Captives (12 page)

They drilled a little longer, then called it quits. After Kolton left, Thom practiced solo with his sword, which was lighter than he expected, but much heavier than the bamboo, and with a different balance to it. As other residents trekked to the fountain or worked on their homes, there were moments Thom felt self-conscious waving a sword around by himself, like a twelve-year-old boy with delusions of becoming a ninja. But these were wounds to his pride, nothing more. After years of traveling the country and exposing that pride with every performance he gave, the cuts no longer lasted. It was as if they were being inflicted on a different person.

Besides, this wasn't about his pride. It was about his life.

He withdrew to his shack to rest and wash up with a rag. He thought about walking to the Dunemarket on the pretense of needing supplies, then taking the road past the tavern and disappearing into the endless sprawl of the city. Unless they stopped him before he'd departed the Seat, he knew he'd get away with it, and that he'd be able to travel far beyond their willingness to follow.

But something stopped him. At first he thought it was guilt—that he felt so bad for the violence he'd done that he wanted to put himself in position to die—but he had felt that on other occasions, and while it was present now, it wasn't the driving force. Was it anger at Biscuit for buying the impostor's lies? The more general anger of having his hopes raised and then dashed?

Contributing factors, maybe. Yet there was something else. To his annoyance, he discovered it was gratitude. Gratitude for having been spared at the Bones.

Late that afternoon, knuckles knocked the door of his shack. In the waning yellow light, a young girl stared up at him. "It's time."

The others were gathered at the head of the trail exiting the back of the Seat. Raina, Mauser, and two others were on horseback. Eight other men and women stood around them, armed with pistols, rifles, and swords. Kolton spotted him and broke rank.

"Follow me at all times," the boy said. "And I'll make sure you're still there for me to defeat at practice tomorrow."

Thom smiled. "An offer I can't refuse."

Raina moved from the others and turned her mount to face them. "I will take their measure. If they threaten us, we will feed their blood to the earth."

She swung about and headed down the trail. Mauser joined her side. A man and a woman loped ahead on foot to scout. The remainder of the force followed behind the riders. There was virtually no talk. Miles disappeared behind them. Out on the darkening sea, a lone sailboat drifted across the waves, bound for Catalina.

Minutes after the last light had faded, the two scouts returned from ahead and conferred with Raina. After a brief talk, the force continued, soon finding themselves within sight of the country club.

Outside the main building, two of Raina's warriors hung back, unshouldering rifles and bracing them over lawn chairs. Candles glowed behind curtains but most of the windows were dark. The riders dismounted and an older woman hurried to gather their horses and lead them away to a stand of trees.

Raina took the remaining troops into the courtyard. The house was silent. Kolton beckoned Thom into the cover of a planter housing a palm tree whose three main trunks converged at the base. Raina strode forward alone, stopping sixty feet from the manor.

"I am Raina, chieftain of the Place." Her voice cleaved through the night, hardened with an authority that seemed too big for her body or her age. "Speak with me or you will wish you had."

She waited in the stillness of the night. After a few moments, a curtain stirred beside the front door. "Who are you?" a male voice said; Thom didn't recognize it. What do you want?"

"I am the ruler of this land. I come for Biscuit."

"You look more like you could use a sandwich."

Raina's hand drifted to the red scabbard on her hip. "I am here to talk. But if you don't send him outside within the next minute, then I will move beyond words. Any who raise arms against me will be struck dead."

The courtyard was silent. Upstairs, a curtain twitched with a white flick. Raina flung herself to the side. A rifle roared, orange flashing in the window, the report pealing through the hills. Raina tucked her head to her chest and landed on her shoulder, rolling behind a low retaining wall, blades in hand.

"Take the house," she said to her troops. "Let your deeds bring honor to your descendants."

Someone fired at the upper window, shattering it. Men and women charged the house. Kolton grabbed Thom's elbow. "With me."

Kolton ran across the courtyard to the wing of the building, pistol in his left hand, sword in his right. Feeling acutely stupid, Thom drew his sword. The blade gleamed with the light of the moon. Kolton cornered the manor and ran through the dewy sprigs of grass, heading for the wide back porch. Around front, pistols and rifles exchanged fire. People were shouting inside, but Raina's people operated in wordless precision.

