A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds) (37 page)

Yishai spread his hands. “We can handle a raid. If their warriors want to throw themselves at my cannons and rifles, I won’t stop them.”

Roasted venison and steamed fish with carrots were brought out. Halfway through the meal, the door burst open. A soldier stood covered in dust and hatless.

“News!” said Yishai.

He ran across the room. The breathless soldier murmured a few words to him and pointed out the door a few times. Yishai touched the soldier on the shoulder and sent him away.

“What’s happening?” asked Wilson.

Yishai tugged on his dark beard. “What we expected.”

THE CIRCLE ARMY LINED a treeless ridge to the east of David like an olive-green thread. Weapons and bits of metal glittered in the fading sun.

Wilson and Badger watched from a second-floor window not far from the eastern wall.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Badger. “Can’t be more than two hundred.”

Wilson didn’t say anything. Smoke puffed from the Circle lines. The boom came a second later. Earth fountained in a corn field outside the wall.

“A cannon!” said Badger.

“I think I see it. It’s not that big,” said Wilson.

The small cannon fired again. The fountain of dirt exploded closer to the village. The cannon crew were obviously adjusting their aim.

The fourth shot burst through the palisade in a shower of splinters. The cannon kept pounding that area. After a barrage lasting a quarter-hour, the green army broke into clumps and moved down the hill. When they passed the white-painted target tree David’s northern cannon thundered. The shot tore a handful of men into bloody pieces on the hillside.

The men in olive-green reached the edge of the corn field and began to run. The villagers along the palisade opened up with rifles and added to the smoke and noise of the cannons.

The smaller Circle cannon had shattered the wooden palisade in several places, but none of the attacking tribals made it through the gaps. Most were cut down by rifle fire and died in the trampled corn. The handful of survivors fled back up the hill.

David’s northern cannon gradually elevated and got the range of the hilltop. Under fire, the Circle crew abandoned their small cannon and ran.

At the wall, Yishai shouted something and the villagers erupted in cheers. The sun disappeared below the western mountains as a group of militia wandered in the fields and checked the bodies.

Wilson felt sick to his stomach.

“What a waste,” he murmured. “A horrible, useless waste.”

“All this shooting makes me tired,” said Badger. “Tuck me into bed?”

BADGER HAD NO PROBLEM falling asleep, unlike Wilson. He tossed and turned for a few hours then sat at the desk and read an old book on human behavior from his father’s collection.

A clap of thunder shook the bedroom walls and vibrated the floor beams. Thirty seconds later it rattled again. And again. A wooden cup bounced on the floor. Wilson stood up.

Someone banged on the door and he opened it. Kaya was outside in a white nightdress.

“What’s happening?”

“It’s the Circle,” said Kaya. “We’re being attacked again!”

Wilson grabbed his clothes from the day before and strapped on his knives and pistol. The building continued to vibrate every half-minute.

Badger still slept, and Wilson touched her cheek. The skin was cold and moist.

“Cat’s teeth––Kira, wake up!”

He pulled off the quilt and turned Badger onto her back.

Kaya covered her eyes. “She’s not dead, is she?”

Wilson watched Badger’s chest rise slowly. “No. Still breathing.”

“But why doesn’t she wake up?”

Wilson pressed the reset code on the inside of her arm. Nothing. He tried a dozen times and still no response. Her pulse was slow and thready. He pulled back each of her eyelids and the pupils shrank from the light.

He found lemon oil and peppermint on a table and waved both under her nose. Nothing. He opened her clothing and checked for any new injuries. She didn’t protest and was as still as a beautiful, black-haired doll. Wilson rubbed his face with both hands and groaned.

“Wilson savisto, what can I do?” asked Kaya.

“What can any of us do?” Wilson stood up. “Please stay with her. I have to find Yishai.”

THE VILLAGE HAD CHANGED overnight from a heady mood of victory to one of organized panic. Boys with lanterns dashed through the dark streets carrying messages or a bag of tools. Nurses carried wounded to the western end of the village, where the cannon shells hadn’t fallen yet.

Wilson jogged toward the eastern section. He tried to focus on how mad Badger would be when she woke up. She hated being fussed over.

