Swan Song

Swan Song Page 26

The silence stretched. Bud Royce was still on his feet, but his eyes weren't as hard as they had been, and his forehead was creased with thought.

Sister didn't speak either. Her heart swelled with pride for Swan, but Sister knew full well that the army wasn't coming just for the crops and the fresh water. They were coming for Swan, too. The man with the scarlet eye was leading them there, and he was going to use the human hand to crush her.

"Walls covered with ice," Royce mused aloud. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard of. Hell... it's so crazy, it might just work. Might, I said. It won't stop the soldiers very long, if they want to come over bad enough. Depends on what kind of weapons they've got. We break enough suspensions and axles in vehicle traps, and they might think twice."

"Then it can be donei" Sister asked.

"I didn't say that, lady. It'd be a mighty big job, and I don't know if we've got the manpower to do it."

"Manpower, my ass!" anna McClay told him. "What about womanpoweri and we've got plenty of kids who can work, too!" Her rowdy voice drew shouts of assent.

"Well, we wouldn't need too many people and guns to hold the walls," Royce said, "especially if we leveled the woods and didn't leave those bastards any cover. We don't want 'em sneakin' up on us."

"We can fix it so they won't," a small voice said. a brown-haired boy of about ten or eleven stood up on the bench. He'd filled out since Sister had seen him last, and his cheeks were windburned. She knew that under his coat there would be a small round scar just below his heart. Bucky said, "If they're north of here, we can take a car and go find 'em." He drew a long-bladed knife from the folds of his coat. "It wouldn't be nothin' to hide in the woods and pop a few of their tires when they wasn't lookin'."

"It sure would help," Royce agreed. "anything we can do to slow 'em down would give us more time to dig and build. Wouldn't be a bad idea to post lookouts about fifty miles up the road, either."

"I doubt you've had much time behind a wheel," Paul told Bucky. "If I can get a car that doesn't sound like an elephant in heat, I'll do the driving. I've had a little experience in hunting wolves."

"I've got an axe!" another man said. "It ain't too sharp, but it'll get the job done!"

Other people stood up, volunteering. "We can tear down some of the empty shacks and use that wood, too!" a Hispanic man with a pale violet keloid on his face suggested.

"Okay, we'll have to round up all the saws and axes we can find," Bud Royce told Sister. "Jesus, I guess I always was half nuts! I might as well go the whole shell! We'll have to assign the work details and thrash out the schedules, and we'd better get started right now."

"Right," Sister said. "and everybody who doesn't want to help should leave and stay out of the way, starting this minute."

about fifteen people left - but their places were instantly filled by others from outside.

as the crowd settled down again Sister glanced at Swan and saw the determination in her face. She knew that Swan had, indeed, made her decision - and she knew also that Swan was not going to be persuaded to flee Mary's Rest and leave everyone else there to face the soldiers.

So, Sister thought, we take it one step at a time. One step and then the next gets you where you're going.

"We know what we have to do," she told the crowd. "Let's get to work and save our town."  

Eighty

The hurting sound echoed through the freezing air, and Swan flinched. She pulled back on the rope bridle, checking Mule to a walk, and steam burst from Mule's nostrils as if he, too, had heard and been disturbed by the noise. More hurting sounds came to her, like the quick, high whine of notes played on a steel guitar, but Swan knew she had to endure them.

They were the sounds of living trees being chopped down, to be added to the four-foot-high wall of logs, brush and dirt that encircled Mary's Rest and the crop field.

Over the hurting sounds, Swan heard the steady chipping of axes at work. She said, "Go on, Mule," and she guided the horse along the wall, where dozens of people were piling up more brush and timbers. all of them looked up and paused for a second as she passed, then returned to work with renewed urgency.

Bud Royce had told her, Sister and Josh that the wall needed to be at least six feet tall before the water was poured onto it - but time was getting short. It had taken over twenty hours of nonstop, backbreaking labor to get the wall to its present height and circumference. Out on the rapidly receding edge of the forest, work crews headed by anna McClay, Royce and other volunteers were busy digging a network of trenches, then hiding them under a latticework of sticks, straw and snow.

ahead of her was a group of people packing stones and dirt into chinks in the wall, their breath wisping up into the air. among them was Sister, her hands and clothes grimy, her face reddened by the cold. a length of sturdy twine was draped around her neck and looped to the handle of the leather satchel. Nearby, Robin was unloading another wheelbarrow full of dirt. Swan knew he'd wanted to go with Paul, Bucky and three other young highwaymen when they'd headed north the day before in a gray Subaru, but Sister had told him they needed his muscle on the wall.

Swan reined Mule in and got off. Sister saw her and scowled. "What're you doing out herei I thought I told you to stay in the shack."

"You did." Swan scooped up a double handful of dirt and jammed it into a chink. "I'm not going to stay there while everybody else works."

Sister lifted her hands to show Swan. They were crisscrossed by bleeding gashes, made by small, sharp-edged stones. "You've got to save your hands for better things. Go on, now!"

"Your hands will heal. So will mine." Swan packed more dirt and rocks into a hole between two logs. about twenty yards away, a number of men were wrestling more logs and brush into position as the wall grew higher.

Robin looked up at the low, ugly sky. "It'll be dark in another hour. If they're anywhere near, we might be able to see their fires."

"Paul'll let us know if they're getting close." She hoped. She knew that Paul had volunteered for a very dangerous job; if the soldiers caught him and the boys, they were as good as dead. She glanced at Swan, her fear for Paul nagging at her. "Go on, Swan! There's no need for you to be out here tearing your hands up!"

"I'm not different, damn it!" Swan suddenly shouted, straightening up from her work. Her eyes flashed with anger, and crimson burst in her cheeks. "I'm a person, not... not some piece of glass on a damned shelf! I can work as hard as anybody, and you don't need to make it easy on me!"

Sister was amazed at Swan's outburst and aware that the others were watching as well.

