Lex Talionis

by Keira Michelle Telford

  SILVER:

  Lex Talionis

  Written By

  Keira Michelle Telford

  Copyright © Keira Michelle Telford 2013

  Venatic Press

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover images copyright

  Unholy Vault Designs/Shutterstock.com

  Reinhold Leitner/Shutterstock.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  www.venaticpress.com

  Special Thanks

  to

  Yuliya Lavrynenko

  Thank you for checking my Russian and correcting all of my silly mistakes!

  Spasibo!

  Other Books in the Series…

  The Amaranthe Chronicles

  SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain)

  SILVER: The Lost & Damned

  SILVER: Entropy

  SILVER: A New Age Dawns

  SILVER: Quietus

  SILVER: Inamorato

  SILVER: Invidia

  PROLOGUE

  West Mercia

  The Kingdom of Great Britain, 2349 CE

  — roughly twelve hours ago

  A Chinook bearing the emblems of the Crown lies broken and abandoned on the rooftop of a single-storey building, surrounded by the ruins of a deserted village and the plant life that’s overtaken it.

  A gray squirrel drops out of a nearby tree branch and scampers across the roof, hopping into the Chinook to investigate. Satisfied that there’s nothing of interest inside—no food to scavenge—the squirrel scurries out the other side of the Chinook and slips down a drain pipe. Landing feet first on the neglected ground below, the hungry rodent sniffs the air.

  No predators.

  But there’s something else.

  An unusual scent lingers upon the gentle breeze.

  A fresh corpse.

  A few more hoppity-hops, and the squirrel comes face to face with it: the pilot of the Chinook. He was thrown from the helicopter when it crash-landed, and was dead upon impact with terra firma.

  Tentatively, the squirrel leans toward the corpse, placing a hesitant front paw against the pilot’s head before shoving its nose deep inside the man’s hair.

  Establishing that further investigation is most definitely required, it scrambles up onto the pilot’s face, planting one foot squarely down upon a slick, spongy eyeball.

  There’s nothing up the man’s nose, nor in his ears, so the squirrel turns its attention to his open mouth. It takes a lick of human tongue before slipping off the pilot’s chin and onto his neck, one of its back feet squishing into a gaping wound.

  A piece of metal shrapnel gouged the man’s neck moments before death, tearing open the flesh and nicking some major blood vessels. The squirrel’s foot squelches against the pilot’s exposed vocal cords, trachea and esophagus, almost becoming caught around the jugular vein.

  Wriggling free, it smears blood all over the Crown emblem on the chest of the pilot’s uniform.

  Then, a gunshot.

  Though it’s in the distance, and probably no threat, the squirrel takes no chances. It dives off the pilot’s corpse and runs for cover, leaving a trail of tiny bloody footprints behind it. In the direction of the gunshot, high above the treetops, a weather-worn flag flutters in the wind.

  A Union Jack.

  Welcome to England.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Peak District National Park

  West Mercia

  The Kingdom of Great Britain, 2349 CE

  — present moment

  Ella ‘Silver’ Cross lies awake in the middle of a dense forest, listening for predators. Wrapped up in an emergency blanket, like a hotdog wiener in a bun, she’s relatively warm, but not in the least bit comfortable. After the helicopter they were traveling in was shot down on the outskirts of this forest, she and her fellow refugees—her husband, Alexander King, and her childhood friend, Luka Kinsella—salvaged what they could from the wreckage and walked west until they lost the daylight.

  There’s a city out there somewhere, well beyond the trees, but it’s still miles away. They hadn’t much cared for the thought of spending a night lying on the cold, hard dirt, amidst thick, untamed vegetation, with who knows what kind of creatures lurking about in the darkness, but alternatives were lacking.

  It’s still dark now. Peering up through the leafy umbrella above her, Silver can just about make out the telltale blue hue of encroaching dawn etching itself across the sky, so she decides there’s no point trying to go back to sleep. Might as well get up and face the day, and all the uncertainties that are likely to come with it.

  Alex and Luka are still sleeping, so she rises quietly, stretches out the kinks in her strong shoulders, and wrangles her dirty blonde hair into a tight ponytail. Fully clothed in black combat pants, black leather and steel army boots, and a black spaghetti strap top, with a handgun and a hunting knife holstered on her belt, a single glance in her direction tells you that she’s no girlie-girl.

  The spaghetti strap top clings to her muscular torso, her well-defined arms ready for hand-to-hand combat at the drop of a hat. Modest breasts are constrained inside a sports bra, full pink lips are bare, no hint of lipstick or gloss. Her fingernails are cut short, never been manicured, dirt trapped beneath them, her capable hands small and slender.

  She’s tough, but not unfeminine, her lack of delicacy merely a practical adaptation to a life that’s been uncompromisingly grim and not in the least bit forgiving. Perhaps sadly, last night’s sleep wasn’t the worst she’s ever had in her thirty-odd years of living.

