Peregrin

  Bimji smoothed his beard, and went over to the bedside. Tom’s eyes flicked open as Bimji approached.

  “Do you plan on eating the rest of these?” said Bimji.

  “No. Just the one,” said Tom. “I’m not all that hungry.”

  Bimji swept up the basket and slid out through the curtain, past the outer room where Liz was making palaver with the militia lieutenant and the two Nalki leaders. It was a discussion that he should probably be involved with, but he had other business to attend to. He maneuvered through the wounded men and women sprawled all over the porch and hopped down onto the lane, heading for the old barn where they kept the dead—Nalki and militia, together.

  He climbed partway up the ladder and peered into the loft. He thought at first it might be vacant. But he heard a snuffling in the dimness. Frank was collapsed on some dirty straw in the darkest corner of the barn. His eyes were open, but he was not there.

  ***

  Miles hauled a sack of Venep’o grain into the cook shack and collapsed onto the bench that he had called his bed the last few nights. “There’s more down there to be hauled, you know,” said Misty, shouldering another sack right behind him.

  “I need a break,” said Miles. “I think you’ve got plenty of porters.” Indeed, a long line of captured Venep’o supplies bobbed and weaved up the lane behind them.

  “We’ll be eating fine tonight,” said Misty. “Something other than beets and greens for a change.”

  “Yeah, beets and greens and … barley,” said Miles, watching the grain trickle from a small hole in the sack onto the floor of the cook shack. He plugged it with his finger. Misty pulled his hand aside and dragged a cauldron underneath to catch the leaking grain.

  The fires had already been stoked and several fighters were hauling water in skins from the spring and filling every available cauldron.

  “I should go see Liz,” said Misty, fidgeting sheepishly. “I heard she wasn’t too pleased that I took off.”

  “You can blame me,” said Miles.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” said Misty. “Trust me, you do not want to be on her shit list.”

  “Sorry it didn’t work out,” said Miles. “I mean, with your phone call and all.”

  “No problem,” said Misty. “I appreciate the thought. God bless, we didn’t come to harm. At least you got to talk to your mom.”

  “Yeah,” said Miles. “She’s probably still waiting for me to call her back. Listen, Mist, we’ll try again sometime. When things quiet down. I’ll take you to that place. Okay?”

  Misty gave him a slight nod and a wan smile and peeled away towards the main house. Miles stood around for a bit, aimless and in the way. Tired of being jostled by the folks trying to prepare dinner for several hundred fighters and refugees, he took off down the lane, seeking some semblance of peace and quiet.

  The goat house was packed, not with snoring refugees this time, but with the leaders of the various fighting groups that had come up to the vale. They had commandeered it for their command post. They sat in a circle, engaging in some sort of squabble. They spoke in that indecipherable local language, so Miles had no clue what was going on. He ducked back out.

  He walked past the sagging barn where they kept the dead—the only peaceful place left on the farm these days. Someone sobbed quietly inside. Voices reverberated from the loft, where Frank and Tezhay made their bed. Miles did not want to disturb anyone. He stayed outside.

  He found a crude bench set back from the lane made from a stone slab propped on smaller stones. He ejected the empty cartridge from his rifle, reloading the magazine with bullets he had stuffed into his pockets before he and Misty went on their excursion. Some were unusable, crusted with verdigris and salt. But he found enough good ones to fill his empty clip, and enough remained to fill at least another. As he clipped the magazine onto his rifle a group of children spotted him and rushed over, squealing, their dirty hands grasping at every button and lever.

  Miles brushed them back gently and rose, holding the rifle high out of their reach. “No!” he said. “This is dangerous. No touchie.”

  He checked to make sure they hadn’t messed with the safety lever. The children took advantage of the lull in his attention and swooped back in.

  “Get out of here!” said Miles. “Scram!” He pointed his finger and swung it around. The children screamed and ran off.

