Chapter 2
The Scars of History
The alarm horn echoed through the dense trees of the Pacific Northwestern forest. As soon as the alarm horn had sounded, everyone began moving. Cooper and Pike and the other children in the Soccer field clearing immediately began running for the hidden shelters. Adults already carrying weapons ran in the direction of the alarm horn. Unarmed adults ran for their weapons. Those adults on guardian duty ran alongside the children collecting stray youngsters who hadn't learned what the alarm horn meant.
As Cooper ran he could hear the sounds of battle. He could hear a lot of gunshots. The Redwing tribe didn't use firearms unless the other side did as well, firearms and ammunition were hard to get a hold of these days- especially for the tribes of the Great Alliance. Cooper was certain that this meant the attacking force was a city folk force. He was almost certain that it was the Winter Wolves. They knew Redwing territory better than any outside group.
This was a edge village, one designed to be found-by traders and raiders alike- and thus protect the hidden central village where food was grown and most of the tribe lived. Edge villages were populated by dedicated warriors and their families- people willing to act as a human barrier for the rest of the tribe. Cooper was scared now that he was faced the reality of an attack, but also very proud to be one of the people living in an edge village.
The Winter Wolves had been a tribe once, and still claimed that they were to all who would listen. They had even been part of the Great Alliance. The Great Alliance was not the only tribal group in the Pacific Northwest. Many other groups had opted to avoid civilization after the horrors of the collapse. And many of those groups that survived had opted to stick with the quieter existence offered by a less technologically complicated existence. Inevitably these groups came into conflict with city folk as the latter tried to expand and re-establish the roads and farms and vast networks of resource extraction needed to maintain any large industrial population center. Cities didn't trust tribals and tribals didn't trust cities.
It was mostly a clash of ideology- the ideology of progress versus the ideology of simplicity. The Winter Wolves followed the ideology of power. Cooper understood the need to acquire a certain amount of power- enough to protect one's self, one's family and one's tribe. What Cooper didn't understand was the desire for power over others. Cooper had learned a fair amount of the tribe's history and the history of life before the collapse. Leaders had built great cities on the backs of everyone else- human and non-human alike. Cooper knew this was the way of the False King, the dark tempting force that offered short term power in exchange for long term poverty. The False King's deal was simple- you take from the generations of the future in exchange for power and luxury in your own generation. The city folk followed this bargain, but most didn't seem to realize it. The Winter Wolves seemed wholly devoted to it. It made Cooper sick.
Cooper had been allowed to go with his Uncle Redwing to an Alliance Council meeting at the Summer Solstice, and the Winter Wolves had sent a party to the meeting. The council had not thrown them out, as his Uncle had requested, but had also not allowed the Winter Wolves to have a vote. They were on probation- too many complaints had been made against them and too many suspicious things happened along their borders.
An attack like this, in broad daylight with guns, was against the code of the council. Tribes frequently had disputes. If those disputes couldn't be settled by conversation, then the tribes would raid each other. But tribes generally raided at night, and normally with only short staves as weapons. This would prove who were the better warriors without the need for armed wars- the point could be made without bloodshed. The Winter Wolves seemed to love bloodshed and were experts at creating situations where they needed to 'defend' themselves.
"Come on little cousin" Koko Freeman-Singh said, snapping Cooper out of his thoughts. He looked at Malika's mother, nodded and picked up the pace. As he ran, he fingered his belt knife. At five he was only just allowed to start carrying a tool knife. It would be eight years before he was allowed to carry anything large enough to be an effective weapon.
Ahead of him Pike and Rikki had drawn their belt knives and quickly concealed them by palming them with the meat of their thumbs and keeping their palms facing their bodies. Other older children had done likewise. Cooper knew how to do the palm in theory, but his hands weren't big enough to pull the trick off, and so he left his knife in its sheath. He hated being little, and he hated feeling helpless.
