Men of Truth (The Wasteland Soldier #4)

Storm clouds surged, thunder rumbled, lightning flickered. The trawler cut through the ragged sea, waves crashing against the hull.

Nuria gripped the metal rail, shrouded in darkness, a hooded rainproof coat keeping out the worse of the foul weather. She stared into blackness, rainwater trickling off her nose. The wind was harsh and she knew she should go inside and sleep, but sleep wasn’t coming easy, despite the tiredness in her limbs. She was growing increasingly reckless and self-destructive. But she had a sharp enough mind and could recognise the signs. There had been a heavy increase in drink and tobacco consumption and an alarming decrease in food and rest. She had connected with Stone. More than any man she’d ever known and she simply couldn’t turn that off.

The pain of not knowing if he was even alive was becoming more unbearable by the day.

Quinn shivered beside her, saying nothing. As lightning cracked it illuminated the northern shore. There were no inlets or coves, nowhere safe to drop anchor. Craggy mountains speared into the heavy black sky. The rain poured down, cold and filthy. This was the southern reaches of the Place of Bridges, where no Ennpithian had ever travelled before. The mighty canyon that split the two lay beyond the mountains, a giant hole in the ground that cast brothers and sisters as bitter enemies.

By dawn, they would be in the eastern waters of the Metal Sea, hugging the Kiven coastline.

“The Place of Bridges,” she said.

Nuria nodded. They both had stark memories of that fateful day during the summer.

“I wonder if Touron will rename it,” said Quinn.

It was a half-hearted comment. She assumed they would but it wasn’t important to her and she would never know because there was no going back now. This voyage, she realised, marked more than a renewed search for Stone. It was a fresh beginning for her.

Perhaps she would become Annie once more, no longer Quinn.

She smiled thinly.

“What is it?” said Nuria.

“Nothing.”

“Go on. Something made you smile.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Nuria wiped the rain from her face.

“I could do with something to make me smile.”

“I won’t be going back.”

“You said that before.”

“Before I had no choice. When we find Stone …”

“If we find him,” said Nuria, her voice flat.

“When,” said Quinn. “When we find him, I won’t be returning to Ennpithia.”

Nuria said nothing.

“But then the boat isn’t going to stay,” said Quinn. “So we’ll be stuck over there anyway.”

“Better the Black Region than Ennpithia.”

“Yes,” said Quinn. “I won’t argue with you on that. Goodnight, Nuria, I’m going below.”

Nuria watched Quinn disappear below deck. She’d been invaluable, a rock. She had stuck with her through thick and thin. It had been a miserable journey, a miserable six months. Stone had saved Quinn’s life in the forbidden and devastated city of Mosscar, and he had served up the killer of Quinn’s daughter. But he wouldn’t have expected her to stay and help. He didn’t stack up debts, he was just doing what was right, doing what he always did, protecting and saving those he could, and never stopping, never standing still … always running.

She knew the past chased him, his short-lived childhood, the massacre of his kin, the terrible things he’d done to survive. She knew it haunted him, and galvanised him, too, driving him to live this nomadic life, righting wrongs, and hoping one day to claim a semblance of peace amongst the craziness.

They’d sailed under a cloud. She’d spotted Shaylighters mingling with the locals and it sickened her to the core.

“Look at the bastards strolling around without a care.”

The warriors were offering to work, seeking trade and even catching the eye of a few women – and in a village they had marched upon and threatened with a thousand men.

She spat on the ground, balanced her right hand on her holstered pistol.

“Don’t,” said Quinn. “Not here. There are plenty of places where the fighting is still going on.”

She casually leant against the low stone wall surrounding her cottage, smoking her father’s pipe.

“Revenge killings for what happened at Great Onglee. Duggan and the Holy House are suppressing word of it. Once again we have another worthless peace treaty.”

She shook her head.

“Ennpithia’s problem is too many treaties, too many laws. Not everyone is happy with this.”

Nuria wasn’t happy. She wasn’t even Ennpithian but she wasn’t happy. She’d been born in the city of Chett, a long way south, across the burnt deserts of Gallen. She had a military background, she knew soldiering, so a ceasefire or permanent truce should have pleased her, but she was angry, and bitter, having fought against the Shaylighters at Great Onglee and Winshead. She had witnessed burnings and hand breaking and beheadings, and yet here they were, accepted, as if nothing had happened during that long hot summer.

She wanted to put a dozen rounds in them.

“I see they’re still painted with the inverted cross. I thought that was banned in the villages and towns.”

Quinn shrugged. “I don’t give a shit about the cross. Whatever way around it’s painted.”

“I think Duggan picks and chooses what laws he enforces. Like he always has done.”

