by Lexi Lane
She tried talking to him, tried begging, but to no avail. She had no idea what changed, what she’d done, if anything. He withdrew, stopped coming to their bed, not telling her where he slept. He grew silent and withdrawn.
***
Isolda was waiting inside the hut, the caravan set to travel to the next village already packed and ready to leave. Gerold had loaded her small belongings, along with Gisela’s, onto the wagon. He’d told her to be ready at dawn and that was all he’d said. He’d never come to bed that night.
Isolda looked up at the sound of the door. Gerold came in, stamping his feet, shaking the snow from his shoulders.
“You’re not ready.” He seemed neither surprised nor interested. He walked to the fire, crouching over the embers as if seeking warmth.
Isolda placed a hand on his arm. He shivered at her touch, but didn’t move.
“Listen to me. You can’t replace Ravenna; no one ever can. I certainly can’t, but I don’t want to. What I do want is to give you a second chance at love, with me, a new start.” Isolda watched as Gerold stared into the dying embers of the fire. He absently stirred them; a cascade of sparks flying up, winking out quickly.
“My life is like this fire; dead and cold. There is nothing left.” He looked up at Isolda. “I thought revenge would take away the pain I felt, the pain of losing Ravenna. But I was wrong. It did not.” He stared unseeing into the fire.
“I did not want to care about you. You’re not Ravenna. You cannot replace her and I don’t want to care about you. You were meant to be used, to be discarded.” He turned anguished eyes to her. “You are not Ravenna and you never will be but I find myself caring for you too much. And that is wrong. I have betrayed the love of my wife. I vowed to spend my life with her and I’ve broken that vow.” He took out his dagger, watching the blade reflect the dull red glow.
Isolda leaned down, her face close to the embers. She blew once, twice, and a tiny flame sprang up, flickering feebly. She blew a third time and the dormant embers came to life, the fire licking along the edges of a charred log, gaining strength, growing.
“You only need a little breath to rekindle a fire, Gerold. You know that as well as I; any child knows that.” She knelt beside him, turning his face away from the fire, her hand on his cheek.
“You’re not betraying your wife. Do you think she would want you to live like this? To be miserable, turning bitter, turning your back on life? I am that breath; let me breathe life back into you.” She held out her hand. Gerold looked down, first at her hand, then at his dagger. He drew a breath, met her eyes and then turned the dagger, handle first, and placed it in the palm of her hand.
***
Epilogue – Two Years Later
Isolda stood, the bucket of water in her hands forgotten. She watched as a small boy played at the edge of the river, throwing stones in the small pools, laughing at the ripples and splashes he made. The sun shone on his blonde hair; so blonde it looked almost white in the light.
She felt hands on her waist, lips gently kissing her ear. She leaned back against Gerold’s chest, his warm arms coming around to encircle her body.
“He’s got your coloring.” She looked up at Gerold. “I think he’s going to stay light haired.”
“Yes. And he’s got his mother’s talkative streak. I caught him throwing rocks at the chickens.” He nibbled on Isolda’s ear. “I told him it was wrong to throw rocks at chickens and he tried to talk me out of punishing him.”
Isolda laughed. “It could be worse.”
Gerold laughed. “And how could that be?”
“There could be two of him.” Isolda turned, kissing Gerold. “And there just may be.” She took his hand, placing it on her stomach.
Gerold looked down at his hand. And then he pulled Isolda into his arms, nuzzling her hair.
“Aye, there could be worse things.” He watched the small boy tossing rocks into the water, and smiled.
Breeding Grounds
Taken By The New World King
The sand blew constantly through the tents that sat against a small outcropping of stone. Standing in front of one of those tents Sara stared out the shifting dunes with disgust written plainly on her pretty face. She wore a long thin veil that had once sat on a mannequin’s head in the window of a bridal shop, over her face to protect her skin from the gritty wind and its long and ragged edges fluttered madly behind her.
Her large brown eyes, hidden behind heavy sunglasses, were focused on the edge of the horizon. The sun squatted low there, sending sharp spikes of glaring light off the sand. To the west stood a still green forest and she ached to reach it, to lie under a tree out of the merciless power of the sun, to see color again.
The sun and sand magnified and folded distances, however, something she had learned early on. They all had. When the sudden changes in climate had left most of the earth underwater and gave the remaining landmasses a makeover so extreme as to make them unrecognizable she, and the people she had encountered along the way, had learned quickly that nothing was ever what it seemed. Take the river they had come upon a few days before.
One of their group members had asserted that the river proved that the land they walked on had once been rainforest. Sara had retorted that for all they knew they were walking across Manhattan and that had silenced everyone because, as snide as that comment had been, it had also been true. There were no maps anymore and the river that they had all been so happy to see had turned out to be a channel of flowing glass. None of them could imagine, or wanted to imagine, how that was possible but it had been there anyway. It had looked placid and calm but it had shattered at a touch, slicing into one intrepid young man’s hand so deeply they were afraid he would bleed to death. He hadn’t but neither had he regained the cockiness he had had before he had reached into that treacherous current.
