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A RUTHLESS GOOD
By
Susan Kelley
© copyright by Susan Kelley, January 2009
Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, January 2009
ISBN 978-1-60394-259-1
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Dedication
Ron for his unwavering support
Dave, Mike, James, Kelley, for patience waiting for me to be famous
Megan for too much help to mention
Ginny for her belief
Historical Foreword
Exploration of the greater world was to be a dangerous venture as man’s inherent curiosity drove him ever farther from the safe walls of home and hearth. Vague memories passed down from generation to generation of great cities, universities of learning and hubs of commerce and prosperity tugged at the base desire of mankind to improve themselves himself. Explorers seeking to better the world for the next generation trekked bravely into the unknown.
Not everything discovered in the wide world is a benefit to the seekers who find it. Sometimes the intrepid adventurers would stumble upon a find so perverted, so grotesque, no words written here can describe the horrors.
Witnesses to one such discovery often spoke of the nightmares they carried with them for the entirety of their lives. Men and women were changed forever by their encounter with a true, ruthless evil.
Man’s cruelty to one another is often hidden within the guise of necessity. How often is an evil act rationalized as being for the betterment of all? How often does one segment of society suffer atrocious ill treatment so another segment can flourish and forward their own agenda?
Few societies are populated only by their victims and their venal abusers. In all such environments are those who refuse to submit to perverted masters or to join them in their malevolent roles. In even the vilest environment that man creates, there will dwell some good men. One good man can make a difference.
A good man alone will fight for justice and freedom. He will also die for the same. Dying in the defense of free will and righteousness is a hero’s death. But fighting for the same and living, winning those precious commodities, creates legends.
Mass changes in the workings of a society take more than one good man. Civilization at its finest is built by the compassion and strength of its women. The strong arms of men may wield a lethal sword, but the boundless spirit of a courageous woman is the rock that steadies the world.
At times, one woman embodies the essence of a people. A woman with joy abounding in her heart, optimism in her soul, and adventure ingrained in her character. It took such women to free the northern colonies and build them once more into thriving societies.
The turnabout of the northern peoples’ decline exacted a price on the hearts and lives of their saviors. Blood flowed and stained the earth as well as hearts.
It might have been worse, but a good man learned a terrible lesson. In order to defeat true evil, one must be as cold-hearted and as unrelenting as the enemy. Sometimes good must be as ruthless as evil.
Maria Celebria
Official Historian for the University of Parlania
1528 P.A.
Part I: Where Evil Walks
Chapter One
“We figured out they’re southwest of here, Father Morda.”
“And how did you conclude that, Shepherd Park?” Morda gave the stocky, muscular guard his best, kindest look. He treated his shepherds with care that they might appreciate his generosity to them compared to the status of the breeders and the workers.
“I’ve been sending small groups of trackers out in every direction after each raid. I knew sooner or later we’d come upon a fresh trail.” Park smiled, the expression hinting at the man’s innate brutality. “And this time we did. We lost it about a day’s ride from here, but now we know the general direction.”
“Father, please forgive me.” An older woman peered cautiously around the door to the study. “The breeder is prepared.”
Morda nodded and gestured to the woman to bring the girl forward. The study Morda had taken as his office remained as gracious and venerable as it had been before the disaster. He touched the gleaming edge of his fine, maple desk, its history perhaps as old as the university itself. Like the towering stone building, the tall fireplace and the fanciful woodworking, the desk had survived the hell storm unleashed by the arrival of the second moon. It had outlived civilization when the vinefruit threatened the remnants of mankind. And under Morda’s tutelage, that cultured way of life would someday return.
In the meantime, Parlania needed his strict code of discipline. One of the most important things he’d accomplished was the controlled breeding of his people. Only those bloodlines proven free of the shriveling disease and resistant to the lure of the vinefruit were permitted to procreate.
Morda’s blood fired as he looked at the breeder. The older woman pushed the girl into the room with a firm hand on her slim, bare shoulders. Like all potential breeders, the girl wore nothing. Such a resource must be prepared at all times to receive a man’s valued seed. When she was with child, she would be clothed again.
