Stalker jerked his head in an approving nod, his pale eyes glimmering in excitement. “That sounds better. Once we settle, the Freaks will find us. It’ll just be a matter of whether we can defeat them. But that’s a fight the men can get behind. Most of them came out expecting to die anyway or looking for the thrill of battle. You haven’t been offering that.”
It was true. I’d thought it best not to engage or rile the Freaks more than necessary while we built our numbers. But that wasn’t happening. Time to change strategies.
“Thank you. Without you, this would be doomed to fail.”
“Probably,” he said with a trace of his old cockiness.
But the look wasn’t leavened with wistful yearning. Stalker had closed the door on that desire at last. I followed him back to camp, where Spence was stirring the soup. Everyone else talked quietly, tended to their weapons, or both.
I cleared my throat to draw their attention. “I’m sorry our efforts haven’t been as fruitful as I’d hoped. But that part is done. From here on out, we’re taking the fight to the enemy, hard. Maybe we can’t fight the horde, but we can keep our part of the world safe.”
From there I outlined the strategy Stalker and I had agreed on. The men seemed enthusiastic, eager even, to defend the forest near Soldier’s Pond. Satisfaction replaced a fraction of the shame. We might not be marching an army to face the horde, but this, we could do. I recalled how the Freaks had created a village in the forest near Salvation; we would do the same to them at Soldier’s Pond, and we’d learn every root, branch, and tree, every shadow, until there was nowhere they could find us. If we couldn’t face them en masse, we’d kill them one by one.
We would be ghosts of the forest.
That night, everyone seemed in much brighter spirits. The return trip took us over a week, as we had been traveling steadily east since we left Soldier’s Pond—all the way to the ocean—and that was a hard march. There were settlements to the west too, but we hadn’t gotten that far before failure squashed me like a bug. But I felt better, now that we had an attainable goal.
Nine days of tough travel later, I glimpsed the prickly green trees rising in the distance. Soldier’s Pond lay on the other side, flush with the river, but we weren’t going that far. In addition to occasional hunting, our supplies from Gaspard were holding out fine, and we had to support ourselves in the wilderness. The Freaks were smart enough to study our habits, so if we made regular runs to town, they’d strike when we stepped into the open.
I didn’t intend to make it easy. “There may not be many of us, but we’ll teach the Freaks to fear us. Too long we’ve cowered in ruins and in settlements. It’s time to take back our land.”
Yes, it was just one patch of forest, but I felt like we were drawing a line. Maybe that was just optimism, but I preferred it to despair. The men knew better than to cheer, but they raised their hands in silent anticipation of the killing to come. A few drew their weapons and flourished them. That put a smile on my face. I might not have an army yet, but I’d choose these valiant warriors over a horde any day.
“Will you scout the area?” I asked Stalker.
He nodded. “I’ll take Hammond and Sands.”
“Find us a likely spot, something defensible,” I suggested.
He acknowledged that remark with a vague gesture and the three moved off. The rest of us waited in the green shadow of the trees. Dried needles carpeted the ground here and there, relics of a drought. Tegan came up beside me; she was thin and tan from our time on the road, and she hardly limped at all anymore. I didn’t err by asking how her leg was, either. She was more than an old injury.
“This isn’t how I pictured it when we left,” she said.
“Me either.”
I had imagined myself at the head of a glorious army, unlike any seen since the old world imploded. Instead, at the end of six weeks, I still had twelve volunteers and we were preparing to take a stand in a wood near the town where we started. Momma Oaks would say this was a lesson in humility, teaching me not to put the cart before the horse—and probably, she was right.
Spence said, “It’s better to be out here, preparing to fight. It makes me feel like I’m doing something, at least.”
Tully aimed a fond smile at him. “He hated the endless drills. Said it made him feel like they were training him for a day that would never come.”
“They want us ready to fight, but they don’t really want to battle the Muties,” Spence snapped. “We don’t spend nearly enough time on patrol or hold enough ground. If I wanted to work in the animal sheds, I wouldn’t have enlisted.”
I’d noticed that about Soldier’s Pond. For a town full of warriors, they saw relatively little battle. They sent men out on patrols only enough to keep the immediate area clear, and that was a curious way to live, like the Freak Dr. Wilson kept caged in Winterville. I’d call it mere existence because a barbed metal fence defined their lives. To some extent, I’d felt that way in Salvation too. In my heart, I wanted the world to be safe for humans to travel.
At length, the scouts returned with word that they’d found a suitable location. And when I saw it, I approved the spot at once, a clearing with bits of blue sky showing through the canopy, and the tree limbs overhead were tangled enough that they could support small structures. When my eyes turned up, Fade glanced that way too. He was pale beneath his copper glow; and I feared this reminded him too much of his abduction.
