Winter's Rising Read online

  I started picking up my clothes without saying a word.

  “Talk to me, Winter, yell at me, do something.”

  “I guess this is for the best,” was all I could think to say as I grabbed an armload of my belongings and headed out.

  “Where’s she going?” Cedar asked.

  Home wasn’t far, at least not physically. Mentally it seemed to traverse worlds. It was a gulf between me and Tallow that I knew could never be bridged again. The distance seemed like miles, and when I finally got home, I noticed for the first time how completely empty my apartment was. I sat on my hard bed and buried my head in my hands. I fought to hold the tears back and when I realized that that was a losing battle, I let them cascade down.

  “Brody stopped by,” Cedar said from the other room. I hadn’t even noticed her entrance; my eyes were so blurry and puffy from my extended cry. “Brought some food, and oh, yeah, Tallow kicked me out. I thought I could live here.”

  I didn’t say anything as I went to grab a heel of bread and some cured meat.

  Chapter 11

  Departure

  I FOCUSED ALL of my energy on my lessons and crowded out all other feelings and emotions. Despite what Brody's motivations were, my goal was to become so good that I would be able to keep my friends safe. Every time I felt that I had climbed another step Brody would give me a smack on some sensitive body part just to let me know how far I still had to go. A census was taken two weeks before we were to head out, to get an accurate count. I was in line with the rest of the two hundred and fifty-four souls. Tallow was a few rows ahead of Cedar and me. He was joking and laughing with his circle of friends as if they were not in line to be sent to their deaths.

  Cedar and I got more than a few looks from those around us, first off, because we were women; only six out of the two hundred and fifty-four were, but also, many of them knew we weren’t coming up on eighteen. It wasn’t illegal to go in early; it’d been done before, but usually as punishment for some heinous crime. No one willingly cut a year off of an already shortened life. That cycle, twelve eighteen-year-olds that did not want to report had to be hunted down. The Brokers only had to find seven, as the other five had been turned in by the population at large for more rations. Those twelve would be held in cells until deployment. The rest of us would be required to stay in the staging barracks. They were metal buildings, long and narrow with curved roofs.

  It would be the first time that many of us would eat to our hearts’ content, sort of like an extended “last meal.” I considered it fattening us up before the slaughter. Drills were intensified for those housed here, but Brody would find alternate duties for Cedar and me so we could go and suffer his tutelage. Tallow had declined to join us anymore, opting to stay with his male friends. Our chances of success had diminished considerably with his leaving our group, not that our chances were great to begin with. Brody thought otherwise; he considered Tallow to be the anchor that was weighing us down. I didn’t find out until much later, but that was exactly the reason Tallow had left. Brody had told him as much.

  I’d felt betrayed every time I saw Tallow in passing. He would barely acknowledge my existence. Even though we were in the same building, our encounters were limited. Brody had Cedar and me training nearly twelve hours a day. I barely had the strength to eat by the time the day was over. Most times we’d come back soaked in sweat, battered, and bruised. Most of the other combatants would be in their racks either sleeping or talking quietly to those around them. Tallow had been giving lessons to any that would take them. Most flatly refused, believing like all teenagers, that they were somehow immune to death. At least he was trying help. I often wanted to go over and correct some of the things he was doing, or at least help out, but I didn’t think he would appreciate the advice and, more likely, think it a slight. No matter if the technique wasn’t right, it was still better than the garbage the Brokers were showing them; sometimes I believed they wanted us to fail.

  The days blurred into each other so when departure day actually came it was almost a surprise. I should have picked up on the heightened anxiety within the barracks but I’d just been too exhausted.