The trees of that distant forest looked large and dark; she wondered if they had managed to survive or if they had sprung up from nowhere. The howl of an animal in the woods made her skin crawl and she took a step back toward the flimsy and uncertain protection of the tents.
The world’s governments had arranged for the population to be placed on boats, if they were of lesser importance, and on space vessels that would take them to the colonies that they had been building since the twentieth century if they were more important. Sara had wound up in a boat with several hundred others, hoping to survive the huge tides and storms that battered them daily. After a year the ship eventually broke apart on the shore of the continent on which they now walked. Many of the people she had known on the boat died in the wreckage, she had swum to shore with several others and after a few days of rescuing the other survivors and trying to figure out where they were by stars no longer in the same shapes within the heavens, they began to walk inland.
They had walked through mountains that had given them game but also trapped them in high snows that had the added danger of being acidic to the skin. They had traveled through a lake region whose waters were filled with strangely shaped fish that they had all feared to eat. The bravest of them tried them and after a few days of eating them without adverse effects the others gave in as well. In every place a handful or two of the survivors would stay behind. Sara kept walking and eventually she and the ones who were left had come upon a city that was featureless and rubble strewn. No clues remained as to which city it had been, or in which country it had stood. All of the buildings had been nearly destroyed and the streets were gone. The vicious rains and hail had stripped away all lettering from whatever remained of the buildings. They had stumbled across a store with large cans of food tossed into heaps. The labels had been missing or unreadable so eating was always an adventure, and it had been impossible to actually plan what to cook but they had been grateful for the food nonetheless. After a year of living in burned out shelters and petty squabbles over the dwindling food supplies and leadership someone suggested that the higher ground may have fared better so they had set off, those of them t
hat wanted to. Most of the others had stayed behind, hoping to rebuild.
At twenty-five Sara was jaded enough that she didn’t care about rebuilding the old world. In her old world she had been the youngest woman to ever graduate from the military school her parents had sent her to. She had been a leader and a fighter for causes she had never really believed in. She had been taught to work hard and to maintain discipline and total self-control. When the climate had begun to change the government had wanted her to go to a colony, her skills would have been of benefit there, but she hadn’t wanted to do that either. She was tired of fighting and so she gave her seat away to a younger girl whose face looked enough like hers to pass, at least until she got to the colony and who would have a better chance off the dying planet. Or so Sara had hoped.
She had chosen to see what was left outside the city because something inside her longed for something else. She couldn’t put her fingers on what it was; she just knew that she needed something outside the concepts of civilization and propriety.
The sun turned a fiery orange and sent vermillion streaked fingers across the indigo tinted sky. The trees turned black, their bulks huddled against the darkening sky. Small stars peeked out; she looked up at them, surprised as always by how fast night fell now. From the forest came another long howl that undulated across the sand. The sound, alien and frightening, made her shiver. The wind died abruptly and she sighed with relief. The intense heat of the day was fading, soon it would be replaced by a cold equally intense but for a few hours the air would be warm and mild and the sand would lie still. She unwrapped the veil from her face, revealing a strong jaw and high cheekbones, full lips and a short pert nose.
Even before the world drowned she had been lean. The deprivation of the last five years had honed her body into willowy thinness. Her breasts were small and high, her waist narrow and taut. Her legs were very long and slim, her thighs and calves toned from walking and climbing and her arms were also slender and strong. Clothing was no longer something anyone could just buy, they cobbled it together out of whatever was at hand so she wore a pair of loose pants that had been patched with differing types of material, a tank top that had faded to a non-color, she typically wore a longer sleeved shirt over it to protect her upper body from the sun, and combat boots that had made the trek from Maryland to where she stood now with her. They were breaking down at the heel and toe and she worried about that constantly. Her skin was tanned and her hair, a light brown normally, had long golden and platinum streaks from the sun running through it.
Darkness fell solidly across the land, blotting out the sight of the forest. She stared through the night, straining for one last glimpse of the trees before giving up and walking to the communal fire that had been lit moments before. The others were huddled around it. The dancing flames painted their faces with orange and red shadows, to one side of the fire sat Lily, a woman whose red hair and green eyes and pale skin was a constant source of empathy. She had to wear heavy clothes all day just to keep from burning to a crisp and so she was dehydrated quite often. Most of them shared their water with her even though it was not always wise. Lily caught Sara’s eye and waved at her.
“I saved you a spot,” she called across the roar and suck of the flames. Sara sat down beside her, taking the dented plate and spoon that held the meager fare they still had left. The howls rang out again and Lily grimaced.
“We need to get weapons.” Ben, the man who had taken up the role as leader when they left the city, said. “I mean eventually we may need them. Hell, if nothing else I would love to have them just so we could try to get some food. Like, go hunting you know.”
Nobody denied that food was becoming a concern. “Maybe once we get into the forest we can find some stuff growing,” Lily suggested. “Some fruit or maybe wild carrots or something. What I would not give for some fresh food.”
