Warchild: Pawn (The Warchild Series) (2 page)

CHAPTER ● TWO

Breathless, I find Grandfather in
our shack. He’s asleep on his cot, covered with a thin blanket, and he’s
shaking. He hasn’t stopped for two days. His skin is burning when I touch his
cheek to wake him. Without medicine—which we don’t have—medicine that takes
weeks to find at neighboring camps, medicine that’s too expensive to trade for
because we don’t have the proper items like blocks of salt and deer meat,
Grandfather may last another week—if that.

That spot down inside my belly,
where love and fear hold hands and fight for power, spins and swirls as each
one struggles to gain control, but I don’t have time to worry over him now. If
we don’t get prepared soon, Grandfather won’t need the medicine. It won’t be
necessary.

I touch his cheek again, stroking it
softly, until he manages to open his eyes.

He looks at me through slit, sleepy
lids and says, “Caroline? What’s wrong?”

I say one word. The one word we’re
all terrified of hearing. “Drums.”

“Go,” he says, trying to sit up. “Hurry.
Tell Hawkins.”

“Should I—”

“Now, Caroline.”

I back out of our shack, slowly,
toward the front door, watching him struggle to get up from the bed. He
stumbles, and I move forward to help, but he stops me with a shaking finger. “Hawkins,”
he orders.

Out the door and moving, I dash
between each individually constructed shack. Some families have found enough
usable wood from the abandoned towns nearby to add extra rooms and even a
window or two. They’re the lucky ones. They’re supposed to share whatever they
find, but when it comes to shelter, Hawkins allows each family to keep what
they can recover from outside our jurisdiction. This one minor allowance is
what keeps getting him elected to his spot as our GC, the General Chief.

Two roosters, circling and pecking
at each other, scatter when I run past.

The rain has lightened enough for
some of the others to venture outside in into the tiny marketplace, The Center,
where they trade food, clothes, and supplies they’ve salvaged, something
they’ve found, or something they’ve made, or something they’ve grown.

I look at their faces. Faces which
are so unaware, so unconcerned. They’re haggling with each other, fighting over
whether three hens are worth a pair of boots, or whether a bucket of goat’s
milk is enough to swap for a loaf of bread. From their reactions, the answer to
both is no.

As I push my way through, shouting
for them to move, heads turn and watch me.

Now they’re curious. Now they’re
concerned.

Most of them, if not all, have never
seen a scout run through The Center like I am, with such insistence and
madness. If Elder Minnell would allow me to use his mirror, I’m afraid of what
my face might look like. I’m sure it’s not a look I would want to see either.

“Hawkins!” I screech. “Where’s
Hawkins?” The fear in my voice is too revealing.

Everyone knows what it means. I
couldn’t have caused more chaos if I’d shouted, “Drums!”

Pandemonium ensues, and I
immediately understand my mistake. Mothers grab their children and run for
their hovels. Entire families drop everything in their hands—items they’ve
worked so hard to obtain—and scramble home. There’s wailing and arms flying,
making it difficult to pass through the frightened throng of people. I fight to
break through. When a young girl with dirty blonde hair falls in front of me, I
trip over her, land on the ground, and then push myself up and move before I
can get trampled in the mass of fear and confusion. I can’t remember her name
now. I should know it, but there’s too much inside my mind to pull her name
free.

It’s too late for subtlety, so I
have to raise my voice loud above the cacophony. “Hawkins! Hawkins! Drums!”

I grab Farmer Wells by the arm as he
tries to push past me. “Where’s Hawkins?”

“Let go of me, Caroline.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Down by his goats,” he says,
wrenching free from my grasp, disappearing into the horde of shoving hands and
crying children.

I look to my left and spot an
opening, lunging for it before it can close and swallow me within the panicked
crowd. Just in time, I reach Elder Lemon’s shanty and run around it, back into
the small alley. It’s clear. There are a number of homes on this side, but not
many. It’s too close to the woods and there’s too little protection from a
stray Republicon or a hungry bear.

I run. Rain peppers my face and gets
into my eyes, blurring my vision—or maybe it’s the tears. It could be either.

“Hawkins,” I shout again. If he’s
down by his goats like Farmer Wells said, he’ll be coming this way because it’s
the shortest path back up the hill. I see a streak of lightning, and it’s so
close, the thunder is almost simultaneous. The sharp, piercing crack hurts my
ears, and I duck, on instinct, even though I’m in no immediate danger.