  “I’m going to miss the library,” Cedar said as the Brokers assembled us into a loose formation and we began the long march to the gate. A few of the younger children stood to the side and watched us as we left; some waved to friends they’d made; I thought about Poki and how he’d been so altered by The War. None of the older ones came out–they didn’t want to be reminded of what was coming for them. Sadness seemed to settle over the whole town. It was strange to be on the receiving end; I knew that I’d always felt bad for those who were leaving. Everyone knew we would probably never be seen or heard from again. I guess they thought having no real family made our leaving easier; perhaps that was why the Overseers had dissolved that particular bond. We loved our friends, but maybe blood-relatives would be more likely to question the wanton destruction of their kin.

  It was a fifteen-mile hike east from the town to get to the gate. At least three that I’d noticed had fallen during the trek. Two were half carried. One unlucky soul had stumbled and broken his ankle. I watched as Tallow rushed over to help the screaming boy. A Broker came over to see what was the matter.

  “Get away,” he’d told Tallow.

  “I can help him,” Tallow entreated.

  The Broker pushed against the boy’s ankle with the toe of his boot. The piercing screams stopped the whole column.

  “Who the hell said to stop moving?” another Broker shouted.

  “His ankle is broken.” The Broker was lightly stepping on the ankle and rolling it back and forth. Apparently going into shock, the face of the boy on the ground went from fiery red to ghost pale, His screams had been silenced when he finally passed out. I was close enough I could hear the grinding of bone on bone as the Broker kept moving his foot. Tallow was enraged. I could see his fists clenching and unclenching. The Broker was looking intently at Tallow, almost daring him to do something about it. When the Broker realized we had nearly passed him by, he chambered a round in his rifle and shot the boy in the head. I’d stopped a good ten yards away, hoping I’d be able to intercept Tallow if he decided to do something stupid.

  “Better than being eaten by the Ferals,” the Broker laughed caustically. “Roll him into the ditch,” he told Tallow.

  “What about the Meddies? Aren’t they going to come and get him?”

  “Are you serious? Roll him into the ditch–it gives the animals something to eat. It’s that whole circle of life thing.”

  Tallow bent over and grabbed the boy under the arms and pulled him toward the side of the road.

  “Hurry up. We don’t have all day. I need to get back and get some lunch.”

  Tallow let him down as gently as possible, and seemed to have muttered a few words over the body before nearly brushing up against the Broker as he passed.

  “Be careful,” he warned Tallow. “It’d be a shame if you started The War with a bullet in you.”

  Tallow was approaching me.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. He passed by without saying anything, a grim look on his face.

  Cedar had waited for me at the tail end of the long line. “Is he alright?” she asked.

  “You know as much as I do,” I told her.

  Nothing more happened as we walked except the constant draining away of morale. We had started with a few laughs and jokes, some talking about what we were going to do once we came back, now famous for our exploits in The War. Each step took more and more merriment from the collective so that once we began to see the Pickets; it was more like a funeral procession. We slowed to a crawl and the murmurings began to pick up as a nervous energy arose. Most had some trepidation about leaving the only place they’d ever known, but there were a few that vocalized their specific fear about trying to go through the Pickets. We all knew what happened when someone tried to cross over the boundary–the current that ran through them would liquefy
a part of our brain; death was not instantaneous. Reputedly, it was among the most painful ways to die.

  “They’re leading us here to die!” Ashe, a boy I knew a little, shouted out. “The War is a lie–and so are the Pickets. They’re fake. They’re just a way to keep us in! To keep us under control. Has anyone actually seen anybody die by the Pickets?”

  “Shut up,” one of the Brokers told him.

  I agreed with Ashe that The War was a lie, but not in the way he was thinking. Suddenly I wondered if dissent among the population was more widespread than we had previously known. What did he know that we didn’t?

  “I’m not going!” Ashe sat in the middle of the roadway as the rest of us walked around him.

  The Broker that had shot the boy with the broken ankle came over.

  “Get up,” I urged him.

  “No!” he said petulantly.

  “He’ll kill you, Ashe.” I was pulling on his arm. “Cedar, help me.”

  “He’s going to get us killed, Winter,” Cedar said as she grabbed the boy’s other arm.

  I don’t know how he was doing it, but we could barely move him. It was as if he was turning his blood to lead. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought he’d sent roots into the ground.

