Old Coyote folded his metal arms, looking at the carnage before him. First and foremost, he was a businessman. Everyone knew that the moment they walked in here. When given a choice, he would take the most profitable option; here, the most profitable had option arisen. All he had to do take the stuff that Drifter was offering, plus the things he came to sell, and leave this backwater world before the bloodshed started.
Without an expressive face, it was hard to tell whether he would rat them out or take the deal. Either was a possibility now. The old cyborg sighed again, tugging the cowboy hat on his head.
“You crazy bastard,” he said after a time. “’ight. I’ll take your offer. Don’t seem like I got much of a choice, now do I?” He walked over to the unconscious Staff Sergeant, frowning. “Tell me what you want so I can get off this planet. I ain’t getting caught in another one of your wars.”
Chapter 6
Crocodile Walk
Kindle
“In the deep swamps of C’dar lies a people older than the Civilization itself. They are the Breaux, an ancient clan native to C’dar. They seemed to have adopted a civilization remarkably close to an Old World culture from North America, but they aren’t human, mutant, or artificial intelligence; only mimicking our forms for our comfort. Anyone that has seen their true forms have been remarkably quiet on the subject, much to my displeasure. Their power - and forgive my scientific mind for saying so - is rather close to magic, beyond any understanding we have so far. We have no understanding of their Flame and its opposite power, the Shadow. I would advise anyone to avoid confronting them.” -- Chairwoman Dr. Elizaeen Authford, Author of the Civilization’s Guide to the Dusk Orbit Planets
Kindle had a hard time deciding which was paler: a glass of milk or her pa’s face. She watched his expression as he drove one of Vermin’s miniature tanks down the mountain, up the valley, and through the plains heading to the swamp. She always assumed that he had a good relationship with the Breauxs. Apparently, that didn’t mean that the superstitions didn’t scare the living daylights out of him.
Kindle couldn’t ignore her own heart throbbing in her chest. Ever since she was young, she was told that at any time she could go visit her mother’s family; how they said it, though, came with this thin ribbon of fear and reverence for the Breauxs. She had heard so many superstitious stories centered around the swamps that it created its own folklore in her head, to the point that she was afraid. From tales of the Shaman, the Crocodile, the Flame, and its Darkness, she had learned everything there was to know about them that was written down.
Going to see them was a different thing.
Appetite being all dressed up and looking like a different man did nothing to quell her beating heart. He wore his nice pair of raw denim jeans, a pressed button up shirt, and fine hard leather boots shined to a sheen. He had put his long hair up into a tight ponytail, wearing his “going to do business” cowboy hat as the icing on the cake. There were very few occasions where her father put this amount of effort into his appearance; it just wasn’t who he was as a person. To see him stiff and muttering, his slow voice incomprehensible in the seat beside her, his eyes remaining focused on the road ahead… He really doesn’t want to go.
With the Bluecoats roaming, he thought driving the tank would be safest. The travel wasn’t a long one by any means, taking a little less than a morning to come down from mountain and trek to the wetlands. Once they made it to the swamp, however, they would have to do the rest on foot; the Breuxs and the rest of their people had a zero-tolerance policy on weapons. From the look on her father’s face, it seemed he would rather tear every gun on this small tank off with his hands than upset Kindle’s other grandfather.
“Pa?” Kindle asked, trying to swallow her own fears. “You okay?”
“Hm?” Appetite’s eyes widened for a second, the sound that left his mouth a high, startled hum. “Yeah, I’m fine. Completely okay, why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, you seem to be ready to jump out of your skin.”
Appetite tapped his fingers against the wheel. “Do I?”
“You’re sweating,” Kindle said, arching an eyebrow. “And you’re stalling.”
“I haven’t been in a while is all. They’re nice people. Good, no matter what ya might’ve heard from everyone else. They have their way. Ina was special to the Breaux - the Shaman, the teller of the Flames.”
He spoke her name. Kindle couldn’t believe it. He had said her name, without heat or poison of any kind. Kindle never asked stories about her, not even how they met. The way he spoke her name opened doors in her mind that she had locked shut for years.
“Are you ready to talk ’bout her?” he asked, his voice soft. “I mean you’re heading to her home and it’s about time we talked at least a little about her. I never wanted to force the issue or nothin’, just…” He sighed, his heavy chest deflating. “Ask away.”
She didn’t start firing questions out immediately. Instead, she looked out the small glass window to her right, watching the world roll by. Among the odd atmospheric environments, the Ghostwalk Swamp might have been the oddest on their world. The closer and closer they approached this frightening land, the more that the colors around looked bleached to white. They began to see some of the eerie silver-leafed, white-barked willows marking the territory of the Ghostwalk Swamps. The color of the grass transitioned from green to red to blades of grey. A hard sour taste was in the air too, even within the safety of a vehicle. She had passed it on her travels with her cousins, uncles, and grandpa from time to time. Every time she thought, I’m gonna do it.
