A muscular raider with a bushy brown beard barked orders. Lark zeroed in on him—forty meters away, in shadow between two shipping container homes. She ducked a club, spun, and slashed deep into her attacker’s back. Her eyes refocused on the lead raider. He motioned for a trio of mutants to follow.
Bizarre.She couldn’t think about that now. In the deep shadow between the metal boxes, her shot might miss. Setting her jaw, she coiled her muscles for a sprint.
Rushing past Leif, jabbing the pike Dad had given him into a foe, and Tommy, hacking off a mutant’s arm with his machete, Lark shouldered her bow, took her blade between her teeth, and sprang, catching the sides of the twin containers with her feet and hands like a giant spider. Up and across she scampered, her left hand and foot pressed to one wall and her right to the other.They never look up. It’s their first mistake.
By the time the lead raider twisted his head at the clang of her rapid approach, it was too late. She launched herself at him, jerking the bitter-tasting weapon from her mouth and slicing off his head in midair.
Lark landed in a crouch beside the bloody corpse. Scanned the area. Someone screamed. A mutant ripped the door off a defunct motor home while another snarled and waved its claws at a child up a tree. Rot slammed her senses—something closing behind her. Fast. Lark spun, her blade outstretched, choppingoff a mutant attacker’s leg with the blow. It shrieked, tumbling to the ground. Up, bow and arrow at the ready. One arrow flew true into the ribcage of the raving hunchbacked albino. It staggered back, arms flailing, woman and creature howling. Lark fired again. Insurance.
Turning, she spotted a neighbor hacking the other poor madman to bits, the child in the tree safe. Darkness fell around her to the sounds of clanging metal, grunts, and screams. A murky orange glow from torchlight clung around the buildings like a luminescent fog. Lark raced past a wooden hut. The wide-eyed neighbor stood clutching an oar like a lifeline.
“Some went that way,” she said, pointing toward Mr. Hayes’ gristmill.
With a hasty nod, Lark took off in that direction. Salt-lucky as it was, a full moon crested the trees, casting silvery light on the road. Hayes’ mill stood on sunken pilings a meter above Split Root River, in case of flooding, while its massive water wheel dipped deep into the flowing waters. As she neared, she spotted lamplight coming from the windows. A woman yelled, “Hank!”
Had to be Tommy’s mom or sister. Hank Hayes was a powerful man, bigger than most in town, who could easily haul and toss fifty-pound bags of grain, but he was no warrior. She dug in, pushing harder, faster. A dark-haired human raider tumbled through the front door and down the steps, landing with a thud. Hank’s bulk filled the opening with a wooden baseball bat clutched in his grip like a modern-day Babe Ruth.
“Get outta here, you mud-mired, shell-cracked swamp rat, or I’ll knock your bloody head off!”
The fellow scrambled into the brush, kicking up loose soil as he made a hasty retreat. Lark skidded to a halt, flashing Mr. Hayes an admiring grin. “Mr. H—you sure sent him packing!”
“I protect my own.” With a satisfied smirk, he slapped the bat into his broad palm.
A noise. Lark glanced up. “Two more on your roof.” She swung her bow into her hands and notched an arrow. It missed, and the raiders skittered to the far side of the roof’s peak, facing the river. Lark grimaced.
Hank scowled. “I’m heading inside, upstairs. If they try to get in, I’ll bash ‘em.”
Lark knew Tommy’s dad, and, when he set his mind to something, it usually got done. In this case, she didn’t like him facing two-to-one odds. Unable to target the murderous thieves with her bow, she’d have to try something else.The wheel.
Bow over her shoulder and machete tucked into her belt, Lark ran around the mill and splashed into the lazy river, grabbed a bucket, and hung on. The two scraggly aggressors were too busy trying to find a way in to notice her. At the waterwheel’s highest point, she leaped off, landing lithely on the slanted roof. Both ruffians’ heads popped up in surprise.
For an instant, Lark hesitated. They weren’t unfortunate abominations, with no sense, desperate to survive; they were regular humans who chose this life, to attack settlements and villages, travelers and homesteaders, to steal and pillage that which they hadn’t worked to obtain. They didn’t care if they maimed or killed, as long as they got what they came for. Still, they were human. Did that make them more pitiable or more loathsome than the mutants? Lark had killed before in defense of her home; she’d do it again. But standing here in the moonlight, staring into the faces of a man and a woman who appeared by all rights normal, gave her a moment’s pause. Could that have ever been her? Might it still be, someday?
No. Lark clenched her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and drew her blade. If they ran, she’d let them go. But if they charged, she would cut them down. They charged.
Speed and dexterity were on Lark’s side. She flew to meet their advance, then dropped and rolled between them, slicing the man’s Achilles tendon with her machete. He stumbled, then dropped like a felled tree, writhing across the shingles, whimpering in pain. The woman, lean and spry, spun with a snarl, jabbing at her with a makeshift spear.
“Run away!” Lark hissed as they circled each other. A loose shingle slipped, sliding off the edge, splashing into the water.
“You first!” her enemy countered. She lunged, jabbed. Lark batted the polearm away with her machete.
The woman twirled, charged, and lunged, her weapon having the greater reach. Lark didn’t know why, but she didn’t want to kill her. Was it because she’d seen the hunger in her eyes, the haunted expression in her gaunt face? Because she reminded her of herself?
Rather than peel toward the ridge, let the marauder pass her, and spin into a powerful slice, removing a limb, head, or otherwise killing her, Lark rolled to the eave. Grabbing the gutter, she swung between the mill and the giant wheel, letting her momentum carry her around. She arced down with the wheel and sprang up behind her foe, shifted into a side stance, and thrust her foot in a powerful kick that sent the woman flying into the river below. Maybe someone else would kill her; maybe she’d swim away.
The woman’s curses rang in her ears as she walked back to the disabled raider who dragged himself across the roof.
“Kill me already!” he roared, his scruffy face screwed up in pain. “I can’t walk. I’ll never walk again.”
“Let’s just hope you can swim.” Lark gave him a robust kick, and he rolled off the roof, splashing into the water with his partner in crime.
“You OK up there?” Hank stuck his head through a window, peering up at her, swathed in moonlight.
“Yeah. You?”
“All good.”
Lark glanced back toward the town. It swarmed like an upturned ant hill—chaos, cries, movement everywhere, but the sounds of battle had subsided. Suddenly, she had so many questions.Maybe Gramma will know.
