The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One (6 page)

Chapter Three

The Black Wings

T
HEY STOPPED AN HOUR OUTSIDE OF YOUNG POE’S KEEP to fill their skins with stream water, but didn’t dally long. 23 was beginning to leave the Axe Man’s River valley and climb into the Broke Tooth Hills. The Black Wings camp was near the summit of one of these hills, at the end of a trail that diverged from 23 through a thick forest of pines, bum yum and oak. They took this trail when they found it, behind a criss-cross of felled trees and long dead ‘lectric lines smothered by vines.

The trail was steep, direct, and got them up the hillside quickly, leveling out when the moon was highest in the sky. “We’re here,” Brook said. Mercer looked about, not sure where the tents or huts were, the fires, the people. This looked like any other stretch of knotted trees they’d just walked through, not a camp.

“How can you be sure?” Mercer asked, but Brook had turned from him, her ears pricked to the owl screech which had come from the darkness. Brook clicked her tongue on the back of her teeth, mimicking the chatter of a squirrel. After a few moments, a sentry came out from behind the trees, a long spear in his hand. He wore the same black cloak that Brook and Crow wore, his long, raven hair in a loose pair of braids.

“Welcome home, Falco,” the man said.

“Good to be home, Rainfall.”

“I see you bring a friend.” There was suspicion in the sentry’s statement. “And where is your brother Crow?”

“Yes, this is my friend Mercer. As for Crow, much has happened since I left camp. I need to see Old Wren at once. There are urgent matters I need to discuss with him.”

Rainfall came closer to them, his furrowed unibrow rising like a bump in a rug when he could see them clearer in the moonlight. “Brook! Your face! What happened to you? You are covered in blood!”

“There are killim in the Green Lands, Rainfall. Many of them. Now please, I need to see Old Wren. Where is he?”

“He left with a search party for you and your brother when the two of you did not return by evening. They should be back soon to replenish their supplies. You two should wash up and rest until they get back. It looks like you’ve had a very difficult time this past day.”

“We have. Thank you, Rainfall. I’ll go to my room in the long house to wash up. Don’t wake any of the children or old ones, but spread the word to all the able-bodied Black Wings: there are killim in the Green Lands and we must be extra vigilant of our camp. I fear all of Young Poe’s Keep was massacred.”

“All of Young Poe… massacred…” Rainfall let the words play in the open air, as if he was unsure of how to rein them in. He was old enough to be Brook’s father, but Rainfall had grown soft in the ways of war. The War for the Green Lands was almost three decades ago, and many had forgotten what a kin’s death by sword or killim was like. “And what of your brother? Was he…” Rainfall couldn’t finish.

“He’s alive, Elon be praised, but he was captured.”

“Captured? By who?”

“A band of slavers,” Mercer said. “The Wandering Bastards. Making their way for the lands east of the Hud. There’s an army gathering there, and I’m afraid the Green Lands might be their battleground for the war they plan to wage with Ithaca and the other cities to the west.”

“By the talons of Elon, what is the world coming to?” Rainfall said. He was leaning heavily on his spear, which made him look far older than he was.

“Get the word out, Rainfall,” Brook said. “Come get me when Old Wren returns.” Rainfall nodded and let them go on their way into the camp.

“He doesn’t trust me,” Mercer said as Brook led him into a thick grove of prickly pine.

“I wouldn’t take it personally. You’re a stranger with a sword, covered in blood, bringing strange, sad tidings. You wouldn’t trust you either.” Mercer nodded, the motion making his head ache. Gods, was he tired, aching in places he didn’t even have names for. Sleep would be a most welcome friend.

Mercer wasn’t sure what he had expected from the Black Wings camp, but it still managed to surprise him with its elegant simplicity. Hidden behind a thick row of hedges were three long houses, curved like crescent moons, each making up a third of a circle with small paths between that led to a central courtyard. They were built of hide and boxelder, and had iron tubes for chimneys spouting from their roofs. Smoke rose from all but a few.

