The Divide Read online

  How had such immense buildings been constructed? What materials had been used? Wood rots after a time. And stone mortar crumbles. It’s hard to believe life was so different before the Golyat, but there’s the evidence, beckoning to the young and foolish.

  The group of men falls silent at Micha’s return. He looks frustrated, but that’s nothing new. The world around him is a constant disappointment, never measuring up to his lofty expectations. He addresses the men, but his voice is distorted by distance, his orders impossible to discern.

  I need to get closer, I decide. If Micha and his men devise a way across, I will follow if I can. Suffolk is a large island. There’s still a chance I can find Salem first.

  I land on the ground without making a sound, but being quiet means little when you land a dozen feet from two men with spears. I spot them when I’m already dropping to the ground, far too late to avoid detection. The best I can do is hope they’re fools.

  My landing alerts the two men to my presence, but I don’t look at either man. Instead, I recover my gear from a nearby bush and say, “Let Micha know that I haven’t seen a way across, but I’ll keep looking.”

  When I turn around, I’m greeted by spear tips aimed at my chest.

  The two men, who I’m pretty sure are brothers named Zac and Bents, squint at me. Recognition leads to confusion, and Zac says, “Eight?”

  “Lady Eight,” I say with a smile.

  Zac grins, but Bents, older by a good ten years, remains on guard. “Didn’t realize you were with us.”

  “Wouldn’t be a good tracker if you did.”

  “You’re a shepherd,” Bents says, knuckles paling as he tightens his grip.

  “And I track animals all day. People aren’t that different.”

  “It’s Vee,” Zac says to his brother, lowering his spear. I’m honestly moved by the sentiment, and that he used my preferred name. If I recall correctly, Zac is the second youngest of six children, the four eldest being brothers and the youngest being a daughter, making him the youngest son. “She’s the elder’s wife. She—”

  “Isn’t supposed to be here,” Bents says, motioning for Zac to raise his spear again, which he does. “At best, she is neglecting her shepherding duties because her son is over there.” He points toward Suffolk. “Or she is one of them, come to stop us, or she plans to warn the Modernists of our approach.”

  Zac grows more alert, his spear held at the ready once more.

  Bents is no fool, and he’s very well informed.

  “You’re wasting time,” I say, sticking to the act. “I need to continue my search, and if you’re unsure about whether or not I should be here, go ask Micha.” It’s a dangerous gamble, but the closer I get to the truth, the more believable it will be. “My father sent word that the Modernists had been found. I requested to join the war party so that I might kill Salem myself. You know who I am. Both of you. Though my station is low, my allegiance to the Prime Law, and to my father, is without question. As is my skill with a spear.”

  I’m not comfortable bringing my father into this, but it works. Bents is considering my words, the skin of his knuckles brown once more. It’s not much, but his relaxed guard might give me the edge I need to subdue the brothers.

  My oldest brother, the one killed by Micha in legal combat, taught me how to hunt and fight. While I have plenty of practice dealing with wild animals, men with weapons is a different problem. They’re smarter, well trained, and I don’t want to kill either of them, which means I’ll be holding back, and they won’t be.

  But I have little choice. Surrendering means facing Micha, and if my father is right, my husband is counting the days until my demise. He knows my dedication to the law, and that I’d never associate with Modernists, but my presence is close enough to guilt that putting me to death would never be questioned.

  While Bents has yet to decide my fate, I turn toward the river and let my eyes go wide, like I’ve just seen something astonishing. It’s a hard sell because from the ground, the river is barely visible through the trees. My gaze remains locked on the water as I wait for them to notice my faux shock and look to the river.

  Zac falls for it first, turning to look, but Bents doesn’t even flinch. Then his brother comes to my rescue, saying, “Holy shit…”

  Bents asks, “What?” a moment before I do.

  “I…I think she found it,” Zac says. “The way across.”

  Is he mocking me? Perhaps Zac is smarter than I thought, but only playing dumb?