The northern tower boomed and smoke swirled around the top.

Smoke began to burn his nose and throat. Wilson slowed down and held a small cloth over his mouth. He whispered the sight-trick poem and the night became clear. From a distance he saw the breach in the eastern wall. All of the repairs had been destroyed and houses were on fire nearby. Villagers fired rifles through the breach. The fields outside were covered with muzzle flashes and a swarm of running men.

Wilson turned right and ran south through the streets. He almost collided with Yishai and a group of soldiers. The air hummed as the southern tower fired above their heads.

“Yishai!”

“Wilson. No time to talk!”

“The Circle?”

“Yes, but with more cannons and men,” said Yishai.

A thunder rolled in the east. Wilson heard a high-pitched whistle from the night sky then was blown into a doorway like a rag doll.

Silence.

Wilson shook the blackness out of his head. He stared at a child’s shoe on the ground. Brown dust and broken wood from the building covered everything in sight. Men lay under fragments of roof beams.

Yishai sat in the street like a brown, dust-covered ghost. Wilson sneezed and gave him a hand up. Another vibration showered more splinters.

Wilson felt a stabbing pain in his right arm. A long splinter stuck from his bicep. He clenched his jaw and pulled it out.

They brought the survivors to a nearby house. Wilson began to hear again, but a strange, high pitch remained. Yishai found a stylus and inkwell. He wrote messages on scraps of paper and handed them to a line of boys. Wilson thought about returning to check on Badger, but Yishai led him to a tall building nearby. The roof gave a panoramic view.

A thick fog of gray smoke covered the cornfields. Circle warriors scrambled through the murky leaves like locusts. The cannon fire didn’t seem to faze them.

The eastern hills flashed and a building exploded in a shower of splinters and roof tiles. Yishai handed him a spyglass and Wilson stared at a squat, boxy cannon. It was covered completely with charcoal-colored metal. Unlike the four-wheeled transports, the black monster had a dozen smaller wheels circled by two muddy tracks. Smoke popped from the cannon and blocked his view.

“Are we shooting back at this thing?”

“Of course,” said Yishai.

Wilson counted the firing rate. The armored cannon boomed and cycled every thirty seconds. Compared to the day before, this cannon fired more rapidly and the damage was ten times more serious. A quarter of the village was already in flames.

Yishai pointed to another ridge in the east, the one crossed by old 24. Wilson moved the spyglass. He saw a cloud of dust and three Circle transports barrelling toward David’s southern gate. Yishai took the stairs down to the street and Wilson followed.

“Maybe it will run out of shells,” he said.

An explosion and noise like a stone avalanche came from the south. Wilson and Yishai ran toward the sound. The south tower had collapsed into a pile of stone and wood.

Yishai spat on the ground. He grabbed two dazed boys and sent them off with orders.

“We’re abandoning the village,” he said to Wilson. “Take Airman Chen and whatever you can carry to the northern gate. There’s a ravine that heads west.”

“Leave the village? That’s crazy!”

“We prepared for this too. No time to explain!”

“What about you?”

Yishai ran towards the southern gate. “Go!”

Wilson legged it back to the square. He narrowly missed a collision with a small boy who ran through the streets yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Red Bear! Red Bear!” screamed the boy.

A bell near the square began to peal a regular pattern––two short and three long.

Sweat had soaked through his shirt by the time he reached the meeting hall. The building rattled from a nearby explosion and he took the stairs two at a time. In the bedroom, Kaya and another girl held a sheet over Badger to protect her from falling dust.

“We’re leaving,” he said. “Take blankets, food, and water. Find your families and anyone you see. Tell them to go to the northern gate. Does ‘Red Bear’ mean anything?”

“Just what you said––abandon the village,” said Kaya. “What about her?”

“I’ll carry her.”

“But how? Look at you!”

“We don’t have time to argue.”

Wilson grabbed his empty pistol and the implant manual and stuck both in his jacket. He wrapped Badger in a blanket and looked around at what was left of his father’s life. The air was full of the smell of medicine and freshly-cut fruit.

“Goodbye, Father,” he said.

He closed his eyes and whispered the verses of the strength-trick, then lifted Badger over his shoulder and walked heavily downstairs.

