A Fractured World: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure (Gallen Book 1) (4 page)

Six

The sun rose, insipid warmth spreading from a feeble blue sky slashed with deep ravines of crimson. Dry thunder boomed in the distance and twisted grey clouds scudded in the light wind.

They had walked all night and as dawn had come they were still walking and waiting for the bandits to return. Stone had wounded them but that wound would need to be avenged and a violent reaction was something he knew and understood only too well. He had led them through the final miles of the city, along rubble filled streets littered with rusted and scorched vehicles, past the shattered buildings whose dark openings were akin to soulless eyes. The hours stretched until they had reached an iron bridge spanning a waterless river bed. Edging past long forgotten barricades, they had slowly traversed it.

Stone led from the front, cradling his rifle, goggles over his eyes, battered hat pulled down onto his head, blood stained long coat flapping in the wind.

Clear of the dead city, a weak sun touching skin, they trudged along a pitted and potholed road, slicing its way through a blistered scrubland, a land of parched canyons and blackened hills dotted with stunted dead trees. Exhausted and battered, Stone urged them off the road and into the brush, the ground hard and stubbly underfoot. He looked back once, checking that Emil and Tomas was keeping pace with him. The city behind them was a grey smudge, an ugly pile of broken concrete. He kept walking, eyes scanning, always alert. Emil was calling to him but he ignored her. She was an outsider, like him, belonging nowhere and to no one. In the years of crossing the wasteland, drifting from settlement to settlement, he had heard of the Blood Sun tribe, but had never encountered them. She had lost everything to them and, last night, he had almost lost Tomas but his friend was still here and he had no words for the strange girl with the strange powers - so he kept walking, breathing, surviving and waiting.

Walk. Breathe. Survive. Wait.

Walk. Breathe. Survive…

“Stone,” said Tomas. “I need to rest.”

She had healed his wounds but he was still limping. She had told them that she had never healed a man with such terrible wounds before. She had kept him alive and the blood was gone and scars showed on his skin but she knew it would take time for everything to be right once more. Stone had watched her vomit several times after healing Tomas, curious if the sickness was a punishment for her odd ability. Scouting ahead, he located a depression where they could rest out of sight. He took up position away from them, in the brush, and kept watch, sweeping the empty landscape with his binoculars, rifle on the ground next to him.

“How are you feeling?” asked Emil.

“Sore,” said Tomas, stretching. “The leg still hurts. Chest not too bad.”

He reached into his pack for a bottle of water that he had boiled last night and allowed to cool.

“Thirsty,” he said, gulping it down, drops spilling over his chin. Sheepishly, he offered it to her. “Would you like some?”

She took a few sips before handing the bottle back.

“I thought, you know, thought I was dead. Everything got fuzzy. I kept blacking out. You saved my life.”

“You saved mine,” smiled Emil.

Tomas smiled back at her. He thought she was the most beautiful person in Gallen. Her ragged and dirty copper hair hanging bright around her face, her single green eye red rimmed. All the scars and markings across her skin, her face and neck, a trail of stories to be told, no more. She was so beautiful. She was so very beautiful. He was intoxicated, had never experienced this inner surge, never been touched in this way; the complete and overwhelming longing to hold and protect. There was an ethereal connection between them now, a spark that could not be seen. They were taller than any building. Stronger than any storm. They could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.

“You get sick, don’t you?” he asked, stumbling with his words. ”When, you know, you do it, when you heal.”

“It’s because I’m young,” she said, turning away from him, the wind snapping at her blood streaked hair. “Old healers, they don’t get sick. Last night, I couldn’t, I couldn’t heal you, not at first. I was so scared. I was more scared than when they killed my family. Who were they last night? More of these men you killed yesterday? Disguised as bandits?”

“No,” growled Stone, creeping back into the depression.

“You’re all talkative now,” smiled Emil. “He spoke last night, Tomas, begged me to save you.”

Stone grimaced and bit into a food bar. His eyes glazed and he stared blankly.