  Then I see it for myself and know that of the three of us, I am the biggest fool. The churning water, white with froth, does a decent job of hiding the thin white streak stretching out into the river. So much so that I didn’t see it, probably because I was too busy pretending to see something.

  Bents turns to look. “I don’t see anything.”

  “In the river.” Zac points. “A rope.”

  When Bents turns to face the river, I reach back and pull one of my two spears from behind my back. I hold the blunt end high and draw it back to strike.

  “Maybe you were telling the—” Bents turns toward me as he speaks, fast enough to see my incoming strike, but not soon enough to fully avoid it. Wood strikes skull at an angle and glances off, but it still sends Bents to the ground.

  Zac spins around, shock in his eyes, both from seeing his brother on the ground and the spear in my hands. He has a kind of ‘I thought we were friends’ wounded look about him that makes me feel guilty for what I’m about to do.

  I jab the spear’s blunt end toward his forehead. The solid strike should crumple him in on himself and allow me to focus on his older, larger, and more dangerous brother, whose angry grunts and shuffling feet reveal he’s far from done.

  The entire fight plays out in my head. I strike Zac, and while he’s still falling, I spin and give Bents a few good whacks on the head, hopefully knocking him unconscious without killing him. What actually happens is a far cry from my vision.

  Zac is younger, and faster. He parries the blow and leaps back out of range. There’s a moment of naïve confusion and then it melts away, replaced by determination and an expert fighting stance that I recognize, but don’t know. While Bents is no doubt a brawler, Zac has studied under a master. The fighting techniques used to be known by many names, but like the people of New Inglan, it has become an amalgam of styles known as Jutsu.

  Bents picks himself up. “Eight the savage, wild in the woods, a dead animal in bed.”

  The personal taunt is meant to reveal just how much Micha has talked about me, not to mention humiliate and distract. But it’s a far cry from the things I’ve imagined my husband saying, so it doesn’t faze me. I turn sideways, looking at neither man so I can see them both in my periphery.

  “Zac,” Bents says. “She attacked us. No need to hold back.”

  Shit. Murder is against the Prime Law. Killing in self-defense is not.

  I wait to see who will attack first, hoping to repeat the trick I used on the lion. But I’m still not trying to kill these two. They’re not my enemies, even if they are now trying to kill me. And I am still bound by the law.

  But they wait, and the delay is almost aggravating enough to make me strike first. But then I see movement to my left. It’s subtle, but shifting at steady intervals. I figure it out, just before Bents lowers his last finger, completing the countdown.

  I throw myself backward and down, rolling over and onto my feet as the two men stab their spears into the spot where I stood just a moment before. They strike with such force that they nearly impale each other. Before that surprise can wear off, I attack.

  A wide, low swing connects with the back of Zac’s knee. Bents might be bigger and meaner, but Zac is definitely the more dangerous of the two. The connection is solid, but the Jutsu-trained brother moves with the strike, reducing the damage done. A wince of pain is my only reward.

  I spin in the other direction, swinging for Bents. With just inches between my spear shaft and his bi
g head, Zac blocks the strike.

  Okay…damn. I need a new plan.

  I glance at the river and the line running across its depths, just a few inches beneath the surface. I doubt the pair would follow before reporting to Micha. One of them, maybe, but not both. The trouble with this plan is that it would require turning my back to run. As with the lion, turning my back on these two will be the very same moment I die. Unlike with the lion, I don’t see facing them head on as having a very different outcome. The spear will pierce me front to back, rather than back to front. I’ll be dead either way.

  But there is little choice. The brothers press the attack, swinging and jabbing their weapons one at a time, keeping me on the defensive. I block, duck, and dodge, but never manage a return strike.

