Chapter 6

Cool wet leaves wrapped with mud and cord supported my injured knee as I lay back on a bench carved out of the clay wall. The room also seemed to have been dug out and had dark brown and black planks of wood supporting the dirt ceiling. Nothing stirred in the room. The woman left me here with a bowl of fresh water, apples, and pears. The sweetness of the fruit refreshed me.

Echoes of people moving about the tunnels fed back to my little room. Two short torches burned. They gave off a sweet, flowery smell with white mist leaking from their sides. While not obvious, there must have been an airshaft somewhere. The trail of smoke from the torches did not go up to the clay ceiling. Instead, it followed a current of wind out of the little clay room and down the tunnels. I took a deep breath. Even with the heavy dust and the smell of dirt, fresh air moved about these tunnels. I searched the little clay room. No vents or shafts could be found.

The pain in my right knee felt dull, as if a large rock sat on top of it. More noise echoed back from the tunnel. Some laughed. Others yelled. Still others moved about quickly without saying a word. Occasionally, one or two of them flashed by the opening of my room. They all dressed differently. Some wore deerskins like those of tribal people. Others seemed to have gathered old scrap military clothing, likely bought or bartered at trading posts.

As I tried to stand up, the woman came back.

“You should stay off your right leg for a while, Eric. You’ve torn something in there. It’s swollen to the size of a cabbage.”

In the torchlight, I had a clearer view of the woman. She stood just a few inches shorter than I did. She wore green and black military scraps, black military boots, with a utility belt that held many small pouches holding rope, a knife, dried food, a flint stick, wire, and other supplies. She tied her reddish brown hair back and away from her face so that it slid down her back in a braid. Her confident gaze stared back at me.

“Relax. If we wanted you dead, you would already be,” she said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Just one of the residents here in the Steam Cluster.”

I sat back down as she changed the dressing on my knee. She moved my knee back and forth slowly.

“If you move your ankle back and forth you’ll get some of that swelling down.”

I did as she told. Within a few minutes, my knee loosened up and improved to the point where I could sit up without discomfort.

“Tell me your name,” I said. “You know mine.”

The woman chuckled. “Your name means something. Mine doesn’t.”

That was an odd thing for her to say. It caught my attention. “Please, I would like to know.”

She looked into my eyes as she helped stretch out my knee. “Sure, why not?” she said. “My name is Kara Mayne. What else do you want to know?”

She walked about the little clay room. She moved about in confident steps, making her look as if she were searching for something. I felt that my leg was strong enough for me to try and stand.. In one motion, I jumped to my feet.

“Easy!” Kara warned. “It will take some time for you get your strength back.”

“You seem to know something about me,” I said. “Why?”

A much older woman appeared through the clay opening. She carried a canvas satchel, a water jug, and an item wrapped in a black, silk sash.

“We all know something about you, Eric,” The old woman said.

Kara came to her side. She helped the woman to the clay bench. The old woman looked frail beneath several layers of the rough canvas and brown fabric she wore as a dress. “Eric, this is my mother Leandra Mayne, the unofficial mayor of the Steam Cluster.”

The old woman laughed. “Really? Me, a Mayor? Just last week they all wanted me to hang for rationing out the dried rabbit bits from last year.”

I nodded at the old woman to show respect.

She handed me the item wrapped in the black sash.

I took it in my hands, palms up as Master Akira taught me to do when receiving gifts. I knew from the weight and form within the sash that it could only be one thing. “Ms. Leandra, I know of what is wrapped in this sash.” I unfolded the sash. As I suspected, it was an intricately designed, lightweight, yet extremely sturdy short sword, similar in shape to my katana, except a few inches shorter. “Only one man could have made this.”

“Takahashi Ohmei,” Leandra said with conviction. “He was a dear friend of the transients of the Steam Cluster.”

“Master Taka.” I whispered under my breath. The sword handle displayed a simple black leather wrapping with a green tassel at the end.

“Two thousand swords were made for us with help from the great Master Taka. In this room you’re in now, we used to cool the iron after the blacksmiths folded and folded the metal. You couldn’t walk two feet into this room without knocking a metal shaft down.”

I sat beside Leandra as the tone in her voice signaled an explanation to come. “Where are the swords now?”

“We were a peaceful village but we are not naive. Every family in the Cluster is armed with one of his swords.”

“And they are trained to use them?” I asked.

“Master Taka was a sword maker. He did his best to show us how to wield the weapons. But, his expertise was in making the blades, not in teaching how to use them.”

“They are not trained,” I said.

She shook her head in agreement. “Up until two years ago, only poor lost souls from the northern lands or those drifting in from the great Dakota Sea would stumble upon our caves and find themselves among us. We accepted everyone, even to our detriment. Not everyone could be trusted.”

I examined the short sword as she spoke. The blade felt extremely sharp. A tinge of red on the blade told me it may have been used once or twice but no more than that.

