By the Feet of Men Read online

  Brandt frowned, but accepted the veined hand held out towards him. ‘You know where I am, Katarina,’ he said. She waved him away.

  For a while the four remaining drivers sat in silence. Then, one by one, they slipped out of the room until Cassady was the only one who remained. Except for the occasional tremor of fatigue that passed through his body, he was still. He watched the entrails of the fire until the embers stopped glowing and the sky outside paled from black to dirty grey.

  2

  The cry rattled the foundations of the buildings. A bird shot into the air and flew towards the safety of the trees. Inside the belly of Warspite, Ghazi threw off his sleeping sack and shook Cassady.

  ‘Wake up. Trouble.’ Even as the scarred Runner’s mismatched eyes fluttered open, Ghazi was reaching over to unclip the tripwire and jumping out of the truck, his foot barely clearing the drop hatch. He raced across the quadrangle in the direction of the noise, a distinctly human articulation of pain, despair and defiance. It was coming from somewhere out on the road they’d taken to reach the abandoned settlement. Magenta lines lanced the sky and the warm morning air filled Ghazi’s mouth and nostrils. As he ran, he struggled to release the clasp that would free the pistol clattering against his rib cage. Before he reached the road, he risked a glimpse over his shoulder. Cassady emerged from the building with Hearst by his side, the crossbow slung over her shoulder. Then he skittered around the last building and hit the bottom of the hill.

  A moment was all Ghazi needed to assess the situation. Halfway up the hill, Brandt stood over a long, thin, spider-like body crumpled on the ground, his pistol gripped in two hands as he pointed it at three strangers. They looked like what they were: ravenous animals hunting their prey, with faces hollow and bodies brittle from a lack of food. One, a tall, grey-haired man with a distended stomach, hefted a rusty pipe between thick hands. Another, a woman, wielded a pickaxe and hissed. The third, evidently the leader, was a younger man whose head was a mess of scars. A machete in his hand dripped with fresh blood. Brandt aimed the pistol at each attacker in turn, and they ducked and weaved. The leader swung at him and the towering Runner jumped back just in time.

  The gun was empty. That was why Brandt hadn’t fired. It would only be a matter of seconds before his attackers realised it too and overwhelmed him. In a single motion, Ghazi drew his own firearm and aimed it at their backs. He hadn’t fired on another human for over a year, but he wouldn’t hesitate now. He could hear Cassady and Hearst pounding the asphalt behind him.

  ‘Put the weapons down,’ he shouted.

  Three startled heads turned in his direction. In that split second, Brandt made his decision. He thundered towards the grey-haired man and barrelled into him, but as he drew back his fist to follow up his attack, the woman swung her pickaxe in a wild arc. The flat side caught Brandt full in the shoulder and he crumpled. The grey-haired man staggered to his feet, lifted the pipe over Brandt’s head, yanked it back across his neck with both hands and forced the Runner up onto his knees. The German’s desperate fingers scrabbled at the bar and his flat grey eyes moistened in preparation for death. Ghazi gritted his teeth. The trigger was cool against his finger.

  The group’s leader pointed his machete at Ghazi.

  ‘Gun down.’

  Ghazi kept the pistol trained on the grey-haired man as Cassady and Hearst appeared by his side. The scarred man was incensed. ‘No further or he die. Drop weapons.’ He pointed again with the machete.

  ‘Do as he says,’ muttered Cassady.

  ‘No,’ said Hearst. ‘Best chance. Fire.’

  Cassady ignored her. ‘Wait for my signal, Ghazi. We’ll take them together.’

  Ghazi allowed the pistol to fall to his side. The scarred man grinned in triumph.

  Cassady pointed at Brandt, whose eyes were rolling into the back of his head. ‘Tell your man to release him.’

  ‘We take with. You stay.’

  ‘Hand him over right now and we let you go.’

  The tattoos became an ugly blur as the man shook his head. ‘He come.’

  ‘Last chance.’ Then he muttered out the side of his mouth. ‘The one on Brandt.’

  ‘Right.’

  Cassady indicated behind him with his hand. The sound of Hearst loading the crossbow was brutal in Ghazi’s ear.

