Peregrin

  “Hey Mist, you thirsty?” he said.

  Misty stopped and shrugged.

  He slid off his satchel. “Hold this for a second.” He handed over the rifle while he fished around in his pack for the Poland Spring bottle he had refilled with water from Lizbet’s spring. He offered it to Misty first, taking back the gun.

  “Dang, that thing’s heavy,” said Misty, as the mouth of the bottle got caught up on her veil.

  “What’s with the veil, all of a sudden?”

  Misty guzzled a mouthful of water and caught her breath. “I have to wear it. We’re goin’ out in public.” She handed back the bottle.

  “Public? We’re in the middle of the woods.”

  “Don’t matter,” said Misty. “’Round here, it’s polite to wear these. It’s just good manners.”

  “You’re quite the hiker,” said Miles. “We’ll make it there easy by afternoon.”

  “We do a lot of walking around these parts,” said Misty, swiping a dip from her chin.

  “Do you miss home?”

  “Home?” said Misty. It was a simple enough question, but it seemed to puzzle her.

  “Yeah. North Carolina, wasn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it home. I mean, I lived there, but ….”

  “You’ve been away … how long?”

  “Goin’ on a year,” said Misty. “But I don’t actually miss it all that much. I mean, some friends, some kin, but I got a better life here. Least I did, before all this trouble started.”

  “How is it better?” said Miles, skeptical.

  “Just … nicer … than the one I came from. Don’t need to scramble for rent every month. No coke-fiend ex-boyfriends stalking me.”

  They pushed on through a stretch where twigs and fronds hung snapped and wilted where they encroached on the trail. Someone, many someones, had passed through in a rush. Refugees? Crasacs? Both?

  The sun broke through, turning leaves translucent. Beams of light and shadow slanted through the haze, dappling the forest floor. When the shadows returned, a glow persisted down the trail. The landscape opened up beyond the rows of fluted boles.

  Miles pushed ahead of Misty and stepped up the pace, eager to have open sky over his head again. As they reached the main road and he was about to burst out into the clear, Misty grabbed his shirt-tail.

  “Wait,” she said, peering up and down the road, nose lifted, making Miles think of a deer sniffing for hunters.

  Across the road, cultivated fields stretched down to a fringe of trees lining the river. More fields stretched beyond until the land swooped up a set of steep and grassy hills topped with forest. The edge of one of the villages he passed through on his first day was visible. Every structure had its walls bashed in, thatch burned.

  “Upstream, you said?” said Misty.

  Miles nodded. “We cross the river at the second village.”

  “You must mean Xama,” said Misty, stepping out onto the rutted main road. “There’s a causeway there.”

  “Probably flooded now,” said Miles. “Hope it’s crossable.”

  The shuffling and clomping of many hooves made Miles look back. A large group of riders milled about several hundred meters behind them, partly obscured by a bend in the road.

  “Is this market day or something?” said Miles.

  “Market?” Misty turned. Her face blanched. “Off the road! Quick!”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “That ain’t no market, Miles. Those are Cuasars!”

  Miles drew back, hesitated, pursed his lips, dashed across the road and hopped a ditch.

  “Miles, no! Not that way.”

  “There’s a path by the river,” he shouted back, sprinting into a weedy field. He followed a rim of packed clay between two plow tracks.

  Murmurs and rumbles disturbed the air. Misty’s sandals clapped through the mud behind him. He passed a pile of half-burned timbers remained where there had once been a hut and an animal shelter. The ashes were cold, and the rain had blended them into the muck and manure.

  Double walls bracketed the riverside path. It ran along a willow brake, the river glinting just beyond. Miles headed for a gap in the wall separating it from the fields.

  A clapping and clanking arose, like two by fours bouncing in the bed of a pickup truck. Miles looked at Misty. She seemed just as puzzled as him.

  From across the river came shouts and whistles. A horn blew.

  “What the fuck is going on?” said Miles.

  Hoof beats pounded down the main road. Bushes rustled along the river bank. Something else trotted towards the field they had just crossed.

  “Get between the walls,” said Misty. They vaulted over and crouched in a patch of something resembling bamboo. Miles found himself eye to eye with a spider guarding a funnel-shaped web.

