logs. Rajter had captured moose and bear and had stored them outside, meat, fur, entrails and all. Rajter would walk out of the shed, bring back a chunk of frozen meat and drop it in the stew. Mayfly guessed that he was currently eating a bear’s liver.

“Food preserves here in the winter real good
—just leave it outside and it keeps,” said Freeman Rajter. “Finding food is easy, but you gotta eat the whole animal because there ain’t any vegetables this far north. Eat the organs and you’ll be fine; avoid the organs and you’ll die of scurvy before spring.”

Mayfly ate the bear’s liver and then found a piece of meat in his stew, or perhaps another organ
, that was greasy, rough and filled with sinews that tasted of rubber. Everyone ate except for Cattaga, who had gathered lichen from the forest.

“My body can digest plant material completely,” she said. “And I’m a vegetarian.”

Brogg wasn’t. He couldn’t get enough of Freeman Rajter’s food and the old man seemed to like him a lot.

“Tell your brute he’s welcome to stay with me any time,” said Freeman Rajter. “All I ask is that I be allowed to tame him and brand him, like I’ve done the others.”

Brogg put down his meat and growled in disagreement.

“I think that’s a no,” said Mayfly, but Rajter paid him no mind.

“I suppose you all wonder why a coot like me chooses to live out here.”

The group nodded except for Brogg
, who had forgotten about Rajter and instead focused on his meal again.

“You want to fill them in, Adam?”

“I know of you mostly through second-hand stories,” said Adam. “So please, fill us all in.”

Rajter took a ball of meat from the stew and put it in his mouth, taking his time to chew it. After he stopped chewing, he took a small flask tied to his belt and downed
a shot of liquid inside, and then spat.

“I’m just a regular human, but I got cued in to what you spanners are and what you can do,” said Freeman Rajter. “Only a select few humans are allowed to know about your kind, so the government tried to kill me.”

“They tried to kill you?” asked Mayfly skeptically.

Freeman Rajter laughed in return.

“I know, I seem like some crazy old recluse,” said Rajter, “and I
am
a recluse, but I ain’t crazy. Tough little underground society you guys got going there, and a lot of people willing to kill to protect your secrets, ain’t that right, Adam?”

“Yeah,” said Adam, nodding. “You find out too much, bad things happen.”

“I learned a lot about your kind,” said Rajter. “So they sent a pretty little manipulator-class spanner much like your Cattaga to seduce me, but I smelt the poison on her lips and wouldn’t have taken the bait anyway. I’m more into big, burly types with some facial hair, if you catch my drift.”

Mayfly noticed that Brogg didn’t
catch his drift
and was glad that the caveman didn’t.

“Whatever the case, I did some study on the spanner mythos, and learned of this place,” said Rajter. “I came for the freedom, stayed for the bear meat.”

Mayfly took another bite and Freeman Rajter excused himself for a moment. Mayfly followed Rajter and saw that two of his trained berserkers were holding a wild one down so that the old man could put a red-hot brand to the creature’s shoulder. Brogg grumbled, but Adam was entranced. When Freeman Rajter came back into their shelter, Adam smiled at him.

“You learned to train the berserkers,” said Adam. “Impressive. I didn’t think it possible.”

“Everything’s possible, Adam,” said Rajter. “You of all people should know that. Every spanner has power, every spanner has a weakness, and every spanner can be controlled if you press the right buttons. You can even control your old nemesis, Juan Ponce de León.”

“He can be controlled?” asked Adam.

“Of course,” said Rajter. “You’re controlling him right now. You brought the albino up and he’s following you like a dog.”

Adam didn’t reveal anything, but Rajter broke the silence.

“Relax, Adam,” said Rajter. “Everyone knows about you and this Fountain, this albino, or whatever she is, even me. I don’t even own a phone, but the legends are pretty clear.”

“Everyone talks about these legends,” said Adam. “But no one has any answers.”

“What have the legends told you?” asked Mayfly.

“They say that you’re gonna bring the Fountain north to a cold place, a place
so cold that life grows
, whatever that means,” said Rajter. “And there will be many battles, with a big one at the end.”