The Archivist (23 page)

“There isn’t much left to walk away from,” she replies. “They pretty much trashed everything I had. You’re welcome to look around and salvage anything you can find there.”

“If you’re sure about that, I’ll set aside a fair price for whatever I recover, just in case you come back. Give me a minute to write a quick bill of sale in case anyone raises any questions.”

We wait while he quickly drafts a simple document and Angie signs it. I have him also draft a deed for Saffron and Thorn, and ask him to make sure they go to good homes. None of this is very formal, but it fits the times we now live in. The one positive outcome of the Great Crash is that we got rid of all the lawyers. That almost makes it worth it all.

Angie and I get dressed for our trek, and as much as I want to persuade her to remain here, the determined set of her face tells me to keep my protests to myself. Returning to the stable for the horses is not even an option, so we will have to walk out to meet Little Crow. We don the trousers and shirts of farmhands, with simple cloaks to keep us warm.

Fortunately, the good doctor has spare used clothing on hand for patients who come in with torn and bloody garments, needing something to wear home. I put the veiled hat, which commonly serves as a sunscreen, on Angie’s head and pull the veil into position.

Finally ready, I swing the sack with my pack over one shoulder as we slip out the front door onto the street. A pair of patrolling Disciples is a block away, heading away from us, so we go in the opposite direction, toward the western gate. Angie holds onto my arm as if we are a strolling couple while I lead her through the town.

It seems that the streets are returning to normal, as there are more pedestrians than yesterday, but the people are still very subdued and keep to themselves. We cross paths with a couple more Disciple patrols, but we keep our heads low, so they ignore us. They have clearly subjugated this town, whatever their reason may be.

When we reach the gate, we find that it is staffed by the same guards we encountered the previous day. One of them nods as he recognizes me. Angie is a little shorter than Danae, but they only saw Danae on horseback, so as long as she keeps her head cloaked, they will certainly assume I have the same companion.

“What happened to your horses?” the redheaded guard asks me.

“You may not have noticed, but your town is now overrun with Disciples. It seems one of their leaders took a fancy to my mounts. At least he gave me this lousy bag of spuds.”

The man shakes his head. “Damn shame, but at least they didn’t take a fancy to your woman. You still have your life, and there’s some this morning that aren’t so lucky.”

“So I’ve heard,” I respond. The guard is far closer to the truth than he realizes. “Who’s in charge now?”

“The council still manages the daily operations, but General Berger is the Disciple mayor. No one knows what happened to Mayor Groversen, and you don’t want to ask.”

“What did your city do to bring the wrath of the Disciples on Georges?”

The guard glances around to make sure there are no Disciples nearby before answering quietly, “I’ve heard talk about them wintering here and then moving against a place called the Tucker Realm in the spring. They seek retribution for a recent attack, which the Disciples took as a virtual declaration of war.”

“All I want to fight are the deer eating my crops,” I say. “Hopefully the Disciples won’t take what little the deer leave behind.”

The guard shakes his head in sympathy and waves us on. Relieved, I lead Angie out onto the dusty road heading west.

After we pass the first farmhouse, I take the pack out along with my duster and hat, and toss the sack. The sky is partially overcast, but when the sun breaks through the clouds our backs warm up. Angie ditches the veil, but she does keep the hat. Neither of us are particularly talkative until we stop for a lunch break.

I hand Angie some bread and dried meat to chew on, and ask, “When you were growing up in Wolfengarde, did they ever bring an Archivist there?”

Typically the Archives has two or three retrieval missions running at any given time. They tend to be fairly routine, but there have been a number of casualties in the field. Most of the time we know exactly what happened, but seven Archivists have vanished without a trace, four of them in proximity to Disciple activity.

“There was one, about a year before I fled. I guess that was about seven, eight years ago. They brought a tall Black man into the Temple and he admitted he was an Archivist, as if he thought that might help him.”

“Was he somewhat older, with a scar across the left side of his face?” That was about when we lost contact with Damien. He was one of our best retrievers; he and I worked several key missions together. At the time of his capture I was delayed on that mission in Peru, or I would have partnered with him on his expedition to a rumored government research facility, in what used to be Wyoming.

“Yes, did you know him?” Angie asks, a peculiar quiver in her voice.