  The scarred man was about to scream at Hearst to stop when a heavy thud cut him short. The woman with the pickaxe moaned and gobs of blood fell down her chin. She dropped her weapon and toppled over. A wooden stake quivered between her shoulder blades. The scarred man spun around and watched in horror as an immense form, head wrapped in a keffiyeh and body sporting a suit of leaves and moss, burst from the undergrowth and ran at them. Brandt’s captor released him and brought the pipe up to meet the new threat. The old Runner rolled onto his back and sucked in air.

  Cassady’s voice was calm. ‘Ghazi. Take the leader.’

  Time slowed. Ghazi’s heartbeat was a metronome. The pistol’s ugly barrel wavered. He saw only the scarred man’s back. Don’t miss. Se, do, yek. He squeezed the trigger.

  The explosion was loud enough to flatten the trees. The bullet plucked at a spot under the scarred man’s shoulder and he dropped. Even as Cassady broke away and ran up the hill, Ghazi switched his aim to the grey-haired man. But there was no need. The camouflaged form was already on him, rocking on its heels to avoid a wild swing of the pipe and then darting forward and yanking a blade upwards through the grey-haired man’s pelvis and stomach until it became lodged in his ribcage. The subdued attacker doubled over, trembling fingers finding the handle of the blade and recoiling as though burnt.

  Cassady stood over the leader, who was trying to crawl away as blood drained from the hole under his shoulder. The wiry Runner gripped the back of his knotted head and brought it down against the track again and again until a sound like glass being ground under a boot was the signal to stop.

  The grey-haired man lay where he’d fallen, his gaze fixed on the sky. His sobs carried down to Ghazi, whose stomach roiled. He wanted it to be over now. He shouted up the hill to the camouflaged form.

  ‘Finish it.’

  The blade came free from the grey-haired man’s chest with a grinding sound and the sobbing became a gurgle as the metal sliced through his mottled neck. Then there was silence.

  Reluctantly, Ghazi trained his pistol on the camouflaged form. It dropped the blade again and stood with its hands up, palms facing the group. Cassady went over to Brandt, who was on the ground massaging his neck.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Renfield’s dead.’ The two words were heavy and ugly. Brandt dragged himself over to the long-limbed form that lay face down in the road and turned it over. Ghazi edged forward with caution, his gun still trained firmly on the newcomer.

  Renfield’s cheek flapped obscenely. One of his eyes had been hammered shut and heavy liquid dripped from his temple. Ghazi muttered a prayer and tried to dam the emptiness flooding his chest. It wasn’t the time or place to mourn the old man. They had to sort the mess out and get out of there before more unwelcome faces appeared at the top of the hill.

  Brandt waved away the hand Cassady offered him and struggled to his feet. His face was white, but the bruises on his neck glowed red and purple. Purposefully, he walked over to the woman with the stake between her shoulder blades.

  ‘You’d better still be breathing.’ He kicked at the stake.

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Cassady.

  Brandt growled. He raised a well-worn boot and brought it down on the woman’s skull. Then he took out his gimlet knives and slashed at the body until blood pooled under his feet.

  ‘Enough,’ said Cassady, marching over. He dodged the knives and shoved Brandt away from the corpse. ‘I said enough. Get control.’ He stared the larger man down.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Jürgen,’ said Ghazi.

  Brandt’s eyes bore into Cassady’s. He raised his head to the sky and screamed until his voice failed. Then he wip
ed his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Okay.’

  Cassady was still tense. ‘Are you calm?’

  ‘Don’t ask again.’

  ‘Tell us what happened.’

  Brandt flicked the blood from the blades. ‘We were looking for food. That was all. We don’t sleep as much as we used to. These Schwein were waiting for us.’ He nodded at Renfield’s body. ‘Went on ahead, never saw it coming.’

  Ghazi’s eyes flickered over the bodies lying in the road. The blood from the scarred man was already drying in the morning sun. There was nothing worth salvaging except the machete. Desperate people. Hungry, cold, hopeless. And now dead. Maybe they had once lived in a commune or been farmers whose crops had crumbled before their eyes. Maybe they’d been a family who had lived through better times. There was no way of knowing, and it didn’t matter. Renfield was gone. A man with an understanding of the world like he’d had deserved to go out without aggression or fear. But deserve didn’t factor into it.

