Horde (Enclave Series) (11 page)

“I suspect you’re right,” he said, surprising me.

He led me toward the town gate; apparently we would start the explorations at the beginning. In daylight things looked even more forbidding. I would’ve been able to tell that a military force was responsible for this settlement, even if nobody had told me. From the fortifications to the hidden defenses, Soldier’s Pond appeared more ready for war than Salvation, despite the lack of wooden walls. To my mind, now that the Freaks had fire, that might prove an advantage. Deep into the grass beyond the gate, I glimpsed defensive countermeasures: unnatural bulges in the ground and hidden pits, stands of wire, wrapped around devices I couldn’t identify.

In the distance I heard chanting, but I couldn’t make out the source until a group of recruits, all dressed uniformly in green, came loping past. I was awed by the matching cadences of their strides, the way their echoed words came perfectly in unison. At once I grasped the value of such training; not only were they strengthening their bodies, but the chant got them used to one another’s rhythms, which would translate to better combat timing.

Fade followed my glance. “You want to run with them?”

“Will they let us?”

“Officially? No. But they won’t break stride to drive us off, either.”

“Then let’s go.”

As the soldiers approached, we fell in behind them. I got my tour while moving at a smart clip, and I took everything in—the houses were functional at best, and some of them had a strange look, as if humans hadn’t built them. The cuts were too neat, and I had no idea how a person could construct something out of sheets of metal. Here and there sat the rusted remnants of old machinery, a few of which had once been automated wagons, but they didn’t move anymore. The whole town was ringed in open steel fencing, so you could see right through it, and then it had spiked wires across the top. I suspected it would be hard to climb, difficult to maneuver over the top, and it didn’t burn, either. There were eight watchtowers posted around the perimeter, and from what I could tell, the men on duty were fully alert, scanning the horizon for any sign that the trouble from Salvation had followed us.

I didn’t learn the words to the running chant until our third circuit of town. By then, I was singing them out along with everyone else. It made me happy to keep up with grown fighting men, even with the long hours I had been working in the field hospital. When we finished, I was sweaty, but glowing with pride. Fade looked more or less the same as we ran through what the leader called cool-down exercises; it was mostly stretching, flexing, bending, and walking around, but he was right. I felt better when I stopped gradually.

“You sure you don’t want to join up?” the leader asked Fade. “You’re a natural recruit.”

He shook his head. “No thanks. Deuce isn’t old enough yet.”

The man’s expression hardened. “Think about your answer, son. Your thirty days will be up in a couple of weeks. What do you plan to do then?”

Belatedly I realized what that meant. Fade must be eighteen, or thereabouts. He wasn’t sure of his naming day, I suspected, as the elders had guessed down in the enclave. But based on his appearance and prowess, these soldiers were willing to take him on faith.

I swallowed hard. “If you want to sign up and take their training, I understand.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m ever leaving you.”

That’s not what you said before.
I must’ve said it with my eyes, as I would never do so out loud, because he registered my pain with a remorseful look.

“I wasn’t in my right mind,” he said softly. “You have no idea how much I regret hurting you, how much I wish I could take back what I said. I’m grateful you didn’t listen.”

It was frightening how happy he made me with a mere handful of words, but my heart, stupid bird that it was, sang on.

Torn

Before returning to the field hospital, I took a quick bath; there were private facilities for men and women. I’d asked how they managed it and received an explanation about rainwater, cisterns, and gravity. To me, it meant only that I could pull a lever and a trickle of water fell on my head while I stood in a narrow room. This was similar to how it had been down below, but the water was warm in Soldier’s Pond. They used the sun to heat it somehow.

The shower felt great but I didn’t linger. Afterward I dressed and ran back. I found Tegan with six patients, one of whom was Harry Carter. The other two pallets had been rolled up and stacked for laundering. Since she was smiling, I took that for good news.

“They recovered?”

“Enough to decide to leave,” she said.

Her gaze roved over my wet hair, clothes still sticking to my damp skin because I hadn’t taken time to dry off properly. “Do you mind if I go to the bathhouse too?”

