The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  A misfire shattered the window behind her. How many bullets remained in his gun? Elowyn tried to count, but the thunder of approaching feet disrupted her.

  Guardsmen filed up the staircase and rounded the corner. Some stood. Others took to a knee. But each fixed their gun on her.

  Elowyn froze. Her arms rose in an act of surrender. Too many raids bred panic in the men. She gritted her teeth. Ignoring the countless cocking weapons to her side, she locked eyes with the doctor. Without knowing how long she had to explain before a barrage of bullets found her, she spewed everything. “Look at the notes. What we’ve taken from this place has been fashioned into protection for the people of Brendale. It’s far from perfect, doctor, but with your help, it could be.”

  Dr. Evanston’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ve killed many guardsmen in your ‘efforts’.”

  Elowyn stiffened. “Unfortunate losses, all of them. We didn’t want to take any lives. But how many people have we saved from the gods? You should know as well as anyone, our efforts have kept them out of Brendale. They know their mind tricks are useless here. They’ve moved on.”

  His eyes flicked down to the pills, but only for a moment. “Whether or not what you say is true, you cannot pick and choose which lives are more valuable than others. Those men had families.”

  “So too, do the families we’ve protected with this medicine.” Elowyn inclined her chin indignantly. “I’ve helped Eastern as much as my mental capacity has allowed, doctor. I need you to bridge the gap between where my knowledge ends, and yours begins.”

  The doctor huffed, his chest jutting out. “That you consider what you and your brethren have done to be of help to anyone only highlights your delusions of grandeur.”

  Elowyn fisted her fingers together. They squeezed from inside her gauntlets. Her stomach churned. Her ego melted. Though it felt like poison slipping passed her tongue, she swallowed. “Please. You must.”

  Silence answered her plea. Dr. Evanston’s lips pinched together. He glanced once more down at the pills. The notes. A mild, nearly invisible look of contemplation swept over his face.

  “You took an oath to help people, Dr. Evanston.” Elowyn steeled herself against the sounds of additional guns cocking near her. Readying to kill her. “I know our methods were aggressive, but if you just read the notes, you will see that this isn’t the work of demons. It’s just people, who want to help other people.”

  The doctor bit the inside of his cheek. Before he could muster a reply, one of the guardsmen turned his head toward him. “Do you want us to kill him?” he asked, “or throw him in a cell?”

  Dr. Evanston’s eyes darted from the guardsmen to the armored warrior before him. He could see nothing of the stranger’s face. Gauging a reaction proved difficult.

  The stillness shattered. A guardsman collapsed onto his stomach, the metal of the halberd still stuck in his spine. In one grunt, Wulfgang ripped it out. Three more men were eviscerated with one broad swing before they realized what was happening. Slaughtering large numbers proved easy when they jumbled tightly together.

  Startled, a barrage of bullets left their barrels. Elowyn felt their full force. The sounds of the bullets striking metal rattled her eardrums. But it was the two which lodged themselves into her areas of weakness that brought the most inconvenience.

  The rivets were weaker than the plates. A need for articulation left her joints exposed. Metal found its way into her knee. Her shoulder. Just where the pauldron failed to shield her flesh. Adrenaline tempered the sting.

  When her brain caught up with her eyes, she recognized Wulfgang. Three others from the Underground accompanied him. Their history of training and the element of surprise made short work of the guardsman.

  “Wulfgang, no!” Elowyn held out an arm to stop him. She winced and brought it back to her side. The weight of the armor was difficult enough to lift. With the bullet radiating throughout, it made it impossible.

  He ripped his halberd from another body and faced his comrade. Blood sprayed over his face, but it did not disguise his confusion at the request.

  Elowyn turned back to the doctor. Wide-eyed, the man backed away. His single weapon looked small in his hands. A member of the Underground advanced. Elowyn stepped out, gripping the rod of his halberd.

  “No!” She snarled, jerking him into submission with her single, working arm. “We need him!”

  “What we need is to get the feck out of here.” Wulfgang motioned his crew to disband. “Come on, E, up and out!”

