The Wall, page 22
“We’ll have to march eighteen hours a day if you want to get there in two,” Cephas informs me.
“And I’m not carrying you either,” Jude snorts.
I dig out one of the remaining grenades from the Fort Worth Armory stash and hold it up to Kenan. “You think you can rig a remote detonator to these?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“If you can’t, our plan doesn’t work.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Kenan repeats himself.
“Not to be a downer, but y’all know what happened to the Donner party right?” Jude blurts.
Cephas snickers, “Ha! No one is eating you, Toothpick!”
“Our ambush against Cephas has failed my sultan. He has now linked up with Asher and his third army.”
The way Omar says his third army irks Renatus to no end. It’s not Asher’s army, it’s mine!
“Unacceptable!” Renatus pounds his fist against the war-room table. “Where are they now?”
“Heading west, towards us. Drone footage has them in Central Nevada.”
“This rampant incompetence must come to a bloody end! Fly me to my first army, I will lead them myself!”
Omar tries to mask his surprise. “Of course, my sultan.”
Renatus then raises his plasma rifle at Omar. “And I grow tired of your floundering ineptitude.”
Omar raises his hands, “My sultan, I do not understand.”
“Did you think your failure to capture Cephas would go unpunished?”
“But sir, it was . . . it was your idea,” Omar replies boldly.
Renatus manically waves his hand in the air. “True, but you agreed didn’t you? You always agree Omar. You only tell me what it is I want to hear. Asher might have been a traitor, but he dauntlessly told me when he thought I was wrong, pointed out my blind spots, you on the other hand are a sycophantic feckwit!”
Before Omar can reply, Renatus shoots him and with no intention of sending his advisor to The Mountain again for protocol. He casually steps over Omar’s body and makes his way to his chambers.
In a closet the size of a small house, attached to his master suite, Renatus slips on his battle gear. Red-and-black exoarmor with a gold sash whipped around his waist. His shoulders are decorated with medals and ranks he did not earn. He removes his Gen2 plasma rifle from its charger and then inexplicably thinks of his son Eleazar. Maybe things would be different if Eleazar was still here. Maybe I would be different. Maybe there wasn’t a need for a wall. He quickly scoffs at his own thoughts. Of course there was a need for The Wall. The Middle had become reckless and lawless. A wasteland.
In the mirror he spots the twinkle of a glimmering evening gown. Behind him is his wife, Joanna. She rests her dainty hand on his shoulder.
“Going to battle?” she asks surprised.
“Time to finish this palaver once and for all.”
“And what of Sarai?” she asks twirling her blood red hair with her long delicate fingers.
“What of her? She is a traitor, Joanna! She is with him now. I can’t bear to speak his name.” As the anger wells up within him, he is starting to have second thoughts about sparing her life. After all, what were the chances of her bearing a wounded one like his own son?
“Eleazar wasn’t the only child that loved you,” she tries to convince him.
“She has a strange way of showing it, taking up arms against me, against Zion, our way of life. She has decided to stand with the Traitor of Zion, The Son of Silas. She is not only married to him, but also to their bloody cause.”
“She is young and in love, she doesn’t know what she is doing. Please Renatus, I beg you, bring her back to me. Bring her home.”
Renatus turns with fire in his eyes. “And according to her, just where exactly would that be? She is a Dreck now.”
She grabs his shoulders and turns him to face her. “Yes, she is a Dreck, but she is a Dreck carrying our grandchild.”
Renatus’s mood shifts slightly. “She’s pregnant? How do you know?”
“I have been there, I just know.”