As the group ran, weaving in and out of the trees and heading for the shelters, Cooper heard the crack of a firearm ahead of them. Children at the front of the group screamed. Cooper strained to see over the crowd, but he was too short. Instead the five year old worked his way around to the left to see what was happening at the front of the line.
A monster of a man had charged the group and was firing a pair of nine millimeter pistols at the assembled children and their protectors. He was clad in full body Kevlar with a black snowflake inside a wolf paw print blazoned on his chest. Fear and adrenaline ran through Cooper and he instinctively dropped to the ground to minimize the size of the target he presented. Ahead of him he could see that several children and an adult had been hit by the bullets the attacker was firing- three people in all. Cooper wanted to cry, but he also wanted to live. The tribe's teaching had been clear on this. There is nothing wrong with fear and there is nothing wrong with grief, but don't die because of them. Cooper sought the the shelter of the nearest tree for cover and watched as most of the children did likewise. A few of the really little ones didn't and adults were hauling them along as the little ones screamed and cried in panic. Cooper was focusing on not panicking, repeating a mantra to ward off total surrender to fear.
"When I am older I will fix this. When I am older I will fix this."
He could see Pike dragging an injured Rikki behind a tree as well, their knives discarded in the middle of the trail. Cooper noted that even Rikki and Pike hadn't been big enough to do anything about the attacker. On the other hand Pike had probably saved Rikki's life- and that was something.
The attacker was now grappling with Aunt Koko and her brother Lamont. Uncle Lamont and Aunt Koko weren't armed except for their machetes and Lamont didn't have his out of its sheath. His Uncle probably hadn't taken the time to draw his machete, Cooper realized, before rushing the attacker. Lamont had put himself in harm's way, even at a disadvantage, to save Cooper and the other children. Auntie Koko had her machete out, Cooper thought he remembered it in her hand when she had spoken to him- but he wasn't sure. The machete was helping significantly in the struggle. The attacker had dropped one of his guns to grasp Koko's wrist in an attempt to keep the blade from killing him. Lamont had both arms wrapped around the gun the attacker still held and was fighting the larger man, trying to prying the gun loose without letting the gun point at the children or himself.
They weren't far away, Cooper realized. Closer than the goal had been. In fact, now that he was thinking calmly, Cooper realized there were within his accurate throwing distance. His Aunt and Uncle weren't gaining any ground on the attacker and the free gun was still very dangerous. Cooper knew what he was considering was dangerous, and that there were risks involved. But Cooper wasn't going to let any tribe members -especially his Aunt and Uncle- fight alone.
He cast around for a weapon, something he could throw. There was his knife, but he wasn't willing to risk the consequences of accidentally injuring his Aunt and Uncle with a badly thrown knife. He just needed something that would distract the attacker. He picked up a stone from the ground. The stone was round and polished and clearly very old. It was a little small, but close enough that Cooper felt it would do the trick.
He stepped out from the behind the cedar tree and watched the struggle for a moment more. Watching the flow of the fight, Cooper tried to guess how much the attacker would move. Then he saw the attacker twist his hip and kick into Uncle Lamont's stomach. And he saw his Uncle lose his grip on the attacker's gun hand.
Cooper knew he couldn't wait any longer. He stepped and threw, aiming for the faceplate on the Kevlar armor the man wore. The stone arced threw the air and knocked loudly off the helmet top of the attacker. Cooper winced in frustration at his aim. In the next second the attacker turned his face and gun towards Cooper and Lamont Launched himself bodily into the attacker. Cooper dove behind the tree and heard three gunshots as he did and the unmistakable wet chopping sound of a machete carving through flesh and bone. There was a pause and then two more wet chops.
And then there was silence.
Cooper counted to ten and then looked at the site of the confrontation. As he did so, he could hear Koko calling for help.
"Medic! I need a Medic!" She cried.
Cooper stared in horror at the situation. Uncle Lamont lay prone on the attacker. He had a large gash in his left leg and he was bleeding from a gunshot wound in his hip. The Attacker was twitching beneath him, his neck almost separated from his body by an awful ragged cut that split the attacker's face width-wise just above the lower jaw. The attacker's helmet and face plate were a few metres away from the body, and the blood on the face plate made Cooper think that the face plate and helmet had been knocked loose by the first machete blow.