"I'm sorry," Swan said, calming down, "but you don't have to shut me away and protect me. I can take care of myself." She looked around at the others, at Robin, and then her gaze returned to Sister. "I know why that army's coming here, and I know who's bringing them. It's me they want. It's because of me the whole town's in danger." Her voice cracked, and her eyes teared up. "I want to run. I want to get away, but I know that if I do, the soldiers will still come. They'll still take all the crops, and they won't leave anybody alive. So there's no need to run - but if everybody here dies, it's because of me. Me. So please let me do what I can."

Sister knew Swan was right. She, Josh and the others had been treating Swan like a fragile piece of porcelain, or like... yes, she thought, like one of those sculptures back in the Steuben Glass shop on Fifth avenue. all of them had focused on Swan's gift of stirring life from dead earth, and they'd forgotten that she was just a girl. Still, Sister feared for Swan's hands, because those were the instruments that might yet make life bloom from the wasteland - but Swan was strong-minded and tough far beyond her years, and she was ready to work.

"I wish you'd find a pair of gloves, but I guess those are hard to come by." Sister's own pair had already worn out. "Well," she said, "let's get to work, then. Time's wasting." She returned to her task.

a pair of tattered woolen gloves was held up before Swan's face.

"Take them," Robin urged. His own hands were now bare. "I can always steal some more."

Swan looked into his eyes. Behind his tough mask there was a spark of gentle kindness, as if the sun had suddenly glinted through the snow clouds. She motioned toward Sister. "Give them to her."

He nodded. His heart was racing, and he thought that if he did something stupid this time he would crawl in a hole and just cover himself over. Oh, she was so beautiful! Don't do something stupid! he warned himself. Be cool, man! Just be cool!

His mouth opened.

"I love you," he said.

Sister's eyes widened. She straightened up from her work and turned toward Robin and Swan.

Swan was speechless. Robin wore a horrified grin, as if he realized his vocal cords had worked with a will of their own. But now those words were out in the air, and everybody had heard.

"What... did you sayi" Swan asked.

His face looked like he'd been weaned on ketchup. "Uh... I've got to get some more dirt," he mumbled. "Out in the field. That's where I get the dirt. You knowi" He backed toward the wheelbarrow and almost fell into it. Then he wheeled it rapidly away.

Both Sister and Swan watched him go. Sister grunted. "That boy's crazy!"

"Oh," Swan said softly, "I hope not."

and Sister looked at her and knew. "I imagine he might need some help with the dirt," Sister suggested. "I mean, somebody really ought to help him. It'd be faster if two people worked together, don't you thinki"

"Yes." Swan caught herself and shrugged. "I guess so. Maybe."

"Right. Well, you'd better go on, then. We can take care of the work here."

Swan hesitated. She watched him walking toward the field and realized she knew very little about him. She probably wouldn't care for him at all if she got to know him. No, not at all!

and she was still thinking that when she took Mule's reins and started walking after Robin.

"One step at a time," Sister said quietly, but Swan was already on her way.

Josh had been hauling logs for eight hours straight, and his legs were about to give out as he staggered to the spring for a dipper of water. Many of the children, including aaron, had the responsibility of carrying buckets of water and dippers around to the work crews.

Josh drank his fill and returned the dipper to its hook on the large barrel of water that stood next to the spring. He was weary, his sprained shoulder was killing him, and he could hardly see anything through the slit of his Job's Mask; his head felt so heavy it took tremendous effort just to keep it from lolling. He'd forced himself to haul wood over the objections of Sister, Swan and Glory. Now, though, all he wanted to do was lie down and rest. Maybe an hour or so, and then he'd feel good enough to get back to work - because there was still so much to be done, and time was running out.

He'd tried to talk Glory into taking aaron and leaving, maybe hiding in the woods until it was over, but she was determined to stay with him. and Swan, too, had made up her mind. There was no use trying to change it. But the soldiers were going to come, and they wanted Swan, and Josh knew that this time he was powerless to protect her.

Underneath the Job's Mask, pain tore through his face like an electric shock. He felt weak, close to passing out. Just an hour's rest, he told himself. That's all. One hour, and then I can get back to work, broken fingers and busted ribs or not. Good thing that face-changing bastard gave up! I would've killed him!

He started walking toward Glory's shack, his legs like dragging lengths of lead. Man! he mused. If those fans could see old Black Frankenstein now, they'd really hoot and holler!

He unbuttoned his coat and loosened his sweat-damp shirt collar. The air must be getting warmer, he thought. Sweat was running down his sides, and the shirt was stuck to his chest and back. Lord! I'm burning up!

He stumbled and almost fell going up the steps, but then he was inside the shack and peeled his coat off, letting it slip to the floor. "Glory!" he called out weakly, before he remembered that Glory was out digging trenches with one of the work crews. "Glory," he whispered, thinking about how her amber eyes had lit up and her face had shone like a lamp in the dark when he'd given her the spangle-covered dress. She'd hugged it to herself, had run her fingers all over it, and when she'd looked at him again he'd seen a tear stealing down her cheek.

In that instant he'd wanted to kiss her. Had wanted to press his lips against hers and nuzzle her cheek with his own - but he couldn't, not with this damned shit all over his face. But he'd peered at her through the narrowing slit of his one good eye, and it had come to him that he had forgotten what Rose looked like. The faces of the boys, of course, remained in his mind as clearly as snapshots - but Rose's face was fading away.

He'd given Glory the dress because he'd wanted to see her smile - and when she had smiled, it was like a glimpse of another, better world.

Josh lost his balance and stumbled against the table. Something fluttered to the floor, and he bent over to pick it up.

But suddenly his entire body seemed to give way like a house of cards, and he fell forward onto the floor. The entire shack trembled with the crash.

Burning up, he thought. Oh, God... I'm burning up...

He had something between his fingers. The thing that had fluttered down off the table. He held it closer to his eye and made out what it was.

The tarot card, with the young woman seated against a landscape of flowers, wheat and a waterfall. The lion and the lamb lay at her feet, and in one hand she grasped a shield with a phoenix on it, rising in flame from the ashes. On her head was what looked like a glass crown, shining with light.

"The... Em... press," Josh read.