“He was one of my best friends. What happened to him?”

“They made him bow before the Earth Goddess, on his knees, with his forehead to the ground. The next step involved a large greased stake about six feet long, slowly inserted from behind so as not to rupture any major organs. They kept him bowing to the Goddess for three days, until he finally died.”

For once I am speechless. I thought that form of execution was left behind in the Middle Ages, but if anyone was going to resurrect Attila the Hun’s favorite way to dispose of traitors, it would be the Disciples.

“It was his screaming that finally drove me to escape the Disciples. I couldn’t understand how any human being deserved that kind of treatment. Every day after he died, whenever I stepped into the Temple I heard his screams again. Even now I sometimes still wake up in the middle of the night, hearing him plead for death.”

“What will they do to Danae?” I ask, dreading her answer.

Angie stops chewing, and turns her face down to the ground. After a few seconds, she responds quietly, “The Disciples have captured at least three Archivists that I know of, and all of them were bowed to the Goddess. That’s what they do to Archivists, and it’s what they’ll do to her. If she’s lucky, she’ll get a chance to take her own life before they get her there, but they are pretty careful to prevent that. And she probably has no idea what’s in store for her.”

As the realization of what they are going to do to Danae hits me, a wave of vertigo sweeps through me and I suppress a powerful urge to vomit. I would not abandon my worst enemy to such a fate. Well, I might make an exception in the case of that Vater fellow.

Now I understand why Angie felt so strongly about needing to rescue Danae. We both have lost our appetite, and resume our westward trek in silence. Toward the end of the day I can tell Angie is fatigued, but the trees are getting near, which means Little Crow is not far away.

Dusk is falling when Little Crow and Malsum emerge from the trees and quickly cross the remaining half-mile of field to join us.

“We are about to meet some friends of mine,” I warn Angie. “Little Crow is the Native American friend I told you about, and he has a sort of pet. Really, more of an animal companion.” Calling Malsum a pet is like calling the Demon Days a technological recession.

“What sort of companion?” she asks. “Like some sort of dog or wolf?”

“No, her name is Malsum and she’s actually part of the cat family, but bigger.”

“Really. Like a bobcat or lynx? I didn’t know they could be tamed.”

“Malsum is much bigger. Think of a mountain lion… but one the size of a draft horse.”

“You’re shitting me,” Angie says, and stops in the road. Then Little Crow and Malsum reach us, and Little Crow leaps down off his horse.

“I was starting to wonder what happened to you, earth brother,” Little Crow says as he greets me with a bro hug and then turns to examine Angie, who stands motionless in the road while Malsum sniffs her over. “You said you were leaving Danae in town, but I’m not sure why you traded your woman for this one. I don’t think you got a very good bargain.”

“Yeah? Well, you can shit and die!” Angie responds indignantly. “Even blind, I’m worth two of her.”

Angie is quite capable of standing up for herself, and the shocked expression on Little Crow’s face is almost worth what I have gone through over the past day. It is not often that Little Crow is truly speechless.

“Little Crow, this is Angelina, my friend from the town.” I take her hand, and join it with Little Crow’s so they can shake. “A small Disciple army took over the town while we were there. When they found us, they missed me, but blinded Angie and captured Danae. We believe they’re taking her back to their capital.”

“You’re kidding, you let the Disciples take your woman again?” Little Crow shakes his head.

Angie reaches toward Little Crow and, blind as she is, manages to grab his shirt. “That woman’s courage is the only reason K’Marr is still alive. So I don’t care who you are, you better show her some damned respect.” She releases Little Crow when Malsum gives a warning growl.

He steps back and glares at her before looking back at me. “Now I know why Danae was determined to go on her own way, once we got here. You would lose your pecker if it wasn’t attached.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“Just something she said, while we were dragging your carcass across the mountains. If we find her again, you can ask her for yourself. It’s getting dark, so let’s get back to camp.”

I guide Angie’s foot into the stirrup and help her up onto Little Crow’s horse. Then he takes the bridle to lead the animal, and we slowly walk back to the grove where he has waited for the past couple of days.

A small fire drives back the chilly autumn night, and I guide Angie to sit by the fire, where she takes some deep breaths and spreads her arms as if embracing the warmth. Blind as she is, she looks more alive now than she did when I first entered her shop two evenings ago.