  The hoof beats quieted.

  “They gone?” said Misty, lifted her head cautiously.

  “Not sure,” said Miles. He peeked between two capstones at the muscular shanks of a mottled gray horse within spitting distance, stomping impatiently behind a thicket. The rider’s attention was rapt on the commotion across the river. Trees blocked the view, but it looked like a mob was surging across some planted fields. Miles slid down, back to the wall.

  “Stay down,” he said. “One of them’s stopped closeby.”

  The tinny strains of a La Bamba ringtone sounded from his pack.

  “Shit! I thought I turned it off!” He fumbled with the pack’s zipper, plunged his hand in, and hit the button to silence it. Luckily, the ringer had been set on low. He glanced at the Caller ID screen. “Christ, it’s my mother.”

  “Don’t pick up,” said Misty.

  Miles flipped it open.

  “Miles? Thank God! Where’ve you—”

  “Can’t talk right now, ma, call you back!” He clapped it shut. His mind went fuzzy.

  “That Cuasar,” said Misty. “He’s looking this way.”

  Dead leaves crackled as the rider turned his mount to face them.

  Upstream, on the main road, a roar built, modulating to a screech. Miles knew only one thing that made that sound—the undersized internal combustion engine of a Prius being revved to the max.

  Chapter 37: Contact

  Toads swarmed the trail, pebbled skin of taupe and grey matching the grit of the trail bed but for a line of specks, yellow and teal that glowed like fluorescent jewels.

  Unlike Tezhay and his volunteers, Frank took pains to avoid stepping on them. They all hopped in the same direction—away from the river, towards the hills.

  Shouts and clanking sounded down the path. Rounds clicked into chambers. A yellow paintball splattered against a tree. Tezhay doubled back among his volunteers, cooing something in Giep’o to calm them down.

  “What’s going on?” said Frank.

  “Fighting,” said Tezhay.

  Tezhay had his volunteers spread out along the path. They moved silently, like hunters. Frank did his best to mimic them, though he wasn’t so nimble in choosing his steps and passing through the branches of deadfalls.

  The shouts and tramping became louder as they approached the main road, visible only as a decrease in the density of the trees ahead. The volunteers stopped again and looked to Tezhay anxiously. A brief but intense argument ensued.

  “They no want to go more closer,” said Tezhay. “I tell them just a little more far. I want to see what is happen.”

  “What the hell were those kids thinking?” said Frank. “Going out and about at a time like this? Don’t they know there’s a war going on?”

  “Who says they think?” said Tezhay.

  An engine whined, straining at peak RPMs.

  “What the hell?” Frank’s jaw went slack. “Sounds like a … what’s a freaking car doing here?”

  “This … I need to see,” said Tezhay. He took off running, his AK jouncing in his grip.

  The volunteers looked at each other, and then followed after Tezh
ay en masse, leaving Frank standing alone in the path.

  Frank took a long, slow breath and trotted after them.

  Chapter 38: War Wagon

  Miles popped up from behind the wall. “That’s my car!” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Get your ass down!” said Misty, remaining hunched on her knees.

  The runaway Prius bounced over potholes, screaming like a missile towards the massive, armored and turreted wagon that had just creaked into view.

  He crouched, peering above the wall. “Someone stole my fucking car.”

  “I can see that,” said Misty.

  The soldiers escorting the wagon had slipped behind it or peeled off into the woods. The team of six oxen pulling the war wagon also tried to flee. They wrenched at their yokes, scales of their articulated armor clanking, but were divided in their efforts to seek refuge. One changed its mind and joined a majority of five that dragged the lone dissenter with them into a field, wrenching the wagon askew.

  A wheel the height of a man’s shoulder slid into a flooded ditch, tilting the wagon a severe angle. Bow men in armor streaked with blue bailed out of a slotted turret as it teetered.

  Speed unabated, the Prius struck a bump and elevated. It flew into the broad side of the wagon, crunching into its wooden frame like a stone hitting a rotten pumpkin, skidding it further into the ditch. Airbags exploded. The chassis snagged on shattered timbers and came to rest back end protruding, rear tires dangling.