“Two years ago, a week following the injury you inflicted upon Minister Taybor with your blade, our caves overflowed with refugees. The Minister set the lands from Promise Lake, to the Lost Woods, to as far east as New Toronto on fire in search of you. Only Sanctum Village, with their advanced technology, repelled his attacks.”

“Did he send his super soldiers? I had fought one in my battle to save my sister.”

Ms. Leandra laughed. “Super soldier? No. No. Your blade cut more than his throat. It severed the deep ties to the European Legacy. They pulled back on their agreement to produce his super army. He’s left with an enormous militia, but no, no super soldiers. Your blade ended that. He burned the world to try and find you.”

My eyes caught hers. “Ms. Leandra, I wasn’t hiding.” I moved closer to her with the blade in hand. “I’m curious, why do you know so much about what happened at Commerce City?” I clutched the short sword in my hand, unsheathed and ready to strike.

“You can relax, Eric. Put the blade away.” Ms. Leandra looked over at Kara. “My husband, who was killed by the Minister, served under him up until about six months ago. He gathered specimens for their scientists to work on. That is how I know the program had shut down. Now please sheath the sword, you’re making Kara very nervous.”

I looked over at Kara. She seemed to be holding her breath. I sheathed the short sword and put it on the clay table. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“And I for yours.” Ms. Leandra said. “I’m sure you and your sister must have been very close.”

“We were.”

She chuckled. “As I was saying, the Minister sent armies from the Asylum all the way north to the Port of Whisper. He even diverted troops away from Sanctum Village to flush you out.”

“So how did Master Taka get here?”

Kara came over with a leather flask of water. She gave it to her mother to drink. Leandra took a big gulp from the flask then continued.

“He survived one of the attacks at his armory and then made his way up the coast of the Dakota Sea until one of our scouts found him face down in a bog. We took him in, healed his wounds, and nursed him back to full strength.”

I thought about Master Taka. Like Master Akira, he was one of the great Masters that Manzo talked about. The katana he gave me never failed. It never chipped, frayed, or weakened in any way. It was a perfect weapon.

“Once the great Master Takahashi gained his strength, he taught our metal workers how to bend and fold materials to create such weapons.” She placed her hand on the black sash. “This one, however, he made himself. He said that if you were ever to find your way to the Steam Cluster, it must be given to you.”

“Yet, it’s been used.”

“Yes, like I said, we’ve had many transients come into the Steam Cluster, and some could not be trusted.”

“So he left this for me? Why?” I asked.

“To keep you safe,” Kara said. “But more importantly to keep us safe.”

I leaned against a clay table. In one hand I held an apple. In the other, I clutched at the handle of my katana as it rested on the table. Having seen the narrow tunnels, the small rooms, and cramped halls, I could tell that my katana would be difficult to use. A shorter sword would be more effective. “He knew I would arrive.”

The old woman smiled. She stared at me with a sparkle in her eye. “No. Master Taka did not. He’s no mystic. He hoped. Sometimes that’s all we could do. He hoped and instructed me to watch over his creation until such a day when you did come.”

I stared at my katana. “So he told you of my katana. That’s why the men examined it so closely. Only Master Taka would have known the intricacies of its handle.”

She looked over at Kara then back at me. “It is meant for you to be here with us. We need a protector. Our people die every day from the Minister’s raids above.”

“His soldiers know of your location?”

“Yes. They send genoids down our tunnels to flush us out. It takes a great effort to fight them off. We lose many with every battle.”

“So why not just overwhelm you with a militia?” I asked.

“What do we have to offer? We’re transients made up of craftsmen, merchants, and farmers. We’re no real threat to him. But now it’s different.”

“How?”

“You’re here. We are all in real danger if he finds out.”

I held both swords in my hand. I wrapped the black sash around my waist then slid the short sword on my left hip between the folds of the sash. I prepared my katana then slung it over my head and right shoulder.

“I will help you, but I can’t stay here. I must find Minister Taybor and finish what my blade did not.”

Kara walked toward me. “If you did stay here, you might find Minister Taybor sooner than you think.”

“Smart girl,” Leandra said.

Kara’s mother made her way out of the clay room and into the dimly lit hallway. Her words puzzled me.

“How does your knee feel?” Kara asked.

I took a few steps back and forth from the doorway. Painful twinges pierced up my thigh on the sides of my knee. The swelling did go down because of the ankle exercise Kara advised me to do. It felt stable but painful.

“I can move around.”

“Good. Let’s go for a walk,” She said.

Kara led me out of the clay room. We walked through the narrow underground hallways. Every ten steps or so, a candle dangling from a spike hammered into the dirt wall. Every three steps something would scurry, crawl, or slither by my feet. Some of them made quick squeaking noises while others moved silently except for the little noise they made while moving the dried leaves and fallen twigs on the ground.

As we made our way through the maze of tunnels, a draft picked up. It smelled of fresh, crisp air. The passage narrowed as the wind in the tunnel picked up. A few moments later, we were in nearly complete darkness and the wind blew hard enough to make me clutch against the wall.

