by D. N. Hoxa
I held onto the pickaxe tightly. I imagined it to be a baseball bat with spikes around the head. An easy weapon to kill with.
And then the guards turned the corner. They were saying something to one another, something I didn’t care to hear. I closed my eyes and counted their steps.
Six, seven, eight…Their shadows passed us. I didn’t think twice. I slipped from between the containers as soundlessly as I could. There was nowhere for them—or me—to go now.
The guards were four feet away from me, walking ahead to the other end of the container line, unsuspecting. I raised my pickaxe and ran, no longer worrying about being too loud. I could see their silhouettes well enough to hit the one on my left on the back of his head with all the strength in my body. Crack. Bone broke.
The sound of metal rubbing against metal filled my ears as the other guard drew his sword out and shouted. The one I’d hit with the pickaxe fell down on his knees. I pushed forward like the man in front of me wasn’t holding a sword in his hand. So be it if I died. This was as long as I was willing to endure in that place.
I slammed onto the guard and cut his shout off. I prayed with all my heart that nobody had heard it and continued to try to push him away. He was strong, bigger than me, taller, but he wasn’t a slave. He wasn’t fighting for his freedom. I swung my pickaxe at his face, and he met its head with the tip of his sword. I’d never fought with weapons like this before, but my body knew how to defend me. My arms rose when the guard raised his sword at me, aiming for my throat, and I blocked him with the pickaxe’s wooden handle. It gave under the sharp edge of the sword and broke in half. The guard grinned. I used the broken butt of the axe to hit him in the face. He definitely didn’t see that one coming, so the surprise cost him. He fell back a step, and I charged him with a piece of wood, a pickaxe head, and a heart full of desperation. I slammed onto him and pushed him until his back reached one of the containers. He tried to cut me with his sword, but I was faster. I swung my weapons at him, anywhere I could. I don’t know how long it was before he stopped resisting, but when I realized he was slipping down the container wall, I dropped the piece of wood, grabbed the pickaxe head with both my hands, and brought it down on the top of his head with all my strength.
Warmth sprayed my fingers. The guard stopped moving.
Was he dead?
It didn’t matter. I’d have plenty of time to feel guilty back home where I belonged. For now, I searched for the broken pickaxe butt I’d thrown on the ground, and I ran back to Millie as fast as I could. The other guard was still on the ground, face first, a pool of darkness near his head. This one was definitely dead, and I couldn’t find it in me to feel bad.
Millie was still between the last two containers, her back pressed against the aluminum wall. She let out a small scream when she saw me. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out, dragged her all the way to the body of the first guard I’d killed.
“Undress him quick and wear his clothes. Quick, Millie,” I said, and she fell to her knees next to the body, shaking. I went back to the second guard and started to pull at his clothes like they were my lifeline, and they were. The clothes were much thicker than the dress I was wearing, and they felt good against my skin. Comfortable and soft. The boots were way too big. That was okay, I could run barefoot if I had to.
And finally, his sword.A real weapon. The metal of the handle melted into my hand, far too big but perfectly comfortable. Heavy but easy to swing, or maybe I just liked to indulge myself. I sheathed it and put my hair behind my back, under the jacket of the uniform. I put the pickaxe head and the broken handle in the belt that held the sword’s sheath, and I was ready.
Millie was ready, too. The uniforms were way too big for us, but that was okay. Nobody was going to notice. Nobody was going to see us. Without a word, I went over and grabbed Millie’s hand, ignoring the terrified look on her face. He chin shook, but she didn’t make a sound. I didn’t look to see if someone had heard or if guards—or even Valkyries—were coming for us. If I did, I’d fill myself with doubt and dread. With my other hand on the handle of the sword, I made my way between the containers on the other side, and saw the side gates through which I first came to that place. No guards on this side, and there would be no guards on the other because who would be dumb enough to try to break out of that place like that? Me, that’s who.
An eternity passed until my hand finally rested on the cold wood of the gate. I pushed with all my strength, so sure that I’d already escaped that I didn’t bother to look behind us. When the gate opened, I pushed Millie through and followed.
Even the air smelled different out there, though it was the exact same air. I didn’t move for a few seconds as I scanned the area around for guards. There would be more than a few of them all around the walls of the mining site, but the important thing was, we’d have a head start.
I turned to Millie. “Run.”
The world around me became a blur as we ran east of the doors down the crumbled mountain. If we could reach the forest, I was sure we would survive. It felt like my feet never even touched the ground. I slid over it, more ready to fly than I had ever been before.
I looked behind us every few minutes to make sure we weren’t being followed, but it was too dark to see farther than a few steps behind. We could only make out the outline of the mountain against the dark sky, and that’s how we knew where the woods were. When we reached the edge and looked down the crumbled mountain, it was like staring into the Hole of Karia. But we knew there was ground underneath our feet and that had to be good enough. We couldn’t run as fast as we had before because a slip could cost us our lives if we fell, and we weren’t too eager to die now that we were out of the mining site. We were careful—slow, but careful.