Not from the weather, anyway.

I spot Hawkins trudging up the
hillside, panting, lumbering, heaving his body back toward The Center. He must
have heard the commotion because I’ve never seen him move so fast. In a place
and time where everything is shared, Hawkins is the only one that’s overweight
and plump. We all know he eats and hoards whatever he can get his hands on, but
nobody questions it. The GC gets to do what he wants.

At night, when we’re trying to fall
asleep, Grandfather tells me things he’s not supposed to, bits of history that
could get him expelled from camp. Hawkins, he says, is just like the upper
class from the Olden Days. The rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. Grandfather
says that everything changes, but there’s always a constant. Society, no matter
how big or small, favors those with means, whether it’s earned or taken.

I run up to Hawkins, and when I try
to stop, I slip in the wet earth and careen into him, bouncing off his great
belly, and we both struggle to stay upright. He grabs my shoulders for
balance—this giant, round man using a skinny, fourteen year old girl for
support—and somehow, we regain our footing.

“What in the name of—” he says.

I interrupt him, my words coming out
unsteady, but certain. “Drums. I heard the war rhythm.”

“No. Where?”

“They’ve crossed the Ridge.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod, but there’s enough hesitation
in my reaction that he asks me again, more forceful this time, repeating the
words hard, punctuating each one with a shake of my shoulders.

“Are. You. Sure?”

“Maybe. They’re close.”

“How many?”

“I—I don’t know.”

Anger flashes across his face. “You
didn’t look?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I—no—I ran. I came back, so I could
warn everyone.”

“You’re a
scout
, Caroline. That’s
your job. Foolish girl!”

“I’m—”

“Go back. Take Brandon with you.”

“But—”

“Do your job like you’re
supposed
to. Find Brandon, and you go! You find out how many there are, and then you report
back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need to know how many. If it’s
just a few of them, a small group, maybe we can hold out. But if it’s bigger,
if they’re sending a whole regiment, then we have to retreat. It won’t matter
how well we can fight. Do you understand?”

“How will I know the difference?”

“You’ll know. Go.”

I don’t wait for any more orders. I
don’t wait to give him a chance to scold me again. I turn and sidestep between
two hovels that were built too close together by the Smiths and the Lowells,
families that have been fighting over the same plot of land for a decade. The twelve-inch
wide strip of land that divides their property has been the source of so many
bloody noses and split lips that the others no longer pay attention.

Elder Lowell is out in front of his
shack, covering his windows, and Elder Smith is across from him doing the same,
both men trading verbal jabs about who should be doing what and to mind his own
business. They pay no attention to me as I dash between them.

I run back toward The Center and see
the men of the encampment doing what they can to protect what little they own. They
nail extra scraps of metal against the sides of their homes, barring rear
entrances with rusted heaps that Grandfather calls refrigerators. Back when
people used electricity—I’ve only heard forbidden stories—they kept your food
cold, and I can only imagine what that luxury must have been like.

The fearful shouting stopped, and
instead, it’s been replaced with screams of necessity, some begging for help,
some asking for an extra sheet of metal if anyone has it. Some are faster than
others, and they’re kind enough to help where it’s needed.

I’ve asked Grandfather why we don’t
just leave the protection in place, so we wouldn’t have to go through this
maddening rush to safety. This makes complete sense to me. He says I’m probably
right, but it’s because of Hawkins. Hawkins thinks that constantly having that
extra layer of defense keeps everyone on edge, keeps them fearful and
unproductive. I understand the logic, but I would rather have the peace of
mind. If I were the General Chief, I would make everyone learn to work just as
hard with one eye looking over their shoulder.

I find Brandon helping his father. He’s
holding a rubber tire at his side, and I can’t begin to guess how they plan to
use it. I grab his forearm, shout his name, and he spins around, surprised and
ready to fight for what’s his until he recognizes me.

“Easy,” he says.

“You have to come with me.”

“Not right now, Caroline. I’m
helping—”

“Hawkins said so.” I point with my chin
toward the upper valley. “Back up there.”

His father, Marlon, steps away from
their wall, holding the hammer like a weapon. “I need him here.” Angry. Demanding.