“She’s unbroken?” Morda asked. From the corner of his eye he saw Park lick his lips, but only the Father honored a female with her initial training.
“I examined her myself, Father,” the older woman answered. “She was only today brought from the children’s compound and stripped of her coverings.”
Morda noted how the girl hunched her shoulders forward as if to cover the healthy globes of her young, firm breasts. Her skin was smooth, her belly slim and firm, ready to stretch with pregnancy. Her hips would widen from their youthful slimness to support the babe.
It was his law that no female be put to use until she reached eighteen years. With himself and his shepherds breeding on the women as frequently as possible, the females needed to be strong enough to accept multiple contributions of seed each day and then bear the child. They’d lost many of the younger stock before he designed such an enlightened proclamation.
Morda’s erection rubbed against the soft wool of his robe, the sensation sweet torture. His blessed seed yearned to enter the womb of his female.
“Take her to my bed.” Morda didn’t know the older woman’s name or even care if she had one, but she would know what instructions to give the girl. Only a woman who’d birthed at least four healthy children could earn the honored position as herd mistress to the breeders.
After the women left, Morda turned back to Park. He chafed at the delay in his duty, but this other matter had its importance also. An example must be set. “How will you proceed?”
Park pulled his lust-filled stare from the door that linked the office to Morda’s private chambers. “We’ve suspected the heretics who flee are taken in by this band of murderous thieves. Unless the Outcasts get them first, that is.”
Morda nodded, his patience almost at an end. No one knew for sure how many outlaws lived in the wilds. They only raided in small packs and then slunk back to their dens in the deep wood. And after all these years since the first desertions they might even have dared to breed without his supervision.
“We’re going to set a man to wandering as if he’s fled to join them. Perhaps we’ll even put a few marks of the lash on him. He’ll win their trust and then lead us to them.”
“You think they’ll take him in?”
“I do. We’ve killed a dozen of them over the past ten years, Father. They have to be taking in recruits.”
“Fine. Since it’s your plan, Shepherd Park, you be the foundling.”
Park’s eyes widened but he dared not object without appearing the coward. “As you wish, Father.”
“You understand I must have Cogan Celebria back in my hands along with his bitch, Kia. They’re no longer young but don’t underestimate Cogan’s abilities. He could shoot with an accuracy that was inhuman. If they’ve dared to have children, bring them to me. I want the Celebria family alive. I want Cogan to witness his children assigned their proper places in our society.”
“I understand, Father.”
Morda doubted Park understood at all. Cogan Celebria had been the first man to object to Morda’s stricter laws when the Father took the entirety of Parlania under his control. Cogan actually thought his wife should belong to him alone. He’d refused to take up the mantle of shepherd though he’d been their greatest warrior and a crack shot. What kind of man would give up the chance to breed on any woman he wanted?
“We must bring Celebria to justice. His deeds are still whispered about by the herd of breeders and the workers. And search also for Daniel Sasson. He was a friend to Cogan that disappeared near to the same time. They shared heretic views and spread their poison. Such sacrilege could destroy the inroads we’ve made as we build a meaningful society.”
Park took his leave to set his trap. Morda’s lust burned still for the new breeder, but he took a moment to curse his old nemesis. Cogan Parlania could never comprehend that Morda acted only to preserve their world. Humans verged on extinction. Their small group in Parlania was the only survivors of the vinefruit debacle. They’d been lucky any of them lived through those years of savagery. Men like Cogan defended the university with swords, knives and later guns after a female scientist rediscovered the making of gunpowder. What had her name been? She’d died fighting beside Cogan against Morda’s shepherds. She would have made a fine breeder possessed as she was with a fine intelligence rarely found in a female.
Morda could ignore his aching balls no longer. He would plant his seed in the girl and again after his nap if he found her performance acceptable. If she wasn’t worthy of his seed, he’d send her to the breeding beds where any number of shepherds would ride her.
He poured himself a healthy draft of white wine before going to his bed. A man needed to keep up his strength when he had so many duties.
