Broken Skies

by Amy Hopkins

  He felt her fear shift. Not changing, but evolving, leading to a burning desire to crush any threat that faced the people she loved.

  “I know,” she said when her eyes cleared.

  Garrett leaned his back against the wall. “Aye,” he said in a croaky voice. “I suppose ye do.”

  “Och, we all know yer a pussy,” Bette said with a grin. “But I prefer ye to be a breathin’ pussy. Next time, chew yer bloody food.”

  Garrett stuck his tongue out at her, but let the two women guide him back to the table.

  Over lunch, they talked of many things. The battle for Arcadia and the one for Tahn; the Heights, the city, and the weather. They danced around the topic of the rift and the threat that faced them but did so comfortably and without fear.

  Finally, when the food was gone, and they all leaned back to enjoy the hazy relaxation that always comes after a good meal, Bette sighed.

  “If yer stayin’ until we get another visitor ta pop through, ye might be here a good while.” She wiped her hands on her shirt. “Ye may as well get comfortable.”

  As it turned out, the wait wasn’t too long at all. Just on dusk, while Garrett was resting his eyelids under the same table they’d lunched at, a cry went up from the bushes.

  Garrett bolted upright, cursing as his head made contact with the table. “Fuck!” He grabbed at his axe, lying nearby, and rolled out. Jumping to his feet, he whooped a war cry as he raced for the rift.

  Julianne was already there, staff gripped in two hands as she watched the edges of the portal shift and bend.

  “Wait for it…” Garrett growled, excitement building. Blood pounded in his ears and raced through his veins. “Come on, laddies. Give old uncle Garrett another shot at yer faces, eh?”

  “Don’t scare it off,” Marcus said. “And can you try to let me get a shot in, too? I still owe them a good belting after last time.”

  “Och, ye’ll be hard pressed to find an opening once I start swingin’,” Garrett said with a wolfish smile. His eyes drank in the low light of the evening, riveted on the wobbling line before them.

  First one arm, then another crawled through. The rest of the creature fell through with a slurping pop.

  “What’s that?” Julianne snapped, pointing.

  At first, it looked like the beast’s leg had gotten stuck. Then…

  “It’s bringin’ a friend!” Garrett screeched, exhilaration smoking him. He launched forwards, twirling his weapon towards the stick-like creature half his height.

  “Garrett, stop!” Julianne called.

  Garrett froze mid-stride. He looked at her white eyes and snarled. “This isn’t a time for mind-fuckin’, it’s time to splatter some guts!” He whipped his axe forwards and, as he’d expected, it glanced off the hard carapace on his target’s back.

  Another slice slipped between the hard coverings on the upper and lower legs, neatly chopping a leg in half. A thin wail pierced his ears, and he dropped the weapon, grabbing at his ears.

  The second alien shot straight at Marcus, but was knocked back by a hard, swift swing of Julianne’s staff. It fell back, but landed on its stalk-like legs, immediately hurling itself back towards her.

  Garrett threw himself at the whining beast, landing in a puff of dry dirt.

  Roaring to drown out the high-pitched noise, Garrett let go of his head. He scooped his axe up and edged around, one of the beast’s eye-stalks following him closely.

  It jumped, and Garrett quickly followed suit leaping after it. Man and tiny beast connected, and Garrett felt the barbed hooks latch into his chest.

  “I’ve got ye now, ye dick-eye’d wee cockroach!” Garrett thrust an arm up to protect his face, then grabbed one of the creature’s eyes. He yanked it out, roaring again as the painful scream intensified.

  He shoved it to the ground and smashed the flat head of his axe into its gut. Ichor and grainy slime splattered out, and he pounded again, ignoring the stench and stickiness that covered him.

  Over and over, he brought his axe down on the beast, pounding it into a pile of sticky, brittle shards. Then, he raised his axe to smash down on a leg… and froze.

  His body seized, held still except his lungs and eyes. He heaved sharp breaths, rolling his eyes around to see what had him.

  Julianne stood over him, looking down with white eyes.

  “We good?” she asked.

  “Errrgghhh.” His lips and tongue were still frozen.

  “Garrett, I’m in your head. I heard that.” She waited, and Garrett relented.