  Zac spins his spear feigning a blow that tricks me into blocking empty air. He then reverses the spin and thrusts the weapon toward my side with enough force to punch through and out the far end of my gut. I twist my body and let my backpack get disemboweled. The strike pitches me forward onto my stomach. I try to roll onto my back, but the pack stops me. So I roll the other way, slipping out of the backpack, and relinquishing my spear as I do.

  I’m not happy about losing the weapon until I see Bents yanking his spear out of the now twice-stabbed backpack. I draw my knife from the sheath on my hip, ready for the fight, but knowing I’m going to lose.

  Zac holds off. “I respect your spirit. You fight with passion. I don’t want to kill you.”

  “Screw that,” Bents says, raising his spear to throw, and at this range, he won’t miss. Just as his arm starts its forward arc, there’s a thump followed by Bents’s eyes rolling back and his body falling limp.

  Zac spins fast, raising his spear in a defensive position, blocking two stones that come hurtling from the woods. The projectiles are followed by a man in loose-flowing garments, his face concealed by long strips of fabric, tied around his head.

  The newcomer attacks with a staff, his strikes coming like a well-practiced dance. Zac blocks each strike like a good dance partner, but he lags behind by a fraction of a second, bringing each blow closer to connecting than the last, until wood finds skull and Zac drops to the ground.

  Before I can run, or thank the man, he spins around, swinging the staff out in a wide arc. The knife in my hand pings as it’s struck and flung away to the leafy forest floor.

  The fighter sizes me up, looking me over. “You’re married to the elder of Essex.”

  The man’s actions and words tell me a lot. First, he’s not with Micha. That much is obvious. Second, he’s not from Essex. No one from our county would call Micha ‘the elder of Essex.’ He would just be ‘the elder.’ His rolling accent, adding syllables where there aren’t any, tells me he’s from one of the far north counties. And last, he recognizes me, which means he has status. He’s attended a gathering of the elders or one of the solstice ceremonies. Either way, this is likely not the first time we have met.

  When I fail to answer, he asks, “Why are you here?”

  “Show me your face.”

  He takes a step closer, weapon ready to strike. “Answer me now, or join these men.”

  I look down at the still forms of Bents and Zac. Their chests rise and fall, unconscious, but not dead. Though this man clearly had the skill to slay both men, he let them live, following the Prime Law. Armed with this knowledge, I decide to tell the truth.

  “I’m here to kill my son,” I say, the words tasting horrible in my mouth, so I tack on the less horrible truth. “Or save him.”

  The man glances toward Suffolk. “He’s with them?”

  I nod.

  “Why are you not with your husband?”

  The truth, again, I decide, and I motion to the two brothers. “I think that is clear. I did not find myself a shepherd because I am beloved.”

  The man laughs. I can’t be sure, but I think he is smiling behind that mask.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “Our paths are aligned,” he says. “I am here to kill my father.”

  He does not add on an ‘or save him,’ as I did. “Who is your father?”

  The smile lines beside his eyes flatten out.

  The staff lowers.

  “Plistim.”

  7

  “Easy,” he says, as I side-step toward my impaled pack and the weapons it still holds. “You handled yourself well against them, but…”

  He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. We both know how a physical confrontation between us would end: with me either dead or unconscious. Neither option appeals, so I stand my ground and take a calming breath.

  “Your name?” I ask.

  “Shua,” he says without hesitation. “You don’t know it. I am one of fifty-three siblings.”

  “Fifty three?”

  “Plistim had thirteen fertile wives when he left.”

  “And you?” I ask. “How many wives do you have?”

  It’s an odd question, I know, but experience has taught me that the more wives a man has, the poorer his character.

  “I loved a woman once,” he says, lost for a moment. “My father married her. Her three children, which should have been my sons, are now my siblings.”

  “That’s…horrible.” If true, it’s no surprise that Shua wants to kill his father.

  “The world is horrible,” he says. “But a man need not be defined by it.”

  “Nor a woman,” I say.

  “Indeed.”

  I think he’s smiling again, but it’s hard to say. “Why do you hide your face?”