  Miles patted himself down, taking inventory of his possessions. These refugee kids had a way of making off his with things. The oblong lump in his shirt pocket was his cell phone. He checked to make sure it was off. Seeing that he had no way of recharging it, he had to conserve every second of battery life. Same thing with his radio, which he found in his satchel, its earphones all knotted and tangled.

  He took it out to untangle the cord, and in the process nudged the on button. He idly depressed scan, not expecting to find anything. It cycled silently though vacant frequencies from the 500s to 900s and then:

  “Slow going on the Pike near 495—”

  The traffic report tingled his hair follicles. He fumbled to lock the frequency but it had already cycled on to the next. Miles hit the manual tune button and brought it back down through the 1000’s till it locked on AM 1030. An unfamiliar station. Not one he usually picked up in Greymore. He went down to 880, a New York station with a high wattage transmitter that usually came on strong at home. He found only white noise. Back up to 1030.

  “Meteorologist Todd Gutner brings you the WBZ Accuweather forecast.”

  BZ? The call sign was not familiar. It was a weaker signal than before. He had to tilt and turn his radio just right to get it in. And he had to tilt and turn it in a completely different direction than he had to pick up the Greymore stations.

  And then the noise sifted away and the volume increased. He went back down the dial and picked up station after station, even the feeble Latino and Christian stations at the bottom end of the range. When the receiver latched onto some chiming guitars, Miles leaped to his feet, slung his rifle and barged into the barn, dodging corpses in time to the beat.

  ***

  Frank knew he was caught in a bolovo-fueled dream, but was powerless to escape it. No amount of will could extricate him from that chair at the table at the Scarlet Macaw. The wind howled, spattering Frank’s face with grit and dust. Swarms of termites and June beetles collided in the lamp glow. Bus fumes and street noise wafted over the wall and mingled with the sour leakings from a dumpster.

  And of course, there came Liz, hustling up purposefully, dragging her bad leg, slapping her purse against the glass tabletop. He could see her face perfectly now. The hazel eyes, the fire cooled. Every crease defined, every little scar and blemish, down to the little blue veins in her taut forehead.

  “So you wanna know,” she said. “You wanna know what happened up the river?”

  “No,” said Frank, but it came out in a feeble grunt.

  “Well, I’m tellin’ ya,” she said.

  “No!” said Frank, louder, and he pushed away from the table and shoved the chair away. It toppled backward and shattered, every inch of it glass. He ran for the street, but behind the wall he found a beach and an ocean illuminated by a dying sun, as dim as a full moon behind cloud. Loungers stretched down the strand, each one filled with various versions of Frank, all decrepit – octogenarian, corpse, zombie, skeleton. Frank fled from a following Liz, dragging her leg like a rudder through the sand. His feet pounded sand like pistons, and yet she gained on him steadily, her frigid gaze boring into him like an ice pick.

  Frank shook and shook, and something slapped against his face, splashed him with water and the beach faded, replaced by the dim interior of the loft.

  Bimji crouched before him, one hand on Frank’s forehead.

  “You take the hurt balm I see,” said Bimji.

  “Bolovo,” said Frank.

  “Is good for sick heart. I understand,” said Bimji.

  “Why are you here? What is it you w
ant?”

  “I come see, you are okay.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “You are my brother,” said Bimji. “My spouse-brother.”

  “Did Liz send you?”

  “No.”

  “Listen. I want to be alone right now.”

  “Alone is not good.”

  “I don’t care. I want to be alone. So scram.”

  “We don’t let you. You will hurt yourself.” He grabbed the little crock of bolovo and pocketed it.

  “No! Put it back! I need that. My heart.”

  “I keep it for you,” said Bimji. “You take too much, is not good.”

  “Listen, buddy. You can just fuck off. I’ll take as much as I want.” Frank lunged for Bimji’s coat pocket. Bimji evaded him with a quick step to the side.

  “You hurt. I see what Lizbet does to you.”

  “Why’s she like that? What did I do?”

  “I don’t know. She loved you. I know this much. I know how she speaks of you. For years I hear of you. Only good.”

  “Loved?”

  “She is happy what you do for Tom. He no look so good to me. But they tell me he was much worse.”