Little Crow cuts up some meat he has been smoking and passes it around. After we eat, I wash my hands and change Angie’s bandages.

When I peel them off, I do not look too closely at the linen pads before I toss them into the fire. Field medicine was never my calling, but following Carl’s instructions, I smear ointment on the fresh pads, then gently apply them to her eyes. Angie flinches, and I swear to myself that I will make a present of that Disciple bastard for her.

Unless they have already harmed Danae. In which case, I know of a few medieval tortures that would make impalement seem humane.

As the night sky darkens and the stars come out, Little Crow and I discuss our plans around the campfire. I have not abandoned the goal of recovering the generator, but our unspoken first priority is rescuing Danae.

Assuming her Disciple abductors wasted no time in heading to Wolfengarde, they have over a full day’s lead on us and are probably on horseback, which means following on foot is not an option.

Even if Little Crow rides Malsum so Angie can have his horse, I still need a mount. And I need it now.

“You realize, of course, we are surrounded by horses. Especially if we don’t intend to hang around.” Little Crow gestures at the surrounding countryside while he pokes the campfire and adds wood.

“What about that Indian prayer when we left your village? All that stuff about seeking peace and compassion, over violence?”

Little Crow shrugs. “Look at it from the viewpoint of the horses. Here they are, living and working in slavery, so we’re showing them compassion.”

I am not sure how that argument would stand up in any court outside of his village, but he does have a valid point about local farms being an abundant source.

I am loath to raid from those who scratch a living off the land. I have seen too many times just how thin the line is between subsistence and famine. But we do not have the time or the resources to negotiate with reluctant farmers. Sometimes, circumstances in an unforgiving world offer little choice.

“Okay,” I agree. “We go tonight, but I pick the farm.” Hopefully, I will find someone who can afford the loss without threatening their survival.

Before we depart, I find a long, straight sapling which I cut down and trim into a blind walking cane for Angie. So far she has just sat next to the fire, quietly stewing in her thoughts. Even during the brief time we lived together, that was a place I did not tread uninvited.

I am gathering extra firewood for Angie to use while we are gone, when Little Crow comes up to me. “Why did you bring her here? A warrior or two, now that would be helpful. But when we have to go to Wolfengarde the last thing we need is a helpless burden, and a blind one at that.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Angie calls bitterly from beside the campfire.

I carry the wood to where she sits and drop it, then turn to Little Crow. “She wanted to come, and knows a great deal about the Disciples and their ways, so I think she’ll help in ways you might not expect. Besides, I brought this misfortune upon her, so I couldn’t just leave her.”

“Sure, you could. You’ve done it before,” Angie chimes in.

Ignoring her, I continue, “Listen, let’s just take everything one step at a time. The step we are on right now is that we need to get a horse or two.”

“Fine,” Little Crow says, which I have learned is his way of saying that he may not have won right now, but he is not about to give up. Frankly, I am past caring what he wants at the moment.

We leave Malsum, both to protect Angie, and because the lioness would only cause problems by spooking our new horses.

We set out in the dark, back the way I came in earlier in the day. I recall what appeared to be a fairly prosperous homestead about a half-mile ahead of us, with at least four or five horses in a large corral. Losing a pair of steeds may present a hardship, but the owner will still be able to plow his fields.

A waning moon hangs above the eastern horizon, bathing the landscape in a harsh, cold light that matches the chilly, light breeze which pushes small islands of clouds across the sky.

When I see the dark shape of the cabin in the distance, I gesture to Little Crow and lead him across a fallow field, toward a stand of corn behind the corral.

We are about fifty yards away when we hear some shouts, followed by a woman’s scream. After a quick pause to look at each other, Little Crow and I hurry to the edge of the corn, where we both drop to our knees and scout out what is happening.

Two men on horseback are gathering half a dozen horses together in the corral, while the woman’s screams come from inside the small farmhouse. Light spills out through the open front door of the cabin, where the body of a man lies on the porch, with arrows sticking out of him, as if he were a pincushion.

“Do you feel like a hero tonight?” I whisper to Little Crow.

“Not particularly,” he replies grimly. “But I have never been fond of rapists. They have no honor, and every woman they defile represents Mother Earth.”

