Wastelands

by Jack Porter

  I didn’t know much of Lady Gamma’s history, but a single glance at her was enough to generate some assumptions. She was a pampered princess, used to ordering others about and expecting instant obedience. But physically, she had never had any reason to rely on herself.

  Camille was the opposite.

  Whatever the truth of the sudden friendship between the two, it wasn’t one way. As I walked alongside the wagon, I heard murmurs of conversation punctuated by occasional laughter, as well as the chirping interactions from Edda, who didn’t seem to have a problem with the lizard woman. I couldn’t help but feel a touch of resentment.

  It was already hot enough that the air had started to bake, and the small eddies of wind became dust devils, flinging fine grit and sand into my face.

  I could have hitched a ride on the second wagon, either in the driver’s seat or at the top of the short ladder at the back. But in truth, despite the discomfort, I was enjoying the walk. And I couldn’t bring myself to leave Ash alone at the head of a small caravan, trudging into the emptiness.

  There was also one other thing. Gamma had apparently hired me to protect her throughout her journey. I could feel the need to do so in my veins even now. And that meant I had to keep my eyes open, looking out for the dangers of this seemingly endless wasteland.

  Just like yesterday, I kept catching glimpses of the sand walkers, who seemed to be growing bolder than they had been the day before. They weren’t an ongoing presence, but rather an intermittent sighting. I would catch a glimpse of one just before they ducked down and hid, and then another five or ten minutes later.

  They were too quick for me to attempt to study them through my AC lens, which I wasn’t sure I could even get to work while I walked. But they were becoming braver as we traveled deeper into the Wastes.

  I felt they were leading up to something.

  And I wasn’t the only one who thought so. After sighting not one but three of the sand people from a distance, Ash spoke her first words since we’d begun this day’s trek.

  “Be wary,” she said, and that was enough.

  She didn’t unlimber her massive club, nor did I draw my sword. But we both walked with increased tension, both on high alert.

  The first attack came just before noon. It wasn’t subtle at all, but it was sudden. And if Ash and I hadn’t been on our game, it may have worked.

  A small group of the sand walkers, about six of them, came screaming and howling from behind a clump of rocks. In size and shape, they were humanoid, but only according to the most generous definition. There was little recognizably human about them, except that most of them wore dirty rags that might once have been clothes.

  In the brief moment before they attacked, I caught glimpses of patches of fur, scales, and horns, and more than one approached on all fours.

  They carried swords, glaives and clubs, just like the bandits at the border had done. But these weapons were in a state of disrepair. These sand walkers were as Camille had described them. Little more than beasts eking out their survival by attacking pilgrims in the Wastes.

  As they charged toward us, voicing animalistic bellows of challenge, I unhooked my sword and slipped into the dance I had practiced that morning.

  Savagery and sinister strength proved to be a poor substitute for the skills I had gained when I’d taken over this form. Within a couple of moments, the first two sand walkers were dead, their heads removed from their bodies by a single clean sweep from my oversized blade. My third opponent lived to draw one more breath solely because it was down on all fours and my blade passed the top of its head.

  I used the momentum and angled my blade to catch the air to help deflect it slightly downward, and found myself performing the two hundredth step from my dance, leaping high in the air over my sword so that when I touched the ground once again, that massive blade arced over my head like an axe.

  I split the third creature in half, my blade burying itself in the gritty earth beneath.

  Each side of the animal peeled away from my blade and collapsed on the ground. Then I turned to see that Ash was still engaged with a creature that looked like a human-sized rat complete with a tail. It had latched onto her arm at the elbow, just above the buckler she wore on her forearm.

  With a grimace, Ash plucked the foul creature from her arm, then took aim like a baseball player at practice. She gave the rat creature some air on the back swing, grabbed her club with both hands and swung with all her might.

  I would call that a homer, I thought, and had to grin.

  Ash’s massive club smashed into the creature with such force that it literally folded itself in half the wrong way, its back broken.