“Why do they call you Pure Ones?” asked Tomas, quietly.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Maybe it’s a sick joke. Look at me. I’m not pure. I’m deformed. I’m an ugly mutant.”

“I don’t see that. What I …”

Stone raised his hand and they fell silent, puzzled. He titled his head, strained to hear. And then they could all hear it. The distant snarl of bike engines once again. The roar of other vehicles. Growing louder. Taking his binoculars and rifle, Stone crawled from the depression and across the rough ground until he could see the road sloping out of the hills. Emil felt her heart thump. Tomas loaded his crossbow and drew alongside her. A silence fell between them. He looked at her and she looked at him.

Dirt bikes and customised jeeps swept down towards the city, burning rubber in a shower of dust and grit and noise. Stone wondered where their fuel supply was. He and Tomas had walked for years. The black energy had run out first. And then the horses had died out. And then the tyres on the bicycles had worn away to nothing. The vehicles skidded to a sudden halt and a large number of bandits sprang onto the road, clutching weapons.

A bulky man climbed from one of the jeeps. His face was painted black. Dark glasses obscured his eyes.

“I know you can hear me,” be bellowed, standing at the edge of the city. “You can’t have gone far on foot. I’ll kill you for what you have done.”

He paced the road, a machete swinging in his gloved fist.

“I’ll hang your body from the highest tree and the lands will turn red with your blood.”

Stone could hear him loud and clear. Emil clamped a hand over her mouth.

“I know who you are, Tongueless Man. I’ll hunt you across every…”

The bullet blew a hole in his forehead and tossed him against the jeep. There was a stunned silence amongst the bandits as he slid down onto the road, the machete clattering next to him. Stone immediately swung his rifle, looked through the scope and fired again, hitting a man brandishing a spiked club, sending his body tumbling. The bandits yelled at each other and dived for cover. They fired off a volley of arrows towards the depression but were hopelessly out of range.

“Why did you do that?” said Emil, and Tomas glared at her. Crouching low, he jogged towards Stone and lay down beside him.

“Better dealing with them now?” he said.

Stone nodded and fired again, clipping a man in the shoulder. He aimed again, squeezed the trigger and this time hit him square in the chest. Six bandits were back on their bikes, turning off the road and roaring onto the rough open ground. The bikers bounced and swerved and fired crossbows as they came towards them. Stone rose to one knee and kept firing, picking off two of them, bodies spinning into the air, dirt bikes flying out of control.

Men crowded around the dead leader of the bandit gang and lifted his body into the back of one of the jeeps. It reversed and drove away, followed by several dirt bikes. The second jeep bumped off the road and began to sweep around to the flank. It had faded streaks of brown and yellow paint down its side. Wire mesh covered the tyres and front window and men were piled in the back with spears.

Stone nudged Tomas and pointed at the move. The younger man crawled away, laid down his crossbow and reached into his jacket. He drew out an automatic pistol and ejected the magazine to check it was loaded. He threw one final glance at Emil, sitting in the middle of the depression, knees drawn up to her chest. The bandits swept towards them, bikes cutting across the ground, the jeep curving in from the right flank. Stone kept firing until his rifle was empty. He yanked the revolver from his belt and unloaded three bullets into the chest of another rider, sending him sprawling from his bike.

The jeep powered towards Tomas and he hurled himself out of its path. He opened fire, unleashing a deadly volley of shots, one after the other, loud rapid bangs as he took out two men in the back of the vehicle. The jeep swung round again but the two surviving bandits fired arrows instead of driving straight at him. Emil fled into the dense brush.

Gun empty, Stone yanked a knife from inside his coat and wrestled with a bandit who had abandoned his dirt bike. The two men grappled and rolled to the ground as another bandit tried to jab at Stone with a spear. His head exploded as Tomas fired off a single shot at him before racing after Emil, a hail of arrows ripping the ground around him. His leg throbbed but he ignored the pain and had no intention of being shot again. The two bandits from the jeep gave chase on foot, shooting wildly at Tomas’s fleeing form.

