Timewalker

by Luke Norris

  Oliver looked to the grassy knoll in the direction of the shooter and saw three of his archers loosing arrows at Drake. They must have run back up the hill, he thought. Oliver kicked Drake away. Two more arrows took Drake in the back as he fell. He lashed out toward the archers with his sword, in a gesture of defiance, they stood fifteen meters away. The driver was finished. He lay with a large pool of blood around his ankle where Ponsy had severed the back of his leg.

  Oliver focused on the noises around him and felt himself coming into sync with normal speed once again. I can control this! This must be one of the changes that Lego made to me on the ship.

  “Thank you, Cougar,” Ponsy's voice had resumed its normal pitch. “You saved my arm back there. I've never seen anything like it. Your reflexes, even for a driver…” He shook his head in disbelief. “Amazing!”

  They looked at the body of Drake. “He was a dangerous one,” Oliver said, “two drivers and three archers to bring him down.”

  Ponsy winced and held his shoulder as he raised himself up. “You did well to come back, men,” he told the archers as they jogged over. “How did it fare on the field?”

  “We overcame them on the marshes, sir,” said one of the men, as he handed Ponsy a water canteen. “Their armor weighed them down. They couldn't maneuver. Most of them surrendered. There are a little less than one hundred prisoners below. They have been disarmed.”

  They have no idea how dangerous this driver was that they just helped bring down, Oliver realized.

  As they walked down the hill, Oliver was struck by the smell. The smoldering victims of the fire attack lay strewn across the marsh between the base of the hill and the men walking back towards them across the valley with a line of prisoners. Many of Drake's men had attempted to put the fire out using the mud but hadn't been successful.

  If there is a hell, then I am surely going there, Oliver thought. He pulled his tunic up over his nose to combat the fumes. I can't blame this entirely on the second-stagers, I wasn't under any drugs, I wasn't forced, I did this. He felt sick and went down on one knee to compose himself.

  Ponsy looked at Oliver seeing the despair on his friend’s face, his small eyes full of empathy. The driver’s chestnut complexion and wise eyes reminded Oliver of a painting on his grandparents’ wall of a North American Pawnee warrior.

  “It is the curse they gave us, Cougar. At least we are using it to protect people this time.” He looked around at the carnage. “But, we have just removed an important piece of theirs from the board, now their driver is dead, I fear now the entire war will come to us.”

  “If it does,” Oliver replied, “then they will come too.”

  Ponsy nodded. “We need to send messages to the other clans.”

  33. Lowlanders march

  “Good news and bad news, Your Highness,” Yarn said, “the good news is you are officially king of the four realms.” He winked at the king and took a bite of his apple. “The Sharaq royal family have fled the capital and sailed to seek exile with one of their trading partners.”

  The king sat across the table, watching Yarn with clear disdain. “Hmm.”

  “You don't seem impressed, Your Highness,” Yarn cocked an eyebrow. Verity hated how he patronized, and antagonized, the king.

  “All four realms owe you their fealty," Yarn continued, "doesn't that deserve a smile?”

  “We both know I'm just a pawn in your game,” the king replied, “I rue the day I let you into my court. I'm no more a king to these people than you are prophets. I certainly don't deserve to wear this.” He pulled the royal Naharain medallion from his neck and threw it across the table at Yarn. “Tell me, why am I still here?”

  Verity watched the golden medallion slide to a stop before the captain. Yarn has made the king compromise everything about himself that mattered, she thought, and he hates himself for it...like me. We are both living in our personal hell.

  Yarn just chuckled and continued, “the bad news is we have a problem with the Highland tribes. Their continuous raids are a nuisance, and the recent death of Drake has made our army scared of them to put it simply.”

  Yarn didn't mention to the king that Drake’s death had been welcome news. It meant one less problem they would have to eliminate themselves, before the three of them went into hibernation.

  “We will take the thirty thousand men and squash these tribal rebels in one sweep!” Yarn declared. “We can't have insurgence hindering all our progress.”

  “The men won't want to fight the highlanders,” Riff cut in, “they beat Drake and his soldiers. There are all sorts of rumors circulating about them. They have a king that has unified the tribes and can't be beaten. I mean, hell captain, they took out the driver.” Riff’s eyes danced nervously from Yarn to Verity and back.

  “A driver can be killed if he is outnumbered or alone,” Yarn said dismissively, “they are by no means invincible. Besides, that solved a problem for us. We will lead the men ourselves! The three of us.” He looked at Verity. “That should inspire the men, they know what we are capable of!”

  “I'm not coming!” Verity declared. The men's faces she killed on the bridge months earlier still haunted her.

  Yarn switched to the second-stage language. “You are coming if I say you are coming. I am the captain, and you will do as I say if you ever want to leave this wretched rock on my ship!” He stood. “Come, Riff! We have work to do. And Verity, I suggest you find some attire more suited to the road.”

