The Broken Cage (Solstice 31 Saga Book 2) (12 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Good Start

“I freely admit to the killing I have done. But, I will not stand here and let you blame millions of deaths on us. Or, on Barcus.”

--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Master Chief Nancy Randall, senior surviving security member of the Ventura's crew.

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“Poole, I need a status.”

She ran back to the bodies.

“The plate is logged on, in local admin mode. I have created a logical file image of the device and have a virtual replica running. The device is configured to transmit its geo-location. As long as it is in the
Faraday
, it is secure. I was able to access the network for a few minutes before the account was disabled. I have all of this user's comms logs and local docs.”

“We will strip the bodies, and you will dispose of them. When they send more trackers, I don't want it to be easy for them,” Rand said.

Rand collected their personal items–weapons, belts, pouches, and even clothes and boots, if they were not too bloody. It all went into the spider's trunk. She'd sort through it, later.

She carried two crossbows and two quivers full of bolts back to the cottage with her. She was gone a total of thirty minutes. As she entered the cabin, Tannhauser said, in a worried tone, “She won't wake up.”

Rand set the quivers and crossbows down, just inside the door, and moved to the hammock. Reaching in another pocket, she retrieved her med pen and activated it. Several screens opened in her HUD, and the light on one end of the medical pen came on. Rand held open each of Vi’s eyes and shined in the light. Pulse rate and blood pressure were instantly measured in her eye capillaries. She held the other end to Vi’s scalp, above her ear, and it collected a tiny blood sample. It looked nominal.

“Poole, analyze med data. Triage.”

“Recommend 3cc dexoromathan.”

Rand adjusted seven rings on the med pen and held it to Vi’s thigh. The device chimed and displays changed in Rand’s HUD. Vi stirred, immediately.

Rand was on one side and Tannhauser was on the other, when her eyes fluttered open. The left side of her face was horribly bruised. The white of her left eye was completely dark red.

“Here, drink this, or the itching will drive you crazy.”

Without waiting for a reply, she upended a small, silver vial into Vi's mouth. Vi grimaced but didn't spit it out.

Tannhauser spoke in a rapid-fire flood of words in Common Tongue. Rand could not understand, so she turned away, to leave them alone.

Before she got to the door, Vi said, “Please, wait…Thank you.”

“Yes. Thank you,” Tannhauser added.

Rand nodded, slightly, and walked out.

For the next hour, AI~Poole gave Rand updates on the various efforts as she tended the fire in the smoker. She finally asked about the bodies, and AI~Poole just said they had been disposed of, as requested. She would later find out that Poole had carried the bodies away and was being kind by leaving out the details. When he moved out of the trees, he had dismembered them, tossing the legs and arms and other parts hundreds of meters out into the grassy plain. Carrion birds immediately started to feast. AI~Poole didn't know that the gunfire earlier had drawn attention. Witnesses observed the ‘Monster’ eating the men.

Rand sat on a log, reading AI~Poole's detailed report on the plate analysis, when Vi joined her. Vi saw that she sat there with her eyes closed.

“Tan says, you really are a witch.” She paused. When Rand said nothing, she continued. “You see, women are not allowed to do magic. Not allowed to do many things.”

“Like what?”

Vi's eyebrow rose. It was an odd mannerism on her bruised face.

“We can't own anything. We can't go to school, learn to read, make our own decisions, travel without a man, or touch weapons. We can't even wear our hair loose.” She was spinning up. “We can't wear buttons or belts or have pockets, or speak unless spoken to. We can't talk loud, or wear perfume outside our homes, or look a man in the eye. We can't choose where we live or who with.” She looked over her shoulder toward the cottage.

“Tan loves you very much.”

Tears spilled from her eyes.

“I am the lucky one. Fifteen years ago, I was a bed wench for a Keeper in Exeter.”

“Bed wench?”

“Yes. Keepers never sleep alone. It's unseemly. Two women usually, at least.”

“What happened?”

“I got too old. Never had a child. I was 'set aside'. When they put me out, it happened to be a day Tan was there. He took me up. He gave me a new life. A real life. He was never a believer. Until today.”

“Until today?”

“He says he saw things. Impossible things...magic.”

Rand remained silent.

“He says you can fly. He says you only pointed at the men and their heads were broken by your thunder, like dropped melons. He says you are immortal and can reduce a High Tracker, the hardest men alive, to truth, and screams, with a touch. He says my face was completely ruined and you healed me. He says there is a beast, a giant spider. You speak to it and it does as you command. He says one of those men
was
a Keeper and you fed his holy book, and his soul, to the beast.

“He says you are powerful, cruel, without mercy and terrible.” There was a challenge in her voice.

“He says you really do have magic, even though you are a woman. As much as the Keepers talk, few of them have magic. If any.”

Rand let her talk. She talked a lot.

“I always thought that witches were just stories told to scare children. I have never seen Tan so afraid. Not even when we were on our knees before the High Trackers. He is the bravest man I know.” She scratched her nose again.

“Don't scratch it, if you don't want a scar,” Rand said, absently.

“Strange thing is, I believe him. You hide it well. But, I see anger burning in you, like metal for the mold.”

“I won't hurt you, or Tan.”

“I believe you. But...what about this huge beast? He said it is a spider, bigger than the biggest bull.”

“Vi, it will do what I tell it to do.” Rand stood, raising Vi up with her. “His name is Poole.”

“It has a name?”

“Stand up here.” Rand gestured to the fallen tree trunk they had been sitting on. Standing on it made them about the same height. Rand pointed into the trees. “Poole. Show yourself,” she said, out loud, to the woods.