He grabs both of her hands and grins. “Yes. Yes Joanna, you are correct. A grandchild is exactly what this family needs.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Donner Lake is just over two and half miles long and a half mile wide. At close to six thousand feet elevation, the lake has frozen over. Fresh snow has salted its surface. It wasn’t easy, but we made it here in two days. Forty-nine hours to be exact. I shiver for a moment. Is it out of fear? Or maybe because it’s six degrees Fahrenheit. My men boil the drinking water that has frozen in our packs. We are exhausted and the battle is yet to begin. The ice is thirty inches thick, plenty to hold Zion’s marching army. Kenan drills holes into the ice and plants Civil War era grenades on the western side of the frozen lake. I only hope the remote detonators he rigged work and that the grenades are powerful enough to crack the ice. He assures me they are. We set up tents and a makeshift camp on the eastern side as we want it to look like this is where we have massed. A drained and bone-weary Cephas slides next to me, almost slipping on the ice. He points to the other side of the lake.
“If they don’t come this way this will be the quickest defeat since the Anglo-Zanzibar war.”
I have no idea what war he is talking about it. “You forget there were no schools when I was a kid.”
“That’s right, if it’s not an 80’s movie you have no idea what I’m talking about. Thirty-eight minutes. That is how long that war lasted,” Cephas informs me somberly.
“If they don’t cross the lake, then we’ll be lucky to last twenty,” I reply. “I pray we are granted God’s favor today.”
He pulls me close. “You believe boy? I mean really believe? Cause if you do, then no matter what happens today, you have His favor. And mine.” He scoops up a clump of snow and squeezes it in his hands, as if he could absorb its cleanliness, its purity. “Win, lose, or draw, I’m proud of you son. And I’m sorry for how I raised you. I did my best for who I was at the time. I wish I could do it over.”
I turn to him. “You don’t have to apologize anymore. The good things inside me may have come from my father, but I only know how to act on those things because of you.”
“I was too hard on you,” Cephas whispers, shaking his head.
“Iron sharpens iron.”
“Yes, I guess it does.”
“How are the legs?” I ask, still amazed he made the trip without a single gripe or squawk. At least not about how long the trek was.
He smiles, then peers over at Sarai who is overseeing the sowing of the giant nets.
“Don’t worry about me nephew, better go check on those nets,” he says with a wink.
I approach Sarai. “How are you?” is all I manage.
“How are you?” she says with more gravity than my question.
A wave of sudden honesty and vulnerability washes over me. “Just want it to be over. I really don’t know how I got here. I’m not fit to lead these men, this war. It should be somebody else.”
‘“God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.’ Your uncle told me that.”
“I hope so. I hate to admit it, but he’s right more than he’s wrong.”
“So, when this is all done, what then?” she asks, almost questioning if our relationship could withstand peace. We have only known war, strife, and separation. Under such conditions the primal emotions are at the forefront, such as love. Is she wondering if it will still be there during times of peace and harmony? When it is just us. No Wall, no Defiance, nothing to fight for.
I assure her it will. “I picture us in a small house in the mountains, near a lake where the fishing is good.
“I want to rebuild the parks so the children can play on swings with new chains and slides that aren’t rusted or broken. Where you can walk down the street without smelling the trash of those believed to be above you. Where freedom reigns, not drugs. I want a place where The Middle and Zion are one. An America that is once again united, once again a beacon of light. Where everyone only has one life, and that life is not taken for granted. A place where you would want to bring children into the world. Our children.”
Before I can continue she shuts me up with a kiss.
“Now, go win this war!” she snarls.
She kisses me again, then someone near plays an ancient Celtic tune on their harmonica. Sarai pulls me in tight, her feet rocking back and forth to the dulcet tune.
“Dance with me,” she pleads.
“You know I don’t dance,” I reply.
“And I don’t marry Lazurite princes, yet here we are.”
Realizing this could be our last chance, I finally oblige her. My feet shimmy back and forth, I step on her toes more than once. Some of my men stop what they are doing and watch us awkwardly dance by the fire while our unknown serenader picks up the pace. I didn’t know such sounds could emanate from a simple harmonica. I should feel self-conscious, but I don’t. The world is so small when I’m with her. Everything else shrinks away, as nothing else can compare.
