Warchild: Pawn (The Warchild Series) (3 page)

CHAPTER ● FOUR

I catch up to Brandon and grab his
arm. I try to turn him to face me, but he’s much bigger than I am, and the only
thing I succeed in doing is pulling his arm to my side. “Is he lying?”

“About what?” Brandon says. He
doesn’t stop. He slips quietly through the forest, moving from tree to tree,
examining a few yards ahead each time he dashes forward, looking for DAV scouts
or traps that they might have set up.

“Everything.”

“Yeah, probably. If you got caught,
wouldn’t you tell someone what they wanted to hear?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not I thought I could
get away.”

“He knows he’s not going anywhere.”

“He seemed like he was telling the
truth.”

“Your crush might get us killed.”

“My crush?” We step over a fallen
oak tree, and I fight the urge to trip him. “I don’t have a crush on him.”

Brandon looks over his shoulder,
grinning at me. He doesn’t say anything.

“Seriously, I don’t have a crush on
him, you jerk.”

“Then why’d you let him live?”

“Why did
you
?”

“I asked you first.”

“For information, the same reason
you did.”

“Right.” Brandon slides down the
embankment. His feet push the rotting, drenched leaves to the side as he goes,
carving a path down to the dirt below.

I follow, gouging my own channel
into the earth, and then scold him for making so much noise when we get to the
bottom. I don’t care how wet the leaves are, or how much it dampens the
sound—if he makes that much racket when we get closer to the DAV army, wherever
they are, we’re dead. Or worse, they’ll capture us. From the stories the Elders
have told us, death is the welcome way to go.

“And besides,” I say, “maybe
you
have a crush on him.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Guys
don’t get crushes on other guys.”

“That’s not true, and you know it. What
about Elder Parker and Elder Thomas?”

“That’s different.”

“I don’t see how—”

Brandon skids to a standstill, grabs
me, slaps his hand over my mouth and yanks me sideways into a low growth of
bushes. For a second, I think he’s frustrated with me for proving him wrong,
that he’s overreacting, but when I twist my head up to face him, he puts his
finger to his lips and flicks his eyes to the right, signaling for me to look.

His body is warm, and I can feel his
breath on my forehead as I lean across him and peek through the limbs. Up
ahead, about two hundred yards through the trees, I can see four men crashing
through the forest. They’re not trying to hide the fact that they’re there. I’ve
only seen drawings, but it looks like they’re wearing the heavy, black and dark
red overcoats of the DAV army. They’re not carrying weapons, from what I can
see. They’re too far away to be sure, though, and my heart begins to pound
inside my chest. It’s so loud that I’m sure Brandon can hear it, and the irrational
side of me is afraid that the sound is carrying all the way up to the soldiers
as well.

As quiet as I can, I whisper,
“What’re they doing?”

Brandon shakes his head and lets go,
nudging me to the side so he can get up on his knees for a better look.

“Should we run?”

He ignores me.

“Brandon? Should we run?”

He spins around, eyes wide and lips
pinched together. Nostrils flaring, shaking, angry, he mouths, “Shut…up,” and
then pushes two limbs to the side, watching the men stroll in our direction. I
huff and scowl at him, but I do as he says.

I can hear them talking, laughing,
and they clearly have no idea they’re being watched. Since the drumming has
stopped, the march has ceased, and they must be a party of scouts sent out to
survey the area ahead of the main army. They’re far away enough from our tiny
village that it’s doubtful they expect anyone to be all the way up here,
observing them.

When they get closer, maybe fifty
yards ahead of us, they stop for a moment and begin to survey the land,
pointing and nodding. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but my guess is,
they’re discussing the best way to move their army through the forest. There
are three younger men, who don’t look to be much older than Brandon, and an
older one with a graying beard and extra stripes on the shoulder of his jacket.
I don’t know how they rank their soldiers, but he’s in charge of something.

There’s more nodding, more shaking
of heads and pointing, talking, and then they begin moving again in our
direction. We’re right in their path. My heartbeat quickens, and if I’m not
careful, my aching bladder will empty itself down my leg.

I’ve never been this scared before. I’ve
been within feet of a group of Republicons, watching them sneak by in their
mish-mash clothing that they’ve stolen from travelers, carrying their homemade
weapons and sacks full of whatever they’ve managed to pry from the dying hands
of their victims. Close enough to smell their unwashed stench, yet it didn’t
frighten me as much as the DAV troops who are happily unaware that we’re
nearby. They’re in a good mood, jolly and lively, preparing for battle.

I haven’t taken a breath in so long
that my lungs begin to burn. But, I wait, terrified that any noise I make will
sound like a bellowing scream.

They’ve gotten close enough that I’m
thankful we’re wearing our makeshift scout uniform so that we’ll blend into our
surroundings. Shirts dyed forest green from hours of rubbing wads of grass and
leaves on them. Brown patches, ripped from burlap sacks, sewn onto the shirt in
various places to look like foliage. Dark green pants that Grandfather managed
to find years and years ago—passed from scout to scout to scout. If they don’t
fit on their own, you find a way to make them fit. Roll up the legs, tie them
tight with a piece of rope. Whatever works.

Same goes for the rain jackets. Mine
hangs loose on my shoulders. Two of me could fit inside it, but it was the only
one we had left. I inherited it from Carl Gaelen when he fell from a tree and broke
his leg so badly that it ended his scouting days.

Brandon taps me on the shoulder,
spooking me, and I almost yelp. Luckily, no sound escapes my lips as he points
to the ground beneath us, and then makes a rubbing motion around his face. He
pushes the bed of leaves to the side, grabs a handful of dirt and rubs it on
his cheeks, his forehead, across his nose. I understand what he’s doing. Even
more camouflage. I do the same, covering my face and the back of my hands with
the rich, black soil.

