The rough terrain northwest of the City of Light made travel slow and painful. It was three o’clock. The army had been marching for twenty-three hours and made excellent progress. A force that did not tire assured it, but rolling hills and winding roads were taking their toll. They had traveled sixty miles and would soon reach the terrain that would give them their first sight of the sprawling City.
The army was crawling through a valley south of the wide expanse they had just crossed. The region was hilly, and though the shortcut brought them back to the highway, detouring around tall chunks of rock was wearing on all those feet. Dead skin was as tough as leather once it dried, and could take the wear and tear, but a forced march on asphalt was damaging. The minister had met several in the ranks with feet worn right to the bone. They claimed it gave them a better grip.
Stoneworthy sat on a chunk of granite to examine his feet. Thoughts of erosion had begun to plague him. His hands would wear through in time. Already, the palms felt flat, and were clearly etched with drying ligaments and bone. Heaven preserve me! He made a mental note to get gloves and to pay special attention to his feet. Being newly dead was an experience that could leave permanent damage during the adjustment period. His thoughts drifted over the march.
The track had been arduous and the pace punishing. They had to make room in supply trucks for dead whose lower extremities had splintered or disintegrated. Still able to make a contribution to the effort, Updike was unwilling to leave them behind. But how long would that last? Stoneworthy shuddered at the thought of leaving any of his dead comrades behind.
“War is extreme.” Updike had told him in an effort to rouse his courage. “And we cannot flinch.” In conversations with Oliver Purdue, Stoneworthy had determined that their military leaders had built in contingency plans for the eventuality that would force them to abandon soldiers. “We’ll leave them with enough oil and water to stay hydrated, and return if we can.”
But Stoneworthy understood the plan’s flaw. The area they traveled was home to wild animals, and pets abandoned after the Change. After domesticated animals turned on people, humanity was forced to destroy those they could. But the numbers of feral pets was staggering, as the wilderness grew. The result was a landscape that teamed with roving packs of wolf-like dogs, bloodthirsty cats and murderous bears. The Change had reversed man’s dominion over the animals.
Attacks had been reported. Four hours into the march, a dead soldier plummeted to his destruction when harried by flock of birds. Shortly after, a dead medic was dragged into the woods and dismembered by unidentified animals-her head was never found. Two hours before, advance scouts ran afoul of a group of wild pigs. Three soldiers were lost before their firepower could be brought to bear.
“Extremity breeds courage,” Updike had said, “Brother, we will do what we can, but this war, win or lose will end it all.”
Those difficulties aside, Stoneworthy struggled with their greater losses. The southernmost army had been decimated and scattered by the Prime’s nuclear weapon. Tens of thousands perished in the blast and thousands more in the firestorm. The high temperatures ignited oil-soaked corpses far from ground zero. General Lorenzo was trying to rally his forces.
General Carstairs and the southwestern force were downwind of the blast. They were digging up Geiger counters to monitor radiation levels. Stoneworthy felt the weight of doom overhead as they marched in the open. City Defense reconnaissance aircraft sent waves of panic when they passed.
General Bolton and his officers insisted that the City Defense force’s use of nuclear weapons this close to home was doomed to fail. A random wind, mixed with the Change’s incessant rainfall would leave the City open to eventual self-contamination-and it was the last City in Westprime. Bolton said that was the reason for building the Army of God this close to the City in the first place. A forced march would put them on their doorstep before they considered sustained use of nuclear weapons.
The force that marched from the south was at risk because of its greater distance. Though the loss was horrible it proved the point. The City was reluctant to bring nukes into operation. Bolton assured Updike that the blast was a warning. And he insisted nuclear weapons were the least of their problems. A wide variety of conventional weapons could cause as much and more damage.
Whatever the tactical message of the blast, Stoneworthy felt it too deeply to ever pass it off as less than holocaust. As thousands of his brothers were vaporized, a deep pain ripped through him. He had never felt so violated. It seemed that the rest of the force had experienced it-a shared terror as the dead were consumed by nuclear fire. He’d never forget the moments that followed the flash. There was a lull in movement-a palpable loss of all direction. A hush fell over the army as the realization sank in.
Dead eyes had looked desperately around then rose to the heavens. A quiet rustling filled the night that grew in pitch until it fell in upon the listener like an avalanche. A howling sound rose up from thousands of dead throats. Desiccated mouths dropped open, ragged lips drew back, and a deep, horrible cry rose up against the leaden sky. Stoneworthy felt it, shared it with the other dead. The power of its sounding would have torn his heart in two had it been a living organ.
After it, Updike had retreated to his jeep. He sat there, his round face white, his eyes hollow, as though the sound, and the vision of so many thousand dead men and women howling were too much even for his powerful faith. He wore a look of confusion, of frustration that was distorting his thoughts to apocalyptic proportions. His hands were fists.