“Wait here,” Kara said.

She disappeared around the corner of the tunnel. I heard her take a few more steps. She yelled back to me. “Come around the corner.”

I braced myself against the wall. The wind blew harder. Kara seemed to be trying to untie a thatched door of some kind. It was made of wood, mud, and vines. For the first time, I noticed small holes dug out of the clay wall. The wind blew out of these holes and made a low growling sound. Kara gave the thatched door one long pull then light broke through. It was so bright I had to shield my eyes. The freshness of the air smelled of pine trees, apples, and roses. When I took my arm away from my eyes, Kara’s silhouette stood above a cave opening nearly fifty feet above a village set in an expansive hidden forest that had grown in what looked like an enormous crater.

In the middle of the village a stream had been dammed to create a large reservoir. The stream came out of the northern wall of the enormous clay cavern. More than two hundred feet above us, the cavern’s roof had opened up to let in the sunlight. Steam rose from the perimeter of the village through clay vents along the cavern wall. A wooden stairway led down to the village from our vantage point.

“Welcome to my home,” Kara said with a smile as she pulled the thatched door behind us.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” My eyes searched the village below. The villagers built their huts from fallen branches, clay, and vines. They had cleared pathways throughout the village. Large dogs ran freely around the village with some children playing with them. “How did this come to be?”

“It started many years ago with one hut, then as people found ways to live here, they stayed. They dammed up the stream to create the central lake. Along with fresh water, it’s loaded with catfish, frogs, and turtles that come in from the stream. Seeds fall from above, down to the village floor. We collect them, mostly apple and pear seeds, and created the orchards.” She pointed to the southern forest area of the hidden village.

Near the entrance of the orchard Ryan Strider and his sister walked with two guards. The guards holstered short, stout, black machetes on their right side and carried a long metal pole with three barbed prongs. “Those are strange spears.”

“Spears?” Kara asked.

“Your guards carry spears. The ones walking with the two I came with.”

Kara searched below. Her eyes fell upon Ryan and the guards. “No,” she said. “Those are fishing gaffs. We use them to spear the catfish when they come into the shallows. Those two aren’t guards. That’s Milo and his brother, Karl. They are two of our best fishermen.”

“And the machete’s at their side?” I asked.

“For filleting the catfish. They catch some real big ones down there. Our royal guest will have a feast this evening.”

“Royal guest?”

“Ryan Strider. He’s the heir to village of Zetec in the southern lands. My mother had a long talk with him as you healed.”

I watched Ryan and his sister walk with the fisherman. It makes sense now that he kept such a low profile on the transport. He didn’t want to attract attention. “They were on their way to Sanctum, as was I. They were to join this rebellion I keep hearing about.”

“Rebellion? I highly doubt that,” Kara laughed as she led me down a rocky pathway to the village below.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you really think that the heir to Zetec came to fight in a rebellion? No, Eric. He came to wed. He is to join with the forces of the north. He’s to marry the Seaquot Chief, Nayla Blackwater. They will unite all the native people under them.”

At the sound of Nayla’s name, emotions captured and controlled my every thought. Images of her long black hair falling upon me as she saved me from near death at the Asylum filled my mind. The pull to her, even in the midst of knowing what I must do, who I must kill, had kept me going all these days of endless training with Master Akira. Through all the pain, the discipline, and the suffering, it was her face that came into my dreams as I rested. When I needed a friend and had no one to talk to, Nayla entered my mind and came to dispel my loneliness at the fishing village. With every thought, the ocean waves brought memories of our times together back to me. Now pain replaced longing. In the same way I deal with the pain of losing my sister, I fight hard to keep my emotions suppressed. I thought of Nayla as someone close to me, someone who knew me and understood what I must do. She was someone I could not bear to lose.

“Eric?”

My mind fell to images of me executing my sister Melina. They raced to visions of Nayla consoling me as we travelled to the Lost Woods after the attack on the Minister. Finally, the image of Nayla’s kiss upon my lips on our way to the Asylum held me still.

“Is something wrong, Eric?”

Kara’s voice found its way into my mind. I tried to block out the prior images. “Your words brought back memories.”

“Good or bad?” She asked.

“Neither.”

A young boy, also dressed in military scraps came running in. “A breach! A breach! By the northern caves! Breach!” The boy ran out and down the hall continuing his shouting.

Kara ran to the left then down clay steps carved into the protruding cliff face we stood on. She moved faster than I could move.

“Kara!”

“Eric, stay up there! It’s not safe. Stay!”

I wanted to run by her side. Everything in me felt helpless without the ability to run. I watched the movement around me. The hidden village came to life.

A loud, hollow horn went off. The sound came from the left. I looked up to see a villager blowing into a very large, bright yellow snail shell. Villagers emerged out of their huts, from merchant stands, and the surrounding caves. Men, women, and children carried sticks, hammers, machetes, and short swords. They all ran to the northern wall.