Winter's Rising

by Mark Tufo

  “All five Sectors fighting at the same time is unusual, although having more than one combatant has been known to occur. It happened the year before I fought. The Hillians clashed with the Klondikes and the Brutons. I’ve been thinking on it; I believe the Overseers had expected the second strongest army to ally with the weakest to try and overcome the stronger opponent. What happened was the opposite, though. The stronger two had joined forces, completely annihilating the weaker third before breaking the bond and attacking each other.”

  “That is so foolish, it makes no sense.” I was in disbelief.

  “If I’m right, that means events and strategies during The War can be manipulated. I’ve attacked that problem from every angle and have yet to come up with a viable answer. I have to assume that this type of alliance is what will happen again. The Hillians and Klondikes will bond to destroy the Dystancians and the Brutons, with the Feral being the wild card–it’s not their way to align with anyone. You need to remove yourself from the battlefield as quickly as possible before any deals of engagement are made.”

  “Absolutely not!” Tallow was indignant. “We will not leave the others to die–we can’t.”

  “You cannot hope to protect them all, Tallow. Your only chance is to run, hide, and find a safe place until such time that you can strike out.” It was the first time I had heard Brody call Tallow by his real name. The situation must be serious.

  “Are you not listening to him? He wants us to leave all of our friends, all the people we grew up with, abandon our whole community to the wolves!”

  “What if we made a deal with the Brutons?” I asked.

  “I don’t know that it would make a difference,” Brody said.

  “What if we got to the Ferals as well?” Cedar asked.

  “The only reason they don’t fight amongst themselves is because there is another enemy. You’d never be able to get close enough to them to convince them to join a side.”

  “What happened after your area and the Klondikes destroyed the Brutons?” I asked.

  “The Hillians crushed the Klondikes.”

  “Wouldn’t that make the Klondikes want to align with the weaker opponents then?”

  “That would be the obvious move. They just won’t, they’d consider it beneath them. Listen, I’m open to ideas.” He said as he looked at our shocked faces, “But unless someone comes up with anything better, hiding is going to be your best option. In those first few chaotic days of the new war cycle, hundreds will die. After that, hundreds more over the course of the battle. Defeating any one or even all the other sectors is not going to end the war or change the world; it’s just going to make it a little less populated. Meet me tomorrow at the library. Take the day off. You’ve earned it.”

  I, for one, was looking forward to it. I had calluses on my calluses. My feet were constantly sore, thankfully I was not too tired to spend some time heating up some water and taking a proper bath. Cedar had already plopped down on the couch and pulled the book, Highlander’s Revenge out of her pocket. We learned that the plaid skirt was called a “kilt” and was favored by the Scottish men back in the 1800s or so. How many years ago that was we didn’t know, but it seemed like ages. The library had only kept track of time up until about 2047. Whatever had happened around that time had been catastrophic and sudden because there had been no warning–at least not one we could find mentioned in any of the books we had read thus far. I could not convince Tallow that it was most likely not because of the fictional zombies from the first book he had picked up.

  That night after my bath, I wanted to snuggle with Tallow. He had become more withdrawn as we trained. I think, in part, because he was intimidated by my skill with the sword. He was thick and pig-headed; the reason I fought so hard was in the hope that somehow I would be strong enough to keep us both alive. I cared not for my own life, not if it was to be without him alongside me. Ironically, instead of that being an attractant it became a repellant. Brody constantly berated him for being the weakest link amongst us. I could see the pain this was causing him, but he wanted nothing to do with my sympathy, even as I would attempt to dress any wounds he had received.

  Cedar was completely lost in her book as I walked into Tallow’s room, dressed only in the towel I’d used to dry off. He looked up, the words “get out” clearly starting to form on his lips. He didn’t have a chance to say them as I let the towel fall to the ground. My form looked as if it had been carved from granite. The parts of me that should have been soft were hard; my abdomen muscles were toned and sculpted, and my arms, though not large, were also well defined. I was lithe, I was sinewy, I was dangerous and deadly. I walked toward Tallow, fearful he would reject this new body I found myself in. I was afraid he would not find this figure as attractive as the one I had left behind. His silence was quickly turning my boldness into regret in my mind. I lowered my head feeling the heat of a prickly blush covering my entire body. That shame was erased as he stood and ran the back of his fingers across my cheek while lowering his head to kiss me passionately.

  “What about Cedar?” he whispered.

  “I don’t see you wearing a kilt…so we should be fine.”

  Chapter 10

  Forbidden Love

  THE NEXT MORNING came way too fast.

  “We got ta go,” Cedar said as she barged in. I was on my stomach. Tallow pulled the blanket completely off of me to cover himself up. Cedar smiled. “Forbidden love! It’s just like in the book I’m reading!”

  “You need to keep quiet about this,” I told Cedar as I tried to grab some of the covers back.

  “Forbidden love is always kept secret, Winter. Don’t you know anything? But there is always the nosy neighbor that seems to find out and lets everyone in church know. Oh no! I’m the nosy neighbor now. I want to be the heroine and have Brody wrap his strong arms around me.”