“Now I see why you don’t dance.” She kisses me again.
For a surreal moment we are all alone, just us and the haunting melody. No war, no frozen lake. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my neck even though I know it’s obscured by the clouds. I can smell spring, even though I stand on snow. The musky fragrance of wisteria. The sweet and spicy scents of lilac. The fresh earthy aroma of rain. For just a few seconds the burden of leading these men is lifted. I feel light, so light she has to catch me.
Before I can tell her to be careful up on the ridge, one of my scouts comes running towards us yelling, “They’re here! Three miles away on the other side of the ridge.”
The harmonica abruptly stops.
I’m cold once more.
The end is about to begin.
Renatus’s first army finally appears over the hill. They march their way down towards the frozen lake. So far so good. Sarai and a contingent of our army hides up on the ridge to my left. Jude is on the ridge to my right. Like a never-ending colony of ants, the Lazurite army keeps coming and coming.
“Perhaps we underestimated their numbers?” Cephas huffs.
There are so many of them, their black exoarmor against the white snow looks as if a giant cloud has blotted out the sun. They look like a massive tree that won’t stop growing. I turn to my army behind me and see a mix of fear and subdued optimism. I feel as if I should say something, but the thought of delivering another speech just has me feeling like a used car salesman. So instead, I simply tell them the truth.
“I wanted to say something, but in all honesty, there are no words that I or anyone can say that you should die for. Just do what’s in your heart. Follow what it is you believe. I know many of you well enough to know that you don’t need me to tell you what is worth fighting for. Dying for. If you wish not to be here, if you wish not to fight for our cause, you may leave freely now. You can even have a horse and a day’s ration.”
With that, Cephas and I anxiously wait to see if anyone changes their mind. Not a single soldier moves.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” Cephas whispers.
“What?”
“That you would give your men a way out, a chance to surrender minutes before battle. Some commander you are,” Cephas says, tongue way in cheek.
I don’t tell Cephas what he already knows; one soldier fighting for what he believes in is worth more than ten fighting for someone else’s cause. As for me, I have come to believe that the reluctant leader is the one that is more pure. They value cause over power. I have seen it in my father, my uncle, now myself. And if I die today, so it will be with Sarai, a reluctant leader, as we have seen firsthand the pollution of eternal power when wielded by man. For there has been too many past and present that have yearned for a position in power just for the sake of power.
I peer up to the ridge and watch Sarai prepare the nets. I wonder if we will ever have a chance to dance again. I chastise myself for waiting this long. I wonder how hard it is for her to fight against her own father. I draw inspiration from her strength and courage. She gazes down at me and winks. It isn’t until that moment that I realize I’m ready. I peer up at the sky, surprised that it is empty. “No helidrones?”
“I’m sure Renatus has a plan,” Cephas replies.
“Maybe we destroyed them all back at The Wall?”
“And maybe I could’ve been a male model?” Cephas jests.
We share a short-lived laugh as Zion’s first army finally finishes their march over the hill and into the valley. Half of them on the frozen lake. So many in fact I wonder if the ice will crack on its own, and we won’t need Kenan’s explosives after all. I peer through my binoculars then I spot Renatus himself leading this attack. Leading is being generous as he is in the back of course. His gold sash whips in the wind. He slips his helmet over his smug face and points his hand forward in a chopping motion. His first army restarts their march towards us as he and his generals hang back on horseback barking orders.
“Tell . . . tell me when,” Kenan states, his stutter bubbling to the surface.
“Not yet.”
They march closer.
Cephas nudges me. “They’re mighty silent over there, time to break the ice, what say you?”
“Not yet.”
“They’re almost in plasma range,” Cephas hisses.
“Not yet.”
Just as they pass the middle of the lake they raise their plasma rifles and ready to fire.
“Now!” I command.
Kenan presses his remote detonator.
Nothing. We stare at one another. Now what?