  Yet somehow the rat creature’s body held together long enough to pick up some of the bat’s momentum. The animal didn’t fly far in the scheme of things—maybe fifty feet or so—but that was because it smacked into the boulders the attackers had been hiding behind.

  If there were degrees of dead, then the sand walkers I’d split in half or beheaded would have been very dead indeed. But this rat creature was little more than a bag of meat paste held together by scraps of clothing and skin.

  I knew I would remember the wet smack of Ash’s bat as it had struck, along with her expression of annoyance that the thing had bitten her, for the rest of my days. And I grinned.

  It seemed the skirmish was over, and I began to relax. But Ash was more vigilant. She turned to check on the wagons, and her eyes widened.

  “The supply wagon!” she yelled, and that was all I needed.

  Once more slipping into a sequence from the Divine Steps, I lightened my feet and crossed the distance in less than a second.

  Two desert dwellers were attempting to rob us but hadn’t had time to carry out their plans since we’d killed their companions so quickly. I dispatched one thief with a straight thrust, puncturing his chest, but the other, an impossibly thin man who looked at me with an expression of shock, turned tail and sprinted off through the desert at high speed.

  I considered going after him but thought better of it. It was likely I would run into more desert dwellers or into a trap. Instead, I glared at the corpse on the ground and thrust the tip of my sword into the earth beside it. Then I concentrated, seeking the same balance I had managed before, intending to power up my AC lens once again.

  My practice that morning had served me well. It took only moments before the AC lens’ heads up display turned on, and I saw everything I wanted about the creature.

  Class: Human hybrid

  Dominant DNA: Human (66%)

  Additional DNA: Dingo, Lynx, Armadillo, Fruitfly, + assorted others (34%)

  Height: 5’4”

  Weight: 109 pounds

  Age: 14 (approx.)

  Gender: Male

  Level: II

  Level II hybrids are equivalent in strength to a strong man, and are not to be underestimated….

  * * *

  I scanned the rest, but already knew the essentials. The one statistic that gave me pause was his age. According to my display, I had just murdered a boy of no more than fourteen years old.

  Or maybe I hadn’t. Murder was too strong a word. I’d defended my traveling party against an approaching threat. And anyway, with so much non-human DNA in his system, he might have already been an adult.

  Either way, it was very much a him or us situation, so I put it out of my mind and went to study the others.

  They were much the same. Mostly human, but with large chunks of different animals thrown in. The categories that indicated a talent for magic or similar skill remained nonexistent, but when I wandered over to the remains of the rat thing Ash had killed, I was in for a minor surprise.

  Though appearing to be more rat than anything else, it also had the DNA of a snake, and my AC lens showed that its bite was venomous.

  Armed with that knowledge, I returned to Ash, who was watching me with muted curiosity. Once more, I tapped into the power of my lens and studied my oversized friend.r />
  “Good fight,” she said, and it seemed that she was pleased. But my HUD reading, set to Thermal, was troubling. She was much warmer at the elbow wound than the rest of her body, and also at a bite on her leg as well.

  “The wound on your arm,” I said. “That rat thing that bit you was poisonous.”

  The huge, troll-like creature’s expression turned flat. “How bad?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  I didn’t know what type of reaction to expect, but Ash surprised me. She simply accepted my words with a nod and turned toward Lady Gamma’s wagon.

  “Lady Gamma?” she called. “Can you spare a moment?”

  24

  Lady Gamma poked her head out of the wagon, and I could tell at a glance she wasn’t pleased. “What is it?” she demanded. “Why have we paused? What do you want?”

  I wanted to tell her that if she had bothered to pay even a little attention to what was going on, she would already know. The woman’s mannerisms annoyed me no end, and her pet monkey didn’t help. Edda once more climbed to Gamma’s shoulder and chattered in irritation, perfectly reflecting her master’s state of mind. I wanted to use the excitable creature for kicking practice, punting her back the way we had come.