Stone lunged into the man he was fighting, driving the knife into his stomach and pinned him to the ground.

He yanked it free, blood spurting up his arm, as another bike roared towards him. He rolled, grabbed a spear from the ground and jammed it through the bike’s front wheel as it went past him. The rider was thrown from the saddle and the bike flipped over. He ran at the man, lying dazed on the ground, and pinned him there with the spear.

He looked back to the road, where he had shot the bandit leader, and saw the rest of the gang had scattered, tiny dust clouds on the horizon. Quickly reloading his revolver, he ran after the last two bandits. Tomas was crouched behind a low ridge, shielding Emil, firing at them. He clipped one in the thigh and dropped him to his knees. The bandit cried out and clutched his leg. The second man heard Stone approaching and began to run. Stone aimed, squeezed the trigger, and finished him with a single shot. The wounded man on his knees threw aside his weapons and raised his hands.

“Please,” he said.

Emil looked into Stone’s face. There was nothing there. The gun went off and the bandit slumped into the dirt.

“The jeep,” he said.

“Where are we going?” asked Emil, as the jeep bounced across the rough terrain.

“North,” replied Tomas.

“What’s north?”

“Not here,” he said.

“What kind of answer is that?”

“Chett is east,” said Tomas. “We killed Red Guard soldiers and you’re a Pure One. We go north.”

Stone was in the back of the jeep, cleaning his rifle and revolver. He had helped himself to a pair of brown leather gloves that were a perfect fit and fresh boots. Weapons cleaned and reloaded, he rested his hand on Tomas’s shoulder and pointed into the distance. A new road cut across the land. Nodding, Tomas steered towards it. He glanced at the gauge; half the black energy was gone. It had been a long time since he had sat behind the wheel of a vehicle and he was attempting to enjoy every second of it but the plan was nagging at him, spoiling the moment, turning his mood foul, and although he knew he would go through with it, the emotion he was experiencing was an uncomfortable one, one rarely felt, one he knew must be guilt.

The road was buckled in places but flatter than the terrain they had crossed. The bandit gang were a long way behind now and Stone doubted they would come across them again. They drove straight through a landscape that was patchy green and brown. Mountains rose on the horizon. There were no buildings or people anywhere. The thunder had long passed but the wind whipped at them as they flew along the open road, swerving now and then around a long abandoned vehicle or gaping hole in the surface. Stone ran his hands over his face and scratched his hairy chin. Reaching into his coat he took out a thick wad of papers. Carefully, resting them on his knees, he began to unfold one of them.

Emil turned in her seat, frowning.

“Is that a map?”

Stone ignored her question and traced his finger across the crumpled page.

“What’s north? I mean, where are we going?” she asked. “Is this all you do? Wander around out here?”

“Lucky for you we do,” said Tomas.

She glanced at him, sitting alongside her, hands curled around the steering wheel, looking dejected. She was confused by his sudden change in attitude but chose not to push him on it. The road disappeared beneath her and the landscape flashed by at an incredible speed. She had only seen moving vehicles once before but that was a time she was trying not to think of. There were stories that during the Before, when the Ancients ruled Gallen, the land was filled with moving vehicles and the black energy powered everything but all that had disappeared now. She didn’t know if any of it was true, and it was thousands of years ago, but here she was, moving faster than at anytime in her life, and it was thrilling. When the Blood Sun tribe had attacked her village, with the Cleric ordering his warriors to murder her family and friends, they had arrived in cars and on bikes. The thought dampened her sudden joy and the sullen look across Tomas’s face saw it evaporate completely. He was right, though, she realised, it had been lucky for her that they had been wandering out here. Imagine if she had run into any other building yesterday morning. She would now be a captor of the three soldiers who had dressed like bandits to hunt her. She had been lucky.
She had been incredibly lucky.
A frown pinched her forehead and she scratched her squat nose, fragments in her thoughts, not yet ready to take shape.