savage 04 - the savage vengeance

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Wonderful, Caleb thought. There was no tellin' Tiff what to do.

  They walked outside and the buzz of the dead rose to a chorus. He and Tiff looked at each other. Caleb turned to John. “Can ya tune-up? I can hardly think.”

  John scrunched his face together and a wash of silence filled Caleb's head where the voices of the dead had been, the tide of death receding for the moment.

  Tiff gave Caleb an uneasy glance. “What?” he asked her.

  She lifted a shoulder and everyone that was outside turned to look at whatever was making Tiff uncomfortable. That was noteworthy.

  Tiff feeling discomfort.

  “They seemed... sad,” she said, kicking the tall grass that had a crusting of snow clinging to its base.

  Caleb looked over at the markers, the rows upon rows of dead bodies and nodded in agreement. Their collective voice had that quality.

  “Sometimes death is sad, I guess,” he responded, suddenly melancholy.

  “Death grieves,” Jade agreed, picking up on his mood, her bare hand held in his. Her Empath nature boosted their understanding, his feelings on a direct pathway to hers.

  Mia and Bry stood close together, their bodies touching. She looked around, everyone quiet for once, even Jonesy.

  Mia spoke for them all, the mass of graves all around them, nearly reaching the crest of the hill where a great forest began. “Death weeps,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Caleb nodded. That was exactly it.

  Alex went to the door and began to shut it behind them, Archer locking it after it rolled to closure.

  *

  Matthew itched with the need to continue their quest and it was granted just as he thought he would lose his mind. He had executed an inelegant slurp of his food, and it sloshed about in a tense lump in his belly. However, the Band was accustomed to eating, hunting and warring if need be with half-digested food in their stomachs.

  This was no different, Clara awaited him.

  He stood and Bracus, Rowenna and the rest stood as well, various expressions of discomfort and anxiety pinching their faces. Matthew swiped a fist across his mouth, coming away with the quart of fresh cistern water that Evelyn had given him. He wasted a precious minute thanking her.

  “Ah... do not be premature with you gratitude, Matthew, for I accompany you.”

  Bracus frowned. “We need no other females to be about. Stay, lass. Stay in the safety provided here inside the walls of our clan.”

  His eyes met Jack's, his wee one in the crook of his arm, Lillian at his side. She nodded. “'Tis true. I cannot bear the thought of you running about Outside, having an adventure while the fragment lay in wait. Do you not see that, Evie?”

  Evelyn sighed at her nickname and the softness with which it was spoken. But she must be with Maddoc, even if he was terribly rash in every regard. She could not think when he was about.

  She could not think when he was not.

  Evelyn sighed again.

  “I wish to attend Clara when you come across her.” That was only half-true as Clara was not wont to ask for special attention. She knew she would be a burden to the clan. Acting in the most selfish way she ever had, Evelyn appealed to the Band's sense of fairness.

  Bracus was torn. Certainly they could protect Evelyn. But... there was the minute chance they may battle a lone contingent of the fragment.

  While he vacillated in the well of his thoughts Philip spoke. “Aye, she may go. Even now Daniel seeks to meet us at the hot spring,” he said in a voice like mixed gravel, deep and rough.

  “You wear your mail for war?” Matthew said.

  Philip nodded. “Aye.”

  They turned to Maddoc, the Intuitive member of the Band.

  He decided that the time had ended for silence. “It is prudent. I feel...” he paused, knowing how ridiculous it was but pushed forward without hesitation, “that Clara travels with Band, even now.”

  Everyone spoke at once, the voices so mixed that no one could understand the other.

  Bracus put up his hands for silence. The voices stilled upon his gesture. “We will send the homing pigeon to President Bowen. He will be apprised of the current circumstances. If he feels that additional Band be necessary in this region, they will come. As it were, we will make haste to the hot springs and Daniel. We will confer there and move forward to where Clara may be.”

  Matthew nodded, turning without so much as a goodbye, Edwin followed, casting a glance behind him at the unfamiliar clan.