“Hawkins said—”

“I don’t give a—”

Brandon interrupts him, “Dad, I have
to.”

“You have to help protect your
family.”

Brandon shoves the old tire into his
father’s arms. “Here. We’re almost done. You’ll be fine without me,” he says,
and then to me, he adds, “Let me get my pack.”

“Leave it. We don’t have time.”

He pauses, studies me, and then pats
Marlon on the shoulder.

We go back through the village, sprinting
past homes that may not be there much longer.

Once we reach the outer edges of the
encampment, Brandon asks me, “You heard war drums?” His legs and lungs are
fresher than mine, and he has to ease back on his pace so that I can keep up.

Between panting breaths, I manage to
say, “Yeah. Loud, like there were lots of them.”

“That’s not good.”

“Hawkins wants to know how many.”

“How many drums?”

“No,” I say, huffing, trying to get
my words out through my constricted chest. “How many blackcoats.”

“Does he think—”

“All of them,” I answer, because I
know what he’s going to ask.
Does he think the whole DAV army is coming?

Our encampment is on the northern
edge of the PRV. We’re the forward party, or whatever you want to call it. The
first line of defense, more or less. There are hundreds of miles to the east
and west that mark the border between our nations, but where we’re stationed,
it’s the easiest path down to the capitol of Warrenville. Grandfather says it
used to be called Roanoke back in the Olden Days.

If the DAV really wants to ruin us,
if they want to invade and overtake the PRV, claiming it for their own, then
they’ll run right over us, down through the valleys and march through the
streets of the largest city we have remaining. There are a number of defense
points along the way, but I doubt they can withstand the brunt and brutal force
of the entire DAV army.

Everyone has known this for decades,
maybe longer, and the only thing that has stopped them was the Peace Pact the
presidents signed after the last Great Invasion.

The only question is, why has the
DAV decided to break it now?

CHAPTER ● THREE

I ask Brandon what he thinks, if
he’s heard any rumors, as we reach the edge of the lake. The drums have
stopped, and it worries me. Without their massive, booming rhythm to pinpoint
their location, there’s no way to tell where the army might be.

Brandon is still fresh, breathing
smoothly, bounding along like a whitetail deer, but taking shorter strides
because he knows I’m winded and having trouble matching his pace. He says, “I
don’t know, but if they’re coming, they have a reason. Hawkins told me one time
that the Peace Pact was never really there to prevent a war in the first
place.”

“It wasn’t?” I stop, bend over at
the waist, and try to suck in deeper breaths of the cool, wet air. Rain
splatters against the back of my head.

“Stand up. Put your hands behind
your head. It’ll open up your lungs better.”

I do what he says, and he’s right,
it’s better, but it feels like I’m breathing through a straw reed no matter
what I do. “Can we walk for a second?”

Brandon nods. “Sure.”

“So the Pact? It wasn’t…”—I pause,
sucking air—“it wasn’t supposed to prevent a war?”

“Hawkins said it was something like
a mutual agreement, you know? That we, both sides, I mean, were only supposed
to invade if we had a good reason for it.”

“Who would agree to that?”

“Desperate people, I guess. Didn’t
your grandfather tell you what happened?”

“He said both sides lost so many people
that nobody really won.”

“And that’s true, but—”

“But what?”

“That was a hundred years ago. They
have a new president now, and he may see things differently.”

“How’d you learn that?”

“Your buddy Finn told me.”

I stop in the middle of the path. Disbelieving,
feeling like I’ve been caught. “You know about him?”

“You’re not the only one guarding
the woods, Caroline.”

“What else did he say?”

“Nothing important…although now I’m
thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

It’s good that he feels the same. It
takes some of the guilt away. But I’m curious about their relationship, and for
a moment, the threat of war is replaced by a stronger need to know. I feel like
someone snuck into our shack and touched all of our things while Grandfather
and I weren’t there. “When did you meet him?”

“Maybe a week or so after you. This
whole time, I always thought he wasn’t that smart and the only reason he’s
alive is because we both let him live so he could give us information.”

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Same stuff he told you, probably. Pennsylvania
and New York joined up. Some bridges washed out. Simple things that don’t
affect us all the way down here.”

I’m wounded, in a way. My secrets
weren’t my own after all. I feel like I have nothing. “Yeah, that’s what he
told me, too.”