* * * *
“Wait until they see what we got,” Mark said for at least the third time since they rose from their cold camp this morning.
Geoff rolled his eyes at Roth, but they both smiled. Brad snorted but not even his quick temper could light after their victorious raid.
“It will be good to be home.” Geoff shrugged to adjust his heavy pack.
Roth shifted his own heavy burden to ease the burning in his shoulders. They should stop and rest, but Gentry hid over the next ridge. They’d been gone all of ten days and nights, sleeping in the open without a fire to chase away the invasive chill of the mountain’s breath.
“Watch your step there,” Brad called over his shoulder. As the oldest and most experienced raider, he led their quad up the treacherous slope. Each time they raided Parlania they took a different route home. They dared not leave a worn trail.
Roth followed Brad up the escarpment and took care not to dislodge stones that might give clues to a tracker. So far Parlania’s hunters had never found Gentry, and they meant to keep it that way.
“Daniel will love that new gun,” Geoff said from behind Roth. “Unless you plan to keep it as your own.”
Roth hefted the long gun. The heavy weapon was a lucky take. He’d killed its owner without remorse but with more mercy than deserved.
Brad dropped to his belly of a sudden. Roth followed suit and heard the two men behind him doing the same. He held his breath but heard no cause for alarm. Only the soft sigh of the endless mountain air and the distant shriek of a hawk broke the purity of the late morning.
Brad slithered on his belly further up the slope and sent a loose shower of pebbles down on Roth. He paused at the top of the slope and motioned for the others to join him.
Roth moved up with quiet care and lifted his head for a cautious look.
The ground fell away before them at a sharp angle before leveling out to a small plateau. A dozen tall pines, ancient as the second moon, stood sentinel on the north side but the rest of the meadow grew thick with myrtle and waist high bushes. Vinefruit bushes.
“Damn,” Roth muttered. Outcasts browsed about the tangled growth. Eight large males, two females and one little one. Too many for them even with the new gun. And killing Outcasts would leave sign of their passing should any pursue them.
“They look in bad shape,” Geoff whispered. “Rough winter.”
Roth nodded. It was something they all wondered about and had been much discussed around the fires this winter. Surviving the cold and snows wasn’t easy. Provision had to be put aside, wood and coal gathered for heating, buildings made tight against the blizzard winds. Usually the Outcasts moved south during the winter months, but this season something had kept them from their seasonal migration. Kept them here where they’d nearly starved.
The Outcasts grunted and spoke in rough voices. They searched through last year’s fallen leaves with a delicacy that disturbed Roth as it reminded him of their lost humanity. But despite their pathetic appearance, the Outcasts were ruthless, dangerous creatures. He knew that lesson well.
The sun shone bright in their eyes before the Outcasts shuffled up the mountain and out of sight. Brad waited for a while longer before he lead Roth and the others down the steep slope, but their earlier buoyant mood returned. The Outcasts’ threat was a fact of their lives and a price they willingly paid to live free.
Roth smiled as he imagined how his sister, Tanya, would act when he handed her the shirt and pants he’d taken from the dead shepherd. Her skill with needle and thread rivaled his own with gun and bow. She would use the fine material to make them both some new clothing. Cloth was a rare commodity for their struggling colony and more difficult to acquire than food.
Brad picked up the pace though they were all exhausted from the hiking. They couldn’t take horses on their raids. The animals were too easy to track and limited the paths they might take.
Roth wondered what they might have to eat tonight? Potato soup perhaps, using the last of the winter stores? Or perhaps a cheese broth, flavored with....
“Wait.” Roth slipped his pack from his shoulders and unslung his gun. Brad might know his way about the dells and hillocks, but no one had better woodcraft than Roth.
“What is it?” Geoff dropped his pack also.
“We should smell smoke by now.” Roth lifted his face to the breeze. It feathered across his nose from the west and smelled of nothing except conifers and a storm yet a day away.
Brad and Mark put down their packs and readied their weapons. They all carried guns, though no two were alike. Roth’s had belonged to his father, and the others had been taken in raids.