It had been long enough that she desperately needed to clean up, but I hadn’t wanted to say something like,
Get out of here already, Tegan, you stink.

“I can manage,” I said.

Since I’d watched over three times this number, not long ago, and we didn’t have any treatments due for a while, it should be easy. For the moment, I was content—full belly, muscles pleasantly lax from the run with Fade, and I was quietly glowing, too, over those moments afterward. Though things might be terrible again soon enough, right now everything felt all right. Or as much as it could be, considering what happened in Salvation.

Once Tegan had gone, I settled in the middle of the room, so I would hear if anyone called me. Sometimes the patients needed water or had an itch they couldn’t reach. At first it was quiet, then the pervasive whisper reached me. It was a thread of sound, my name rustling through dry lips. I brought the water pitcher with its ladle with me, expecting Harry Carter wanted a drink. But when I settled beside him, he opened his eyes. His face was terrible and sallow, which Tegan said was bad.

“Why am I still alive?” he asked.

It was an awful question, and I made up an answer. “Because you have work to do yet.”

“Do you truly imagine I’ll recover enough to be useful to anyone?”

I ignored the bitter, angry words. We had been keeping his wounds clean, so I checked them. He should be healing better than he was. I found that the bites had begun to fester—
again
—which meant they needed to be opened and cleaned. I hated this part of the job. Sucking in a breath to brace myself, I got one of Tegan’s knives and treated it with antiseptic as I’d seen her do. When I came back, he shifted away from me, horror in his gaze.

“Don’t do this. Not again. I’m never going to be whole. Just … let me go. Better yet, kill me. It would be a mercy. Please, Deuce.”

It was impossible to hear a strong man like him beg, and for a few seconds, I was tempted. The Huntress in me wanted to give him the end he craved since he had been denied a warrior’s death. But the girl in me shook her head vehemently.
Tegan will never trust you again, if you hurt him.
My fingers trembled on the knife as dual instincts warred within me.

Gently, I said, “I’m not doing that, Harry Carter. You might’ve lost your family, but you saved a good portion of the town. I hear you fought like the devil himself, keeping the Freaks away from the Bigwater house, so that others could escape.”

“That’s done. I’ll never hold a rifle again.”

“That’s a lie,” I told him. “You took most of the damage elsewhere. If you’d just make up your mind to heal, you could get out of this place and take some revenge on those monsters.”

His retort was sharp with bitterness. “‘Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’”

I recognized that as a quote from the old book Caroline Bigwater had been prone to toting. “I don’t mean to urge you to sin, Mr. Carter, but if it was me, I’d want blood in payment from those Muties, not the word of a man who lives in the clouds.”

“So you won’t have mercy?” he asked, low.

The Huntress in me protested,
This isn’t how I’d want to end my days.
But I ignored her.

“No,” I said. “And what I’m about to do may seem cruel.”

My hands were clean; so was my knife. With careful fingertips, I traced the puffy edges of the first bite. Yes, it was hot and swollen, already filling up with pus again. He screamed when I opened the wound, and he yelled more as I expressed and cleaned it. The other patients called out words of encouragement as I worked, likely hoping to ease his pain. Harry Carter was a strong man, but he passed out when I got to the fourth one, which was a blessing. I finished my task quickly, then bandaged the affected areas. By the time Tegan got back, I was shaking.

Being a healer is harder than being a Huntress.

“What happened?” she demanded.

I didn’t share with her what Harry had asked of me. Instead I gestured to his fresh wraps. “I had to open him up again.”

Her dark gaze softened. “Poor man.”

“I hope this is the last time. I’m starting to feel cruel inflicting this on him.”

She nodded. “I’ve never treated so many Freak bites before, at least not on the same person. It’s almost like their mouths are poisonous.”

I stared at her, wondering if that was possible. “
Are
they?”

“I need more information. I’ve been treating this like an infection, but so few people survive an attack, fewer live through the kinds of injuries Mr. Carter’s suffered. I wish Doc was here.”

“He wouldn’t know what to do, either,” I said, but from her expression, that was no comfort, so I shut up.

“Stay with him,” she ordered.

