Chapter 8
Time in the Sanctuary was no longer measured by the watches that had stopped on the wrists of the men from the road. Now, time was measured by the weariness in one's bones, the progress of the palisades, and the number of pages a Northern warrior could decipher before the sun went down.
Three weeks had passed since the night of the great horde. The Greene farm no longer existed as it once was; the bucolic landscape of white fences had been devoured by the necessity of a citadel. But it was no overnight miracle. It was the result of an exhausting manual effort that I supervised myself from the porch, ensuring that no one—savage or survivor alike—was spared the tribute of sweat.
I called Rick and Daryl to Herschel's office one evening, when the silence of the farm was broken only by the distant hammering of the patrols. Both entered cautiously, their heavy boots echoing on the wood. Rick looked haggard; Daryl stayed in the shadows, as he always did.
"You have proven yourselves useful," I told them, sitting before them. "But usefulness is not enough for what is to come. I need you to be more than men if you are to lead under my command."
Rick frowned, crossing his arms over his dirty sheriff's shirt. "More than men? We've already seen what you can do with one hand, Valthor. But we are what we are. Flesh and bone."
"Flesh can be strengthened, and bone can be tempered," I replied with gelid calm. "I am going to share a fraction of my essence with you. It will not make you gods, but your bodies will no longer be a burden. You will not feel fatigue like the others; your senses will see what others ignore."
Daryl took a step forward, his eyes squinting beneath his dirty fringe. "And what's the fine print?" he grumbled. "Nothing you do seems to be a gift without strings."
"The price is loyalty," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "I need captains who do not falter in the middle of a march. I need eyes that see in the darkness of Atlanta. Do you accept?"
Rick looked toward the door, thinking of Carl. Then he nodded. "If it helps protect my family… do it."
The process was brief but transformative. I placed a hand on each of their chests. I felt the flow of my energy seeping into their veins—a tide of electric cold that rebuilt their muscle fibers and sharpened their synapses. Rick stifled a cry; Daryl gritted his teeth until his jaw creaked. When I withdrew my hands, both were panting, but their pupils were dilated, catching every speck of dust dancing in the lamplight.
"Go," I ordered. "You have work to do tomorrow."
The following morning, the village was a hive of activity. I permitted no heavy machinery; I wanted the Sanctuary to be built by the hands of its people. Shane walked back and forth, directing a crew digging trenches.
"Dale, tell me that piece of junk is gonna start!" Shane shouted, gesturing at the small flatbed truck.
Dale emerged from under the vehicle, wiping grease with a rag. T-Dog was beside him, holding a box of tools cannibalized from two other engines.
"Tell your boss he's lucky T-Dog and I know what to do with a screwdriver," Dale replied, glancing toward where I stood on the porch. "We had to bypass half the electrical system, but this engine will live again. We just need your giants to stop staring at the hood like it's a sacred beast."
"It is a metal carriage, tool-man," Torgad said, approaching with curiosity. "How can it run without horses?"
"With this, big guy," T-Dog said, holding up a gas can. "It's the juice that wakes it up. Just don't drink it, unless you want your insides to burn."
Torgad let out a deep laugh that made the air vibrate. "If Valthor orders the iron to run, the iron shall run."
The truck coughed, spat a cloud of black smoke, and the engine roared. The savages recoiled with axes raised, astonished, while Dale smiled with pride. We were ready for Atlanta.
The expedition set off under Jarl's supervision. Glenn drove his blue car, and Daryl was at the wheel of the truck, driving with a precision he hadn't possessed before.
"How are you doing it, Daryl?" Glenn asked over the walkie-talkie. "You're handling that truck like it's part of your arms. You haven't missed a single pothole."
"I don't know, kid," Daryl replied, his eyes scanning the road with terrifying clarity. "I just… I feel it. I can hear the engine better than before. I can smell burnt rubber from miles away."
They reached the outskirts of Atlanta on the second day. The city was a monument to silence and dust. They headed for the hospital, but the path was blocked by a mass of vehicles.