Roth’s heart pounded with a desperate urgency, but his father’s training taught him not to rush forward without a plan. “Let’s spread out. Stop on the ridge and wait for the clear signal before we go in.”
“And if you don’t give the signal?” Brad asked.
Roth looked at his companions, his friends for years. Mark’s eyes were wide, his face pale while Geoff and Brad wore grim, cold expressions.
“If things don’t look right, I’ll give the retreat whistle. We’ll meet back here.”
They all nodded and jogged in different directions. Roth lost sight and sound of them as he slipped and ducked through the heavy pine boughs hanging so low as to brush the ground. The quiet pressed against him with an ominous foreboding rather than the peace such stillness should inspire.
He caught sight of the back of a cottage, Daniel Sasson’s, before he broke cover. The village consisted of only nine of the small homes, each one pressed against the forest with a back exit that led into the verdant maze. An escape route.
Roth flattened himself against the rough hewn wall and worked his way toward the corner. He listened for the contented clucking of the chickens, the demanding noise of the goats, or the murmur of conversation. Nothing. He stole a quick glance.
His parents and the others who’d founded Gentry had cleared the center of the village and dug a large fire pit where they might hold celebrations. The stones that had lined the pit were scattered, their blackened edges turned to the sky like dried scabs pulled free to open a wound. Or like dark markers pointing to the bodies sprawled in careless disarray before their homes.
Roth didn’t let himself count them, didn’t search for his sister. Instead he swept his gaze over the shadows between the cottages. He retreated back to the pine boughs and changed position so he could see the front doors of the homes across the clearing.
A body propped one door open and another door hung precariously by one hinge to reveal a dark interior. But three others were only slightly ajar, a bare slit of an opening. Those held his attention. Those narrow spaces, big enough for an eye to peer through, big enough to swing a gun barrel to bear.
Roth took a deep, trembling breath and looked at the bodies closest to his position. Brad’s father, Terry, face down in newly, green, spring grass. The blood pool around his head had already darkened to black. Flies dove and swooped about Terry in their casual, instinctual disrespect for death. But no carrion fowl yet. So they had been dead for hours not days. The hours while Roth and his companions waited for the Outcasts to vacate their path.
Roth clenched his teeth to keep a scream of anger and grief behind his lips. He forced himself to count the bodies. Nine that he could see. More might be in the cottages. Roth decided they would have to wait until nightfall to check for survivors. Wait for the cover of dark to face the killers he was sure hid in ambush.
Roth fell back a distance and then whistled the song of the whippoorwill. Even as he did so, a shriek pierced the quiet.
He cursed and scrambled back through the trees.
Brad charged across the clearing. He dropped his gun as he neared his father’s body. Doors slammed open, and shepherds raced to intercept him.
Roth lifted his gun to his shoulder. His gun could shoot one bullet at a time, but there were seven shepherds. A big one tackled Brad only a few steps from his father’s body. Another piled on top of him. But Brad’s grief and rage gave him strength beyond that of a sane man. He shrugged off the first man and slugged the second man on the jaw with a crack that dropped the shepherd and echoed off the ridges.
Another shepherd came at Brad, but Roth had him in his sights. From this distance, the man’s broad chest made an easy target. As he fired, another shot reverberated from his left. Geoff, also defending their friend.
Roth’s target staggered and then folded to the ground. A bullet whistled by Roth’s head. More shepherds crouched near the cottages with guns to their shoulders as they aimed toward his position.
Roth dove into deeper cover as another shot kicked into the brown needles near his feet. He rolled under the trees for a few turns and then crawled toward the left. A strident command from one of the shepherds ordered a search.
Roth knew he should run, but he couldn’t leave Brad. Couldn’t leave without knowing about his sister. He peered around the thick trunk of a pine and lost his breath. Brad slumped at his father’s head, both hands clutched over his belly. His blood flowed in thick crimson streams over his strong hands. His broad shoulders trembled with weakness, or pain, or even grief. As Roth watched, Brad fell to his side, his head landing on his father’s back.