  The Broker was close.

  “Get your ass up!” I snapped.

  “What do we have here? A squatter?” The Broker was smiling. “Took a while this year. Hey, Kinsley, we got a squatter!”

  “Oh good! I thought for a minute there it wasn’t going to happen, Grouper,” Kinsley said, coming over. The column had passed us by. It was now just Cedar and myself, Ashe firmly anchored to the ground, and now two Brokers.

  “Get away from him,” Grouper told us.

  “He’ll get up,” I said.

  “No he won’t–they never do. Not without help anyway. Get away now or you’ll join him.”

  I straightened up and was nearly face to face with the Broker. “Come on, Winter, let’s go,” Cedar said as she tugged on my arm.

  “Yeah, right. What are you going to do, little girl?” The Broker smiled. Fury threatened to overwhelm me. Turning to Cedar he said, “Take your friend away; I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. I’m liable to do just about anything to defend myself I’m so scared right now.”

  Cedar nearly wrenched my arm from my socket pulling at me. I left my spot but not exactly willingly.

  “Hey squatter, time to get up,” Grouper said. I turned to watch as Kinsley forced Ashe further into the ground with his boot on his head.

  “Get up, squatter,” Kinsley said as he twisted his foot around. The boy’s face was scraping against the hard packed road. The louder he cried out, the harder Kinsley seemed to grind.

  “Let him up,” Grouper said, motioning with his hand. Kinsley removed his foot. Ashe sat up and wiped some ground-in stones from the side of his pale young face. A dozen abrasions wept blood. “Are you ready to join the troupe?” Grouper asked almost tenderly. The boy looked up; fear dominated every aspect of him as he shook his head in negation. “Hell, they never are. Get Moreland and Henzel over here to take this piece of crap to the Pickets.

  “NO!” Ashe screamed.

  “What’s your name, son?” Grouper asked.

  “A...Ashe.”

  “Well A...Ashe, this is your lucky day.” Grouper was smiling again. It was the smirk of the demented, though. He was someone who found great gratification in the suffering of others, especially if he caused it. Brody had told us that all of the Brokers were survivors of The War and that usually only the worst or the best that society had to offer ever made it out. The worst, I could see, accounted for about ninety percent of that statistic. I had once thought Brody was the worst that the Brokers had to offer. How could I have been so wrong? He’d warned me that things like this would happen during The March and that I should in no way intervene.

  I’d asked him why he wouldn’t come on The March. If he did, then he could stop stuff like this from happening. He’d let his head drop as he told me that it was tradition. The lead Broker was to stay behind while his men blew off steam on the recruits. It was sometimes the only thing that kept them from unleashing their pent up fury on the ones that remained behind.

  “It’s tradition to torture the damned?” I’d railed on him.

  “There are some things you can’t understand.”

  “You could stop this, you lead them!”

  “That’s a tenuous thing at best and I’ve already stretched my hold to the breaking point this year. When I didn’t bring anybody to justice for the deaths of my men they knew something was up. And all that time I spent gone with you three? I’m lucky there wasn’t a mutiny. If I don’t let this hazing happen, they’ll most likely kill me.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I will take your silence as that being acceptable to you. You don’t get it–they’d kill me on that march and then have at you. Only this time they wouldn’t have any constraints at all upon their actions. Right now, they still need to report to me at the end of the day and let me know how many went to war. A few here and there are acceptable losses. A huge loss and they would be held accountable. With no one there to check up on them, they would be savage. Just make The March and keep your head down.”

  “I think you’re just scared to make a stand!” I was so mad at him I was shaking with rage. I left his office, slamming the door behind me.

