The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (43 page)

The crowd was quick to fill in his silence with their cheers. Only his iron will keep him standing before the microphone.

He raised the arm again, as high as he dared, and gave them what Sala wanted—him—Kimraig Llu.

“I am yours, how could I kill you? Supporters of the old Governments are killing in my name. The Wicca, the Crosser, the radical Others and those preferring the nomad life of the Outsiders, they want to get their boots back on you.
You—must—not—let—them—win
.”

“I leave you with this. Remember, you are the revolution. You, male and female alike, are all Kimraig Llu. We fight together. This time we fight to keep what we have won.”

“WE ARE THE BLUE...WE ARE KIMRAIG LLU...” he shouted.

Another first as a new chant threatened to consume every living thing.

Raising his one arm repeatedly had aggravated his damaged shoulder, triggering vertigo. He stumbled against the microphone, reaching for support as an arrow sliced past him to bang into the open glass door where Char waited. A second arrow found the eye of a Trooper beside him.

Two more arrows swarmed from the roaring crowd as he collapsed.

-30-

Acknowledgments:

Pattie W., Marcia G., Traci and John H., and Melisa W. Without the five of you—no one would read this. And Jean R. with the first edit which put me on track. The second editor offered content and flow while choosing to remain anonymous. Number 3, John C. did the copy editing which you the reader just read.

First Look. Proctor’s War—The Legend of Kimraig Llu Volume II

It had been the perfect setup; he should have killed his father. He mentally kicked his butt again. His father had been a perfect target just standing up there on that balcony playing to the crowd. His first arrow had missed and hit a Trooper alongside the old man. The second had gone wide when the coward had ducked away. Now he was
here
waiting for help from an outside source to finish the job he had started, kill the fool.

Malicious gale force winds pummeled the dark of early morning, pelting the cliffs with vapor laden sand and small pebbles. Intermittent gusts blasted what remained of once magnificent buildings lining the crumbling cliff, the top of which loomed higher than a well thrown spear could reach. One damaged structure, made of blue stone, and blue tinted concrete, screamed in pain. Sightless eye-windows watched, as the structure sloughed off pieces—not quietly, as a snake would shed its skin—but with a dusty puff of itself.

A sharp crack from the surf line below muffled the building’s scream.

Straddling sound of the sharp crack on the wind, the rotten-egg odor of burned sulfur cut with the first breath.

Curtis Breen was up and running, heart pounding as his short sword and mini-shield gouged his back. His pumping knees cleared him from the raining debris. Even in the dark, he found another vantage point, checking to make sure his small raiding party had moved with him. Yes, he watched them all disappear into mounds of fractured buildings.

His body armor did not hinder. He and his men had switched to the lightweight green-black shell of woven Chocker weed—the almost indestructible creeper eating his city.

Curtis was the one name given to him at birth. Because of his defunct government, called The Wicca, all family names vanished from the records intended to be history. These thirteen females had ruled that males would be slaves fit only to do their bidding; for that they did not need family names. Curtis broke away from their rule. In defiance, he added his dead mother’s name, Breen, as his surname.

Now there was a new government. He had little hope, or patience, for them either.

He was the youngest of three, his twin brother older by two hours. Their father, Kimraig Llu the original mold for the twins, was older by seventeen years. All looked almost identical. His face was full, with angles under the fullness framing dead eyes set just a beat apart—eyes that revealed nothing. Hard muscles always set in concentration, only a twitch in his hooded nose betraying awareness of the danger surrounding him. His hair trapped the hue of copper fire in bristles cropped against the scalp, the close cut failing to stop the curls. A warrior bent to an unpleasant task.

Curtis willed his tired sight to resume sweeping the ocean. His salvaged field glasses, although a fortunate find in the debris he lived in, were damned uncomfortable to use for extended periods.

He heard Yates slither his long whip thin body through a small opening in the pile of rubble at his side. He made it look easy, even pushing his sword and shield ahead of him.

It did not matter what it looked like, it was tough going for any soldier, male or female. The dark night hid Yates’ flashing black eyes, smooth voice, and congenial manner. He appeared more the politician then the elite fighter he had once been. He operated well in either arena.

“You smell that burnt stuff, like those rotten gull eggs we found?” Curtis asked.

“Yes. Smells like the smoke after we finally fired that old hand gun you found,” Yates whispered, as he slid a metal water flask to Curtis.

“See anything?”

“Thought I saw a flash, out past the surf line, then that damn building almost fell on me. So I ran. Now, nothing is visible.” Whispering also, Curtis handed the field glasses to Yates. “Take a look, see what you see.” The water flask quickly emptied.

“Better hurry, be light soon. Sun coming up on your right,” he brought the glasses to his eyes as he gestured to the narrow ridge of stark light from the horizon.