There was movement as Poole lowered his body from the pine cover. ‘The beast’ moved to a clear spot, seventy meters away. Vi gasped and almost fell from the log. Rand placed a hand on her back, to steady her.

Suddenly, they heard bounding steps, moving fast, and Tannhauser was there between them and Poole. He had one of the swords, the point aimed at the spider.

Vi spoke first. “His name is Poole.”

His eyes were still wide, when he asked, “Why has he got only six legs?”

This question struck Rand as funny and she could not stop herself from breaking out into laughter. It rapidly escalated to uncontrollable hysterics, when Vi joined in, after Tannhauser said, “What? WHAT?”

Soon, they were laughing, to the point of tears. When AI~Poole texted her HUD, “Well done.” Another realization struck her.

Rand knew inside that it was a reaction to the stress of everything that had happened, to the killing of seven men today. The thought that she had tortured one, the thought that she had also murdered a prisoner today was what sobered her up.

When they finally sat, once more, on the log and looked into the forest, Poole was gone.

“He is watching over us. He is the one that saw the High Trackers coming.” Deciding, she said more, “I can hear him in my mind. He is the one that warned us.”

Rand looked at them, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.

“We are sorry. We did not know they followed us.” Tannhauser spoke more openly, now. “Thank you.”

He brushed his fingers across Vi's nose and cheek. Even the bruising was fading. The nanites were busy. They would continue to find things to repair, until they expired in a few days.

“I thought they came for me. Why were they following you?”

“We usually winter in the north, the opposite of most trackers. Tan is an amazing hunter and trapper. We traded meat and furs with a village there, for everything else we needed, to the inn’s owner mostly.” Her face crumbled then she fought off tears. “Fern made the best stews...” Her voice faded, and Tannhauser picked the story up.

“Fresh meat weekly was easy. Tamas would even send a boy around with a sled and a horse once a week or so—fat rabbits and deer, mostly. We'd spend the winters quiet-like. Dreaming, and eating more than we should. And...”

Vi blushed.

“Then, the lad stopped coming round,” Vi continued. “Once two weeks passed, we were worried. The season had just begun and it was not cold enough, yet, for the meat to keep. Only the deep winter blizzards would cause such a delay. It was barely autumn, then.” She swallowed hard at that point.

Tannhauser said, flatly, “They were all dead. The village was burned. The fires were cold by the time we got there. The tracks told the story. Men on horses had killed many. The survivors were made to drag the dead and wounded into a barn. And then, once the doors were nailed shut, it was set afire. Anyone who tried to get out got an arrow for their effort.”

“But, there was more. Something else.” Vi looked back to the woods. “Other tracks we'd never seen before. Something...big. It killed them all, the raiders, I mean. It hunted them down and crushed them or ripped them apart. There was blood everywhere. It wasn't a battle. It was a slaughter. We ran.” She stopped there.

Tannhauser picked up the story, as longtime couples often did.

“We closed North Reach and headed south. We didn't want...We couldn't. They were our friends.”

Rand asked, “Where were you going? What was your plan?”

They seemed to look, guiltily, at each other. Vi spoke up first, “We took the raider's gold. We collected their purses and had more than we could carry. We buried most of it at North Reach and then we ran. We had never had money before. With what we carried, we could sleep soft at an Exeter inn and stay drunk all winter, if we liked,” she said, knowing they'd never do that.

“Then, we found another village that was burned to the ground. We have been heading south ever since,” Tannhauser said. “We didn't know we were being followed by a Keeper.”

“Why didn't you take their weapons?” Rand was thinking like a soldier.

“Weapons are forbidden to all, except the Keepers and their men.”

Once again, they looked guilty.

“We took bows, arrows, knives and other gear. They were better quality than what we had, but not so much that we would stick out. Trackers are allowed simple bows for hunting and knives and axes as tools, not as weapons.”

“Smart.”

They seemed surprised by this reaction.

“Where were these villages?” Rand reached under her tabard, brought out the tracker's map and unfolded it, carefully. The enhanced tactical map opened in her HUD then, as well.

“Where did you get this map? I have never seen one so well-made or detailed,” Vi said, imperfectly.

Rand pointed. “We are here, now. Which way did you come south?”

Tannhauser slowly traced a finger on the map from shelter to shelter. Her tactical updated as he did this. Tannhauser even added information regarding shelters that were not on the map. Eventually, he had to guess where the villages were, above the gorge, based on the location of the single village marked as Greenwarren.

“I grew up in Greenwarren. I wonder...” Tannhauser said, fading off into thought.

They fell silent.

“I came from the south and planned to go this way.” She drew her finger along a path farther west, to a narrow pass between two massive lakes.

“That region is so sparsely populated because the winters are so long there. It gets so much snow each winter, it's difficult to live. When you get ten inches here, they get ten feet there. This cabin would be buried above the chimney before the solstice and still be buried at the equinox. They say there are a few villages, but those people know how to live there.”

“Tell me about Greenwarren.”

“It's a forest village, a town. It’s at the southern edge of Thirl Forest. The mountains here create a great bowl of a valley where the winds are gentled and the soil is rich.” He indicated the mountains on the map. “You see, the trees there grow straight and tall, hundreds of feet high. The town harvests them for beams and masts and other grained lumber. It was the only city that held trade with the south. My pap was a picker. He selected the trees to be harvested. I'd go with him and help collar the trees.”

“Collar?”

“That is when a tree is picked and we cut all the way around the trunk. Then, it is left to stand dry for a few seasons. That is the key for a good Thirl mast. It's got to stand dry. When it is ready, the axeman will drop it. Done right, most of the bark will pop right off when it hits the ground.”