The Wasteland Soldier, Book 3, Drums Of War (TWS) (25 page)

Two dozen soldiers were monitoring the surrounding buildings and rooftops; tan leather face scarves, goggles, white helmets, sleeveless tunics with assorted pieces of metal body armour. They carried slingshot carbines and crossbows, pistols and machetes. They were the elite foot soldiers.
The League shaped the future and the foot soldiers enforced its vision. Loyal, ruthless and utterly dedicated, they served the Governor, whoever that might be, without question or hesitation.

Adina was dressed in black, legs slightly apart, a wraparound skirt slashed to the waist, a shirt slashed across her breasts. The wind shaped her. She wore twin leather holsters beneath a feathered cloak with a pistol slotted into each one. A machete hung from a decorative belt around her slender waist. The leather sheath lay against her bare leg as her skirt blew open. Bracelets and bangles jangled on her wrists. Strands of brown hair flicked across her cheeks.

The middle vehicle was an armoured transport with space for ten occupants inside and a turret fitted with a machine gun on the roof. A side door was opened and a man and a woman stepped out.

“Governor Cooperman, Governor Nichols.”

It was Adina who greeted them, her tone flawless. Cooperman was in his late forties, tightly curled brown hair, no beard, pock marked skin. He was formally attired. She placed his right hand between her warm palms and leaned into him. The official could smell the freshness of her hair and feel the warmth of her glowing skin as she planted a breathless kiss upon both cheeks.
His empty left sleeve flapped in the wind, a civil war memento. She moved to Nichols. The loose limbed and gangly woman was six years younger than Cooperman but looked much older. Her face was long with sucked in cheeks and dark half-moons beneath her eyes. Her hair and clothes were shapeless. There was firm handshake and nothing more.

“It makes a change to have an Alliance meeting at night,” said Cooperman, looking around. “And without notice. I enjoy surprises.”

He shrewdly left the throwaway comment hanging. It was his way and had served him measurably as Governor of the Ministry of Progress. A fool would underestimate him but Omar was no fool.

“I’m not happy about the time, either,” said Nichols, with an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders.

Cooperman eased back, dropped into silence, allowed her to run with it.

“I think we would all prefer daylight hours, Omar. We have families. And daylight is much safer.”

“I can only apologise,” said Adina, smiling sweetly and not actually apologising for anything.

“We have a protocol for Alliance meetings,” continued Nichols. “We have to be careful about meeting.”

She looked around at the vehicles and heavily armed soldiers.

“If the city were to lose all three of us our factions would be cut adrift and within a day there would be chaos.”

“Governor Nichols,” said Adina. “We are well aware of the protocol for Alliance meetings.”

“I know you are, Adina. Your former partner, Traore, was a well studied Governor but Omar is quite new to this.”

Omar said nothing. He shifted his eyes toward Cooperman, the warrior and master tactician.

Adina said, “There has been a development that requires the attention of the Alliance. That is why protocol had to be ignored. But the meeting cannot take place here. We need to leave at once for the factory.”

“But the Alliance greeting,” protested Nichols.

“We can bypass the greeting this once,” said Adina.

Nichols defiantly folded her arms, uncomfortable with the excessive military style escort and the arrogant dismissal of protocol concerning an Alliance meeting and the traditional greeting. As principal leader of the Society of Souls it was not the first time she had clashed with the League and, though many of their beliefs and policies overlapped, she was concerned that this disregard was yet another sign of the thinning ties that bound the Alliance. More and more she feared those threads would one day snap.

“I do not want this to occur again, Omar. I’ll accept it as an oversight, your lack of understanding.”

Omar bowed stiffly.

“Protocol is one thing
all
factions must respect.”

“This development must be very important,” said Cooperman.

The four of them climbed into the armoured transport. Engines revved and the convoy roared away from the hotel, snaking through the city streets, the long avenues mostly deserted. Only low level criminal gangs were on the sidewalks now. Making deals and fighting over corners and tenement buildings.
The minor factions were rogue, unassimilated within the Alliance, with structures and hierarchies of their own, but Omar had recognised the visceral levels of violence they inflicted and had already begun to slowly absorb their numbers into the ranks of the League.

He sat with Adina, hand in hand, looking across at his fellow Governors. The vehicle smelt of black energy. Nichols wound down the window. The air was cold but fresh. The sky was littered with stars.
They travelled in silence toward the industrial region of Kiven where the factory was located; the heartbeat of the League, even the city itself.

