The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (3 page)

As Kimraig Llu and Jake Newday led them toward the trail up the cliffs, Boomer’s voice carried clearly.

“Char, back in rank. You cannot save Llu where he is going.” Boomer laughed now, that laugh they had all learned to fear.

“Well ‘ladies,’ I am so happy you find humor on this beautiful stretch of sand.”

She gave them a few breaths to enjoy the last of their good time.

“We will take those mouths; hook them up to your flabby thighs and just hope, beyond hope, this makes you stronger. Form up...right face...at the run. Move it! Move it!”

Five young Hunters marched, eyes straight ahead.

The sixth, Kimraig Llu, risked a long look back towards Char. She and her group were fast disappearing down the beach, yet he caught her looking back, her brow furrowed with worry.

In time, the boys reached the bluff where the two remaining instructors waited. On top, they stood at ease in the afternoon sun. Nothing new about waiting in the sun except this time no helmets to shield them from the heat or spears to lean on as muscles cramped. A test meant to sap their strength? Unknown. Good thing they had filled their canteens first thing from the storage cistern in this very building.

Above them were steps up to a large structure, half crumbled away. A hastily built awning gave shade to three empty chairs. After calling them to attention and lining them up, their two remaining instructors climbed back up the steps to guard those chairs, one on each side.

Standing in that way, they seemed more formidable than Boomer.

Jake whispered to Kimraig, “No one is going to steal those chairs way out here.”

“Quiet in the ranks,” immediately rang from both instructors.

This will not be fun.
Kimraig knew that these women, like Boomer, could jump on them shouting orders for pushups. This time the instructors were treating them not as trainees, but as a fully trained group.

His thoughts wandered as he waited: wandered to the ruined building and its neighbors along the cliff. Quake damage finally registered, visible here where the land had lifted abruptly shearing concrete, steel and stone as if it were a loaf of soft bread.

The missing building pieces must have fallen down the cliff face. He did not remember seeing any parts of them in the surf line. Maybe the surf had pounded them to sand in the fifty years since the quakes. This one was blue stone, a shambles in front, missing more than half of its mass. There had been no blue rubble on the beach. Or blue sand for that matter.

Movement just inside the doorway drew his full attention as ghosts walked out under the awning. Kimraig laughed inside; too long in the sun made these three wrinkled old, very white, females look like ghosts.

Well, they were white enough, and they were dressed in flowing white robes like those old women in the Wicca. But a Wicca Leader did not gawk at kids, especially in the heat. The Council floor is their domain, running the husk of a broken government.
Falling apart it was, like the three on the platform.
His thoughts came out in Boomer’s words.

He had never seen the Wicca, and he did not think these ghosts were part of it.

He watched one lean over and talk softly to their two training instructors whose names escaped him. These two taught the Troopers, so they had not been in his face shouting his name. One, named Lark he finally remembered, was taking orders from one ghost.

“Hunters, Attention,” Lark barked down to them.

As if on parade, they snapped rigid and managed not to stagger from the heat.

“It seems two of you have violated a sacred Wicca decree. We will correct that. Leader Petra will separate those two for punishment.”

They were Wicca after all.

Kimraig felt somewhat better. Never in his life had he violated even the smallest rule, much less a sacred decree. He stood in place and concentrated on staying at attention.

No surprise when Leader Petra selected Jonathan behind him, then Alan, Peter and even William.
Wait. Lark had said only two.
Four of them formed behind the second instructor and marched away.

Jake and he were still standing at attention.

“You,” Lark barked. “Yes, the only two standing there, fall in beside me.” Her gruff exterior frozen in place as William and the group vanished from sight.

Kimraig and Jake marched up the steps, secure in the knowledge that they had committed no infraction. As one, they stopped in front of the standing ghosts. Before Lark could issue her command, both snapped to attention. No sense taking chances until they learned what this was about.

“So young to be flaunting this blatant violation of a Coven decree,” ghost hissed softly while walking behind them. “I am Leader Von. My two sister Leaders and I have come to issue punishment.”

“We have done nothing, Leader Von,” Kimraig’s voice remained level, covering his building temper. He refused to whine like that girl this morning.

“Quiet or I will have Lark silence you for good before you have a chance to defend yourself.” Leader Von continued to walk around them.

Each of them knew her threat was empty. No single person, Leader or not, could strip their rights. Whatever came, they had a right to appeal before the Wicca Counsel.

“You, name and rank.” Leader Von said, standing scant hairs away from Jake’s face. “I am Hunter-in-training Jake Newday, Miss,” Jake was careful to use the proper grace taught in other lessons he had learned throughout his days of training.

Maybe his black smoldering eyes kept Leader Von away from Kimraig’s face. She backed away, sensing his anger grow as she drew away from him.

“I am Hunter-in-training Kimraig Llu,” he answered, before she questioned.

She turned away. “Did you hear them both?” she asked Lark.

“Yes, Leader Von,” Lark answered. “As you thought, they both used two names. I do not understand. Those second names are their family names, given before the Council of Leaders at birth. All of us use them. How does this blaspheme the Wicca?”

“It is enough that it did. However, we will take the revelation of their birth names to the Wicca after we execute them,” Leader Von said. “Right or wrong the males in all the buildings need a lesson.” Then she walked to join her two peers where they engaged in quiet, heated debate.

“Bind them and take them away until we finish.” Leader Von turned away.

“Kimraig, Jake, about face. March to camp.” Lark said, for the first time not using their last names. She turned and started down the steps gesturing for them to follow. Once on solid ground, she signaled them to join her.