  A new voice, young and jumpy, joined the conversation. ‘Just who in the hell are you?’

  Ghazi glanced over his shoulder to see Victor, Katarina and Tagawa approaching. The latter held an old bolt-action rifle. The shout had come from Victor, who was pointing at the stranger.

  Before the newcomer had a chance to answer, Cassady bellowed at the boy. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Go and guard the rigs. There could be more of them.’

  Victor stopped in the dirt. ‘You don’t get to talk to me like that.’

  Cassady bore down on him like a truck with no brake. ‘While you’re shooting your mouth off, they could be raiding our supplies.’ He spat the next words out. ‘Go back. Now.’

  The boy wavered and then did as he was told.

  ‘You need the rifle?’ asked Tagawa, holding it out in a lazy grip.

  Cassady shook his head. ‘Take it with you.’

  Katarina went to Brandt, who crouched in the road with his head in his hands. She put her arms around his shoulders and spoke softly in his ear.

  ‘Put the gun away, Ghazi,’ said Cassady. He turned to the camouflaged figure. ‘You can lower your hands. We have no fight with you.’

  A deep baritone voice emerged from the depths of the keffiyeh. ‘I know, man. I know.’

  Ghazi’s mind cooled to sub-zero. He recognised the voice. Cassady did too.

  With massive hands, the figure drew back the folds of the keffiyeh and pulled out a twisted grey beard that had been hidden inside the camouflage suit. Droplets of blood left trails on dark skin. Cloudy eyes flickered from Ghazi to Cassady and a set of straight white teeth flashed at them.

  ‘What’s the news, brothers?’ asked Wyler.

  3

  Cassady stared at the man they’d last seen drowning his demons in Prestige. Ghazi fidgeted beside him, the pistol pointed at the floor, but ready to be raised in an instant. Brandt sat in the road with Katarina and looked at Renfield’s spindly body as though he expected him to sit up and laugh and tell him it was just a joke. The death of the old man had Cassady sick with fear. Day two and he’d lost someone. He didn’t have a grip on anything. And now there was Wyler. The situation didn’t sit right. He had a hundred questions to ask, and he had to start with the right one.

  ‘How did you find us, Wyler?’

  He laughed. ‘You’d have to ask the Almighty. I didn’t mean to. I’ve been tracking these jackals since last night.’ He nodded at the bodies.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Tried to get the jump on my camp while I was sleeping. I scared them off easy enough, but they took some of my things. Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting them back now.’

  ‘Where’s your car?’

  He winced. ‘Wrecked. Made an enemy in the big city just as soon as you left. Didn’t like the way I gambled so they lit her up. By the time I got to her, I only had time to pop the trunk and drag out what I could before the fire burned her black. A real shame, man. All I have left is my bike. Back up the hill about a hundred metres.’

  Cassady listened to the words without hearing them. ‘Who sent you?’ His voice shook.

  The grin on Wyler’s face dried up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Who sent you to find us?’

  ‘Sent me? Nobody sent me. I’m looking for a new place to settle, babe. You know that.’

  ‘So what was wrong with Prestige?’

  ‘That place is a nest of rattlesnakes and I don’t have your connections. Remember what I said about the different kinds of evil? Well, I saw them all there, clear as day. I made a mistake. It wasn’t the place for me. I thought about going further north, finding something by the lagoons, maybe catching a ship to one of the islands, but the boys in the bar said things are tougher up there than they are down here right now. So I started south again. It’s what I know best, anyway. Past two days I’ve been cutting along the roads. I’m heading for the Complex. Might be able to get something going. Now I got a question: what’s with the interrogation? Why are you looking at me like I’m one of the jackals? And who are these people? Lay it out for me.’

  Cassady wished to hell he had a stick of root to help him think more clearly. But the pouch was in the rig. ‘Are you being straight with me?’

  The wild man took a step forward. Ghazi snapped to attention, bringing the pistol up until it was pointing at Wyler’s chest. He stopped. ‘What is this? What’s happened? Are you in trouble?’