  *

  the youngest Travelers on the loose Outside

  “Okay! I give up! This is effing miserable,” Jonesy railed at the elements. “It's colder than a witch's tit on the shady side of an iceberg!”

  Caleb barked out a laugh and replied, “Sounds like you've been hanging around Gramps too long.”

  John cocked a brow, hoofing it through the woods. They'd walked the better part of a day and were tired, thirsty and hungry. Not in that order.

  “Buck up, Jones,” Bry said, “we'll find some kind of watering hole or something...”

  Ever-trustful that something would crop up in the wilderness. That was the Weller Motto, Caleb thought.

  “Yeah! That's the mojo I'm talking about... besides, I've got a whole pack of gum!” Tiff said like she'd discovered the winning lottery ticket.

  The group let out a collective groan. “Piss off joy-suckers, more for me then.” She stalked ahead to where John was. But he'd pulled up short, his hand raised beside his head in the universal “halt” gesture.

  “Quietly,” he hissed and the guys got on point just from Terran's tone of voice alone.

  Jade stood at Caleb's back, peeking out around his body, her hand a warm presence in his. What could be happening out here in the middle of nowhere?

  Quite a bit apparently.

  Caleb's eyes looked between the holes in the branches and saw close to a hundred men, pretty rough lookin', with weapons and determination. Their clothing was a weird mix of jeans, button down shirts and tunics that looked like they were made from... animal skins.

  Hell... they'd hang those dumb asses out to dry in his world. Wearing dead animals for clothes? Totally weird. He guessed they didn't work up a sweat about the environment here. Huh.

  As his eyes swept the open meadow he saw a group of four people. Two chicks and two guys. One of the men was a huge sucker, as tall as Terran but almost as big as Alex. The other guy was dressed in clothes that were really bizarre too and the small girl had hair so red he could see it clearly from here, the taller girl was muscly lookin', solid. She had that martial arts look to her, wary. Ready.

  Then he felt them.

  The dead filled the meadow, their bones scattered everywhere in a mass grave, their need to reconnect to a singular body a plea that almost drove Caleb to his knees. Jade felt the echo of it and gasped, snatching her hand away.

  Tiff turned, her Affinity for the Dead ringing in her body like a chime struck. “What is that?” she whispered at Caleb.

  Caleb felt like he was trying to breathe underwater and John left the treeline, coming to him. “What?”

  Caleb gave a wheezing response, “The dead... they... they're everywhere but nowhere.”

  “They're broken!” Tiff said, feeling the tip of the iceberg compared to Caleb.

  “What the hell?” Jonesy ranted and Bry elbowed him to shut up.

  Archer frowned and Mia drew closer. In a few seconds, the entire group of teens surrounded Caleb.

  Finally, with John's psychic Null power dulling their siren wail, Caleb was able to reply, “Tiff's right. They're... not together, their bodies are broken and flung all over the place.”

  “Why?” Alex asked, casting a glance at the assembly of ragged fighters, filthy and fierce in their uniformity. Then he looked at the small band across the meadow from them. They looked like a different group entirely.

  None of it looked good to him.

  “War. There was some kind of... battle or something,” Caleb said
and Jade was careful not to touch his bare skin. She didn't want to share any part of the onslaught of this dead. They felt different than the dead of their world.

  Tiff walked closer to where he stood. “Who did it, do ya think?”

  Caleb's eyes took in the huge contingent, then the small one. “I don't know. But it's a safe bet that the group over there was part of it.” Caleb said, pointing at the Loser Faction. He had a random thought that Carson Hamilton would fit right in like a pea in a pod, as Gramps would say.

  Caleb's palms had stopped sweating and he wiped a trembling hand against his mouth. He exchanged an uneasy look with Jade. Trouble followed the group no matter where they were. Even being in a parallel world wasn't far enough away.