  The men, who appeared like phantoms, disappeared just as quickly as they arrived. Flooding down the staircase with Wulfgang’s command, they vanished from the facility and into the streets. Wulfgang stood, one foot pressed into the back of a corpse he did not wish to trip over. He frowned when his comrade did not move. “E!”

  Elowyn’s heart panicked. She stared at the bodies. Tried not to count them. Her eyes ripped from the dead long enough to find Dr. Evanston’s horrified gaze. “We still need your help,” she said, feeling the force of Wulfgang’s strength as he grabbed her armored arm and pulled. With her body in the doorway, she gripped the frame. “Please!”

  Wulfgang scowled and released her, running down several of the steps. “I don’t want to wait long enough to see if reinforcements arrive,” he barked up the stairs.

  Her opportunity shattered. It drained into the cracks in the facility’s floorboards, along with the blood of the deceased. But Wulfgang was right; they could not loiter. Not without consequences.

  She took a step and buckled at the knee. The bullet’s sting pulsed up through her thigh. Down into her calf. Elowyn reached for the rail and dragged herself farther. She did not get far before Wulfgang returned up the stairs.

  “Get your shit together, E.” He thrust his halberd into his friend’s arms. With his weapon secured, Wulfgang seized Elowyn’s arm and wrapped it over his shoulders. Bolstering much of the weight, he dragged his limping comrade down the steps and out the door.

  She was at the mercy of his direction. Elowyn tried to assist Wulfgang in aiding her, but the bullet’s wrath was unforgiving. The medic knew she wouldn’t die. Not if she returned to the Underground in time. Enough supplies lived in her tent to return her to some semblance of normalcy ... but it would take time to regain full movement. She cursed under her breath at the inconvenience.

  Experience with Brendale’s city streets aided Wulfgang’s quick return to the Underground’s entrance. For the rare set of eyes that caught sight of the Eastern soldier hauling the metal body over his shoulder, a threatening glare turned the attention elsewhere. The people were too numb to feel any long-term curiosity.

  Certain they returned to the entryway without earning unwanted visitors, Wulfgang assisted Elowyn in bending the bullet-ridden knee. She growled at the movement but powered through. It wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t; Wulfgang forced her into the narrow tunnel with little pity.

  An aura of anger emanated from him. She felt it from behind as he followed her down into the tunnel. It surrounded her, constricting her chest like an unforgiving set of chains that tightened with each inhale.

  When Elowyn hit the bottom, she dug the blunt end of Wulfgang’s halberd into the ground. She stifled a groan in her throat, as she used it to force herself to her feet.

  Wulfgang slid out shortly after. He glared at his companion for trying to stand. With a grumble, the soldier took up E’s arm once more and threw it over his shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered. “That pride of yours will get you killed.”

  She said nothing as he dragged her to her tent.

  The curious eyes of women and children watched. “Is E.P. all right?” a mother asked, concerned, as she loomed over a bubbling cauldron of stew.

  Before Wulfgang could answer, a child ran over to the pair. “E.P.!” he gasped, seizing the iron soldier’s dangling arm. “What happened?”

  “It’s just a scratch,” Elowyn replied, lifting her arm to tousle the child’s
hair, despite the pain it caused in her shoulder. It was with some relief her expression remained obscured behind her helm. It made it easier to hide the pain.

  “He just needs a good rest.” Wulfgang motioned the child back to his mother with a nod of his head. “Off you go then, lad.”

  The boy tilted his head, unconvinced. He watched until Wulfgang dragged his hero into the tent, the flap closing behind them.

  After the pair were safely in the tent, Wulfgang lingered in the small space. He looked contemplative. A moment of silence passed before he huffed and took a knee, lowering Elowyn halfway to the floor before his frustration dropped her the rest of the way.

  The woman bit her tongue to hold in her yelp. When the haze of pain left her brain, she dragged herself into a sitting position. “You’re mad.”

  “You’re gods-damn right I’m mad!” Wulfgang paced the floor, his hands behind his back. “The feck were you thinking, E? You know those feckin’ medics won’t do a damn thing. They hide behind their facility walls, too shielded from reality to know what’s going on beyond the world they created for themselves in that feckin’ building! They haven’t seen what we’ve seen. And if they have, they don’t feckin’ care.”

