August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand (5 page)

“That’s what I thought. You’re going to be exiled, Leeroy. We don’t tolerate this kind of thing in the valley. The Eagle troopers are going to take you to the western ridge. You will walk over it. If you are seen here again we will kill you on sight.”

Leeroy broke out into tears as the Eagle troopers savagely jerked him from his seat. 

“Wilder, take four of the Eagle at first light. The rest of you, stay in the Citadel until ordered otherwise. Troy’s leg is broken. You’ll need a new commander,” Jaxton ordered. The Eagle troopers left, dragging a flailing man, now damned.
      

“What about him? He’s responsible for this,” Liam goaded. He stood, leaned on the table and stared directly into Bennett’s eyes.

“I don’t think he has anything to do with this,” Jaxton said quietly.

“Looks like there’s a reason Jax is in charge,” Bennett breathed.

Liam slammed the table and grabbed Bennett by the cuff, lifting the weight of his body with a single, quivering arm. Liam spat in his prisoner’s face, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, in all this time. I will never forgive you for what happened to our friends.”

Bennett’s face softened immediately, and he broke the gaze. “If you still don’t know how sorry I am by now, you never will.”

Liam tossed him back into the chair and strode out of the room.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air between the three old friends. Staring at Bennett, Adira took Jaxton’s hand in her own.

“I don’t want to cause any trouble. If you would let me, I’ll go back to the Church.”

Adira leaned forward. “Found religion, have you?”

“I’m willing to try anything at this point.”

She glowered. “You’ll never be welcome here again.”

“I know.”

“But we’re not like Lieutenant Agis. You can live in peace if you choose to.”

Under the torchlight, Bennett and Jaxton stared at each other.

“I wish things could have turned out differently,” Jaxton said flatly, a slight shimmer in his eyes.
      

“There was a time we were in it together till the end.”

Jaxton stood. “That time is gone.” He stalked to the door, and stared at the lone torch casting dancing shadows on the stacks of books. “Spend the night. You can leave tomorrow.”

Bennett sat alone for a long time.

Chapter Six

The Western Ravine

Billy groaned loudly as he offloaded his pack. He had been rotating between the ravines for days, double checking their defenses. The sunlight caught particles of dust as they floated casually through the afternoon air. He wiped his forehead with a soiled bandana, pleased to be free of the forty-pound burden. The three others in his unit staked out their tents in the tiny forest glade as the summer day came to a gloriously nostalgic end.

“Viera, don’t get too comfy now. You and Malcolm are manning the ravine for the second shift.”

A portly girl with a muddy face groaned as her pack hit the floor, its cooking gear spilling out onto the dirt. “Bill we spent two nights in the western spire last week. Cut us some slack.”

Malcolm dropped his pack, but kept hold of a black compound-hunting bow with a foam quiver holder that held four arrows. “Hardest workers get the best rewards, am I right Bill?”

Billy grinned as he carefully set about cleaning his sniper rifle. “Somethin’ like that Malcolm.”

Viera groaned, her fat face contorting. “A week of rest in the Citadel then.”

Billy guffawed, slapping his thighs noisily with his hands and hooting. “Malcolm, how many teams have I got out here?”

Malcolm pretended to think hard. He shrugged, “thirty?”

Billy grunted, scratching his bushy black beard. “Thirty my ass. Five, Malcolm. One at each ravine. Five fine folk per team. This is the Wolf. We man the ravines and hold the woods. We don’t sleep in cots like those Bear boys, you know what you signed up for.”

Malcolm poked Viera, and they rose to leave. “Let a man dream Bill.”

Billy watched them disappear into the thick blooming underbrush that surrounded the camp. He almost shouted out telling them to be careful, but he bit his lip. The others would think him weak, maybe. They had been trained well.

They would be fine.