The streets outside were packed with running villagers. Mothers carried infants and the older children ran behind with packs or rolls of blankets. A pair of boys ran by with an old man on a litter. Half a dozen men waved their arms and shouted directions. The crowds swirled like a turbulent school of fish around the men, but mostly followed the command to go north.

The ground shook from a massive explosion and brightened the streets for a moment with orange light. Wilson stumbled in the gravel but kept going. Over the rooftops to the south a cloud rolled into the sky, coal-black and slashed with flame. Wilson turned away from the prickly heat and carried Badger at a fast walk through the streets.

The northern gate was open. Families with overstuffed bags and precious belongings streamed through the corn field toward a forest. A dozen soldiers sheltered behind overturned carts outside the gate and fired their rifles east.

Wilson followed the line of villagers over the muddy, trampled corn. The trick began to wear off and his muscles burned from carrying Badger on his shoulder. Bullets whistled above his head and smacked through the green blades of corn like angry wasps.

At last he made it to the trees. Wilson lay Badger on the soft ground behind an oak tree and sat down for a rest. The line of villagers continued along a trail that sloped down into a dark ravine. Wilson looked back at David. A dozen gray pillars of smoke boiled into the sky. Rifles cracked and popped inside the walls like a green wood on a fire. The dreams of these people were turned to black, useless dust and floated away on the wind. Wilson held his head in his hands and felt it was all his fault.

The charcoal Circle machine had slid from the hills like a disgusting snail and now crawled toward the village. It spat a cloud of gray smoke and the north tower answered with a boom. Half a minute later, the squat Circle cannon fired again and the top of the tower burst apart in a spray of stone and wood.The black machine continued south with a mechanical blat-blat sound. Soon the eastern edge of the palisade wall blocked it from view.

The line of villagers running out of the gate thinned to a few frantic boys. Wilson checked Badger’s vital signs. He knelt to pick her up when a high-pitched yell pierced the battle noise. Wilson looked back at the village and saw Kaya struggling through the mud and trampled corn. She held the black dog in her arms.

The northern gate crumpled in a massive explosion and knocked her to the ground. Wilson stumbled across the field as another black and orange mushroom rolled from the village. He helped Kaya stand and took the dog from her arms. They ran towards the forest as two more shook the ground and boiled into the sky. A few soldiers that had survived the destruction at the gate followed them and took positions inside the trees.

Wilson laid the dog next to Badger. “Where was he?”

“In the street!”

They heard a mechanical drone and a tiny four-wheeled vehicle sliced through the corn fields like a bat out of hell. The soldiers aimed their rifles but Wilson stepped in front of them and spread his arms.

Yishai stopped the vehicle a short distance away. The front was covered with long corn leaves, bits of green stalk, and mud. Yishai and a man sitting behind him were in the same messy state as the vehicle. Their faces and clothes were black with soot. A small wisp of smoke trailed from Yishai’s jacket and he bled from multiple scratches.

“Where did you get that?” asked Wilson.

Yishai grinned. “Captured yesterday. It was going to be a surprise.”

“It still is.”

Yishai pointed at Badger. “Is she hurt?”

“No, but she’s very, very sick,” said Wilson.

Yishai waved to a flat section on the back of the vehicle. “She can ride here.”

“No, I’ll carry her. Kaya and the dog can ride.”

Yishai spoke a few words to the man and the soldiers then sped away with Kaya and the dog on the back. He drove through a field to the northeast instead of following the path through the forest.

Wilson folded a blanket length-ways. He moved Badger onto the cloth and picked up the front while the man who had ridden behind Yishai carried the other end. The two followed the sloping path into the ravine with their burden.

They were alone in the deep forest. The other villagers had out-paced them along the trail and the soldiers didn’t follow. The well-worn path sloped down to a creek bed then up the opposite bank. After the chaos and shocking noise of the battle the silence made Wilson anxious. He pushed himself to move faster. They stopped only twice to rest, and for less than a minute each time.

After an hour of walking, the first light of dawn appeared in the sky. Wilson and his helper crossed a deep stream to a clearing packed with people. Yishai was taking stock near the center of who and what had survived.