“You might keep that in mind the next time you talk to Angie,” I tell Little Crow. “You were pretty rough on her.”

He does not reply, but while I load my crossbow he points to himself and the leftmost rider. I fix my attention on the one to the right, and we both ease out of the corn, keeping several bales of hay stacked next to the corral between us and the small herd. We get into position, and when the riders circle near us, Little Crow makes a soft owl hoot and we both let fly at the end of his call.

Little Crow’s shot hits true, and his man drops without a sound. But just as I shoot, my target’s mount makes a sudden turn. Instead of hitting the man’s heart, my bolt sinks into his arm. He still falls off his horse, but cries out when he hits the ground, “Jorge, estamos siendo atacados!”

This is an Hombre raiding party that happened to beat us to the goods. But unlike us, just taking a horse or two was not enough.

Little Crow leaps over the wall of the corral to finish off the wounded man while I dash toward the house and reload my crossbow. I slip a bolt into the groove and skid to a stop, kneeling at the edge of the porch, where I can cover the front door.

Inside, the woman continues shrieking until I hear a loud slap, and then a man orders, “Cállate.”

“Qué está pasando?” the man inside calls out, and I hear footsteps approach the door.

When he steps out, still buttoning up his pants, I shoot him in the upper right chest, this time exactly where I intended to hit. The man staggers backward and falls onto his back. Before he can sit up, I leap over the porch and have my knife at his throat. With a moan of resignation, the injured man lays down.

A few moments later, Little Crow joins me. When I throw a glance at the corral, he nods silently, then steps to the edge of the doorway to check inside for any other Hombres. After satisfying himself that we got the whole party, he steps inside.

When he does, the sobbing woman inside suddenly goes hysterical. Apparently the sight of more people coming through her front door takes her nightmare to a whole new level.

“Are you alright?” Little Crow asks her, but she is too far gone to reason with right now, so he comes back out and shrugs at me.

“It’s nothing personal,” I tell Little Crow. “She’s going to need a little understanding.”

Little Crow glares at the Hombre, and grabs a coil of rope hanging on the wall. Within moments the injured man’s hands are lashed together and his ankles are hobbled, so he can do little more than baby-step, even if he regains his footing. When I haul the man up to a sitting position, then grab the crossbow bolt and jerk it out, he screams, and curses at me in Spanish.

One glance at the dead man on the porch, and I am tempted for a moment to push the bolt in and out a few more times.

Instead, I let the man drop back onto the porch. I pat Little Crow on the shoulder, then point out to the darkness for him to keep watch. I enter the farmhouse, into a large common room that serves as living room, kitchen and dining room, among other things.

Near the large fireplace, a dark-haired woman perhaps in her twenties sits on the floor, wailing. Her head is bowed, and her legs are sprawled under a torn, light-blue skirt as she leans against a rustic log couch. Her long-sleeved shirt is ripped in half, lying on the floor next to her. Since it looks like that is as far as the pig got with her, I may not kill him after all.

Blood drips from a split lip as she cries, unmoving, and holds her palms over her bare breasts.

I grab a blanket from next to the fireplace and kneel down next to her, then gently move her shoulder-length, disheveled hair out of her face while I slowly ease the blanket over the topless woman’s shoulders.

As I wrap it around her softly, she quiets down into sobs, and then stiffly takes hold of the cover, to pull it tighter around herself. A piece of her shirt lies next to her. I fold it into a bandage, and after touching it to her bloody lip, I place it in her hand.

Then I give her a few minutes to pull herself together while I survey the rest of the structure. Two doors open off this main room, both leading to small bedrooms. The first room has a single large bed, while the second has two smaller single beds. I squat down just far enough to glimpse two pairs of small arms poking out from under one of the beds, and decide to leave the kids there.

Returning to the main room, the woman gives a startled cry when I crouch down to grip her elbows lightly and pull her to her feet.

“I won’t hurt you,” I tell her as I lead her out the front door, onto the porch. She stops when she sees the trussed-up Hombre. Then, a moment later she realizes that he is bound, steps up to him and starts kicking him in the face and abdomen.