  He picked up the king’s medallion and walked around the table to stand behind the king. He placed the chain over the king’s neck and bent down to whisper in his ear. “Make no mistake, your role in this is important, Your Highness. You have a vital part to play when this is over.” Yarn patted him on the shoulder and then strode out of the room with Riff at his heels, leaving Verity and the king alone sitting in silence.

  “I'm sorry,” Verity whispered to the king.

  He put a hand on hers. “It's not as hopeless as it seems, Lady Verity.” He closed his old eyes considering. “I know there are things at play here well beyond my understanding, but there are some universal truths that still connect us. You feel like you have been robbed of choice, that the only path before you is the one set out by that man. But you always have a choice, my child. The opportunity will come where you will have to make a choice, don't let him decide for you. You have a good heart Verity, that man will kill your soul if you let him.”

  Do I have a choice? She wondered. It was a comforting thought that she still had control over her life. Maybe I can still do the right thing in this chaos.

  The black mountains cast an ominous backdrop to the line of soldiers winding their way slowly toward the foothills. Verity could see the caravan stretching away before her almost as far as the eye could see. They had been marching for three days toward the Bayad highland territory, and the glinting armor and the flapping banners were still a marvel to behold. It was, according to the soldiers, the largest single army ever amassed in the four kingdoms.

  The rear of the caravan had collected an entourage of hangers-on, and it was growing. Tradesmen, merchants, prostitutes, farmers selling their produce, hunters, all come to be a part of the miniature economy in this moving city.

  Verity rode a few kilometers further back in the procession, to avoid the company of Riff and Yarn. She was surrounded by people but they seldom spoke to her, and if they did it was with caution and in courteous tones. She realized how much she missed the king. He had become a friend, her only friend as she detached herself from the other two second-stagers. He still saw something good in her, after all they had done to his world.

  But even he could never understand where she was really from, and the guilt she carried. She decided that loneliness was a small penance to pay for the lives they had destroyed, and she would rather feel isolated if it meant being distant from the other two.

  She trotted her horse up to the nearest soldier. “When do we reach the Highlands?”


  “We are entering the Highlands now, my lady.” The soldier looked weary. He had an unusual yellow pigment in his left iris, like the eyes of a highlander. “The border was never really defined between Bayad and Sharaq,” the soldier added, “this land in between is uninhabitable due to the floods. Besides, we have always been friends until now.” Verity saw regret in his eyes.

  As the day wore on the convoy began passing deserted villages. Verity started to come out of her brooding, and take note of the change in her surroundings. They could see from the fields that crops had been recently harvested, and there was no sign of livestock.

  “Soldier!” She called to the man she had spoken to earlier, “What's the meaning of all this?”

  “The raids my lady! The highlanders have been retreating, abandoning the outer lying villages."

  "But these villages look like they have been left recently, in a hurry. Look at the tools left out! Do you think maybe they're expecting us?”

  “Almost certainly! It would be very difficult to march thirty thousand soldiers through the Highlands without them knowing,” he looked abashed. “Sorry, my lady, I didn't mean to be brazen, it’s just my mother is highlander, so I know a bit about their ways is all. It's not uncommon for Sharaq lowlander like me to have mixed blood.” He looked panicked again. “Don't worry my lady, these are my countrymen, and I’ll fight beside them, on my honor.”

  That explains the eye pigmentation, she thought. “If I had my way there would be no bloodshed, soldier.”

  Verity looked at the Highland dwellings as the caravan meandered slowly through the rolling hills. She thought back to two years earlier when the mountain people had saved their lives. They were a desperate crew of a crash-landed ship and the first people they encountered, these clans, had been so open and welcoming, feeding them and caring for their sick.

  It reminded her of the Rieh lizard on her home planet that would lay its egg in a fechte’s nest, the bird would incubate and nurture the egg as if it was its own. Once the Rieh hatched, it would eat the chicks in the nest then move on to devour those in nearby nests. These people had let the Rieh into their midst by helping them, they had even cared for one of the mortally sick drivers. Verity could still remember the man’s dark eyes, searching and accusing. He is gone now, she thought, died from an infection that ravaged his body, but that would never have happened if we hadn't torn him from his world. Now we are going back into what may end up being a massacre. The thoughts and guilt racked her.

  Like a ripple of wind across a wild field, a wave of excitement traveled down the column toward Verity. She could see soldiers beginning to move with haste as they slowly emerged onto a large plateau. Soldiers moved into formation and fanned out into ranks. She kicked her horse into a gallop and rode toward the front.

  She reached the staging area, and to her right, someway off she could see a large clan-settlement. It was impressive, much bigger than she expected. But the township appeared to be completely deserted. An enormous stone windmill was turning lethargically in the breeze, oblivious to the frantic amassing army on the farmland around it.