He stared at the flower, looked at the glass crown and then at the young woman's face. Looked closely and carefully as fever seemed to surge through his head and body like the opening of volcanic floodgates.

Have to tell Sister, he thought. Have to tell Sister... that the glass ring in her bag... is a crown. Have to show her this card... because Swan and the Empress... have the same face...

and then the fever seared all thoughts from his mind, and he lay motionless, with the tarot card clenched in his hand.  

Eighty-one

On the fourth night, fire burned in the sky.

Robin saw it as he filled buckets and barrels full of water to be loaded onto wagons and carried out to the wall. Every possible container, from plastic pails to washtubs, was being utilized, and the workers around the spring had no sooner filled one wagon or truck than another pulled up to accept a load.

Robin knew that the light glowing off the bellies of low clouds to the north was coming from the torches and bonfires of the army's camp, maybe fifteen miles away. They would reach Mary's Rest the next day, and the glaze of ice that now covered the completed seven-foot-high wall had to be thickened in these last hours with an all-out effort. His shoulders ached, and every pail, bucket and pot that he dipped in the spring felt as if it weighed fifty pounds, but he thought of Swan and he kept working. She'd caught up with him that day and walked at his side, and she helped him with the dirt just like any ordinary person. Their hands had been cut and callused just the same, and as they'd worked Robin had told her all about himself, about the orphanage and his years with the highwaymen. Swan had listened to him without judgment, and when he was finished with his story she'd told him her own.

He didn't mind the pain in his body, had pushed aside the weariness like an old blanket. all he had to do was think of Swan's face, and he was recharged with new strength. She had to be protected, like a beautiful flower, and he knew he would die for her, if that was how it had to be.

He saw the same strength in the other faces, too, and realized that everyone was pushing far beyond their limits. Because they all knew, as he did, that tomorrow was the hinge of the future.

Glory stood on her porch, staring toward the north, and put her hand on aaron's shoulder.

"I'm gonna give 'em a knock!" aaron vowed, swinging Crybaby like a bludgeon.

"You're gonna stay in the house tomorrow," she told him. "Do you understand mei"

"I wanna be a soldier!" he protested.

She gripped his shoulder hard and spun him around. "No!" she said, her amber eyes furious. "You want to learn how to kill, and take what belongs to other folksi You want to make your heart like a stone, so you can stomp people down and think it's righti Boy, if I thought you were gonna grow up that way, I'd bust your head open right this minute! So don't you ever, ever say you want to be a soldier! You hear mei"

aaron's lower lip trembled. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "But... if there ain't any good soldiers, how do you keep the bad soldiers from winnin'i"

She couldn't answer him. His eyes searched hers. Was it always going to be true, she wondered, that soldiers marched the land under different flags and leadersi Was there never really any end to war, no matter who woni and there her own son stood before her, asking the question.

"I'll think about it," she said, and that was the best she could do.

She looked out along the road to where the church had been. It was gone now, the wood used to fortify the wall. all the guns, axes, shovels, picks, hoes, knives - anything and everything that could be used as weapons - had been counted and distributed. There wasn't much ammunition to go around. The Junkman had even offered to make "supersonic slingshots" if enough rubber bands could be found.

Paul Thorson and the boys had not returned, and Glory doubted they ever would.

She went inside, back to the room where Josh lay on the bed in a feverish coma. She looked down at the gnarled Job's Mask and knew that beneath it was Josh's true face.

In his hand was a tarot card. His fingers gripped The Empress so tightly that none of them, not even anna, had been able to pry his hand open. She sat down beside him and waited.

at the northern rim of the wall, one of the lookouts who perched atop a jerry-built ladder suddenly shouted, "Somebody's comin'!"

Sister and Swan, working together to pour water over their section of the wall, heard the cry. They hurried over to the lookout's station.

"How manyi" Sister asked. They weren't ready yet! It was too soon!

"Two. No. Wait. Three, I think." The lookout cocked his rifle, trying to see through the dark. "Two on foot. I think one of them's carrying the third. It's a man and two kids!"

"Oh, God!" Sister's heart leapt. "Bring a ladder!" she called to the next lookout along the wall. "Hurry!"

The second ladder was lowered over the other side. First up was Bucky, his face streaked with dried blood. Sister helped him down, and he put his arms around her neck and clung tightly.

Paul Thorson came over, a three-inch-long gash in the side of his head, his eyes circled with gray shock. He was carrying over his shoulder one of the boys who'd helped Sister and himself make the trip to Mary's Rest. The boy's right arm was covered with dried blood, and bullet holes had marched across his back.

"Get him to the doctor's house!" Sister told another woman, giving Bucky over to her. The small boy made a soft whimpering sound, nothing more.

Paul set his feet on the ground. His knees gave out, but Sister and Swan caught him before he fell. Mr. Polowsky and anna were running toward them, followed by several others.

"Take him," Paul rasped. His beard and hair were full of snow, his face lined and weary. Polowsky and the lookout eased the boy off Paul's shoulder, and Sister could tell the boy was frozen almost stiff. "He'll be okay!" Paul said. "I told him I'd get him back!" He touched the cold blue face. "Told you, didn't Ii"

They took him away, and Paul shouted after them, "You be careful with him! Let him sleep if he wants to!"

One of the other men uncapped a flask of hot coffee and gave it to Paul. He started drinking it so frantically that Sister had to restrain him, and he winced with pain as the hot liquid spread warmth through his bones.

"What happenedi" Sister asked. "Where're the othersi"

"Dead." Paul shivered, drank more coffee. "all dead. Oh, Jesus, I'm freezing!"

Someone brought a blanket, and Swan helped wrap him up. They led him to a nearby bonfire, and he stood for a long while getting the blood circulating in his hands again.

Then he told them the story: They'd found the army's camp on the second day out, about sixty miles north of Mary's Rest. The boys were born stalkers, he said; they'd been able to creep into camp and take a look around, and while they were there they'd punctured a few of the trucks' tires. But there were a lot of cars and trucks, Paul said, and most of them were covered with metal plate and had gun turrets. There were soldiers all over the place, carrying machine guns, pistols and rifles. The boys had gotten out all right, and they and Paul had kept in front of the army as it advanced the next day.