  Sorry. Shouldn’t have called ye a bossy tart. Not even in me head.

  His muscles released, and he collapsed, face plunging into a pile of acrid alien blood.

  “Pah! Ack, blerch!”

  “Ye shouldn’t’a made such a Bitch-damned mess,” Bette scolded. “Who knows what kind of scavengers all that blood will bring? Last thing we need here is rats.”

  “Rats?” Garrett felt a bubble of laughter rise in his chest. “Rats? Yer worried about rats?” He fell back to the ground, laughing hysterically.

  Through his mirth, he heard Bette sigh.

  “He’s just a wee bit wound up. He’ll be fine.”

  Marcus leaned down to grasp his forearm and pull him to his feet. Sobering, Garrett looked him over. “The other one is dead?”

  Marcus nodded. “They go down fast if you slip between the armored bits.” He glanced at the mess at Garrett’s feet. “Or, I guess, if you pound them to dust.”

  “Aye,” Garrett said, a smile cracking his face wide again. “Easier than dealing with rats!”

  “Garrett!” Julianne snapped. Her eyes glowed in the darkness, and Garrett flinched, expecting another mind-trick.

  Instead, her eyes cleared. Worry etched her face. “The school. GO!”

  The fear in her voice sent Garrett’s feet running before his mind caught up. Bastian would be at the school—he often worked late. Had a monster slipped through the portal unseen, and attacked the school?

  His feet pounded the road, echoing heavy beats behind him. He spared a glance behind and saw Marcus, racing towards him on horseback with one arm extended.

  Garrett grabbed the offered hand, swinging up onto the horse effortlessly.

  “How’d the shits get past us?” Garrett called, wind snatching at his words.

  “Not them.” Marcus shook his head. “Remnant.”

  A tight band Garrett hadn’t noticed around his chest eased. Remnant were a vicious enemy, but they were an enemy he knew well.

  The sound of fighting quickly reached them. Marcus dashed the horse into the clearing and waited until Garrett had landed on the ground before vaulting off himself. He yanked the horse back around and slapped its rump, trusting the animal to head back to the rift.

  Ahead, bedlam reigned. Remnant tore at stone and wood, shoving hard enough to tumble a half-built wall. Others clustered around a small section, where a room with four walls was almost complete.

  “In there,” Marcus said, pointing. “I think there are people in there.”

  “Yargh!” Garrett hollered, gripping his axe in two hands.

  “Yargh?” Marcus asked.

  Garrett grinned and nodded. “YARGH!” He plunged forwards, hurling himself right in the middle of the remnant trying to break down a flimsy door.

  A hand grabbed his shirt, and he spun, lopping it off. Another flew at his face, knuckles cracking loudly as they connected with the haft of his axe.

  “Help!” A feminine scream that was muffled by solid stone walls reached Garrett’s ears, and he fought harder, shoving his way through to press his back against the door.

  “COME AT ME YE ROTTIN’ LIMP DICKED MUD EATERS!”

  The remnant around him paused, as if startled at his sudden threat. Then, as one, they descended.

  Garrett clenched his teeth, whipping his axe with lethal precision. He spun, dodging a blow, then ducked to avoid another. He took a fist on the chin and repaid the attacker with an axe to the temple
.

  Bodies fell, piling at his feet. Remnant climbed over each other, their prey drive overriding any concept of fear, despite the carnage Garrett was laying into them.

  Something grabbed his foot, and he stumbled, going down on one knee just as a rusted sword plunged into the wood behind him.

  The remnant with the weapon tried to jerk it back, but it stuck fast. Garrett barked a laugh as he twisted the wrist of the beast who had tripped him, feeling the satisfying crunch of broken bones. He stood

  “DUCK!”

  Garrett threw himself back down at Marcus’s cry, hooting in joy as blood rained down, and a head tumbled at his feet.

  Instead of standing, he spun low, ploughing his axe through two legs and sinking into the calf of a third. When the remnant stumbled, he punched it in the face, sinking his fist far enough in to tickle what brain it had left.

  Garrett looked around. The remnant were starting to retreat. “Not today, ye unlucky bastards!” He had to climb over a stack of bodies, slipping in fresh blood.