He glances at my hair and nods.

Reluctantly, I nod back. I don’t
want to, but I know I have to do it because they could easily spot my light-colored
hair. It’s soaking wet from the rain, and when I mash a handful of dirt into
it, it makes a soupy, brown mess. We’re almost invisible, and we smell like rotting
nature.

Brandon pulls me closer to him—I
feel his warmth again, and we lie down on our sides, chest to back.

I can almost imagine him pulling a
blanket over us, cuddling on a cold winter night as we watch a fire crackle and
pop. I’ve imagined this very thing before—wanted it, even, and maybe I’ll tell
him one of these days—but not like this. Not hiding together on a rain-soaked
mountainside, fifty feet from our possible death.

Instead of a blanket, Brandon
reaches down, grabs a pile of sopping leaves and sprinkles them over us. It’s
not much, but any little bit of cover helps. He pulls me closer, trying to make
our union as invisible as possible. His arm is across me, and I can feel it
shaking. Is it fear? Anticipation?

“Do
not
move,” Brandon whispers
in my ear.

Thirty feet away, the DAV soldiers
stop again, and I can hear their words now.

I don’t look, but I can tell the
older one is talking. It has to be his voice because it’s rougher, deeper, with
a gravelly edge to it. It’s the voice of too many years.

“It’s thick through here,” he says,
“and there’s no way around it.”

A different voice. One of the
younger men. “It’ll be tough, that’s for certain.”

A third. “What if we cut a path?”

Then the fourth one adds, “No, it’ll
take too much time. We’ll have to take the stumps out for the tanks, right?”

My muscles go rigid and I crane my
neck around to Brandon, mouthing the word, “Tanks?” His eyes are wide. He
frowns and barely shakes his head back and forth.

The older man, the one in command
says, “Not if we cut them low enough, but still, Harris is right. It’ll take
too much time. We got a mile of thick forest all the way down to the lake, and
then it’s another mile or so down to their first lookout base. We’d have to
bring the whole army forward to cut ‘em down fast enough. And besides, the
general won’t go for it.”

“Then what do we do?”

The older man clears his throat and takes
so long to speak that, in my mind, I can imagine him with his hands on his
hips, glancing up the hills, down toward the lake and back. “He won’t like it
much, but we’ll have to bring the infantry through here, and the tanks will
have to flank us on the roads to the east.”

“Are you gonna be the one to tell
him that, sir?” one of the younger soldiers asks. His voice is light, perhaps
joking.

“Nope, that’s
your
job,
Samuels. That’s an order.”

“Aye, sir. I should’ve known.”

“One of these days, you’ll learn to
keep your mouth shut.”

“Aye, sir.”

I can hear rustling, and their
footsteps recede, as if they’re walking away from us. I risk movement, but only
enough to peek past the lowest limb. Up ahead, I spot four backs, trudging
through the forest, heading back the way they came.

Taking a deep breath, I almost
relax. We’re safe, for now, but then I remember what the older soldier had said:
“Tanks.”

Like most everything else involving
our history, I’ve heard stories from the Elders, stories of the Old War that
have been passed down for generations. I always assumed that some of them had
to be made up. The existence of these giant, behemoth vehicles that rolled on
belts and could shoot massive, explosive projectiles was one of them. The fact
that they’re real, and the DAV army has them, means that our little encampment,
the place we call home, won’t be the only thing destroyed.

The PRV doesn’t stand a chance
against that kind of firepower. I’ve never been outside of our valley, but from
what travelers and messengers have told us over the years, every village from
here all the way down to Warrenville is exactly the same. They’re armed, enough
to ward off Republicons or a hungry black bear that’s come too close to a human
population, but it’ll never be enough to fight off an army or tanks.

Finn said that there were ten
thousand troops to the north of us. If they’re all congregating in one area, that
leaves hundreds of miles on either side that are full of tiny groups like our
own that could fight. It won’t matter. They won’t have enough strength to make
a difference.

No, the DAV army can crush a path
south, all the way to Warrenville, without having to worry about any sort of
real resistance.

We have no official army of our own.
Not anymore. It’s gone—has
been
gone
, for decades, because the
resources used to maintain its upkeep have been delegated to things like food
and water.

To save as many lives as possible,
the only option will be to run, and to hide. To give up what we’ve held onto
since the Olden Days. To hand it over like it was never ours in the first
place.

It makes me angry, but what choice
do we have?

Fight and die? Or run and live another
day?

Would that even
be
an option?
The DAV won’t likely leave survivors if they can find them. If they do, they’ll
imprison us, torture us, try to convert us to their way of thinking. I would
almost rather fight and end it than suffer through that.

When the four soldiers are far
enough away for us to safely whisper, Brandon leans over to me and says
something unexpected. “We have to stop them.”

I roll over. Facing him, our noses
are almost touching. His breath smells sweet. “We have to go back and warn the
others. We don’t have enough time.”

“It’ll give us
more
time. We
stop them from getting back to camp. Who knows how long it’ll be before they
send someone to look for them.”

“No, I think we—”

Brandon grabs my arms, shakes me. Not
hard, but hard enough to make his point. “Listen to me. You heard them—they
have tanks, Caroline. We need every last second we can get, and if we can stop
those four, we might buy ourselves half a day, or at least a couple hours. Every
second matters. Every second.”

He’s right. We have sick people,
weak people, children who can barely walk. Grandfather can’t run. At best, with
his sickness weighing him down, he can hobble along, hunched over and coughing.
But even if we can save ourselves a couple of hours, it might be enough to
disappear into the woods. We know them well. We can become ghosts until we make
it to the safety of Warrenville. But, I’m not sure it’ll be safe there either.