  John Terran watched as the larger group closed in around the smaller. The biggest male of the smaller group clutched a woman that looked part wild against his body. It was when the leader of what looked to be a criminal group touched the woman's braid that the male that held her stiffened and all hell seemed to break loose.

  A small faction of the losers grabbed the male, the lone female stood facing the leader. Even from a distance you could see her defiance.

  Feel it.

  He stepped forward, and as the big dude was held by several of the others, the leader raised his fist and struck her so hard she staggered back, falling to the ground, her golden head bent against the backdrop of the ice and snow.

  Caleb looked at his group of friends. Seeing identical expressions on their faces he said, “I was never much for chick beating.”

  “Me neither,” Bry Weller said, his hands clenching into fists.

  “Yup, I'm in... let's tag their asses!” Jonesy said.

  “I like it,” Alex said, already moving into the openness of the meadow, the girls trailing behind.

  Except Tiff. She walked beside Caleb. The pair listened to the low drone of the dead at their feet, everywhere they stepped held the murmur of their discontent.

  Nobody mentioned the odds of a handful of teenagers against seventy of the fragment.

  Courage is ignoring your fear.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Bracus and Matthew looked at each other, troubled. The steam from the spring rose off the surface of the water like ghostly mist.

  Evelyn looked about her and saw something that shimmered in the moss, a singular item. She ran to it, plucking it out of the nest of spongy greenness. She rose a triumphant hand above her.

  The men of the Band tracked her movement.

  A pearl shimmered in the pincered grasp of her fingers.

  Clara, Matthew's mind breathed.

  She had been here, and not long past. He and Bracus moved as one, tracking the scuffle that had ensued in the moss. A fight, they were sure. One puzzling fact presented itself.

  The footprints of the fighters, a very small male and a very large one.

  Matthew finally straightened after studying the tracks. “These are the tracks of Daniel,” he said with surety.

  “Aye?” Philip asked.

  Matthew nodded. “He favors his right foot in a fight.”

  No one inquired why he would know that but Edwin and Maddoc asked the most pressing question. “What male of that size would give him challenge?” Maddoc scoffed and it was Evelyn who said, “Mayhap not male...” she raised her eyebrows and Maddoc's dropped like a stone above his eyes.

  She was so forthright with all her opinions, sparing them nothing, as now.

  “You all presume male, but clearly these are female.”

  Bracus grinned despite himself. He especially liked this slip of a girl giving Maddoc as much skin-itch as the fabled plant in the wood that made one wish for death from the irritation. “Aye... tell us what you think, Evie,” Bracus said, mirth in his voice.

  “Methinks,” she gazed at them, pearl in one hand. She bent down, picking up a two foot long strand of hair that looked like spun gold between the fingers of the hand that had not captured the pearl, “...that we may have another female of the Band.” She smiled at her cleverness where the men's had failed them.

  “Of course! That is why I could not dispense that feeling of Clara's wellness, that she be with Band.” Maddoc shook his head.

  “Again, I will repeat what I said but moments past: you presume male. Your presumptions may cost everyone time... safety. Consider things which are not ordinary.”

  The Band glowered at Evelyn as she smiled sweetly back.

  Males, she thought smugly.

  “Be that as it may, we must track them now. Why Daniel did not stay at the rendezvous point, I cannot speculate. But I shall shake him until his teeth rattle when we make acquaintance once again.” Matthew's face was like thunder as the Band stalked off after the group of four, their tracks like a trail of bread crumbs for the astute Band to follow.

  They broke into a smooth jog, Evelyn riding the horse with Rowenna. Her silence at the discovery of another female of the Band purposeful. She was most curious to meet another select. But foremost in her thoughts, pressing like an unbidden weight- was the possibility of injury to her newfound daughter.

  They rode hard, tracking as they went.

  Daniel had been quite deliberate in his trail, leaving no guessing required on the part of the followers.

  *

  It was not long before they came to the exact meadow of over a year past. The scene appeared only slightly different with the patches of snow and ice as silvered islands of white, the grass like a wheaten sea.

  What stopped the Band was the appearance of two groups.

