Exit Kingdom (Reapers 2)

He turns to the Vestal Amata who has watched the whole thing in silence. He starts to say something but then trails off:

Well, at least . . .

At least what? the girl asks.

But diminished so to smallness is the world that the least of anything is difficult to determine.

*

That is their fifth night at the cabin. Moses does not know how he will endure a sixth – for slowing down means growing blind to promise, and a cessation is the ignoblest kind of death. So what will a sixth day look like? What sallow universe will be born?

But he does not have to discover it, because before dawn on the next day the visitors arrive.

Seven

Two Men and a Woman " Bloodshed " A Plan " ‘Kill em Good’ " A Kiss and a Belt " A Showdown on the Bridge " Shooting Wild " A Farmhouse " On the Topic of Family " Void " An Apology " The Love of Broken Things " Gunnison " Arrival

It is the Vestal who wakes Moses when the light is still grey and misty. It is no longer snowing, and instead of the tap-tap-tap of the flakes on the windowpanes, there is only a muffled silence that sanctuarizes their small and fractured home.

The Vestal says nothing. She simply puts a hand against Moses’ cheek, and he wakes. He opens his eyes to see her holding a finger to her lips, hushing him. She points to a window and bids him to wait and listen.

He remains still, and then he can hear it. The stuttering groan of snow beneath clumsy boots. It is difficult to sneak up on someone in the snow. The ground itself cries out your presence.

Did you see them? Moses whispers.

The Vestal nods.

Three of them, she whispers. Two men. One woman with a bow. Fletcher’s people.

Moses wakes his brother, and they creep to the windows, peeking out from behind the ratty curtains they kept closed in case of just such an intrusion.

The men’ll come through the door – both at once, Abraham says. The woman with the bow, she’ll stay back, watch for runners.

Right, Moses says and nods.

What do we do? the Vestal asks.

Moses turns to her. They are all three crouched to the floor.

You want to go back with him? Moses asks her.

No, she says and shakes her head. Why would I—

You’re goin with him or you’re comin with us. My brother and I, we put our necks out there to get swinecut again, you’re comin quiet. No more sneakin off.

She looks at him straight, her eyes narrowed, as if she would consider this. As if her word of honour were a puzzle box she is trying to open behind her back.

Decide, Moses says.

Fine, she says quickly. Fine. Agreed.

Moses then turns to his brother.

The two that come in, he says. You and me’ll take em. No noise. Let the Vestal be the bait.

*

When the door opens, there is first one man – wrapped up in leather and carrying an Uzi swaying in an arc before him, as though he would pepper the room with rounds if given a reason. But as soon as he sees the small figure on the bed, he lunges and holds the Vestal down with brutal and gleeful force. He swings the automatic weapon around to his side on a long leather strap.

Found you, ain’t we? he says. Brucie, get in here!

Then the other man, a twin of the first, comes into the room, smiling and carrying two pistols.

Where’s your boyfriends at? says the one named Brucie. He chortles. They use you up and leave you behind? I guess that’s what you get when—

But that’s when he spots Moses, emerging from behind the door like a bearded leviathan, a monstrous bladed weapon raised above his head.

Brucie opens his mouth to say something, but before he can utter a sound or raise his hands in defence, the weapon comes down and shatters his skull, exploding his head and sending thick spumes of bone, blood, gristle and brain in a multifoliate bloom across the floor and walls.

The other, splashed with the wastage of what used to slosh around in his compatriot’s brainpan, shuffles back quickly on the bed, reaching for the Uzi – but Abraham rises from a pile of dusty blankets behind him, reaches around the man’s neck and buries a knife in his throat up by the ear. An arterial surge of blood erupts from the wound, but the man still struggles – so Abraham draws the knife deep and true around the underside of his jawline. The man’s head falls backwards against Abraham, cut off near to entirety, his neck now opening up in a huge thickly pumping cicatrix. Abraham lets the body drop to the floor and then drives his blade through the man’s eye socket to prevent him rising again.

It is done. The three wipe their eyes clean of blood. The Vestal picks a bit of gristle off her cheek. She does not flinch. Moses waits for her to flinch, but she does not flinch. A hard woman, that one. A woman raised in the midst of gore, chaos.

What about the other one? the Vestal asks. The woman outside.

Moses takes a sighted rifle from the corner and hands it to his brother.

Abraham’s got the eye, he says.

Abraham takes the rifle and goes to the window, putting the barrel between the curtains right up to the glass pane.

You got one shot, Moses says to his brother, or she’ll bring the whole cavalry up here. Can you do it?

I reckon I’ve done plenty of headshots from this distance.

Here, Moses says. He takes a pillow from the bed and wraps it around the muzzle of the gun to hush the report.

Can you still sight it? he asks.

Sho, his brother answers.

One shot, Moses says.

One shot, Abraham says.

They wait while Abraham sights it. Moses looks out the window through a narrow gap in the curtains. He can see the woman’s figure there in the snow, holding the bow with an arrow nocked loose in it, looking towards the cabin and shifting nervously. Every few moments she lets her gaze go back down the hills behind her towards the main road where the rest of her company sits in wait. Moses watches her, and her breath comes in clouds from between her lips.

Hold up, Moses says to his brother.

What now? says Abraham.

Moses turns to the Vestal.

You know that woman? he asks.

The Vestal nods.

She’s a sport archer. Can land an arrow between a slug’s eyes at a hundred yards.

She would kill us?

The Vestal nods.

Or have us killed, she says. She ain’t a bad person. But she’s a soldier, and she’s got loyalties like the rest of us. Hers are to Fletcher. He protects her.

Moses sighs and nods.

Okay? Abraham asks.

Okay, Moses says.

Once again he looks through the window. Abraham takes a number of seconds to steady himself. Then there’s a muffled report, a quick crack at the windowpane, and outside in the snow Moses sees the figure of the woman drop the bow and slump down quietly in the serene drifts.