Curtis gave it a quick glance even though he knew what it was.

“Be another hour before dawn, it being late summer like it is.”

“Keep forgetting. That is Zodiacal light, or false dawn, something to do with dust in the air. At least that is what Professor taught us. She warned us about starting battles early, thinking it would be day soon.”

Yates chuckled at the memory of his Battle Tactics instructor, an old woman, veteran of the hand-to-hand battles for possession of this land fifty years ago.

“Movement,” Curtis hissed. “There at your left, the edge of the landslide, in back of the biggest boulder just touching the surf.”

“Hard to imagine anyone floating out there,” soft words from Yates, meant only for Curtis.

Both men were well aware that the wind would try to fuddle their eyesight with false images in the rooks. They scanned anyway, one with field glasses the other with keen piercing eyes that missed nothing.

Once there had been a ragged cut in the cliff’s face, like a sleeping loft’s iron spiral staircase, offering a path from the top toward the narrow spit of sand below. The long, heavy descent was made doubly tough by constant dead-ends and switchbacks that continually forced would-be adventures lower. Going down, nothing registered as a climber descended. Not even the view of the ocean disappearing to infinity, the roiling surf line appearing and disappearing like a dream.

Then sharp earthquakes, on the ocean floor, had sent quivers through floating Manhattan. When the shaking eased, the sight from the cliffs grabbed another dimension. The top was once a jagged arc, curving out toward the Atlantic Ocean. Ruined buildings lined its edge except where the six-lane highway stopped abruptly at its edge. Then, half the land lifted, one side sharp as a cleaver, sent the other side to the surf, shearing concrete and steel buildings as if they were loafs of bread.

The missing building pieces had fallen down the cliff face, ground away by the surf as time passed. Curtis had run from pieces of a blue stone structure—already a shambles in front—when it had continued to dump more of itself down to the rubble below.

The recent earthquake had torn a ragged half-oval hole in the cliff sending a landslide past the surf line into the ocean. Looking back to the half-round hole from the shore, it looked like a giant had taken a big bite, and then threw it up, finding the taste not to its liking.

Now it was a harsh path, dangerous when picking your way along the boulders to reach the surf.

“There is not one single thing down there that I can separate from all the shadows,” Yates whispered.

“I think we should pull back until first light.”

He handed the field glasses back and prepared to leave.

Curtis did not have to check the view himself. He knew both of them did not want to take the chance of another attack catching them by surprise. Especially from those unearthly forms that had attacked them at this time yesterday. With all of his men defending with their short swords and mini shields, they had barely beaten them back. When the black shiny figures had turned to escape, they left fragments of themselves oozing away in thick black rivulets under the concrete shards

“Agreed, pull our group back slowly. I will keep watch and ease away a little at a time,” Curtis raised the field glasses back to his eyes. The rasp of clothing and occasional bump of equipment slowly dissipated as Yates withdrew their troops.

He could not figure this out. The familiar currier they met two days ago had given them clear instruction. Meet an emissary from off island, at the cliffs just before dawn. What was that about? Off island could only be those little specks in the east, on the north and south end of their floater. He did not see how anyone could live there, what with the surf whipping up over the ruins every time it stormed.

Of course, he had not been all around the island. He only had the view from the top of a couple of buildings for reference.

The currier remained adamant about their meeting the emissary. First, the meet was yesterday, but shiny black man-like figures attacked them just as they arrived for the meet. Today nothing happened except part of that old building cracking away from what might have been a gunshot.

It would have to be one big gun for sure, to drop a chunk of that building down the cliff.

Someone or something had gone through a bunch of trouble to set this up.

Noticing the false dawn had disappeared, he began wiggling backwards in full dark, without taking the glasses from his eyes. When shadows seemed to close in, he removed them and stored them carefully in their hard protective case. The case appeared to have survived a fall, lucky for him. He had found it in what remained of a walk-up’s top story, sheared off as nuclear bombs set off earthquakes that shook the island apart. When the dust cleared, the field glasses had company, their ancestors. Trapped as well, on what was left of the Borough of Manhattan, state of New York—late of the old U S of A.

Curtis Breen rose, stored the hard case in his belt pouch, and retrieved sword and mini-shield from his back. Ready for defense, he climbed over a ridge made by fallen buildings, and went looking for Yates.

He found him all right. No way to reach him since he and the rest of their small raiding party was under attack by thick shadows. The splash of swords cutting through viscous shapes barely carried to the small mound of rubble shielding Curtis from the battle.

He would have to try. Selecting the fastest path to Yates’ side, he jumped from cover and ran. Two steps on, he was surrounded himself, as more black shadows pinched in around him. He blocked the first thrust from a flat rusted sword, whipped his own blade back across his body for a killing blow, only to...

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