Freewalker (15 page)
“We can manage,” says Lumpy, as they step into the boat. “We've been in waters like this before.”
Roan shifts uncomfortably. “In Fairview, the lake was used as a graveyard.”
“Then you will not be surprised by what you see,” Mabatan replies.
They draw their paddles through thick blooms of orange algae, careful not to splash. The oppressive atmosphere matches the bleak landscape. Though they make their approach to a bend in the narrow lake with anticipation, their hope of relief is instantly stifled.
“It smells even worse here, if that's possible,” says Lumpy.
“And it's probably more dangerous,” Roan adds, indicating the shore. Here the lake is barely a stone's throw across, and rust-colored rushes flourish to a height that could easily hide an ambush. Roan scans the area, absorbing every sound, but all he hears are the whir of dragonflies, leaves falling in the water, and mice scampering through the weeds. Their journey continues in a similarly uneventful manner until, arms aching, they see the disappearing sun mark the end of the day.
Noticing a crest of rocks obstructing their passage down the lake, Roan silently signals the others to raise their paddles. He points at suspicious shapes sprawled across the obstruction and extends his attention beyond the shore. But he senses no threat and as Mabatan slowly guides the boat closer, the forms become easily identifiable: the decaying bodies of two human beings.
Roan steps out of the boat and stares at a man and a woman, near in age to his own parents. Their sodden clothing is simple, their hands and feet dissolved by the toxic waters. He surveys the gray puffy skin, the gaping mouths, the slashed throats. He reaches out, gently lowering the lids on the sightless eyes, and begins the prayer of passing:
That the love you bestowed
â
“Raiders?” Lumpy whispers beneath Roan's prayer.
Mabatan looks closely at the wounds on the victims' necks. “No,” she says, “Raiders battle. They do not slash the throats of farmers with razor knives. This is the work of the City. The way of the ones with eyes that are not their own.”
Lumpy shudders. “Clerics? But they never used to come into the Farlands.”
“All is changing,” Mabatan says. “I have seen them many times in the last two seasons.” Suddenly she stops, sniffs the air. “We must leave here. They are close.”
“Roan,” urges Lumpy.
Ignoring them, Roan completes the blessing.
“Quickly!” Mabatan insists.
As the whine of an engine rises over the still water, Roan rolls the first body into the lake.
Lumpy grabs Roan's arm. “No time!”
Mabatan pulls her boat up onto the shore. The engine grows louder. They tear at the rushes, throwing them over the craft until it's indistinguishable from its surroundings.
Suddenly the motor cuts out. Lying low in the brown foliage, six eyes silently watch as a flat-bottomed boat drifts up to the remaining corpse. Its passengers are three gaunt men in blue robes. One stares through a scope that's mounted on a crossbow, scanning the river. The second, armed with a bladed spear, steps onto the shore, dangerously close to where they're hidden. The tallest one, grim-faced, with owlish eyes, moves from the boat and crouches near the body, closely inspecting the rocks. Did Roan leave some tell-tale sign that could be traced? The cleric shifts to focus on the body. His hand grazes the dead woman's leg, moves up her torn jacket, touches her arm. He stops, scrutinizing the woman's face. His finger rises, touching her eyelid where Roan had touched it moments before. He is so close that Roan can see the hone of the blade at his side, the tension in his neck, the bulge behind his ear.
With a sudden thrust of his arms, the cleric pushes the corpse off the rock. He watches it slowly dissolve in the acid water, then, seemingly satisfied, motions to his companions. He pulls the boat through the rocky passage, climbs in, and the clerics motor off.
Mabatan emerges from the rushes, her face grim. “I have seldom seen another traveler on these waters. Now clerics in powered boats appear. We must abandon this route and go on foot.” Without hesitation, Mabatan ensures her boat is well-hidden and sets off through the lush rust-colored rushes. Staying low, she follows the narrow lake, Lumpy and Roan close behind.
Roan cannot dislodge the ravaged corpses from his mind. So ruthlessly killed, by the soldiers of the City, men called clerics. What if they're looking for him? Could Stowe have seen him in the Dreamfield? Or perhaps that vulture spotted Roan and sent out an alert. Whether or not that's the case, anxiety presses him to exercise supreme caution.