  The escorts stayed back as if they expected the Prius to emerge from the wreck and do battle with them, until one brave soul charged it with a pike, inspiring the others to rally, smashing side windows, slashing at its metal skin.

  Automatic gunfire erupted from the wooded lane leading to Liz’s farm. Several Crasacs fell. Yellow splotches spattered the wagon. The soldiers panicked and dispersed, several taking cover behind mounds of earth lining the main road, backs exposed to Miles and Misty. Miles looked at Misty, who had risen to her knees to peek over the wall. He took a deep breath and lifted the AK.

  “Here goes,” said Miles, lowering the selector lever, pulling back the charging handle. He braced one foot against the wall, and sent off a series of short bursts, using the mud kicked up by his misaimed shots to guide the killing spray towards the back side of several unsuspecting Crasacs who had taken up fighting positions behind the earthen mounds.

  Miles’ bullets flew wild and wide, but he got their attention and succeeded in flushing them from their cover. They fled down the road, away from the wreckage of the wagon and car.

  Across the river, swarms of fighters spilled down a grassy long, slope into a mass of Crasacs advancing in ranks against another, retreating group.

  “Miles! Cuasars! Coming this way!” Misty hopped the wall to get off the path. Miles tried to follow, but loose stones gave way. He toppled. The AK slid off his shoulder. He stooped to fetch the gun as Cuasars closed in, full gallop. Sabers sang, unsheathed.

  Misty lunged and latched onto Miles’s arm, jerking him back against the wall. Cuasars leaned to swipe at him, stirring a breeze with their saber tips. Stones ratcheted his vertebrae as Misty dragged him over the wall with more power than Miles thought her capable. The Cuasars moved on, too intent on retreating to engage them.

  Miles pointed the AK at the backs of the receding Cuasars, but Misty slapped it away.

  “Don’t shoot!” said Misty. “You’ll hurt their horses!”

  “Fuck the horses, Misty. These people want to kill us.”

  Across the river, the formerly orderly ranks of Crasacs had collapsed and crumbled as the force pouring down from the hillside slammed into their flank. The Nalkies that had been under pursuit now rallied to attack the Venep’o front.

  A series of patterned flags shot up in their center and the Crasacs reformed into defensive posture, swordsmen surrounded by shields and pikes while a circle of bowmen sniped from within.

  The Crasacs held. The rally stalled. Another configuration of flags shot up and the Crasacs exploited the lull to retreat downstream across trampled fields. The Nalkies and their allies from the hillside held their ground and let the Crasacs escape.

  Chapter 39: Medic

  Frank cringed behind a brush pile, wondering how a Toyota Prius might have found its way to Gi and why its driver would collide intentionally with a metal-clad, wooden castle on wheels. Crasacs attacked the red car, slashing at its wheels, jabbing pikes into its body like hunters trying to dispatch a wounded beast.

  Shadows, perhaps, concealed the presence of Tezhay and his volunteers from the Crasacs, who paid them no notice. In a widening of the path before the merge with the main road, Tezhay arrayed his group in a V with himself at the vertex.

  He waited for a few more Crasacs to appear before grunting an order in Giep’o. Bullets and paint balls burst forth, dropping several Crasacs. The remainder, startled, quickly evacuated behind some mounds of dirt bounding a fallow field. They aimed their first volleys poorly, sending bolts that flew high over the volunteers’ heads.

  They kept low and out of harm from the volunteers’ semi-automatic fire, popping up unpredictably, but in unison, to deliver more bolts. As the accuracy of their volleys improved, the volunteers were forced to take cover. One girl mistimed her dash across the trail and was met by a flurry of bolts. She collapsed, braids flying, into the middle of the path. Her AK splatted into a puddle.

  The wounded girl’s writhing form attracted more bolts like flies to a carcass. Frank darted out from behind the brush and grabbed her collar, dragging her off the road and into the trees behind the wedge of a massive, fluted root buttress, tall as a person and as sharp as a shark fin where it merged with the tree. He rolled her onto her side and peeled back her blouse. A long, black shaft impaled her in the crook of her arm and shoulder. She squirmed with pain. Blood soaked her side, but seeped more than gushed. It did not appear to be life-threatening.