“We did it,” Millie breathed when we saw the tree line that marked the beginning of the woods that were going to be our savior. “We did, we did it, we did it!” She could say it a million more times, and it would still sound as good as the first.
And then the shadows of the trees moved.
Shadows of trees don’t move when there’s no wind. I put a hand on Millie’s chest and stopped walking.
So close. We were barely ten feet away from the forest, and it seemed like the forest was already infested with guards. Maybe they knew what I was up to all along. Maybe they’d let me get this far just so they could entertain themselves.
Two men and two women stepped out of the tree line. All four of them were dressed in the same uniforms we were wearing, except theirs weren’t sprinkled with blood. Yet.
I pulled the sword out of the sheath. They could see our faces as clearly as we could see theirs, and they were not going to mistake us for two of their own, no way. They were perfectly clean, and the dirt on our hair alone was going to tell our whole story of where we’d been.
One of the men, smaller in build but with eyes sharp like an eagle, stepped forward, his sword in clear view.
“I’d really like to know which fools would let the likes of you steal their uniforms,” he said, his voice rough like a dog’s bark.
“Dead fools, just like you’re about to be,” I said despite my better judgment.
His dark eyes widened, and his friends stepped to his side. They were going to fight me. They weren’t just going to let us go.
I turned to look at Millie one last time, trying to tell her with my eyes that she needed to run while I held the guards. I could only hope she understood me.
“Drop your sword,” one of the women said, raising her chin at me to show me she was superior.
“Fuck you,” I spit and ran forward with a sword in one hand and a pickaxe head in the other. If I was going to do this, better sooner than later.
I didn’t hear anything over the sound of my footsteps and the laughing guards, and the bigger of the two men charged at me. Two steps later, he stopped running and fell to the ground, face-first.
That couldn’t have been me, could it? I stopped running. He was a good two fee
t away from me, and I definitely didn’t have an arrow like the one buried in the back of the guard’s neck. What the…
“Take cover!” the other guard shouted, and all three of them began to run to the sides, no longer interested in me.
None of them made it. Six seconds later, they were all on the ground with arrows in some parts of their bodies. One of the women screamed as she tried to make it to her feet, an arrow buried in the base of her spine. These arrows were not like the ones the Timoke shifters had hit me with. These were as thin as my pinkie finger, with what looked like real bird feathers tied to the end.
The woman made it halfway to her feet before I realized that another arrow was not coming. I didn’t hesitate. I walked over to her with no hurry and swung my sword just as she straightened. I cut her head clean off with one movement. Fuck, the sword was sharp. My list of people I’d killed kept on growing, and I had yet to feel remorse.
I looked up, sure that I’d see the other guards trying to get up, too, but none did. Then the trees moved again, but this time, I wasn’t afraid. I already knew I’d see Sim smiling sneakily at us, a bow hanging over his shoulder. What a fucking imp. Never thought I’d see that day but there I was, smiling from ear to ear, so happy to see his face—and I wasn’t the only one. Millie ran to him and jumped in his arms, squeezing him with all her strength. Sim was surprised but hid it well, and by the time I made it to them, he looked like he always did.
“Did you get my messages?” he asked.
“I sure did.” Those dead guard bodies they’d brought in the mining site were Sim’s way of saying, I’m here. I’d been right, apparently.
“Then what the hell took you so long?”
I shrugged. “Guess I needed a vacation.”
He smiled again, for real this time. What do you know? He was happy to see us, too.
“Come on, let’s go. We’ve got an hour before the next group comes this way.”
“I’m so, so glad to see you. I thought you left us!” Millie said, lacing her arm in his.
“Never,” he said, and maybe, just maybe, I believed he meant it this time. We entered the forest, and the darkness of the trees covered us completely, offering us the perfect sanctuary.
“As soon as we get to safety, we can stop to rest,” I said, looking at Millie. She must have been exhausted from all that running. I was, too.
But suddenly, she looked terrified. “No, no rest. I’m ready to leave, Morgan. By God, I’m ready,” she said and meant every word. Sim and I were ready, too.
So we marched on.
Fourteen
Hours.
Just hours separated us from Mount Arkanda and the dragon god. Hours before we reached the rest of our lives. Would the ending be happy, or tragic?
There was only one way to find out.
“Just a few more steps and we can actually see the mountain tip from here,” Sim said, waving at the trees ahead. We hadn’t stopped at all, but we’d slowed down considerably. We were tired, hungry, thirsty, but we had an iron will to move forward. Out of all those humans in the mining site, we’d gotten out. We did it. We were free again.
And all those humans were still there, living their lives as slaves.
Guilt stabbed at my chest. The lives I’d taken meant nothing now that I’d seen—lived the way those people had for God knows how long. Years and years. Humans from all over the world, gathered into one place.
And I’d turned my back on all of them.
I stopped walking. It was a while before Sim and Millie figured out that I wasn’t following them, and they stopped, too.
“What’s wrong, Morgan?” Millie asked.
Everything. This whole fucking world was wrong.
“Those people in the mining site.” I waved my hand behind me. “They’re still there.”
Millie raised her brows in surprise. “I know.”