Kolton slowed to a walk and stepped onto the patio, weaving through its wicker chairs and dusty glass tables. He sheathed his sword and tried the handle of the French doors. It turned. He glanced at Thom, cracked the door open, and slipped inside.

Thom followed. The interior was as dim as the inside of Mauser's underground home. Gunfire racketed from around front, echoing through the airy space. Against all reason, Kolton headed toward the shooting, crossing a dining room. Ahead, deafening fire poured from a den. Kolton slunk inside, Thom at his heels. At the room's other entrance, a man and a woman crouched behind a toppled bookshelf, shooting toward the front door. Return fire shredded into the books, sending tiny white pieces of paper flitting around the room.

Kolton fired one round into the man's back, then the woman's. They cried out and tumbled into the books. He put two more rounds into each.

"Hollow!" he called to the others. Keeping one eye on the downed defenders, he glanced at Thom. "Want to finish them?"

The sword weighed in his hand. "I'm no doctor, but the holes in their head tell me they're pretty dead."

Kolton laughed through his nose. "They're not yours to take anyway."

He slit their throats, blood soaking into the carpet of literature. The room smelled like burnt gunpowder, old books, and freshly shorn metal. Raina's people were pouring into the entryway, dispersing throughout the building. Kolton backtracked to the dining room and found his way to a two-winged staircase. Upstairs, the landing was empty. Feet thumped around the ground floor beneath them, but for the moment, the shooting had ceased.

The corridor ran right and left. Framed photos of old white men hung from the walls. All the doors were shut. Kolton moved down the right side of the hall, jogging quietly to its end. Downstairs, a man wailed, babbling. Kolton stopped in front of a door and threw it open.

Inside, a bed dominated the room, its sheets rumpled. Kolton checked both sides, then jerked his chin at it. Thom eased forward. A pistol went off and he jumped back, grimacing; the shot had been from next door. Kolton whirled and raced from the room.

Thom's sense of self-preservation insisted he follow, but he couldn't turn his back on the room without clearing it. Staying a couple feet from the bed, he lowered himself to his knees and used the tip of his sword to lift the bedskirt. Beneath the box spring, white eyes stared back at him.

"Don't hurt me," the woman said. More shots went off and she flinched. "I haven't done anything!"

"Get out. Keep your hands where I can see them."

She squirmed around to clear her hands, then wriggled forward on her elbows, emerging into the dark bedroom. He recognized her from the pool. She was barefoot, dressed in cotton shorts and a t-shirt.

"You don't have to do this," she said. "Please."

"I'm not doing anything besides taking you downstairs." Next door, people thumped across the room, scuffling. Thom lifted the point of his blade. "We'll stay right here until it's safe."

"Who
are
you people?"

"The owners of this land. Where's Biscuit?"

She glanced toward the window. "There's a trellis outside. I'll climb down it. I won't tell anyone."

She looked harmless. Unarmed. Had probably been lured here by the lies of the impostor. It was quite possible she'd done nothing wrong. Beyond hitching her wagon to a mule dressed up as a thoroughbred, anyway. Thom didn't know what Raina intended for the prisoners, but he did know they weren't protected under the Law of the Good Moon. And they'd shot at her. He got the idea Raina wasn't the type of person prone to laughing such things off.

"You can climb down with me." She took half a step forward and smiled, but its light didn't reach her eyes. "Make sure I don't do anything. I'll make it worth your while."

Thom rolled his eyes and lifted his sword. "Shut up before I decide to make my life much easier."

She rocked back on her heels, eyes hooded. Thom moved to the side of the door. The thumping next door stopped a few moments later. A minute after that, Kolton stepped inside bearing a bloody sword, sweat gleaming on his forehead, his shirt ripped at the collar.

He glanced at the girl. "How many of you are here?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Things have been crazy."

He advanced, blood slicking the length of his blade. "How many?"