  “Oh, that’s just gross,” Tallow said. “Cedar, please get out so I can get dressed.”

  “Yeah, yeah, right,” she said the words but made no move toward the door.

  Tallow had a tighter grip on the covers than he’d ever had on his sword. Apparently, he was more concerned with his modesty than his life. When I realized I couldn’t get any covers back from him I stood up to retrieve my clothes.

  “Wow, Winter! You look like those models on the book covers,” Cedar said. “Do I look like that?” She started pulling her shirt off.

  “No!” Tallow and I said together. I quickly finished dressing and pushed her out of the doorway.

  “What?” Cedar asked as I escorted her down the hall.

  Tallow seemed slightly awkward as we hiked to the library. He didn’t say more than a handful of words, although I caught him looking over at me more than once. I didn’t know whether I should be flattered or paranoid.

  “Tallow, you haven’t said anything to me all morning.” I grabbed his hand to slow him down while Cedar walked ahead, nose buried in a book. It was funny to watch her stumble as she came across uneven terrain from time to time. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Mad at you? Never, Winter. I’m mad at myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Last night should have never happened.”

  I was crushed; my heart felt like it was bottoming out. We had shared a night of passion and warmth and he wished it had never been. Emotions were battling within me to see which would dominate. Anger was slamming sadness to the ground at the moment.

  He could sense that he was about to get blasted. “Look, Winter…chances are not good that we’re all going to make it through the next few months, and obviously the odds are even worse for me.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You’re saying we shouldn’t be truly together because we won’t be able to stay together forever? Is that about right?”

  “I don’t know if I would have used those words but yeah, something like that.”

  “I knew boys were thick, I just never realized how thick,” I told him. “Isn’t it better that we were at least
able to share a moment? No matter what happens from here on out, we’ll always have that.”

  “I guess. It just all seems so futile. What kind of future can we expect?”

  Tallow stopped with me. “Future?” I laughed. I couldn’t think of a better emotion. “Tallow, we’ve never had a ‘future.’ We don’t even know what tomorrow is going to bring. It’s important that we live in this moment; there is nothing beyond that. After what we’ve been through, we’re lucky to be standing here right now, and it’s impossible to foretell what comes next. I don’t think it’s worth wasting today worrying about something we cannot possibly know.”

  “I guess that’s where we’re different, Winter. I can’t stop thinking about it. And then there’s the worst possible outcome.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, lifting his sagging chin.

  “What if something happens to you?” His eyes were glistening with the foreshadowing of tears.

  “Then you’ll continue on and do whatever it takes to make it right.”

  “Is that what you’ll do if something happens to me?” he asked.

  “What else can we do?”

  “How can you be so cavalier about this? We’re talking about each other’s lives.”

  “Tallow, I care for you and my sincerest hope is that nothing worse than a hangnail befalls you. But if it does, I will do my best to make sure whatever sacrifices we endure are well worth it.”

  “I don’t think there’s a bigger sacrifice than we have already laid on the table.”

  “You’re not looking at the entire problem. Our lives…the lives of everyone we know–are only a drop in the bucket.” I heard the words as I said them and they had the ring of truth to them. So then why were my knees suddenly weak? If Tallow were to die I think I would just lie atop his body until I joined him. Why couldn’t I find it in myself to tell him that? I knew that was what he so desperately wanted to hear. There was a shift going on here and it had been happening in fits and starts since we had started training with Brody. Tallow had always been the older, wiser, stronger one, the one with all the answers. The one that got us food when we were hungry. That had been slowly changing; now I found myself taking charge in most matters. Instead of objecting, Tallow seemed to be fine with his newly demoted position. Cedar neither led nor followed; she was content to just carry on…as long as she could read a book.

  “Umm, hey, Cedar?” I had to yell out. Tallow and I had stopped by the hole.

  “Oh, right,” she said about ten yards past. “Oops! Just getting to the good part.”

  The library was already lit up–I was surprised to see Brody sitting on the bench.

  “Nice of you to show up.”

  “Hi, Brody.” Cedar was flapping her eyelids like she was preparing for flight.

  “Got something in your eye?” Brody asked, coming over. He tilted her head back and looked into them. “Looks clear. I want you to train with Tallow today, Cedar. Me and Princess have some work to do.”

  Cedar looked deflated, I almost asked Brody if it would be all right if we switched. It might have been a good thing we didn’t, though. Most likely I’d feel the need to go easy on Tallow or beat him into submission; either way he would surely notice and I didn’t know if he could take it right now.

  “You ready?” Brody asked as we faced off. I knew better than to take my eyes off him. I only needed to be hit six or seven times before I’d learned that lesson. He lunged at me, I was able to deflect him away easily enough. He kept pressing the attack as I kept backing up. His hits came in quicker and quicker, the steel vibrating rapidly. I was successful in stopping most of his attacks, every once in a while he would break through and hit me in different places with the flat of his blade. I cried out in pain the first time, but when I saw Tallow break from Cedar to help, I decided I wouldn’t do that again no matter how much it hurt. If he was busy worrying about what was going to happen to me, he’d never be careful with himself.