I figure that she is entitled to some therapy, so I let her get it out of her system… until she lets go of her blanket and reaches for an ax. Then I grip the ax and the half-naked woman turns to face me.

I point to the dead man. “Is this your husband?” When she nods, I hand her the blanket as I continue, “You need to see to him before your children come out. They shouldn’t see their father like this.”

She looks at me as if I just slapped her in the face, but then her eyes focus as she takes a deep breath, and I see a higher, mother’s instinct take hold and give her strength.

“Yes, of course. You’re right,” she nods, then heads inside to exchange her blanket for a new shirt.

Little Crow comes around the side of the house, leading the three horses which the Hombres rode in on. They must have been rounding up more horses to support their migration back south, now that a harsh winter is coming on.

“I have a plan for this one,” I tell Little Crow as I gesture toward the sullen Hombre, who glares at us silently.

“I figured as much,” Little Crow says with a mischievous smile, and we seat the bound man on one of the horses, after blindfolding him for good measure.

By the time we are ready to depart, the woman has come back out and we help her remove the arrows from her husband’s body before we carry it inside.

She walks with us out to the front porch while two small faces peer at us through a window. I would guess that the boy is five or six, and his little sister is a couple of years younger.

“I reckon I owe you my life, at the very least, and likely those of my children,” she says and holds out her hand. “I’m sorry I’ve been rude, my name is Jenny. You’re strangers to these parts, so who are you, that you would come to the aid of farm folk like us?”

If she only knew why we were here in the first place she would not be quite so grateful.

When I was growing up in the Nevada desert, my childhood hero was the Lone Ranger, and I spent countless hours in pretend fights. And while I never imagined I would actually enact such a scene, they always ended with the grateful beneficiary asking who I was.

It will mean nothing to Jenny, since this is one of those legends now buried in the past, but if by chance it catches on again, this is one well worth resurrecting.

So I tell her the words I always imagined saying: “My name doesn’t matter. Just call me the Lone Ranger.”

What might have been a cheesy response feels anything but cheesy; unlike when it was child’s play, a man actually died here, and a woman suffered an all-too-real sexual assault, so my words feel extraordinarily tangible when I say them. If anything, they humble me.

As I jump on my new horse and turn to ride away, it occurs to me that there are enough similarities that it actually may not be too far from the truth.

We make a quick journey back to our encampment and arrive a couple hours after midnight, according to the polestar.

When we enter camp, Little Crow removes the blindfold and presents our prisoner to Malsum. The hoodlum practically craps his pants and then starts pleading for his life in Spanish. When Little Crow sets the beast to watch over the Hombre, the lioness pushes the man down and places her massive paw on his chest. And when she licks her chops he actually starts sobbing.

As we relate the events to Angie I see her hands clench with anger, until she gets up and feels her way over to the Hombre. She leans down to whisper in his ear, and the man’s eyes grow wide while he silently watches Angie sit back down. I forgot that Angie and her mother were captured by the Disciples from an Hombre band, so Spanish is her native language.

“What did you say to him?” I ask her, as she sets her cane down.

“That Malsum has a fondness for human balls, and I’m just looking for an excuse to cut his off and feed them to her. So if I hear another word out of him, I’ll start with the left one.”

I go to sleep confident that the man is not going to budge.

The next morning we break camp, and Little Crow shifts the saddlebags from Malsum onto one of the horses we obtained. Then he fits one of the horse saddles into Malsum’s harness for Angie to ride on.

Being blind, she cannot manage a horse effectively, but as long as she holds onto the saddle horn, she does not need to do anything. Malsum is the ultimate seeing-eye animal.

We seat the Hombre on the saddle-less mount, and I take the reins of his horse as we head out. I will certainly miss Saffron, but the Hombre horse is docile enough, so I will have to come up with a name for him.

We cut across the fields toward the southeast. The farmers we pass stare at us, or more specifically, at Malsum. From a distance, the huge cat with Angie as a rider probably appears to be some sort of mutant horse, but no field workers are curious enough to approach us and investigate.

Around midday, I see the dust of a small mounted group in the distance, in the direction of town. One of the horsemen carries a large black banner with a red symbol on it. The modified reverse swastika with arms of scythes that represent the four seasons of the year signifies Disciples. I bid Little Crow to wait while I dispose of our prisoner.