“I will not bind you in case you are of a mind to run. An old slut like me does not run well in this rubble.”

They both knew their chances of surviving out here without support were nonexistent. They each kept their own council. Of the same mind, they stayed with Lark.

Dark and angry, the ocean rumbled below the cliffs making room for the sun plunging in.

A single Leader shouted her way into their camp-out. The four safe boys and their instructor sat well away from the two accused. Bad stuff always ran downhill; no sense letting it spill over them.

The females were gone. Two instructors had led them back to base.

“Leader Sandra coming in,” she yelled before venturing into the warmth of the fire. The smell of roasting wild meat almost made her mouth water.

That she was not welcome did not dampen her lust for the evening or for the task ahead. She smiled, walked to a rock almost buried by rubble, and eased her slight frame to its flat surface.

“We have fresh rat on the fire, Miss. Plenty for our guest.” Lark smiled at the symbol of her offer then forced her attention to facts. One rat would not feed four. Yet protocol demanded she offer.

Following her personal routine, Leader Sandra refused to join them at their meal; a Leader did not associate with males even if they were just boys. She adjusted her white robe, stained dingy gray, in the flickering light. By ignoring the Llu boy’s smoldering black eyes shouting at her, she ignored the slight of his not standing as she approached. His defiance toward her rank bored her—crushing them both may be the only answer. She would wait until they were home.

“My sister Leaders and I did not agree with the death sentence issued by Leader Von. We did hear your defense of the boys and decided it had merit.” She took a moment sorting out her robe, the robe she had sorted just seconds before. Her knees remained spindly, no matter what she did.

Smoldering black eyes glinting, in the fire light, pinned her to the concrete.

Leader Sandra’s eyes knew how to deliver messages. She used them now to throw her utter contempt for Llu and his plight. She made sure he knew he would get no mercy from her.

“We have convinced Leader Von that you two held no malice toward the Wicca by using two names and have offered her a compromise.” It mattered little to Leader Sandra that the ban on double names became part of the just yesterday.

Tiring of the game with a mere boy, she turned to Lark.

“Instructor, encourage your young Hunters to accept this compromise. They will swear a lifetime of allegiance to the Wicca. Only death releases them from this pledge.” The charade complete, she breathed a sigh of content. They had made all males slaves to their Coven. Fitting, males should fight, breed and die.

“We will expect your answer in the morning.”

“They accept.” Lark did not wait, accepting for them.
It is best to stay alive and fight another day. I will make sure they do both,
she thought.

“Good. See that they report to the blue building’s steps at first light. They must swear this to the head of the Council, Leader Von.”

No explanation as to why all boys lost their freedom.

Kimraig tensed to fight, only to have Lark’s fist nudging between his legs.

“Quite boy,” she whispered. “She is only one. You will need an army to defeat what she stands for.”

The next morning Battle Group 301 emerged; twelve half-trained kids, guilty by association with the former Kimraig Llu.

* * *

That had been his full name until his tenth year, when Kimraig’s government condemned him and all males to one name. Thereafter, family names vanished from all birth records. Hahn, his shared wet nurse and surrogate mother, infused him with her anger and issued orders for his future: “Never forget. Your family name is Llu!”

For the next 18 years, Kimraig trained, fought, and waited for the right moment. He and Jake, Hunters now, protected their Queen Viral-1 and fought side by side with Troopers Char, Rat, and others from their training squad. Battle Group 301 drew every dirty assignment, every hot spot until one bright afternoon, their group ceased to exist. They had followed Kimraig’s blood stained sword, protecting his back as he ended a war that had started just 45 minutes before. Kimraig and five survived.

As a Hunter, he had failed to protect his Queen, murdered her instead, along with two female Leaders, when they turned against the Wicca. In the process, he dishonored himself and built a living legend: Kimraig Llu.

That the Wicca had taken his family name mattered little; his people added it back.

The former Hunter would now act as he thought best, not as ordered. For this, all in authority feared Kimraig. The refugees confined in the Lower and Middle Levels of all five buildings—more like prisons—waited to follow their hero to freedom. It had been so long, his followers thought he had forgotten them.

Standing now, twenty-six stories above the rubble-choked streets, Kimraig had not forgotten. In a few short days, they would take their revenge.

The Queens would suffer first...but not yet.

Fifty years since the nuclear explosions ended male domination. Fifty years, this hunk of rock continued to separate from old mainland USA. Each day, females continued to hold males under their heels. Soon he would change that...but not yet.

The sun barely grasped the edge of the sea, struggling to pull itself up. Late spring’s full moon would not be hurried. It would linger, as it taunted the sun, until well after noon.

Kimraig hunched more comfortably into his old uniform, preparing for the beginning of another day. The blouse and pants were hand woven, light gray with green and black splotches, all made from Choker weed fibers, and nearly indestructible.

“Almost summer, the year
2—0—7—5 AD
,” his voice echoed to the adjacent rooftops as each number vibrated separately.

He grinned at his own defiance in yelling that forbidden time designation from the roof, unfitting dialogue for a dishonored male. Builders knew the true date to be 050 A.B. Only heathens outside their enclave would dream of using anything else. Now his grin became a harsh laugh.

Here on his rooftop, as he waited for the morning sun, the unforgiving winds sliced thousands of icy wounds through his early morning building crews. Each crew was fresh, fed, well rested. It made little difference. By noon, the wind would scald through the heaviest uniform draining strength and stamina from female and male alike.