Winter's Fist

By Patricia Renard Scholes

A planet under invasion. An unstoppable alien military. One girl with a plan to restore humanity's last hope.

Chalatta watches in horror as the aliens' battle wing takes out her entire family. She flees the carnage, but the destruction doesn't stop there. Foraging westward, she encounters village after village that has fallen to thundering weapons and blazing death.

She teaches the survivors the Ancient Path, the way to use the land as a refuge. This single skill will protect humanity even after the aliens conquer the planet. But she needs time to prepare others for the way to hide their culture in plain sight. No time exists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Renard Scholes
• Release date: May 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781719567695

Patricia Renard Scholes

Born into an abusive home, Patricia determined to make a better home when she married. She realized as soon as her first child was born that she needed to relearn how to parent. After much reading, trial and error, and advice, she accomplished her goal so well she began to parent other children in her home. That is the background Patricia brings into her stories. Her "children" are heroes, survivors who lived through tough childhoods and went on to become successful adults. Although her work is mainly science fiction, her characters are based on composites of real people who also must live with their decisions. Patricia and her husband, live outside of Durango, Colorado, surrounded by national forest, a great environment for a writer.  

Book preview

1

Father’s announcement left me in a foul mood. What happened occurred largas away , I wanted to yell at him. Instead, I yelled at Buelli for stealing the last of the winterberries.

Chalatta! Mama tried to restore order.

She’s just trying to live up to her red hair, Buelli taunted.

At least mine has some color. Yours is no more than a mundane brown.

Like Daddy’s, she spouted. Brown like Daddy’s!

Brown, red, brown, red, Lenetta sang.

Dad stood and removed my plate from the table and glared at me. You have kitchen duty tonight, he said.

I knew better than to argue with my father. I stood.

He thrust my plate back at me. Take this to the kitchen, then get the water started. We’ll bring our plates when we’re done.

I stomped into the kitchen and filled the sink with foaming bubbles in one half, rinse water in the other. Kitchen duty meant not only washing the dishes, but drying them, putting them away, and scrubbing down the whole kitchen. I tried to make enough noise to drown out my father’s voice, but snippets of it his speech seeped through.

...occupy the eastern seaboard ... no word from the south ... contingency plan.

My eyes felt hot. My hands shook. The approaching army of off-worlders terrified us. Our town is too small, I tried to reason, even when I knew that communities much smaller suffered destruction.

...more captured than killed, I’ve heard.

Why? I wanted to demand an explanation. But who was there to ask? My father knew little more than I did.

Recent newsfeeds ran through my brain. In my mind I heard their loudspeakers announce promises of safety if they surrendered. I didn’t want to hear any more about them.

But after I finished in the kitchen, my father sat us down in the living room and turned on the vid. A disaster flaming in living color showed a large city under attack. One black clad alien fired a powerful weapon into someone’s home, burning its occupants alive.

Where did you get this, Farende?

When Mama removed the disk, I realized it wasn’t a newsfeed after all, but a privately recorded video of the destruction of Orwandin, the largest city in the north-central part of our continent.

The one who made this risked his life to spread news, real news, about what they’re doing. Anali, they need to see this.

Why? So they can have nightmares?

So they can see the truth, what we’re up against.

They’re too young. Tears glittered in the corner of her eyes.

Father’s eyes became soft with regret. So were the children whose bodies we watched burn.

Screaming. Outlined in flames as they writhed to get away from the consuming fire.

Whether you want to be ready or not, we need to make plans.

Clutching the disk to her chest, Mama sank into the couch, placing herself between Buelli and Lenetta.

Taking her silence as permission to continue, Dad told us to each pack a bag before we went to bed tonight, that we might be camping for a long time.

I quit listening. I didn’t want to hear about whole towns being destroyed, families and houses burning, the remains of communities vanishing into alien transport ships. Compared to that, what could we do to stay alive?

I left their discussion and stole to my room. I pretended to be asleep when my sisters, who shared bunks on the other side of the room, came in. Mama flipped on the lights and gave me a nudge.

You heard your father. Pack. 

That night we packed backpacks, little ones for the girls, adult-sized for me. When Dad went hunting, he brought us along for amazing wilderness adventures. In our base camp, our mother taught us foraging, trapping, fishing, which plants owned fibers for twine, which plants to leave alone, and a host of other outdoor skills. Dad hoped to teach me hunting, but I didn’t like killing the animals, although I was very good with skinning, dressing and eating what he killed. He also taught us the art of tanning, using sinew for thread and how to make a bone needle or an awl for punching holes in tougher hides.

I loved the outdoors. I loved the lessons our parents taught us. I hated the reminder of the encroaching aliens.

We’re heading out tomorrow, I heard my father say to Mama as they left our room.

You aren’t due for a vacation for another month.

Doesn’t matter. We need to be gone before they arrive.