“I can’t believe I trusted him. I
bet he let us catch him on purpose so he could run around here as free as he
wanted.”

“That’s not dumb at all,” I admit. Then
I shake my head, disappointed in myself for not spotting the truth. I should’ve
seen it. “I’m such an idiot,” I say.

“Same here,” Brandon adds. “But, if
it makes you feel better, at least you weren’t the only one. You and I both let
him sneak around for a year. There’s no telling what kind of information he was
able to give them.”

I grab a heavy, wet rock from a
small landslide and sling it out into the lake in frustration. It’s the only
way to get some of the anger out.

Brandon grins. “Like that helped. Anyway,
I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine. The only thing we can do now is learn
what Hawkins wants to know. If it’s true that the DAV has sent a big group,
then once we’re back at camp, I’d say we better start packing.”

I agree, and now that we’ve walked a
bit, I can run again, but we’re going slower now, more cautious, because we
can’t be sure how far the DAV army made it. Or if Finn is hiding somewhere,
watching us, waiting to pick us off. In all the times I’d seen him, he never
carried a weapon, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t take us out with a
well-placed rock from above or a makeshift trap.

Once we’ve gone another quarter of a
mile or so, Brandon suggests that we move off the lake trail because we’re too
visible, too easily spotted by scouts or forward parties that might be moving
in for recon work. It occurs to me that there’s no need for Finn now—since the
DAV army is on its way, he’s done his job. He’s probably back home, wherever
that is, resting, enjoying his rewards. Most likely, we’ll never see him again,
and we’ll both miss our chance to beat him senseless for betraying us.

Another hundred yards later, ducking
under low-hanging limbs, soaked to their core and covered in moss, I learn that
I’m wrong about that.

Brandon and I both flick our heads
in the same direction when we hear a subtle, whispered, “Caroline…Brandon.”

Up the hillside, we spot a hollow
log, and sticking out of the end is Finn’s dirty, muddy head. His blonde hair
is plastered down onto his scalp, and he looks miserable. Serves him right, if
you ask me.

We don’t say anything. We move
toward him, scrambling up the slick embankment, and I assume that Brandon is
thinking the same thing I am: get Finn before he can get away. I don’t know
about Brandon, but I have damage on my mind.

Finn can tell we’re angry and moving
with purpose. He pulls his hands out of the log, showing us his palms, saying,
“Wait, wait.”

Brandon gets there first. He reaches
inside and grabs Finn under the arms and drags him out, then throws him down on
the ground. Finn rolls and sticks his arms up, begging.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “I swear I
didn’t.”

It’s steep where they are, above me,
and I crawl up on my hands and knees, then manage to put my knee across his
neck as Brandon holds him down. I pull my knife from its sheath and rest the
sharp point against the throbbing vein in his neck. “Liar,” I say.

“No, honest to God, I didn’t know. They
don’t tell me anything.”

“Liar,” I repeat, and push a little
harder on the knife. A trickle of blood leaks out from the skin and washes away
with the rain. I pull back, not wanting to kill him just yet. The dark red
continues to seep down his neck, but it’s diluted by the waterfall of rain cascading
down around us.

“Caroline, listen. I left. I’m a
deserter, and if they find me, I’m dead, okay?”

“What did you tell them?” Brandon
says. His jaw is clenched, and spittle flies with his words.

“The same, as always. That your camp
was the only thing guarding the way.”

“And you didn’t think that was
enough?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why’d they come?” I ask. “Why’re
you breaking the Peace Pact?”

“I don’t—I have no clue. I can’t
say.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.
Can’t
. I swear.” Finn
shudders and tries to twist his neck further away from my knife. “Get that
thing off me, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“No, tell us now,” Brandon says. He
squeezes Finn’s arms harder and shakes him. “She heard drums. Is it the whole
army? Is it?”

Finn’s lip quivers as he nods.

“How many?”

“Ten thousand, and that’s just the
front lines. More may come if they need it.”

I sit back, shocked, finally
believing that it’s true what Ellery said.

War.

Brandon does the same, and when he
lets go, Finn scoots away from us and puts his back up against a pine tree. He
feels his neck, and wipes away the blood. “I’m sorry,” is all he says.