  ‘I’ve always liked you, Wyler,’ said Ghazi. ‘And neither of us have anything against you. But right now you’ve got about thirty seconds to tell us what you know.’

  ‘About what?’

  Hearst appeared next to him. She held the crossbow in front of her. A quarrel lay on the stock.

  Wyler faltered. ‘I don’t know what you want. I’m on the road. You’re on the road. Here we are.’ His eyelid twitched.

  ‘Of all the roads and trails leading south,’ said Ghazi, ‘why would you take this one?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing. It’s quiet. I can keep a low profile. I thought it would keep me away from punks like that.’ He indicated at the bodies on the floor. ‘The bike doesn’t provide much protection.’

  Cassady squared his shoulders. He had to get control. ‘Back off,’ he said to Ghazi and Hearst. Then he turned to Wyler. ‘I’ll ask you once more. Are you being straight with me?’ He paused. ‘Brother.’

  Wyler looked at him. His eyelid stopped twitching. The tension left his body. When he spoke, his voice was calm. ‘I’ve told you the truth. If you can’t be persuaded by it then I’m ready to die. I’ve lived deep and sucked out the marrow of life. I never thought you’d be the one to send me into the darkness, but that’s how it is. So do what you have to do.’

  Wyler lowered himself to his knees and waited, seemingly content in the face of death. The tip of his beard dragged in the dust. A battle raged within Cassady. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. These weren’t the kind of decisions he had any right to make. But perhaps this was exactly the kind of test he’d wanted, and now he was about to lose his nerve.

  A hoarse shout came from behind them. ‘What are you doing?’

  Cassady didn’t bother to look. ‘Stay back, Brandt.’

  ‘That man just saved my life.’

  ‘I said stay back.’ He motioned to Ghazi to give him the pistol. It was cold, dead, unfamiliar. Nothing like the machete hanging from his belt, an intimate weapon whose handle was for his hand alone. He aimed at Wyler’s chest and stopped breathing.

  ‘Do it,’ whispered the giant.

  The barrel dipped and wobbled. Cassady waited five long beats. Then he lowered the gun. He breathed again. He held out his free hand to Wyler, who looked at it as though it was an arrow dipped in poison.

  ‘Get up.’

  Wyler remained on his knees. Cassady handed the pistol back to Ghazi, who holstered it. With reluctance, Hearst made the crossbow safe.

  ‘I’m serious. You can get up.’

 
Wyler rose slowly. His body shook. ‘Man, I don’t know what game you’re playing, but it ain’t funny. Not a damn bit.’

  ‘It’s not a game,’ said Ghazi. ‘You’d have done the same.’

  ‘Are you going to explain what’s going on?’

  Hearst scowled and stepped in front of Ghazi and Cassady. ‘No. Back to your bike. Long drive to Complex. Better start now.’ She pulled out a small, button-sized compass and rested it on her palm. ‘That way.’

  He tugged at the strands of his beard. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Cassady rubbed the top of his head and felt the sweat against his palm. They should have left the area by now. It was dangerous to hang around after a shot had been fired. ‘Wait. Wyler, stay a moment. I want to talk to my partners.’ He gestured for Ghazi and Hearst to follow him away from the stinking bodies. They halted at the bottom of the hill.

  ‘Need to go now,’ said Hearst. The ugly lesion on her face was black with dirt. The sourness of her body caught in the back of Cassady’s throat.

  ‘I know. What about Wyler?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He just saved Brandt’s life. The least we can do is give him some supplies to help him on his way.’

  She didn’t respond. He turned to Ghazi. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s showed us hospitality when we needed it. Brandt’s still here because of him. He’s lost everything. Your proposal is fair.’

  Hearst clicked her tongue and glared.

  Cassady spoke firmly. ‘That’s how it’s going to be.’

  She bared her teeth and stalked off in the direction of the buildings. He hoped she wasn’t about to reconsider their deal. He and Ghazi retraced their steps to where Wyler waited with a wary look on his face.

  ‘Get your bike. We’ll give you some supplies.’

  ‘Great. But are you going to tell me what’s going on or not? Starting with why you nearly dropped me a minute ago.’

  ‘I had to be sure.’