  Shua goes rigid, his ear cocked to the side. He holds an open palm toward me, eyes closed, listening, or meditating. Then he speaks in a whisper. “They’re separating into groups. Searching the river bank. It won’t be long before they’re discovered…” He motions to Zac and Bents, and then turns toward the line running out into the water. “…and the way across is compromised. We need to go now.”

  “Together?” I’m a little taken aback by how quickly he has decided to trust me.

  “Our purposes are aligned. My father will die, and if your son does not agree to leave with you, he will as well. I will not stand in your way. We will uphold the Prime Law together, and if possible, we will avoid your husband and his men.”

  “Not dying would be great, too.”

  “And we’ll try not to die.” The lines around his eyes appear again. A tiny smile. “Agreed?”

  And now I’m surprised by how quickly I’ve decided to trust him. There’s just something about him that is both familiar, and trustworthy. I hold out my right arm, offering a formal alliance, the way our fathers might when agreeing on a wedding.

  Shua chuckles at the gesture, but then locks arms with me. “Agreed.”

  I collect my weapons and gear before chasing after Shua, who has already started toward the river’s edge, breaking down his spear. The weapon comes apart into four segments that he clips onto his thighs. Other than that, and a few small pouches hanging from his belt, he carries no gear. He’s crouched in the shallows when I arrive, already fighting the current despite the ten inch depth. “It’s not a rope,” he says. “It’s metal. Cable. Bolted into a buried boulder.”

  Most people wouldn’t know what cable is, but I’m aware. My father told me how the world was once powered, and energy ran through countless miles of metal cable, or wires. Like most ancient things that survived the centuries, the cables were collected over time, and stored in vast pits, or caves, hidden so that common people wouldn’t question the world that is and once was. Plistim must have had access to one of these stores of ancient materials. I crouch beside Shua, looking at the cable. It’s closer to a tightly braided mesh of metal strands than the insulated variety.

  “It runs all the way across?” I ask, knowing full well that he doesn’t know the answer.

  “Only one way to find out.” He steps deeper and nearly loses his footing. Trained in Justu or not, a man cannot resist the power of Karls River. We will
be swept away from the cable long before reaching the far side.

  “Wait.” I put my pack on the ground and rifle through the supplies packed by my father and Grace. “I might have something.” Finding the odd shaped metal devices, I pull them from my pack. “I don’t know what they are, but—”

  “Locking carabiners,” Shua says, taking both and looking them over. “Stainless steel. Where did you get them?”

  I don’t reply. The devices, which are not one of the few ancient objects allowed under the Prime Law—like blades—could get my father in trouble.

  “Very well,” he says, handing one of the two carabiners back. He twists a thicker segment of metal, unscrewing it and sliding it down, allowing him to open the metal loop. He then hooks it onto his belt, and leans into the water. After hooking it around the metal cable, he lets the loop snap closed and screws it back in place. I follow each of his steps while fighting hard to not be swept away by the current. After just thirty seconds, I’m attached to the cable.

  “It is convenient you had these,” Shua says.

  The implication is clear, and I respond with indignation. “I am not a Modernist.”

  “Mmm.”

  His brief reply is infuriating, not because he doubts me, but because he’s right. Why would Father think to include such strange devices, knowing full well that I’ve never seen them before, but they are ideally suited for crossing the Karls? A question for another time, I decide, and I step deeper into the cool water. At any other time of year, this crossing would be impossibly frigid. But now, at the height of summer, it’s almost refreshing.

  When I’m waist deep, the current lifts my feet from the rocky river bed. For a moment, I’m at the river’s mercy. Its endless water flows over me, dragging my body and my now waterlogged backpack down. But then the carabiner catches, and I’m able to reach out and grasp the cable. Pulling myself up means defying the river’s power, and it takes everything I have.

  Back on the surface, I sputter and cough until Shua’s hand wraps around my mouth. It takes a few moments, but I manage to control my breathing again.