I look at Brandon. His mouth is open,
and he’s shaking. I’m sure that he understands what it means, too. We, the
encampment, are in massive trouble. Retreating, running, getting away as fast
as we can, scrambling through the mountains for hundreds of miles, back to the
supposed safety of Warrenville is the only option.

Not for the two of us, though. Our
job will be to tell every encampment along the way. It’ll be our job to deliver
the warnings, to save as many lives as we can.

From this moment forward Brandon and
I are no longer scouts.

We are messengers.

The wind kicks up and brings with it
the smell of moss and sodden, dead leaves. It used to be a smell I enjoyed. It
was refreshing and reminded me of when I was younger, before the rains came,
back when we maybe had one thunderstorm a week, and I would play outside in it,
slopping together mud pies and smelling the clean scent that it left behind.

But now, it’s simply another
reminder that we are drenched and miserable. Like the rains, there’s no
stopping what’s coming.

Brandon lifts his face to the canopy
above, and I watch as he breathes toward the sky.

“Brandon?” I say. “What should we
do?”

He opens his eyes and wipes his face
with a soaked sleeve. “We’ll go take a look and then head back to warn the
others.”

“No… About him,” I say, jutting my
chin toward Finn.

“Kill him,” Brandon replies, getting
to his feet. He wipes his hands on his pants, ridding them of dirt and leaves.

“Don’t,” Finn pleads. “Let me come
with you.”

Brandon laughs, but quietly. We
still don’t know who’s out there or if anyone is watching. I think we may be
safe for now, because if anyone from the DAV had spotted us, we’d be dead
already. Brandon kneels in front of Finn. “You come with us, they’ll kill you. You’re
a deserter, so if you go back to them, you’re dead. You’re dead either way, so
we might as well save someone else the trouble.”

“I’ll tell your Elders everything I
know.”

“You said you didn’t know anything.”

“I…lied.”

Brandon looks at me. “See?”

I shrug. I can’t think of anything
to say.

“Or,” Brandon says, leaning in close
to Finn, “maybe you don’t know anything, and you’re just trying to stay alive a
little while longer.”

“I promise—I know things. Your
Elders need to hear it.”

“And what makes you think they’d
believe you?”

“Because I know what’s coming.”

“That doesn’t matter. We have to go
see for ourselves. I don’t trust you.”

“I do,” I say, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the look on Finn’s face. Maybe it’s something inside me that
desperately wants to believe that he wasn’t using us. Until I found out that
Brandon knew about him, too, he was mine and mine alone, and I’m having a hard
time letting that go. It’s childish, and I know it, but when you live for so
long without having something of your own, all you want to do is wrap your
fingers around it so that it doesn’t get away.

“No, you
don’t
,” Brandon
insists.

“What if he’s telling the truth?”

“I am, I promise,” Finn says.

“If he’s telling the truth, then
we’ll let him come with us.”

“He’s lying, Caroline. He’ll say
whatever we want to hear, and there’s no way I’m going back to Hawkins and give
him a report on something I haven’t seen with my own eyes. No way.”

“Then we’ll go look. We’ll tie him
up and make sure.”

“That still won’t save him from
Hawkins and—”

“Brandon, listen to me. We can go
see for ourselves. We can go see what’s happening up the valley, but he can
tell Hawkins what’s coming behind. Right, Finn? Do you know what’s coming?”

Finn says yes, cautiously.

Brandon thinks for a moment,
studying Finn, and then he relents. “Give me your rope.” He sticks out his hand
and waits while I open my pack and remove the rope, placing it in his open
palm.

“Put your arms behind the tree,” he
orders, and Finn obeys. “Watch him. Make sure he doesn’t try anything.” Brandon
moves around the pine tree and quickly ties our friend’s, no, our
enemy’s
hands together, then shuffles around to the front and uses the remainder to
cinch Finn’s feet tightly together. “That should do it.”

“You’ll come back for me?” Finn
asks.

Brandon winks, but it’s not
friendly. “Maybe.”

And then he’s down the hillside and
cutting through the underbrush. Not looking back, not waiting for me.

I push my soaking hair away from my
face. Finn smiles, or tries to, and waits for me to say something. I’m sure
he’s hoping it’s something good.

Instead, I say, “If you’re lying,
I’ll slit your throat myself.”