But tonight something had gone wrong. There were flares and gunshots, and only Bucky and the other boy had gotten back.

"We were trying to get away in the car," Paul said, his teeth still chattering. "We'd made it to about seven or eight miles from here. all of a sudden the woods were full of them. Maybe they'd been tracking us all day, I don't know. a machine gun went off. Bullets hit the engine. I tried to get off the road, but the car was finished. We ran. I don't know how long they kept after us." He stared into the fire, his mouth working for a moment but making no sounds. "They kept after us," he said finally. "I don't know who they are, but they know their business." He blinked heavily and looked at Sister. "They've got a lot of guns. Flares, maybe grenades, too. a lot of guns. You tell 'em to be easy with that kid. He's tired. I told him I'd get him back."

"You did get him back," Sister said gently. "Now I want you to go to Hugh's house and rest." She motioned anna over to help him. "We're going to need you tomorrow."

"They didn't take it," Paul said. "I wouldn't let them kill me and get it."

"Get whati"

He smiled wanly and touched the Magnum lodged in his belt. "My old buddy."

"Go on, now. Better get some rest, okayi"

He nodded and allowed anna to help him stagger away.

Sister suddenly lunged up the ladder, and her face filled with blood as she shouted toward the north, "Come on, you fucking killers! Come on! We see what you do to children! Come on, you sonofabitching cowards!" Her voice cracked and gave out, and then she just stood at the top of the ladder with steam bellowing from her mouth and nostrils and her body shaking like a lightning rod in a tempest.

The freezing wind blew into her face, and she thought she smelled bitter ashes.

There was no use standing up here and raving like a... like a New York City bag lady, she told herself. No; there was still a lot of work to be done, because the soldiers were going to be there very soon.

She descended the ladder, and Swan touched her arm. "I'm all right," Sister said hoarsely, and both of them knew Death was on its way, grinning like a skull and slashing down everything in its path.

They returned to their places in the wall and went back to work.  

Eighty-two

The day came.

Somber light revealed the finished wall, glazed with three inches of ice and studded here and there with sharp wooden stakes, that encircled Mary's Rest and the crop field. Except for the occasional howling of dogs, the town was silent, and there was no movement on the stump-stubbled land that lay between the wall and the forest's edge forty yards away.

about two hours after dawn, a single shot rang out, and a sentry on the eastern section of the wall toppled off his ladder, a bullet hole in his forehead.

The defenders of Mary's Rest waited for the first attack - but it did not come.

a lookout at the western section of the wall reported seeing movement in the woods, but she couldn't tell how many soldiers there were. The soldiers slipped back into the forest, and there was no gunfire.

an hour after that, another lookout on the eastern side passed the word that he heard what sounded like heavy machines in the distance, moving through the forest and getting closer.

"Truck's coming!" one of the sentries on the northern section cried out.

Paul Thorson climbed up a ladder and looked for himself. He heard the scratchy, weirdly merry sound of recorded calliope music. What appeared to be an armored Good Humor truck with two loudspeakers mounted on its cab, an armored windshield and a sheet metal gun turret rumbled slowly along the road from the north.

The music stopped, and as the truck continued to move forward a man's voice boomed from the two speakers: "People of Mary's Rest! Listen to the law of the army of Excellence!" The voice echoed over the town, over the field where the corn was growing and the new apple trees were taking root, over the foundations where the church had stood, over the bonfires and over the shack where Josh lay sleeping. "We don't want to kill you! Every one of you who wants to join us is welcome! Just come over that wall and join the army of Excellence! Bring your families, your guns and your food! We don't want to kill any of you!"

"Riiiight," Paul muttered under his breath. He had his Magnum cocked and ready.

"We want your crops," the voice commanded from the speakers as the Good Humor truck rumbled nearer to the north wall. "We want your food and a supply of water. and we want the girl. Bring us the girl called Swan, and we'll leave the rest of you in peace. Just bring her to us, and we'll welcome you with loving, open - oh, shit!"

and at that instant the vehicle's front tires plunged into one of the hidden trenches, and as the rear tires spun in empty air the truck turned on its side and crashed into the ditch.

There was a shout of victory from the other sentries. a minute later, two men scrambled up from the trench and began running in the direction from which they'd come. One of them was limping, unable to keep up, and Paul aimed the Magnum at the center of his spine.

He wanted to pull the trigger. Knew he should kill the bastard while he had the chance. But he didn't, and he watched as both of the soldiers disappeared into the woods.

a machine gun chattered off to the right. Bullets zigzagged across the wall, cracking through the ice and thunking into the logs and dirt. Paul ducked his head, heard shouting from the eastern section, then the noise of more gunfire, and he knew the first attack had begun. He dared to lift his head, saw about forty more soldiers taking cover at the edge of the woods. They opened fire, but their bullets couldn't penetrate the wall. Paul kept his head down and held his fire, waiting for a chance to tag one of them when they started across the open ground.

On the eastern side of Mary's Rest, the sentries saw a wave of perhaps two hundred soldiers coming out of the forest. The aOE infantry shouted and surged forward - and then they began tumbling into the network of hidden trenches, many of them breaking their ankles and legs as they hit bottom. The sentries, all armed with rifles, picked off their targets at random. Two of the sentries were shot and fell, but as soon as they hit the ground others were climbing up the ladders to take their places.

The aOE soldiers, their formation in disarray and men falling everywhere, began to turn back for the cover of the woods and toppled into more ditches and pits. The wounded were crushed under the boots of their companions.

at the same time, more than five hundred soldiers burst from the forest on the western edge of Mary's Rest, along with dozens of armored cars, trucks and two bulldozers. as they rushed forward in a shouting mass the trenches opened under their feet. One of the bulldozers plunged down and overturned, and an armored car following right behind hit the bulldozer and exploded in a red fireball. Several of the other vehicles were snagged on tree stumps and unable to go either forward or backward. Scores of men tumbled into the ditches, breaking their bones. The lookouts fired as fast as they could select targets, and aOE soldiers fell dead in the snow.