The Citadel

Jaxton left the passageway in the roof behind with a metal clang, as the hatch fell onto the roof. He breathed in the humid summer air, content to let his eyes sweep over the forests around the Citadel. The guards nodded to him in greeting, and continued their patrols across the roof. He clambered up to the sharp apex in the clock tower, the tallest point in the small town that sat so perfectly in the little valley. The early summer sun was stealing quietly beneath the wooded western ridge, a wall that burst with greenery.

He nodded to the Bear guards, and sat on the lip with a bowl on chili. The meat looked straggly and pulpy. It was probably old. So be it. He looked beside him, feeling an unnatural emptiness. Adira had left early that morning, taking two of her horse cart teams. The Bluffs settlement in the north needed supplies.

“I just wanted to say goodbye.” Bennett’s shadow blocked the sun.

Jaxton rose and stuck his hand out firmly. “Till we meet again.”

Bennett nodded, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips, and grasped Jaxton’s hand. Jaxton saw him wander around the roof, having a word here and there with the others.

Even after last night’s debacle, never had he known such peace. It had been many months since the battle with the Lieutenant in the bloody snow. Out of a dozen minions, only two had survived Jaxton’s wrath. Jaxton had cast them out, and exiled them from the valley. They likely perished in the winter frost.

The others now looked to the Council for authority, an organization of six that he had handpicked. He had encouraged them to range beyond the Citadel, to reclaim some normalcy. Jaxton took heart from the new settlements, nestled deep in the forests that buzzed with new life. The Citadel remained the center of it all; a beacon of security and a fortress against any infected that made it through the ravines.

“
What the fuck is that
?!”

Jaxton heard one of the
guards yelp, and his head snapped around to the north. His bowl clattered against the roof of the Citadel, where the chili’s foul meat festered on the metal.

Against a cloudless sky, a tiny flare soared several miles away. He couldn’t yet process what the blue and yellow smoke meant, even as the fear began whispering his name.

“What outpost is that?” Jaxton demanded, resisting the urge to scratch his lice.

One of the Bear officers took a step towards the lip of the high school’s roof. “North Ravines, I think. That’s where Wilder took four of the Eagle troopers to exile the traitor, Leeroy.”

“What’s the protocol for a blue and yellow?!” Jaxton snapped, furious he had forgotten.

“The ravine is likely under intense assault, but they are currently holding the line. They are requesting reinforcements. What are your orders sir?”

“Another one, Jax,” someone growled, from under shaggy, unkempt hair.

Jaxton snapped his head around and saw a second flare, racing skywards to the south. “The Bluffs,” he repeated, feeling the panic digging into him. “Adira’s there. How many men can we get out right now? I need to get to those settlements.”

Bennett clasped his friend on the shoulder, sweat shimmering on his forehead in the late August heat. “Give me something. Let me help. Adira is at the old reservoir, is she not?”

Jaxton shook his head emphatically, “If you think I have learned to fully trust you again, you are mistaken. Where is Liam? We need to plug those gaps before the valley is overrun.”

Jaxton gestured for his tomahawks, and slid them into his cracked and broken thigh armor. He cast grey eyes out to survey the walls of the rural valley that surrounded them, the valley that they had called home for the past four hundred nights…and another lifetime before that.

“JAXTON!” Liam roared. He was strolling across the roof with a dozen armed survivors in tow.

“Two flares,” Jaxton forced a smile. “Nothing we can’t handle. Summer has been kind to us. ”

“What are your orders?” Liam demanded, a massive axe in his hands.

“Take ten of your men on the ATVs. Secure the North ravine. Meet up with Wilder there. I’ll handle the south.” He could scarcely wait any longer. Shouldering Bennett’s bony form aside, he jogged towards the ladders thinking only of Adira’s glittering dark eyes.

Jaxton gripped the ladder with callused, cracking hands. As he turned, he saw something snaking up between the silhouettes of his brothers and sisters. Suddenly, his hands felt cold on the metal.

