Stella
“Stay quiet and stay as close to the water as you can,” Alphie warned us after we went over the bridge.“It’s best if the Revvers never have any idea we’re here.”
On the south side of the river had been dense forests with narrow trails, but we had crossed onto the far more open lands of the north side.The riverbanks gave way to sloughs and muddy wetlands, so we had to venture farther into the grassy fields and even some of the brush.
“So, why exactly are these Revvers so dangerous?”Leandro asked wearily.“What are they going to do to us that the world already hasn’t?”
“They have guns,” Alphie said.
“Lots of people have guns,” Boden retorted.“It’s the ammunition that’s impossible to find anymore.”
“They have ammo, too,” Alphie replied.
“Bullshit,” Boden sneered.“Everywhere worth a damn was picked over long ago.”
Alphie looked sharply over at him.“The Revvers have holed up in Fort Lately.Do you know why it’s called Fort Lately, or did you think it had a cute name?”
“It’s not even that, is it?”Fergus asked.“Something like Bunny Hill or Fort Rainbow.That’d be a cute name, wouldn’t it?”
“There’s a town in England called Giggleswick,” Dougal added, leaning against the branch he was using as a walking stick.
“Well, Fort Lately isn’t cute,” Alphie said, sounding irritated.“It’s a star-shaped bastion fort on a hill with walls of concrete ten feet tall and six feet thick.It was built in the 1840s to be impenetrable to cannon fire.Sometime in the last century, it was declared a historical site, refurbished, and turned into an educational tourist hotspot.That included a gift shop and museum.
“And that museum focused on 19thcentury weapons and artillery, and it was filled with them,” she went on.“And in the armory, it’s filled with all the other weapons they didn’t have room for in the museum.”
“But that’s all…old,” Leandro said, uncertainly.“Like crusty old antiques?”
“They might be antiques, but that doesn’t mean they’re useless,” Alphie insisted.“Some of those old rifles were built to last, and the Revvers know how to maintain them.Nell was really involved in self-reliant naturalists before the outbreak, and it was those folks who knew to take the Fort for themselves and how to use the armaments there.”
“Who’s Nell?”I asked.
“Cornelia Mahler,” Alphie said, lowering her voice as if saying the name aloud would summon her.“She’s the Allmother of the Revvers.”
“What was it like?”I asked.“Living with the Revvers?”
Alphie was quiet a minute before answering, “It was really nice until it wasn’t.All bright colors and the darkest darkness.”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Edie quipped knowingly.
Alphie gave a small, humorless laugh.“With the Revvers, you get used to the contradictions.”
“Oy!You hear that, don’t you?”Fergus asked suddenly, alarmed, and then I heard it, too.Hoofbeats sounding much too close.
“What do we do?”Boden asked Alphie as two men on horses burst out from the brush a few meters in front of us.
With the river behind us and the wetlands surrounding us, there wasn’t anywhere to run.Dougal especially couldn’t really move very fast, not that any of us were in any shape to outrun a horse.Even with the adrenaline surging through me, I felt the exhaustion deep in my bones and the heavy weight of my daughter on my back.
The horses stopped at the edge of the muddy sloughs, where the ground was more solid.Both the riders had musket rifles pointed straight at us, and we were all plenty close enough to take a bullet.Or maybe a musket shot pellets or maybe balls?I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t want to find out this way.
Since there wasn’t much else to be done, we all grouped up together, with Boden and Alphie standing in the front.I slipped off my wrap, so I could hold Fae in my arms.In case I needed to run, I didn’t want her facing the shooters.
“Alphonsine, is that you?”one of the riders asked, smirking as he squinted down at her.He was the shorter of the two riders, built stocky like a finisher pig, with a shock of curly hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“Hello, Dusty,” Alphie said, and then, to the other rider, “Hello, Benedict.”
Benedict was the taller of the two men, and his mouth was pressed into a deep scowl.Over one of his eyes, he had on an eyepatch shaped like a sunflower, which contrasted with his otherwise intimidating presence.
I had been so focused on their weapons that I hadn’t noticed it right away, but the bridles on the horses were adorned with flowers and ribbons.Both the men wore brown pants with brightly colored tunics for tops.
