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Back Daughter of Eden
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

Davidstand belonged to the Johnfolk by then. They called it Ellpool, which was the name first given it by John Redlantern. Most of the people there had run away, and those that stayed behind were doing whatever the Johnfolk asked of them. Ringmen lived in whatever shelters they hadn’t burnt, wearing the fancy wraps and feather hats that the Davidstand people had left behind. In the Great Shelter, Headmanson Luke and his friend Teacher Gerry drank Strongheart’s badjuice and slept on his beds.

It wasn’t that Mehmet and Hunter had given up, but they’d learned that Johnfolk would always win a face-to-face fight because of their metal spears. So instead Strongheart’s first and third sons had their men hide in forest and set traps. Sometimes the guards would dig a hole in the ground and fill it with spikes, like buck­hunters do, and then lead the Johnfolk towards it. Sometimes they’d tie thin strings over a path at just the height that would catch a man on buckback and pull him to the ground. Sometimes a bunch of them would scrape away the bark from hot spiketrees, cutting almost right through to the sap. A few of their mates would ride up close to the ringmen and shoot arrows at them. When the ringmen chased after them, they’d lead them to the spiketrees where their friends were hiding, and their friends would take axes and open up the trees, so that as the Johnfolk came by, scalding sticky sap would spray out at them, burning their skin, and making their bucks panic and scream. The guards would pick off the ringmen as they twisted and turned, trying to figure out which way to go.

One waking, about the time that Leader Harry was climbing up onto the Dark from Circle Valley, Headmanson Luke Johnson had gone riding out in forest near Davidstand with his friend Teacher Gerry.

They thought they were pretty safe with their ringmen all round them in their metal masks, and they were chatting away to one another cheerfully, without even wearing masks of their own.

‘I’m so looking forward to the waking I can bring my mum over here with the ring on her finger, and bring these people here back to their true Mother,’ I imagine Luke saying.

‘So am I, Luke,’ I imagine Teacher Gerry answering. ‘And especially I’m looking forward to—’

Then Gerry stopped, as if a new and interesting idea had suddenly come to him and he was figuring out how best to put it into words. He leaned slowly towards the Headmanson like he was bowing. Then he half sat up again for a moment. He had a strange half-smile on his face. There was blood on his nostrils and on his lips.

‘Gerry? Are you okay? What’s the—’