  “Loved? What happened? What did I do?”

  “You do nothing. I think is just … you are like a ghost. You make her afraid. You make her sad about her life. Maybe it takes some time. And then she will see.”

  “It’s like … she blames me. As if I sent her here.”

  “Is not so simple,” said Bimji. “She has hard time in early days. When I found her, her spirit was already broken. Was not easy for me to find her trust.”

  “But … why do you care? Why’d you come find me?”

  “I tell you. You are my brother. I am glad you come. Our clan is small. You make us stronger.”

  “Clan?”

  A melody jangled, first outside and then into the barn below— a familiar melody. Bimji looked baffled. Frank sat up and tried to shake off the lingering effects of the bolovo as an old song—the Cure’s ‘Friday, I’m in Love’ came chiming up the ladder. Miles emerged beaming into the loft, hoisting his little silver radio above his head.

  ***

  A weeping tower of dark, volcanic rock soared high over the shadowed and mossy stream bank. Crossbow cinched tightly to his back, Canu picked his way over the stream where it plunged through a notch in the cliff top before hurtling off the ledges. The grit-scoured stone was slick, and the rain-fed torrent did all it could to upend him. He crossed with the aid of a staff and emerged dripping on the other side.

  Feril had wanted the three of them to attend a palaver with the people who owned this farm, but Canu was happy to let Vul and Pari take on that duty. Feril still seemed to harbor the misconception that they were all Cadre, or some special category of fighter, though it should have been obvious that they were nothing of the sort. At least Pari employed her skills honestly, tending to the latest round of casualties.

  Rabelmani was gone, probably dead according to his handlers, though Canu had his doubts. The old heliograph master was crafty enough to exploit the chaos of battle to engineer and escape. The mirror that Canu had taken from him now dangled on his breast from a thong threaded through its sighting hole. It came in handy for grooming his beard.

  Canu had come to the cliffs to get away from the crowded farm, welcoming the extra silence and space. Already he had helped the villagers repulse several minor attacks. The villagers treated each retreat like a victory, but Canu could see that the Crasacs were simply probing the defenses, drawing fire to smoke out their hiding places.

  He worried that the ramp into the vale was not the only place an attack might focus. It was the obvious target, but the cliffs stretched out of sight in both directions. Surely the Crasacs would be seeking some alternative means of approach. He had already spotted several patrolling the scree slopes below the ledges. Someone had to find out what the enemy was doing, didn’t they? Canu didn’t have to think twice about it.

  As he approached the brink of the waterfall, the mossy bank gave way to a jumble of stone fallen and shattered from the precipice above. Canu clambered over the rubble to the narrow ledge that skirted the base of the promontory rising above him, a needle of stone taller than ten trees stacked on end.

  He wondered what Ara would think if she saw him now. The way that girl constantly hovered in his mind, always present, always watching, like a mosquito. How could a mere woman could hold such power over him? The chemistry (or was it alchemy?) that Canu had sensed between them in Ur, did she ever think of him the same way? Had it been real or only wishful thinking on his part?

  No matter. Mirages were no less powerful than oases in guiding a thirsty man across a desert. Canu was a victim of an age-old scourge that possibly only death could cure.

  Axes rang out in the forest. Trees groaned as they were felled. He looked out over the treetops but couldn’t see a thing. They seemed to be working their way in from the river road.

  He craned his neck up toward the promontory. Wind blasted around the thick spire, its summit obscured by overhangs. If he could climb it, he would be able to scout the entire valley.

  The stone was damp and slick and nearly vertical, but deep cracks regularly cleft the face, between volcanic columns that rose like bundles of those parasitic vines that strangle trees. He wedged his hand in deep into a crack, made a fist and pulled himself up.

  He made steady progress upward, though he wondered how he was going to get back down without a rope. Each pull up the face gave him that much more height over the treetops, providing glimpses of the clearings that the Crasacs were opening. The sounds of a hundred axe blows converged and diverged from polyrhythm to cacophony. He reached a small perch formed when the top half of one of the columns had peeled away from the face. Blood seeped from scrapes on his knuckles.