“I used to idolise him, Nuria, and all he ever wanted was to be between my legs. Like Jeremy.”

“Assholes,” said Nuria.

“The peace won’t last.”

“I never want to come back here. I hate this place. I’m sorry, Quinn, I know you grew up here but I hate it.”

Quinn squeezed her arm. “I had a complicated childhood here, remember? I have no love for the place. Look, we sail in one hour. Focus on finding Stone and nothing else.”

Nuria had spent that final hour inside the Holy House of Brix, the oldest building in a land that nature had reborn, sprouting forests and rivers and meadows. She only had faith in Stone. Not a cross or a deity.

She sat on an uncomfortable wooden pew, alone, and stared at the altar ahead. Holy crosses stared back at her, offering her no answers, no comfort. The Map Maker had worn one. He’d adopted the religion the moment they believed he was the Second Coming. The old priest, Father Devon, had filled the Map Maker’s head with rubbish. The Map Maker was an enigma of a man and one thing he didn’t need was any more nonsense spinning around inside his scrambled brain.

Now the Ennpithians spoke of him in hushed whispers, talking of the day he’d saved them from the Shaylighters and the missile that had fallen from the sky, using Godlike powers. Nuria smiled, wryly, he would’ve loved that, his ego would have swollen beyond all measure.

She had heard only the stories. She had been fighting at the Place of Bridges at the time, watching Stone disappear from her life, possibly forever. She had not witnessed the so-called miracle the Map Maker had performed. He’d vanished that day, never to be seen again, travelling with a new woman, Shauna, a pretty young thing. She smiled. Map Maker or Miracle Man, he was still only a man and a man with an eye for young women. She almost laughed. She’d clashed with the Map Maker at almost every turn but she still missed him.

They were all gone. She walked out of the Holy House, feeling nothing but dead inside.

The cabin was in darkness. The storm was passing but the rain still fell. The trawler rocked in the sea.

Quinn was already in her bunk. She had slept for a few hours, waking as the door creaked open and the waft of drink and tobacco tickled her nostrils. Nuria stumbled across the confined space. There was too much time spent with the aged crew, hard men of the waters with stories of how the Metal Sea was once land, long ago, during the first age, until wars ripped away pieces of the world and sunk them forever. The stories had been passed down through generations of mariners but were doing little to inspire any hope of finding Stone, even if they were able to make their way ashore. It was already becoming unspoken that this attempt would fail.

She stared painfully at the woman who knew all her secrets and was untroubled by them. There was no judgement from Nuria, only acceptance. Yet Quinn was sitting back and allowing her to disintegrate.

Nuria staggered.

“Let me help you,” said Quinn.

She pushed aside the covers and climbed from her bunk. She wore a loose shirt and thick socks. Her legs were bare. She undressed Nuria, peeling off sodden clothes and dumping them on the floor. She would wring them out and hang them later. Nuria shivered, goose bumps erupting along her trembling arms. She had grown thin and gaunt. There was branding along one arm from time spent inside Tamnica prison. Quinn guided her to the bed and slipped her under the covers. She turned to pick up the wet clothes when Nuria reached out a hand in the dark and curled it around her wrist. She tugged. Quinn hesitated, knowing that Nuria was drunk and possibly stoned as well.

She sat down on the edge of the bunk. Nuria pulled her beneath the covers, placing Quinn’s arms around her and folding against her. Quinn knew there would be nothing more than holding each other through a torrid night at sea. But it had been a very long time since a naked woman had been in her arms. Six years ago. A working girl from the village of Great Onglee. Deep and suppressed desires stirred and ached. She could feel her own heart hammering in her chest. There was sudden and crushing sadness at the emptiness of her life. An aunt to a daughter fathered out of incestuous rape had broken her heart a thousand times over and only the road had saved her mind, fighting and killing to escape the pain.

Nuria snored, muttering in her sleep, stinking of drink and dope.

Quinn held her tight. Her eyes closed. Her hands glided, caressed.

Maybe it was over for Quinn and time for Annie to breathe.

She lifted a hand from Nuria’s spine, ran it over her near-hairless scalp, thinking on the men who’d died in the mountains.

She wondered if Annie’s time might be running out, too.

It was dawn when the cry came from above. Quinn clambered from the bunk and dragged on her clothes and boots.

Nuria turned over, still snoring, the longest she had slept in months. Quinn had no intention of waking her and rushed up onto deck. The grey sea was choppy and loud, the air was stiff and cold. She expanded her telescope, scanned the mountains and saw where the crew were changing course for. There were ragged gaps with water flowing through them and glimpses of rock-covered beaches beyond.

She looked for a long time and a faint smile formed on her lips.

They had found a way into the Black Region.