As the howls’ reverberations died to a terrible background radiation of its own, Stoneworthy had crossed the camp to talk to his friend. Updike was there, holding his hand over his left eye, his skin was gray, his open eye streaked with red. He struggled to smile, produced a crippled grin. The preacher forced himself upright, climbed out of the jeep.
“Captain Updike?” Stoneworthy’s voice echoed in his head. The passing of the howl had left his senses buzzing. “Are you well?”
Updike dropped his hands, smirked and cleared his throat. He brushed his forehead with the back of his sleeve. It came away dark with perspiration. “Yes, Reverend Stoneworthy. I am well.”
Stoneworthy insisted that Updike follow him to the medical tent. The Captain refused. He tried to understand Updike’s refusal. Something was wrong, it was clear, and the condition was getting the better of him. The minister decided to consult the medics on his own. He would suggest they talk to their leader. The army needed Updike’s vitality…
An explosion sounded to the east pulling him from his reverie. Then, repetitive popping sounds. Stoneworthy leapt to his feet. Boot in hand, he hurried through a tangle of grass at the side of the highway. A line of trees in the distance was coming alive with smoke and flashes of light. Cold fog obscured his view. Ambush!
A high-pitched whistling sound was followed by the eruption of a supply truck. It exploded in a ball of fire. The concussion sent a wave of force that flipped a jeep over and tossed soldiers in the air. More snapping sounds. Gunfire!
Another explosion.
Stoneworthy ran across the slippery slope toward Updike’s jeep. He saw the preacher lying in the ditch beside the road. His face was a twist of misery. Stoneworthy laid a hand on his shoulder. The whistling sound of an incoming shell forced them both to bury their faces in the dirt. The earth heaved up and hit Stoneworthy’s face. Another truck was burning.
“The City had to be warned!” Updike screamed, wincing with pain. “To be fair. We had to give them a chance.” He pushed aside his discomfort and doubt for a moment to look around. A soldier was there. “Where’s Bolton?”
The man’s face had been torn by a piece of flying debris. His lower jaw showed bony white.
“He ran along the convoy!” He struggled to push his face back together. “To lead an attack!”
“Oh God!” Updike’s face was gray.
“Captain? You must not doubt. As you told me about this war, the realities are extreme.” Stoneworthy ducked. New snapping, popping sounds rose up from the line of trees. He wanted to look, but his stomach twisted at the notion. “You cannot doubt yourself now.”
He took a quick glance-snapped his head up and over the side of the ditch. In the distance, he saw a long line of dead soldiers moving slowly, methodically toward the line of trees. Their guns were popping now-throwing plumes of smoke at the forest. Angry lead tore at the cover of leaves. A long line of flame lashed out from a copse of cedar and splashed across a section of the advancing force. Soldiers danced like burning puppets.
“You cannot doubt this.” Stoneworthy pressed his dead lips close to Updike’s ear. This is what we came to do. “We must not let anything stand in the way of the Lord!” He clambered to his knees. “By the hand of God are we commanded, and by His word we shall not fail!” Stoneworthy gained his feet. Further down the line another truck burst into flames. He saw that the dead soldiers had risen. Bullets whizzed among them, mangled, dismembered, but they were thousands, many thousands. And bullets no longer wounded, no longer killed.
Stoneworthy raised his arms to the Army of the Dead. “My brothers and sisters.” He pointed toward the line of trees. “There lies the path of Righteousness.” It was two hundred yards to the trees. Stoneworthy marched, and as he marched forty thousand marched with him. The air hissed and buzzed with bullets, a long section of the trees were already a flaming ruin. But they marched. The Army of the Dead was too large to fill so small a section of highway, and as he moved forward, Stoneworthy saw the dead following-hurrying down the road to join in the battle. They limped, scurried and ran.
“For God!” Stoneworthy bellowed. “For God!”
A dead soldier beside him was torn in two by a large round. Stoneworthy was gratified to see the gory remains of the man following, crawling, inching his way toward the battle. “For God!” Stoneworthy ran thirty yards and paused at the remains of another soldier. His body was a cruel twist of ripped tissue and exposed ganglion, but his eyes moved. They looked at the Reverend and over to a rifle gripped in a severed hand in the grass.
“Peace brother.” Stoneworthy whispered.
Picking up the rifle, he fired a shot into the air. “Now, my brothers and sisters!” Those near him smiled and raised their weapons. Even as he spoke an enemy bullet tore the arm off a woman. She picked up her weapon with the other. “Destroy the moneylenders! For God!”
Another howl went up through the army, an echo of the despairing sound of the day before but somehow the opposite. Instead of isolation and pain, it rang with solidarity and vengeance. Holding his own weapon high, Stoneworthy charged with his soldiers into the murderous hailstorm of bullets.