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sometimesyourejerichoThe interior of the abandoned factory wasn’t much warmer than the squalling wind and snow outside but Dominic was reluctant to leave it regardless, his gloved hands tucked firmly into the pockets of his long jacket and his breath steaming the air in a thick cloud.
He’d grown up with an intense love of winter, but the quiet, picturesque snowfalls of northern New Barion were a dream compared to the intense, smothering blanket of ice that howled into every nook and cranny of Dorman. The few people he’d spotted, villagers who shot him furtive glances full of cautious hope when they saw the proud reds and blacks of Kensington’s uniforms, those people were hunched over and battered by the cold, moving from place to place like half-frozen beasts of burden carrying the full weight of the low-hanging clouds.
Some had spoken to him in halting, nervous English - when he’d shown he could speak Belsian, a life had come into their eyes and they’d gripped his hands with desperate intensity, telling him the same story he’d heard in every city he and the units under his command had stopped in since they’d landed on the continent’s bleak shores.
His assignment had nothing to do with the Belsian King and his obsessive seizure of the previously independent territories that occupied the strip of land between Belsi and the coast, nor was he tasked with ending the mass executions or shutting down the concentration camps. He hadn’t traveled to Dorman to save them, but he’d not shared that information because he needed their assistance - and really, with the might of Kensington’s army less than a day behind him, he wasn’t doing them much of a disservice by lying. Belsian rule was most definitely coming to an end. Dominic just had a very specific task to accomplish before the war began.
“Dom, you know I would never want to ask this of you, but -”
“It’s alright.” They were standing on the front porch of his house, Dominic and Elric Ryder, his closest friend since he had learned to speak. Brisk wind stirred dead leaves around them, heralding a possible winter rainstorm coming in off the ocean. “I would go even if you didn’t.” He’d smiled a little, looking down at the mug of tea in his hands, wishing it were brandy but knowing full well he couldn’t drink the night before shipping out.
“I just don’t think they’ll look,” Elric told him. “And if they do, I don’t think they’ll find him. You understand, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Tabitha, she tries to keep hope but… but we’re realistic people. We knew when he agreed to go that there’d be a chance…” He’d taken a breath, curling his hands tight around the thin wood railing. “If he’s… I just want to say goodbye, properly.” He’d hung his head, then, proud and strong Elric Ryder, and for the first time since the day his son was born, Dominic saw him cry. “If that’s all I can ask for, then -”
And Dominic had embraced him tightly, the man who was the brother he’d never had, and he said the words that had echoed in his stubborn heart a hundred times over since he’d left Kensington’s shores.
“I’ll bring him home,” he promised. “You have my word.”
An engine roared to life in one of the utility vehicles outside, startling him from his thoughts, and after taking a moment to haul up his collar Dominic stepped around the dented metal door and into the workyard outside. The muffled crunch of the snow under his boots and the idling of the vehicle were the only sounds in the dim early-afternoon light, and as a man accustomed to the steady, pleasant hum of Kensington’s people going about their day to day, it unnerved him. The countryside felt like a tomb, numb and still.
“Lord Blackmore!” One of his Captains jogged toward him, kicking snow in all directions. Were it not for the splash of freckles and the hint of auburn hair peeking from beneath her cap, he wouldn’t have had a clue who it was - an amusing though, really, as Keavy Bell was not the sort of woman that could easily blend into a crowd. Her gloved hand come up to her chest in a bulky salute. “Cleared the whole building, my Lord. Nobody’s been here least a year, far’s I can tell.” Behind her, the men and women from her unit were filing out of the looming stone and metal building, their weapons still at ready but their postures clearly frustrated.
“Load up, then,” he told her, and glanced up toward the gathering clouds overhead. “We’ll check the plant by the river, and then we’re packing it in for the day.”
“Yes, my Lord,” she affirmed, and trotted back to the others. Sighing, Dominic trudged around to the passenger side of the truck and hauled the door open, sliding into the marginally warmer vehicle.
“Nothing?” Duff Catternach, another of Dominic’s long-time friends and the most experienced of the Queen’s agents, sat with his wrists draped over the wheel and a cigar hanging from his lips. He frowned when Dominic shook his head in answer to the question. “Startin’ to wonder if that tip might’ve just kicked us in the wrong direction.”
“I’ve entertained the thought,” Dominic replied quietly. “But if we’ve checked this far, we may as well check them all.”
“‘Cept you’re gonna run outta lies to tell Breddleston if we try to go out again tomorrow.” Duff checked to see the other vehicles were ready, then steered the truck toward the road. “What’re you gonna tell him if we don’t find anythin’?” Dominic, who’d tugged off his gloves so that he could scribble notes in the field book he carried, paused just briefly at Duff’s words. “Now, I’m not sayin’ we won’t,” Duff defended, expertly twisting the wheel as the truck fishtailed on a patch of ice. “But I know he’s gonna want an explanation.”
“I don’t care if I have to lock that policy-slinging little pissant in a cupboard,” Dominic replied firmly. “If we turn up nothing today, we go tomorrow, and the day after that if necessary.” He crossed the factory off his list, the eleventh in the list of possible locations the Belsians had been using to interrogate suspected spies or traitors of the King, then flipped through dozens of pages of notes in his tight cursive to write his findings. Not that there was much to make note of, but he had to write something because as much as he hated the rulebook-toting little wretch the Queen’s advisors had sent along - no doubt due to Dominic’s reputation for bending protocol to the point of near-breaking - he also knew that he couldn’t afford to get on Rupert Breddleston’s bad side. It would be too easy for the starchy young man to declare the mission a failure and send Dominic and the squads back to Kensington with an official sign-off stating their two missing agents were presumed dead and unrecoverable. Case closed.
His eyes drifted to the window, the wind scouring a layer of powder off the frozen crust of snow, and after feeling Duff’s eyes dart to him several times he finally sighed and said, “What is it, Duff?”
“You know what I’m thinkin’,” the older man replied.
“Likely. But they’re out here, somewhere.”
“Mmhm. Been a while now, though, so you’ve just…” He cleared his throat, expelling a cloud of cigar smoke in a hazy whoosh. None of them were supposed to smoke while on duty, but Dominic let it slide in Duff’s case - a quiet thanks, perhaps, for all the times he’d dragged his half-retired friend halfway around the world. “You’ve just gotta accept the possibility, right? Folks in Dorman said the Belsians been feedin’ people to dogs, to the pigs, throwin’ ‘em in the ocean. Might be nothin’ left to find.”
“Yes, they all know that -”
“I mean, you gotta accept it,” Duff interrupted. “You do, Dom.”
They passed the rusted, ruined shell of an old car, a scarred lump at the edge of the ditch. A mailbox on a weathered post, dented and tilted off to one side, marking an overgrown driveway that sloped through the trees to a house that looked as if it hadn’t seen use in decades. An empty field with an irrigation cart buried halfway to the axles in the frozen earth.
The lack of life, the lack of any indication of life, made his heart ache with homesickness. He missed his son’s smile, the warmth of the hearth where they would play word games, the inviting smells of evening tea and boysenberry jam. Just as quickly, a rush of guilt crowded the comforting sensations away - he imagined Elric and Tabitha sitting in their quiet home, waiting for word that he’d found something, anything.
“I said that I would find their son,” Dominic said quietly. “No part of that is up for discussion.”
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Date: 2018-10-09 06:15 pm (UTC)