It was Cooperman who probed.

“Have we heard from the emissary?”

“Not yet,” said Adina. “Rondo is due back very soon.”

“I’m sure he’ll have been successful. It’s quite an achievement, Omar, getting the Albury’s to talk with us. I imagine if you had suggested this bold move to the Alliance we would have debated and debated and nothing would have actually happened. It was an inspired decision to act alone.”

Omar nodded. “Thank you, Governor Cooperman.” The bait was dangling. He counted the seconds.

“It’s only an inspired decision if the agreement is signed,” said Nichols, the wind in her face. “But once more Omar has gone against Alliance protocol.”

She turned to him.

“This should have been a decision by the three of us. It was a dangerous move to link us with the Ennpithians. As faction leaders we cannot hope to keep our city working toward the same goal …”

Omar smiled and heard nothing. Her droning voice faded.
He understood her many frustrations. It was not only protocol that troubled her.
He was a newcomer, a stranger, but here he sat with equal power and equal authority, one third of an Alliance that ruled over thousands.
She resented him and was suspicious of him and he accepted these basic responses.
But, naturally, as with all women there were layers, and Nichols was no different; it was her primal lust for him that angered her the most. He smiled to himself.
He knew women considered him a handsome man, despite his facial and bodily scars. He was tall, muscular and groomed and his voice was clean, urbane and calm. His charm seeped beneath the skin of
all
women. He
knew
they were obsessed with him and terrified by him. He knew, keenly, that they saw how he teetered on the edge, balancing the fine line between genius and madman. They saw it and hungered for it.

“I am sorry,” said Omar, leaning forward, looking into her face. “I am learning. All the time I am learning. And I can learn much from you, Governor Nichols. I will be a pupil for you.”

Nichols flushed. “From what I hear you’re more of a teacher, Omar.”

She laughed, almost nervously.

“First, you were the Engineer. Now a Governor. And I’m thinking of you as a teacher. How many titles do you want?”

He eased back in his seat. “All that matters is what I can do for the people of Kiven, Governor Nichols. Titles are meaningless to real men.”

She flicked her hair as the convoy motored through waste ground choked with rubble. There was no one around. Even those who had fallen on hard times were not found here. The gangs did not fight over this ground. No one wanted these corners.

The factory rose out of the darkness.

Gates and wire fences and armed checkpoints and patrol vehicles with sweeping spotlights.

“Come,” said Omar, smiling broadly.

NINETEEN

Shauna sat alone in the damp building, staring at the man on the cross. He had suffered. Now, so did she.

Once more.

She lowered her eyes from him. She had been washed in sin.

Her hands were shaking as she prayed. They had not stopped shaking since the incident. She couldn’t call it what it truly was. She couldn’t use the words for what they had done to her. The incident was all she could accept for now.
Her skin was stained by them. Their smell was on her. Their seed was in her. She parted her hands, made the sign of the cross and lifted her head. She stared long and hard at the crosses on the altar. It was then a bald headed man stepped inside, glancing at her. He was slightly hunched with a round stomach. It took her a few moments to realise he was one of the strangers Brian had mentioned, the Map Maker. He walked between the pews and sat down, on the opposite side of the Holy House. She saw his head twitch in her direction. He nodded, politely, mouthing a silent
good evening
but she turned away, her expression numb.

She had surprised herself in coming here but there was nowhere else left to go. The inhabitants of Great Onglee had been slaughtered and her brother and his family were presumed dead. Another misery had been inflicted upon her and once more she questioned her decision to step into this holiest of buildings. She wondered if she had wanted to find and confront the deacon and damn him for sending Dobbs and Farrell after her. Maybe she wanted to confront the Lord and damn him for giving her this life of torment. Nothing made sense, nothing was fair, nothing was worth carrying on for.

She thought about Molly, one of the few women she’d counted as a friend. She had killed herself two years ago. At the time, Shauna remembered thinking how stupid Molly had been to throw her life away.
She was also angry that she now had no one to turn to. Then she was riddled with a crippling pang of guilt at her selfishness and stupidity in assuming Molly had taken the decision lightly.
It was a terrible thing to have happened. She never rooted out the truth. No one ever did. Molly had a good life. To end it was senseless. Her husband spoke of the irrational unhappiness Molly felt in herself but even he didn’t have a clear answer.

