The Wasteland Soldier, Book 3, Drums Of War (TWS) (34 page)

“Yes, Omar.”

“This is what you must tell them.”

Rondo listened intently, then quickly picked up his rifle and pack, nodded at Adina and left.

Adina rubbed the goose bumps from her arms. “Omar?”

“The woman is called Nuria. She is a fighter. The fat man is called the Map Maker. He is nothing. But Stone …”

He walked to her.

“Stone is the man who mutilated my body.”

TWENTY SIX

“Thank you,” said the Map Maker.

“You’re welcome,” said Shauna.

He’d planned on sliding the discoloured pages with his stumps but they looked too thin and he was concerned his clumsy method might even damage the ancient book. Father Devon had been reluctant to allow it from his sight but the Map Maker had confronted him in the basement of the Holy House and urged the priest to have faith and accept who he was and that the book was important. The Map Maker had pondered his declaration as he strolled back to Mrs Renshaw’s boarding house.

Could it be true? Was he …?

He smiled warmly at Shauna. She seemed relieved to be inside the boarding house, away from prying eyes and acidic tongues. He noticed the way the villagers were looking at her since her husband had returned in chains. He now languished in the barracks and she had not been allowed to speak with him.
A lot of the villagers had no real idea what was going on. Some of them were still unaware of the Shaylighter threat. The gunshot had seen hundreds of them flee to the outskirts of the village and the Map Maker had learned that a man had been killed and that Stone and Nuria were somehow involved. Confusion and ignorance were spilling into angry confrontations as neighbours clashed. There was aggressive finger jabbing and shoving and mouthfuls of foul abuse. Since the war, life had grown predictable, ordered, with Sal Munton the only sinful thorn, but now a dark cloud had pressed against Ennpithia; there had been bloodshed and betrayal.

Sunlight streamed through the open shutters. She sat on the corner of the bed, basking in its warmth. He sat alongside her, the book resting on his lap, a scrawl of words across the cover. She could smell his odour; it was different to that of her husband, refreshing and pleasant.
She spotted a basin on a wooden sideboard and there were used cloths draped over the back of the chair. He was a well scrubbed man. It was curious that two men she had known all her life had been the ones to brutalise her yet a man she barely knew had shown her nothing but kindness.

All he wanted in return was that she would turn the pages of a book.

“Can you read?” he asked.

“I never went to school.”

“Are you happy to do this for me?”

“My brother is alive. Dobbs and Farrell are dead. I’m more than happy to do this.”

The refugees from Great Onglee had spent the night in the barracks. Exhausted, deeply traumatised, there was a collective spirit about them, a determination not to fold despite those who had been lost. They told stories of the small band of men and women who had resisted the swathes of painted warriors and the terrible light that had scorched buildings and melted flesh. But most of all they spoke of the man and woman, the two strangers, who had led the fight back and hacked the Shaylighters into the dirt.

“Would you like me to read to you?”

“Is it a sin?”

“Reading is not a sin.”

“
But this is from the Before. We’re not supposed to possess or use anything from the Before.”

“It belonged to Father Devon. He read it.”

“Oh.”

“And he’s a priest. A man of the Holy House. You can trust him.”

“I trusted the deacon.”

“But he was a traitor. You couldn’t have known that.”

“No.”

“Could you imagine Father Devon committing a sin?”

She didn’t answer. She believes in me, he thought. She actually believes in me. He smiled.

“Sapphire Johnson. My diary. Age one three. Private. Keep out” He waited. “Please turn the page when I finish, Shauna.”

He studied her hands, golden in the shafts of sunlight. He stroked the cross on his chest with his stump.

“Two nine dot one two dot one three. I wonder what the numbers mean. I’ve seen numbers in books before but I’ve never grasped their purpose. I think they’re dates. But I don’t fully understand them.”

Shauna looked at the page. It was grimy and stained. There were lines of sloping words but most were smudged.

“Things are shit.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, it’s written here.”

“Oh. Who put the words in there?”

“A girl. I think it’s a girl. I can’t imagine Sapphire being a man’s name.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not very a male sounding …”

“No, I mean
why
did put the words on the page?”

He stopped. “I don’t know. Perhaps the same the reason I draw maps. Or used to draw them. It’s a record. A piece of the past for generations to come. Are you interested in the past, Shauna? In history?”

She shook her head. “I know the history of Ennpithia. We all do. But it doesn’t really interest me. I still don’t understand why you put it in a book.”

He paused once more. “I think so she can remind herself of what has happened in her life. She’s making sure she doesn’t forget.”

Dobbs and Farrell flashed in her thoughts. She recoiled from the Map Maker. She wanted to vomit.

“Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded. “Please read some more.”

The Map Maker lowered his eyes.

“Yeah. What the fuck am I … even like to … hate it … Dad is on about this no gad … gad …” He paused. “I don’t know this word and I’ve come across it before. Gad get. Hmm. I’ll read on … so here I am. You know I kept … about seven or eight. I wrote stuff about … the things … and stuff but Mum’s not here now …”

He looked up.

“It’s a shame most of the words are gone.”

Shauna hesitated at the edge of the page.

“I think I should be with Brian. I should be trying to get him out of the barracks.”

Her eyes glistened.

“Will you come to the barracks with me?”

He knew it was what she wanted but it wasn’t what he wanted. He needed her to turn the page.

Go with her, my son. She needs you. She has been hurt by the Ennpithian barbarians. Care for her, my son. And she will be yours. You will plant your seed within her.

He rubbed his head with his stumps. “I’ll come with you, Shauna, but I must read the final entry before we go.”