A moment later a medic ran into the clearing. Cooper could still hear the sound of gun shots off in the direction of the main camp. This wasn't over yet. Cooper was pretty sure that the attacker had stumbled upon the children by chance, but that didn't mean that they were safe.
As if reading his mind, Koko stood up and faced the children and the adults who were again shepherding them onto the trail.
"Children, I know you're afraid. This has been a very scary day. I need you to be brave, to be good warriors and look out for each other like Pike and Cooper did just now. I need all of you to be strong."
Cooper felt uncomfortable with the praise. he wasn't sure he had helped and wasn't sure he hadn't been the reason that his Uncle was shot.
His Aunt continued, "We need to hurry now children, I need you to be fast and quiet. I now you're scared. And if you need to cry when we get to shelters, you can cry- even warriors are allowed to cry, but you must wait until we reach the shelter."
Cooper nodded, as much to himself as to his Aunt, and fell into line as the group began to move towards the shelters again. He saw most of the other children doing similar. Most of the children were able to deal with such situations by age five or six. One of the realities of the Redwing tribe was that you were always at war.
The Winter Wolves craved power and luxury, but they would not get this from destroying the Redwing tribe, and yet the Winter Wolves had been at war with the Redwing tribe for decades. No adult had ever explained the reason for the war to Cooper in a way that satisfied him.
Cooper understood why the Redwing tribe was at war with the Winter Wolves. They were a tribe who had decided to follow the path of the False King. This alone meant that they must be expelled from the Great Alliance. They were constantly attacking the Redwing Tribe. Cooper understood why his tribe was at war with the Winter Wolves, what made no sense to him was why the Winter Wolves would seek to attack the most secretive and deliberately ascetic of the tribes. The Winter Wolves gained nothing that they seemed to value from this war, not power, not useful land, not influence. Indeed, the war had cost the Winter Wolves influence and power as they had to spend much of both in the war effort. So why would the Winter Wolves go to war and remain at war with a people from whom they could not plunder anything useful?
Looking back Cooper saw that the group was leaving Aunt Koko and the medic behind as the two tended to Uncle Lamont. Neither smiled, and Cooper was not encouraged by the look of agony on his Uncle's face.
Then Cooper saw Rikki's body. Rikki "Slow Train" Singh, lay prone on the ground. His eye's looked glassy and Cooper could now see that a gun shot wound had punched through his cousin's neck like a pick axe blow. Cooper gasped and dropped to his knees.
He could feel tears on his cheeks. His mind was reeling. This was war, this happened in war. This was the Winter Wolves' fault! he had to get up. He had to be strong!
But he couldn't.
A moment later, or maybe and hour (he couldn't be sure), he heard Pike's voice.
"Come on little brother, I'm not losing you too." Pike hiccuped as he spoke. Cooper looked back and up at his half-brother. Pike was crying too, and his voice was ragged when he spoke.
"Come on Cooper. I can't run if I have to carry you and I'm not leaving you behind."
That did it. Cooper clenched his hands into fists until his nails dug into his palms. The pain helping him focus. He hauled himself to his feet and grabbed Pike for support. Together they ran. Cooper could still see Rikki in his mind, laying on the forest floor. The gaping hole in the boy's throat and the unnatural angle at which his head lay tore at Cooper's heart. He could his Uncle Lamont as well, the man's hip shattered and leg cut open from the battle. But he kept running.
"One day I'm going to fix this big brother. When I'm a warrior, this war is going to end."
Pike looked down sharply, and Cooper realized how fierce and angry his voice had become.
"The laws of Gygas say we can destroy the guys who follow the False King, that it's the only way." Cooper reiterated.
Pike spoke as they ran, "Some adults say we used to be friends, you know. I don't know how. None of the adults will talk about how it started."
"I was never friend with them! I don't care how it started. I just want it to stop."
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