  One be fragment, Bracus knew.

  The other... well the other were something entirely foreign. They appeared so odd he was at once at a loss to categorize what they were.

  It was Rowenna who identified them.

  “Travelers,” she said.

  Philip's head swiveled to gaze at her. “Are you certain?”

  Rowenna nodded. “They are young to my eye, but they carry themselves thus. I would ken them anywhere.”

  The Band drew close to each other, making a vee in front of the horse the two women traveled on. The men flanked that as their central position.

  Clarence, who had been as silent as Rowenna since leaving the comfort of the clan said, “I see Clara... Charles. And Daniel!” he shouted out.

  The Band took in the scene of Daniel, held by nearly ten of the fragment as Tucker struck a woman with hair the color of gold, every inch the select that they had suspected but an hour prior, as she fell in a pile to the frozen ground. Philip hissed as her hands threw themselves in front of her to brace her fall against the frozen ground.

  Tucker moved forward then stopped, seeming to notice for the first time the group of young Travelers as they advanced on them. He then looked in the direction of the Band and came to himself, leaving the woman at his feet for the moment.

  *

  Caleb

  He turned when they were almost twenty feet from the group, his heart in his throat. They had seemed somehow less when they were at the tree line. But here... in the open meadow, they looked more.

  More filthy.

  Dangerous.

  Bigger.

  Just more.

  Caleb moved forward just as another group broke into the meadow and Jonesy said, “Holy shit! Look at those guys!”

  They did.

  They weren't human. Caleb was trying to figure out what the hell they were when Alex piped in with, “Those guys are Water World dudes.”

  John said, “Would you shut up? Kinda getting ready for something major and you're referencing classic movies?”

  Caleb looked at them. They all looked like Alex, but ginormous, taller.

  And then there were the gills. They came toward them like a slow moving wall of muscle, flesh and weaponry.

  The whole group of teens backed away as they came. Somehow, they were scarier than the filthy group.

  Jade whispered, “What are they?”

  Caleb didn't know. He shook his head.<
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  “Well hell, this is turning into one big mess-o-action!” Tiff said, snapping her gum.

  “Shut up, Tiff,” Bry said offhandedly.

  The three groups converged in a loose triangle.

  It was Clara who spoke first.

  She took in Calia at her feet, Tucker facing her, Daniel held by the fragment. She glanced over her shoulder and her chest tightened at the sight of Matthew as he came for her. Then finally, she took in the strange ones who had appeared. She noted that some of them had a color of skin she had never seen and said, “I am Clara, the queen of the Kingdom of Ohio.” She looked at each foreign face. “Who might you be?”

  Tucker stepped toward the group and Caleb said, “Stay there pal. You don't look like the friendly type.”

  Tucker looked at the young men and women that had appeared from the other world and knew what they were.

  Travelers.

  Rowenna slid off her mount and walked toward her daughter, Matthew already at Clara's back.

  The Band came to stand behind Charles and Clara. Edwin went to the fallen select, she moved back from him when he offered to help her up. When his eyes met hers he was struck dumb.

  Something that he had never encountered struck him mute and still.

  Kinship recognition.

  Calia looked into a pair of eyes that exactly matched her own and felt a tether of fibers knit together almost painfully inside her breastbone and knew that she beheld a close relation, kin. She was overwhelmed by it. As was the one she gazed at.

  She smiled at him, the grin breaking the sternness of her face at once and he strode to her, taking her in his arms even as he turned her into his body to leave his back at the Band.

  Not the fragment.

  Never them. Those he faced.

  “Sister,” Edwin whispered against her hair.

  Calia's heart sung, her happiness a rare and tangible thing.

  ****

  Caleb had a bad feeling about this. He hadn't gotten a sense of what or even who all these different groups were but things were coming to a head, he could sense it when the Leader of the Losers spoke to him, “You trespass here, Traveler,” his shifty eyes sweeping over his group of friends, lingering too long on the girls, Caleb thought.