  “Wulfgang ...”

  “Why the feck do you think we had to break in to steal that shit to begin with?” He turned to face E, his hands upturned. His brows scrunched together, casting shadows over his heated eyes. “They don’t want our help. They don’t want to help. They just want the gods-damned money promised to them by our invisible division leader.”

  “It doesn’t matter if they want our help or not,” Elowyn interjected, still sitting on the floor. “We need theirs.”

  Wulfgang scowled as he strode over to the medical supplies Elowyn kept in the corner. He rummaged through them until he found an antiseptic and bandages. “For what? We’ve already accomplished what they haven’t.” The heat in his tone died down as he turned to face his brother-in-arms. “I know you don’t think it’s perfect. The pills. The side effects.” He approached and knelt. “But it’s all we got. And it’s better than nothing.”

  “It is better than nothing,” she muttered, adjusting her position on the floor. “But it could be better, still.”

  “You’re living in a fool’s paradise, E.” Wulfgang peeled open the start of the bandage roll, shaking his head. “You sound like the gods-damned Southeastern Time Father. Heard he’s trying his own method to combat the gods. Education, or some other useless shit.” He reached for her pauldron. “I didn’t get an education, and I turned out just—”

  Elowyn seized his arm when he started to unlatch the buckle on her shoulder armor. “Don’t.”

  A brow arched on Wulfgang’s face. His eyes flicked to the iron arm that gripped his wrist, up to the helm that hid E’s face. “Are you serious?”

  “Utterly.”

  The soldier blinked. He glimpsed beyond his comrade for a moment, a look of contemplation consuming him. When several seconds past, he pinched his lips together, his muscles stiff. “I don’t know what you’re so damned afraid of,” he murmured, “but the boys and I just risked our lives to save your ass. I’m not about to let it bleed out.”

  There was a hurt in his voice. It was small, but she detected it. The sting of mistrust. Elowyn closed her eyes and clamped her jaw. “I’m sorry, Wulfgang. Thank you for coming to my aid. I just ... prefer to do this by myself.”

  “Yeah?” He pulled his arm out of her grip. “You’re gonna take out your own bullets? Cleanse your own wounds? Sew your own flesh, if need be?”

  The woman swallowed. “Nothing I haven’t done before.”

  Wulfgang stared. A muscle twitched beneath his eye. His teeth clenched together as he rose to his feet. “You’ve given us a lot, E. Not just us, in the Underground, but the people of Brendale.” The man shrugged, defeated. “I’ve tried to return the favor time and again, but I don’t know what else to do to earn your trust.” He walked over to the tent’s entrance and pulled back the flap. “You already know you can’t navigate the world alone. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be seeking help from those feckin’ medics. You wouldn’t have sought help from us. I think it’s about time you start accepting the help from those who don’t mind offering it.”

  Elowyn watched as he lingered in the exit. She wished to say something. Anything. Words of encouragement. Gratitude. But her desire to keep herself safe won. She could say nothing to Wulfgang that wouldn’t expose her true self: if he hated her now, as E.P., his wrath would be all that, and more for the deserting division leader, Elowyn Saveign.

  If his comrade’s silence offended him, he hid it well. Pulling a small bottle of liquor from an interior pocket, Wulfgang tossed it to Elowyn’s feet. “Something for the pain.”

  Her eyes fell to the bottle as he left her to the emptiness. Guilt slithered into her stomach. She reached over to the bandages and antiseptic Wulfgang dropped and slid them closer toward her. With careful hands, she pried the buckle off her pauldron and let it clatter to the floor.

  The bullet wound pulsed when she looked at it. Sticking forceps in the hole to retrieve the metal would be no picnic, but it paled in comparison to the anguish in her guts. Elowyn sighed, reaching over to grab the alcohol Wulfgang offered instead.

  Little wisdom existed in thinning one’s blood with booze when two bullet holes threatened to let it leak everywhere. Elowyn did not care. Not at the moment. She forced the cork out and threw up the visor to her helm. The liquid burned as it traveled down her gullet. But not as much as everything else.