  Moreland grabbed Ashe by the head as Kinsley and Henzel each grabbed a leg. At first Ashe did nothing, opting, I think, for the dead weight trick that he had employed with such great success against me and Cedar. Once Ashe figured out where they were taking him he began to struggle. Kicking his legs out, he hit Kinsley in the groin. I silently cheered at the Broker’s shout of pain; up until the point that he smashed his fist into Ashe’s nose, spewing blood everywhere and causing it to lay flat against his face. The force of the impact pushed his head free from Moreland’s grasp, where it dropped heavily to the ground. His hands covered up his ruined appendage.

  “Don’t ever kick me!” Kinsley was screaming, spit flying from his mouth and covering Ashe’s hands. Kinsley rained down more blows on his head.

  “Come on, man, stop. You’ll kill him before we have our fun.” Moreland grabbed at Kinsley, who pulled away. Ashe cried out as Kinsley made contact one more time.

  “That’s enough, you’ve had your payback,” Grouper said. Apparently he was the leader of this miserable parade.

  “He kicked me in my privates!” Kinsley whined.

  “That’s pretty impressive for the kid. He must have some unbelievable aim,” Grouper joked. Henzel and Moreland both guffawed. Kinsley turned beet red and then half-heartedly kicked at Ashe before he took a couple of steps away.

  “Get up,” Grouper told the boy. Ashe’s eyes were already beginning to blacken from his broken nose. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

  I didn’t think Ashe would actually do it; he’d made no inclination thus far to move on his own accord, yet something in the manner in which Grouper spoke made Ashe get up.

  “Move.” Kinsley pushed against Ashe’s back, shoving him toward the Pickets.

  “What’s…what’s going on?” Ashe was looking around–first at the Pickets and then from Broker to Broker.

  “What’s going on is that you’re going to be our Pickets tester today. If what you believe is true and they are indeed fake, I will let you go.”

  “What?” Ashe asked, clearly confused.

  “I am offering you your chance at freedom, A…Ashe. That is, if you’re brave enough to take it. All you have to do is walk between those two towers. If what you said is true, if these are merely control props, then you’ll be on the other side and I’ll let you go. You won’t have to fight in The War, you’ll be free to go make your way in this great wide world of ours,” Grouper said, spreading his arms.

  Moreland smacked Kinsley’s arm. “Bet you dessert he doesn’t go.”

  “You’re
on,” Kinsley replied.

  “And you can’t force him, either.”

  “Come on, Moreland, you can’t change the rules after you make the bet.”

  “I know you, Kinsley. You’d toss him over if I didn’t say anything.”

  I was close enough to both of them that I could have punched them just for their callous smugness. They were casually betting on a life with no more regard than if he was a piece of trash.

  “I...I can leave?” Ashe was looking for the trick in Grouper’s words. “You’re not going to shoot me?”

  “Nope. You just have to have the courage to take your freedom. Not many do.”

  “Courage?” Ashe asked.

  “Just go so we can get this thing finished,” Kinsley stated.

  “Don’t do it,” Moreland said. He’d placed a hand against either side of his head and made an exploding noise while moving them away.

  Ashe stared at the pickets, but looked as if he was going to throw up.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Kinsley prodded. “He’s just afraid he’s about to lose his bread pudding is all.”

  “I heard it feels like someone jabbed a red-hot poker through your eye,” Moreland taunted.

  “Come on, man, that ain’t fair.” Kinsley once again smacked Moreland’s arm.

  Ashe was frozen in indecision. My heart broke every time he looked back toward us.

  “You can go back if you want. Dying by a sword slice is pretty painful though. I’ve watched boys’ guts spill all over the ground. Smells worse than Kinsley’s cooking,” Grouper told him. “Go on, kid. Take your freedom.” It sounded so sincere that I think I would have gone if I were in Ashe’s position.

  Ashe would take a step and then look over his shoulder. Moreland was waving him to come back, Kinsley urging him forward.

  “Don’t,” I said weakly.

  “Watch it, girlie. You want to join him? One more word from you and that’ll be the case.” Grouper had spun on me, the severity in his eye left little doubt in me that Ashe was heading for his death and the Brokers were waiting ardently for it, practically drooling.