  She eyed the lie of the land and followed the gentle rising gradient of the plateau to the more pronounced foothills about a kilometer away. She knew somewhere behind those hills lay the merciless canyon land that they had traversed when they first arrived. It was not visible, but she knew it was there. And beyond that, the black face of the ever-present mountains loomed.

  A gleam caught her eye on the foothills, just over a kilometer from the army gathering around her. She examined the reflection. What was that... She drew back in horror on her horse. Concerns she had earlier about this being a massacre of highlanders vanished, as she beheld the sight before her. What she had glanced over a moment ago, thinking it was brush and foliage, was in fact, people. Soldiers. It dawned on her that the entire slope was a sea of highlanders, ready for battle. No. Ready for war.

  “My god, there must be fifteen thousand,” she exclaimed aloud.

  She galloped across the front line of the cohorts, which were rapidly falling into ranks. She found Yarn and Riff in discussions with several legion commanders.

  “Verity,” Riff called, “they've made quite the turnout for us.” He handed her the telescope.

  “Won't do em any good though, we outnumber them at least two to one.”

  Verity didn't answer immediately, she just panned the looking glass across the Highland force. “They have the high ground where they are,” she mumbled.

  The magnification on Riff’s device was good, although she couldn't see facial expressions she could see individuals. She stopped when she saw two lone figures on the ridge behind the army, a tall man with dark hair standing proudly with his hands clasped behind his back and a man beside him appeared to be looking through a similar telescope device pointed straight in her direction.

  There's something about that second man, he had dark chestnut colored skin, unlike any lowlanders and highlanders she’d seen. The only man similar had been Drake...Oh god, that's a driver! she realized.

  “Riff, you had better see this!” She handed him the telescope. “Look, on the ridge above the army! That explains why Drake was beaten, they have a driver leading them.” Maybe both those men are drivers, she thought. Impossible, that one died of infection. Didn't he?

  Riff snatched the device from her and scanned frantically until he spotted them. “Captain!” He yelled without taking his eye from the lens. “We have an interesting development.”

  34. Engagement

  Oliver stood with his hands clasped behind his back on the hill. Ponsy stood beside him peering through the telescope at the legions of Lowland soldiers amassing on the plateau. Even with every last able-bodied highlander, they had only been able to muster a force of twenty thousand men. Five thousand of those men were in reserve and out of sight of the enemy. The invading army had been reported at a conservative estimate of thirty thousand.

  “Mmm,” Oliver's brow furrowed. “We'll still be severely outnumbered. Have you spotted the second-stagers yet?”

  “Not sure, Cougar. They could have long hair now, or beards, hell I can hardly remember what they looked like...wait. There is a woman. Riding across the front line.”

  “That's her! The pirate bitch,” Oliver whispered.

  “She's talking to someone, a man with long blond hair and a blond beard.” Ponsy handed Oliver the telescope but held it a moment longer as he tried to take it from him. “Cougar this is not just about you, we have the lives of all these men to consider.”

  Oliver didn't reply but wrinkled his nose as the hot breeze brought the smell of thirty thousand unwashed men across to the high ground where they stood.

  “I know it’s not just about a revenge pact,” Oliver confirmed, as he followed Verity with the telescope, “but it doesn't make a difference, I'm going to have to face them because our men certainly can't.” Oliver didn’t know if he told the entire truth. Inside, he wanted this, to confront his abductors. He always had. Was this whole war caused by his desire for revenge?”

  The heat of the day had intensified, the air was dry and thin, it smelt of men and fire from the war machines behind the ridge where they stood.

  “Many of the lowlanders won't be used to the highland air,” Ponsy said, “they'll be tired…”

  “She's riding with two others,” Oliver cut in, “the blond one and another...it's the captain I think, I remember him.”

  “Are they coming to offer a parlay?”

  “No, they have cut across to the left. Looks like they are making for the windmill, probably to use as a vantage point.”

  “Men!” Ponsy yelled to the highlanders on the slope before him. “I think we've given these lowlanders enough time to prepare.” In answer, a rumble like thunder rose from the highlanders as they banged their shields.

  “Ab-Jibil!” Oliver called down to the one-eyed chieftain who was waiting on the other side of the ridge. The man was helping load a large ta
r bomb into one of the four cantilever catapults. They were behind the hill, out of enemy sight. He gave him the signal. The chieftain waved in acknowledgment, and Oliver saw the ball ignite, and three other war machines followed suit. There was a great swishing noise as the four machines released their canter levered weights and hurled the flaming projectiles into the sky.

  A cheer accompanied the din of Highland weapons and shields as they watched flaming missiles sail overhead toward the ranks of Lowland soldiers. Oliver covered his nose with his scarf to block the stench of burning tar. Ponsy also had his nose covered. He pulled the rag away and leaned in so Oliver could hear him. “I'm coming with you Cougar. You can't face those three on your own.”