  These people treated her like family, and they never even saw her face. They risked their lives. They lived as soldiers did. They lived as the crew did. Bound by camaraderie and a substance stronger than blood ties. Elowyn remembered it well, from her time in the Northern military. From her time aboard Kazuaki’s ship. The year spent in the Underground was not unfamiliar territory, but this was the first time she felt herself slipping away from the ‘right thing’.

  Whatever the feck that was ...

  She drained the bottle and tossed it aside before scooting across the floor toward her forceps. Elowyn hoped Dr. Evanston investigated her notes. Her pills. She hoped those in temporary charge of Eastern stopped fecking things up. She hoped Wulfgang forgave her. One of her eyes pinched shut as she drove the sterilized equipment into the hole in her shoulder.

  Most important of all, she hoped she could return as Eastern’s division leader ... before everything else went to shit.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nobody mourned the sun when it fell from the sky. Bartholomew stood on his balcony, his head tilted to the side as he mused over the existence of the warming, orange constant. It died every evening. There were no funerals, no rites, no ceremony at all.

  People did not mourn the sun, because they knew it would return. The scholar frowned at the thought. If only life had more constants, like the sun. There would be much less to fear when everything went dark.

  A chirpy voice behind him gripped the Southern Time Father’s attention. He glanced over his shoulder. Kal entered his space through the glass door that connected the elevated terrace to the mansion’s side. A comforting person, at a time when comfort was needed. Bartholomew smiled. Kal had a sixth sense for always showing up at the right moment.

  The ambassador rubbed his hands together, a grin on his face. “Almost the big day.”

  “Yes,” Bartholomew replied, the reminder causing his smile to fade as he turned back to gaze over the balcony’s ledge. “Almost.”

  Despite his lover’s unenthusiastic display, Kal’s optimism remained in the form of a smirk. He stepped up beside Bartholomew, his hands behind his back as he leaned forward to spy his face. “Come now,” he started, “I thought you’d be a bit more excited.”

  Bartholomew’s tongue ran across his dried lips. He took a deep breath into his lungs and feigned a smile. “I ... am afraid my excitement is being overshadowed by my fear.”

  �
�Fear?” Kal arched a brow, leaning forward as he placed his palms on the railing. “Of what?”

  Purple bled into orange. Bartholomew watched the sky’s colors meld together with no care for whether or not they complemented one another. Nature utilized its palette without remorse. He wished at that moment he could have channeled the same energy. But nature had the luxury of doing as it pleased with no repercussion. His actions had consequences. Lives were at stake. “That it won’t work,” he answered, his tone soft. “That it will all have been for naught. That I will have wasted a year of my peoples’ lives in this when I could have been doing something else to make things better.”

  “You must think positively,” Kal interjected, without skipping a beat. He looked every bit the part of embodied confidence as he stared over the balcony’s railing. “Even if it’s a failure, who will know? The people don’t know what to expect of everything, and you’ve mentioned nothing of this to the other Time Fathers ...”

  “The others ...” Bartholomew wrinkled his nose and glanced down at his shoes. “They have made good use of their time. Nicholai, with his efforts to bridge the gap between the rich and poor—that is what I intended to do in Southern all along.” The scholar closed his eyes, reflecting on the one learning institution he managed to construct in Southern. It remained a small fraction of what he had hoped to accomplish.

  Ever the optimist, Kal smiled. “You still have time.”

  A small, half-hearted nod followed. “His resurrection of learning institutions is a logical approach. It’ll take time to see the results, but he’ll save people from having to rely on the societal elites and the small scraps of blood money they pay them. Southern could have been where Southeastern is heading now. Where Western is heading. Both the Addihein men have made positive strides in bettering Panagea.”

  “So are you.” Kal faced him, sweeping his hands through his curled locks with a smirk. “Especially if all this works.”

  A small, depraved laugh slipped passed Bartholomew’s tightened lips. “Is it better for Panagea, Kal? I don’t believe so. I have tried to convince myself it’s the right move but stripped of padded thoughts, it’s purely selfish. It’s based completely in emotion, absent of any reason.” He turned to face his partner and tried to smile. “I’m walking on unfamiliar ground.”