But most of the soldiers and vehicles kept coming, storming the western section of the wall, and behind them was a second wave of another two hundred troops. Machine gun, rifle and pistol fire began to chip at the wall, but still the bullets were turned aside.

"Step up and open fire!" Bud Royce shouted.

and a line of men and women stepped up on the two-foot-high bank of dirt that had been built along the wall's base, aimed their guns and started shooting.

anna McClay ran along the wall, shouting, "Step up and give 'em hell!"

a blaze of gunfire erupted along the western wall, and the first wave of aOE soldiers faltered. The second wave crashed into them, and then the vehicles were running men down as they scattered. Officers in armored cars and Jeeps shouted commands, but the troops were panicked. They fled toward the forest, and as Captain Carr stood up in his Jeep to order them back, a bullet pierced his throat and slammed him to the ground.

The attack was over in another few minutes as the soldiers drew back deeper in the woods. around the walls, the wounded crawled on the ground and the dead lay where they'd fallen. a victorious shout rang up from the defenders along the western wall, but a figure on horseback called out, "No! Stop it! Stop it!"

Tears were streaming down Swan's cheeks, and the gunfire still echoed in her head. "Stop it!" she shouted as Mule reared with her and pawed the air. She wheeled the horse toward Sister, who stood nearby with her sawed-off shotgun. "Make them stop!" Swan said. "They just killed other people! They shouldn't be glad about that!"

"They're not glad about killing other people," Sister told her. "They're just glad they weren't killed." She motioned toward a man's corpse that lay ten feet away, shot through the face. Someone else was already taking the dead man's pistol and bullets. "There're going to be more of those. If you can't take what you see, you'd better get inside."

Swan looked around. a woman was sprawled on the ground, moaning as another woman and man bound up her bullet-shattered wrist with strips torn from a shirt. a few feet away, a dark-haired man lay contorted and dying, coughing up blood as other people tried to comfort him. Swan flinched with horror, her eyes returning to Sister.

Sister was calmly reloading her shotgun. "You'd better go," she suggested.

Swan was torn; she knew she should be out there with the people who were fighting to protect her, but she couldn't stand watching the death. The noise of gunfire was a thousand times worse than all the hurting sounds she'd ever experienced.

But before she could decide to go or stay, there was the throaty growl of an engine beyond the wall. Someone shouted, "Jesus Christ! Look at that!"

Sister hurried to the wall, and stepped up on the mound of dirt.

Just emerging from the forest, about twenty yards to Sister's left, was a tank. Its wide treads crunched over the wounded and dead alike. The snout of its gun was aimed directly at the wall. and dangling all over the tank, like grotesque hood ornaments, were human bones tied to wires - legs, arms, rib cages, hip bones, vertebrae and skulls, some still bearing scalps. The tank stopped right at the edge of the woods, its engine idling like a beast's snarl.

The tank's hatch popped open. a hand emerged waving a white handkerchief.

"Hold your fire!" Sister told the others. "Let's see what they want first!"

a helmeted head came up; the face was bandaged, the eyes covered with goggles. "Who's in charge over therei" Roland Croninger called toward the row of faces he could see, like disembodied heads perched atop that damned wall.

Some of the others looked at Sister; she didn't want the responsibility, but she guessed she was it. "I am! What do you wanti"

"Peace," Roland replied. He glanced at the bodies on the ground. "You people did a pretty good job!" He grinned, though inwardly he was shrieking with rage. Friend had said nothing about trenches and a defensive wall! How the hell had these goddamned farmers put together such a barricadei "Nice wall you've got there!" he said. "Looks pretty sturdy! Is iti"

"It'll do!"

"Will iti I wonder how many rounds it would take to knock a hole through it and blow you to Hell, lady."

"I don't know!" Sister had a rigid smile on her face, but sweat was running down her sides, and she knew they had no chance at all against that monstrous machine. "How much time do you havei"

"a lot! all the time in the world!" He patted the cannon's snout. It was too bad, he thought, that there were no shells for the cannon - and even if there were, none of them would know how to load and fire it. The second tank had broken down only a few hours out of Lincoln, and this one had to be driven by a corporal who'd once made his living hauling freight through the Rocky Mountains in a tractor-trailer rig; but even he couldn't keep control of the big bastard all the time. Still, Roland liked riding in it, because the inside smelled like hot metal and sweat, and he could think of no better warhorse for a King's Knight. "Hey, lady!" he called. "Why don't you people give us what we want, and nobody else will get hurt! Okayi"

"It looks to me like you're the ones getting hurt!"

"Oh, this little scrapei Lady, we haven't started yet! This was just an exercise! See, now we know where your trenches are! Behind me are a thousand soldiers who'd really like to meet all you fine people! Or I might be wrong: They could be over on the other side, or circling down to the south! They could be anywhere!"

Sister felt sick. There was no way to fight against a tank! She was aware of Swan standing beside her, peering over the wall. "Why don't you just go on about your business and leave us alonei" Sister asked.

"Our business won't be done until we've gotten what we came for!" Roland said. "We want food, water and the girl! We want your guns and ammunition, and we want them now! Do I make myself cleari"

"Perfectly," she answered - and then she lifted her shotgun and squeezed the trigger.

The distance was too great for an accurate shot, but pellets rang off Roland's helmet as he ducked his head through the hatch. The white handkerchief was riddled with buckshot, and a half-dozen pellets had punctured his hand. Cursing and shaking with rage, Roland fell down into the bowels of the tank.

The back of Sister's neck crawled. She tensed, waiting for the first blast of the cannon - but it didn't come. The tank's engine revved, and the vehicle backed over the bodies and tree stumps toward the woods again. Sister's nerves didn't stop jangling until the tank had moved out of sight in the underbrush, and only then did she realize that something must be wrong with the tank; otherwise, why hadn't they just blown a hole right through the walli

a red flare shot up into the sky from the western woods and exploded over the cornfield.

"Here they come again!" Sister shouted grimly. She glanced at Swan. "You'd better get out of here before it starts."