One of the men across the fire leered at her but Lily ignored him and the suggestion he made regarding her comment. Sara and Lily were the only two women who had never had children before the change, so they had never been sterilized in accordance to the population laws. No woman was allowed to have more than one child and those who had that child were surgically sterilized. Birth control had been outlawed as unnecessary and none of the people around the fire wanted to bring children into a world without doctors or medicine.
Or food, Sara thought as she put the plate down. She stared around, wondering if there were any natural resources around that they could fashion into weapons in case they did run into some edible animal in the forest. Spears, she thought, remembering the trees, maybe we could make some spears.
Thinking that she lay down and fell asleep.
* * *
The sun rose high in the sky. The weary travelers checked their supplies: they were low on water and food as usual but the ground below the sand yielded a small amount of grainy water. They packed up and headed west, their eyes on the trees in the distance.
Several hours later Sara realized that the desert was playing tricks on her vision again. Heat mirages shimmered and glimmered above the sands. A castle floated above a hill that had appeared above the tree line: an actual castle with gray walls and a high rounded tower. She shook her head and just when she was sure that she was hallucinating from lack of water Lily spoke beside her.
“That is a castle, isn’t it? Please say it is.”
“Does yours have a red flag on the tower?”
“And gray walls.”
“Then it’s a castle.”
“Holy shit,” Ben said adding a call to halt. They all stood, necks craned back and their eyes fastened to the walls that rose above the tree line. The smell of water, clear and cold, filtered through to them along with the scent of pine and meat cooking.
There was a shout and then men appeared on the high walls. Sara stared up, foreboding prickling at the base of her spine and her instincts telling her to back away. The men were armed, and armed men were generally dangerous.
A man appeared at a narrow slit in a wall kept closed by an old fashioned gate. He called out a greeting and asked what they wanted. Ben swallowed hard, in his tenure as leader the worst thing he had had to contend with was boredom and petty arguments. And hunger, which they had all become so used to they mostly ignored it. Or rather, they had. Looking around Sara could see that the tantalizing aroma of roasting meat was awakening their hunger in a way that would not be denied, and her gut told her that the men inside the castle knew it.
“We…we…” Ben’s voice broke. “We were in one of the boats, we washed up on shore. We were looking for people, a town or…there’s a city about three weeks back but there’s nothing left there.”
“No, the floods took it.” The man at the gate was handsome: tall and strong with a head full of thick wheat colored hair. His teeth were very white between his full lips and his hands, resting lightly on the belt around his waist, were long and graceful but there was strength in them and it was obvious from the way he didn’t need to touch the gun that hung there he knew exactly where it was, and how to use it.
“Which city was it?’
The man shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
The gate slid open a few inches and the man came out, one hand extended. “I’m Stephen and I am willing to bet you are a man of reason. Am I right?”
Ben nodded and Sara felt trepidation creeping up her spine. She gave Lily a hard glance but she was entranced by Stephen. Her gaze was locked onto him and while Sara could understand why she also knew that the man was dangerous. Her eyes went to the desert behind them, her head not moving. The sand waved on and on for miles, behind the forest she could see glimpses of bright blue. So this was an island and they had walked, essentially, from one side to the other. If the boat had landed on this side they could have saved themselves a long stroll.
Ben and Stephen were giving each other measuring looks. Sara, who had never forgotten her military training, knew that Ben was the
weaker of the two. Fear flamed into life but she held her composure, her eyes carefully and imperceptibly locating the rest of the men and taking note of their weapons and positions. She saw something else that disturbed her: no women were in full view. She wondered if there were any in the castle and if so if the men felt the need to protect them or if there was another reason they were hidden.
The gate opened again and two more men, both good looking and dressed in the same dark blue garb as Stephen and the others, came out. They held a long board between them and every member of the traveling party heard their stomachs groan and swallowed back the saliva that shot into their mouths.
The board was loaded down with thick slices of meat, loaves of some type of coarse dark bread, richly purple grapes and thinly sliced melon. Lily actually whimpered at the sight of the fruit.
“We will happily allow you and your tribe to take this food with you as you head back to the city. Rest assured that while we do not want you here we will not harm you. We are willing to give you food to help you on your journey, in exchange for the two women there.”
Lily and Sara looked at each other. “Go fuck yourself,” Sara said. “I’m not for sale. Neither is she.”
She had not really expected the others to agree but the silence that followed her statement was disturbing nonetheless. Lily made a low and terrified sound deep in her throat and moved closer to Sara, thought twice about it and tried to ease behind one of the men of their party. Hands pushed her back out front. Sara saw that without turning her head and knew that the die had been cast. They were about to be sold, traded off for food to this group of men and nobody would step in to help them.
But why just the two of them and not any of the others she wondered. Several of the other women were prettier than either of them, and one of them, a gorgeous blonde woman with large soft breasts and a white-toothed smile stepped forward and said, “Hell I’ll stay. It looks like you fellas have a lot to offer.”