She nodded and began to skip through the book. The words on many of the pages were no more than black smears. Sometimes they glimpsed drawings. They saw one of a giant cloud shaped as a common mushroom. Then all the pages went blank.

“Go back,” he urged. “Hurry.”

She flipped back and quickly found the page he wanted.

“Still winter,” he read.

“I need to go, Map Maker, but I’m scared to go by myself.”

“Please,” he said, gently. “I will come with you. I promise. But I must read this final entry.”

“Been cold for two years. Don’t know where we are now. John says the maps … they have maps … John says the maps don’t mean nothing now. Everything has … he’s a fucking … is sick now. We pray for him. He’ll go like Mum. I’m glad he … it’s horrible to live … cares about this now … I used to hate writing … it’s the only friend I have …”

He lifted his head, and repeated, “It’s the only friend I have. I think she meant this diary; this book was her only friend. Like my maps are to me.”

He glanced at the satchel propped against the wall, stuffed with the papers he could no longer write on.

“Dad says keep praying … like that’s going to help … Dean reckons no one is listening now … says that the Lord is dead … punished us … sins … but Dad says …”

The Map Maker frowned.

“There is no mention of me. Why did Father Devon …?”

He stopped.

“Dad says he’ll come again … across the sea … walk among us as a man … Dean reckons … get off the cross … Dean says we should keep our eyes … for a man with no hands who wants … us back together again … mend what we all broke … I have to put the pen away, we can hear the dogs, they’re coming …”

He looked at her.

“Dogs!”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” he said, rising. “Let’s go to the barracks.”

They rode all day, galloping hard along the eastern road, consumed in solemn reflection.

“Duggan’s angry,” said Boyd, as Stone and Nuria pushed ahead. “He’s responsible for the villages of Western Ennpithia. In his eyes, he failed them. And what happened this morning was humiliating for him.”

“Tough,” said Quinn.

“I’m a man of faith but even I accept that Pretan deserved to die that way. I was with Kaya when she tried to convince her parents of the abuse. Stephen eventually believed her, thanks to Nuria, but Isobel never did. That poor girl died knowing her mother thought she was a liar.”

“Mother’s have a way of hurting the most,” said Quinn, numb.

“Kaya never really had much of a happy life,” said Boyd. “She was shuffled off into the corner the moment another child was born into the family. Stephen was a bit obsessed with having a large family.”

Brix faded behind them, consumed by hills and forests. Boyd noticed Quinn glance back as the village disappeared from view. He reassured her that any banishment order would be quashed.

“I don’t know if I want to go back.”

She glimpsed into the past; sitting on her father’s bench, smoking his pipe and watching Clarissa flit amongst the herbs; a mirror of her own childhood when he was still alive. Now they were gone, they were all gone. She hated her brother and she hated her mother. And she loved them both, too. It would always be that way. But the cottage? It would echo with too many ghosts.
Maybe banishment was a good solution. It was out of her hands. She didn’t have to make a choice. It troubled her as to what might happen to it in her absence but she was forced to remind herself that her family would still be the first and last thing she thought of, each and every day, whether she remained in the cottage or not.

“I’m glad you decided to come along,” said Boyd. “I always feel better with you alongside me, Quinn.”

“You’ve got Stone and Nuria.”

He nodded. “They’re good fighters. I respect that. But I always think of you as family.”

“Look,” said Stone, pointing.

Nuria saw unnatural shaped greenery, thrust against the landscape, almost straining to burst through.

“Bits and pieces of the Before,” he said. “Like Mosscar. Just on a smaller scale.”

She seemed only mildly interested.

“We’ll probably see more of it the further east we head. Closer to the Black Region.”

She nodded.

The road was straight, well travelled. Boyd had supplied them with fresh clothes after Winshead and Quinn had replenished their ammunition.

“You can’t stop thinking about Kaya, can you?”

“Listening to her confide in me that night, going through it, how Pretan had … the things he had said and done … it was like listening to myself talk to you.”

Stone waited.

“She never even got to see the bastard suffer. But Quinn said she knew it was him. She recognised Jeremy’s voice, said he sounded a lot like his father. So maybe that’s something.”

Still he listened.

“Last night already feels like a lifetime ago. It almost was.”

“You did a stupid thing in Winshead,” he said.

“What?”

“What if the healer hadn’t been there? You’d be gone now. And for what?”

“For you. Would you have done anything less?”

She saw him clench the reins.

“No, but the thought of you not being here ...”

He shook his head. It was several minutes before she spoke.

“Did you still like the gift?”

He patted his pocket.

“More than anything.”

“When I look at it I think of us together. Fighting together, I mean.”

He said nothing.

She cleared her throat.

“I think Quinn’s hiding something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Something from last night?”

“Jeremy knocked her about pretty bad. Put a bullet through her arm. Tried to rape her. You’d think that would be enough, wouldn’t you? But I think there’s something else. I can see it in her eyes. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

Before he could ask her anything else three horse drawn wagons appeared on the road ahead. Stone reached for his binoculars. Weatherproof sheets covered the flatbeds, lashed down with rope. The loads were bulky and misshapen. A grim faced man with a broken nose and a thick beard rode the lead wagon. A sword was strapped to his waist. There was a crossbow on his lap. Boyd pushed his horse alongside them, hurriedly reassuring them he recognised the small convoy but Stone was unconvinced and wheeled his horse from the road, taking up a left flanking position. He slowed his horse, stroked her mane, took the slingshot carbine from his back, pumped it, kept the weapon angled at the convoy. Nuria stayed on the road but her pistol was drawn and she cradled the weapon in her lap.