  “Stop thinking; just react,” Brody said as he hit the side of my thigh. My leg almost folded in on itself from the blow. The pain was blistering, but it also had the effect of blotting everything else out until it was just my adversary and me. No library, no Tallow or Cedar and certainly–no future. It was here; it was now.

  “That’s it,” Brody said. A small part of me was happy to see sweat on his brow. Somehow his sword was moving faster and faster; I was having difficulty tracking the blur of metal as it sliced through the air. I expected to receive more impacts; then something strange began to happen. My mind knew Brody wasn’t going any slower, but I was beginning to clearly track his blade. Things began to slow down all around me. What was once just a glint of steel flashing past now took shape and definition; I could see the shining whirls within the metal itself where it had been folded over as it was forged. I could make out individual pits, minor imperfections, damage resulting from battle or practice.

  “What’s happening?” I heard myself ask. I had not realized I had spoken aloud until Brody answered.

  “It’s called Time Dilation,” he said. He may have been wearing a smile.

  “How are you making everything move so slowly?” I was turning his attack away with ease now; I could almost anticipate his blade’s path. For the first time ever, I was going on the offensive. The bench screeched against the tile floor as Brody’s backed away from me and pushed it aside.

  “It’s all you,” he struggled to say. “Your brain has sped up to make everything else appear slower–to give you a better chance at survival. I thought you might have it that first night when you lost track of time holding your sword up, but now I’m sure.”

  “How? Why?”

  “Those are questions I cannot answer,” he huffed. “Be thankful you can do it, because it will go a long way to ensuring your survival in what is to come. But be warned, just because you can see everything slowed down does not mean you are super-fast.”

  For a very real demonstration of my limitations he shouted over to Cedar; they had both stopped what they were doing to watch us sparring.

  “Cedar–strike Tallow!” Brody shouted.

  In my peripheral vision I watched as Cedar’s hand tightened its grip on her hilt. I watched as the muscles in her neck rippled with the nerve impulses sent from her brain, down through her shoulders, forearms, into her fingers. I watched her arm rise. I wanted to call out to Tallow, who was just now reacting to what was already in motion. I turned to shield him from the blow he was about to receive but I was slammed sideways at about the same time as Tallow took a brutal slap from Cedar’s blade. We fell to the ground, my body laid out so that we were staring face to face, albeit upside down, to each other.

  “How, Winter? You were winning.”

  “What did I just tell you?!” Brody was screaming. “Now you’re both dead! You have a chance, Winter, maybe even Cedar.”

  “Gee thanks,” she answered.

  “And me? Am I just in the way?” Tallow asked.

  “I didn’t say that. But Winter cannot sacrifice herself for you. None of you can. There’s only the three of you. Let’s take a break.”

  Cedar had her book out before Brody was halfway up the ladder.

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Tallow said to Cedar who summarily ignored him. She had nailed him pretty good in the shoulder. Brody had got me in my exposed ribs. Had he not pulled up, I was convinced he would have cracked at least one of them. As it was they were pretty sore. I sat up with a grunt.

  “You going to tell me what that was all about?” Tallow asked as he helped me to my feet. I walked over and sat down next to Cedar. I was breathing heavily and it was painful to do so. I was pretty sure Brody had called a break because I’d winded him as well, he just didn’t to admit it.

  “I...I honestly don’t know. One second Brody’s blade was moving so fast I couldn’t even see it; the next it was moving so slow I could read the maker’s mark on it.”

  “You two were talking, but it was impossible to
tell what you were saying it was so fast.”

  I felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny. He was already looking at me differently; this was just going to be one more wedge between us. Instead of getting closer, we seemed to be drifting apart, which made no sense, especially after last night.

  “We were talking fast?”

  “It was weird. I almost thought it was a different language and then I started to recognize some of what you were saying. And the swords…you were holding your own against Brody. How is that even possible?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, the movement causing me to wince.

  “You alright?” I had not even noticed that Brody had come back in. He was on the ladder about to step onto the floor. He’d been watching me.

  “Hurts,” was my one word reply.

  “You’d be dead if I were your enemy.”

  I wanted to tell him that my ribs had him squarely pegged as an unfriendly.

  “You ready for round two?” He didn’t wait for my response. “You and me, Cedar.” She sighed as she put down her book.

  Tallow and I were the walking wounded and our lesson showed it. He could barely lift his arm and I was having a difficult time breathing. Cedar appeared to be doing just fine; I think she was a little angry because Brody had taken her away from her book. She was going after him with a vengeance, probably hoping if she got a good shot in on him she’d be able to sit back down.

  When we were finally given the okay that the day was over, Brody pulled me to the side.

  “Listen, Princess, you’re the key here. A time may come where one or both of your friends will have to sacrifice themselves to save you. Don’t look away, look at me. Tough decisions may have to be made. You have got to get that through your thick skull. All your talent will need to be focused on one thing: your survival.”

  “I don’t want this, Brody. How can I possibly stand by and watch either of them die if it comes to that?”