  Thinking he was unbalanced, a remnant rushed him. He dispatched it with a lazy flick of his blade. He quickly noted Marcus running down a fleeing beast and turned the other way, hurling his axe into the back of a skull.

  A noise above, followed by another shriek, alerted him to more danger. Three remnant had scaled the walls and were trying to pry the upper level floorboards apart.

  Garrett frantically looked but couldn’t see any way to get up there.

  “Marcus!” he yelled. “I need a wee boost, ye lazy shit!”

  Marcus pulled his sword out of a limp body and looked up. He glanced at Garrett, then at the three desperate beasts above the rearick. “Be right there.”

  Marcus ran, sword gripped tight. Garrett crouched. Marcus slid to a stop on one knee, hands interlocked.

  Garrett jumped. He landed well, planting one foot in Marcus’s hands. Marcus heaved, thrusting upwards and rocketing Garrett towards the sky.

  Garrett used his strong legs to propel him and flew high enough to grab the top edge of the building. Unfortunately, his hands were slick with fresh blood.

  He slipped. A brief trip through the air ended with a hard smack on the dirt. Marcus looked down from above him and shrugged.

  Garrett vaulted to his feet in time to see Marcus wrench the door open. Tansy and Bastian tumbled out, faces white.

  Garrett grinned. He slipped into the room and quietly shut the door behind him.

  Inside, light seeped through the cracks overhead, highlighting the shadows of the moving remnant. With a groan, one of the floorboards gave way.

  Shrieking in delight, the remnant dropped down. Garrett grinned as, one by one, their eyes adjusted to the dim room.

  “Surprise!”

  He lashed out, slicing across with his axe and feeling it bite into soft flesh and organs. Guts spilled as the last remnant whispered a single word. “Fuck.” Moments later, the life in its glowing red eyes flickered out.

  Garrett planted a foot against the door and shoved. Outside, Tansy dropped a limp remnant to the ground while Marcus watched approvingly.

  “Holy shit,” she gasped. “You guys got here just in time.”

  “It looked like ye were about to become dinner,” Garrett agreed.

  Tansy laughed. “Not that. I just didn’t want to miss my dinner. It would have taken ages to fight them all off ourselves!”

  Garrett couldn’t do anything but laugh at the girl’s plucky courage. “Aye,” he said. “It would have taken ye a wee while.”

  “Where did they come from?” Marcus asked, kicking at a twitching body. He leaned down to run his sword through it, and it fell still.

  Bastian sat, hands trembling. “I don’t know. They just rushed in all at once, screaming. We barely had time to find cover.”

  “You might need to rethink being here alone,” Marcus suggested.

  Bastian quickly nodded. “Don’t you worry, I’m not coming out here without an armed guard from now on.”

  Tansy pouted. “You don’t think I could have taken them?”

  Bastian threw his hands up. “Sure! You against thirty slavering ghouls. But like you said, we’d have missed dinner.”

  Tansy flung her arms around him. “I love that you believe in me!” She landed a wet kiss on his cheek. “But realistically, we’d have been dead in about twelve seconds. I didn’t even have a weapon!”

  “How’d ye take down that one?” Garrett asked, using his axe to point at the body at her feet.

  “Quick head twist,” she said. “I can show you if you like?”

  Garrett gave her a mournful look. “Lass, I’m not tall enough to wring a neck like that!”

  Tansy giggled. “Then you’ve got to lop it off at the knees, first!”

  Garrett stretched, realizing he felt calmer than he had in days. “Ah, nothin’ like a good tousle with some dead heads to calm the nerves.”

  Marcus snorted. “If you say so. Do you two want to head back to town, or come with us?”

  Tansy looked at Garrett and wrinkled her nose. “We probably shouldn’t walk back in the dark, alone. Where is the nearest place ol’ Garrett here can take a bath?”

  “What?” Garrett sniffed loudly. “I can’t smell a thing!”

  “You’re the only one here who can’t,” Bastian said, pulling his head back away from the rearick. “What is that? It doesn’t smell like remnant blood.”

  “It’s vark,” Garrett said with a smirk.

  Tansy squealed. “You didn’t! Those adorable little balls?”