Today, she couldn’t turn around. Today, she had to walk into the Swamps where her mother once stood and it terrified her. She’s been gone so long I have too many questions. Kindle quietly choked on the bones of her words. Where do I start, she wondered. She frowned.
“You look like her,” Appetite said in a low voice. “Ain’t never been happier with genetics.”
“I’m getting your height and I have your eyes.”
“Probably the best two things I got,” he laughed. “But really, you look like her. She was...I suppose is still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She’s also the strongest fighter I think I’ve ever seen. She had a temper, don’t get me wrong. It was a thing that my pa found perfect for me. I needed someone to balance my...tolerant nature at the time. I took too much crap and let too many people roll over me. She stopped that.”
“How did you meet?”
“We tried to kill each other.”
“What?”
“I wanted something from an abandoned colony. Ina wanted something from an abandoned colony. I don’t even remember what it was. She almost killed me. Happy it was there though. I wasn’t happy at the time; probably wanted whatever that stupid thing was.” Appetite gave a soft, distant laugh, one reserved for fond memories. “Ain’t nothing quite like having the person you fall in love with you try to kill you with a flaming axe. Please don’t fall in love with anyone with a flaming axe. It’s complicated way to start off...well anythin’ really. But, that’s how we met. Over some doodad that neither of us can remember now. It was simpler times.” Her pa relaxed a little in his seat. The stiffness in his body began to leave bit by bit, returning to the Papa Woody she always knew. “We came to an agreement. She got to keep whatever she wanted and she didn’t kill me. I feel like I got better of the deal since I can’t remember for the life of me what we were even fightin’ over.”
Appetite slowed the tank down, crawling up small hills and through thick thatches of the willow trees. The world around them grew darker. Habit made Kindle believe that it was the canopy of the ever expanding swamp above them - her mind knew otherwise. Just outside of her window, she begun to see the barj.
The barj, the Shadow of C’dar, drifted above them as a thin black cloud, inking itself across the ice-blue sky and white-green leaves. When the ground grew soft and treacherous and the sound of water began to rush under their tre
ads was when the shadow became an absolute blanket. The afternoon sun above them was gone, leaving only the fireflies and torches to line the way.
I don’t think I can do this, she thought, looking at the black of night in the day. I can’t do it. She trembled, fear caught tight in her chest. She knew she had to. Not because her dad would force her; he would turn this tank around the moment she gave the word. For that reason, she knew she had to go. She had to.
They donned rubber waders before exiting the small tank through the sizable top hatch. She expected a powerful stench from the swamp to choke the life out of her. What she got was different. Yes, there was a stench from the marsh gas, but not nearly as bad as she had expected. There were other sweet smells mixed in with the methane; one in particular caught her interest and her memories. She searched for it in every breath. Was this not her first time here?
“Pa?”
“Yeah?”
“Where was I born?”
Appetite laughed a weak chuckle as though he had been caught. “Not too far from here.”
“Why not the Mountain?”
“Bad luck, she said. Too far away from the Swamp. Guess she was right; we got the luckiest kid in the world.”
“Then why did she leave?” The words came out much more bitter than she intended. She pressed her mouth into a hard line.
Appetite sighed, following her off the metal ladder and into the shallow water below. This was the hook he was waiting for all day. Now that it was caught in his mouth, he struggled with what to say next. He beckoned her over, wading through the still waters and swarms of massive mosquitoes and multi-colored flies. He led her to what she thought was a few unremarkable wooden posts stuck into the water. She soon realized that he was leading her to a bridge, each with long wide steps that ascended a few inches against the sheet of white lily pads marking the deeper lagoon.
Appetite helped himself to one of the many torches on the side of the path. He lowered the torch closer to her than himself, as though protecting her. She appreciated it as the black barj coalesced around them.
“It wasn’t you,” he whispered, his voice soft against the croaking of frogs. “That was a choice she made. Ina...always had her own way of doing things. That wasn’t a bad thing, but she liked being on her own. I thought everything was fine. We had nine months to think about it, y’know. I guess that wasn’t enough for her. I don’t think anything was going to be enough to keep her in one place.”
“So, she just left me.”
“She left the both of us.” There was the hurt, that blow to the chest. “She couldn’t handle standing still, even for me. I wasn’t asking her to. I don’t think she ever got that. I was asking her to get to know you and try to be a family. I wasn’t even asking her to stay. But to her, that was half-stepping. She couldn’t have her foot in both rooms.”
“Was she right? Could she have done both?”
“I - ” Appetite pressed his fingers against his nose. “No. She couldn’t. Her father tried to tell her that she could. In a way, she was right. Seeing you in this world brought those fears to life. I think seeing you was the first time she was ever afraid. For the first time, there was something more important than her place in her clan…”
“Were we? Were we more important, Dad?”
The blackened water stirred beside them, splashing on the red wood of the bridge. Appetite raised the torch a little higher, hearing a small hiss of steam. Kindle looked down for the first time into the depths. A large, wide shape moved beneath their feet, shaking the little bridge with each sway of its fins. A trickle of fear froze Kindle in place. The creature rolled one of its pink eyes upward, annoyed at their heated voices. It made no further sound as it swam back down into the depth where it came.
