Free Warchild: Pawn (The Warchild Series) by Ernie Lindsey Page B

a matter of necessity,
ma’am. I’m sure you understand.”
    “No one understands war, except for
the men who create it.”
    Captain Tanner takes another step
closer to Ellery and then looks at two large soldiers behind her, motioning
with his hand, tilting his head, signaling for them to approach her. He says,
“We’ve heard tales about you and…your gifts. Are there many more left like you?”
    “I feel two,” she says. “They’re
close.”
    “Two? No, that can’t be.”
    I share the same thought with him. The
Elders teased that she was the last.
    But, Ellery knows. She always knows.
Past and present. The future. Her words are always cryptic, however, and it’s
difficult to figure out what she means.
    She croaks, “Time has not treated us
as well as they’d hoped, Captain Tanner.”
    “I can see that. How very
unfortunate, but tell me, where are the other Kinders?”
    “Closer than you think.” Ellery’s
bobbling, shaky head turns in my direction. She smiles a toothless smile and
lifts a fragile arm, her hand flapping at the end of it like one of the fish we
catch in the nearby river.
    What’s she talking about , I wonder. Me? Is she trying to
distract them? I can’t imagine why. It serves no purpose. I have no special
abilities. I can’t see the future. I can’t run faster than a deer. I can’t
climb trees like a squirrel or jump forty feet across the river. The stories
we’ve been told about the Kinders have mentioned amazing things—foresight,
incredible physical feats. Speed and agility. Regeneration. And up until today,
I thought immortality was one of them, but if what Ellery says is true, then
maybe that’s all they were. Stories.
    Stories made up to give children
hope and something to dream about. A chance to pretend that they have more than
what we’re given by nature and circumstance.
    When I was little, not so long ago,
I dreamed of becoming a Kinder. I wanted to do what they did—seeing the future,
running, jumping, climbing, flying, I wanted to live forever—but Grandfather
said no, that back in the Olden Days, Kinders were used for war, that they
weren’t nice like the Elders claimed when they sat around our campfires and
shared what they thought they knew.
    I don’t have any special abilities. Not
like them. I can shoot a hopping, sprinting rabbit with my slingshot from fifty
feet away, but that’s it. The ability to aim well, to hunt, to anticipate my
prey’s next move comes with years of practice. It’s not a skill that was given
to me by someone the Elders called a “scientist.” I’m not entirely sure what
that word even means, or what a scientist did before the world ended. They only
told us what their Elders had told them.
    Ellery knows this. Ellery knows I’m
not like her.
    Ellery knows that Finn and I aren’t
going anywhere. We’re incapable of doing anything against this group of men. Ellery
is blind, but sees everything, and she has to know that we’re outnumbered, that
it’s not like she says.
    Doesn’t she?
    This is our end, not theirs.
    The two large soldiers creep up
behind Ellery, inching closer with their arms out, ready to grab her, take her
prisoner, and then what? What will they do with, or to , the last
remaining Kinder?
    If she’s not immortal like the
Elders claimed, does she feel pain?
    My heart aches for the old woman as
the two large soldiers advance toward her, approaching slowly, cautiously. What
have they been told? What stories do they know that we don’t?
    She points at me again, more
insistently, hand shaking, toothless smile opening wider. She says, “And a girl
shall lead them.”
    Captain Tanner glances at me over
his shoulder then scoffs. “Her? Her ? Ridiculous. And here I thought you
had the gift, old woman.”

CHAPTER ● TEN
    The two large soldiers warily
advance and once they’re within a couple feet of Ellery, Captain Tanner says,
“Proceed, gentlemen.”
    They hesitate.
    “I said proceed .”
    One looks at the other,