What should he do? Roth looked at the bodies scattered about the clearing. It was over. The hiding, the struggle to live, the fear of discovery, the helpless desire to change the world. They called themselves free, but they hadn’t been. They’d been hunted, branded heretics and outlaws. Brad and the others lying so still were truly free now.
Roth reloaded his gun. He only had five shells, but he would take five of the shepherds with him. He was unmatched in marksmanship. If Geoff did the same, they would kill most of the murderers.
A shout from his right distracted Roth. A shepherd pushed Mark into the clearing. Damn! Roth targeted the shepherd, but Mark turned on his captor. His knife flashed in the fading sunlight. It was a good strike but foolish. Shots exploded.
Three spots of red blossomed on Mark’s faded, brown shirt. The shirt sewn by his grandmother from scraps of other people’s clothing. The young man made not a sound as he crumbled on top of the shepherd he’d stabbed.
Roth shot another one. He blinked his eyes to clear the tears. He moved to a new position and shot another one. After that they took to cover. Roth’s chest shook with the violence of his suppressed sobs. He must be silent, silent as a mountain cat stalking its prey.
A shot rang out from far to his left and slapped into the door of one of the cottages. Geoff still lived.
“Hold there!” a familiar voice shouted from the cottage Roth shared with his sister. It was the smallest, built by their parents many years before. Roth has added a real glass window last fall. He’d made a daring venture into Parlania and carried the fragile prize home to Tanya. She loved it. And now it lay in glittering shards in the daffodils.
Park stepped cautiously outside the door with Tanya held tightly in front of him. Park, the new comer, left behind because they didn’t quite trust him on a raid. Brad had found Park wandering the slopes four days distance from their village. Park, beaten and hungry, begging a place among them. Park, claiming he’d raised objections to the treatment of the women in Parlania and been charged with sedition and heresy.
Daniel had taken the man in and given him food. Tanya had healed his wounds. Healed the man who had now destroyed them.
“I know you’re out there, Roth and Geoff. Come in and throw down your guns.” Park, a short, muscular man, peered over Tanya’s shoulder. She wasn’t tall herself, but he crouched low in the protection of her body. “I promise you won’t be killed.”
“As if we’d believe you, bastard traitor,” Geoff shouted.
Roth made no reply. He moved right, searching for an angle to shoot the pig.
“It’ll be dark soon,” Park called out. “Do you want your sister sleeping in here with us tonight? Come in, and you’ll live.”
Roth lined the top of Park’s head up in his sights. At least the rat would be dead.
Park shifted and ruined the shot. When he turned, Roth saw the knife the shepherd pressed against the side of Tanya’s thin, pale neck.
“Come in, or I’ll bleed the bitch right here. Then we’ll hunt you down anyway.”
“I’m here.” Geoff stepped into the clearing with his gun held over his head in both hands. “Let her alone.”
Roth lowered his gun. Geoff loved Tanya and had since they were children. The two might have married at summer’s height.
“Roth too,” Park shouted. “Come out, you sharp-shooting killer. Don’t think I’ll let her go until I see you unarmed.”
Roth figured they were all dead if he gave himself up, but he also didn’t doubt Park would kill Tanya without hesitation. Shepherds had no regard for the value of a life other than their own.
He lifted his gun over his head and stepped forth. He had the grim satisfaction of seeing Park’s eyes widened with the knowledge he might have been in Roth’s sights.
More than a dozen shepherds spilled from the cottages. They ran to Geoff and Roth and jerked away their guns. A sharp kick on the back of Roth’s knees sent him sprawling face down in the trampled grass. Someone kicked him hard in the ribs while another ran rough hands over his body and found his three knives.
A heavy knee dropped painfully onto the center of his back. More strong hands forced his hands backward to bind them tightly. Roth stared into Mark’s sightless eyes where the boy’s body lay a short distance away.
“Father Morda asked for the Celebrias by name.” Park stood near Roth’s head, the old, scruffy boots he’d worn as part of his disguise replaced by the shiny leather of shepherds’ wear. “Something about the sins of the father visiting on the son.”