  He removed a pair of heavy shears from his bag and patted her gently. “Shhh! Stay still.”

  Bolts sprouted in the mud like black flowers. A single gun fired in the near distance, from across the road somewhere near the river. Frank took advantage of the girl’s momentary distraction to clip the wooden shaft of the bolt about an inch above its entry point. He cut a hole in a gauze pad and taped it over the protruding shaft and then taped her arm to her torso to immobilize it. He would need better light, sterile irrigation and calmer circumstances to remove the rest of the bolt without nicking an artery.

  The gunfire from the river had sent the confused Crasacs back over the mound into the more intense barrage coming from Tezhay and his volunteers. The few survivors fled down the road. The guns fell silent.

  “I think we have find Miles and Misty,” said Tezhay, unseen from behind a bush.

  “Have we?” said Frank.

  “Who do you think shoots from river?” said Tezhay.

  Frank peered around the buttress. Through gaps he could see another group of Crasacs milling on the main road beyond the edge of the path. An officer with a cross-hatched flag regrouped them and got them moving forward through the thinned out forest.

  “Tezhay, they’re coming again!” Frank called.

  Tezhay shook his head. “Bullet finish.” He motioned his volunteers off the trail. Several slung their AKs and drew blades from their belts.

  The girl’s AK still lay in the path. The magazine was nearly full.

  “Stay put. Stay, okay?” Frank pointed at the ground. The girl lay quiet against the roots, eyes inflamed, nostrils flared, but she seemed to understand.

  Frank scrambled out on hands and knees, snatched the weapon by its sling, and dragged it back behind the tree. Frank took a breath, gritted his teeth and reared up, letting loose on full automatic, firing wildly until he had expended the entire clip.

  His rounds chewed up plenty of vegetation but did little to deter the advancing Crasacs. A second group trotted in formation past the junction with the main road.

&n
bsp; Frank’s heart tripped over its own beats and loop-de-looped in his chest. He scuttled back behind the buttressed tree, dropped the AK and tried lifting the injured girl. She pushed him away, insisting by pantomime that she could walk.

  “Back to the farm. Now. To Lizbet’s,” he said.

  Instead, she muttered something, removed a knife from some strapping on her leg and held it in her unencumbered hand.

  “No more fighting. It’s finished. We have to go!” said Frank.

  A low, warbling horn blew from somewhere far down the main road. Frank peeked around the tree, just in time to see a bright fluorescent green splotch appear on a startled Crasac’s breast plate. Another paint ball splattered off the man’s shoulder and into the face of a Crasac coming up from behind. The hopper of the villager who fired them remained half full.

  To Frank’s astonishment, the Crasacs reacted as if they had been struck with acid, wiping at the paint with handfuls of leaves, smearing their armor as they backpedaled to the main road. The Crasacs on the roadway had also turned and retreated towards Raacevo, as if the first group’s panic was contagious.

  Tezhay’s face popped up over the root buttress. “You good?”

  “Fine,” said Frank.

  “How is Eaamon?”

  Frank drew a blank for a moment. “Stable,” he said. “I need to get her back to the farm. I need my other gear to fish those damned barbs out and finish patching her up.”

  Frank stared through the trees at the retreating Crasacs and shook his head. “How is it that paint balls scare them more than bullets?”

  “Is not just paint that scares them,” said Tezhay. “Is army.”

  “What army?” said Frank.

  Tezhay pointed down the trail. “That army,” he said, as scores of fighters swarmed out of the river bed and into the fallow fields.

  ***

  Fearing that another shoe had yet to drop, Miles took shelter with Misty in the cover of a copse that had served as a play space for the local children, as evidenced by little dolls made of string and twig, rope swings and tiny shelters of woven lath.

  An uneasy calm had settled over the battlefield. The Crasacs and Cuasars had retreated from view, but the other fighters lingered, tending to the wounded and the dead, forming up lines of defense behind brakes and berms. They appeared to be bracing for a counterattack.