  But Ash responded with equanimity. “We were attacked by the sand people. Don’t worry. Rogan and I took care of it, and there is no further danger.”

  Despite Gamma’s perpetual flatness of expression, I could still read a range of emotions in her. She was trying to keep her face from betraying her thoughts, but she didn’t quite succeed. I read shock and fear, followed quickly by relief.

  She even glanced my direction as if to reassure herself that I was okay. But since she seemed to tolerate me and nothing more, surely it had to have meant something else.

  Then Lady Gamma rounded on Ash. “If there is no further danger, then why have we stopped?”

  Ash could have called her on her rudeness. Instead, she bowed her head like a servant.

  “Forgive me,” the troll-like creature said. “One of the attackers managed to bite me.” She held out her enormous arm for Lady Gamma to see. “The bite was poisonous. I can feel the fire of it spreading through my veins as we speak.”

  Despite her words, Ash sounded remarkably calm, as if talking about the weather. Yet I was worried. If she could feel the fire of the venom spreading through her veins, then I couldn’t help but think the bite was a serious wound.

  My medical knowledge started and stopped at field dressings designed to keep a soldier alive. I had no clue what to do about a poisonous bite, yet I found myself drawn toward Ash as if my presence would help.

  Lady Gamma’s response–and that of her spiteful monkey–was entirely different.

  Her eyes flashed in anger. “You’ve been poisoned? Why would you let yourself take such a wound? I thought you were better than this! Did my father waste his time and effort on you?”

  At Lady Gamma’s words, I frowned in anger. How dare she treat Ash this way? It wasn’t like the huge creature wanted to get injured. And, just like the wound in her leg, she’d gained it defending Gamma’s wagon!

  Did the painted woman have no sense of fairness at all?

  “Do you not realize how much I need you?” Gamma continued. “How am I expected to reach my goal without you at my side? Unbelievable! It’s like you have no consideration for me at all!”

  Of all the self-centered, narcissistic–!

  I could barely believe what I was hearing. Without consciously intending to do so, I stepped forward, and was on the point of giving Lady Gamma a piece of my mind.

  But before I could speak, I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. Whether she saw me approach out of the corner of her eye or had simply sensed my intent, I didn’t know. But Ash’s intention was clear.

  She held me back, and even though I was stronger than I’d ever been before in my life, my strength was nothing compared to hers. The weight of her hand was like a boulder grinding me down, and even though she barely held me in place, I knew that if she wanted to, she could have tossed me aside without breaking a sweat.

  If that wasn’t enough to make me to hold my tongue, she spoke before I did.

  “Forgive me, my lady,” she said, sounding genuinely contrite. “I will be more careful in future.”

  If it were me, I would have ripped Lady Gamma a new one. But then, Ash had lived with the spoiled princess for much of her life, if the implications of what I’d heard already were true. Perhaps my giant friend was better equipped to deal with Lady Gamma than I was.

  In any event, Ash’s words seemed to calm her. She took a moment, and when she spoke next, her tone was far more understanding.

  “Well. At least it wasn’t something worse,” she said. “At least you don’t have to regrow an arm or something.”

  With that, she and her pet monkey both disappeared within the wagon again, leaving me to wonder at her last words. Regrow an arm? Was that something Ash could do?

  And that was it? A lecture from Gamma and nothing more?

  As I wondered if Lady Gamma expected to resume our journey, she reappeared at the back end of the wagon. This time, Ash beat me to her. Instead of glaring at me to help her down, Gamma accepted Ash’s monstrous hand in support. Then, as if doing so was the greatest inconvenience, the small woman made her way to the supply wagon, and Ash helped her into it.

  After a moment or two of rummaging around, Lady Gamma and her monkey reappeared, the painted princess brandishing a clear glass flask with a spherical base.

  The glass container was as big as my fist and three quarters full with a thick, dark green liquid that seemed to sparkle in the broken sunlight. Instead of climbing down from the wagon again, Lady Gamma sat down on the end with her feet dangling over.