I sat down cross-legged on the floor, keeping an eye on Mr. Carter. For me, this man’s recovery had become a personal battle. He
had
to get better; it was a sign of things to come. As I watched, she went to her bag and drew out some stoppered vials. Each contained dried, crushed herbs, and Tegan muttered to herself as she set a kettle on the hearth, added water, then pinches of this and that. The resulting mixture smelled really vile.

“Is he supposed to drink that?”

She shook her head. “I’m going to pour it into his bites.”

“What is it?”

“I have no idea. I’m combining ingredients that Doc told me were good for various things: fever, bee stings, snakebite, pain, swelling. I might make things worse, but I have to try.”

Studying Carter, I didn’t think it was possible to make him sicker. He was already begging for death. “We should do it before his wounds close and we have to hurt him again.”

“My thoughts exactly. It has to cool a little first, or we’ll burn him.”

That took a while. But it was a kindness that Carter didn’t rouse while we doused his injuries and wrapped them up again. It was too soon to say whether it helped, but I liked that we were trying something new, not just repeating past efforts and hoping for the best. I spooned some water into him and figured that was all I could do tonight.

Tegan sat back with a weary sigh. “Now we wait and see.”

By morning, however, we saw a vast improvement. His skin tone was better—bright and warm—instead of the ashy gray that marked a man for death. Tegan hugged me, and I squeezed her back, though I hadn’t done anything except stick around. We sped through our morning rituals, the cleaning and tending. At least we didn’t have to feed patients anymore; they were all well enough to hold a cup or a spoon.

Carter’s eyes were sharp and alert as I handed him a mug of broth. With my help, he struggled to a sitting position for the first time since we arrived in Soldier’s Pond. I took it as a personal victory. His hands shook but he downed it all.

“More?” he asked.

I refilled him. “Decided to live, have you?”

“It’s obvious you won’t let me die, so I better quit malingering and get back to the fight.” In his quiet expression, I saw gratitude.

“Thank Tegan,” I said. “She’s the doctor, not me.”

I felt so incredibly proud of her. With nobody’s help, she had come up with a successful treatment for Freak bites. I hoped she recalled the exact proportions of the remedy because I had a feeling we would need that tincture again in the near future. The Freaks hadn’t quit the field; they just hadn’t reached Soldier’s Pond yet. So that meant this was, at best, a lull before the worst of the storm.

Part of me felt anxious and unsettled. We should be laying battle plans, but I had no part in any such arrangements. Here I wasn’t even old enough to join the military. Once again, I had been relegated to the rank of child, regardless of what I could offer. I didn’t regret the time I had spent on nursing, but my skills were better suited to fighting the enemy.

Carter seemed to read my mood and his own expression grew somber. “Don’t worry. I’ll be on the front lines when the time comes.”

“That means a lot to me.”

I wasn’t joking. If I couldn’t have Longshot, then Harry Carter was the next best thing. He was Salvation’s hero, and I had no doubt that once he recovered his strength, he would be a powerful force in the war against the Freaks. He wore a determined look, as focused on recuperation as he had been on despair. If they weren’t terrifying monsters, I’d pity the beasts.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Tegan said then. “But isn’t it time you rejoined your family? I appreciate your help and all, but I can manage these patients on my own.”

“Are you dismissing me?”

“I believe I am.”

“I’ll swing by to check on you tomorrow,” I said to Carter.

He bobbed his head. “I’ll look forward to it. I might even be strong enough to eat my next meal in the mess I’ve been hearing so much about. Still say food cooked in a place with a name like that can’t be too delicious, though.”

I smiled. “You’re not wrong.”

Though Fade hadn’t showed me the way to Edmund’s shop, I followed my nose. Tanning leather created an unmistakable smell, so it was fairly easy to locate. The workshop was located near the house they had been assigned, closer than it had been in Salvation. I stepped into the shop, inhaling the familiar scents. The process of creating leather from skins was noisome, but the finished product smelled better. Edmund was behind a makeshift counter, checking measurements before he cut the sole. Noises in back said Fade and maybe Rex were here too.