“What if they never make it out?” My friend Germany from the pit. The old man Weston…granted, I didn’t know any of the others, I’d never spoken to them personally, but they were all humans. All trapped souls in a nightmare that would never end.
“That’s not our problem,” said Sim, shaking his head at me as if to tell me to stop, because he already knew what I wanted to say.
“We have to help them.” I’d gotten out. Millie had gotten out. Maybe we could free the rest of them and take Mount Arkanda and demand that the dragon god take us all back.
“You’ve lost your damned mind,” Sim whispered, putting a hand in front of his eyes.
“We can’t help them, Morgan. We barely got out of there with our lives,” Millie said. Her guilt reflected in her honey-colored eyes, too, even though she tried to hide it.
“But we made it. We got out. Maybe we can get them out, too.” We’d walked for hours—judging by the position of the sun behind the grey clouds, it was already noon—but rested and well fed, we could make it back in no time.
“You can’t,” said Sim, his voice full of venom. “Don’t you realize that it’s a damned miracle that you made it out? Those people don’t play around. They’re masters, for gods’ sake!”
“And we’re humans. There’s a lot of us in there, and there is strength in numbers.” It made sense, didn’t it?
“You know, I heard them talking.” Sim crossed his arms in front of him, looking at me with judgment in his eyes, as if I was a criminal for even talking about this. “The guards. Do you know what they did to the Town of Kall?” He didn’t let me ask. “They burned it to the ground, together with its people.”
All air left my lungs.
“They burned it down just because they wouldn’t give us to the masters’ guards upon request. Do you understand that?”
A thin, deafening noise went on in my head. The people of Kall had imprisoned us, caged us in hopes that Odin would come back to them through us, but the whole fucking town?
The noise in my head began to change then. It morphed into the voice of a man.
I turned my back to Millie and Sim as Agda all but materialized in front of me.
“There’s blood on you, Morgan Cain. And we want no part of it.”
I looked down at my hands, covered in the dried blood of the guards I’d killed. There was definitely blood on me now, and he’d known before…before his life ended. He hadn’t wanted any part of the blood on me, but he’d paid with his anyway.
“Imagine what people like that would do to two humans who killed their own and escaped their prison. They’ll burn you alive, too,” Sim continued, but his voice reached me in an echo.
The woman from the stadium in Micco was the next memory my brain insisted I see, written in the branches of the trees in front of me.
“There’s blood all over you! Everywhere you turn, everything you touch!”
Had the masters’ guards burned her, too?
“We can’t go back,” said Sim. “If they catch us, it’s over—for real this time.”
“It was me.” Or so the ugly voice in my head said.
“What was you?”
“It was me. I did that. I killed those people. Their blood is on my hands.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Sim said. And it didn’t, but the senselessness of it made perfect sense to me, as it had to Agda and that blind woman. “How would you have killed those people? It was the masters’ guards. I heard them talking. They were laughing about it—proud.”
But it didn’t matter. I started laughing. Sim was right. There was no way we could go back to the mining site, get more than five hundred people out, and live to tell the tale. It wasn’t possible—but that didn’t mean that there was no other way.
“Morgan, you’re scaring me,” said Millie. Probably because my laughter sounded more like a cry.
But it was okay. I already knew what I had to do. It was important—now more than ever before that I made my way back home, to Earth. That’s where the masters lived, and they were the only ones who had the power to release all the humans in the min
ing site and bring them back home. I’d find them, and I swore to God in that moment that I’d kill each and every one of them with my bare hands if I had to until they listened. I’d fought with monsters many, many times before. The masters weren’t going to be any different.
“This world is fucked up,” I said to Sim. “I do understand why you want to run away, but you know what, you suck!” I shouted and didn’t care if someone could hear me. I was on the brink of losing my mind, and if I didn’t let some of it out, I was going to fall, and nothing was going to be there to catch me. “Screw you and your magic and your wicked gods you can’t get over! Screw the masters and their guards and their mining sites and whoever the hell they’re looking for in there! Screw it all. You should have never survived. Ragnarok should have taken this fucking place, too. The whole universe would have been so much better without you.” I meant it with all my heart. And when I finally found the masters, I was going to make sure they heard it, too.
“This isn’t the place or the time for this,” Sim said, clenching his jaw.
“I don’t care. You play with people’s lives like you have any right, like you own their souls. No wonder all the other worlds were destroyed, and I’m so, so glad this one is going to shit soon, too.”
“Me, too,” said Millie. “But right now, there’s a mountain with a master waiting for us, and I just want to get home to my grandmother, so get it together, and let’s keep going.”
I smiled. Could I blame her for her impatience?
“Let’s keep going,” I repeated and walked over to them, eager to get this over with so I could get my hands covered in some master blood.
“What did you mean when you said whoever they’re looking for?” asked Sim a few minutes later.
“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Before, when you accused me as if I were the only person responsible for your fate.” He just couldn’t wait to rub it in my face, the bastard. “You said, screw whoever they’re trying to find in that place, not whatever. Millie said they’re looking for precious metal.”