Ann Aguirre: Horde

I left without looking back.

This wouldn’t be easy, but it was necessary to leave our loved ones under siege to fetch help for Salvation. The decision hurt my heart too; my foster mother’s face would haunt me, so wounded and brave, older than I’d known a woman could become yet remain strong and vital. She glimmered like a promise of hope that my flame needn’t flicker and burn out before I had a chance to live. Once I’d thought old meant twenty-five, but my time in Salvation had changed my perceptions. Now it was strange to imagine I might not be entering the middle of my life.

Into the dark I quickened my steps, eyes sharp for Freaks prowling beyond normal perimeters. Behind us, I heard them shrieking challenges to the men guarding the walls. Rifles cracked out when they rushed, but I couldn’t turn, no matter how much I wished otherwise. My course was fixed by the shadowy line traced on the priceless map secured in the leather folio in my pack. Before we’d left, I had studied it with complete focus, memorizing each twist and turn of the route, each handwritten note left by Longshot about good game-hunting or fresh water. It was two days to Soldier’s Pond, two more back, once we mustered the necessary reinforcements. That dot on the parchment represented the best hope of saving the people who had taught me so much about life, that it could be more than just hunting and killing.

Momma Oaks. Edmund.

I couldn’t let myself think of them or I’d falter. Instead I pressed on, silent and wary, listening to the Freaks behind us. With a glance over my shoulder, I reassured myself that Fade was still at my back. Tegan and Stalker walked on either flank, she with her lopsided gait and unshakable loyalty, he with his curved knives in his hands and his eyes fixed on the horizon, though he couldn’t see what lay ahead as well as I could.

That came with being the night girl. Reflexively I adjusted my pack, reassured by the weight of the book that had traveled with us all the way from the ruins. Maybe I didn’t need it, but it had become my talisman, every bit as much as the tattered playing card sewn into a hidden pocket inside my shirt. Edmund had explained that my token from down below was part of a fifty-two-piece set, and it was a low card. That seemed fitting, as it served to keep me humble.

“See anything?” Tegan asked.

“Just some night-prowling animals. The enemy’s behind us.”

“I know,” she said softly.

The grass crisped under our feet, liberally sprinkled with early fallen fronds. It wasn’t yet turning time, when all the leaves changed colors and dropped from the branches, but there were always a few to crackle as we went. We ran all through the night with periodic breaks for rest and water while I checked the maps by the moonlight shining overhead. By the time the sun crept over the horizon in delicate whorls of rose and amber, I was exhausted—and disgusted with my own weakness. Down below Fade and I had run a much more dangerous route in faster time, but we had to account for Tegan’s slower strides too. Though the girl was all heart, her leg couldn’t carry her indefinitely at the same pace that the rest of us set, and she was limping now, brackets of pain beside her mouth. I didn’t make the mistake of noting it out loud, however.

“Time to make camp.” I signaled for Stalker to scout the perimeter, and it was a measure of how much he’d changed that he didn’t balk at the order, merely set off to do as I’d asked.

As I laid out my blankets, Fade asked, “No fire?”

I shook my head. “The sun will be up soon. We won’t need it.”

Tegan added, “We’ll smell them coming if any of those behind us get close.”

I nodded at that. This reminded me an awful lot of when we’d wandered the wilderness with only stories handed down by Fade’s sire. At least this time we have maps, a route to follow. I wouldn’t call it a road, exactly, but I spotted faint lines where Longshot’s wagon—along with others, I was sure—had passed back and forth often enough to reassure me I was still navigating the proper course.

As I handed around the meat, bread, and cheese Momma Oaks had packed, Stalker returned. “The general area’s clear, though I don’t like the way it smells to the east.”

“Are we being followed?” I asked.

I ate in economical bites, sufficient to keep me going, but not make it difficult to rest on an over-full stomach. The others did the same, experienced with balancing the need to stay strong against the wisdom of conserving our resources. After tonight, the meat would be gone, but the bread and cheese should stretch all the way to the end of our journey.

Soberly, Stalker nodded. “We should expect an attack while we’re sleeping … and hope it’s not more than we can handle.”

I swore quietly, the worst word I’d learned during the summer patrols. “I’d hoped they didn’t spot us coming out of the tunnel.”

“I don’t think they did,” Fade put in. Out here, he was more his old self, quiet and alert, less of the bleak despair. “I suspect they can smell us just as easily we do them.”

Of course. The minute he said it, I remembered—and recognized the truth. The Freaks didn’t need to see us emerge; the minute we stepped into the wind, we entered their territory. Like any predator, they noticed such incursions and would take steps to eliminate the threat. If we were lucky, it was only a small hunting party, not a significant portion of the horde. Though maybe that would help Salvation if a large number gave chase—we could lead them away from the town toward Soldier’s Pond. The settlers there wouldn’t thank us for it, but they might believe the threat was real faster.

“How’s that possible?” Tegan demanded, looking offended.

“They’re animals,” Stalker answered. “They have keen senses like a wolf too, and they notice anything that doesn’t match the Freak stench.”

“That’s how I was able to—” I cut myself off before I said rescue Fade , knowing it would be hard for him to hear.

Too soon. Deep down, I wanted him to appreciate what I’d done, what I’d risked for him, because there weren’t any limits on how far I’d go for my boy. But his black eyes flashed; he knew even if I didn’t speak the words out loud. With a sinking heart, I watched him turn away to lay his bedroll with exaggerated care.

“Able to what?” Tegan asked.

Stalker replied for me with unexpected tact. “Sneak past some Freaks. Deuce rubbed herself with their parts—blood and worse stuff—until she reeked. They didn’t notice her, though most of them were sleeping.”

Some was a massive understatement. That was our first sight of the horde, sufficient to slay everyone in Salvation, and then sweep onward to pillage any surviving settlements. The memory swept over me, Freaks awful and staggering in their numbers, and armed with fire they’d stolen from our outpost. I battened down my alarm, knowing I wouldn’t do the townsfolk any good if I panicked.

“That’s ingenious,” Tegan decided. “And disgusting.” She cocked her head, thoughtful. “Does that mean they don’t see particularly well?”

“I have no idea.” To the best of my knowledge, nobody had ever studied the Freaks. Anyone who got near one chose to dispatch it instead, for obvious reasons.