Memories of Life

12. The Tracker.

12. The Tracker.

Rain will not make it easy, tracks will be washed away and vision decreased. Yet scared people are predictable, taking the path of least resistance. I look for the smallest things, a broken stem or stick, a disturbed rock, or the thinnest thread of cloth. They're children, they become hungry, and tired, so take your time and think like they would. "Little-boys" I say, "Search the edge of the track they came along on the low side of the cutting, look for any trace." His skills are still rudimentary even after all this time, but he requires little to maintain him, and he barely rests.

The bodies in the middle of the road are slain Brothers from one of Wolf's crew's. Dumb fucks only had to fell a tree and clean up any who tried to escape. "Look carefully Little-boys. They would have been shitting themselves by now." I search around the bodies, no footprints suggesting they stopped or relieved the dead of their belongings. The ground was dry and hard when they passed, so I must look for other signs.

There! He walked right past it. "See this Little-boys." I show him the small broken edge of earth where the washout leads. "There has not yet been enough rain to cause this." I tell him. Further down the washout there are slip marks made by panicked feet, and broken saplings they held onto to prevent falling. "This way Little-boys."

Good, the signs are everywhere, broken foliage and the odd still visible boot mark in the mud beside the creek. There smart little fuckers, getting off the main track and following the creek. Soon though it will rise into the high country. And without food, or little rest, they will slow and tire.

Little-boys too has the scent now - he's eager. His reward is something beyond my own motive, or imagination. The Minister has punished him many times for his indiscretion's, and has promised him death for another failure. Still, I doubt he fears death given the condition the first Tracker and I found him in all those years ago. The old Nomad had him in that cage for who knows how long, practicing all kinds of perversions on him. There are some Brothers who still like a squirming boy beneath them, but the old Nomad made them look like amateurs. Given a chance I think Little-boys would revisit the horrors with a victim of his own. Pain, cruelty, and death is a necessity to survive and thrive. But it is the Minister, and he alone who decides one's fate; just as it has been from the beginning.

My brothers smart, projecting fear to conquer and maintain order. Yet has silver on his tongue to turn things to his advantage. It was when we were weak, hungry, and on the verge of death during the wars for the "Ruins" he prevented mutiny amongst the Brother's. He unleashed our blood Brother the General on them, before sitting down to talk reconciliation, and subservience with the survivors. When that was settled, he approached the original Minister who was the most powerful leader of the Ruins, and who had bought us to our knees. Once he had been a leader in the old world, and knew how to procure the most needed commodities of human flesh, food, and weapons. My brother pledged allegiance to him, offering to procure women and children to meet his price, in exchange for control of a small area of the Ruins, and all it contained.

The Ministers short term gain would be my brother's long term win though. Drawing his enemy closer my brother found a weakness, his own son. Sowing seed's of grandeur in the weak and foolish boy's mind my brother promised him total control of his father's empire. Eventually the son killed the patriarch in a manner for all to see, claiming the mantle of leader with a few others suggested by my brother. Men he knew to have ambition of their own, and who were close to the first Minister.

However, the young, newly self appointed Minister's leadership was only fleeting; my brother had long been busy aspiring, and conspiring with others. The young pretender was weak, and without his father's protection those close to him were easily bought or convinced to abandon him. For the few who stayed loyal, they were swiftly dealt with.

My brother personally executed the young pretender at a gathering of all the groups, declaring all of them his Brother's, and that this execution would be the final kill. I was still just a boy in that time, but I remember it so clearly, and for a while it was true. The war between the different groups was over. Yet my brother now the Minister had not finished, purging all, and any threats from his ranks, instituting our law. But he also learnt the first Ministers secrets on the trading of children to the Old Masters. At first they only took the babies and very young. But as the years went by they procured older children; for what purpose, we were never to know?

It was in search of others, and their children for the trade that I learnt my skills. The original Tracker was with us from the beginning, and had been a teacher in the old times. I had remembered school from the time before the great death, but it never seemed relevant from the time I lived after. Never the less Tracker forced me to learn reading and writing, finding books to teach me about how the world was, and the thinking of those in it.

Eventually the first Tracker was killed by General when I told the Minister he had warned a small group we had discovered, to flee. Trackers mistake had been disobedience, and mercy; he had betrayed the Brother's code. Just before the end he tried to convince me to leave, and escape into the open lands warning anyone I came across to save their children. Back then I would never betray my Brother's; the last thing our mother said to us before she died was that we would only survive and achieve greatness, if we were together.

It won't be long now before the rain swells the shallow creek and we loose the signs. Not to worry though, there is only one direction for them to go, and that is up. We will follow the creek to the top of plateau, then search for new signs.