“Dreck luck. Seems you are one of us,” Cephas tells him.
Kenan’s thumb plunges down on the button again and we wait. Our breath practically freezes in front of us. Then the sound of leaves crunching. But it’s not leaves, it’s the ice. We are too far away and the wind too fierce to hear the grenades go off. The cracking is getting louder now.
“It worked!” Kenan shouts.
“But they’re still above water,” Cephas reminds him that nothing has worked yet.
The Lazurite soldiers freeze in their tracks, confused for a moment as to what is happening. Some may not even realize they are on a lake. The ground below them shakes, the fracturing of the ice is so loud it sounds like steel ripping in half. We hear them yell that the ice is breaking. In a formation nothing less than chaotic, they turn to run off the frozen ice. But it can no longer hold the weight. The entire middle of the lake snaps. Well over a thousand soldiers drop into the freezing waters. We can barely hear their muffled screams as I can imagine it’s too cold to find your breath. Their arms flutter like hummingbirds, creating a thousand tiny whitecaps as they try to swim back up upon the ice. I fell through a frozen lake once when I was nine. It feels like a thousand tiny daggers stabbing you all at once. I do not wish this for them, for anybody. I wish they would just surrender and throw down their arms instead. I wish this could be solved with a pen and a handshake instead of the sword.
But my wishes and reality are two different things.
Such is war.
A quarter of Renatus’s army has fallen through the lake. We are still outnumbered, but not by much. Renatus sends his troops around the fractured lake, just underneath where Sarai and Jude lie in wait. It could not be going any more perfectly. I raise a blue flag that alerts them. With that, Sarai, Jude, and their garrisons drop the two-hundred-foot-long nets anchored by boulders tied to the ends. The Lazurite soldiers arms and legs become entangled. As they try to break free from their encumbrance, they aren’t firing their weapons. This slows them down just enough for my army to have free, unimpeded shots.
I can only imagine Renatus’s surprise when he realizes we have gunpowder weapons. His army is in shock as the lead penetrates their exoarmor. They fall like dominoes, unable to fire back as they struggle to free themselves from the nets. I wonder how Renatus could be so careless? It could be his over confidence; a Zion trait for sure. I think it’s more likely he has gone to The Mountain too many times for protocol. Surely that has warped his judgment, his risk-assessment. For Renatus, if things go wrong or he makes a mistake he is used to having a free pass, another chance. He has mistakenly taken this attitude to war with him. I am not proud of my time with Renatus slurping up Zion’s opulence, getting fat from her udder. But now I know why God had me there, to learn the ways of my enemy. For this very moment. My uncle used to quote Sun Tzu’s book, The Art of War. “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” I hope we have done enough to live up to that axiom today.
“Split!” I scream and wave a green flag in the air.
Half of my army scamper up the ridge towards Jude. The other half, along with myself race to link up with Sarai. We want to keep the high ground. When we reach the top, I find Sarai and her platoon firing their Springfield rifles at the Lazurites below us. I join in.
“So far so good,” I say.
“We’re getting low on ammo,” she responds, reminding me it’s way too early to pat myself on the back.
But the truth of the matter is that this is going well, too well, so easy in fact, I feel something isn’t quite right. Why aren’t they firing back with their plasma rifles? Is it because they know we have exoarmor and it would be moot? Renatus may be presumptuous and cocky but he’s not dense. Then I look in the distance and see what appears to be a flock of crows approaching. But they aren’t birds, they are helidrones—winged annihilators. At least fifty of them. So many they blot out the sun. I knew they were coming but didn’t want to admit it.
“Get the Gatling!” I order.
The Lazurites below us form a line and aim their plasma rifles. I spot Renatus casually trotting back and forth behind them, as if on an afternoon jaunt. Then he orders them to fire. Then to my acute horror, my men begin dropping like flies, their exoarmor does nothing to protect them from whatever this new weapon is that Renatus now wields.
