Page 16 of The Infinite Glade
“Who knows who she really is . . .” Minho looked off into the woods yet again. “Cover for me if anyone asks.”
“Wait, what?” Dominic panicked more by the second. “Where are you going?”
“Stay down here and if anyone comes down, just say the rudder needs a tighter fix and I went off to take a piss, okay?”
“Okay. But just so you know, this right here . . .” Dominic motioned to the rudder and the woods and the space between them where he’d just learned the Godhead is a murderer. “All this is taking the piss right out of me.”
“I know,” is all Minho could say before heading off the boat.
Alexandra lied about the Berg for a reason, and Minho needed to find out why. Back when he guarded the walls of the Remnant Nation, travelers who lied were only ever doing so because the truth was far worse than the lie.
He ran to the tree line as fast as he could on the uneven swampy ground. He only looked back to make sure no one followed him.
If the Godhead had killed a soldier or a Grief Bearer of the Nation that ambushed her with war, then why wouldn’t she just admit it? There had to be something inside the Berg she didn’t want anyone to see. His lungs burned with the suddenly cold Alaskan air as he turned the corner to where the Berg sat. He took another clear whiff of air, and searched for the smell of fuel, but there was none. He knew she’d lied about a leak. He kept one hand on his gun while he surveyed the outside of the big machine and scanned the landing gear for any other possible failure that would prevent them from flying the machine.
The exterior body of the Berg looked completely fine. He could smell the traveling smoke from war and something musky . . . but still nothing that reeked of gasoline, oil, or any fuel. He’d noticed that musky scent before but couldn’t put his finger on it. He walked around and climbed into the Berg, and the smell grew more peppery and pungent with every step closer to the cloaked body in the pilot's seat. Flies swarmed around Minho. It didn’t take long for creatures of destruction to find their next meal.
Minho carefully ran his fingers along the dark cloak of the pilot. Darker than a Pilgrim’s cloak, it looked more like something the Grief Bearers would wear, only a smoother type of fabric and missing the emblems that the Bearers wore. His fingers traced the gold thread of the black cloak. Another thing the Bearer cloaks didn’t have. Minho pounded the shoulder of the dead body and startled more flies. “Who are you?” He searched the items inside the Berg for any clues, but the vehicle itself was practically empty.
The dead body slumped over on to itself.
It didn’t matter who the pilot was. Minho had confirmed that the Berg wasn’t damaged, and that’s all he cared about. He could use it to get everyone out of there once they got what they needed from the Godhead or finally believed that she wasn’t anyone but a crazy lady in a Pilgrim’s cloak. Minho pulled at the cloth on the pilot’s body, wrapping the black cloak around his hands until he had a strong grip.
“Come on . . . let’s go . . .” He lifted and pulled at the dead man to get him out of the Berg. Not the heaviest corpse he’d ever dragged, but it was the most awkward. After being freed, it still looked like the dead man was sitting in an invisible chair. Minho dragged the pilot’s feet outside and across the underbrush until he toppled the body behind a huge tree. That smell again. Minho couldn’t put his finger on it but then it came to him like a bullet.
Turmeric.
That smell haunted soldiers of the Remnant Nation who had a bastardly deep wound but not deep enough for death. The Grief Bearers would pack fresh wounds with turmeric and pepper. It might have helped soldiers heal, but it was its own form of punishment, both the smell and the pain.
“Who are you . . . ?” Minho asked the dead man again. “. . . and what happened to you?” He pulled at the dark cloak searching for a wound until he found it. A knife stab in the man’s back . . . right above his kidney. Packed with turmeric.
“You’ve got an Orphan wound . . .” Minho whispered to himself, more confused than ever.
Kidney knife-shots were called Orphan wounds because they were the first defensive wounds that the Orphans of Remnant Nation were taught to give. No one above the age of ten used them, and this one wasn’t a very skilled blow. It must have been delivered by a young Orphan who didn’t have the strength training yet to pierce through all the layers of skin and muscles of the back, what you needed to make the proper impact on the vital kidney organ. “Not deep enough to kill you . . . just deep enough to make you wish you were dead . . .”
Maybe Alexandra had done him a favor. He looked back in the direction of the coast, knowing he needed to get back to Dominic and the others, but he had too many questions now. The turmeric and the Orphan wound meant this pilot had to be from the Remnant Nation, but Minho had never seen that style of cloak before. It was stretchy material, and shiny, almost like royalty. He bent over and traced the golden stitching with his fingers. Only one man would have worn something like this in the entire Remnant Nation.
The Great Master.
A man everyone in the Nation knew of, very few dared to talk about, andnonehad ever seen. The Nation’s Bearers took orders directly from a cloaked Great Master in the Golden Room of Grief. A hierarchy that spread down even to the youngest of Orphans. If they didn’t behave, the Great Master would deem them unfit and they’d be gone the next day.
Sometimes in their sleep. Where they went, Minho only heard rumors about.
He examined the corpse quickly with an excitement he never imagined having. “The Great Master . . .” He had so many questions—none of which a corpse could answer. He searched the dead man’s pockets but they were empty. “Come on . . . something . . .” How could a man so profound, so powerful, have nothing on him when he died? And how could an Orphan wound and a crazed Pilgrim be the cause of his death?
He checked the man’s palms for defensive wounds.
None.
Only a small swirl of a symbol tattooed on his inner wrist. The lines Minho knew well, a symbol of strength the Remnant Nation carved on every outpost and doorway.
Minho had to get back.
The Great Master took an Orphan wound?
If Alexandra really was some sort of member of a Godhead, then the one person the Great Master raised an Army to defeat . . . ended up defeating him. Minho hated the Remnant Nation. And all the pain he’d ever felt in his entire life came rising up from the dead corpse lying at his feet.
He should have kicked the Great Master.