“Black and red...” he muttered aloud. As Jaxton remounted the three-story rooftop, the survivors locked eyes festering with fear. A third flare’s vile smoke wafted like a tower on the eastern horizon. No one moved, transfixed by the twin pillars of smoke chasing each other higher and higher.

Liam drew in close, so Jaxton could see and smell the twenty-five year old’s rotting teeth. “They’re being overrun. That’s three settlements under simultaneous attack. We’ve never had three before at the same time. Never three.”

Jaxton raced to the other side of the school’s roof, where the fields of vegetables and weak crops struggled below. Standing between the old white lines from the football field, dozens of survivors pointed at the sky. Memories of Friday night lights flooded his head and he fought to return to reality. Jaxton turned back to the ragged group of Citadel guards, with their old shotguns and compound hunting bows. “Sound the alarm. Now. Full call-up. Get our reserves to those settlements now, before they are lost.”

“Full-call up? We’ve never had a full call up…three hundred survivors…that’s the Lion, the Wolf, the Destrier, the Eagle-“

Jaxton cut the fool short. “I know what it is damnit! Get everyone to arms,
now
!”

His men raced to the ladders, gaunt figures in pitiful garb.

“Sound the alarm!”

As tiny figures raced across the fields below, the horns began to bellow in the summer dusk. Three flares at once?

“Liam. We can stop this bleeding. The Wolf units may just be overreacting. As long as the Western ravine doesn’t come under attack, we’ll be ok. Thank God it’s not the west. That one’s one hundred feet wide.”

Liam hefted his axe and pointed it his rooftop guards. “You men, WITH ME!”

“Jaxton!”

Jaxton stopped halfway down the ladder, and forced himself to climb back up with mounting dread. A lone silhouette stood against the fading summer sun. Bennett turned, his lip twitching, and pointed to the western horizon.

“What color is it?” Jaxton demanded, though in his heart he already knew.

Bennett gulped, and slapped a fresh magazine into a pistol. “Black and red.”

Jaxton froze, and heard shouting voices rising from the school below him. Within several minutes, all the factions would be racing down the road, to hold the valley against nature’s holocaust. He took a deep breath. His friends would be spread out all over the valley’s forest floor. He couldn’t hold two ravines at once. Who would lead the Eagle in Troy’s absence? “I need to hold the Western ravine. It’s the largest. If those settlements fall, we’ll lose the valley. The Lion is with me.”

Bennett straightened his bony back. “Trust me, as you once did in simpler times. I know I haven’t made it easy. Let this be the last time you doubt me. Give me something, and I will hold the south, and make sure Adira is safe.”

Jaxton crushed the anguish that was festering inside his gut. There was no time. He drew from his pocket a patch.

Bennett stiffened sharply, his eyes alight. Tears streaked little lines on Bennett’s filthy face as Jaxton slapped the Eagle’s patch on his jacket’s shoulder sleeve.

Jaxton drew his friend closer. “Bennett, this is it. The Horde is real. There could be thousands, more than we’ve ever seen. Everything we’ve built, everything our friends have died for…Take the Eagle troopers that are still in the Citadel. Stop the bleeding- Plug the gap.”

Bennett clasped his friend on the shoulder, his grip firm. “For the Citadel. I’ll save her, Jax. You won’t regret this.”

Jaxton nodded sharply, and raced to the ladders to the wailing of desperate horns.

…

His men fell in behind him, strong kinsmen with bulky forms and black armor. As they advanced, they strapped on their bulletproof vests, adjusted helmets and makeshift forearm guards. They advanced through the nervous crowds of survivors gathered in the gym, one symbol drawing everyone’s wide eyes. The Lion assembled with all speed, its men hand chosen by its commander for close quarters’ work. Its quartermasters burst out of the locker rooms, towing little carts stuffed with melee weapons. A crowd gathered around them, to shout at the brawny warriors in a single color. A single golden mark marred the pitch black perfection. Each wore his Lion patch with pride.