Death Flag

  “Warren,” Madison said, nudging the still-crouched man with his boot to get him moving.

  “Huh?” Warren bounced back to his feet and turned to look at Madison curiously.

  Madison jerked his head to the side, indicating for him to move out of the way. As soon as Warren took a step back, Madison stepped forward and grabbed Shayna. He swung one arm under her knees and scooped her up, catching her behind her shoulders with his other before she hit the ground. In the span of a breath, he had her in a princess carry and was already moving in the direction he believed the infirmary to be in.

  “Wait!” the other young man said.

  “What are you—” the other girl gasped at the same time.

  Shayna sucked in a sharp breath as she was lifted off the ground and then started to squirm in his grasp, but she stopped as soon as she realized how painful it was going to be for her if she kept fighting him and if he didn’t let go.

  “If you’re too stubborn to let someone help, I’ll do it for you,” he said, glaring down at her in his arms.

  Through gritted teeth, she said, “I don’t want—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it,” he said sarcastically. “You don’t want my help.”

  She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something again, but he cut it off with a look that said it wasn’t going to do any good. In the end, she just huffed once and remained silent, glaring up at him.

  He strode across the grounds in long, even strides, doing his best not to jostle her around too much. He didn’t exactly feel like a hero carrying her off, but he wasn’t going to make things any worse if he could help it, either. Truthfully, Madison was as impressed by the young woman he now carried as much as he had been by Randall’s fighting prowess. She felt tiny and frail within his grasp, and he would have been surprised if she even weighed more than a hundred pounds. Yet, she had taken that magically-reinforced punch as well as he imagined anyone could. Whatever her reasons were, she refused to back down and let the bigger man win. He had no idea what had started the altercation, but he already had a sneaking suspicion that it was a combination of her being overly stubborn and that Randall fellow being a pretentious bully.

  Warren ran ahead of him and opened the doors that led into the infirmary. Madison hadn’t actually been confident that he was moving in the right direction at all, but when no one moved to correct or stop him, he had simply carried on as if he knew where he was going and what he was doing. He climbed up the stone steps as carefully as he could while carrying his load and then began his walk down the white-stone hallway, the large glass panes on either side letting the morning light in.

  He made it halfway down the hall before a young girl stepped out of one of the rooms and turned to look at him. She stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth forming a tiny circle at the sight of him walking down the hall with Shayna in his arms, but her surprise only lasted a brief moment before it turned to a look of anger. Her tiny fists balled up at her sides, and she squeezed some type of instrument so hard that her knuckles had already turned white by the time he made it to her. She practically glowered at Madison as he rushed down the hall, her gaze flitting between Madison and the young girl in his arms.

  “Erin!” Warren called, rushing ahead when he saw her. “Get a bed ready. It’s Shayna. She got into a fight with Randall again, and he took it too far this time.”

  Why am I not surprised that this has happened before? he thought wryly.

  Erin took one last hard look at him and then turned back into the room she had just come from. He reached the spot she had been standing in a moment later and ducked inside, carefully avoiding banging Shayna’s head against the door jamb. The thought actually crossed his mind for some odd reason, but there wouldn’t be any purpose in it, so he avoided it.

  The room he entered into was almost identical to the one that he had woken up in before and contained little other than a long, white bed, a chair, and an open window letting in the morning light. He gingerly laid her down on the bed and was amazed by the fact that she was still conscious. She had actually managed to remain silent the entire time, never crying out in pain or protesting after her initial alarm, and he had the feeling that was a feat in and of itself. As soon as he had pulled his arms out from underneath her, Erin was pushing him out of the room. It was rather funny, considering how much larger he was than her, but he didn’t put up much of a fight. He made it back into the hall, and Erin hit him on the shoulder with a balled-up fist, glared at him angrily, huffed, and then turned back into the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

  What’s with her? “What’s her problem?” he asked aloud, turning to Warren questioningly.

  Warren just shrugged silently without an answer, and the two started off back down the hallway. Madison noticed as they left that both the man and the woman had followed him and Warren to the infirmary, and he assumed that they must be friends of Shayna’s. The two took up positions just outside of the door to the room, and they were already crouched down on the floor with their heads pressed together, whispering furtively back and forth by the time he and Warren made it halfway back down the hall. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he felt their gaze follow him all the way down the hallway and into the yard until he was out of sight.

  “Why did you do that?” Warren finally asked.

  “Do what?” Madison asked. He wasn’t playing dumb: he just wanted to know exactly which one of the dozen things that he had done since waking up in the last few hours Warren was questioning.

  “Save her,” Warren answered.