"Not this way," Daryl said, braking hard. "There's something in that building on the corner. I hear it."
"What?" T-Dog asked, climbing out of the truck with a crowbar.
"Hunger," Jarl replied, dropping from the truck's roof. "Thousands of them."
They moved cautiously through the side streets. Glenn guided them through alleys to the hospital's back entrance. The interior was plunged into absolute darkness, but for Jarl and the "new" Daryl, the dark was no obstacle.
"Stay back," Jarl whispered to Glenn and T-Dog. "Your eyes are slow."
They entered the supply wing. A horde of about thirty walkers emerged from a waiting room. Daryl didn't use his crossbow; he pulled two hunting knives. He moved like a ghost, slitting throats and shattering skulls with a speed Glenn could barely process with his flashlight. Jarl was at his side, his stone axe descending with the force of a hydraulic hammer. In less than a minute, the hallway was a graveyard of dead meat.
They filled the crates with medicine, but Jarl remembered my secondary order: the library.
They had to drive two more miles toward the center. The university library was a marble building covered in vines and dried blood.
"Books, seriously?" Glenn muttered as they loaded volumes on medicine and agriculture. "We're risking our necks for paper?"
"The King says that without this, we are only animals who know how to use axes," Jarl said, hoisting a crate full of encyclopedias onto his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. "And I am no animal."
They had to fight their way out. A mass of dead surrounded them in the central plaza. Daryl shot a walker in the head from fifty yards away while the truck was in motion—a feat of marksmanship that left T-Dog speechless. Glenn drove over a carpet of bodies, the truck creaking under the pressure, until they broke out of the "red zone."
When the truck returned to the farm, the atmosphere shifted. They weren't just bringing medicine for Carl; they were bringing the past of this world in wooden crates.
I established the routine that same afternoon. The manual labor on the palisade stopped two hours before dinner. The courtyard became a school under the orange sun.
"I'm not touching that piece of shit paper!" Torgad roared, glaring at the book Carol offered him. "My fingers are for crushing heads, woman."
"If your fingers are only for destroying, Torgad, then you are nothing but a tool," I said, approaching the group. "Carol knows how to read. She holds the knowledge we lost eons ago. If she has the patience to teach you, you will have the humility to learn."
Carol, with a bravery she hadn't possessed weeks ago, sat on a log in front of the giant.
"This is 'A', Torgad," Carol said firmly. "'A' for Water (Agua). Without it, you die. 'A' for Alliance (Alianza). Without it, you are alone."
Torgad grunted but sat down. His massive hands trembled as he tried to turn the delicate pages of the manual. Nearby, Andrea and Amy taught basic medicine to the Northern women, while Dale explained to the smiths how a lever and pulley worked to lift the wall's logs.
The dynamic of the Sanctuary was transformed. The savages respected the survivors for their "book magic." The survivors lost their fear of the savages as they watched them struggle to pronounce simple syllables.
By the end of the third week, the village was a citadel. The log wall surrounded not only the house but the new crops and the wooden cabins my men had built.
I stood at the main gate, observing the scene. Daryl was in the watchtower, his enhanced vision scanning the horizon with a crossbow that seemed to be part of his own body. Torgad was on a bench, his lips moving as he read a passage from a history book.
Rick approached me. He was no longer the broken man who had arrived with his son in his arms. He looked strong, renewed by the energy I had given him.
"You've done it," Rick said, looking at the village. "You've joined two worlds that should never have met."
"I've only laid the foundations, Rick," I replied, looking toward the road. "The village is the body, but now we need the soul. We will begin manufacturing our own tools and weapons from the steel of those cars. And you will help me with the most important part."
Rick looked at me, waiting.
"Tomorrow we will draft the Law of the Sanctuary. Not the law of the men who died in the cities, but the law that will keep us alive here. No lawyers, no corrupt judges. Only my will and your sense of justice."
Rick nodded with absolute resolve. "I'm ready."
I looked toward the sky. The sun was setting, staining the world a bloody orange. But inside these walls, for the first time, there was something resembling hope.