“Come on, let’s get you washed up,” Brook said, pulling a flap away from the doorway of one of the houses. Inside was one large room, with small partitions of hide at regular intervals behind which entire Black Wing families slept on large beds of down-feather and hay. They walked quietly to the middle of the long house, where there was a metal washtub filled with fresh water. A plastic bottle of blue soap was next to it which had the words “Dawn” printed beside a picture of a baby bird Mercer had never seen before.

“Soap from before the Time of the Great Dying. This will get all the blood off,” Brook said, gesturing towards the bottle of blue liquid. She was taking off her cloak. In the soft glow of the fire embers, Mercer saw the curves of her small but defined arm muscles, made strong from the use of her bow. Her skin was a light brown, her shoulders lightly freckled. He looked away when she caught his eyes on her. “What is it?” She asked.

“Nothing,” he said. He peeled off his new shirts and began to wash quietly. Brook only splashed water on her face and arms. She felt something around Mercer she never felt with anyone else, Black Wing or otherwise. Was it embarrassment? Modesty? Black Wings all bathed together in the open. There was no shame in it. Yet, she couldn’t help but notice how Mercer kept his eyes averted from her, would half-smile at her as he scrubbed the blood away from his calloused hands. She decided that she’d wait until he was done washing, then ask him to wait in Crow’s room so she could wash the rest of her body. It seemed like the right thing to do.

She brought Mercer to her brother’s sleeping area and then went back to finish her wash. Crow’s room was neat, the bed’s sheets folded in perfect squares. Besides the bed was a small dresser with towels folded atop it with the same angularity as the sheets. Mercer grabbed one of the towels and patted himself dry. This room belonged to a man who liked things a certain way, who liked order and control. Hanging from one of the hide partitions was a belt of knives. Upon closer inspection, Mercer could see that some of the knives had silver threads connected to their hilts, the threads attached to the belt. An interesting way to wield blades, Mercer thought, one which he had never seen before.

“Admiring my brother’s knife collection?” The long house was so quiet that Mercer jumped at her voice, though Brook had only whispered. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay. I guess I’m just a little jumpy today after all that happened.”

“It’s one of two belts of knives that my brother has. Both were actually my father’s from when he was a young man. He was just a little older than Crow when he died. October fever.”

“I’m sorry,” Mercer said. At least he had known his father while growing up, though he had lost him at a fairly young age as well. His loss was of a different variety, however: his father had been needed out west after the poisoning of the wells at Ithaca, after his mother and many of the city’s other brilliant minds had died of burning bowels, bleeding eyes and cracking skin. His schooling had been cut short, he and his father having to switch places, the highlands for the city. “What of your mother?”

“I never knew her too well. She was… taken by slavers when I was very young. It would seem slavers have a particular fondness for my family.” Brook tried to smile but it made her face look that much sadder. “You have everything you need?”

“Yes, this is more than enough. I was sleeping in a tent for the past few years. I expect I’ll sleep like a king tonight.” Mercer saw her sad smile shift into a look he hadn’t seen since he had been little, when his father had taken him into the Karyatim Wild Lands surrounding their home. Brook’s look was the same his father had when he shook the hands of young Karyatim men made crippled by disease or hunting accidents, the teeth in their white-painted faces rotted black, their hair matted nets of lice and dirt. The look was pity, and Mercer felt his face redden. He didn’t want anyone to take pity on him and how he had chosen to live, especially not Brook.

Had it been a choice though, or had he been forced to wander the wilderness alone and afraid, too filled with shame to find his father in Ithaca for failing to protect his family? He didn’t know, or rather, didn’t want to.

Brook saw his unease so changed the subject. “We’ll eat in the morning. The fall forage was very good to us this year so I hope you’ll be hungry.” Brook stepped forward and touched his shoulder. “Thank you, Mercer. You saved my life earlier. If it wasn’t for you, I would have never made it back here, to my home. I’m glad I chose to trust you.”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you,” he said. His hand found hers and he squeezed it. “You saved my life too. I would have been a dead man’s dinner if not for you in Young Poe’s Keep.”