Shauna had turned to Father Devon.

“It is a sin to take a life, Shauna, and to take your own life is one of the most heinous of sins. To throw away the Lord’s gift of life so cheaply is a shocking crime.”

Shauna had crossed herself. “Yes, Father.”

“Though you have to wonder how grim life must have been for Molly. She was a young woman, kind and friendly, with a loving husband and loving children. Yet inside her was pain. And although she has committed this terrible sin, Shauna, we are all sinners for failing her and not seeing that something was wrong. We are all guilty of this grievous sin.”

Shauna gingerly touched her flat stomach. This was no doubt why the Lord had condemned her. He had given her womanhood but she had sinned and failed Molly and He had rendered her barren. She wondered why Molly was in her thoughts. She had not reflected on her old friend in a long time. Was it something she was contemplating doing?
This
is what had brought her to the Holy House, she realised, in her distressed, confused state. She wanted to end her life. She wanted … she wasn’t sure … His approval to end it? Or did she want to hurl her decision in His face and show Him what she thought of His world?

She winced, a gnarled flare of pain in her groin. They had bruised her. She closed her eyes, for a moment, and then rapidly opened them, panting. She did not want to see it. She did not want to experience it again. The horror would visit her during her hours of sleep.

But she would not sleep. She would never sleep again. Not unless she took the sleep that was devoid of dreams.

Her throat went dry. Nothing would ever be the same. One life had ended. A new one had begun.

The candles flickered. It was dark outside and there was noisy commotion in the village.

She was dead inside. She might as well be dead outside, too.

How could she tell Brian? If she told him of the … incident … then she would have to expose Deacon Rush and the conversation that had passed between them. And then her husband would know she had planned to betray him and that her hatred for the Holy House did not match his.

She looked up. “I don’t hate you.”

“I’m sorry?”

Shauna flushed. She had forgotten she was not alone. She looked at the moon faced man and shook her head.

“I didn’t mean you.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

There was the stamp of boots past the building. It sounded like the soldiers. Brian had mentioned nothing about Great Onglee. Why hadn’t he told her?

“What’s your name?”

She hesitated. “Shauna.”

“I’m the Map Maker.”

She didn’t answer him.

“I’m new here. In Brix and Ennpithia.”

“Do you have a real name?”

He seemed offended. “What’s wrong with the Map Maker?”

“I mean a proper name. What did your mother call you?”

“I don’t remember her.”

“Your father?”

“No.”

Shauna swivelled on the pew, studied him, and noticed he was missing his hands.

“How did that happen?”

He dangled his stumps.

“I was kidnapped by a gang. In a city far from here. They cut them off. They liked torturing people.”

She found fresh tears, blinked them away. “I’m sorry.”

“They’re dead now. Stone killed them.”

“Stone?”

“My friend with the scary face.” The Map Maker chuckled. “He chopped off the man’s head.”

Shauna recoiled.

“I didn’t mean to offend you. You asked what happened so I told you.”

She stared forward.

“Everything happens for a reason,” he said. “That single act of cruelty brought me and Stone closer together and using my maps we arrived here.”

“You sound like Father Devon.
Everything happens for a reason.
” Her hands were no longer shaking. “Are you a man of faith?”

“I might be.”

“You must be a man of faith. You’re here. Sitting in the Holy House. Why are you here if you’re not a man of faith?”

“We have none of this where I’m from.” He looked around the building. “But then I don’t know if that’s where I’m from. I might be from here. Well, everywhere, so that would make me a man of faith.
A very important man of faith.” He glanced around the building. “I’m on a mission, Shauna. All my life I have been making maps and moving in one direction. Now I’m here I understand this is where I have been heading since childhood. I can mend things that are broken. I can mend people and put them back together again.”

His voice dropped to a whisper and she could no longer hear what he was saying. It took a moment for her to realise he was talking to himself.
Her skin erupted in goose bumps. She told herself to stay quiet, to ignore him, he was obviously quite disturbed, but something forced her to inch along the pew.

I can mend things that are broken. I can mend people and put them back together again.

“Who are you?” she said. “I mean, who are you really?”

He didn’t answer. A fog had descended over his eyes. He was staring right through her. His lips were moving but the words were intended for him only. He moved his arms as he spoke, gesturing with imaginary hands, pointing and circling, rubbing his bald head. She had never seen a man behave like this before but she couldn’t take her eyes from him. There was something about his voice, something in the
way
he spoke and the way he looked at her. His eyes had reached into her soul. She could tell he knew what had happened to her.