"I don't know!" She stumbled back, banging into the edge of the bed. "Walt was killed. Irene ran off. Including me, that leaves eight."

Kolton nodded and moved back to the door. "Take her downstairs. It's over."

He walked out. Thom scratched his jaw with his thumbnail. "Get dressed. It's cold out."

The woman lurched toward the closet. He watched her hands as she got out socks, jeans, shoes, a jacket. She dangled these from her hands, staring at him. "Can I get some privacy?"

"What do you think?"

The last lines of defiance crumbled from her face. She pulled the jeans up over her thin shorts, hiking them past her hips. Once she was finished, she walked downstairs without another word, Thom following behind. Outside, Raina stood in the courtyard, swords sheathed, Mauser at her flank.

"I found her inside," Thom said. "She didn't resist."

Mauser held out his hand to the woman. "If you'll follow me, ma'am?"

The woman didn't accept his hand, but she went with him without complaint. He led her across the courtyard to two other women guarded by a pair of warriors. Someone produced a rope and instructed her to hold out her hands.

"What will you do with them?" Thom said.

"What the bones insist." Raina inspected him. "You lived."

"Were you expecting otherwise?"

"Mauser says you're a storyteller. I expected you to learn the color of your own intestines."

A woman jogged from the front door to deliver Raina an initial report of the minutes-long battle. Thom drifted away, lingering close enough to get the gist. Two of their people had suffered non-serious injuries. Biscuit had died in the scuffle, as had the couple defending the front door. There were four captives, including three women and an elderly man who claimed to be the impostor's chef. Once everyone was outside, Raina climbed the front steps, drew a small, antler-handled knife from her belt, and carved a crescent moon into the front door.

When they returned to the Seat, Thom expected a Conan-style feast, or at the very least a round of self-congratulatory speeches. Instead, the warriors dispersed. Kolton accompanied him to his shack.

"Good work today," the young man said. "Now sleep. More training tomorrow."

Thom barely heard him. Already, he was replaying the fight in his head, wondering why he felt so much like smiling.

* * *

Kolton wasn't joking. He arrived a few minutes after sunrise carrying the bamboo training sticks. He went over what he'd shown Thom the day before, then drilled with him, fencing back and forth through the dust.

An hour and a half later, Kolton thumped down in the shade for water. "Duty calls. You're on market today."

"Like security?"

"Not like it.
As
it."

"I might be better suited to scouting."

"Then this is your chance to learn versatility. A knife can do more than cut foes." Kolton popped to his feet and smacked off the dust. "Besides, the Dunemarket is the heart of the Place."

Thom didn't know why he was peeved to draw the assignment. Unexciting as it was, it would allow him to keep on as he'd been doing before his recent run-in with the law: to circulate among the travelers, exchanging news. He spent all day doing just that, sword on his hip, one eye on the crowds.

The market might well have been the area's heart, but within a few days, he understood why it had been assigned to him—there was nothing to stop. No fights, no theft. Sometimes the haggling led to raised voices and exuberant gesticulation, but this bickering was nothing more than a natural byproduct of the culture, and was the closest thing the Place had to a spectator sport. Thom watched from the sidelines, but never needed to intrude.

His swordplay was still very rudimentary, but day by day, Kolton provided him with a framework to build on. A week after the attack on the manor, the young man met him in the morning bearing a long, wrapped bundle. Inside was an unstrung bow and a quiver.

As Thom quickly strung the bow, Kolton's face fell. "You know this one."

"Bows, I get," Thom said. "They're quiet and the ammunition's reusable. You can practice all day and no one knows you're there. And any dummy can learn to make new arrows." He tested its draw. It was a smaller one—any bigger and he probably wouldn't have been able to string it—but felt sturdy enough. "But
swords
? Why all this Renaissance Faire crap?"

"The old world was too big for any one of us to understand. For any
hundred
of us to grasp. When it fell, it fell all the way."

"But that knowledge isn't gone. Take an expedition to USC and grab some chemistry textbooks. You could be making gunpowder next week."

"We have guns," Kolton said. "They have their role. But if we know knives and the enemy doesn't, pity them when they come within range of our hands."