  “Give me your arm,” she said to Ash, who complied with a sense of relief.

  I had no idea what the liquid in the flask was, but it reminded me of the smaller vial of smelling salts Gamma had waved under my nose. Was this something that she did? Was she some sort of potions master, with a vial of liquid for every occasion?

  Maybe she was. In any event, Ash seemed to recognize the flask Gamma held, and waited patiently as the painted woman dug around her silk robes. Withdrawing an item that looked like an eye dropper, she used her teeth in a very unladylike manner to pull the stopper from the flask and spit it onto her lap.

  “This will sting for a moment,” she said to Ash, her expression softening a little. “But you know that already. Just hold still, and we’ll get you sorted.”

  With that, she used the eye dropper to suck up a tiny amount of the green liquid and dripped it directly onto Ash’s wound.

  Ash had carried the wound in her leg all day without complaining, and hadn’t batted an eyelid when the rat thing had bitten her. Yet at the first touch of the greenish liquid, she clenched her jaw and sucked in air through her teeth as the color drained from her face. And I swear I saw a wisp of steam rising from the wound. Lady Gamma’s comment about a ‘sting’ had been a serious understatement.

  But in less than a minute, Ash was breathing more freely and had begun to relax once again.

  “Better?” Gamma asked, and I swear I caught a hint of a grin on her lips. She knew how much the potion stung. Yet her expression wasn’t malicious but was rather that of someone teasing a friend.

  “Better,” Ash rumbled.

  Lady Gamma nodded. “The poison should be neutralized within a few minutes, and then healing will begin. All going well, you should be good as new by this time tomorrow. Now. You also have a bandage on your leg. Is there something else I should be looking at?”

  “No, it’s nothing,” Ash rumbled, and I knew she was lying.

  “Are you sure?” Lady Gamma asked, teasing again. She seemed like a different person than the one who had scolded Ash just a few minutes before. A far cry from the cold, self-centered princess who cared for nothing beyond her own goals.

  It was difficult to r
econcile one with the other, and I couldn’t figure which one was the true Lady Gamma if you paid me.

  “No, it’s fine, really,” Ash rumbled. “It will heal on its own.”

  I figured that the potion must be very painful for her to want to avoid it. “I believe Ash took a knife wound during the fight with the bandits,” I said.

  Ash shot me a look of betrayal, which earned another half grin from Gamma. I shrugged. Ash was the only person who’d shown me any kind of friendship so far. I didn’t need her dying of infection.

  “Let me see it,” Gamma said, and Ash had no choice. She unwound the bandage on her leg, and Lady Gamma shook her head. “You shouldn’t have hidden this from me. Come closer.”

  With her deception blown, Ash had no choice. Within a couple of seconds, she was grimacing once again, and glaring daggers at me.

  25

  We were attacked twice more during the afternoon, both times by small bands much like the first. Disorganized groups of ferocious but poorly trained attackers who seemed more interested in our supplies than anything else.

  I understood they were desperate, but there was little we could do to ease their desperation. The Wastes were a desolate place, and I would not have liked to try to eke out an existence in the dirt. Sharing our supplies, our water and food, would have done little more than lead to our own starvation.

  And anyway, it wasn’t like any of the sand walkers bothered to ask nicely. They simply attacked with everything that they had and died on the edge of my blade or the business end of Ash’s club.

  In between attacks, when I wasn’t hanging back to guard the rear, the giant and I shared snippets of conversation.

  “How long have you served Lady Gamma?” I asked.

  “All my life. She and I are the same age. I have always been… bigger… than most, so her father purchased me as a companion protector, and trained me for the role. It is all I know.”

  So, Ash was bound to Lady Gamma just as I was, although perhaps on a more permanent level. I didn’t ask if the arrangement pleased Ash or not. Having felt my own compulsion to obey Gamma, I couldn’t see anything of value to be gained in the question.