  She’s slept rough before, and under much harsher conditions. In her homeland of Amaranthe—an isolated coastal city on the eastern edge of a place that was once called the United States of America—she spent six years as a convict. Banished to a wretched scrap of land outside the Sentinel District, the main body of the city, she was cut-off from the modern trappings of civilization and forced to learn how to fend for herself.

  That narrow slice of the world is all she’s ever known: a city under strict totalitarian control, where people have few freedoms and absolutely no privacy. Beneath the skin of her left wrist there’s still a microchip—her citizenship tag—and, fingering the scar left behind from its insertion, she wonders if the GPS still works from this great distance. Are they still tracking her now? It wouldn’t surprise her to find out that not even escaping to a foreign country would get her out from the clutches of Amaranthe’s oppressive regime. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

  Stiff and hungry, she rummages through the hold-all full of belongings she brought with her on the helicopter: a few items of clothing, a hairbrush, some bathroom products, some water, and … not much else. Not having anticipated being stranded in the middle of nowhere, none of them had thought to pack much in the way of food. The few snacks and goodies they’d brought were consumed yesterday, and all she finds now are empty wrappers and crumbs.

  Time to forage.

  There’s a large body of water nearby; she can hear it gurgling. Taking two empty water bottles with her, she follows the sound and locates a small stream that runs down into an old, abandoned reservoir.

  That’s the first good news of the day: they have a ready supply of fresh water. Incidentally, where there’s water, there’s usually lush vegetation—much of it edible. So, at the very least, they should be able to chow down on some leafy greens, and maybe the odd flower. It might not be particularly appetizing, but it will be life-sustaining.

  But she’s not the only one there.

  As she stands facing the
water, something scurries through the trees behind her. It doesn’t sound very large, but she still wraps her fingers around the hilt of the hunting knife holstered at her hip.

  She has the gun clipped on her other hip, but she doesn’t want to use it unless it becomes absolutely vital. For one, they have a limited supply of ammunition. For two, any shot fired in this serene setting would be sure to send every animal within earshot running for cover, and she hasn’t yet ruled out the possibility of hunting for her breakfast.

  Thus, with her hand primed to draw her blade, she turns to face the source of the noise … and her muscles instantly relax. A few feet away, she spots a furry, black and white striped face staring at her from the bushes. It’s a four-legged creature, only about one foot high, with stubby ears and long white whiskers.

  She studies its face closely, delving through her memory banks for an image from a book of animal species thought to be extinct on her continent. Although this creature is larger, his head more weasel-like, and his coloring more striking, Silver feels certain she knows what he is: a badger.

  He’s round and pudgy. His legs are short, but no doubt muscular, and his little bear-like feet have long, sharp claws. Lifting his head, he sniffs the air, his wet black nose wiggling from left to right, his tiny ears twitching, listening for sounds.

  Silver’s stomach grumbles, but she stays put, making no other sound. She’s standing upwind of him, and feels sure that he’s about to charge her, yet several seconds pass and he offers up nothing more than a discontented grunt.

  Teetering precariously to one side, his head droops and he almost collapses. Is he sleeping? Uncertain, Silver takes a step closer.

  He doesn’t move, so she maintains her approach. Edging within stabbing distance, she withdraws her hunting knife from its sheath and wields it above the badger’s head, crouching before him like a cat ready to pounce.

  However, as famished as she is, she can’t bring herself to impale a sleeping animal on her blade. It’s like shooting a man in the back: it’s unsportsmanlike. With a sigh, she taps on the ground in front of him.

  “Hey, badger dude. Wake up.”

  He stirs and snorts, displacing the powdery dirt in front of his face, but he fails to rise into full consciousness.

  “Hey,” she says again, louder this time. “Where’s your survival instinct?” She pokes the end of his nose with her finger.

  That does it.

  He leaps into alertness, alarmed to find an enormous predator bearing down on him. Scared, he emits a high-pitched scream, barks once, then grunts—offering her a whole array of badger vocalizations.

  Startled, Silver falls backwards onto the dirt. At this level, they’re almost face to face, and at the sight of his yellowing, plaque-encrusted gnashers that have probably chomped their way through at least a decade of earthworms and fruit, she reaches again for her knife. Not that she’s afraid he’ll maul her, merely that she’s not particularly keen to contract rabies.

  Once he recovers from his shock, the badger begins to hiss ferociously, baring those yellowed teeth. He attempts a mock charge, designed to frighten her into submission, but his depth perception is out of whack. Lunging at her, he makes contact with her face, unintentionally shoving his cold, wet nose straight into her eye.

  “Ow!” She reels back, covering her muzzle punched eye with her hand. “You hit me in the face, you weird little fucker!”

  The sound of her voice sends the badger into another panic. Not knowing what to do for the best, he opts for another one of his main defense tactics: running away. Only, he doesn’t quite make it up to the fifteen-or-so miles per hour gallop that he should be capable of. He might think he’s running as fast as his stout legs can carry him, but he’s merely ambling away at a snail’s pace, wobbling from side to side.