  “Ack, no. More like a… super-vark. A vark-sect?” Garrett pursed his lips, thinking. “Insectovark!”

  “He went a little crazy when one of the nasty ones came through the rift,” Marcus explained. “Come on. Julianne is waiting for us back at the rift. There’s a horse trough there we can tip over stink-guts here.”

  They walked back together, quiet in the deepening twilight. When they returned to the camp, Julianne greeted them with a heavy bucket.

  Garrett eyed it warily. “What’s that f—”

  Julianne tipped it over his head, sloshing water down his face and drowning out his words. “You stink, Garrett. And if you don’t clean that off, I’ll make you spend the next three weeks thinking you can smell dogshit on your boots.”

  “Oh, fine.” He laughed and shook off the droplets, then made his way to the trough of clean water.

  As he stripped off his shirt, Bette leaned over the railing at the top of the watchtower. She gave a loud whistle. “Hello, sexy! Ye feel better after yer little adventure?”

  “Aye!” Garrett called, drubbing grime off his bristling chest. “Feel like a real man again! Ye want to know what a real man feels like?” He unbuttoned his pants, sending Julianne and Tansy running inside, screaming and giggling.

  “Ach, they don’t know what they’re missin’,” Bette hollered down.

  “We don’t want to find out, thanks!” Tansy yelled from inside.

  Garrett dropped his pants to scrub off the last of the grime. Marcus raised a hand over his eyes. “I’m blind!”

  “Ah, ye jealous, lad?” Garrett bellowed a laugh.

  “Oh, for Bitch’s sake,” Sherp yelled from the rift. “Has Garrett got his pants off again? Stop scaring the wildlife, man!”

  Garrett, skin shining clean and white in the moonlight, flashed a sparkling grin. Then, he took off, sprinting for the rift, naked as the day he was born. “Yer just jealous I’ve still got both me balls!” he yelled. “I’ll show ye what a real man looks like!”

  Inside, Bette landed on the ground floor of the tower. “Looks like me man is back to his usual happy self,” she said with a grin.

  “Yes,” Julianne said. She shook her head slowly. “I’m glad… but I wish he wasn’t quite so happy as that.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Bastian squinted against the glare as the heavy beam carefully dropped into place.

  “How are you doing, Jakob?” he asked once it
was secure.

  Jakob’s eyes cleared from black to brown, and he smiled weakly. “Feels great! I’ve been getting lazy in Muir, living off pastries and being waited on hand and foot.”

  “I know that’s a lie,” Bastian laughed. “I don’t need magic to tell you feel like a used ass-wipe. Even Lord George was worried you were going to burn yourself out with all the repairs and building you’ve been helping with.”

  Jakob’s laugh was interrupted by a growling burp. “I really haven’t done that much. Some buildings in the lower end of town were badly neglected for a while. They just needed some patching up, and I wasn’t the only one getting his hands dirty.”

  “And the patrols?” Bastian probed. He knew Jakob was one of those who spent nights manning the walls of Muir to guard against the increasing number of remnant attacks.

  “Rarely more than an excuse for a long game of cards with a nice view.” Jakob’s eyes clouded over with the color of midnight, and he turned back to the building site.

  “Huh.” Bastian let the matter slide as he watched the magic user painstakingly lift another heavy beam into the air. Jakob didn’t just look worn out—he looked like he was going to deposit his breakfast on his own boots.

  The post hovered, then carefully inched up to the upper platform where three men stood, waiting with outstretched hands. They grabbed the beam as soon as it was close enough, but Bastian noticed a tell-tale wobble as it was lowered.

  “Jakob, seriously.” He turned to the other man, who gave him an embarrassed grin. “If you need to take a break, we can keep going for a while without you. There’s plenty to keep us busy.”

  Jakob ducked his head. “Alright. I was going to rest for a bit after the next one anyway.”

  “Samuel!” Bastian called. “Jakob’s off for a bit. Can you secure the new beams? Make sure the railings are tight first—I don’t want anyone falling overboard.”

  “Sure, boss,” Samuel yelled back. “As soon as these pussies finish pulling the splinters from their delicate little hands.”

  “Hey, it’s the size of a fucking nail!” Taven called, lingering out of sight up above. “It’s a pisser, too!”