Hands covered in small cuts from the sharp-edged leaves and soaked with sweat, at dusk they seek a brief respite from their arduous trek. Mabatan and Lumpy are about to settle into a small clearing, when they notice Roan shifting anxiously.
“Smell that?” he asks.
Lumpy and Mabatan silently join him as he makes his way through the foliage to the water. Dozens of bodies lie scattered over an embankment.
Dizzied by the sight, Roan starts to count them. One, two, three... eight, nine... thirteen, fourteen... twenty, twenty-five...
He counts every person, hoping to make some kind of sense of what he sees, make the deaths less anonymous, even though he knows there is no sense to be made. Counting does nothing; nothing can give a massacre meaning. Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven people lost their lives here.
Mabatan's face has gone pale. Lumpy's breath catches in his throat. For several minutes, no one speaks. Then Mabatan turns. Beyond the shore, at the crown of a knoll, stands a village. A village without movement, without sound, without light.
“Silenced,” whispers Mabatan.
“Why?” asks Lumpy.
“That only the City knows.”
“Somebody may still be alive.”
Mabatan gives Lumpy a doubtful look. “They do not leave survivors.”
“Someone may have had a chance to hide. Maybe children,” says Roan, embracing Lumpy's hopefulness.
“The moon is nearly full,” Mabatan informs them, exasperated. “We must leave before it rises and travel in the shadows.”
Lumpy looks at her, eyes awash with grief. “We can't just leave the bodies.”
Looking at Roan and Lumpy's determined faces, Mabatan sighs. “You are both right. We cannot leave without honoring these lives. I was wrong to think only of our safety. I thank you for reminding me of who we are.”
The three share a somber look, the task they've agreed to take on weighing heavily on their hearts.
The swollen moon hovers over the village, and the three friends stand bathed in its unearthly glow. Exhausted from the sorrowful labor of consigning the dead to the lake, they join in speaking the prayer of passing:
That the love you bestowed might bear fruit
We stay behind.
That the spirit you shared be borne witness
We stay behind.
That your light burn bright in our hearts
We stay behind.
We stay behind and imagine your flight.
Picking up their packs, they move cautiously up the hill.
“They had no wall to protect them,” says Lumpy.
“Maybe they figured they had nothing worth coming this far to take,” Roan says, thinking of Longlight.
“They were wrong,” Mabatan utters with a dour finality.
Careful to remain invisible and silent, they approach the cluster of buildings, seemingly untouched by any act of violence.
“Fine craftsmen lived here,” Roan whispers. “Each stone was squared and fitted. Look, no mortar was used.”
Coming to the first house, Lumpy runs his finger along the junction of two stones, admiringly. Roan looks inside to see breakfast dishes in the sink, beds unmade, a pot of beans soaking by the stove.
“It must have happened early morning,” observes Mabatan.
“Why, though?” asks Lumpy, taking in a row of child-sized shoes by the door.
Roan shakes his head sadly. “Does there have to be a reason?”
It's not until they've explored every home and come at last to the community building that Lumpy finds his answer.
Unlike the residences, which were left unscathed, the interior of this building was savagely ransacked. Benches, chairs, and tables are strewn everywhere, the tapestries on the walls torn and thrown into the dust. Moonlight spilling through the windows reveals the inky stains of blood sprayed everywhere.
Roan breathes deep, trying to slow his heart. “This is where they were all executed.”
“And this must be why,” says Lumpy, straddling a hole that floorboards had once clearly covered. A candle and a firestone are secured under one edge. He hits the rock on the sharp bit of metal hanging at its side, and lights the candle with the spark.
A ladder leads them to a large, once hidden room. Even in the flickering candlelight, the room's purpose is apparent. There are cribs for babies, a feeding table, a play area filled with toys for small children. Mabatan runs a hand over the wooden trains, rag dolls, dress-up clothes, and building stones.
“How many kids do you think they had in here?” wonders Lumpy.
“At least six. All ages,” she states, without looking up.
Lumpy picks up a counting stick, and moves the beads up and down, an almost absent expression on his face. “So... the clerics came for the children. They took them and killed the adults as a warning. And that's why they left the bodies exposed, as a message to anybody who passes. Give up the few or we take all.”