  Irritated, Silver swipes up her knife and follows him, letting him lead the way back to the dell he first stumbled out from. Here, she uncovers the reason for his lack of balance, inability to efficiently exert himself, and his apparent propensity for dozing off at rather inopportune moments.

  The dell is scattered with fallen apples. This fermenting fruit has been trampled on and munched on, and the badger appears to have consumed a rather large amount of it. With Silver watching, he pushes his nose into another mushy apple, squishing the juice all over his white whiskers.

  Silver laughs at him. “You’re drunk, badger.”

  She approaches him again, careful to come at him from the front so that he doesn’t get spooked. This time, instead of panicking, he makes a halfhearted effort to fight. He struggles to his feet and, growling all the while, latches on to the toe of her boot, pressing his teeth into the firm leather.

  It takes too much energy, though, and he doesn’t have the stamina for it. Giving up, he flops onto the ground, slipping on a pile of squashed apples. Unable to retain his footing, he rolls onto his back, his pale underbelly exposed.

  “You’re cute.” Silver crouches over him, patting his chubby belly. “I’m gonna kill you now, but you’re cute.”

  The last thing the badger sees is the glint of her knife against the light of the rapidly retreating moon. She’s kind, though, and she makes death come swiftly. The badger expires instantly, without fuss, and doesn’t suffer.

  Following his demise, as Silver wipes her knife clean on his hair, she catches her reflection briefly in the blade. Tilting it to bounce what little illumination the moon still offers, she looks intently at her own eyes, saddened by their persistent hue.

  The natural pigment of her irises is a steely gray, but they haven’t looked that way in many months. After being unwillingly infected with an evolved version of the same retrovirus that once nearly brought about the end of all humanity and caused the end of world, her eyes turned violet. She hated it then, and she hates it still, although the violet coloring now appears to be receding—the infection conquered.

  Relieved, she takes a moment to look around the dell and discovers that apples aren’t the only fruit growing here: there are berries, too. She makes the most of that—excited by the prospect of eating fruit that was grown on a proper bush, not engineered in a lab—and spends some time picking and preparing the berries in such a way that they can be easily transported, then she returns to the campsite with the dead badger slung over her shoulder.

  He’s heavier than she thought he’d be. He must have at least twenty-five pounds packed into that chunky little frame, and his corpse makes a loud thud when she drops it onto the forest floor beside a campfire that’s been smoldering throughout the night.

  Withdrawing her knife again, she sets the water bottles—now filled with a thick, purple liquid—down on a nearby log and gets ready to prepare the badger’s meat for cooking. Until now, she’s never gutted anything but Chimera: the grotesque, deformed, quadrupedal creatures that sprung up globally as a result of the world-destroying virus and have roamed her homeland for centuries.

  Their gray, ugly, leathery sacks of flesh have provided her people with the only viable source of meat—other than fish—that they’ve ever known, but she’s confident that the badger won’t be too much of an adjustment. All mammals have the same parts, in roughly the same places, just in different proportions.

  At least, she’s pretty sure they do. Not that she’s ever come into contact with many, only read about them in books. On her continent, most of the creatures common to the pre-apocalyptic world were declared extinct at the end of the last epoch. Badgers, for example, may as well have come from another planet for all that she knows about them. She’s seen pictures, of course, in those school textbooks she once read, but she never in her wildest dreams thought she’d ever come face to face with one.

  Nevertheless, after decapitating the badger and setting its head on the log next to the water bottles, she grips her knife firmly and rolls the creature onto its side, slicing it from chest to anus in one smooth stroke. Knowing that accidentally perforating the stomach or intestines will ruin the meat, she wo
rks slowly and precisely. She’s starving. She needs this meat, and can’t afford to let it go to waste.

  Peeling back the skin, she reaches in and gropes delicately around for the guts, and anything else inedible or undesirable. After removing these, she tries to pick them all up in her hands to dump them far away from their little campsite before they attract flies, but they’re slick with blood and the intestines start to slither between her fingers.

  Despite her best attempts to prevent it, five meters of small intestine plops down onto the forest floor, splitting open along the way—right in front of Alex’s face.

  Sure enough, the vile stench wakes him up from a dead sleep, and he recoils from the steaming pile of guts so fast he almost tumbles right over the top of a still soundly sleeping Luka. Looking up, his violet eyes shimmering brightly in the early morning half-light, he finds Silver standing beside his bed—which is nothing more than an emergency blanket, similar to the one she was using.

  “I’m sorry.” She winces apologetically, her hands covered up to her wrists in blood. “I was trying not to wake you.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” he growls at her, trying to keep his voice low.

  “I’m cooking.”

  “Cooking?” He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know how to cook. You can’t even work the buttons on the stove, remember?”

  She’s not in the mood to remind him that, during her six years of banishment, she very often had to find and prepare her own meat. Buying it from a butcher was expensive, and she could seldom afford it. Of course, the reason for that was largely because she routinely spent most of her income on liquor—and she damn well knows that’s the first thing Alex would bring up if the subject were to be broached. So, she takes the insult on the chin and lets him continue to underestimate her domestic skills.