Swan looked along the wall at the others who stood ready to fight, and she knew where she should be. "I'll stay."

another flare rose from the eastern woods and burst like a smear of blood against the sky.

Gunfire swept the western wall, and Sister grabbed Swan to pull her behind cover. Bullets slammed against the logs, chips of ice and splinters spinning through the air. about twenty seconds after the first barrage had begun, the aOE soldiers massed in the forest on the eastern side of Mary's Rest started firing, their bullets doing no major damage but keeping the defenders' heads down. The shooting continued, and soon bullets were blasting chinks in the walls, some of them ricocheting off the ground, but others hitting flesh.

and on the southern perimeter, the defenders saw more armored cars and trucks emerge from the forest, along with fifty or sixty soldiers. The army of Excellence rushed the wall. Hidden trenches stopped several vehicles and toppled twenty or more men, but the rest of them kept coming. Two trucks got through the maze of ditches and tree stumps and crashed into the logs. The entire southern section of the wall trembled, but it held. Then the soldiers had covered the open ground and reached the wall, trying to climb over it; their fingers couldn't grip the ice, and as they slipped back the defenders fired on them point-blank. Those without guns swung axes, picks and sharpened shovels.

Mr. Polowsky climbed up on a dead sentry's ladder, firing his pistol as fast as he could aim. "Drive them back!" he shouted. He took aim at an enemy soldier, but before he could pull the trigger a rifle bullet plowed into his chest and a second caught him in the side of the head. He fell off the ladder, and at once a woman plucked the pistol from his hand.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Lieutenant Thatcher commanded as bullets whined around his head and soldiers were wounded and killed on every side. Thatcher didn't wait for the others to obey; he turned and ran, and with his third stride a .38 slug hit him in the small of his back and propelled him into a ditch on top of four other men.

The charge had been broken, and the soldiers retreated. They left their dead behind.

"Hold your fire!" Sister shouted. The shooting died away, and in another minute it ceased over on the eastern wall as well.

"I'm out of bullets!" a woman with a rifle said to Sister, and further down the line there were more calls for ammunition - but Sister knew that once the bullets everyone had for his own weapons were gone, there would be no more. They're baiting us, she thought. Getting us to waste ammunition, and when the guns were useless they would storm the walls in a tide of death and destruction. Sister had six more shells for her own shotgun, and that was all.

They're going to break through, she realized. Sooner or later, they're going to break through.

She looked at Swan and saw in the girl's dark eyes that Swan had reached the same conclusion.

"They want me," Swan said. The wind blew her hair around her pale, lovely face like the fanning of brilliant flames. "No one else. Just me." Her gaze found one of the ladders that leaned against the wall.

Sister's arm shot out; her hand caught Swan's chin and pulled her head back around. "You get that out of your mind!" Sister snapped. "Yes, they want you! He wants you! But don't you think for one minute that it would be over if you went out to them!"

"But... if I went out there, maybe I could - "

"You could not!" Sister interrupted. "If you went over that wall, all you'd be doing is telling the rest of us that there's nothing worth fighting for!"

"I don't..." She shook her head, sickened by the sights, sounds and smell of war. "I don't want anyone else to die."

"It's not up to you anymore. People are going to die. I may be dead before the day's over. But some things are worth fighting and dying for. You'd better learn that right here and now, if you're ever going to lead people."

"Lead peoplei What do you meani"

"You really don't know, do youi" Sister released Swan's chin. "You're a natural-born leader! It's in your eyes, your voice, the way you carry yourself - everything about you. People listen to you, and they believe what you say, and they want to follow you. If you said everyone should put down their guns right this minute, they'd do it. Because they know you're somebody very special, Swan - whether you want to believe that or not. You're a leader, and you'd better learn how to act like one."

"Mei a leaderi No, I'm just... I'm just a girl."

"You were born to lead people, and to teach them, too!" Sister affirmed. "This says you were." She touched the outline of the glass ring in the leather satchel. "Josh knows it. So does Robin. and he knows you were, just like I do." She motioned out beyond the wall, where she was certain the man with the scarlet eye must be. "Now it's time you accepted it, too."

Swan was puzzled and disoriented. Her childhood in Kansas, before the seventeenth of July, seemed like the life of another person a hundred years ago. "Teach them whati" she asked.

"What the future can be," Sister answered.

Swan thought of what she'd seen in the circle of glass: the green forests and meadows, the golden fields, the fragrant orchards of a new world.

"Now get on that horse," Sister said, "and ride around the walls. Sit up tall and proud, and let everybody see you. Sit like a princess," she said, drawing her own self up straight, "and let everybody know there's still something worth dying for in this damned world."

Swan looked at the ladder again. Sister was right. They wanted her, yes, but they wouldn't stop if they had her; they'd just keep killing, like rabid dogs in a frenzy, because that was all they understood.

She walked to Mule's side, grasped the rope reins and swung up onto his back. He pranced around a little bit, still unnerved by the uproar, and then he settled down and responded to Swan's touch. She urged him forward with a whisper, and Mule began to canter along the wall.

Sister watched Swan ride away, her hair streaming behind her like a fiery banner, and she saw the others turn to look at her as well, saw them all stand a little straighter, saw them check their guns and ammunition after she'd passed by. Saw new resolve in their faces, and knew that they would all die for Swan - and their town - if it came to that. She hoped it would not, but she was certain the soldiers would return stronger than ever - and right now, at least, there was no way out.

Sister reloaded her shotgun and stepped back up on the dirt bank to await the next attack.  

Eighty-three

With darkness came the bone-numbing cold. The bonfires chewed up wood that had been the walls and roofs of shacks, and the defenders of Mary's Rest warmed themselves, ate and rested in hour-long shifts before they returned to the wall.

Sister had four shells left. The soldier she'd killed lay about ten feet from the wall, the blood icy and black around what had been his chest. On the northern perimeter, Paul was down to twelve bullets, and during one brief skirmish just before dark the two men who'd been fighting on either side of him had been killed. a ricocheting slug had driven wood splinters into Paul's forehead and right cheek, but otherwise he was okay.