  The ranks of cliffs below formed a nearly intact barrier almost as far as he could see, broken only by occasional chutes and breakdowns that might facilitate passage.

  But the Crasacs were taking a more blunt approach to the barrier. They were felling trees to widen a path and build a ramp of split timbers. Three giant wagons bearing siege towers were queued up behind the work party, creaking forward behind every thwack of axe. Behind the wagons, in the meadows lining the river, a large squadron of Crasacs maneuvered upstream, hundreds of Crasacs marching behind them.

  The sight brought Canu a sinking premonition about his future. The force mustered by the Venep’o far exceeded the hodgepodge of fighters condensed in the vale. The Alar sought not just defeat but extermination.

  Panic gripped him. He slipped on a loose stone and nearly slipped on his perch. He felt a strong urge to flee, to continue climbing the tower like a monkey evading jackals up a tree.

  His eyes sought the dimple in the hills where he and Ara had parted ways. What would she think of him now if she were watching? How impressed would she be by him deserting his friends? He jammed a scraped and bloody fist into a fissure and started climbing down.

  Chapter 47: Deliberations

  Canu shoved his way through knot of fighters clogging the lane, trying to reach Vul, whom he could see up the lane, leaning against the entry to a shed. Hundreds of Nalkies and militia swarmed the vale, trampling fields of young beets and parsnips because there was simply nowhere else to tread.

  Canu burst past through the center of a milling circle of Feril’s fighters and almost right past Vul who had stopped before the open doors of a goat shed. Pari looked up, her face marred with contusions and a swollen eye, nevertheless conjuring a smile at the sight of Canu.

  Feril, the Nalki leaders and their subordinates huddled over a crude map of the vale and its surrounds scratched into the clay by knife point. They looked up, expectant, as Canu pressed forward, and glanced away, disappointed.

  “Where is this Bimji and the Lizbet woman?” said Igwa. “Do they not care what happens to their farm?”

  Canu scanned the attendees. Feril was here
with his sergeant. The Sesep’o Traveler, Tezhay, sat with an Urep’o weapon in his lap. To either side of him were Teo of the so-called Lost Cadre, and a Nalki leader named Idala.

  “I don’t see why we need to go,” said Tezhay. “The cliffs make this vale a natural fortress.”

  “Fortress? Bah!” said Igwa. “It’s nothing but a trap. The Crasacs can besiege us till we starve. We need to get out of this pit as soon as possible.”

  “The weapons we have can break any siege,” said Tezhay, smugly.

  “Yet your ammunition is limited,” said Teo. “Is that correct?”

  “There’s more in the cache,” said Tezhay. “We can send a party to fetch the rest.”

  “They’re useless once the Venep’o take the heights,” said Igwa. “They’ll rain down fire bolts until there’s no place left to hide and finish us off one by one.”

  Canu glanced at Feril, who seemed oddly passive though he looked attentive.

  “I wouldn’t say … useless,” said Tezhay. He hoisted a defeated smile. “But I defer to you fighters. I am not a military strategist. I just thought … well, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I’ve just come from high above the cliffs,” said Canu. “I saw them, in the forest, cutting—”

  “Militia man,” said Igwa to Feril, ignoring Canu. “What do you think we should do?”

  Feril’s gaze wandered high into the rafters. “It is in our interest to make them think we’re staying here, so they focus their attention on the vale, but in the meantime we evacuate. Then, instead of us being trapped, we trap them when they try to attack. The bluffs surrounding this vale will make excellent strong points.”

  Teo’s eyes went wide with approval. “What do you think, Tezhay?”

  “I think it is good,” said Tezhay. “It lets us concentrate our firepower, and it is sustainable.”

  “And we have room to roam in the meadows,” said Igwa. “I like this plan.”

  “As do I,” said Idala, idly chewing on a piece of straw.

  Canu leaned into Vul and whispered. “Notice they don’t ask us what we think.”