Roth showed no reaction, but his insides quivered with fear. His father had told him of Morda. Perhaps Mark and Brad were the lucky ones.
* * * *
Claudia Turan sighed and turned from her frowning perusal of the steep hill in front of her. Zeke Oman, no longer a cadet but certainly not a field soldier, cursed quietly behind her. He’d dropped his graphite writing tool. Again.
They were seven days out of Utopia. She shook her head as she always did at the name. What was her brother, Sky, thinking to give the training compound such a fanciful name? And Juston Steele had gone along with it. The two men, unmatched warriors both, had gone soft since their marriages. Not that she wasn’t glad to see her friend and brother happy, but it was sad to see such men become so domesticated.
Tom Flinn and Erik Sim trotted their horses into camp and then over to her. The two young men had proven excellent forward scouts. Tom dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to Erik. “Sir, we found another bog over this ridge. I don’t know if we can get around it before dark.”
Claudia glanced at the sun to judge the time. Already the gloaming of twilight spread under the newly-leaved aspens and tall oaks clinging valiantly to the slopes. “We best not chance it. You can’t tell what you’ll find in a swamp. Let’s make camp here. No sense putting ourselves close to the bugs.”
It was the third wetlands they’d come upon in their exploratory trip north. She’d been warned of the marshes near the coast, but who would have thought to find such lands this high into the mountains.
Her party of ten Realm warriors and six Solonians set the camp up before full dark fell upon them. After days on the trail together, her troop worked in almost perfect coordination together. Someone saw to the lighting of a fire and a meal while Claudia and Mia of Solonian, her second in command, scouted out the placement of their sentries. Though they hadn’t seen any Savages yet, it didn’t mean they weren’t about.
“Have any of your people traveled this far?” Mia asked as they settled together near the fire.
“Juston stopped before climbing this damned crag we’ve been fighting all day.” Claudia took the wooden dish filled with stew offered by Zeke. A vegetable stew in deference to the eating habits of the Solonians.
Claudia and Mia made small talk of supplies and conjectures of what lay on the trail ahead as they ate. It was all together a peaceful moment appreciated by Realm and Solonians alike. The marriage of Juston Steele and Princess Katerina of Solonia had been the start of this beneficial alliance. When Claudia’s brother, Sky Turan, and Captain Vilicia of Solonia married a few months ago, it had sealed the friendship between the two colonies. And now Claudia led this joint expedition with Captain Mia of Solonia as her second and fast becoming her friend as well.
The camp settled quickly. Horses and people were exhausted from the difficult climb not only today but also the last two days. According to Solonian recall, the settlement of Parlania sat somewhere north of this mountain range. They hoped to find survivors and perhaps a thriving colony. If nothing else, they might find books on the technology lost during the great cataclysm centuries before.
Claudia took out her brush and ran it through her shoulder-length, silver hair. Though only thirty-two years old, she shared her family’s odd distinctive trait of dark hair that lightened to silver before twenty years of age. She twisted it mercilessly into a thick braid aware that some of her men watched with a little too much interest. They respected her too much as a sword handler and leader to ever comment on it but better not to tempt them.
She snuggled beneath her one thick blanket while still fully clothed. The constant danger of Savages bid one be prepared always. And even without that danger, the nights were brutally cold this high even though it was spring time.
She stared at the stars, bright and numerous now before moon rise. A strange bird called out, numerous insects raised their own chorus and a horse stomped in its sleep. All comfortable natural sounds on the trail. How had Sky and Juston given this up for marriage? She would never give herself over to that ridiculous, weak emotion of love. If she had a love it was her freedom and the adventure of new places. No man or wish to have babies would convince her to put this life aside.
She smiled to herself. Not that there was a man on this entire continent who would dare ask it of her. Few even had to courage to ask her for a date. She had to make the advances when she found someone acceptable. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find a man to share her nights with when she was in town.
Claudia took another deep breath of the crisp mountain air. No, she would never give this up for anything or anybody.
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