Something on the wall catches Roan's eye. Taking the light from Lumpy, he moves closer. When he makes out what it is he's seeing, he reels, nearly dropping the candle.
It's a picture of a girl. Her clothing is extravagant, regal, her smile angelic, and benevolence seems to radiate from her. Her hand is slightly lifted, as if she's about to gently stroke the head of the viewer. At the bottom of the picture are two words: OUR STOWE.
Roan gapes at it, uncomprehending. He moves closer, taking in her eyes, her mouth. He leans his head on the wall, close to his sister's image. “She's growing up.”
Lumpy says nothing until Roan has stepped back again. He tries to sound out the words, something Roan's been teaching him. “Our... St... Sto... Stowe,” Lumpy reads. “Our Stowe. Like she belongs to everyone.”
Mabatan lays her hand over the image and closes her eyes. “This picture was left by the clerics.”
Roan's stomach burns. “It's like saying she's responsible for this.”
“Like she is the City,” Lumpy adds in grim agreement.
Mabatan shrugs. “She might not know anything about what's happening.”
“I wish I could believe that.” The sound of motors echoes across the water, silencing their conversation. Roan reaches out to the wall, touches Stowe's picture, and scrambles up the ladder after the others.
Taking no chances, they crawl to the door. Peeking around it, they can make out two boats in the distance, silhouetted in the moonlight. “We run for it?” asks Lumpy.
“Past the buildings, to the other side of the fields,” whispers Mabatan, and disappears into the shadows just as an arrow meant for her thuds into the stone beside them and blasts apart.
“He must have night glasses,” Roan says, pulling Lumpy behind the doorway. “Saint had some, a gift from the City. They won't need much light to find their target.”
Another arrow soars through the doorway, smashing into a pillar behind Lumpy, and sharing a quick look, he and Roan charge off.
The roar of the engines cuts out. The clerics are on land. Doubled over, Roan and Lumpy run through furrows of cornfields too young to provide much cover. With arrows whistling past them and the shouts of their pursuers close behind, they weave across the rows of plants in hopes of throwing their pursuers off course.
Lumpy falls. Hard. “I'm alright, keep going!” he shouts as Roan rushes to him.
“Don't be stupid, your foot's caught in a hole!” Roan grabs Lumpy's leg, heaves, then heaves again.
“And I used to think gophers were cute,” Lumpy winces as his mud-covered foot finally dislodges.
“Can you run on it?”
An arrow thuds into the ground between them.
“Absolutely,” says Lumpy, and he's off in a flash.
The clerics are already crashing through the corn when Lumpy and Roan spot Mabatan crouched by a large tree stump, signaling them to hurry. As she reaches between the thick tree roots, they hear something click. The ground on the far side of the stump opens, just wide enough for a person to fit through.
“Lie flat, your packs between your legs. The tunnel will be tight and steep.”
Lumpy puts his legs in, sets his pack, and slides out of sight. Roan does the same. Weaving and looping through the ground, the tunnel is at times so narrow it scratches his nose.
Suddenly, after a second of free fall, he thuds heavily into a roughly hewn room to find Lumpy already struggling to his feet. The ceiling is barely high enough for them to stand, the walls covered in a series of holes much the same as the one they used to enter. A gas flame flickers, providing an eerie bluish light. A reassuring thump behind them means Mabatan's made it in safely.
“Pretty handy escape hatch. Did you build it?” Lumpy asks her.
“No,” she replies, her voice flat. Roan notices that her eyes are darting from hole to hole. Within seconds, figures slide out into the blue light. Waxen skin, smooth earless heads. Their pink eyes narrow and they slowly rise, moving closer, baring their fanged teeth. Blood Drinkers.
BLESSED BE THE TEN,
PYRAMID OF LIGHT
BLESSED BE THE SEER
HIS GUIDANCE, OUR SALVATION
BLESSED BE OUR STOWE
WHO BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO OUR HEARTS
âLITURGY OF THE CONURBATION
“S
TOWE...
S
TOWE... CAN YOU HEAR ME
?” Stowe's eyes open blearily to see Darius peering down at her. His smile tests skin already stretched past its limit so that his lip curls up, exposing his small incisors. Where is she? How long has she been unconscious?