Had the Lord sent this man to her?

I can mend things that are broken. I can mend people and put them back together again.

Was he here to save her soul? Could he mend her? Put her back together?

Shauna got to her feet, surprisingly unsteady. She took a step and then another. She wanted to hear what he was saying. She wanted to understand his words and his gestures. Her head was swimming.

“Shauna, you’re bleeding.”

His voice was ridiculously loud, bloated.

I can mend things that are broken. I can mend people and put them back together again.

She looked down. The floor was moving but she was standing still. She saw the trickle of blood down her leg.

Then her vision blurred and there was blackness.

Quinn wiped her brow. Hands on her hips, she stared gloomily at the freshly dug grave.

“The Holy House makes you bury your loved ones up there.”

She twitched her head in the direction of a graveyard scattered with wooden and stone crosses. It was ringed by a low fence and sandwiched between the land of the Holy House and the Churchmen barracks.

“Fuck all their laws and rules. I’ll bury my brother where we were both happy. In our garden.”

She glanced at the cottage. Sitting in darkness.

“The place must be cursed. Did Stone tell you?”

Nuria nodded. She leaned on her shovel, blood stained shirt rippling in the wind.

“It was my mother’s fault. She poisoned Daniel against me.”

A column of soldiers sprinted past in full amour, carrying swords and bows. They had reached Brix deep into the evening. The sentries had spotted the fast approach of Boyd’s truck and sensed danger.
He had spoken with the sergeant in charge of the barracks during Duggan’s absence.
Nuria hadn’t caught the man’s name but he seemed less stubborn than Clayton had been.
Already a rider had been dispatched to alert the returning convoy and carry onward the news to Touron. She had also seen scouts mustered and instructed to roam the foothills in the west. Barricades were already being assembled. Men, women and children were helping ready the village. The assumption was clearly that a second attack was imminent. However, there were villages north and west of Great Onglee and any of them could be the next target. Perhaps the attack on Great Onglee had been in isolation, retaliation for Stone’s interference inside Mosscar. Nuria reflected on the villagers who had died. There would be no one with shovels to dig graves for them.

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“There’s a well at the top of the hill.”

Quinn looked at her.

“You mean a proper drink? Sorry, come inside.”

She hesitated at the door. She pictured her father sitting outside, on his favourite bench, smoking his pipe, smiling as she played, a stocky tomboy, scampering through the herb garden with a wooden sword. She looked at the bench. It was overgrown with foliage.

“I can wait out here if you want to be alone.”

“No,” said Quinn. “I want you with me.”

Nuria followed her into the gloom. Daniel’s body was still on the bed, covered with blankets. The air was stale. She threw open the shutters, letting in shallow steaks of moonlight. Quinn knelt beside her brother and cradled his blistered face, whispering to him.

“I hated him and loved him in the same breath.”

Nuria found a bottle, uncorked it, wiped out two cups, poured, handed one to Quinn.

“It must have been painful having to pretend.”

Both women drank.

“Sometimes I think that’s why I spent so much time away from home,” said Quinn, getting to her feet. “Not being able to tell Clarissa was heartbreaking.”

“What
really
caused her death?”

“It was the sickness. She had all the symptoms but I don’t know how she caught it.”

Nuria’s cup was empty. She couldn’t feel anything. She poured another.

“Could Jeremy have given it to her?”

“How do you give someone the sickness? And why? If he wanted to hurt her he could have … he could have taken her life in a more simple way. When I spoke to him inside Mosscar he was on the verge of telling me what had happened but then he was pulled away by the Shaylighters. He knows, Nuria, he knows what happened to her.”

“Do you think he killed her?”

She stared into her cup.

“No.”

“Will he come back here?”

“How can he? He murdered two Churchmen and betrayed his faith. They’ll hang him if he comes back.”

Nuria filled her cup once more.

“Do you think he killed your brother?”

Quinn was silent for a long time. There was hammering in the village and the rumble of wagons.

“The wind could’ve blown Daniel away.” She laughed, bitter and empty. “Nuria, I watched that boy shoot two Churchmen in cold blood. There wasn’t a flicker of emotion on him. All to stop me discovering the Shaylighters. So, yes, I think he killed Daniel.”