The Wasteland Soldier, Book 3, Drums Of War (TWS) by Laurence Moore

hunt us down. They’ll know the beacon was a signal.”
    “What about Jeremy? What will he do? He has a family here, Brian, sisters and a father.”
    Brian snorted, got to his feet, brushed past her. He paced the gloomy room dotted with odds of furniture and little else.
    “I don’t care what Jeremy’s going to do. At the moment the smarmy little bastard needs to worry about Quinn.”
    “There’s nothing to worry about. The sickness will kill her.”
    “Yeah,” said Brian. “That’s right. How could I forget?”
    He was tired, half-drunk and edgy and Shauna knew she should have gone back to bed and left him to dwell on the decisions he had made and how nothing in their lives would ever be the same again since he had made them. How had they both found themselves in this? No. Why had Brian put them in this? He should have never listened to Jeremy about a lucrative way of making extra coin and gaining revenge against the Holy House. It was stupid. What did he think it would involve? Shovelling manure? Chopping wood? Brian was right; there was no paying work left in Brix, not honest paying work anyway.
    “If we stay we hang.” He stared at her. “Once it’s over we’ll go far from this miserable village to a place where we can have nice things like our friends have and no longer worry about how much things cost.”
    “What’s the point of nice things if we’ll never see our friends again? I like it here, Brian.”
    “We’ll have a decent house to live in. You want that, don’t you?”
    “We have a decent house now,” she said, tiredness fuelling the defiance in her voice. “We just don’t have …”
    “A decent house?” He slammed his open hand against the wall. His nostrils flared. ”It’s a fucking hovel. We live in shit, Shauna. Shit, shit and more fucking shit.” He took a deep breath. “I hate it. I hate this house. I hate Brix. What has it ever done for us? Tell me. Tell me.”
    He threw the bottle.
    “I hate them for what they’ve done to us.”
    “This is what it’s all about, isn’t it?”
    He came to her, gently placed his hand against her flat stomach.
    “Empty,” he whispered. “All their sermons and prayers and words. It’s a big fucking lie, Shauna, a big lie.”
    He pushed the blanket from her shoulders, looked down at her bare skin. She gasped as he grabbed her and roughly pushed her to his chair. He fumbled with his trousers and pounded against her, thrusts of anger, ruthless and near brutal, the sweat pouring from his face, dripping onto her back. She stared at his dirty boots and empty bottles askew on the floor. He grunted loudly, unable to spill his seed. He kept driving into her until her knees buckled and then he pushed her against the floor and he was above her and his weight was against her and her legs were wrapped around him and her nails were digging into him and still he could not finish.
    He rolled off her, exhausted, panting heavily.
    Shauna could see the blackness in his eyes as he lay staring at the ceiling.

 
     
     
     
    SEVEN
     
     
    Stone opened his eyes.
    It was shortly after dawn and the mild air resonated with the clump of horses and the rumble of wagons. He eased into an upright position, head throbbing. He saw Nuria watching the convoy, leaning her hip against the open doorway of the barn, arms folded, head tilted to one side, wind lightly tossing her blonde hair. The property belonged to Boyd. He owned a piece of land on the outskirts of the village with several outbuildings and stables. His house was wood and stone with a moss covered thatched roof. Stone pushed himself onto his feet, licked his dry lips. Nuria heard him cough and glanced over her shoulder. He saw the dark, half-circles below her eyes. He washed his hands through his shoulder length hair, scratched his beard and stepped gingerly toward her.
    Sal Munton was straining his lungs inside the prison wagon, damning every man and woman who had ever crossed him and cursing their