On the eastern side of Mary's Rest, Robin counted six shells left for his rifle. Guarding that section of the wall, along with Robin and about forty ether people, was anna McClay, who'd long ago run out of bullets for her own rifle and now carried a little .22 pistol she'd taken from a dead man.

The attacks had continued all day, with lulls of an hour or two in between. First one side of the barricade would be hammered at, then another sprayed with gunfire. The wall was still holding strong, and it deflected most of the fire, but bullets were knocking chinks between the logs and occasionally hitting someone. Bud Royce's knee had been shattered by a rifle bullet that way, but he was still hobbling around on the southern edge, his face bleached with pain.

The word had gone out to save ammunition, but the supply was dwindling, and the enemy seemed to have enough to waste. Everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before the walls were stormed by massive force - but the question was: On what side would it comei

all this Swan knew as she rode Mule across the cornfield. The heavy-laden stalks swayed as the wind hissed through them. In a clearing ahead was the largest of the bonfires, around which fifty or sixty people rested and ate hot soup ladled from steaming wooden buckets. She was on her way to check on the many wounded who'd been taken to shelter inside the shacks for Dr. Ryan to help, and as she passed the bonfire a silence fell over the people who'd gathered around it.

She didn't look at any of them. She couldn't, because - even though she knew Sister was right - she felt as if she'd signed their death warrants. It was because of her that people were being killed, wounded and maimed, and if being a leader meant having to take that kind of burden, it was too heavy. She didn't look at them, because she knew that many of them would be dead before daylight.

a man shouted, "Don't you worry! We won't let the bastards in!"

"When I run out of bullets," another man vowed, "I'll use my knife! and when that breaks, I've still got teeth!"

"We'll stop 'em!" a woman called. "We'll turn 'em back!"

There were more shouts and calls of encouragement, and when Swan finally did look toward the bonfire, she saw the people watching her intently, some silhouetted by the flame and others illuminated by it, their eyes full of light and their faces strong and hopeful.

"We ain't afeared to die!" another woman said, and other voices agreed with her. "It's quittin' that scares the tar outta me, and by God, I ain't a quitter!"

Swan reined Mule in and sat staring at them. Her eyes filled with tears.

The skinny black man who'd been so vehement at the town meeting approached her. His left arm was bound up with bloody cloth, but his eyes were fierce and courageous. "Don't you cry, now!" he scolded her softly, when he got close enough. "It ain't for you to be cryin'. Lord, no! If you ain't strong, who's gonna bei"

Swan nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thank you," she said.

"Uh-uh! Thank you."

"For whati"

He smiled wistfully. "For lettin' me hear that sweet music again," he said, and he nodded toward the cornfield.

Swan knew what music he meant, because she could hear it, too: the wind moving between the rows and stalks like fingers brushing harp strings.

"I was born right close to a cornfield," he said. "Heard that music at night, just before I slept, and first thing in the mornin' when I woke up. Didn't think I'd ever hear it again, after them fellas messed everythin' up." He looked up at Swan. "I ain't afraid to die now. Uh-uh! See, I always figured it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I'm ready - and that's my choice. So don't you worry 'bout nothin'! Uh-uh!" He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and his frail body seemed to sway to the rhythm of the corn. Then he opened them again, and he said, "You take care now, heari" He returned to the bonfire, offering his hands to the heat.

Swan urged Mule forward, and the horse trotted across the field. as well as looking in on the wounded, Swan wanted to check on Josh; the last time she'd seen him, early that morning, he'd still been deep in a coma.

She was almost across the field when bright flashes of light leaped over the eastern wall. Flames gouted, and mingled with the blasts was the high sewing-machine chatter of guns. Robin was on that side of the wall, she realized. She cried out, "Go!" and flicked the reins. Mule took off at a gallop.

Behind her, at the western wall, army of Excellence infantry and vehicles were surging from the woods. "Hold your fire!" Sister warned, but the people around her were already shooting, wasting ammunition. and then something hit the wall about fifteen yards away, and flames leapt, fire rippling over the icy glaze. another object struck the wall a few yards closer; Sister heard glass shatter, and she smelled gasoline an instant before a burst of orange flame dazzled her. Bombs! she thought. They're throwing bombs at the wall!

People were shouting and firing in a bedlam of noise. Bottles full of gasoline, with wicks of flaming cloth jammed down into them, sailed over the wall and exploded amid the defenders. Glass broke almost at Sister's feet, and she instinctively flung herself to the ground as a sheet of fiery gasoline spewed in all directions.

On the eastern side, dozens of Molotov cocktails were being thrown over the wall. a man near Robin screamed as he was hit by flying glass and covered with flames. Someone else threw him to the ground, tried to put out the fire with snow and dirt. and then, through the maelstrom of leaping flames and explosions, machine gun, pistol and rifle bullets hit the wall so hard the logs jumped, and slugs ricocheted through gaps between them.

"Let 'em have it!" anna McClay thundered. The orange firelight showed her hundreds of soldiers between the wall and the forest, crawling forward, ducking into trenches, hiding behind wrecked vehicles and then firing or flinging their homemade bombs. as others around her fell back to get away from the flames, she shouted, "Stay where you are! Don't run!" a woman to her left staggered and went down, and as anna turned to retrieve the wounded woman's gun a rifle bullet zipped through a hole in the wall and hit her in the side, knocking her to her knees. She tasted blood in her mouth and knew she'd bought the farm this time, but she stood up with a gun in each hand and lurched to the wall again.

The storm of bombs and gunfire rose in intensity. a section of the wall was aflame, the wet wood popping and smoking. as bombs burst on all sides and glass fragments whirled through the turbulent air Robin kept his position at the wall, firing over it at the advancing soldiers. He hit two of them, and then a bomb exploded on the other side of the wall right in front of him. The heat and flying glass drove him back, and he tripped over the body of a dead man behind him.

Blood streamed down his face from a gash at his hairline, and his skin felt seared. He wiped blood out of his eyes, and then he saw something that drove a freezing bolt of fear into his stomach.

a metal claw attached to a heavy rope suddenly flew over the wall. The rope was drawn taut, and the tongs of the crude grappling hook dug between the logs. another hook came over, lodging nearby; a third grappling hook was thrown, but it didn't find a purchase and was rapidly reeled back to be tossed again. a fourth and a fifth grappling hook dug into the wall, and the soldiers started hauling at the ropes.