  “You mean: Why did I step in and stop the fight? Or why did I just pick her up and carry her to the medical ward myself?” Madison was actually a bit curious about both questions himself. He wasn’t typically the type to interfere with those sort of things, and it almost felt like something had been urging him to do so. He just hadn’t been able to walk away and turn a blind eye to what was going on for some reason. It was like some ingrained instinct was pushing him to take action and protect her once the fight was clearly over. He had been startled by the fact that such a young and fragile-looking young woman was in a sparring match with someone who clearly outclassed her in terms of raw skill, but he had been impressed by the fact that she refused to give up. There was something about her tenacity that he couldn’t help but admire. Still, he had a horrible feeling that something even worse was going to happen to her if he didn’t step in and take action once the bout was clearly over. It wasn’t that he believed she needed his protection, but rather some other sense of foreboding that he couldn’t quite put his finger on telling him that he couldn’t allow it to go on any longer.

  “Yes,” Warren answered anxiously, a note of annoyance in his voice. “Both. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Madison sighed internally and shrugged non-committedly. “I’m sure I’ve broken at least a dozen ancient traditions, three acceptable customs, four social norms, and pissed off a”—Madison hesitated for a moment before finishing his statement, grimacing for reasons of his own—“a witch,” he finished sarcastically.

  Warren heaved a sigh, and the irritation in his voice grew with every word. “Do you know how serious this is? Do you know what’s going to happen?”

  “Warren,” Madison began, his own irritation growing slowly with every word. “How long have I been here? Has anyone other than you actually explained anything to me? Do you remember explaining to me why this would matter at all? So how would I know? Or would you like to explain to me why you were acting so upset back there? It’s like you’ve never seen a fist fight or blood before, and yet you were the one who told me that this type of thing goes on all the time—so much so, in fact, that it’s acceptable and commonplace. Right?”

  Warren stopped walking and looked up at him, mild shock on his face. “What do you mean? Why would I—”

  Madison shrugged. He didn’t actually want to force the issue, so he let it go without pressing any further. “I don’t know
why I did what I did,” he answered honestly. “Where I come from . . . Things are different.” ‘Different’ doesn’t even begin to come close to explaining how crazy this entire world is to me. But how much should I trust him with? How much can I actually tell him? “If I hadn’t stopped him, if he had attacked her like that again, she would have been killed. You can see what kind of shape she’s in as it is. He had already made his point and then added insult on top of injury to boot. What if something serious had happened and she had died? What then? What good would it do anyone?”

  Warren stared at Madison for a moment, clearly mulling over how he should respond. “That’s not how things work, Madison. You don’t interfere in someone’s private duel. There are rules that have to be followed.”

  “Why?” Madison asked, incredulous.

  “Why what?” Warren shot back.

  “Why are there rules that you have to follow? Who says there are rules? Where are these rules written down at?”

  “That’s just the way it is, Madison. That’s the way it has always been. When two people are in a private duel, you don’t interfere. No matter what the reason. If someone dies, someone dies. It’s not your fault, and it’s not your responsibility.”

  Madison couldn’t stop himself before a laugh escaped. He was in disbelief. Is this for real? Is this guy serious? “So, it’s better to just stand around and watch someone die?” he asked in astonishment. “Are things so boring around here that everyone is that thirsty for entertainment that they will cheer and jibe for blood sport? They will just stand around and watch while someone is beaten up and killed?”

  “Madison,” he said almost magnanimously, shaking his head. “You just don’t get it.”

  “Then explain it to me,” Madison said with a slight drawl in his voice. It really didn’t matter what the social norms were in this place: Warren was going to have to justify standing back and watching while someone was pointlessly killed, and that was an almost impossible task to begin with, even more so considering Madison’s background.

  Warren scratched at the back of his head furiously for a moment and stared off into the sky, most likely choosing his words carefully. This was about as much tension as had existed between the two in the short time Madison had known him, and he could already tell that Warren didn’t deal with stress or anxiety that well. In fact, he seemed to avoid both as much as he could. “Think of it like this,” he began at last. “There certainly are no formal, written rules. You’re right about that. But, there’s also no rule that says you don’t walk into someone on the street instead of going around them. There’s no rule that says you can’t walk around on the rooftops either. So, why don’t people? Why don’t they just plow into someone else, or go for strolls along cornices?”

  Madison nodded along with the example. “I see where you’re going with this. People don’t do it because, in one instance, it’s not safe, and in the other, it’s just rude.”

  “Right and right,” Warren agreed. “We have to accept that there are going to be fights. This is nothing less than a military training facility. We have to remember that at all times. People are going to want to fight for whatever reason. Sometimes it might be petty, and sometimes it might personal, but whatever the reason, we have to respect that and let them have at it. If people were to jump into other people’s fights whenever they wanted, nothing would ever be resolved.”

  “And you’d have people stabbing each other in the back the instant they saw an opportune moment,” Madison observed. “It would be easy to walk up to someone who had just been thrashed while in the middle of a fight and slit a throat or stab him through the heart. I understand that magic and potions can do a lot when it comes to healing, but I doubt they can reattach heads or a hole in someone’s heart.”