She smiled. “Dead men. So strange you call them that, though I suppose that’s what they are. Have you ever heard someone call them zombies? I’ve never heard it spoken aloud before, have only ever read it in books.”

“Some of the older folk in the cities out west call them that. I think it sounds ridiculous, though, so I just call them dead men.” He wanted to say more but couldn’t string the words together. He wanted to express gratitude for letting him come with her, for treating him like a person, but that was silly, wasn’t it? Of course she treated him like a person. He was a human being.

He realized then that maybe he hadn’t really felt human since the day the dead men came to his home and killed Nan and his sister. He had lost something that day, had let it slip from his fingers and plunk to the bottom of a dark well. Since meeting Brook, however, with the freckles on her nose and dry wit, Mercer felt he was able to glimpse what he had lost glinting at the well’s bottom, within reach of being reclaimed.

“Well, I’m going to try and get some sleep. Once Old Wren returns, this may be the last rest we get for some time. Good night, Mercer. Sleep well.” Brook stepped between the gap in the partitions and went to her sleeping area.

Mercer watched her go, the scent of her freshly washed skin still hanging in the air. He sat down upon the bed, made firm by a wood frame, and let the dark long house envelop him with its quiet sounds: the snores of its many inhabitants, the crackling of embers in the hearth, the dampened chirp of peepers from beyond the wood and hide of its walls. A light rain was beginning to fall, softly drumming on the roof above him. He slipped off his boots, his last thought before giving in to sleep being that that the first thing he needed to do upon waking was wash his pungent feet.

He was in his room, in the loft at the topmost of the house. Wait… his house? What was he doing back here, in the Preserve? Hadn’t something bad happened here, something which made him leave? He couldn’t remember.

He stood up, his hand instinctively going behind him, for his… what? What was so important that he always had it on him, strapped to his back? It couldn’t have been all that important if he couldn’t remember. He was wearing loose fitting cotton pants and a baggy cotton shirt and his skin was scrubbed clean and callous free save for those on his palms from tilling his father’s garden.

Pa
. Mercer dashed out of the room and down the hallway, towards the staircase that led to the kitchen below. The air was filled with the smell of eggs frying on the skillet and the clucks of chickens from the backyard. An old woman was at the stove top when he came down the stairs and entered the kitchen. She had graying hair tied back in a bun and wore a chambray dress that hugged her stout frame.

“Nan?” The old woman turned around, sweat on her raised brow. She smiled.

“Oh, you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence, I see.” She turned back to the stove top and flipped an egg with her spatula.

“You’re… you’re alive?”

Nan turned again. This time her face was plastered with reproachful wrinkles and lines, a look Mercer knew all too well from his days as a prolific troublemaker. “You watch your tongue, young man. I’m alive and kicking, as my grandpappy used to say, and plan to stay that way for a while longer.”

“I’m… sorry…” Mercer looked around him in stunned silence. He still had the feeling that something was very wrong here, that something had happened. “Where’s Pa?”

“Your father is out in the greenhouse, I believe. You should help him with some of the morning’s chores so he doesn’t get too mad at you.”

Mercer walked to the back of the kitchen to the door leading to the backyard. He pushed it open, but something made him turn to look back at his Nan before he stepped out.

It was as though a new person was standing there: she was perched on one leg, and her dress was dirty and covered in stains. Her hair, which had been in a neat bun, was now as akimbo as a hay bale tossed from a barn loft. He wanted to call out to her, but couldn’t find his voice. All the energy within him was drawing him outside, like the current of the Axe Man pulling him along despite his best attempts to swim against it.

Outside, the sky was the haze of a dream. The trees were plush with leaves, pulsing subtly in an unfelt breeze, as if they were the lungs of the whole scene, softly breathing. The greenhouse was beyond the rusted old backhoe and tool shed, abutting the pond. It was a large structure his father had built, made of a steel frame and a very expensive glass he had brought all the way from Lazarus Township. Nan said that in the old days, people had chosen not to build their great houses in the Preserve, revering the landscape for its natural beauty and spiritual nature. These were the reasons why Mercer’s father had wanted to settle there and raise his family.