Robin realized at once that the entire section of the wall, already weakened by bullets and flames, was about to be pulled down. More grappling hooks were coming over, their tongs jamming tightly between the logs, and as the ropes went taut the wall cracked like a rib cage being torn apart.

He scrambled to his feet, ran toward the wall and grabbed one of the hooks, trying to wrench it loose. a few yards away, a husky, gray-bearded man was hacking at one of the ropes with an axe, and beside him a slim black woman was sawing at another rope with a butcher knife. Still the bottle bombs exploded along the wall, and more grappling hooks strained.

To the right of Robin's position, anna McClay had emptied both of her guns, and now she saw the grappling hooks and ropes coming over the wall. She turned, looking for another weapon, heedless of the bullet in her side and a second in her right shoulder. Rolling a dead man over, she found a pistol, but there was no ammunition for it; then she discovered a meat cleaver that someone had dropped, and she used it to slash at the ropes. She cut through one and had almost severed a second when the top three feet of the wall was pulled down in a crash of logs and flames. a half-dozen soldiers rushed at her. "No!" she screamed, and she flung the cleaver at them. a fusillade of machine gun bullets spun her around in a macabre pirouette. as she fell to the ground her last thought was of a carnival ride called the Mad Mouse, its little rattling car rocketing around a bend in the tracks and taking off into the night sky, up and up with the fiery lights of the carnival burning in the earth below her and the wind whistling past her ears.

She was dead before she came down.

"They're breaking through!" Robin heard someone shout - and then the wall in front of him collapsed with a noise like a human groan, and he was standing exposed in a space that a tractor-trailer truck could have driven through. a wave of soldiers was coming right at him, and he leapt aside an instant before bullets tore through the air.

He aimed his rifle and shot the first soldier who rushed through. The others scurried back or hit the ground as Robin blasted away at them - and then his rifle was empty, and he couldn't see the soldiers anymore for the smoke that whirled off the burning logs. He heard more cracks and groans as other sections of the wall were pulled down, and flames leapt high as the bombs exploded. He was aware of figures running all around him, some of them firing and falling. "Kill the sonsofbitches!" he heard a man shout off to the left, and then a figure in a grayish-green uniform ran out of the haze. Robin planted his feet, turned the rifle around to use it like a club and struck the soldier in the skull as the man passed him. The soldier fell, and Robin discarded his rifle in favor of the other man's .45 automatic.

a bullet sang past his head. Twenty feet away a bottle bomb exploded, and a woman with burning hair, her face a mask of blood, staggered out of the smoke; she fell before she got to Robin. He aimed at the figures flooding over the broken wall, firing the rest of the .45's clip. Machine gun bullets plowed across the ground a few feet from him, and he knew there was nothing more he could do there. He had to get away, to find another place to defend from; the wall on the eastern side of Mary's Rest was being destroyed, and soldiers were pouring through the holes.

He ran toward town. Dozens of others were running as well, and the battlefield was littered with the bodies of the dead and wounded. Small bands of people had stopped to make their own desperate stands, but they were quickly shot down or scattered. Robin looked back and saw two armored cars coming through the smoke, their turret guns flashing fire.

"Robin! Robin!" someone was calling over the chaos. He recognized the voice as Swan's, and he knew she must be somewhere close.

"Swan!" he shouted. "Over here!"

She heard Robin's answer and wheeled Mule to the left, in the direction she thought his voice had come from. The smoke stung her eyes, made it almost impossible to see the faces of people until they were a few feet away. Explosions were still blasting just ahead, and Swan knew the enemy soldiers had broken through the eastern wall. She saw that people were wounded and bleeding, but they were stopping to turn and fire the last of their bullets; still others, armed only with axes, knives and shovels, ran forward to fight at close quarters.

a bomb exploded nearby, and a man screamed. Mule reared up on his hind legs and pawed the air. When he came down again, he kept sideslipping as if one half of him wanted to run in one direction and the other half the opposite way. "Robin!" she shouted. "Where are youi"

"Over here!" He still couldn't see her. He tripped over the corpse of a man whose chest was riddled with bullet holes; the dead man was grasping an axe, and Robin spent a few precious seconds working it loose from the hand.

When he stood up, he was face to face with a horse - and it was a toss-up as to who was most startled. Mule whinnied and reared again, wanting to break loose and run, but Swan quickly got him under control. She saw Robin's blood-smeared face and held out her hand to him. "Get on! Hurry!"

He grasped her hand and pulled himself up behind her. Swan kicked her heels into Mule's flanks, wheeled him toward town and let him run.

They came out of the thick smoke, and Swan suddenly reined Mule in. He obeyed, his hooves plowing into the ground. From this position, Swan and Robin could see fighting going on all around Mary's Rest; fires blazed on the southern side, and over on the west they saw soldiers streaming through huge holes in the wall, followed by more armored cars and trucks. The noise of gunfire, shouting and screaming was whipped back and forth in the wind - and at that instant Swan knew Mary's Rest had fallen.

She had to find Sister, and fast. Her face tight and strained and her teeth clenched with anger, Swan urged Mule forward.

Mule started running like a thoroughbred, his head held low and his ears laid back.

There was a high chattering noise, and hot currents of air seemed to sweep around her. Swan felt Mule shudder and heard him grunt as if he'd been kicked, and then Mule's legs went out from under him. The horse fell, throwing Robin free but trapping Swan's left leg under him. The breath was knocked out of Swan, and she lay stunned as Mule desperately tried to stand up. But Robin had already seen the bullet holes in Mule's belly, and he knew the horse was finished.

an engine growled. He looked up and saw a Chevy Nova with an armored windshield and a rooftop gun turret coming. He bent to Swan's side and tried to pull her free, but her leg was firmly pinned. Mule was still struggling to get up, steam and blood spraying from his nostrils, his sides heaving. His eyes were wide with terror.