Then he said, echoing my thought, “We could start by building platforms, walkways amid the trees. Cut some timber to use the branches to form a makeshift roof.”
Tully pointed to a straight, sturdy limb. “I could perch up there, shooting Freaks.”
She was walking death with her crossbow, and the monsters had no comparable weapons. The others spread out, assessing the terrain and deciding how they could best turn it against our enemies. With a smile, I turned to Stalker and his men.
“Perfect. Great work.” Then I called to Thornton, “Do you have that hand ax?”
“Of course. Never go anywhere without it.”
I pitched my voice to carry. “Then get to work. There’s no telling how long we have until the Freaks find us. I intend to be ready.”
Embattled
We worked undisturbed in the forest for a week.
That was good, as it gave us time to implement some of our plans. The roof would take longer, of course, but we cut and split enough young trees to establish the walkways Fade had mentioned. With judicious use of our limited supplies, we employed twine, vines, and resin to fix the logs in place. Tully got her shooting perch as well. By the time we finished, the camouflage was complete, and you wouldn’t notice our camp in the boughs unless you were looking for it. Cooking still took place on the ground, of course, but it looked more like an isolated fire than a settlement, which was exactly what we wanted.
In time, the smoke drew enemies to us. That, too, was part of the plan.
A Freak hunting party stalked into the clearing just before dawn, probably expecting to catch a trapper unaware. They stopped, all twenty of them, to stare at the unattended fire. This was a risk, but they already had fire, thanks to our outpost, and they’d demonstrated no problems protecting the flame for long periods, which showed cognition of the consequences should it go out. The way they were developing—and with what Dr. Wilson had said about their collective memory—it wouldn’t surprise me if they figured out how to start one on their own ere long.
One of them snarled at the rest, then gestured. He’s giving orders. Then the Freaks fanned out, sniffing around the clearing. But before they could figure out we were up above, I signaled Tully, and the attack commenced. She loosed a bolt from her perch, spearing the leader through the throat. The hit was clean until the beast clawed the metal out of its neck, then blood sprayed everywhere. His soldiers reacted with less panic than I’d expected, but without his leadership, they needed to be more focused in order to take out opponents with a battle plan and superior placement.
From beside her, Spence shot two more. Using shooting irons was a risk. If there were more in the vicinity, they’d hear the noise and come to aid their brethren, but the alternative was putting the rest of us on the ground before we softened them up. From what Stalker said, the horde was east of Salvation, not west. Once they found Gaspard, they’d probably harry that area for a while, not that it would do them any good. The way that town was situated, unless the beasts could approach by sea or find a way over that massive wall, then the only way they could hurt the people within would be to starve them out.
That left us with seventeen Freaks to kill. I nodded my approval to Tegan, who still had my rifle. She inched forward on the platform, braced, and fired. Though her aim wasn’t all that good, the higher vantage helped. I suspected she hadn’t intended to shoot one through the back, but it worked. The monster cried out in rage and spun, snarling a challenge. Not a fatal shot. She unloaded again, this time catching the Freak in the chest, and that ended it. From her exultant expression, it felt good to assert her strength. I didn’t undervalue her healing skills, but defensive ability made a person feel powerful, and she needed that.
Tully reloaded and killed another one, Spence accounted for two more. That was what I had been waiting for—slightly better odds. The men needed a decisive victory to restore the morale we’d lost wandering around and begging for help. I gave the signal to leap down and began the next stage of the battle. As one, we attacked from above. To me, the others were a blur of fists and blades. I had my knives out before the first Freak reached me. It lunged and I replied with a lightning slice of my wrist.
It felt good to cut its throat.
Another took its place. The clearing was a mass of snarls and lashing claws, snapping fangs. Fade fought his way to my side and took his position at my back. We fought as we always had, like one person, and the beauty of our coordinated movements felt like sparking. Stalker was a whirlwind of graceful savagery; everywhere he moved, the beasts went down. Tegan’s gun went quiet, and I suspected she didn’t trust herself to fire while we were fighting. I respected her for knowing her limitations, even as one of Tully’s bolts slammed into the monster I was battling.
As I took on another, I glanced over at Thornton, who stunned a beast with his weighted fist and Morrow ran it through. They were efficient together, brute force coupled with finesse. Morrow saw me looking and winked, then he whirled back into the fight. Behind me, Fade fought with his whole body—elbows, shoulders, knees—while deftly avoiding their snapping jaws. I blocked a feint in my direction, then tried a new maneuver; I launched a kick, and when the Freak leapt back to avoid it, I disemboweled it on a low, forward rush.
Our plan turned into a chaotic melee with Freaks moving wildly. Some lashed out at whomever was nearby; others fled. Tully and Spence dropped the last two as they bounded toward the edge of the clearing. I was breathing hard but euphoric. This definitely counted as a victory. All around me, the men were celebrating.