“What was that?” Kindle whispered, hoping that it was part of her imagination.
“A barjka,” Appetite said, also peering down into the black. “They aren’t…aggressive...usually.”
“Usually.”
“Can’t say I’m an expert.” Appetite glared own, a bit unsure. “First time seein’ one myself up close.”
“What if it…”
The bridge shook violently again underneath their feet as the creature swam back up. It rammed its weight into the supports, cracking it with powerful waves. A sound, very close to a roar or a screech, filled the air as the creature breached the water for a split second.
While it had legs like a crocodile, its body resembled something of a sea or desert whale of C’dar. She saw the creature twisted up into the air through the darkness, its massive, red-fleshed belly contorting into a spiral and landing back into the water. It grew quiet again before the second breach. This time she saw its head better - narrow, sharp, and a little too small for its body. Pink eyes filled with a predatory hunger locked onto them.
Kindle stood, painfully aware they had no weapons on them. Suppose we should’ve been quieter, she thought as the creature doubled back around towards them. She saw her father readying himself for a conflict, the red fur of his mutation rolling up his thick arms. They might not have brought weapons, but he was as much of one as anything. The barjka cared little at the obvious challenge and attacked.
Kindle couldn’t understand much of what happened next. One minute it was attacking, the next it was shrieking. A massive spear came hurtling through the air above them, the smell of cold trailing behind it. Blood sputtered from an open wound in the creature’s stomach as it splashed back into the water. She thought it was dead then, only to see that it was only - rightfully - mad. It lost all interest in the bridge, searching for whatever wounded it.
Kindle searched too. On the surface of the water, a dark-skinned man stood on a small wooden boat, adorned with decorative wood-and-porcelain painted mask of reds, yellows, and oranges. The man on the river looked unimpressed at the massive beast swimming at him at full speed. He casually plucked up another one of his spears.
The man held the purple-tipped spear for a second, checking its weight. In the face of certain death, the man kept calm, the ethereal darkness of the swamp bending around his muscled arm.
What can one spear do?
The barjka leapt at him, a maw of a thousand teeth opening to consume man and boat. The man catapulted the spear with all his might, sending it whistling through air. The spear tore through the creature, cutting through its entire length. Both halves of the monster slammed hard against the water, rocking the spearman’s small boat. He wiped the purple blood from his dark chest before rowing over to the bridge as though he hadn’t just killed a massive beast.
Upon closer inspection, it became obvious that this man wasn’t quite human like them. Yeah, he looked the part - just like the mutated Caldwells - but anyone with eyes could see that while the people of the Mountain crash-landed here years ago, the Breauxs had history with the land. There were things that looked off; the texture of his skin, the color of his eyes, the sharpness of his teeth. His limbs looked a little wrong on his shoulders and hips. In certain lights, he didn’t look human at all.
The man plucked a stubborn piece of purple meat from his black beard, stepping off the boat and onto the bridge to inspect the damage. He turned, frowning at Appetite with those slightly alien features. With the back of his hand, he hit her father on the back of the head. “What have I told you ’bout coming ’round here all loud, boy? Gonna get yourself killed.”
“It was my fault, sir,” Kindle said. It was. She had shouted and put them all in danger.
The man looked at them with those pupiless, whiteless purple eyes. He wandered over to her, rolling one of his shoulders. His dark skin was marked with looked like thousands of scars and odd white war paint. The long, angular features of his face gave him an almost predatorial appearance, not helped much by the slight scale-like markings. Somehow, despite only having a few inches on her, he felt imposing in ways that not even her father or grandfather did. A small smile etched its way across his f
ace, his eyes softening with each passing second. He shook his head and wiped the remaining blood from his cheek.
“It’s ’bout time we meet, Cassie. I’ve heard a lot ‘bout you. Remy Breaux,” the man said, extending a hand. “And I guess I’m your other grandpa.”
Kindle blinked at the long-fingered hand for a second. This was her mom’s father, the Crocodile of the Swamp. She took his hand after a time. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her voice dancing awfully close to a question. “Sorry ’bout almost gettin’ you killed back there.”
“It’s not the first time,” Remy said, staring very pointedly at Appetite. “And I’m sure it won’t be the last. C’mon. No point of sticking around longer than we have to. Male barjka don’t travel alone, and I don’t have enough spears for all that.”
***
The Crocodile Walk led to a sizable village tucked into the Ghostwalk Swamps. Kindle’s eyes wandered from place to place, trying to digest the sheer awe that she felt. Each of the homes was set in a small platform of wood and metal, floating like the lily pads that surrounded them. They moved inch by inch within the circle of an enclosed pond, the flexible bridges moving with them. Every island came with its own portable generator for electricity and an oddly-shaped crystal to keep the darkness of the mysterious barj at bay. The homes weren’t small, either; even the smallest on the edges of the village, made of a darker, harder wood, was two stories. Large dragonflies and moths zipped around each of the torches running parallel to the long red bridges.
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