Free The Relic Keeper by N David Anderson Page A

although several lumps on the ground could, he supposed, be the remnants of them. The flames beneath him were rising and he half-jumped, half-fell, from the apex of the two-storey building onto the grass below. His ankle buckled, but didn’t break, and he made his way as quickly possible to the perimeter fence, and was thankful that he hadn’t repaired it better earlier. He looked around but saw no one and scaled the barrier as best he could. Scrambling down the other side his ankle twisted again, sending a jolt of pain up his left leg. Unable to move he lay in the ditch outside the inner fence and watched Unit burn.
    As the pain began to subside he moved himself away from the complex. Whatever had happened here did not look to Deon like an accident. Someone had torched the commune in several locations and he thought it prudent to be as far away as possible before they realised there were survivors. Although he couldn’t see any movement every now and again he heard the crack of gunfire and he wondered who was shooting at whom. Breaking though a small hole in the fence that he’d seen earlier - and used on one occasion - he limped from the burning set of buildings.
    He managed to rest for a couple of hours by an abandoned farm house about two kilometres from Unit, but by the time day broke it was evident that he would not be able to walk on his damaged left ankle. Searching though the old building he found a short stick that he cut and shaped into a walking aid of sorts. He had heard the police arrive and the noise of several officers passing his resting-place in the night, but fortunately none had come close enough to the building to spot him. The fuller search, he knew, would include dogs, and then he would be found, and with a background like his, that would be bad. Using his stick for support he hobbled quickly from the area, just as a fleet of press vehicles began to arrive at the scene while the police already there started their wider search of the region.
    Earlier in the week Unit had traded some food with a group of travellers, Deon meanwhile, had traded some technical know-how for some tobacco tabs from them. He took the risk of activating his c-pac and tried to locate them. It showed no signs of being traced and he located the convoy of old-fashioned trucks some 30 kilometres away. Using the stick for support he left his shelter and started on the road north. The weather was clear for a change, although cold, but the going was slow, and he needed to duck into the woods off the road when any vehicle passed.
    As he walked he became less aware of the pain in his ankle and stumbled less, which increased his speed. After five hours he’d managed to cover nine kilometres and was well out of earshot of the mayhem at Unit, as the press and police swarmed on the devastation. The stick had left splinters in his hand and the road started to cause blisters on the sole of his right foot, while his left ankle varied between pain and numbness. The clouds sped across the sky and a veil of fog dropped softly over his mind, numbing his senses. He concentrated only on the road ahead, and excluded all else, although once or twice he turned because he’d heard someone call him by name. He became only vaguely aware of the sounds around him, and hardly heard the motorcycle that came up behind him. By the time he heard the vehicle it was too late to hide and he opted to carry on his slow walk and hope that something would happen for the good. You sometimes had to just place your faith in events and let God sort the problems.
    “Oi, what you doin’ mate? Where you headed?” the rider asked as he drove slowly alongside the ramshackled figure. He was about 19 and was dressed casually in loose blue leggings and a purple vest. His hair was tied back in a ponytail and his arms were tattooed with pictures of women and horses. Although he didn’t recognise him, Deon assumed he was a traveller.
    “I’m trying to find a convoy. There’s