  “Right again,” Warren agreed, nodding eagerly now. “So, the only way to solve the problem is just to avoid it altogether. One-on-one duels are off-limits to anyone outside the duel. Do you think that Sandra and Cruz wanted to stand there and watch Shayna be beaten senseless like that? Do you think they enjoyed seeing her humiliated in such a matter?”

  “You mean those two who followed us to the infirmary? The two who were whispering as fast as they could go as we left?”

  “Yeah, those are them.”

  “I wouldn’t normally think anyone would enjoy seeing either of those two things,” Madison said dryly, “but it seems like I’d be wrong in that assumption. People really got into watching that fight. It actually makes me kind of sick how much they got into it.”

  A genuine look of surprise crossed Warren’s face, and it was quickly replaced by a dubious expression. “You didn’t have any sort of fighting where you come from?” he asked suspiciously. “There weren’t any competitions or sports where people got physical and violent? Where they beat each other up?”

  “Of course,” Madison replied, instantly thinking of all the arts like taekwondo and jiu jitsu, and his mind briefly flitting between mixed martial arts and boxing. “And there were some serious competitors, and things often got a little bloody and extremely violent. But, each sport and every competition had its own set of rules, and there were always certain things that were just flat out not allowed. There were certain lines you couldn’t cross—like killing someone—and the penalties for doing it were rather steep.”

  “I get where you’re coming from, but that’s just not how it works here. You have to remember that everything we do here is to prepare us for life and death situations. Every moment of every day is constructed so that it might save our life one day.”

  “Be ready to defend yourself at any moment any place?” Madison repeated what Warren had told him earlier and just shook his head. “What are those situations, anyway?” He instantly jumped on that topic now that Warren had brought it up while making it sound as casual as possible. It was one of the major areas everyone had been vague in so far, and he was going to seize every opportunity he could to gain information about it.

  Warren looked nervous for a moment and shrugged. He answered quickly, but it was only to change the topic and ignore Madison’s question entirely. “There’s another problem as well,” he said with a heavy sigh. “You might not realize it, but you’ve made an enemy for life.”

  “You mean Randall?” Madison asked, thinking about how angry he had looked even before Ryder appeared and broke things up. Then, with a laugh, he asked, “Or did you mean Shayna? I don’t know anything about her, but she strikes me as someone who’s going to hold a grudge against me until next century.”

  Warren joined him in a small laugh, and the tension in his face seemed to ease up for a moment. He turned serious again and said, “You’re right, but I was really talking about Randall. He’s a real cocky bastard, and it’s only gotten worse since he passed his test and became Sworn.”

  Madison thought back for a moment. So much information had been thrown at him in such a short amount of time, he was having trouble keeping it all straight. “He’s the one you said passed the test recently? He spent a few days inside the room?”

  “Three,” Warren corrected. “A full day longer than the time you were in there.”

  Madison shrugged. Warren seemed to be impressed by that fact, but whatever the reason was behind it, it was lost on him. It just didn’t mean anything to him. “I’ve known guys like him before. He’s just a self-absorbed bully. Once he gets knocked down a few pegs, that will likely be the end of it. You saw how he turned and ran as soon as Ryder showed up, right? The guy might be a dick, but he’s clearly not an idiot. He’s not going to pick on someone stronger than him or pick a fight he doesn’t think he can win. Do you have any idea why those two were fighting, anyway? Randall and Shayna, I mean.”

  “Who knows,” Warren replied, finally resuming his walk toward what was presumably breakfast. “Those two have a long history. Like you said: He’s a dick, and Shayna is stubborn and holds grudges. It’s been so long now, I don’t even remember who started what originally. But, putti
ng that aside for the moment, there’s something else you should be made aware of.”

  “Let me guess: He has a bunch of cronies who are going to jump my nuts the first chance they get just so that they can get into his good graces? Try to earn his respect and ride his coattails sort of thing?”

  Warren actually laughed out loud at that one. “So, you really have known people like him before. There are also going to be others who will want to test you. You might not realize it, but this place is pretty small. They’re going to want to size up the new guy who was dumb enough to break tradition and piss off Randall on his first day. Actually,” he continued thoughtfully, “considering this is our off day this week, it’s really not even your real first day yet.”

  Madison grunted a response. He hadn’t even made it to breakfast yet, and he was wondering how long it was going to take and how much was going to occur before that happened. I’ve got a new set of clothes, a magic trunk in my pocket that contains who-knows-what, a brunch date with Ryder, I’ve seen a girl almost be killed, I might have saved a girl from being killed, and I took a second tour of the infirmary. And I haven’t eaten yet. Is this what life is going to be like from now on? How much crazier can things get?

  “There’s something else I should mention,” Warren added.

  Madison chuckled to himself, but it was a joke that only he would understand based on Warren’s timing and the irony it carried with it.

  Warren shot him a strange look then continued. “Cliques are a thing as well.”

  “Of course. How could they not be?” Madison asked sardonically. “I just told you his cronies were going to come after me, didn’t I?”