You’ll lose your job.

Do the people in Orwandin still have jobs?

Surely these... these beings have their fill...

Their voices stopped as they shut their door on the argument.

By this time, sleep evaded all attempts to capture it. I settled my sisters in their beds, reading them a story of the old ways, how our ancestors learned to settle on this planet. We had been aliens once, too, but we didn’t kill the original inhabitants first. In fact, many of us intermarried with the Zarindans. Our mother’s mother, the grandmother I never met, was one of them. They lived on the east coast. I wondered what became of them after these newest arrivals. I doubted they fought back. They, like Mama, were peaceful.

Yet some resistance groups retaliated. Dad said some of those in the south managed to take back their conquered land. I wished they would hurry up and help us take back ours. I watched my two little sisters doze off, longing to join them. The vid of the burning home haunted me. I flicked on the lamp on my night table and pulled out the book I purchased yesterday.

I read until I convinced myself that tomorrow would be just another day. Mama would fix breakfast in the morning. Dad would be ready for work by the time we stumbled downstairs. He would grab a bite of toast and chug his juice while Mama urged him to drink it more slowly. After breakfast I would fix my hair and get my sisters and me ready for school.

Comforted with those thoughts, I put out the light and fell asleep.

2

Abrilliant light followed by a crash of thunder ripped me from sleep.

Startled, my sisters and I flew out of bed. The youngest two ran for our parent’s room. I needed to peek out of the window to discover why light still dominated the sky while the clock showed just past midnight.

A small sun illuminated our whole town. Frozen in place, I stared at it, not understanding that it announced the arrival of the aliens. My mind slogged through a mud of confusion. 

More thunder followed, so close it shattered my window. Screams rose from people closer to the blast. I heard an infant’s cry abruptly silenced. Agonized sobbing followed. Trembling, I backed away from the window and turned at the door to join my sisters in our parents’ room. I felt strange, as if I watched a horror movie unfolding.

Father spoke, in that determined way that brooked no argument. The sound of it gave me comfort. Grab the backpacks, Chalatta, and take your sisters to hide in the woods north of town. You know that path that takes us into the hills?

I nodded.

If we get separated, I will know to look for you there.

Not a strange storm, I began to realize. Instead, they were thunderous explosions from an alien’s weapon. Not a fake sun, but a brilliant lamp bright enough to light the whole town shot overhead by a superior technology.

When the announcement promising safety sounded, the one I had heard again and again on newsfeeds, the reality of the aliens’ arrival hit me like a rock. The movie in my head vanished.

Go!

Mama’s command reminded me that I remained planted in place. I darted to my room. Instead of gathering our packs right away, I grabbed a few extra things I thought we might need and wrapped them in my quilt. I rolled the quilt into a bundle that I strapped on the top of my pack. I slung it onto my shoulders, not bothering to secure the belt around my waist. One-handed, I scooped up the two little girls’ packs.  My other hand reached outward as if to pull my sisters to me, even though they remained in my parents’ room.

The front of our home blew inward. Exposed to the carnage outside, I pushed past my door into to the hall that led to my parents’ room, seeking safety with them. Mama headed my way.

Another explosion tore away the back of our house. My parents’ room flew apart. I watched Dad embrace my sisters who already clung to him, his last movement. Another explosion ripped open his face, tore his arms away, burst open his chest, and severed his legs into...  Chunks? It shredded my sisters into gore, filling the air with blood and flesh. 

Mama, now right beside me in the hall grabbed my arm. We need to go. Frayed edges of grief ragged her voice. I stared at her. Her face covered in blood looked like a monster in a movie.

Noticing that I remained locked in place, Mama pulled me along with her, past the shattered ruins of our home to the broad opening that used to be the kitchen. We managed only a few steps before another blast sent a storm of stone and plaster hailing down upon us. One huge splinter of what had once been siding pierced Mama’s torso all the way through. She collapsed to the ground.

I screamed, unable to contain the horror of my reality a second longer.

Hush, Mama said, her voice too quiet. They’ll hear you. She tried to rise but sank back down in the next breath.

Mama! For all the emotion in that single word, it came out as a tiny squeak.

Chalatta, you can’t stay here. They come from the east, so head west, as far as you can go, past the Westers, across the land bridge, if possible. Maybe... She coughed blood. Surely they won’t attack the entire continent.

That far?  All the way to Northlights?! If they, also, plundered us that far, there would be nowhere left to hide. I needed clarification.

Please, honey. Go.

Mama... Surely she didn’t want me to leave her.

Black-clad soldiers approached, illuminated by their lightening-bright sun. They pointed rifles at us.

You will come with us, girl, one said, his voice heavily accented.

Mama exhaled a final word. "Hide."

She meant the other kind of hiding, my Null space. I was the only one in our family who possessed this skill, an ability formed